Lemon Tree Tales

Irish Eyes

The Old Mill, Bruree, Co. Limerick, Ireland

Ah, my Irish side is calling me back for a wee bit o' holiday. Yes, tomorrow my love and I are going back to Ireland for just a short trip (we'll be back on July 9th). There's something about all the green that just soothes the soul. This will be our fourth trip to the Emerald Isles. The first was our honeymoon, then we went back for three weeks and toured all of Ireland (both North and Republic) and then we went to Cork for Yom Kippur at a little synagogue that's over 100 years old.

Usually we stay at B&Bs along the way (which, by the way, I highly recommend as it's a great way to get to know the Irish people, who are just the absolutely nicest people you would ever want to meet) but this time we rented the above house. It's a converted mill house not too far from Adare - a nice little village with the best egg salad sandwiches and hard apple cider at the best pub! A friend is joining us - unfortunately her friend decided not to come as well, so it may be a bit of a third wheel at times. That's where having a rental cottage comes in handy - more space. Plus while it may be easy to get one room in a B&B on the fly, it's not as easy to get two rooms. We're looking forward to it!

Well, I guess I should get the last minute packing done. I'll leave you with a bit of a poem, just don't say "top o' the mornin". I've never actually heard anyone other than the touristy bus driver in Dublin say that in kindly jest.

O Ireland isn't it grand you look --
Like a bride in her rich adorin?
And with all the pent-up love of my heart
I bid you the top o' the mornin.
-- John Locke The Exile's Return

Summertime is .... the smell of grass!

Photo Courtesy of my DH and his new camera lens
Aaaahhhh, after many many weeks of looking at dirt, we now have grass! Yippeee!!! It's a beautiful type of grass called Dwarf Bonsai Medallion, which according to Landscape Guy is a hearty type of grass perfect for our area. Hey, I'm all about something that will be easy to maintain. After all, we're not making a golf course out front (nor the back for that matter) just a pretty piece of green.

Here's the back ... okay, we still have to get plants and some pretty flowers, but that will have to wait another couple of weeks. Oh, and perhaps a chair or two to sit in and look at all this luscious greenery? See my lemon tree? It needs a wee bit of pruning on the left -- it's getting a tad bit thick. But for some reason the right side is still on the thin side.

Photo courtesy of my DH and his new camera lens
Doesn't the shape of the patio remind you of the the snake who ate an elephant  from Antoine de Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince?

The before shots:
I didn't realize that there would be quite so many rolls of grass when the delivery truck and forklift arrived. As you can see, we have a faux Mediterranean style house. It's the same floor-plan as a few of the houses in our neighborhood. But apparently the original owners didn't want the colonial facade and went with this look. I happen to like it, but that could also be that I'm from LA where the Med look is abundant. The only thing really missing is that the previous owners put on a brownish faux tile roof .. and we really would have preferred a reddish roof in real tiles. My next project for the house should be to stain the concrete front porch to look like tiles. 

And the back of the house. We later had some more of the reddish small rocks delivered (more forklifts!) to fill the left side near the birch tree. I put down plastic half way (didn't want it too close to the tree.) As you can see the back fence was just barely hanging on from all the rainstorms. We had to replace it and added the lattice at the request of the rear neighbors (they claimed that our lights were blinding them at night - we finally figured out that it's the street lamp that's now getting them once we tore out the overgrown bushes around an old decrepit sauna.) They're nice people, but extremely picky and sensitive. They weren't too happy when we put in the grass because the sprinklers got part of their fence wet. We adjusted them, but I don't understand why they wouldn't coat the redwood with some water sealant if they are upset about the wood getting wet. It seems to be the local look around here. I personally am not a huge fan of the weathered redwood look ... I like it the fresh raw wood color. The only reason we painted our fence is because the condition was in bad shape. Otherwise we would have just coated it with some sealant.

Back-Tack 3: flickr is up!

bt3 mosaic 4
Originally uploaded by back-tack.

If you haven't taken a gander at all the creative softies of back-tack 3 ... run on over now! They're great!

Three Little Purses - whiplash intro

This has been the week for purses .. three of them! I wasn't sure what to do with the felted sweaters I made here  but the black & white one just begged to be made into a sweet little purse.

I made the flower trim using Wise Craft's Tutorial  and embroidered a little line of magic chain stitch (alternating yellow and purple embroidery floss.) And I fiddled with photoshop and came up with a new sew-in label design:

I was feeling pretty good by this point so I finally finished a WIP that was probably started - oh, about 6 or 7 years ago?

Sequins galore, and some fabric flowers with nailheads as the centers. Oh, and one of my pretty buttons from ebay.

I used upholstery fabric for the interior instead of interfacing and a silky lining. I was experimenting with degrees of stiffness. I like this but still think that I need to use a layer of interfacing as well.  A piece of plastic needlepoint canvas serves as the base sandwiched between the lining and the woodie fabric.

And the third purse was actually the first one that I made many years ago. After I made it, I realized that the drawstring just wasn't a good design feature (Vogue 7221) and eliminated it from future purses. I love the little faces on these girls, too adorable.

This was a good showing of how I typically work on crafts. I usually start from someone else's pattern and then will made changes or embellishments to make it different. Sometimes I'll make a completely original pattern - but that's only if I have the time to make several muslin prototypes. I also am a big fan of novelty prints and embellishments.

Happy Father's Day!

1993 Winter Nationals, Pomona, CA - SuperComp Class

My Dad's always been a race enthusiast - whether watching or participating. 1993 was a great year of racing fun for my Dad. He owned this beauty of a dragster and loved going to the races with it. Sometimes he drove it and sometimes he had a friend driving. His friend was driving in the above picture and was runner-up in the NHRA's Winter Nationals. (National Hot Rod Association)

He's also a car nut and always had some sort of project car or truck that he was working on when I was a kid - heck, even now he still has a project or two going.

So Happy Father's Day Dad!!!

And, also a Happy Father's Day to the greatest father-in-law in the world! He's also very cool!

Color Week: RED Friday

Ah, and for the last pic of color week we have my husband's bright red shoes. I like them - such a fun color for shoes.

Color Week: BLUE Thursday

This is a gouache illustration that I did senior year of my Fashion Design degree. Mattel was kind enough to be a mentor to a group of 10 or so students and challenged us to design a Barbie inspired by a famous artist. I chose Maxfield Parrish because I loved the intensity and vibrancy of his colors. I'll have to post a photo of the actual Barbie doll later - Mattel painted the face and rooted a special hair color blend according to the illustration. We were also given a tour of the inner sanctum of Barbiedom - very interesting to see how the sample dolls are made.

Color Week: BLACK/GREY Wednesday

MUC, the Flying Pig at the Dublin Airport in Ireland. Photo courtesy of my DH.
He's a huge piggy bank - all proceeds go to help support the Children's Hospice.

Color Week: BROWN Tuesday

My crafting companions ... the dark brown one is always rushing me to the finish line while the two light brown figures are always swaying me back to simply enjoying the moment of creating.

Adventures in Thrift Shop Felting

I've read so many accounts of crafters making their own felt from thrift-store sweaters that I had to give it a go myself. Here's my stack of 100% wool beauties that I bought Friday. Aren't they gorgeous?!

After two hot water washes followed by cold water rinses and a spin in the hot dryer cycle:

I also tried my hand at a shibori felting technique that I read about at Just Jussi  - it was very simple really. Just wrapped some rubberbands around some small florist pebbles, stuck the piece (in this case, one of the sweater's sleeves) into a lingerie mesh laundry bag and felt same as above:

Now I just have to decide what to do with all my new pieces of felt!