bits and bobbins

NYC spring break!

2012-04-07T19:31:48Z

a massive photo dump from our recent trip to NYC for poppy’s spring break! had tons of fun seeing old friends (aaron, nicole, mike, yufei, nick and danielle), shopping some (marimekko, abc carpet and home purl, polarn o. pyret, uniqlo, etc.), walking lots, going to the MOMA and boating on the pond in central park, eating entirely too much good food at all our favorite haunts (la pain quotidian, velselka, cafe katja, les halles, two boots pizza, and more!). arrived home safely yesterday, after a perfectly lovely 6 day stay.

poppy’s favorite part of the trip? her multiple visits to the very cool updated playground at union square park!

meet my (new) singer 15-91!

2012-03-08T15:05:39Z

i’m the new owner of a fabulous old dame of a sewing machine, a 1930s singer 15-91! i purchased it last weekend from a dear new friend i met through the chicago modern quilt guild, erika of miss sews it all! she’s a collector of old sewing machines and somehow i managed to get her to sell one of them to me. thanks again, a million times over, erika!

i sat down and spent some quality time with her tuesday and wednesday and got the hang of how to use her whilst making a simple peasant top from some navy wax printed voile i picked up at vogue fabrics here in chicago a couple weeks back. the pattern is from the 1970s, just your basic boxy long sleeved peasant style with voluminous long sleeves. see above, underneath the denim jumper.

after using it for a bit, i must say: i love the way old machines sew; their stitch quality is so amazing and regular. i love how simple vintage machines are in general; they have a singularity of purpose and if they are in good working order they do what they do very very well. and if something goes wrong it can be easier to fix them than modern machines, many of which are packed to the gills with computerized functions. don’t get me wrong; i LOVE my newer machines, especially my dear bernina, but when they go to pot it’s sometimes tough to service them yourself and repairs can be costly.

this isn’t my first vintage machine, but it is the first one I’ve had that actually works, and works fairly well. couldn’t be happier with my new sewing machine! this now brings my total of sewing machines up to 4, not including the serger. it’s a sickness! oy.

anyone else get bitten by the (vintage) sewing machine bug? do you actually use yours (or just keep it around so you can admire its beauty)?

our living space

2012-02-22T20:53:18Z

More little bits of our current apartment falling into place. Got a new gray couch from Bo Concept in January, a welcome replacement for the former couch. Our old sectional had a giant, non removable cat pee stain locked into the fabric of the chaise portion. No matter what I did, I couldn’t cover that eyesore of a stain up! Blankets, pillows and lambskin throws we’re no match for its size and ugliness. Sad face! But now that we have the new couch, I’ve turned that frown upside down! Woot! It’s wool and modern and it was reasonably affordable. Good, good, and good.

We’ve also added some counter stools, yellow vinyl vintage chairs, a new pendant lamp over the dining table. And come June, we shall have a new 54″ circular Saarinen marble top dining table. I’ve been pining after one for years, and finally, my dream is coming true. Yay! I plan to utilize the old dining table in my office once the..replacement arrives. I am hoping it will give me more room to draw, sew and quilt and the like than my current sewing desk, especially the latter. Making larger quilts on my current desk is a tight squeeze!

I also hopefully will find a rug for living room sometime this year…I’m thinking something warm and/or yellow. Fingers crossed. :)

cookin’: broccoli slaw + garbanzo bean salad

2012-02-22T20:31:01Z

There used to be a time when i wasn’t much for cooking. I was and have always been a lover of food but generally didn’t make much of an effort in the way of making it myself for most of my life. I found cooking to be a chore. Peter and I would just get by with making this or that, buying prepared dishes from the grocery (frozen or fresh), or, more often than not, caving in and hitting a nearby restaurant. The latter happened an awful lot in the years we found ourselves living in restaurant dense locales like NYC and SF.

But something happened to me around the time poppy was born…i started to really, REALLY love making food. i am not sure what led to my change of heart…but i have come to believe its twofold: it gave me a chance to feed my family with love and nourishment, and also was a way to “make something” in a sort of creative way and feel a sense of completion. in the early weeks and months following poppy’s birth i was feeling creatively undone and unsatisfied; her care, of course, took up much of my time and sapped my creative energies. cooking a meal was a fast “project” i could complete, a little tiny respite from the work of being a new mom, whilst also obviously being an integral part of said job.

Nearly four years on I still love cooking. I am by no means a master chef, but i have managed to amass a small arsenal of recipes I love to make. Some are recipes torn or borrowed from magazines and books, and others are ones I cobbled together on the fly. Almost all of them lean heavily toward the simple, and the fresh. I like meat, but love vegetables more. I love to roast, bake, and sauté. I love to make things with a little Latin or Med flavor, but really, I’m open to cooking and eating anything and everything! But I’m happiest when the prep is minimal and the flavor pay off high. Know what I mean??

Having my own gardens when living in Connecticut was a major thing for me and it was a terrific learning experience for all of us (poppy included). I had the pleasure and blessing of being able to use garden fresh vegetables and herbs in my cooking and it was a revelation! I am not lucky enough to have a garden where I live at the moment, but hope to have the chance to have one again someday, if I’m able. In lieu of it, I hope to join a local CSA this upcoming spring…I’m terrificly excited about that prospect. I love the idea of getting mystery veggies weekly and having to figure out what to do with them! Haha.

Anyway, I thought I’d share a couple salad recipes that I find myself making lately, one for broccoli slaw, and the other for a simple garbanzo bean salad. Enjoy!

Garbanzo Bean Salad:

-2 cans garbanzo beans, drained
-1 large or 2 small shallots, finely chopped
-1/2 c. shredded or diced cheese (I like to use pepper jack or cheddar, usually)
-approx. 1/2 c. olive oil
-3-4 tbsps. balsalmic vinegar
-handful of fresh, chopped parsley, or 2 tbsps. dried
-sea salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

Mix all above ingredients in a medium bowl, and enjoy! You can adapt the recipe to your liking so easily…change out the beans for whatever you have on hand, omit the cheese or add in what’s lurking in your cheese drawer, or add in chopped greens (I like to add in spinach!).

Broccoli Slaw:

-1 bunch of broccoli (usually i see them with 2 good size heads rubber-banded together)
-3-4 large carrots, peeled and shredded
-1 large shallot or 2 small, finely chopped
-approx. 1/2-1 c. ranch dressing (spring for a decent one, I like Newman’s)

Mix all ingredients in a medim bowl, and enjoy! It’s dead simple! Add as little or as much dressing as you prefer, or swap the ready made stuff out for homemade, it’s your call.

***

What do you like to cook and eat?
Care to share a favorite recipe or cooking tip?

the super scrappy quilt!

2012-02-14T15:17:59Z

ugh, the past few weeks were super über crazy! just as peter and i were getting over our respective illnesses, little p fell sick…with the stomach flu. lemme tell ya, there’s nothing more fun than cleaning up toddler vomit! she had a few days of feeling less than perfect but quickly got back on the mend and for now, she’s good good good. thank goodness. momma’s happy when baby is happy and healthy!

in the midst of all the germs and chaos, i managed to get a little quilting done. yay! seen above is my latest quilt, which i have lovingly nicknamed “the super scrappy”. *smile*

it’s a simple one-patch with fabrics mostly pulled from my scrap box, with some new fabrics thrown in to make the mix make sense (to me, anyway!) and it’s straight line quilted with parallel lines one inch apart. for now it’s living on our (new) couch. it’s nothing fancy, quiltwise and probably doesn’t even “count” as a quilt to seasoned quilters but it makes me happy to look at it and to use it. and in the end, that’s all that really matters, right?

a creative week

2012-01-26T12:38:43Z

..in spite of it all. all being that everyone in our household has been at least a little sick, if not a lot sick, the past couple of weeks. i’ve had a chest cold (?) with a hacking cough so vigorous and spasmodic that it has nearly given me upper abs of steel. so un-fun.

still, I managed to drag my bones out of bed or off the couch long enough to lay out and sew a crib sized square triangle quilt i started sometime last year. i have enough to make about 3 quilts, actually. i made a quilt back for it last night and hope to baste it before the week is out if all goes well and i’m feeling up to it.

on Sunday i rallied long enough to go to this month’s meeting of the Chicago Modern Quilt Guild, where we did a mini project with zippers (see little quilted pouch, above). it’s not my best work but it was fun to make.

i also forced myself to go to my fabric silkscreening class on Monday, where I was able to pick up the fabric i printed in last week’s class, which was printed using a contact paper stencil and a little quilt inspired motif i came up with myself. i also stayed long enough to burn an image on my screen, which i will be able to print with come next week.

what did you accomplish creatively this week?

sketching with india ink

2012-01-18T21:12:48Z

in the fabric silkscreening class i am taking at lillstreet, we are supposed to be coming up with designs to burn on our screens. i’m playing around with india ink and vellum and seeing what comes out. doodles, really.

my week to date

2012-01-13T00:02:46Z

monday morning: went to the DMV downtown and got my new Illinois drivers license. happy to have a nice new non scary dl photo. ????

monday night: started my fabric silkscreening class at lillstreet. i took an instagram snap of these samples from one of the quilting classes while i was waiting in the hallway for the instructor to arrive. love that faux bois fabric!

wednesday: went to the salvo. bought a tacky silver and gold 80s purse, a rainbow stripe 80s dolman sleeve cropped sweater, and a pile of sheets. some sheets will be used in my fabric silkscreening class (a cheap way to acquire yardage!) and others to add to my growing collection to be used for a making a vintage sheet quilt…

wednesday night: the sky last night was so very gorgeous. this is the view from our apartment, looking south.

thursday: we got a big dump of snow today. it’s been a mild winter to date…i half wondered if it would really ever come at all!

bill cunningham new york

2012-01-07T02:09:34Z

bill cunningham new york: probably the best (documentary) film i have watched in a good, long time. i was smiling throughout the whole film, all 1.5 hours of it. he’s just so amazingly dedicated, funny, self-effacing, driven, and earnest. endearingly nerdy and obsessive in his drive to document what people are wearing RIGHT NOW. and he’s so spry and spunky for 80! i wish I had half his energy, and i’m 37!

love him so very much, he’s definitely one of my personal heroes.

the link above is just a trailer on YouTube, but if you’ve got Netflix streaming you can see the whole thing in toto…

***

have you seen it the film? what did you think of it?

1.6.2012

2012-01-06T16:21:55Z

i basically haven’t changed at all.
same tricia, different year.
always completely out of date & stuck in my ways.

-vintage goldtone hoops with orange, pink and purple beads: 25th street flea market, NYC
-pink fluorescent 3/4 length sleeve tee: j crew
-pink mexican embroidered dress: flea market in east village NYC about half a decade ago
-lace leggings: UO
-embroidered belt: thrifted in jacksonville, florida
-men’s gold digital watch: casio, baby!
-brown boots that literally go with everything: madewell