Sweet Juniper (All)

Friday Morning Street Urchin Blogging

2009-07-10T17:47:39-00:00

Man, these two stewbums really need their mid-morning cigarette. Either that, or this photo was taken just before they had the four drams of rotgut they need to get through a day of replacing bobbins down at the mill. Don't worry lads, you'll be as stiff as a ring-bolt 'ere midday.There's still a little time to enter the contest of for the new Sandisk slotRadio. Leave a comment here before noon

This would have been more appropriate last week. . .

2009-07-10T17:47:59-00:00

. . .but it was yesterday that we stopped by the Heidelberg Project to find a bunch of dudes from Brooklyn trying to convince Tyree Guyton to drape a gigantic American flag over a house (and he was buzzing with excitement about the idea).While our French friends wandered around the project, the kid just ran around under the flag. That dress is from Paris. She wore it to camp yesterday and we had

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2009-07-10T17:47:39-00:00

Even though there are so many new books I want to read, lately I've been picking up old ones. As I scan the pages, trying to decipher the annotations made by my 19-year-old hand, I realize that I never really understood as much of D.H. Lawrence or James Joyce as I liked to think then. Ulysses hasn't changed since 1996, but I certainly have. And how many stanzas of Ezra Pound or Wallace Stevens

Welcome, little Metta

2009-07-10T18:47:25-00:00

Our niece Metta was born last Friday. Like our Gram, she made her parents wait a week past her due date. I was itching to sew something for her, but I wanted to wait until she was born. I wasn't sure exactly what I'd make, but once she was born and I saw the adorable pictures of her during her first moments I knew I wanted to make her the kimono shirt from Heather Ross' Weekend Sewing. Kimono-style shirts are great for newborns, because you don't have to pull them over their fragile little heads and necks, and they leave space for the healing umbilical cord.

I made baby Metta a shirt from the same fabric I used to make her sister a smocked dress a few weeks ago. Instead of using the bias tape called for in the pattern, I made the trim with pink floral fabric. Heather calls the pattern the easiest one in her book, and I'm not sure if that's true, or if I was just having off day. Either way, this tiny shirt took me longer to assemble than the smocked dress, but as with all patterns, now that I know how it comes together, in theory it should be quicker next time.

Welcome, little Metta! I can't wait to introduce you to your Detroit cousins.

(p.s. I've been doing a lot of sewing lately, so I'll have more to share soon.)

Previous Project

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2009-07-10T17:47:10-00:00

Yeah, that's pretty much the entire Astérix universe on our dining room table. All kinds of old-school Latin geekiness will be roused by seeing this, I'm guessing. We had a French visitor recently ask if there was anything she could bring us from Paris. I might have mentioned that these guys are nearly impossible to get here in the states (but told her not to stress about it because we are

Another slotRadio giveaway

2009-07-10T17:47:39-00:00

Sweet Juniper sponsor SanDisk sent us another slotRadio with 1000 preloaded songs to give away. Want it? Leave a comment on this post with an e-mail address so I can contact you if you win. I'm in a bit of a rut, so feel free to use this opportunity to tell me how I could improve this site, or to tell me about the kind of posts you'd like to see more often, or to call me a talentless windbag. No

As seen along Cass

2009-07-10T17:47:59-00:00

A great thing about Detroit is that a dad with two kids on his bike is far from the strangest two-wheeled sight you might see on an average day. Take these two on their Townie, flying ahead of me all the way down Cass, ripping through red lights like nobody's business. Or these guys, blasting the classics wherever they go.And did you read our neighbor's New York Times opinion?Previous PhotoThis

Ripe Mulberries

2009-07-10T17:47:59-00:00

It's urban gleaning season here in Detroit again. A few days ago I discovered a half dozen giant mulberry trees (and a few seedlings) in that abandoned swath of land around Jane Cooper school. There are four mulberry trees within a few blocks of our house and we filled a basket from them yesterday (harder than you'd think: Gram eats them as fast as I can pick them). I can see the pears growing on

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2009-07-10T17:47:39-00:00

The mother of one of my daughter's friends asks, "Is she not supposed to play princess?"I have never told my daughter she couldn't play princesses. We may have had a few conversations about how princesses aren't good role models, but I've NEVER said she couldn't pretend to be one. Apparently while playing at her friend's house, my daughter whispered, "My dad doesn't like princesses. He says

The Corner

2009-07-10T17:47:59-00:00

There was a photo floating around last week of the great Tiger shortstop Alan Trammell staring through a hole in the fence at what's left of the stadium where hundreds of thousands of fans cheered him during a career that spanned three decades. I was one of them. Balding, gray, and old, he had to view the crumbling ruins just like the rest of us. This photo was widely discussed; it seemed to