I have been horribly absent because I was on my honeymoon in Italy. Of course you don’t want to advertise on the internet that your house is empty so I didn’t say anything but it has been horrible to not write for such a long time. Lance and I had a great time. We stayed in a tiny little town in Umbria called Monticastello di Vibio. It is a beautiful place…a perfectly preserved medieval village. It is so preserved that you can’t even drive inside the town walls which means you can literally lay down in the street and have no concerns about being run over. You can’t imagine how relaxing it is to not even hear a car go by for three weeks or to not see a single advertisement as you walk down the street! And to top it all off, they don’t even have rats instead they have tiny little cute hedgehogs that run around at night. Here are some pictures of Monticastello for you to enjoy…

While we were staying in Italy we also went to Rome, Florence, Arezzo, San Sepulcro, Urbino, Perugia, and Todi. It was amazing. In Florence we saw the duomo which I think is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. So abstract and just looming over the other buildings. Unbelievable!!

In Perugia, Lance took this picture of me. I love the way the stairs and my dress make this pattern of competing stripes. I took this picture of him in Florence in front of the Ponte Vecchio.

In Florence we saw this amazing Mannerist painting by Pontormo. The colors he used in this painting are so amazing. He painted the skin in these bright colors that almost looks like the figures are wearing very thin shirts of color. The composition is also fantastic. It reminds me to take artistic license and go for what works even if it is totally unbelievable and totally unexpected.

A picture of the Pantheon in Rome…

And I leave you with the sky over Monticastello di Vibio…Ohhhhh…Ahhhhh…

This weekend was the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival at the Howard County Fairgrounds. I have gone two years in a row and to be honest, every time I go I think to myself, “Why do I buy yarn anywhere else?” All of these small farms and hand spinners, dyers, and weavers come out and sell their wares. The yarn is amazing! You can find almost anything you want including the larger companies’ yarns but I go to buy the unusual…things I know I can’t buy anywhere else. This year I bought some beautiful things.

I bought this green yarn called RIATA. It is made of wool, mohair, and silk. This yarn is three plys of each fiber and each ply is a slightly different shade of the same green. The silk adds a little bit of sheen. This yarn is by Brooks Farm and is $34.00 a skein.

I also bought this teal 50:50 silk/merino yarn from Ellen’s 1/2 Pint Farm. As you can see, the yarn is a slightly varigated teal color and is super soft. She sells this yarn in skeins of 1675 yards for $110 which means you can make a whole sweater out of one skein.

I also went to see Traci and my favorite yarn seller, Jamie Harmon. She makes this amazing super soft angora and wool yarn. You can buy it in solids (with a slight unevenness in the dying that gives it a very soft look) or in her mixed color skeins. These skeins make great stripes when you knit them up. The yarn is soft in the skein but when you knit it all of the angora fluffs out and I swear it is the softest yarn out there.

I just have to show you one thing before I go…My friend Ann brought me a bouquet from her garden to celebrate Lance and my wedding. This is one of the roses. It is called Abraham Darby and smells like lemons. I loved it so much I went on the internet and bought one. The blooms are about 4 inches in diameter and I could smell them from 6′ away. These roses bloom all season long. Too beautiful! Thanks Ann!!

On May Day Lance and I got married. My parents were in town and as we had been thinking about it for a while and it seemed like the perfect time. Lance and I knew from the beginning that our idea of the perfect day did not involve a huge crowd, catered dinners, or speeches. Our perfect day would be spontaneous, with a small group of family and friends, informal, and full of fun. We got just that.

We called our parents at 10:00 PM the night before and asked them if they could come. I think my mom’s most memorable quote was, “I only have jeans!!” She was horrified that she might be at her only daughter’s wedding wearing jeans (which of course she wasn’t…she had other stuff packed!) We decided to each invite one friend. I of course asked Traci and she volunteered to be our wedding photographer. Lance invited his friend Geoff.

Here is the beautiful Traci…

And here is the dashing Geoff (center left), with my father, Lance, and Lance’s father.

We all met at City Hall. Lance and I paid our $25.00, filled out the paper work, presented our marriage liscence, and waited. Not too long after we were taken into a small room for the ceremony. It was perfect!

Here we are signing our names and making it official…

One of the best moments was the ring exchange. Lance had not bought his ring yet so he decided to use a ring that he had found on the street. I hadn’t seen it until the ceremony. When he laid that thing on the table during the ceremony, I almost lost it! And when I had to say, “…with this ring, I thee wed…” Well that was just too much! I was cracking up! Look at this thing! I felt like I was marrying Gandalf or something. And in typical Lance style, he wore that ring all day.

After the ceremony we all left the City Hall and headed over to Lexington Market to have oysters, crab cakes, and Natty Bo. It was a real Baltimore moment and eveyone had a great time. Here’s me and my mom at the Market.

It was a great day! Thanks to everyone for coming and a special thanks to Traci for taking such great pictures!

I leave you with a picture of the handsome Lance.

I thought I would show some things that have made me smile this week. These are a gift for my friend Laurent who lives in Amsterdam. He collects strange items and is particularly into matchbooks. I thought these Charm City originals would be a nice addition to his collection. Folks, you don’t see embossed breasts everyday!! And the quote is great…I feel like it sums up the quirkiness of Baltimore.

This is a scene from my bathroom that makes me smile…The tulips from my garden combined with all of these porcelain baby doll arms and legs that I got free at a local antique store. They were going to throw these out! I love these fat little feet and hands.

I went yarn shopping this week… I cannot belive that I did this as the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival is coming up next weekend. I am sure to go crazy there but how could I pass up this great yarn?? It is made by Purism and is cotton and wool. I love the beautiful colors.

I also bought this great vintage fabric off eBay. I think I am going to transform this into a great summer tote.

I went this weekend to this great shop that opened not too long ago in Catonsville called Home Anthology. Check out all of the great stuff! I am sure that I will be spending some money there eventually. Who can resist!!

My mom is coming into town this weekend so I won’t post until next week. Have a good weekend everyone!

My Australian friend Sophie came over last night so that we could wake up early this morning to go the the advertised “Retro Show” at the Maryland State Fairgrounds. There was also another antiques bazaar going on at the same time so we hit them both. I was determined to find a coffee table but alas, there was very little furniture there. Instead, I bought several things that I really didn’t need but boy do I like them! I got these 3 fabrics for 5 dollars each (there is at least 2 yards of each, what a deal!)

And I got some strange little tin plates and a tin bank for a pricier sum of $20 but I couldn’t resist. I love these old tin lithograph toys.

There were some great things at the show that I could not afford but that were really wonderful. This one is a 1920’s mini post office from France. It has posters attached to the outside as if it were a real building. Then, when you open it up there are all of these newspapers and postings. There is a small ink and blotter set and two bins on each side where the letter slots empty into. It was so amazing and so Dada. It really reminded me of the collabrative works between Marcel Duchamp and Joseph Cornell. I wanted it but it was $1250 so there was no way that was going to happen. At least I got pictures of it.

There were also these great dolls hanging out together. Don’t they look like old friends??

There was also this great jar wich reminds me of Margaret Kilgallen’s work.

After the show we went to Sherwood Gardens and saw all of the amazing tulips and flowering trees.

Then, we headed over to Hampden to explore all of the great shops on the Avenue. I bought a couple small things and took this picture of Sophie in front of the large Pink Flamingo. We were honored with a special Hampden treat of seeing John Waters doing his shopping on the Avenue too! All around a fun filled Charm City extravaganza, Hon!

Finally, I have to leave you with a picture of the garden. The tulips are so great this year. This is by far the prettiest it has ever been.

Ok, so might be wondering what the heck is going on over here in Charm City! Well, Charm City has been kicking my butt but I am fighting my way back into the land of the living. I think the house falling down really got me down. I mean who expects that kind of bullshit to happen. Let alone next door! And after all of the time and energy we have spent making this place so nice…it was kind of like a slap in the face. Anyhoo…the city came and cleaned up the worst of the mess but it is still totally ghetto around here. Check out how it has been for the last two weeks… Who wants to live next to that!

On the up-side…Mom-Mom is doing better. She survived the surgery and now has a whole new hip. She will have lots of physical therapy to do and probably won’t be home for a while but still she is one tough lady. I have changed her name to Iron-Mom.

On a crafting note, I am working on several projects. The first is a Rowan sweater that Traci and I both fell in love with.

She is knitting hers out of a beautiful wine colored alpaca. I chose a cream alpaca and combined it with a strand of Kidsilk Haze. It gives is a little fluff and varigation…so pretty! I am almost done with the back as you can see here.

I am also on a beading kick right now. I wanted to make some nice necklaces for summer. I got a whole bunch of stuff from Bedazzeled and sat down today and made these.

I have been sewing a little bit but haven’t made anything too special…just foolin’ around. I am hoping to do some silk screening sometime soon as I got some stuff from Dharma Trading Company to dye and screen stuff on. Totes, T-shirts, and the like. Maybe Traci will help me with this?? Maybe I can twist her arm with offers of Glarus Chocolate…

All in all, I just want to say sorry for being such a stranger and I hope you all haven’t given up on me. And with that I will leave you with a photo from the garden. The tulips are the first in my garden to bloom and they just opened today!!! Woooppeeee, it’s Spring!

Lance and I have had a hard past few days. To start with his grandmother, Mom Mom, fell down on Sunday and broke her hip. Yesterday she had hip surgery. She is doing ok but at 96 you can imagine how hard this surgery will be for her and I am sure that the recovery will be very long.

Then last night we decided to treat ourselves to sushi. We were bringing it home when we were greated by police cars and fire engines. We couldn’t even park on our street. You can’t imagine how scary it is to see all of that in front of your house. Luckily, they were there for the house 2 doors down from us.

A man bought this house 2 years ago. He started renovating it to make three condos. We all noticed that even before he started working on it that the side wall was bowing out. Even he must have known it was a problem as he had a brace on it for a long time. About a month ago, the brace disappeared and the wall kept getting worse and worse. Two weeks ago I said to a neighbor of mine…I think that thing is going to fall down. Well, yesterday it did and this is what our block looks like now.

Our house is at the far left in the picture. You can see it is only 2 houses over…

So after standing for over a hundred years this is all that is left of that house. The history is gone and it is very sad to me. When you spend so much time working on an old house like we have you really come to appreciate the craftsmanship that went into these places. Owning a house like this is a privilege and it is so sad to see a good house turn into a pile of junk.

Not me so don’t get any ideas! But it seems like everyone else is having babies! I went to a baby shower for my friends Nicole and Michael this weekend. Here is the cute couple opening presents.

It was a whole lot of fun to see everyone hanging out having a good time. Here is Nicole and Beatriz having a good laugh and Rachel trying to distract us when we voted her most likely to be next (she is getting married in July)!!

I made this blanket that I posted earlier and this cute softie to keep baby company.

Everyone wanted to know what kind of animal it was but who knows?? I just thought it looked friendly, cute, and easy to carry. (Plus it doesn’t sound so good to say you may have made a legless cat looking thing. Best to just call it a softie!)

Well there has been a lot of posts on various blogs on using a pattern or not using a pattern. I, for one, do not know how to read patterns and find it much easier to just “Make it work” (to quote the famous Tim Gunn.) I made this skirt with a center box pleat and another pleat on each side .

The front and the back are exactly the same. I added a sash that knots on the side for a little extra flare. I got this great fabric from the famous Cia.

Well, here is the first attempt at the log cabin pillow.

Challenge #1:It is really hard to come up with fabrics that go together yet aren’t all of the same hue. You really need something in there to add a little spice but that can go bad real fast if you don’t do it right…Let this be a word of caution to you all…choose your fabrics wisely!

Challenge #2: I found that it is easier to make the pillow top bigger than you need and then sqaure it up after the fact to the proper size.

Challenge #3: Instead of just piecing the fabrics together I sewed them to a fabric support, commonly known as the Foundation Piecing. See Denyse Schmidt’s book “Quilts” for an excellent description of this method. I found it much easier than piecing the normal way.

Good luck!!