Inspirations . . . serendipity . . . synergy

I just thought I'd share what's been going on this morning . . . it's hot here in Naples, so if you want to turn on the oven, you better do it early.  I've been smelling wafts of ripe banana and ripe peach in the kitchen since Sunday when we loaded up on fruit at the market.  The peaches were a mix of ripe and ripening, but the bananas had been around for a week and were on the cusp.  So before 7 a.m., I got a banana bread in the oven, using my current favorite recipe from the Apples for Jam cookbook.
I love the two Tessa Kiros cookbooks that I have -- they are full of great recipes presented in the most charming and visually appealing manner.  The other one I have is Falling Cloudberries.  She doesn't order her recipes in a conventional manner -- Apples for Jam is divided by color and Falling Cloudberries has a section devoted to the countries of her family's heritage and those she has lived in, ranging from Finland to South Africa.  The format of both books make them fun to peruse and find inspiration . . . inverting the usual order for me when deciding what to cook.  It's usually ingredients first -- what can I make with them?  In the case of Kiros' cookbooks, it's engaging recipe first, let me get what I need for that. I've had such success and been so intrigued by her recipes that they are worth a special trip to the store.
A few weeks back, I had come upon her banana bread recipe when thumbing through to the oil spattered page with her fabulous vegetable risotto recipe. At the time, more fragrant bananas were importuning upon me, and the resulting loaf was a hit.  One great thing about the recipe is that it calls for a 12-inch bread pan . . . so you get a nice long loaf that lasts through many between-meal slicings by family members.  This particular loaf made its welcome appearance by 8 a.m. for Quinn and Lily's breakfast, tweaking little noses awake with a marvelous cinnamon fragrance.  One of the best alarm clocks around.

After breakfast, I enlisted Lily in helping me make a peach pie with this very easy recipe.  I do use Pillsbury pie dough rather frequently.  It's great to have in the freezer for just such exigencies as peaches in danger of succumbing to severe brown spots.  We sorted through the crate of 24, placing the still unblemished ones in a bowl, and then got to work.  Lily was especially keen because I've been reading James and the Giant Peach to her at night.  So conversation rattled on about singing centipedes, kind spiders and ladybugs, and seagulls.  We made a lattice top for the pie with my little pinking cutter -- Lily loves to cut and weave the dough. Once the pie was in the oven, we had to carry on with James' adventures.  A few more chapters and -- voila!  Two home-baked goodies and the oven turned off before 10 a.m.  That's a successful start to the day!
Yesterday, I was reading one of my favorite blogs: Soulemama.  Amanda, the author of two books on family creativity, wrote about transforming cast-off skirts into new attire for her young daughter.  And this is just exactly what I do!

Amanda had repurposed her own skirts for this, but this spring I used two stockpiled vintage finds to make new skirts for Lil.

Notice the 25-cent sticker still on the gored skirt made from a lovely vintage floral linen! I picked it up at a garage sale in Wisconsin (so about 10 years ago!).  The Indian border print (complete with beading and sequins) was sent by my MIL for Emily, but was a tad too tight.  I use the same method Amanda uses . . . so check out her blog if you have a little girl in need of new duds for school (or for twirling as Amanda notes).  These recycled skirts have been in frequent "rotation" on Lily this summer as she loves pull-on clothes (who doesn't!)  As you can see, they are perfect for splashing and spinning around in unexpected downpours in the summer heat!

Next entry -- how a 12-year-old boy customizes some thrift store shirts for his back-to-school wardrobe, using outgrown t-shirts and spray paint!

Market Bounty and a Bag

Sunday morning usually means off to the flea market, but even the flea market vendors celebrate Ferragosto -- or the month-long, languorous holiday Italians celebrate in August.  But the fish and produce market at the port is open everyday but Monday -- even in August.  There is no dolce vita without the bounty of the garden. So off we went this morning to stock up veggies, bread, and lots of fruit.


I took my new "market bag" I just finished with leavings from my latest spate of pillow sewing.  I didn't use a pattern, just eyeballed the shape, cut a matching lining in lavender-colored oxford cloth.  I put some elastic in the side edges to make it more secure.  It's roomy enough to be a pool/beach bag.  The drawback on its size is that I need to dig for stuff, but I did add two interior pockets so I can keep cellphone and wallet at beck and call.

The shoulder straps are recycled from an old parachute harness Jon gave me years ago -- I think before we had kids (!) and the buckle is vintage bakelite (probably an eBay purchase, can't remember).  The fabric was given to me by my mother-in-law when she was clearing out her stash many moons ago, and I immediately loved how tropical yet modern it is.  I think she picked it up when she lived in Greenwich Village in the 1960s.  It came in two half-yard pieces that were plenty for creating two pillows and my "market" bag.  Here are those little numbers and their fellows:

At the market (sorry no pictures, left the camera home), I picked up squash blossoms (along with peaches, plums, tomatoes, parsley, bread, cookies, and cheese).  I had been meaning to give fiori di zucchini a try since last summer.  Since these were already a bit wilted when I bought them, I didn't want to wait for dinner.  So squash blossoms for lunch it was (made with this recipe). I don't think using Heineken in the batter is traditional, but nobody commented.  

I made some bruschetta and cut up a pineapple to round out the meal and we had pranzo al fresco on our patio.  I love having a proper lunch with the whole family at the table.  It makes the day feel so much more like a  vacation.  

Buona giornata!

Summer sewing and brief Roman holiday

Taking a little break from beads and jewelry to go back to my first love -- sewing.  I've never really stopped , but it got crowded out for about a decade with, oh, parenting, work, and a hobby that didn't require machine maintenance.  Home dec sewing always stayed in the mix, but now I'm back to making clothes.  Though not for me (yet).  I've got a few things piled up to tackle, but first were two projects for the girls -- a dress for Lil and an Anna Sui top for Em.  The Lily dress turned out well -- the Anna Sui top less so, though Emily likes it.  Let's focus on Lily's dress for this small entry.  It's McCalls 2880 -- which may be out of print -- it's a surplice bodice and gathered skirt.  I used a combination of Heather Ross prints -- a mermaid one on top and an aquatic octopus one on the bottom in apricot tones with a little orange rickrack to snazz up the top.  Lily wore it the day after it was finished to go pick up Quinn from his visit with friends in Rome -- so we'll have a little Roman holiday sewing expo here with some brother shots included.

This was taken on the train ride up to Rome.  We took the local which is a bit longer but much more to see (and cheaper) than the Eurostar.












We met Quinn with our friends the Giovaniellos who were preparing to return to Virginia after 20 months at the embassy -- it was a bittersweet day since their departure was imminent.

We walked through much of central Rome, eating gelato, people watching, seeing a few churches, and making a stop in Piazza Navona -- mostly killing time until the "Bone Church" reopened.  Both my kids wanted to see the Cappuchin monks' meditation on mortality --  which paradoxically is called the Church of the Immaculate Conception.
It is seven ghastly rooms festooned with human bones -- trust me, it gets redundant. It has become quite popular on the German Christian youth group circuit . . . long lines of them both morning and afternoon in matching hats, scarves, or t-shirts (one group singing what sounded like "My knapsack on my back" -- seriously!).  When I first visited in my early twenties, there was only me, my trusty travel companion, and a cantankerous monk in cassock glaring at us.  But I have to admit these monks were quite creative with spinal columns.  No photography is allowed, so you'll have to trust me on that  . . . or wait, I found a Bone Church posting by someone who ignored all the signs.

Then we had a little time in Villa Borghese park where the kids enjoyed a little amusement ride.

A posed shot with bougainvillea in the park.

(Quinn's has an almost-teen's reluctance to pose for photos)

Lily, on the other hand, loves to strike a pose!

Tomorrow, okay, soon, some posts on the 7 pillows, Anna Sui top, and shoulder bag (oh yeah, I did  sew something for myself), and my limoncello recipe and our grilled pizza adventures.  

Ciao-ciao amici!

Back in the (reupholstered) saddle!

Yes, I've neglected my blog FOR MONTHS, and I have no good reason other than . . . laziness? reticence? diffidence?  Maybe the first with the other two liberally sprinkled in.  But as I've become more and more invested as a blog follower . . . I've decided to get hopping here again.  With two kids home all summer (and one working!), I've been pretty consumed with parenting, but as it is, I also have been getting our family room out of the doldrums and kitted out a bit.  I sewed some new pillows and have a few more planned. But my big transformation is the "found-on-the-side-of-the-road" chair brought over from Virginia.  If you can believe it, it was pristine when I found it set out for the taking on the sidewalk of a recently sold house.  It had practically new beige ticking upholstery underneath a brocade slipcover from fancy schmancy and defunct furniture store Domain.  But after four years of hard usage this is what it looked like:

I don't think this picture even does the grime justice!  Of course, I've already taken a hammer to it in this photo.  

What I wanted was something more like this:

Wow! Right?!  It's from the London shop Squint Limited.  I can't tell you how many times I've gone there to oggle the sofas, chairs, chaises, etc. But, the shop is in London and, well, chair prices start in the neighborhood of 3000 British pounds.  So I'm not in the geographic or the financial neighborhood of Squint. 

I had never done a proper reupholstery job -- a few chair seat recovers, some slipcover action, but nothing that required an electric staple gun.  And then I purchased an electric staple gun. Now nothing stood in the way of the Squintification of above chair -- no power tool and certainly not a lack of  fabric!

Anyone who knows me, I mean really knows me, knows about my large and ever-growing fabric stash.  Stash is really not the right word for it.  This cannot be stashed . . . it has to be stored in dedicated bins and closets -- occasional pruning has to occur.  It's more like an inventory than a stash. It includes fabrics that belonged to my grandmother, a couple of bins of upholstery (!) samples from the decorator shop my mother's friends shut down in the '90s, freecycle acquisitions, garage sale acquisitions, proper fabric shop purchases, mail order, ebay, thoughtful parcels from my mother-in-law.  What can I say?  I'm a fabric magnet (don't use the word addict).  

This surfeit of fabric, of course, makes this project even more apropos for a peripatetic creative type like me.  I took as my starting point this Heather Ross "Far, Far, Away" unicorn print (I interfaced it to give it upholstery heft since it's a soft cotton woven):

Then I kept loosely to a palette of green, yellow, orange, and pink (with a little blue, too).  I stacked up the fabric bits, mixing and matching as bins were dumped out all over the living room (to my husband's dismay).  Then I painstakingly removed the old fabric from the chair, disassembled the pieces to use as a pattern, then pieced each section.  I was impatient, so each section went on as it was pieced, and bit by bit, the chair came together . . . but no photos were taken of the process.  I'm a hapless blogger.   Until the end!  VOILA!  Here she is, my Squintified chair in her many sided glory: front

 back

side

A little wonky in some parts and then the use of pom-pom trim -- not something you'll find on a real Squint chair.  But, it certainly neatens up first-time upholstery glitches. All in all, what a chair revival! And now I have my sight set on this little piece.  My trusty power stapler is ready . . . but it's button upholstery . . . am I?

Flora gets her groove on.

Lily's next sewing venture included making a casing and inserting elastic.  And she created a dress that suits her pink-haired revamp of Flora a bit better than yesterday's flowered frock.

Valentine's Day at home

A steady rain was falling this morning, so my friend Molly and I were deterred from our now regular outing to the nearby Sunday flea market.  We took consolation in a local thrift store which resulted in fur acquisitions for both of us. I know, I know.  But they are secondhand . . . and I'm not a vegan and only a sometime vegetarian.  The particulars are a fluffy black coat for Molly and these black furry boots for me.  They are so warm and comfortable that I've had them on all day.  The kids like to pet them.

In the afternoon, Jon and I implemented a "divide and conquer" strategy.  He headed off with the older two and friends for a showing of Avatar, while Lily and I made ourselves busy in my craft room.  We had some serious hospital work to do on a doll that had had an unexplained misadventure with scissors, to include the near amputation of a leg.

Lily and I collaborated on a complete restoration of Flora who had come to us originally from Colonial Williamsburg, donning a mob cap and apron.  Lily thought she should go in a different direction.  After some restuffing, leg repair, and replacing of her locks (in PINK!), Lily picked a rosy pink floral cotton from my scrap bag for a new dress.  She handed the fabric to me and then started away to busy herself with her stuffed animals.
"Lily, I think you can sew this dress yourself for Flora," I told her.
"But I don't know how to sew." she replied.
"Well, let's teach you now. You can do it," I said.

We cut a simple tunic shape from the folded fabric and then I helped her sew up the sides and sleeves, stitch by careful stitch.  A quick turn to right side out and the addition of the ribbon belt completed Flora's new look.  Lily was overjoyed with the results.

She and I set a lovely Valentine table (featuring my other thrift shop find -- a Scandinavian looking vase), some fabric and pipe cleaner napkin rings designed by Lily, and a vintage embroidered cloth.

Then I set to work on a dinner of Giada di Laurentis' Fra Diavola Shrimp, Pumpkin Risotto, and a big green salad (liberally festooned with buffalo mozzarella).  With perfect timing, Jon, Emily, and Quinn arrived home with much to talk about.  It was a lovely Valentine celebration.

Here's my Pumpkin Risotto recipe:
1 medium onion
2 tbsn butter
1 tbspn olive oil
1 1/2 c. Arborio rice
1/2 cup white wine
2 cups chicken broth
1 cup water
1 can pureed pumpkin
1/4 tspn nutmeg
1/4 c heavy cream
1/2 cup grated Asiago cheese
Combine water and broth in large pyrex measuring cup and warm in microwave for 2 minutes. In a medium saucepan, saute the onion in the butter and oil until transparent.  Add the Arborio rice and cook a couple minutes to coat rice with butter and oil.  Add wine. Cook until absorbed, stirring often.  Add one half warmed broth/water mix and cook, stirring often, until absorbed. Add second half and repeat.  Add the pumpkin, nutmeg, cream, and cheese.  Stir and cook a few more minutes.  Serve immediately.

Buon appetito!