blog update

So maybe you've noticed and maybe you haven't but I've made some changes to the old blog again.

The same elements are still available, as usual. The blog labels are now located on the sidebar along with cute new icons for following via Twitter, Facebook, and the like.

I did add one thing that's completely new and that something is a link to my new Etsy shop, IW by IdleWife! Yes, I finally worked up the nerve to open my own shop. That's what I've been secretly working on for the last while.

Currently, I have it filled with crocheted rugs. Can I tell you a story about them?

Maybe I've mentioned it, but I grew up on a farm. It was a working farm meaning we had (at one time or another) one of every farm animal but mostly we specialized in beef cattle. Anyway just down the road from us, lived this older lady named Tootsie. Isn't that the best name you've ever heard? I don't know if it's true or not, but I was always told that by the time her parents got to having her, they were tired of coming up with names so she got a unique "non-name."

She had an adopted border collie named, Lady. (Tootsie got her after Lady's old owner passed away.) Every time we drove past Tootsie's house, Lady was lying there on the deck staring off at the road.

Those two had the funniest love/hate relationship as Tootsie was such a matter-of-fact, say it like it is type of person. She talked to Lady like she was a person. No baby talk or patting, just straight forward conversations.

One day I got home from school and Lady was at our house. I didn't recognize her as Tootsie's dog at first. Strays are always turning up on a farm. It wasn't until my dad pointed out that Lady had to go back to Tootsie's because it just wouldn't be right if we kept her.

So that same day, we stuck Lady in the truck and drove her back to Tootsie's. Tootsie laughed about this, thinking that Lady just wanted to see what was down the road and we returned home.

It wasn't a day later, and I arrived home from school to find Lady in the yard again. As usual, we went about our chores and Lady followed us around doing them with us. But, as usual, the time came to take her home and this time, she wouldn't get in the truck. I'm sure she knew we were going to take her back to Tootsie's so she avoided the truck completely. We managed to trick her into following the quad down the road and back to Tootsie's house again. Tootsie seemed a little more annoyed at this point but didn't let it surface. She scolded Lady a bit over causing so many problems but generally laughed it off again.

Then Lady visited us a third time. Again, after "helping" us with chores, she refused to get in the truck. And this time, she refused to follow the quad if it went anywhere that was out of the yard. We ended up walking Lady back to Tootsie that day. Thank goodness she lived fairly close!

The final straw came when Lady showed up at the farm and refused to get in the truck, follow the quad, or walk anywhere that was out of our yard, so we had to inform Tootsie there was no way we could get Lady to come back. She said that Lady had obviously chosen a new family and wanted more adventure in her life so she let us keep her. We felt awful that we took Tootsie's dog and Tootsie made sure to bring Lady up in almost every conversation afterwards, but it was and still is one of the most interesting animal stories I have.

We had Lady for about 6 more years and she did everything with us. Feeding cattle, daily runs around the pasture checking up on things, leisurely walks, and even mundane trips into the city. I think it's true. She just wanted a more interesting life and didn't want to spend another year sitting idly on a deck, watching the world go by. I think it's really funny how she made the decision herself. That's completely what a Tootsie dog would do!

Anyway, through all of this, I got to know Tootsie a little better. It was around this time when I learned that she specialized in making crocheted rugs. I'd never seen anything like them and they were absolutely gorgeous. She'd make them out of all sorts of things (mom has one made from old men's socks -- super nice on the feet!), but mostly she used torn up sheets and everyone would donate them to her. She had an entire room devoted to it, with stacks of sheets organized by colour and stacks of rugs waiting to go to new homes.

Through some amazing chance, I ended up with one. She just gave it to me one day. I really couldn't believe my luck. She thought it was one of the ugliest rugs she'd made and had long since decided she'd never be able to sell it and told me so. I just couldn't get over that. I thought it was one of her best. After that, Tootsie was more than happy to teach me how to make them (besides, I was at her house returning her dog almost every day anyway).

She bought me a crochet hook and gave me some sheets to work with, and I practiced making them for a while, but soon school and life and stuff just took over. While I really did want to make them, I just didn't have the time for it and the whole thing fell to the wayside.

Lately, making these rugs has been on my mind. I don't know what made me think of it again. Maybe it's because I still had them in my life. My practice round is being used as a trivet on our dining room table and I keep Tootsie's "ugly" rug in my kitchen. I just couldn't stop thinking about it and almost exactly to the day I decided to try making them and started practicing again, mom informed me that she'd read that Tootsie had passed away that same week. It's kind of mysterious to me how I've been thinking about her, Lady, and her rugs and then learning of her passing all in the same time frame.

It was such a sad thing for me to hear, but it made me want to make them again even more. So I did. My first attempts were fairly bad. I was coming out with fabric bowls rather than rugs. It was so frustrating because I couldn't ask Tootsie and all I could remember was how easy she made it seem. Finally, I found the knack for it again and I'm super proud with how they came out. I love the colours and the texture and they feel amazing underneath my feet. It's no wonder why I took so long posting them in the shop. I would be just as happy keeping them all to myself!

I think I did Tootsie proud.

I've posted my first four rugs in the IW shop. I'm not sure if I'll always have rugs in there or if I'll also post other little ideas swirling around in my mind (maybe some vintage finds -- like mismatched vintage sheets, the ones I can't bear to tear! -- or photography or jewelry), but I'll definitely be having shop updates as necessary to let you know what's going on from now on.

september recap

These are some pictures from our vacation that don't fit into any category, but I love them all the same.

I grew this from a seed

I can't even remember the last time I had a BLT

Hermes loves travelling

mom's humongous goldfish

Finally, I couldn't decide which picture I liked best as a desktop this month.

Happy post-it kitties or spooky black chokecherries. Your pick!

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1920/1200 and 1680/1050

ipad

ipod

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1920/1200 and 1680/1050

ipad

ipod

friday fixations

{tattly} I'll be totally honest. I'm really not into tattoos. It's not that I don't like them. I think they're fine. But I'm just such a terrible flip-flopper that I could never commit to something as permanent as a real tattoo. I'd love it the first year, but by year two, I'd definitely regret my decision and wish I had picked something different. So I really quite like these tattoos from Tattly. They're cute and stylish and different and temporary.

{sleeping beauty's paris apartment} I wish I could find larger, hi-res photos of this amazing treasure chest -- and more of them, actually. The story goes that a woman left her apartment in Paris before WWII, and never returned but dutifully paid the rent over all of these years. She recently died (at 91!) and hence her secret apartment was found. The story mostly revolves around a famous artist's painting BUT I'm more interested in viewing the apartment's decor and her other 'regular' things. Anyone who owns a stuffed ostrich has GOT to have far more amazing things than just one singular painting.

{amy poehleroids} Oh Amy, you're the best.

{vintage jewelry boxes} We stayed at mom's house for a good chunk of our vacation and she had the most amazing jewelry box in the guest room. Some vintage red and gold find she picked up for pennies at a thrift store in town. I remember her getting it and I remember I kinda liked it okay, but I left it with her since I don't have a dresser or anything on which to put a jewelry box. If I'm being totally honest, it was more in my 'meh' feelings category. But once I saw it filled, it totally flipped a switch in my brain and now all I can think about is going to thrift stores and looking for boxes. (I have to vent about this suede travelling jewelry box I found on vacation. It didn't have a price on it and once I got to the counter, I found out that the store's new policy was to send everything back to get repriced and then put on display to be resold another day. I am so mad about that. SO. MAD. It was AMAZING. It had spots for everything from necklaces to rings and it had a little snap clasp so you could just grab it and throw it in a bag for vacationing and all it needed was a little cleaning. That's about THE worst sin a thrift store can commit. Taking a find away from you. I'm also rather mad I didn't demand to speak to the manager.)

{food photography} I guess it's no surprise that I love this subject, but I extra love it when it's done a little differently like these fab photos (the mushroom and radish photos and all of the little food vignettes are my faves). I wish I were more of an artist...

{tulips} Finally the bulbs are out! We got a boat load of frilly pastel peony tulips and some manly black Queen of the Night tulips. As a tip, it's much easier to plant them if you dig a large enough trench for all of them at once. It seems like more work, but it helps a lot in spacing and arranging (also fingers crossed our annoying mystery digging animal doesn't root them up). If bulbs are still available when things go on sale, I might get some alliums and galanthus, too (although I have no idea where I'd put them!).

{plant paintings} Wow. That's so neat! Isn't that neat?

DIY: wrapped feather gel pens

I got this idea from Design Sponge's feature on making your own old fashioned feather pen. I really did intend to do it completely the way indicated, but then I found myself in the dollar store face to face with a bag of multi-coloured feathers for a buck. It kind of excited me because if I bought them, I wouldn't have to go about dying my own feather AND they were only a buck. For a whole bag!

Then I scrounged around for pen refills. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any (you'd think a dollar store would have that), but I did find cute miniature gel pens for a buck. I thought my feather pen idea would be so much cuter if I used pens to match the feather and oh, the rainbow-y coloured cuteness that would ensue!

Until I got home, cut into my first feather, unscrewed my first gel pen and realized the feather was too small and the gel pen too thick. The pen wouldn't go into the feather as instructed in the original DIY. Bummer.

At first, I was going to drive all over town looking for feathers to fit the gel pens and if I'd have to, I guess I could buy some proper pen refills. Until I had a little brain storm/dream revelation that night about wrapping them with some thread to keep the pen on. And hence was born the wrapped feather gel pen!

There are a lot of feathers to choose from, so try to pick one with the thickest and longest quill (that's the long non-feathery part). Cut the tip off, then use a sharp blade to cut half of the quill away. Basically, you want to cut enough out so the pen fits as flat to the feather as possible.

It doesn't take very much force to cut it, but it's best to work at it incrementally. It'll hold up to some pretty good jabs, but it's still delicate.

Keep referencing your pen to make sure you've cut enough. I also cut the end off my gel pens just above where the air bubble was to make them a little shorter.

I used a binder clip to hold the two together while preparing and starting the string.

Measure out a lot of embroidery thread. Maybe more than you think you need (it's better to have too much than too little). Tie a knot at the top of the pen and start knotting around the pen and feather with a basic friendship knot.

This took me forever to photograph and then I realized it would be better with a video. Therefore, the knots on the blue pen aren't as tight as they should be, and you can't really see the swirl. But if you're not doing it in front of a camera very awkwardly (it's so hard to do something like that while looking through a camera screen, and if I didn't look in the screen, I'd end up moving the whole project off camera), the swirl will come pretty easily. Just let the string move around the pen as you're knotting it and keep pushing it together tightly.

If all goes accordingly, it should look like this.

If you want fancy black tips, just grab a felt marker and put them on however you'd like. Just make sure to wipe off any excess and allow to dry before using.

Finally, I capped the ends with a removed quill tip to keep the ink from getting all over everything (just find one out of your feathers that will stay on firmly. It doesn't have to be from the feather you used). Gel ink comes out onto everything really easily, trust me and my rainbow hands.

That's it! It took me about 15 minutes to do one, so it's a really fast project and a nice little gift for yourself or someone else. I still prefer the sophisticated Design Sponge feather, but these have a fun playfulness that I really love, too, and they're a lot smaller so they'll fit perfectly into an envelope (which is exactly where mine are going).

abraham lake

I could have stayed much longer here, but I'm glad to be back.