Beacon, NY in the New York Times!

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I saw this article in the New York Times yesterday, and was happy to see Beacon and some of the other nearby Hudson Valley towns in the news. But since I was viewing the article on the small screen of my iPhone, one detail escaped my notice: that I am the chick on the left hand side of this shot of Beacon's Main Street! When my husband took a look at the article on a real computer screen this morning, he recognized that it was me. What a hoot! I had just walked out of Salon Arje, where Arif had hooked me up with a new color and a trim. (Thanks Arif!)


There's actually a lot of cool stuff going on in Beacon this weekend. Last night the patio at The Roundhouse at Beacon Falls opened up, and we stopped by after work and grabbed drinks and a little nosh while overlooking the falls.

The Roundhouse by day

My iPhone photo from the patio last night -- it was hopping there!

And if that isn't exciting enough, there's a very cool event happening here tonight as well:

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Electric Projected is a street party that will feature bands, DJs, and animated shorts projected onto the facade of the Electric Windows building on the east end of Beacon's Main Street -- right where the NYT photo at the beginning of this post was taken. Hope to see you there!

Mother's day tea towel from a linen dress

One of the things I love about living here in Beacon, NY is the fact that I can always count on our Main Street shops for something unique and lovely when I need to find a gift for someone dear. 


A couple of weeks ago, my hubby and I were wandering around Main Street looking for some inspiration for a mother's day gift for my mother-in-law, Lisa. As usual, we ended up in our favorite shop, Clay, Wood and Cotton (aka CWAC):

CWAC is an adorable shop with a range of beautiful handmade items. At shop-owner Kristy's suggestion, we decided to give Lisa a "tea-time" themed gift this year, starting with this sweet cup and saucer from Virginia Piazza pottery: 

Next, we stopped by the Alps Sweet Shop...

...because what's tea-time without some truffles?

Final stop was the Beacon Natural Market...

...for the tea. We thought some organic Yogi Tea would be nice.


Then we headed home so I could whip up a nice tea towel to tie everything together. I wanted the towel to coordinate with Lisa's new cup and saucer so I raided my craft stash, looking for something in the green or blue family. I've had a very light blue linen dress from J. Crew in my craft stash for quite awhile. I used to love wearing this dress, but it doesn't fit me right anymore:

I harvested some fabric from the skirt, and stitched Lisa's name on it:

I sewed a band of cotton fabric (which you may recognize from earlier projects, here and here) to the bottom, and here's the result:

Enjoy your cuppa, Lisa!

Owl-themed baby shower!

I haven't blogged a thing in over two months! 

Between a crazy period at work and a computer on the fritz, pulling together crafts and writing about them has taken a back seat for a bit.

But I was working on one big project that I pulled together a few weekends ago: an owl-themed baby shower for dear friends Maureen and Laura. 

It was a lovely day and I'm thrilled to share some of the crafty details here.

It started with the invitation 

(with thanks to my graphic designer hubby, 

who turned my scribbles into something presentable):

I decorated with an orange, yellow 

and green color scheme:

(By the way, these Martha Stewart tissue pom poms 

are super-easy to make!)

These silk flower arrangements were the 

first craft project I pulled together for the big day:

Parties make Sassy a little grumpy. 

Everyone knows I've caught the owl fever that's going around, 

so I was pretty psyched to make these felt owl brooches 

as shower favors for our guests:

We had some special little girl guests at this shower, 

so there were felt owl barrettes for them: 

Guests were invited to note some words of wisdom 

for our expectant moms. 

I think the wisest contribution came 

from one of our little well-wishers: 

"Give the baby chocolate milk each morning."

Words of wisdom were hung on this little tree I fashioned 

from branches from around our yard, a little floral foam, 

some spanish moss and a yellow bucket from A.C. Moore:

We played the baby picture guessing game:

 Here's the growing pile of baby gifts:

 Of course it wouldn't be a baby shower without some yummy cake. 

Our wonderful friend Patti contributed this gorgeous carrot cake:

I didn't get around to snapping my own photos 
of the other things we noshed on, 

but here are the links in case you want 

to sample them for yourselves:

Emeril Lagasse's spinach, mushroom and four-cheese lasagna 

Ina Garten's turkey sausage lasagna 

One pot kale and quinoa pilaf

Martha Stewart's pumpkin chocolate chip bars

Here's our lovely group while presents were opened:

I can hardly wait for June when the guest of honor will arrive!

Snow, snow, snow, snow, SNOW

For most of January, we kept ourselves busy with work, some healthy new year's resolutions, and of course SHOVELING SNOW.


As a result, I haven't had any new stitching to share in far too long. I'm heading out in a few moments for Stitch in Public Day,so hopefully I'll have a new project to show off soon. In the meanwhile, here are a couple shots of the snowy scenes around our neck of the woods:

Snowmageddon has apparently led to a shortage of yummy things for deer to nosh on, so they have been spending quite a bit of time foraging around our place:

Looks like they're in a hurry to an early bird special in this one:

Happy February, all!

Embroidered Wedding Prayer Flag (with pseudo-tutorial)

As I mentioned in a couple of recent posts (here and here), I have been very much looking forward to the October wedding of my best friend. The wedding weekend has finally arrived, and the big day was yesterday, 10/10/10!


The brides invited their guests to decorate squares of fabric that would hang as prayer flags at the site of the wedding ceremony, which was held outdoors in the beautiful Hudson Valley. Here are a few of the flags:

I'll show you the one I made in a moment, but first I have to gush over the flag made by my girlfriend's grandmother (AKA Grams):

A craft-themed prayer flag with an embroidered Care Bear and a wee knitted sweater?! (Pardon me for a moment while my head explodes from its awesomeness.)


Like Grams, I decided my prayer flag should feature embroidery. I was a reader at the wedding, so I decided to stitch the first two lines of the poem I read, which was W.H. Auden's O Tell Me The Truth About Love:




I'm pretty darn enthusiastic about the method I have been using recently to transfer designs onto fabric, so I snapped some photos as I worked so that I could give a bit of a tutorial in this post. 


Here's the fabric before I started working. It's cotton, and vulnerable to fraying so I protected the edges with tape:

Then I drew my design on a bit of Sulky Solvy Water Soluble Stabilizer. (I love this stuff: it's super-easy to stitch through, and when you're done stitching, you just submerge your piece in warm water and it dissolves like magic! It's perfect for transferring a design onto something that's too dark for fabric marker). I taped the Sulky to the fabric so that it would stay in place while I basted it on.

Then I basted the Sulky into place:

Then I stitched! Here's how it looked before dissolving the Sulky:

And here's how it looked afterwards! I did get some fraying on the edges when I ripped off the tape, so I just used my pinking shears to tidy it up. (I am just now noticing that Grams did the same thing!)

Sassy insisted on inspecting the piece before we left for the wedding. Doesn't he look ominous here?

Getting a closer look. 

Happy, happy wedding, M & L! I was also very honored to create a little pouch that held their rings during the ceremony -- you can expect to see photos of that here in the coming days!