Thrift shop find makes nice summer dress

This lovely blue dress I got for a few dollars in the local Goodwill Thrift shop last year.  And, inspired by the Refashionista , I fidgeted with it on the sewing machine and this is how it ended up!  Unfortunately, I forgot to take a photo of what it originally looked like!          But it had blousy elbow-length sleeves, hung down to around my ankles and was way too wide or basically hideously hanging on me.   It was probably a Medium size and needed a slash down from me.  But I loved the almost periwinkle blue color and its pattern, the V-neck, the shiny shell like buttons and how light and summery the fabric felt.  So I chopped the sleeves and made them into little cap sleeves, took in the side seams about an inch each and hacked about 6 inches off the hem.  That piece I turned into a belt that you can see tied around the waist.  I think it came out all right!   It's easy to wear in the summer heat and washes and dries quickly as the fabric is some sort of light weave. 

Cherubs and Chariots Seeking New Homes

  
Lately I've become a little intrigued about the level of detail on the Wedgwood dish collectibles I have put up for sale on Ebay.  All these little dishes and plates and trinket boxes have little scenes on them.  For instance little cherubs dancing, or cherubs dashing about in a chariot drawn by a lion, or an angel type figure who is riding a horse.

 In some cases it is really hard to figure out what these figures are really up to. Handing flowers to each other?  There's other detail too like borders of ivy type leaves and daisies and trees.  So much detail goes into these!  I once watched someone make a Wedgwood piece and after the firing of the basic shape they then press on the little decal type images and which also seem to be made of some kind of clay. The little white colored scenes placed on top of the blue jasperware china clay is quite remarkable and distinctive and is probably what makes these pieces stand out from all the other collectibles out there. Most of them seem to have a classical reference, such as to Greek or Roman mythology.  Hoping there are many appreciators of this stuff in Ebay land who will buy these from me.  I'm really not a collector of them and have no place to display them, so all the pieces are looking for new homes.

Gingham scraps become lunch bag

Someone saw my blue gingham lunch bag and asked me to make them one so I scrounged around in the fabric stash and found the last of the pink gingham and blue gingham fabric leftovers and made this cute little lunch tote bag. It is lined with the pink gingham and has a little pocket on the outside for a teabag or pack of nuts or something.  The hardest part of this little fabrication was making sure the zipper in the top was set right as I inserted the fabric handles between the zipper and bag wall.  Anyway, this is the only photo I have of this item and I'm quite proud of continuing to bust through my stash of cloth and make useful items for me and others.

Pillow from scrap fabric

When no longer needed, I think baby blankets make useful fabric pieces to make into other things and this fuzzy blue giraffe blanket just begged to be made into a soft pillow.  First, I embellished one side with some left over brown satin ribbon from the stash pile of fabric and findings that accumulates each time I do a clear-out of a closet or drawer.  I used brown ribbon as this blue pillow was to be paired with another pillow, also brown.  Putting right sides together, I then stitched three and a half sides, leaving half a side open for later insertion of the pillow stuffing.  After turning to right side out, I squeezed in the pillow stuffing (acquired on sale at in Walmart), then hand-stitched the opening and lo and behold, had another cute pillow for my son's bed. This project took hardly any time at all as I did the laundry at the same time, making for a very productive Monday morning.

Couch Blanket Made From Airplane Blanket And Prom Dress Lace

Actually I made this couch blanket over ten years ago but am posting about it now as it helps me realize I've been into re-use and recycling for a long time. The story about this creation is that, by mistake, or should I say inadvertently, I brought home one of those airplane blankets -- I think this might have been from Delta airlines. It sat around a while and then I knew I just had to do something with the blue and pink lace yardage that I'd taken off some old 1960s prom dresses (yup, I'd kept those a long time and salvaged the lace and satin bits). So I cut these lace pieces into the shapes of various letters from the runic alphabet as they are interesting shapes with interesting meanings and something I once studied. I stitched them on directly onto the outer blanket surface, turning the edges of the rune letters as I went along. Not being perfection oriented, I just scattered the rune letter shapes in a rough design around the edge of the blanket. Then going back to the fabric scrap pile, I found an old worn sheet and taking the best bits of that and stitching them together, I created the lining or backing for this couch blanket, just overstitching it on and using some more leftover strips of the lace as a binding around the edge. Over time, this has gotten washed and so the navy  blue has gotten a bit purple in places and the pink and blue laces pieces have faded out somewhat, but I've always received quite a few compliments from visitors when they see it tossed on the back of a living room chair. And, of course, it's a comfy thing to have in the winter when there are a few draughts about.

Ever Changing Wreath on Front Door

I'm really into re-use, reduce and recycle so for my front door wreath I used an old twisted twig wreath form that I got years ago in a Michaels Arts and Crafts store and that I update seasonally.  This summer I used red and yellow fake flowers that I found thrown out in someone's trash in the alley (thank you very much!). First I cleaned them up a bit, cut off the extra plastic twiggy bits and then stuck them into the wreath.  The plaid green and blue ribbon I also found in the trash, someone had tossed the unfinished roll out, and you can be sure I spied it and commandeered it for re-use. The ivy leafy vine wrapped around the wreath I got years ago also, probably at The Dollar Store,  great source of cheap arty crafty bits and bobs. I'm quite glad how this colorful wreath brightens up my front door for these late summer days.  Soon, of course, I'll be changing out the flowers for the autumn, that is, once I gather some orangey yellow bits and pieces together.....

And The May Garden Is So Different

Candy Geraniums

Yellow Irises

It's almost a month later from my last blog about all the flowers in my garden and now everything has changed. Gone are the tulips and daffodils and it's all irises and budding roses and geraniums and peonies.
It's a lot of pink and yellow and even blue and very exciting to see everything coming out blooming again.

King Peonies

Pixie Queen Irises

Miniature Blue Iris

I've been growing these flowers for years now and it's always a lovely surprise when the leaves shoot up and the buds form and then -- usually after a few days of sun and heat -- the flowers start to unfurl.  Each year the flowers are different, either a bulb has doubled and there are more flowers or somehow the plant is making bigger flowers, or in the case of the Queen Elizabeth rose bush, smaller flowers seem to be appearing, but a lot more than usual.  I've spied about 20 buds there! And for some other reason the miniature blue irises doubled and are a huge mass this year.  Just so delightful!

Queen Elizabeth Roses Budding

Pink at night, Bloomingdale delight.

Really, the sky over Bloomingdale DC was this color the other night and was quite spectacular so of course I had to snap away and record it. And no, I didn't fidget with the photo software and make it pinker and bluer and prettier!  There's something very intriguing about our peaked roofs; when my mother-in-law came to stay once we were sitting on the back deck and saw a similar view as in this photo, of all the peaked roofs lined up pointing away, and she said it reminded her of ships moored at a harbor.  So here we are, moored in Bloomingdale DC in our lovely Victorian houses, and enjoying the pink at night, sailors' delight! 

Blue Sky and Daily Bread

Gutted Wonder Bread building

Wild clematis icing the rose of sharon

When I saw the sky through the open roof of the old Wonder Bread building at 641 S Street NW, I just knew I had to snap it as after the building is developed there will be no chance to do that again! It's a big building -- about 98,000 square feet -- that will become stores and offices. I actually looked up the history recently, to find out that the Wonder Bread Factory opened in the early 1900s as Dorsh's White Cross Bakery. Then it was bought by Continental Baking Company in 1936 and used  as a factory for Wonder Bread and Hostess products (Twinkies perhaps!) until they relocated to a larger plant in Philadelphia, closing the DC factory in 1988. When I first moved to BloomingdaleDC I do recall smelling the baking aroma as far away as North Capitol street sometimes and hearing that they gave away "stale" or "overrun" baked goods to anyone who got there at the right time.  Then again, the sky has looked wonderful lately almost every day so I found myself snapping my usual flowers and plants and things, all with the sky in them.   How wonderful is our daily bread of blue sky!

Wonder Bread is Morphing

Just like no one really is supposed to eat that lovely puffy perfect-for-french toast white Wonder bread anymore as our collective taste in bread is moving to whole wheat "healthy" loaves, the building where they used to make it is changing right before our eyes. When I first moved into our neighborhood, you could smell the bread baking from several blocks away.  A delicious sweet aroma that always made me think of buttered toast with jam or some other sandwich deliciousness.  And, I'm not sure if it was every day, but they would give away the 'stale' bread and rolls periodically and you might see a line of people queuing up for these. The building has stood empty for years but now it's being gutted and transformed into something else. I  haven't taken the time to see what the development board nearby says but I'm speculating it will be condos or fancy offices or something. I'm glad they are keeping the brickwork and framework and I'm really wondering ( ha ha, did you get that?) what they will do with the red and blue lettering left behind.

Carter Woodson Corner, RI Ave NW and 9th

On the SE corner of Rhode Island Avenue NW and 9th Street stands this decaying building that you just know is going to get bull-dozed out of history one day. I think they are trying to sell it as it's been painted over sort of to make it look more like one building.  It used to be a lot more interesting looking as it had writings and Egyptianesque paintings in bright blue and green painted on its walls.  At one point a lot of people lived in the building and it was clearly a religious sect of some sort, with women in full habibs going in and out. But these days you just look at it and say to yourself "that's going to get bull dozed over" one day and a nice new block of brick front condos is going to get thrown up there that won't look a bit like this old building.  I wish I had taken a photo of the mural that used to be on the side of the building that had a quote in French that said "bienvenue a Shaw, slum historique" alongside some renderings of Carter Woodson, an African American historic figure.He's the guy known as the Father of Black History, if you didn't already know that!  One of his most famous quotes used to be painted on the side of the building too: "We should emphasize not Negro history but the Negro in history..."   (see other view of this quote here). But this month is when I finally got to photographing this building and it's the best I could do to capture some local history.Nearby, at 1538 Ninth St NW, is the Carter Woodson home, where there will be the 135th Birthday Anniversary Celebration on December 18, 2011. There is little doubt that history is all around us all the time. And thanks to others for preserving the colorful quotes and images that were on the building previously!

Related articles 

• How many honors did Carter G Woodson earn (wiki.answers.com)

Serious Crash on Route 7 East, Virginia

When I drove home from Leesburg, Virginia today about 5 pm traffic was tied up for about 45 minutes. I suspected an accident but hoped it was just back-up from all the construction going on around Tyson's Corner or maybe just heavier-than-usual Christmas shopping. But about 25 minutes into the 10 mile-an-hour crawl, I saw flashing blue lights and orange blinking lights up ahead and knew that some accident had occurred. By the time I got to the site of the accident they were cleaning it up. The car that had been impacted the most -- that is destroyed-- had been hoisted onto a tow truck. I think there had been ambulances and maybe a fire-truck or two. Apparently a lot of gasoline or oil had been spilled so there was a small crew pouring sand or gravel onto the liquid and then shoveling it up. I couldn't look too long but I was astounded and shocked by what little I was able to see as I drove past (and snapped this photo quickly!). Of course, right after, the road was totally clear and I was able to speed home, at normal speed, you can be sure.  What can the sight of the remains of an accident do for us but remind us at the very least to drive more carefully, more respectfully of each other and to pay closer attention.

Light at Cannon

We paused in the corridor of the Cannon House Office Building the other day after a visit to Majority Leader Steny Hoyer's office, and I happened to glance up and see this amazingly ornate lamp hanging from an amazingly ornate decorated ceiling. Since the two people I was with were blind, when I told them what I saw, they asked me to describe it and agreed with me how unique and unusual this was. In fact, the whole corridor ceiling was covered in decorative plaster work painted in white, french blue and embellished with ribbons of gold foil in some places.  The lamp itself was frosted glass held in a basket of lacy brass that included arrowhead designs and some other shapes that I could barely discern from the floor below. The floor below was nothing to sneeze at neither, of shiny black and white marble squares, gleaming gently due to the muted lamp light. On reflection I wondered who designed this lamp and ceiling and by what inspiration? And, who keeps this in good repair, who gets to change the light bulbs on such wondrous work that we own, how many notice this incredible wealth of the nation?

Those Mighty Megabuses

As the light turned green, two of these big blue and yellow behemoth megabuses went whizzing through the 7th and H street intersection in Chinatown when I was there tonight. Where were they off to at 11 pm at night I wondered or had they done their runs for the day and were going to whatever warehouse they are kept in at night? I've never ridden on one but the more I see of them, the more I get the urge just to hop on a bus, Gus, see New York city again, Jane, or maybe never come back, Jack. Something about how easy these buses seem to make it appeals to me. They stop right in the middle of Chinatown, you see the long line of YOUNG PEOPLE with backpacks waiting on the sidewalk climbing in and off they go, hardly stopping anywhere along the way, so I hear. Not like Greyhound or Trailways where you have to go to their station and put up with whatever route they go. But that's a bit like how life is, isn't it? Some buses just pass you by since the big conductor in the sky just didn't want you on that one today for some mysterious reason.

Watching the Gardening Flower

On Sunday mornings I usually have an hour or so to relax since we usually go to Church at 5 p.m. and this morning was no different. I sipped my coffee and watched my garden grow from the front porch and it was just a delight. The new rose bush has the brightest crimson flowers, the pink crepe myrtle is about to peak with its frothy fronds, the roses of Sharon are blazing away, the little red gold marigolds are starting up and even a few day lilies are still hanging about. An interesting smoky dark blue bird, slightly larger than a sparrow, hopped along the neighbor's fence with something wriggly in his beak, catching my eye due to his (her?) lovely color. There was an amazing breeze that swept into the tree across the street making the leaves rustle and rattle and making me think of rivers and trees. Feeling energized, I watered every plant that called out to me, "Me thirsty!" and then transplanted a few seedlings into bigger spaces so they could grow better, taking care to make sure I didn't rip my back out again. But it was glorious and sunny and stayed that way all day even when I went inside and cooked Sunday dinner.