I just realized I haven't mentioned it yet, but I'm back in Atlanta now, and I'm so excited I can't sleep and woke up and the crack of dawn.
YAY!! We're having a family vacation
again this year in
Edisto Beach in South Carolina, but first I'll be in Atlanta with my mom and sister and nephews and friends for 2 whole weeks, and then we'll go to the beach. It wouldn't be a vacation without a few fun craft projects, so I brought some patterns with me to sew some things with my mom and sister. Two of the things I want to make are
Alicia's patchwork pillow and her
Jane market bag. Before I left, I made a mess of my fabric stash to pick out fabrics for the pillows. Shown here are a bunch of 4 x 4 inch patches I cut for two different pillows. This first brown, green, and blue fabrics are for my sister's pillow. I think she'll like what I chose for her. The colors in her house are neutral--lots of linen and pale greenish-gray walls. I think the color is actually called putty. Below, up close, is a picture of one of my top favorite fabrics,
ever. I look at it all the time and love it so much. I brought more of it for the Jane market bag. My mom found that fabric and gave some to me a few years ago.
And here are some squares cut for a yellow, red, and blue patch pillow. I want to make it for
Lois' room, even though I don't think her room needs any more pillows. Can you have too many pillows, though?
I can't wait to make these. I hope they turn out! I will be sure to let you know and post a picture when we're done. I'm
sooooo excited to be here. Last night, after I got to my mom's, a big storm came in. It was pouring sheets and sheets of rain, and along with it was thunder and lightening! I went out on the front porch and called Andrew so he could hear it (he's not coming until next week). A
thunder storm might not be exciting for people who experience them often, but in San Francisco we don't get
thunder storms, and I miss them so much. San Francisco really only gets rain in the winter and spring. The first summer we lived there, after moving there in May, it rained once in July (the first rain since before we moved there), and it was the top story on the news. At the time I thought it was the strangest thing in the world that rain in summer could be the top news story, but having lived there 3 years now, I understand. It just doesn't rain in summer there. In the southeast, though, if it doesn't rain for for more than 2 weeks, everything and everyone is parched and scorching and just waiting for the next storm. Well, it was a great one last night. All the flowers are perky and happy--like me!
Oh, and I wanted to mention that I took off my
blogroll because it was getting a little out of control. I've added a lot of blogs to my reader, which you can see under my profile in the blogs I'm following section. I have more to add, but it's a start.
We spent the last few days at my sister's house and had a great time. With four kids under 4 and three dogs running around, I'm not sure how I managed to even get a few minutes to take these pictures. I've wanted to take pictures at her house for a while now, so I'm happy I actually did it. Most of these are close-ups but that's not because her house is messy. You'd think with three little boys that it might be messy, but it never is (she says it is, but I know it's not). She's the neatest, cleanest, most organized person I've ever met. Everything has a place, and everything is in its place 99% of the time. She's a make-up artist, but she could easily be a personal organizer for a living. She's the sister you want to have when you have to move so you won't get distracted for hours on end while doing things like trying to pack just one box of old pictures. When it comes to doing things like packing a house (and so many other things), she's focused, fast, and efficient.
Her decorating style is just as straightforward. It's clean, neutral, simple, and pretty. I imagine her house looking perfect between the pages of an issue of Martha Stewart Living. Can't you picture it there? It's also personalized with family pictures, handmade things like her jeweled tree above (remember when we made those?), pillows we made, artwork in the kids' room that my grandma painted (she has a tradition of painting on Christmas presents), and of course thrifty scores abound like the shell chandelier she found for $2. Here's a peek into my sister's house.
