Bundle of Lime

In my previous blog post , I shared a picture of my kitchen wall where my oven sits. Today I am posting some updated pictures that include the new cabinet boxes I created to fit in this space. I have always been pretty crafty and not afraid to learn new techniques with new materials. And while I have done a moderate share of woodworking, I have never done cabinetry...until now.  My dilemma was that I am keeping and refacing the original kitchen cabinets. They have their own unique depth, height, drawer size, etc, that can't be found in prefabricated cabinet boxes. This particular area of my kitchen is also only 16" deep which is pretty shallow for your average cabinet. In exploring my options, I knew that I couldn't buy stock cabinets, and even though I could get the correct width and depth via online stores that made semi-custom cabinet boxes, the final product would not have matched the other dimensions of the existing cabinetry. It seemed that I had two choices.....

Two (or was it three?) years ago, I started on a kitchen renovation journey that has yet to see its end. Since the beginning when I removed the cabinet doors and began stripping decades of paint from the cabinet boxes, I have had a lot of stops and starts, toyed with different design approaches, and occasionally looked into hiring someone else to do the work. Slowly but surely, I landed on an master plan and my efforts are starting to come together. And since I haven't posted in ages, I thought I would do a quick in-progress update. To preface this, my kitchen is the size of the average bathroom. It's a galley-style that is small enough to be annoying if you get more than one person in it at a time (and doubly annoying if you get two people and a dog in it simultaneously). My house was built in 1940 and while it doesn't qualify as a tiny home, it's pretty darn close in my opinion. And this isn't a complaint because I actually love my house, small spaces and all....

One of my favorite art teachers used to say that we learn more from our failures than from our successes. (He also used to say that just because you didn't agonize over it doesn't mean it's not good art...which is my favorite take-away from his class.) This most recent silk dying attempt was successful in that I learned what doesn't quite work. However, it looks nothing like what I set out to create. I previously read through Art Cloth by Jane Dunnewold and decided to try two particular resist techniques that she discusses in Chapter 6 of her book, the first being with water-soluble glue (like Elmer's Blue School Glue) and the second being with flour paste. I started with the glue resist. Prep included laying down a sheet of wax paper to protect my work surface. I used my ironing board for this so that I could also pin down my fabric. Here's a closer picture. I originally dyed this fabric using an acid dye bath; you can find more about the pr...

I once had a conversation with my cousin about clutter and how we both tend to over-donate to Goodwill in an attempt to not end up buried alive beneath our own piles of stuff. Apparently we were subconsciously rebelling against out mothers (who are sisters) by making sure that we didn't accumulate so much stuff that it overwhelmed our respective homes. (As a disclaimer, I don't know about my aunt but my own mother has gotten this much more under control in the last few years.) I think that clutter is something that haunts and perplexes many of us on some level. For the past decade, I have lived in a very small house. It's not so small as to be considered a tiny house but many of my friends have larger apartments than my house. I joke with people that my bathroom is the size of a small walk-in closet and that my kitchen is the size of the average bathroom. However, I enjoy the small carbon footprint and the fact that my utility bills are minimal. Last summer,...

The bf and I invested in a pass to the  Henry Doorly Zoo this year through his work. This is something that he does every year but this year, we went in on it as a team so that we could visit the zoo together. He has spent enough time there that he knows the place like the back of his hand. Me, however...I think I can count the times that I have been there on one hand. It's time to change that. In the past, I always seem to have gravitated towards one location -  the Scott Aquarium . First, the penguins are there and I have always adored penguins. Second, I love the jellyfish and the leafy seadragons, just to name a few. At some point I plan to experiment with some silk dying using this image, which I took during a previous visit, as my inspiration. But I digress. On the day we chose to go most recently, the weather couldn't have been any better. In fact, quite a few others agreed with us including countless busloads of school children. The place was definitely h...

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love the Star Wars saga. One of my first memories as a child is of going to see A New Hope in the movie theater. I even have a little nook in my living room which once upon a time served as a telephone area, but as the wires are no longer functioning and I got rid of my landline long ago, it now serves as...for lack of a better term, a little alter where I keep Buddha and Yoda together. Somehow the whole philosophy behind Star Wars resonates with me. I don't expect to move objects with my Jedi powers or use mind-tricks on the weak-minded, of course, but I can certainly relate to the idea of the Force. I have created a personal tradition of watching all 6 movies (yes, all 6) in numerical order at least once a year. That is, until I was introduced to an alternative viewing concept, and I decided to give it a try. This full post on "machete order" prompted me to want to give this a try. Instead of watching the movies in chr...

If you don't know what a soft cloth funnel is, I present to you this clip from The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra . If you like quirky movies, this one should definitely be on your list of movies to watch. It's an homage to every sci-fi creature-feature B movie ever made and it's done brilliantly. It's a must-see and one of my favorites. But I digress from my main topic... Yesterday I made a skirt out of some Italian Wine and Ivory wool tweed that I ordered back in February from Mood Fabrics . Purchases from Mood are always a guilty pleasure of mine, and I try to restrict myself to items that go on sale but I have never been disappointed with the quality when my fabric arrives. I bought this wool tweed specifically for the skirt in Vogue V8718 , which is now out of print. This skirt requires 1 yard of fabric and 1 yard only. It's basic and classic, which I felt was perfect for this particular tweed.   I've been working on my skills at fitting whenever I se...