Green and Blue

Mom and Dad visited me this past Memorial Day weekend! Highlights included going to the Farmer's Market, eating pizza at Christian's (the best pizza ever, can I get an amen?), meandering around the Downtown Mall, drinking smoothies and just plain beebopping around town together.

Here they are wandering around the Farmer's Market, Dad got some sheep's milk cheese while we were there.

One of my favorite new spots to meander through during my lunch break at work is an upholstery/decorating store called The Second Yard. I don't upholster anything (but I do sew!), but they have the most beautiful fabrics you've ever seen. And what I love about the store is that you can literally get lost in there (there are over 15 rooms!), and they organize their fabrics in rooms by color. I love color. And even more, I love the concept of organizing by color.

As a side note, I'm still up in the air on the new trend where loads of people are organizing books on shelves by color rather than author. It's aesthetically pleasing, I guess, but my thinking is that what if I want to read The Sun Also Rises or In Our Time? Instead of going to the Hemingway section of my shelf, I'd have to memorize that the spine of The Sun Also Rises is carnelian and that the spine of In Our Time is white. My point is this: while someone may be creating an aesthetic corner, what I see happening is the creation of even more chaos in the vortex of memorization. Not that I don't believe in memorization, hey, that's what they teach in high school, but don't we have enough email addresses, friends, passwords, account numbers, to do lists and logins to remember in the first place? Needless to say, the organizing-books-by-the-color-of-the-spine method is not for me. Watch me say that now and then think it's a wonderfully innovative idea in a couple of months... Back to color and my love of it. My favorite colors are green and blue, hands down. I think most people know that about me. I really do love all colors, though, and I usually go through phases where I delve into particulars here and there, but I always always always revert to those two. And the Green room at The Second Yard is my favorite, it just makes me smile when I walk into it.

Mom in the Green Room.

More green room! It is soooo luscious.

Like I said, I don't do any upholstery work myself, but I'm going to make some tote bags and things with some fabbies (aka fabrics) that I found on SALE at The Second Yard. Upholstery fabric is great to use for bags because it gives them a little more heft than 100% cotton fabrics. I bought 2 yards of 100% cotton dusty pink fabric with a maroon, green and blue-aqua floral print on it for $4/yard; I thought that was pretty cheap for a bolt of fabric measuring between 54-60 inches in width. Anyways, the plan is to make some 1940s-inspired pj pants with it and rev them up with some handmade aqua ruffles to trim the bottom of the legs. We'll see how that goes; I might look like a walking, talking "get your whole body upholstered" advertisement, but hey, I'm not opposed to starting a trend... Also, remember back in April when I planted herbs? Well, my little "garden" has turned into a big disaster. Literally. The spearmint never sprouted, and some creature has eaten the oregano, cilantro, parsley and thyme; I say some creature because someone's been digging their little paws into the cilantro pot. I should've posted a sign that read "Free Salad!" By the time somebody told me I could sprinkle cayenne pepper around the plants to keep critters away from the plants, there was only one sprig of parsley popping out of the soil. The ironic part about the whole endeavor is that H. planted sage in one of the pots and that's the one I was most apathetic about; well, I'm here to tell you that it's thriving. Apparently not even animals like sage. Hmph.