Berlin's Whimsy

Midsummer is... Cool Pickling

A fine addition to barbeque and spicy foods...

Pickled cucumbers in a new Pyrex find!

Winner and sharing an idea.

Bare with me, this is a long post!

Gosh, peanut butter must be one of the most versatile foods out there! What a lot of interesting food combinations you all shared. Thank you so much for sharing and providing some fun reading over the weekend. Some of your comments provided more food combination ideas and others, well, I'll leave them for you to enjoy...! I was also pleased to hear from so many of you----hi!

I used the trusty Random Numerator to come up with comment number 24: Jessica. Jessica shared her husband's love of peanut butter and onion... Hmmm, that's another one I must leave to his own enjoyment! Nevertheless, congratulations, Jessica!

***And here's a bit of sharing. The prizes in this drawing are a little part of a larger project I'm only now embarking upon. Perhaps it will be a book, perhaps a mail-order series... I'm not sure yet and I'm truly thinking out loud here.

Even so, I feel that all of the ideas that have been flittering about in my head these past few months have come a little closer together with an embrace of recreating the vintage family kitchen in crafts & cooking.

The project includes: favorite family-friendly recipes; baking hints, resources, and ideas; my own vintage-inspired embroidery designs with linen projects; an apron design I'm working on; knitted projects for the kitchen; pyrex & vintage kitchenware collections with recipes for your treasures... and hopefully much more! Though I don't know where this project will take me, I hope to share these ideas with you in one form or another.

And can I ask, what do you think? Are you interested in seeing a project like this? I'd love to hear from you either via a comment or email: berlinsmith AT yahoo DOT com.

Doilies.

Found at the thriftstore today----enough doilies to create a "pond" full of doily lily pads.

Doilies... Created by the hands of others, they are one of my favorite thriftstore treasures. Is it the memories? Visions of my Great Aunt's doilies gracing the back of her couch or cradling flower pots throughout her farmhouse... Or is it my appreciation of the patience I lack to create doilies--- all those intricate stitches, so intimidating.

I collected them even before Amanda made them so beautifully famous but she graciously opened the door for the doily's graduation from Grandma's parlor to bags, quilts, and so much more...

Trying to be Cheery.

I'm still sick. It's been a whole week of YUCK. I'm sick of being sick!

Rather than whining about my soon-to-explode head, I'll share another project. 

I bought 15 vintage feedsack Dresden Plate blocks off of ebay over a year ago. I pull them out every now and then and imagine their future quilty loveliness but I never gathered the strength to actually begin the process of appliqueing them onto a background fabric. Part of my hesitance was knowing that the eventual quilt should be handquilted-----it only makes sense with those beautiful vintage fabrics.

I love this one...

My handquilting courage is adequately mustered and I'm only now beginning the appliqueing portion. It's a l-o-n-g work in progress. Lucky for me, I feel happy whenever I look at these cheery blocks---- the Dresden Plate is one of my all-time favorite quilt blocks.

Goodness.

The mailbox has been full of so much fun mail lately. I won Lina's drawing a while back and found this wonderful bag in my mail yesterday!

Ellen of Hurrayic sent each one of these fun Cat Bags to each of the people who commented on her site when she was holding a drawing! Yay! This little bag is as cute as can be...

My kids were practically jumping out of their skins when they found more Japanese treats in the mail from Kirsten! We're in Pocky Heaven... And newly addicted to some Japanese treats that are similar to a cookie-like goldfish cracker with chocolate (and other) fillings inside. YUM.

Each one of you brightened my day---thank you!

I am working on a few more of those generously sized bags like the ones I added to the shop last weekend. I expect to add them this weekend, or the early part of next week. Stay tuned ;-).

And speaking of the shop...

I recently found a treasure trove of vintage clothes that my Grandmother had bought and stored away.

Many of the items needed a bit of TLC. They are all unique and truly vintage!

We are keeping some of them and the others I'm adding to my shop, as well. Many of these clothes were either handmade or have long since lost their tags so I'm estimating sizes on the listings. I can take more precise measurements if anyone is interested...

Shop update and new ideas.

I'm embarking on a new bit of whimy this week. A bit of textile manipulation and a renewed interest in fiber arts and quilting. The piece above is an example of this. I don't know what the end result of this new motivation will be but I like the little pieces that have resulted.

Incidentally, I stitched the above piece onto one of two bags that went into my shop today. This one is a piece of tea-dyed linen. It has little pleats and handstitching. What joy it was to make.

The other bag also features a favorite of mine. It's the market girl embroidery on linen out of one of my Japanese Craft books. I've always loved this design. 

Both bags are very generously sized (14x9x6-inches) and will hold a large project (sweater knitting, quilting, embroidery)...

Of course, they could be used to carry all your books back to the library or all your stuff with you for your day. They have pockets in the inside and on the end for a water bottle or cell phone. (The Market Girl Bag has one of my favorite Superbuzzy prints inside, too)!

I must admit that I'm having difficulty parting with them!!! ;-)