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The pollen levels in town today are 10 on a scale from 0-12, so I am unfortunately a booger factory today :(
Despite my seasonal sniffles, I popped on a cheery summer dress, made seasonal with a wool cardigan and boots.
Cardigan: Forecast, made by me.
Dress: 4th of July Dress, made by me
Belt: Off a shirt I got at Sears. No longer have the shirt.
Wool Tights: WarmLegWear.com
Boots: Naturalizers
What a wonderfully busy weekend! Between Mr. Cleaver and the country - we spent our whole weekend in celebration. Not that I'm complaining :)
After a leisurely morning on the 3rd, involving the farmer's market and the bakery and a new fishing pole for Mr. Cleaver, we lazed away the afternoon ( I finished my dress) and headed out to eat around 4. We grabbed a meal and some bird watching at The Good Table (our favorite) and then drove down Highway 77 to Prout's Neck for a trek around the Cliff Walk.
The cliff walk is one of those hidden gems that I'm sure everyone knows about, but I didn't until about two weeks ago and Mr. Cleaver didn't know about it until I took him there this weekend, so maybe it is secret. In any case, to take the cliff walk find the house above, right next to the Black Point Inn, and find the small stone path that cuts across the grass. This will take you out to the Cliff Walk.
The Cliff Walk is stunning. There are rocky crags, pink sand beaches, and a beach entirely of smooth round rocks that rattle when the waves recede.
The walk takes between 45 minutes to an hour. Afterward we stopped at the Black Point Inn for cocktails. The bar was busy so they sent us down to the Adirondack chairs on the front lawn (too bad, right? :) ), where we sat and sipped and watched the sun set.
Mr. Cleaver declared the birthday a success. On the way back to town we stopped by the side of the road to snap a few more shots of the sunset.
For the Fourth, I spent the morning baking a belated birthday cake for the Mister, which we had delayed because we knew it would take a while to make this much cake! Though it did mean I had our tiny oven running for a few hours on the hottest day of year thus far!
After all the baking I finally got to put on my new dress!
[Dress: Vogue 8184; Modifications: made band from contrasting color, skipped boning, added in-seam pockets, added horsehair band to hem]
All snazzed up, we headed our to my Mother-In-Law's for a cookout with the family. Mr. Cleaver's older brother offered some hints and tackle for the new pole.
Once we were stuffed to the gills, Mr. Cleaver and I joined half of Portland for the Portland Symphony Orchestra pops concert/fireworks show. The addition of PSO to the festivities was a great touch!
I hope every one else had an enjoyable weekend too!
On Saturday, Mr. Cleaver and I made the drive up to Boothay to visit the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. This was our second visit to the gardens, the first being in the dead of Winter back in 2009. THe cold tuend us out of the garden that February, but we vowed to return when the place was in bloom and it was well worth the return trip:
The blueberries were close to ripe and since you were encouraged to pick the ripes ones - we managed to fine one or two
My Dad always called Lamb's Ears "Cowboy Toilet Paper"
Maybe the most beautiful shade of blue I've ever seen:
Is it weird to take a picture of yourself with a sign with your fake last name?
Some red, white, and blue....
Which reminds to post a sneak peak of my 4th of July dress!
String I:
I finished this dish towel at the beginning of the month, but for one reason or another it's sat in my photos for about three weeks. It's not as though I have a backlog of a bazillion projects to post, but as cute as this piece of embroidery is (it's an ironing scotty dog!), I didn't think it warranted a whole post to itself, so I'm lumping it together with a few other bits and pieces.
The Scotty Dog Pattern is from the Hoop Love Vintage Transfers Group on Flickr, which has a treasure trove of patterns you can print out an stitch. They have an especially large collection of mostly complete days of the week patterns like the Scotty above. I'm alos planning on doing Wednesday (mending) and Friday (baking).
I worked on this mainly while my bum wrist kept me from knitting and in the after period when I struggled to get my knitting mojo back (which happily it has, thanks to Kate Davie's Manu and some Malabrigo Silky Merino). I haven't yet done the pattern transfer for the second towel, but if our current levels of humidity hang around for much longer I will, since they're only so much wool I can handle in humidity :)
Strawberries:
On Saturday, Mr. Cleaver and I picked four pints of strawberries at Maxwell's, two of which went to his mother and the other two which ended up on my cereal and this strawberry shortcake I made last night.
The recipe is from Posie Gets Cozy and the only changed I made/would recommend is to make 6 or 8 dough "blobs" instead of the listed 4. mine were doughy in the middle until I cut them in half and baked them some more, and the smaller biscuits (it's a very biscuity shortbread) were about all I could handle to eat at once.
String II:
I have plans for a fantastic Fourth of July dress from Vogue 8184. It's a fairly simple dress (especially since I'm skipping the boning- since my version has straps), so I 'm taking the time to do my first go at tissue fitting, especially since I fell in between two of the multi-size envelopes. I'm somewhat obsessed with fit these days - what with the pattern drafting I've been dabbling in and all (and I'm close with another sundress I drafted). Since the Fourth is only ten days away, we'll hopefully have results soon!
Day 35.
Day 29-31.
Day 32-34.
Whenever I do a fast like this, there comes a time, without fail, that it becomes habit. As in, I don't miss wearing jeans anymore. Now when I pick out my clothes in the morning it isn't "what do I want to wear instead of jeans," it's "do I want to wear khakis or slacks today?"
Good thing too, since I realized today that Lent is 40 days until Palm Sunday + another seven days after that.
In other news, my life has gotten less crazy enough between an opening and rehearsal and dealing with way too many emails about ticketing that I was able to pull out the full seven photos this week (though don't look at Day 30 too closely - I was wicked tired and it shows). As and added bonus, I actually have some non-Lent posts lined up for later in the week - yay!
In other other news, I need a hair cut. My hair flip is getting outta control.
In other other other news, it's supposed to be 50 degrees tomorrow, glory hallelujah!
