thursday thoughts and a bit of creativity

first, thank you to everyone for your sweet comments about husband. he really is that cool. and maybe it was a little bit bragging to write about him, but i don't write about him that often, so he is a bit of a well-kept secret. of course he has faults, but they are pretty minor...he can misplace keys like no one else i know (except maybe this girl), he puts away dishes as if he doesn't live here and then when he's not around i can't find anything, and he has an uncanny knack for losing (and getting back) his wallet. and yes, he is pretty cute.

oh, but there is one more fault, i really wish he'd do something about his teeth...

*graininess of picture due to not having changed very high ISO setting from nighttime photography the evening before...and thanks for the teeth, TFM. :-) they were a big hit.

* * *

just wanted to share a bit of the stitching that sabin and i have been working on. i love so much that if i'm doing something, she wants to do it too. while i've been stitching on my circles, she's been embroidering free-form flowers in rainbow colors on squares of linen (you can also see, thanks to new giant-sized pictures, that she got a bit of chocolate on this one):

she's also embroidering bits of fabric to white linen. we've decided we'll incorporate all of her embroidery into a little lap quilt for her to use this winter when she's watching t.v. like her mother, she's a sucker for a nice blankie:

it's relaxing to sit and stitch while watching our nightly episode of a touch of frost on TV2 Charlie, the old people channel. i'm still working on my liberty circles, watching them unfold and waiting to see what they become, a process which i feel uncharacteristically patient about...

i got my bits of liberty fabric in this etsy shop, all cut into little squares already for quilting, i just trimmed them into circles. i haven't seen liberty fabrics here in denmark. i was inspired to search for liberty fabrics by the fabulous and übercreative margie of resurrection fern. (aside: über seems to be my word of the week, eh?)

but last night, i began on another little pair of capris for sabin. she loved the embroidery that we did by necessity on the blue ones after she ripped them, so we're doing some embroidered patches on these as well:

i love the design of this heather ross mendocino fabric (we've got it in blues too--no surprise there, tho' i do wish her fabric company would use higher quality cotton, it's a bit thin for my taste, but the design makes it worth it anyway). i ordered it from this etsy shop--fabric worm. they ship super quickly and it's at my doorstep in no time. i have to order it online since i've not seen these fabrics here in denmark.

we're going to a birthday this evening and it's about an hour's drive away, so i've packed my stitching supplies into my sweet little tiny happy zip bag that the wonderful kristina gave to me at blog camp.

i haven't even had the heart to take the tiny happy tag and kristina's MOO card off of it. it seems so fitting to use melissa's bag for my stitching supplies, as she is an embroiderer extraordinaire. i hope a little of her embroidery karma rubs off on my work.

* * *

i have to share the cake (#60 in the evidence of creativity) i made yesterday for our neighbor's birthday. our neighbors are a lovely retired couple who are like grandparents to sabin. they love having sabin hang out there and sabin loves to be there, and it makes my life much easier, so as a thank you, i made a strawberry meringue layer cake from nigella's forever summer cookbook, for else's birthday.

don't look too closely at those slightly burney edges, the instructions said to leave the cake in the pan to cool, but i think it was just a little too long in the heat of the pan for the delicate meringue. dang, these big pictures really magnify faults, don't they? moving on quickly to the next picture...

sabin picked the rose and the lavender in our own garden. our strawberries were finished, so we did buy the strawberries for it, but got some of the last danish ones of the season down at the green market.

* * *

i'll leave you with this lovely, summery song, by Goldfrapp, which i found thru sucae sounds. i hope your day has the feel of the day in this video and frankly, i hope mine does too: