From my Garden

Well its not tomatoes, but the more flowery fruits of my own labor. I so enjoyed reading through the tomato love and all of your fancy ways of consuming them. I am thoroughly stuffed, and feel like we all shared a big meal. Food and love. It is something isn't it? I've been thinking about it for a few days now, how we have favorite ways to eat things, and the memories that a simple fresh vegetable can conjure. Its not just the memory of how you ate it and what it tasted like or how it was prepared, but more, its the warmth of the loved ones that grew it, cooked it or shared it. Its the comfort of being provided for in the most simplest form. Feeding the soul through the mouth.



I went out in the garden today to photograph this quilt and was entirely too distracted by the flowers and felt more like photographing them. I eventually found myself to be taking pictures of the same thing as the quilt, really. The palette was the same. And though this blessed Tennessee soil helped along these blooms, each frame was like another piece in the patchwork of my garden in August. And so I made a new quilt.



And in these thoughts of flowers, fabrics and foods, I found truth in this: offering one's work and toil is one of the greatest forms of love. And whether you are mingling oil and tomato in the kitchen, thread and fabric on your lap, soil and seed in the ground, the gesture of doing your best to provide is the same.

I recently read this quote from a Texas quilter named Mary White, that I think sums up the simplicity of making that is so dear to me:

"You can't always change things. Sometimes you don't have no control over the way things go. Hail ruins the crops, fire burns you out. And then you're just given so much to work with in a life and you have to do the best you can with what you got. That's what piecing is. The materials is passed on to you or is all you can afford to buy....that's just what's given to you. Your fate. But the way you put them together is your business."

good weekend, xoxo,AM

Toomanytomatoes

Seriously lets talk about this, cause its been foremost in my mind and my mouth for about 2 weeks now. After Mom and Dad sent a box to us about 10 days ago via a friend who happened to be traveling this way, they came themselves for a visit over the weekend. This time with a bigger box. The pride and joy of their garden by the river was overflowing with delicious potential.



Something that you need to understand is that my Dad giving us food, particularly fruits and vegetables, is a language of love. It's always been. You fell down and got hurt? Here, eat. You wrecked the car and I've already yelled at you for 3 days? Here, eat. Bad day? Here, eat. Lost the house you wanted to buy? Here, eat. Pregnant? Here, eat. Pregnant again? Here, eat. But the joy he finds in offering the fruits of his own labor is something all together different. I tried to get a quick shot of him with the glowing red beauties, but he barely let me get one before he invited anyone nearby to be in the picture with him. Then everyone makes like posing with the tomatoes is just what we wanted to do. Of course.



This little gathering went to the neighbors and likely I'll still need to take more to them later today. Our favorite way to eat them fresh, and the only way we ate them in my house growing up, is common Greek salad style. In most of Greece you would be hard pressed to find a leaf of lettuce served anywhere. The salad is always what some refer to as a village salad and no lettuce is permitted. Ours goes like this: fresh tomatoes peeled, cored and rough cut, large-chopped white onion, peeled & large-chopped cucumber, oregano (high mountain Greek is the best), salt, salt, salt, generous pour of olive oil (which lucky me gets from my dad's own olive trees near his home in Greece!-that's another post). Occasionally you would toss in a few Kalamata olives, and garnish with a large cut of feta. The most beautifully delicious part is the fresh mingling of juices and flavors at the bottom of the bowl which can only be eaten by the dunking of a (torn) piece of dense bread. Slicing even the best bread is completely missing the point of how to eat this. It must be torn, so that its a thick enough nugget to absorb the concoction at the bottom of the bowl. Bread has always been an eating utensil in our family.



Our tomatoes, however, have begun to outnumber the possible chances at fresh salads. So this morning once all the kids were off to their 3rd day of school, and the house was nice and quiet, I opened a window and began peeling, coring, chopping and cooking down. Maybe a soup. Perhaps just some sauce to freeze. Haven't decided yet. But the smell of the simmering sweet gifts coming from the kitchen and the song of the cicadas outside has me feeling pretty relaxed about the whole thing.

xoAM

Please and Thank You!

This gorgeous collage, made by my effervescent friend Stephanie Levy is my choice from the grouping that she made from some of my fabric scraps. Several months ago, we settled on a fun exchange where I sent my fabrics to her (in Germany) so she could do what she does best with scraps of things. (Look at more lovelies here.) Stephanie was so kind to offer me first choice for my birthday, even though it took me daaaays of looking, and thinking, and looking, and thinking to decide which one. Cause they're all so bea-yooti-ful, naturally. Don't ya love? I love. Stephanie and I go all the way back to art school where we were student contemporaries (high-faluntin for 'there at the same time'). Anyway, we both admired each other's work, equally, I think and both had a lot of interest in design and pattern in our fine art studies, though with refreshingly different results. I am so happy to have a piece that reflects both of us and points to how we've grown as artists. Our correspondence these days mostly consists of emails where she is asking mother-artist-wife-time-business-management advice which I rarely answer within one month's time because I so clearly have not mastered any of those subjects. But she knows that I love her, and she definitely seems to have it all under control. Quite beautifully.

In articulate promotional news, soon after reading all the glowing reviews of my new stickers I noticed that I have been sending out packing slips with my shop orders from someone named Anna Maria Horer. Yup.

xo,Anna

What is it about stickers?

After months and months of printing stickers on my desktop, I caved into a bit of professional help. Man. Can someone please explain the satisfaction one finds in stickers? Is it just me?
Can't be. Must be the residual pre-teen-Hello-Kitty-loving, note-writing, smelly-eraser-sniffing little punk leftover.

The nursery is red & white, you say?

So mostly I've been cleaning closets, giving away small kids' clothes, back-to-school uniform shopping, house-painting, studio reorganizing, and eating tomatoes from my dad's garden which are out of this world good. Nevermind that he and mom live 3 hours away. Where there's a quickly ripening garden of red juicy perfection there's a way. But yes, eating lots and lots of tomatoes with a healthy helping of the richest olive oil. Now that we've all gotten our antioxidants, look at the baby blanket I finished today!

I've had the fabric, 4" satin ribbon, and the bunny-softest flannel set aside for quite some time. My sweet friend Julie that I've known since 8th grade has given birth to her first baby and the nursery is white with bits of red and I am so glad. (AND I think I should overuse AND in some more sentences AND continue to run-on, you?)

The simple pairing of the already washed home decor weight fabric and flannel (with no batting) makes for a very practical not-too-heavy baby blankie that will only get softer and softer with each washing. I do love a baby quilt, but really wanted to give her something that she's not afraid to use. This was also the perfect opportunity to mess around with some freemotion stitching on my machine. When I came home from quilt market my mom showed me how to do this on the machine that I have owned for 8 years. (I just can't be bothered with learning such things immediately after purchase-immediately here means anywhere within 8 years.) The print of this fabric was ideal for making larger general shapes around the vertical bouquets without getting too fussy with it. I decided to use the pale pink thread to make any little mistakes less obvious on the flannel side. The stitching pattern on the cream side turned out really pretty, but difficult to see with a full size photo.

I folded the ribbon and treated it just like quilt binding but finished it with machine sewing instead of hand sewing which I think is neater looking on satin. Oh, and one little tip: before I pinned the fabrics wrong sides together, I pressed a few little 1x1" scraps of Steam-a-Seam scattered every 10" inches between the two layers then pressed them smoothly together. It's essentially like tacking the fabrics together with fusible. It was very helpful in keeping everything in place and prevented me from having to use a ton of pins that get in the way of stitching.

So right after I load our well-worn baby bassinet into the car for borrowing, finish wrapping the gift, pick up dinner and wine, I'm heading for a night with a newborn. Oh, and her mommy. I fully intend to let that munchie-pie have her way with this new blankie while Julie and I dine and have some mother chat. Wishing you as much fun, xo,AM