My Artwork, Aprons & Jam!

A stitch in time

2012-01-27T16:11:00.000-08:00

Trying to "build" my inventory. I've never been good at this, so what better time to start than the new year? I'm also trying to learn to sew more efficiently, thus making it easier to "build" my inventory. We'll see how this works. Should I sew in all the same color for a few days? All the same style pattern? It takes me at least one full day to make just one apron if it's a more difficult one. Plain aprons with ruffles for women or little girls are much faster and butcher style aprons are easy peasy. Full aprons and half aprons require hand sewing though and adding rick rack and other accents takes even longer. How do I make this happen faster? Elves. That's my answer. Until I find said elves I'll have to work as best I can on my own. I'm so looking forward to August though. My mom retires in July and she says she's going to start helping me sew. Maybe she can be my elf :-)

Memphis Arts Collective Made in Memphis Holiday Show 2011

2011-12-07T05:43:00.001-08:00

This is my space at the show. I went for bright & lively!

The show is located at 1501 Union Ave., Memphis, TN

It runs from Dec. 2-Dec. 24

The hours are M-Sat. 10:30-6:30

Fridays open until 9

Sundays 12-5

No Jam

2010-04-12T10:52:00.000-07:00

Well, we packed the van (full to the brim I might add) and headed to Forrest City to make jam. I was looking forward to it, but knew it would be a long day. No sooner do we get there then my parents said the kitchen we use was with out power. It seems a transformer blew. Yay. Now to try again next week. Sad to say though, I won't have any jam for the opening day of MFM 2010.

Getting ready

2010-04-10T14:51:00.000-07:00

Well, the market's starting soon and I have so much to do. I have so many aprons that are in some stage of being made. Neck ties to be sewn on, waistbands and ties to be cut out, rick rack to be added. Right now I have only 5 that are completely finished, but I have another 8 that are all partially finished. To top that off, I have so many that I have designed in my head that I haven't even started on. I need a great big workshop for all this stuff. There's bias tape everywhere and don't even get me started on all the fabric. I don't actually have a sewing room, but a dining room that's been taken over. And guess what?! We use our dining table every night for dinner! All of it gets moved before we eat, then put back after we're done. What a mess it tends to be.

Now it's time to start back to making jams too. We picked and picked - well mostly my dear sweet daddy picked and picked - lots of fruit and what we couldn't manage to use at the time got frozen. A lot of work it is, but it's worth it. The crabapples take ages to get ready for jam making. You first have to cut the blossom ends off and then remove the stems, then they have to be washed well and cooked down, slowly, with water to turn them into pulp. That has to go through a food mill to get all the seeds and skin off. We're talking tiny little apples, not a whole lot bigger than a cherry. You can't peel all of them. The food mill takes forever, but it's the best thing I've found for the job. Then you can finally get to the jam making. There is of course only so much jam that can be made at one time, hence the need for freezing the pulp. Needless to say, I still have some so I'll be making crabapple jam tomorrow, along with peach jam, persimmon jam & sweet potato butter. When the strawberries my parents planted are ready I'll be making some strawberry freezer jam. I was told by the health dept. that I could make it and sell it, but it would have to be sold to go straight into the fridge and not the freezer since it would have been frozen once already. Anyway, the reason for freezer jam and not regular cooked strawberry jam is the fact that it somehow tastes like the best strawberries ever if they haven't been cooked. The stuff is amazing! We love to eat it anyway we can, and it really does make the best filling for a strawberry cake too. The boys eat strawberry jam & peanut butter sandwiches and it's great on cornbread - or so I'm told (I haven't quite bought into that one).

One week to go - hope I get it all done!

Spring

2009-01-23T13:42:00.000-08:00

I'm so looking forward to the market starting back up! I know I miss my Saturday mornings and I hate getting up early, but I love chatting with everyone and selling aprons and veggies of course. I've come up with a few new recipes I need to post on the farm's blog. I think the less time I have to do something, the better I do - I seem to sew more under stress - great motivation! I do have at least one new pattern that I'm working on. Hopefully I'll have another soon - my sister picked up a vintage pattern for me at an antique store and I'm ready to get my hands on it!!! The new serger I got for Christmas is going to come in handy too!

2008-05-16T19:42:00.000-07:00

Okay, still haven't the hang of how to post pics the way I'd like, but here are some more just the same.

Aprons

2008-04-05T10:23:00.001-07:00

These are aprons I sold last year at the Memphis Farmer's Market. I'll post the new ones I'm working on for this year soon.

2008-03-06T05:57:00.000-08:00

Well, this is my first blog. I know, I'm slow. As much as I'm on my computer you'd think I'd have done this before now. I keep being asked about my paintings and thought it would make sense to finally put them on the web.