Studio

Some new things to come out of the studio this week. I'm so happy with them and their all recycled t-shirts. I plan on making a ton, especially if we get into the Philly Designer Sample show. And especially the I heart.... shirts, I am loving them a whole lot.

Wow, May 26th !

That was the my last post, May 26th, I should be ashamed. This little blog hasn't been far from my mind though. My excuse is that my computer has been in and out of the "shop" four times since we got here in April. Finally Hp sent me a new one, a brand new one. But really the reason for not blogging has been that I'm just too busy and I wasn't putting it very high on the priority list. But I vowed to start again, regardless of my busyness. What have I been busy with you wonder? Well lots and lots of sewing, mostly bags. Started some skirts, but the serger is not cooperating so that was put aside. I'm trying to get ready for two craft shows in September. One is just a regular type craft show the other is quite intimidating and is more like a trade show. It's for local Philly and surrounding area "fashion designers". The first hour is for retailers only and than it's open to the public. Hence why I was working on some skirts. I would love to get some into stores, but they just are not ready. I haven't work out all the kinks yet. This was a hard decision to make, 'cause I really want it. And I really want to get into this show, just for the experience. So I'm sticking to what works - my bags and T-shirts (I'll show them off as they get done). I think Andrew and I are going to share a spot, hopefully, so he can get shirts out there.

Other than that, we been painting/working. Doing lots of graphic work, lot's of weddings and baby stuff for friends. Real good experience. Gardening also, our garden is exploding. We have ourselves a tomato forest. Huge spaghetti squashs, lots yellow summer squash and pickles. We have these little yellow birds who sit on the sunflowers and eat their seeds, it's the cutest darn thing. All the pictures below random pictures of the garden, remember just a couple months ago?This what happens after a couple days of visiting from our little yellow birds. This is why I planted sunflowers, I was hoping they would make natural bird feeders. It worked!

tomato shadow.

huge spaghetti squash.

Heirlooms, they're so dainty.

Tomatoes reaching for the sun.

more heirloom tomato, kind of lost track of what kind this is I think it's a Rio Grande

tomato forest

New Links

I've added the Lansdale area links and here's a list of other crafties that were added::

The Worsted Witch - A green craftie
Momo - My swappin partner
sew green - a bunch of green crafters
Sweet Nellie - I LOVE her stuffies

You can now find all these newbies over there --> in links. Enjoy!

More to come......

Check my website

As some of you may know I've had the melissafrueh site up for a while now. Originally I had it up so it would be easier to find me, but now that I'm doing this craft show (hopefully). Now it's pretty and I think I should have a pretty site.
So go check it out!

We went on a field trip....

I'm finally bugged enough by Whole Foods to get back on buying locally. When we first moved her about three months ago I didn't know where anything was except Whole Foods plus it was the end of winter and no farm stands on the corners or farmers markets on weekend to get me in the groove. I never like Whole Foods, for me it was always the last resort. I was spoiled in California, first in the LA area there was a farmers market everyday of the week all year long. Then Arcata, had a great almost all organic farmers market for 2/3 of the year and an awesome co-op that carry most things locally. These last three months I've been almost shopping exclusively at Whole Foods and it's killing me. Not only are they ridiculously expensive but the milk isn't always fresh (you can tell when making yogurt) and lettuce was turning that red around the fringes only after three days. Much of the produce was coming from California, so I moved across the country to eat the same food. Anyway this wasn't supposed to be a rant about Whole Foods.
I'm excited to finally be finding local food. Starting with yesterday, we went to Hendrick's farm in Telford. We found raw cow and goats milk, fresh butter, yogurt, fancy cheeses, curds, ice cream, meats and soaps. Really, really nice people that were happy to take the time to tell us about the cows and how they are treated, how happy they are. You can pretty much see for yourself since they just hanging out it the fields just beyond the little shop. Really, a great place. And today we are off to visit and local bakery, yeah! a bakery. When we first got here I googled bakeries and found almost nothing , except in the city (too far). I want to talk to this bakery about their site, you can't find them anywhere unless you know their address, that's got change. We got a loaf of their bread yesterday on the farm. Awesome bread, really great flavor, good hard crush with a moist soft center.
Over on the side bar ---> in links I'm going to add a local links, so whatever I find locally I'll add over there. Hey may be someone like me will be searching around the Lansdale area looking for local foods and I can help the out a little. I also have a ton of new blogs to add, so look for them too. I think I'll post them first as a heads up than add them. It's endless with all these creative blogs.
Below are some pictures of our little farm outing yesterday. Enjoy!



This guy here was trying to wrangle up this little calf. It was pretty funny, this calf was certainly giving him a run for his money.

Well... Friends

For all those few who check in I'm awfully sorry, for I have been neglecting this little blog. I've been hyper focused on trying to get things made to submit pictures by June 1st for two craft shows in September. When I'm not working I'm working on prototypes and trying to get a product together. So far so good..... I have three different size bags and another idea for a forth. Making to first "real" bag today to be photographed. Lots of needle felting going on 'round here, lot's little fruits and veggies, acorns and little birdies. For me, needle felting in so relaxing it makes me sleepy and always in need of a nap afterwards. I don't know if I mentioned earlier but the big "theme" of all the stuff I'm making is..... Organic, natural or recycled. Means just what it says all the products will be made from either organic, natural or recycled and pretty much in that order. I found two great sites, one for the fabric - Nearsea Naturals and a great site for all your felting and wooly needs - Weirs Dolls. They carry 100% wool felt and roving both with plant dyes and many colors to choose from. Other non plant dyed felt and roving too, well go see for yourself.

Can you believe that those are plant dyed colors?

Let's see, what else.... Lots of gardening. Almost all my seedlings have come up. I'm a little worried about the tomatoes just cause they seem to have stunted. But we'll see, they're going to be potted up today. As you can see by the picture I've got lots of thing this year - tomatoes, peppers, summer squash, pumpkins, spaghetti squash, sweet potato squash, pickling cucumbers, peas, soy beans, sun flowers, lettuce, herbs like dill, parsely, cilantro, and catnip. All kinds of stuff, we're going to have ourselves our own mini farm.

Oh and all these seedlings are from heirloom seeds.


Well.... Must be shoving off to be a slave to my fussy sewing machine. I think it's time to take her in for a check up.

Spring has arrived

Sorry folks to leave ya hanging there...... That freak little snowy day came and gone and left us with Spring! We've had a few pretty hots days and the rest have been quite Springy. I haven't live in a four seasons area in seven years. I'm excited. Well, I don't know about you (the few yous who tune in) but I was sure tired of looking at that last picture. Here's a little sun shining in our window the other day ('cause todays a little rainy).


And little taste of what's been bloomin around Lansdale lately.

Oh how I love Spring, even on it's chilly rainy days.

Snowin' and Swappin'

Yep, that's right we had ourselves a snowy/slushy/crappy day yesterday. I thought April was supposed to be Spring. But I guess since I haven't here in seven years I must of had it all wrong. Actually, I think everyone's been feeling that way lately regardless of how long they've lived here. My friends, welcome to Global Warming....


On a much funner note (yes I said funner) I swapped gifties with a new friend in Japan - Momo. I believe, when I first signed up with Gimme Your Stuff I contacted Momo to swap. That was almost a year ago and I got no responses from anyone. I think mostly because there like a billion people on there from the US and mostly in CA and of course anyone wants to swap with someone from the same region (can't blame them). Then on the last leg of my trip I got a comment from Momo asking if I wanted to swap. I was too excited. The best part - she's vegan. You see, most people want to swap goodies and treats, candies and foods. This doesn't work for such a strict veggie like myself. So even more excitement...... In the end I received such a wonderful package from her. I got the what is apparently the Japanese craft book, I asked for one but had no idea so I asked for any. Also a great book on appears to be a book on artist studios which got me really itchy to create my own (cause I need one so bad). Let's see what else...... Great fabrics, very cute bookmark, little garden stakes for my seedlings and yummy veggie snack. I sent her lots of vintagie things, homespun fabric, Blueprint magazines and soap. This was such a fun thing to do.

Momma and Her Chick

Big thank you to Ms. Lynn from Molly chicken (one of my most favorite blogs, I love, love, love her creations) for sharing her Easter Birdy pattern. I used it as a way to kick start my crafting again. It's been very hard to get motivated to work lately. I have no real studio like I had in Arcata. It was small but it was all mine. I don't have my own table to work on and my fabric is stuffed in the corner of the bedroom, the tool box is in the laundry room and my self with all my goodies is in the kitchen and my little inspirations are still packed away. So.... You get the point. It sort of feels like not enough butter spread over too much bread as Bilbo would say. And since I have this goal to be in at least one craft show by the end of 2007 I gotta find some way to get my butt in gear. So thanks to this very cute and very easy pattern I can say I made something in the last month or two. It was a little giftie for my Mum. A little Easter gift, I guess. Oh and happy Easter, celebrate the Earth's fertility and abundance!

You can see mine is a little skinnier than hers, not sure how that happened.

The Travelling Kid

Just a little shot out to my Sister-in-law and her super cool site - The Travelling Kid (yes that's two L's ). If you are having thoughts about traveling anywhere with your kid, stop by this site 'cause there's bound to some useful information. She's traveled everywhere and for the past couple years with kid in tow. Great articles, stories and pictures. Oh and see that little logo there on the bag... We did that, cute huh? She had an idea and we made it happen. Gotta brag a little....

Wow it's been too long in between.....

Well friends.... I can officially say we are settled. Things have been a little nuts, hence the not posting. We've been painting for work - back to what we were doing in LA but this time we like doing it. Hoping to get a lot more painting work since it really gives us a lot of freedom to do all the other things we fill our time with.

So without further ado..... Pictures of our abode!

The side, since you've already seen the front. We're on the bottom.
Backyard (on a dreary day).The bedroom (not the best picture). In the corner you can't see will hopefully one day be my little studio space. Right now I have my stuff just here and there, kind of hard to get myself started with all my stuff everywhere. So hopefully sooner then later.Our very cozy, sunny livingroom.


The Kitchen...You can tell which part of the kitchen sold me since I failed to take any pictures of the rest of the kitchen. I love this cabinet, we call it The Apothecary.

Or well, I guess this is also part of the kitchen.... A little eating area, and we have a table that seats four!! First time for everything.
The Bath


Now of course we are still working on things. We still have some boxes, hence no pictures of the laundry room. Still figuring out where things go. And hopefully soon we'll start digging in a garden.

God Bless America

Home Sweet Home

We sign the lease tonight and start moving in. It's official on the 15th. Yay!!

We're on the first floor. Nice front porch, little backyard and side yard. So I get to have a little veggie garden. Good stuff.

Kitchen (original cabinets late 1800's time).

Living room looking into the bedroom. Love those pocket doors.