FuoriBorgo

My Etsy shop

 

After so much talk and endless computer hours, I finally set up my Etsy shop!   For now I've listed two linen jackets for little girls, because I'm totally in love with this floaty, dreamy pattern.  (I had promised some vintage embroidery dresses, but they'll come soon.)   Rebecca modeled one of the jackets, for the Etsy photo, though they're size 4-5: it was a little large for her, and fit her as a full jacket rather than the cropped, three-quarter-sleeve garment for a slightly older child, as it was designed.

 

It's a light-weight jacket made with Florentine linen, which ties at the front and is easy to slip on over a tee or a dress.  The pleated cuffs and the few pleats at the front give it a breezy feel, just right for cooler summer weather.  I chose a wisteria branch for the embroidery motif, because I find the color combinations of wisteria fascinating: the contrast between the light purple flowers and the darker violet blossoming buds, and the dark brown branch and new green shoot heavy with flowers, are astounding.

 

I also made this jacket with the same Italian linen in a beautiful coral color.  I had intended to embroider this also, but then I found a bias tape with dark and emerald green leaves and white, pink and coral flowers, which just seemed made for it. I used the bias tape to make a rose embellishment too.

My Etsy shop is here .

PS - Magda also just opened an Etsy with some beautiful batik and embroidery work here .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tuesday is a national holiday, Festa della Repubblica, to commemorate the referendum in 1946 that made Italy a Republic.  We'll be taking the boys to meet a 86-year-old Partisan who'll talk about fighting for freedom during WWII.  I won't be posting until Wednesday.

A sense of community

Our small community celebrates the summer season with a series of feste, festivities, of which the first and most important was this weekend.  Living in a small Italian village, we've come to appreciate the importance of the little local church, built and maintained by the villagers, as the symbol of their shared history and sense of community.  Thus the festa could only be centered here. 

It began in the morning, with the tolling of the bells: one of our neighbors was up in the tower with his teenage son, teaching him the art of ringing the changes.  As I already mentioned here, bells have been important in our family, and their music resonating up and down the valley all morning long gave us a happy feeling.

After the mass and the procession, women of all ages gathered just outside the church to cook the traditional fried dumplings, served with wine from the local vines.  The essence of the day is the social gathering, the shared cooking and feasting, the tales of the old times being retold.  It's a day that celebrates life together as a community, while passing on to the younger generation some of the history and traditions of the village.

 

Rebecca improvised a happy dance on the ancient cobblestone pavement, which will be restored with money collected during the festa.   And as I watched my children play, chat, run around and mingle freely in midst of the festivities, I could clearly felt their sense of belonging and identification with a community that they, as country kids in this village, are growing up with.  It's an experience of emotional connection that Tom and I, although involved in the doings of the village, are just witnessing from the outside.  I think my children are lucky to be living in the heart of it. 

Corner View ~ cityscapes

In the middle of rural nowhere, Italy, we play at cityscapes.

Sometimes I'm a little puzzled at how the the young woman in high heels who worked for years in the City became the mother playing cityscapes with her three children, their house full of the colors and scents of the countryscapes just outside the windows.  But if I unwind the skein that is my life, I can follow a thread.  It has some knots, but it's a continuous thread, and it makes a nice skein, I think.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

More Corner Views:

jane, ladybug-zen, ian, bonnie, esti, sophie, cele, modsquad,
caitlin, joyce, ani, kim, a day that is dessert, natsumi, epe, kaylovesvintage, trinsch, c.t.,jeannette, outi, schanett, ritva, dongdong, francesca, state of bliss, jennifer, dana, denise, cabrizette, bohemian girl, dianna, isabelle, amber, a girl in the yellow shoes, mister e, janis, kari, jgy, jenna, skymring, elizabeth, audrey, allison, lise, cate, mon, victoria, crescent moon, erin, otli,  ida, caroline, lisa, dorte, kimmie, la lune dans le ciel, nicola, malo, vanessa, britta, virgina, april, rebecca, b, sunnymama, kyndale, samantha, karen, kristina, angelina,  dorit, goldensunfamily, sophie, janet, nicki, ruth, mcgillicutty

Anciently industrious

Last week Megan Wilson from Ancient Industries mentioned me in her blog, which is quite an honor for me, as I've been enjoying her blog for some time now.  Ancient Industries (also a shop) is skillfully crafted, visually and verbally: a few images, and one or two pithy, often humorous sentences which capture some living or extinct human activity.  This has put a new sparkle in my weekend doings ...

This sickle has been my best gardening friend for the past 10 years, and I couldn't do without it.  Like all timeless tools, it's exceptionally useful and efficient, though fewer and fewer people use it.

It's light, portable and versatile.  Its main use is cutting grass, and it comes in very handy in places where we can't use our push mower  - and we got by with the sickle alone until two years ago!  Once the grass is cut, the sickle's curved blade is ideal for gathering it together and carrying it in bundles.  The sickle is also great for cutting brambles, and its point is perfect for uprooting stubborn weeds.

In our village, it's the quintessential female tool, and the women always have a sickle with them when they head off into the fields.  They use sickles to cut fodder for the farm animals that they're tending, and to keep the fields and woods clear of invasive weeds.  I've never seen a man use it - their tool is the hoe.  I learned from my neighbors how to use it and keep it sharp.  Having mastered the female art of the sickle always makes me feel rather ... anciently industrious!

This timeless tool has been celebrated by our artist friend Nicolo' Accame in his sculptures, in ways that accentuate its spectacular form.

Picking and gathering

Anyone who tends a vegetable garden knows how immensely satisfying is to eat what you yourself have grown - your own vegetables truly feel like nourishment for the body and soul.  And yet, it's almost more satisfying, in this day and age, to gather food from the wild.  Perhaps because you feel so lucky to live in a part of the world where nature can nurture, and suddenly the harsh winter seems worthwhile.  And so last night after dinner, Jeremy and I went on a little picking and gathering expedition.  We stepped outdoors (it's still broad daylight at 8.30 pm, how I love it!), and walked the path from the house back towards the forest.

We didn't need to go very far: we were headed for the young cherry trees that have sprung up around the big old cherry tree, now defunct, that used to sprinkle us with its white, wind-blown petals in early spring, fill us with plump red cherries a few weeks later, and shade the kid's room all summer long.

While we were picking, Jeremy doing the picking (which involved climbing and stretching) and I the collecting (which involved holding the bucket), we talked at length about how fun it would be to learn what's edible out there in our wilderness, and feast on it.  We decided to make this a family project, which delights me, as it's been something I've been meaning to do ever since I read a very engaging article by John McPhee on the forager Euell Theophilus Gibbons, in this New Yorker book.

And to add extra flavor to our foraging project, as we were returning home we noticed a small patch of wild strawberries we'd never seen before: we considered this our first real act of foraging, and noted it down in our new Foraging Notebook.  It's going to be a fun (and filling, hopefully) season out here in the wild!

Red clay and white crochet

What did I write yesterday about always losing my taste for coffee at 5pm?  Well, thanks to Corner View I had coffee from all over the world all day long, and long after my usual bedtime yesterday (but it was a lot of fun as always, thanks Jane!).  I was so caught up in the coffee reading, in fact, that I had a little mishap with my washing machine: I hurriedly loaded it with white laundry, not noticing that some of my crocheting had gotten mixed in with the boys' tennis clothes ...

The red clay from the tennis courts is lethal: it penetrates fabric and simply won't wash out - not even bleach will budge it.  So while I was enjoying coffee around the globe, several of the little doilies I'd made to package my Etsy goods (I'm still working on my shop, but I'll be ready soon) got trapped in the door of my front-loading washing machine, and soaked in hot, clayey water for a couple of hours.  I'm afraid they're all goners: red clay and white crochet don't mix.

Fortunately, a much larger piece of crochet work was spared, and came out sparkling white.  It's a towel edging, which took me quite a long time to complete because the pattern was impossible to memorize, and I had to refer back to it every three stitches or so.  But it's quite beautiful, I think, and literally one of a kind: I won't be making it again!

Corner view ~ coffee

Most coffee in Italy is drunk as espresso, in tiny cups.  A few voluptuous sips of the dense, full-bodied nectar, and it's gone: espresso is definitely not a drink to linger over.  Yet once you're accustomed to espresso, no other kind of coffee will do.  The little Moka makers every Italian has at home do an excellent job.

The very first thing I do in the morning is make a whole moka pot of coffee, and I drink several little "thimble cups" of black coffee during the day, quite often while blogging.  However, I seem to have an internal coffee timer: after 5pm, coffee loses all of its appeal. It's custumary in this country to have espresso coffee after dinner, especially after a big dinner, and at the moment when all I want to do is crawl into bed and become unconscious, many Italians will have their last espresso of the day.  The taste for night time coffee remains something of a mystery to me! 

Do you drink coffee after dinner?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

More Corner Views:

jane, ladybug-zen, ian, bonnie, esti, sophie, cele, modsquad,caitlin, joyce, ani, couturecoucou, kim, a day that is dessert, natsumi, epe, kaylovesvintage, trinsch, c.t.,jeannette, outi, schanett, ritva, dongdong, francesca, state of bliss, jennifer, dana, denise, cabrizette, bohemian girl, ruth, dianna, isabelle, amber, a girl in the yellow shoes, mister e, janis, kari, jgy, jenna, skymring, elizabeth, audrey, allison, lise, cate, mon, victoria, crescent moon, erin, otli, amy, ida, caroline, lisa, dorte, kimmie, la lune dans le ciel, nicola, malo, vanessa, britta, virgina, april, rebecca, b
sunnymama, kyndale, samantha, karen, kristina, angelina  

Sun hat perseverance

Sometimes, when a project isn't turning out quite the way we envisioned it, there's a strong temptation to drop it and move on to something more pressing - or more likely to succeed, anyway.  At least, that's how it works with me.  And the temptation to dump this initially unsuccessful sun hat in the oblivion corner was very, very strong.  But I persevered.  I took the hat apart, worked some more on my plan, and started all over again.

Eventually, I made a sun hat for Rebecca that shields her entire face and neck from our strong Mediterranean sun. 

In the process, I learned a few important things about sun hat making:

-    When you want to make a sun hat, first get a ready-made pattern.
-    If you think you don't need a pattern to make a hat, think again.
-    Googling "sun hat free pattern" produces 233,000 results.
-    The first entry happens to be exactly the hat I had in mind (it's here ).

Now, it's not the first time I've made a hat without a pattern.  I made a crochet hat, and that time too, after completing it, I swore never to make a hat without a pattern again.  But then, I guess I'm really not a pattern person ... 

 

Family gardening

In the past, the boys always had their own little patches to garden.  Nicholas got his first patch at age 4, and he grew sunflowers: large seeds for little hands to handle, they grow quickly and easily, and produce striking results.  Since then, he's always gone for flowers.  Jeremy enjoys the fiddly aspect of gardening, and he's gone for variety: one trailing (tomato or cucumber), one crawling (usually watermelon), one large (such as zucchini) and one small (basil) plants.

This year we've introduced a new concept: family gardening.  We are all going to work together on our summer garden, helping and doing what needs to be done.  This weekend was mainly spent getting more soil ready, planting transplants, and watering.

Working all together over one hot weekend, we finally managed to get our family summer garden going. 

It's been quite hot, in fact, but fortunately Nicholas had thought of making popsicles, and so after family gardening came a very welcome popsicle time for all the workers.  And a new batch of popsicles is already in the freezer!

Fabric doesn't come in pink

I went to the weekly market to buy some pink cotton fabric.  I'm working on a pattern of my own to make a sun hat for Rebecca, one that will actually shade her face properly, and I needed some pink fabric for the lining.  I tried two market stalls, but they had only prints.  So I decided to try a little stall, run by an elderly man where I've never seen anyone shop.  In fact, his selection of fabric is rather on the plain side.  Perfect for plain pink fabric, I thought!

The old man dug out some very pale, washed out pink cotton, but I explained that I was after a richer shade of pink, and showed him a sample.  He shook his head, and told me with complete conviction that cotton fabric doesn't come in richer pinks.  Is that so?!  Normally, I would have left.  But I couldn't: I felt that, by having stopped in the first place, I'd become a potential customer in his mind.  It was now too late to leave without buying something.  So I asked if he could suggest something else.

He took out some bright red cotton fabric, and I felt compelled to buy some.  After this first purchase, he perked up, and showed me all of his fabric treasures, most weren't to my taste, but I kept on looking with him until I found some nice deep sea-blue jacquard cotton.  He wrapped up my fabrics in paper, like a present, not trusting the canvas carrier I always take with me.

And in fact he was right: the bright red fabric is just the right color for the lining.

Too bad the hat isn't what I have in mind at all, at least not yet ...  I really should remember to take advantage of readily available patterns more often!