The Other Rainbow

I love contrails. They're sort of like rainbows to me. More like rainbow-lite. By their less frequent nature (and more colorful nature), rainbows are simply more exciting and desirable to see, but still, I just love contrails. Swoosh!  Since we live fairly close to an airport, I get to see contrails often. I usually snap a few pictures with my iPhone as I walk Lois to school. Not related to home, vintage, or crafts, but they do make for pretty pictures. Here are just a few recent favorites (some in our neighborhood and some in the city).

Making Things

Last week I started making some Christmas presents, yay! Every year I tell myself I'm going to make Christmas presents, but I usually start so late that I don't get many done. I have a few things planned out, and I'm trying to keep things simple so that I actually finish them. Up first are some coasters (which I can show you because they're for someone who has her hands full with too many children to be doing any blog reading). I used some Liberty fabric, a newer print called Yoshie. This print comes in hot pink too (I bought some of that to make something for Lois), but I went for the dark charcoal grey for her coasters, and used white linen on the undersides. I should probably top-stitch them to give them more of a finished look, but I'm nervous to do it because I'm still not so great at a straight line. If the top-stitching is sloppy, then the whole thing looks sloppy to me. So I'll give that some more thought.

iPhone Favorites

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you know I love iPhone photos. This week I've been working on sorting some of my photos, and what a mess! I have lots in iPhoto, others in Lightroom2, Flickr, Picassa. A mess. I don't know how people keep their pictures organized these days with all the different options. It's really hard to keep everything organized, but in general I try to keep one folder of just iPhone photos. Every time I look at them I'm wow'd by that little piece of technology. I think part of my brain can't catch up to the fact that these days it's no big deal to have 2 really neat kinds of technology in one, both doing what they do well (sometimes the camera part is even better than the phone part). My brain is usually like, whoa, a phone took that picture! My brain must be trapped in about 2003. After looking through the iPhone pictures folder, I thought I'd share a few favorites (though I'm sure you've already seen a lot of these). These are all with different apps. Some of the ones I have and use most are CameraBag, PictureShow, TiltShift, and ShakeIt.

Yurt Birthday

This past weekend we went to the Isle of Wight to celebrate Lois's 2nd birthday. We stayed in a yurt in an apple orchard. I thought, hmm, fancy camping, an apple orchard--that sounds like a fun birthday weekend! The Really Green Holiday Company owns and maintains the yurts on the Afton Park orchard, and they did a great job making us feel at home. I had never stayed in a yurt before, but it was great--ideal for someone who likes the idea of camping, but prefers the comforts of home (like me). The yurt was really large, with a big bed, a little kitchen nook, a stove that kept the yurt nice and toasty, and a futon for lounging. There was also an outdoor bathroom. (See, fancy camping!) When we weren't relaxing in the yurt we were exploring the island. We rented bikes on Saturday and Sunday and also hiked a bit of the coastal path. Here's a peek at our yurt-birthday weekend. 

Our comfortable yurt!

Breakfast and dinner, yum. They provided breakfast and Andrew cooked delicious dinner for us on the BBQ.

I wish I could say we slept in, but Lois wakes up very early. We slept comfortably though. 

It was neat just to lie back and look at the yurt. It looks really cool when you look up. 

We left the orchard and went out on a bike ride. 

We passed quite a few thatched roof houses. 

Then Saturday afternoon we celebrated a birthday. 

The birthday girl! I made her hat and top from some vintage carnival print curtains that bought on etsy a while back. I made these a while back, but I thought the theme was cute with the yurts because there are a few carnival tents in the print. 

I think she liked her little orchard party. 

On Sunday we walked along the coastal path. We made our way to the path through a pasture. Lois said "moo" a lot on the way. 

The coast!

The ocean. 

Wildflowers. 

Then it was time to head back to the orchard and pack up.