Fruit Trees!

Yesterday was another wonderful day at Market. Windy and blustery in the morning- I brought my gloves, scarf and down coat. It stays so cool on the lake side of the pavilion that I kept them on all day. Thanks to my white tarp, I kept the light in the booth and the wind out! By the end of the day, the weather was glorious! There is something idyllic about the way the sun shines across the water on the inlet at 5:00, when the wind is calm. A perfect ending to the day.

Today was beautiful. Cool in the morning and perfect, mild, spring weather later on. It inspired me to go buy the fruit trees that I have envisioned putting in the planters for over a year now. 2 dwarf Reliance peaches and 2 dwarf Anjou pears seemed perfect!

Those who know me (and love me as I am), know that I can be the consummate procrastinator. At times, I can raise it to an art form. Always wanting to get it perfect, I can put things off till it reaches the level of absurdity. No more! I decided to strike while the iron was hot.
2 trips to Agway for locally grown nursery stock, one trip to the house for a shovel and watering can and I got to work.
Amazingly enough, it took less than 2 hours to transport the trees, dig the holes, water them and take the tools back home. It was such a cheerful sight that I had to walk back to the store with my camera and take some photos. Hey, how about the nice bike rack?
Next step is to get some herbs in the planter to continue my edible landscaping plan. I wonder if folks will pick the edibles or just continue to use the planters as oversize garbage bins, like they usually do.

The New Tomato Design

Another amazing day. Way too warm for April 5Th, but no complaints. As promised, here are some photos of our newest design, the luscious, juicy Tomato. The process goes from idea to thought process to image to cutting and building screen to printing. This culminates in bringing the finished product to Market. So exciting! I wanted to show some photos of the Tomato hanging for the clothesline at the Market booth but they sold off the line too fast to let me take a picture. Yay!

Here we adhere the lacquer film to the screen. Given that our process is pretty old school, this is the only nasty part of the whole deal. So, it makes it really nice to be able to do it outside in the fresh air!
Just a little time to air dry before we're ready to peel off the backing and tape off the edges.

After doing the first color, we let it air dry and apply the second color. It really comes to life!
And here we are. The culmination of all the work! Actually, there's a whole lot more to this whole process. after the printing is done, we let it air dry for a day and launder it in three successively hotter washes to remove the washing soda and excess dye. After 33 1/3 years of doing this, I still get excited every time I see a new finished product!

Amazing day at Market. The first day of the 2010 season, jam packed and over 80 degrees! Usually, the first few Markets start out slow. This is a blessing since it takes time to remember how to set things up and get all of the things together that you need to sell each day. Lucky for me, I live less than 2 miles away so I can dash back to the studio sometimes to pick up important things I forgot. ( this doesn't always work so well as any local can tell you who has spent half an hour or more trying to get into Market!).

Anyway, it was wonderful to be back and a treat to forgo the sheepskin boots, down jacket and hand warmers, in favor of flip flops and a short sleeve v-neck tee. Very odd weather for April 3rd but enjoyable nonetheless!

I was reading Maya Donenfeld's blog, www.mayamade.blogspot.com . She has added a new feature called "Fix it Friday". Each week she will fix something around her home and showcase the process on her blog. Maya says, "The goal is to bring attention to the lost art of fixing, rather than discarding. Repair is a creative form in it's own right, but has been forgotten in our throw-away society". Wow, I really resonated with that. There is nothing more satisfying than breathing new life into something, rather than discarding it and purchasing a new one. It's not just about being thrifty. It's about valuing the resources that went into creating it to begin with, to say nothing of the joy in knowing that we are still capable of being resourceful and taking care of business!

Maya had a link to the "Repair Manifesto" from platform21, which is so inspiring that I had to copy it here. Read it, be inspired and check in on Friday's to see what the ever innovative Maya decides to take on!