Mamma Americana

Florentine Flower Show

The sun was shining Saturday morning when I awoke. I popped out of bed bright and early and hopped online looking for a fun family outing. Then I remembered seeing an ad for the semiannual Flower Show here in Florence. It is held at the Giardino dell' Orticoltura (Horticultural Garden) in Spring and Fall. It runs through May 3rd. So off we went to spend the morning amongst the flowers.

Stone dragon at the top of the garden. Kids love it. There is also a great playground for children.

The abandoned tepidarium.

A riot of color

Beautiful loggia in the gardens. I couldn't find any info. on it, but the terra cotta decorations appear to be della Robbia's, or something very similar

Terra cotta for sale

I bought  some strawberry plants, a few amaryllis bulbs, some geraniums and a couple of azaleas. I also purchased some tomato and lettuce seeds. I spent Saturday afternoon on the balcony planting up my little garden. I'll post some pics when things start growing.

Baby Mobile

My baby nephew needed something fun and colorful to go above his changing table. The problem is there is only a small shelf above the table. All of the mobiles they sell these days are meant to attach to the side of a crib (vertically). Baby needs a mobile? Aunt Chris will make one!

I used felt, embroidery floss and fabric glue. I made paper templates for the figures, tracing around them on the felt (you need two for each figure). Then I cut out the shapes, embroidered faces on one side and then glued the plain side onto the wrong side. The rain cloud is made out of a felted sweater. I sewed the wrong sides together on the sewing machine, leaving a 1 1/2" inch opening for turning. He's stuffed with fiberfil. The opening is sewn closed by hand.

I used a pink crayon to color the cheeks, except on the sun, where I used a satin stitch.

Hopefully the mobile will keep my nephew entertained during the next few years of diaper changes.

Our Italian Cat

We have a beautiful cat that we adopted back in early 2001. He was about 8 months old when we got him. He was probably the cutest kitten ever. He's by far the smartest, most affectionate cat I've ever had the privilege to live with.

Eleonora adores him and the feeling seems to be mutual. The other day she noticed that his food bowl was empty and...

"Hmm, what would kitty like to eat?"

 "Pasta of course! He is an Italian kitty after all."

Kitty: "Oh boy, food! Wait a minute, what the?"

"Hey, a little help here!" 

This and that

Here are my projects from this past week. Sorry for the short post, but I'm off to the doctor's for a check up in about an hour. 

Pegasus that I embroidered onto Eleonora's hooded sweatshirt. The design is from Andrea Zuil's blog Bad Bird's. I love her art work. She has a free embroidery design available on her site every month.

A little felt bag that I thought the kid needed to go on the front of her tyke bike. She was trying to carry her doll and push herself around at the same time. Needless to say steering was impossible and she was only getting frustrated. Now dolly has a place to ride.

Two journal covers that I made for gifts yesterday. Can you tell that I'm in love with felt? Sooo much fun to work with and sooo many colors! The design for these came from Betz White's book "Warm Fuzzies". Great book with lots of fun projects. 

Have a great weekend and I'll see you on Monday.

Bunny love

The warm weather this week has got me feeling better. It's hard to lie around when it's sunny outside. I've been spending time with my little 3 week old nephew who is up from Rome. That new baby smell will cure just about anything! 

Easter is here and I just finished this bunny in time for Eleonora's easter basket.

Bunny's backside

I found a tutorial for this on Betz White's blog. It calls for scraps of cashmere, but I used a felted sweater instead. It was fun to make and didn't take very long.

The other bunny came from this family heirloom chocolate mold. Mom say's it belonged to my great-grandmother Minnie. Grandpa said he remembered it from his childhood.

Here's a good article on using antique chocolate molds. I have no idea what we'll do with all this milk chocolate. I'll have to find some recipes to use it in. 

The chocolate bunny is also going into Eleonora's easter basket. In Italy kids and adults recieve giant hollow chocolate eggs with small surprises inside instead of easter baskets. The easter bunny doesn't exist. He'll make a special trip from the U.S.A. just for Eleonora though. Happy Easter!

Under the weather

Let's start with the earthquake: thankfully we were not affected by it. I felt a foreshock the night before around 10:30 p.m. but I didn't feel the actual earthquake. Strange. Friends in Rome felt it very strongly. The whole thing is very sad. I can't watch the news, it just depresses me. So we go on with our day to day business, trying not to think about it too much. 

The other news is a bit more personal: I had emergency surgery last Weds. for a ruptured ovarian cyst. They took out my appendix too just to be safe. I guess it looked a little "iffy".  The good news is that they performed the surgery through laparscopy, so I only have three small incisions. They sent me home on Saturday and I have my stitches out on Friday. I can't wait because they're awfully itchy!