What I'm Wearing: Jewel tones

Cardigan: Modcloth

Skirt: Vintage, refashioned by me

Sweatercoat: Anthropologie

Tank: Old Navy

Tights: Hue

Shoes: Modcloth

Necklace: from Tom's Gifts, in Binghamton

I dug this skirt up from the bottom of a big, cardboard SALE! box in my favorite vintage store. It was very long, and very tapered, and five dollars. Not surprisingly, I brought it home. The allure of a beautiful vintage velvet skirt (even a too-small vintage velvet skirt) was too strong to resist. Even I couldn't make it wear-able, I reasoned, the fabric would be fun to use in other projects. And, lest we forget, it was only five dollars.

This story had a very happy ending. I removed the zipper, cut off the waistband, opened the side seams, measured about eighteen inches up from the original hemline, said a brief little prayer, and cut. Re-inserted the zipper. Sewed the side seams back together. Made a facing from some turquoise satin I had on hand, clipped my threads and wiggled into my new favorite skirt.

I love refashions like this, because I really hate hemming. Anyone else? Hemming is such a fussy, time-consuming and completely unavoidable process that doesn't yield great rewards at the end. "Borrowing" the original hem of this skirt, even though I changed every other thing, made me feel sneaky and clever, not unlike a wily fox.

A skirt-wearing fox. So be it. Though velvet is definitely a fall-ish fabric, this skirt is going to get some summer wear.

Welcoming

This Saturday, like last Saturday, I was footloose and fancy-free, and so we got out, again, and hiked and drove and ate and drank, and generally whooped it up.

In deciding which direction to turn our tires, there was some consternation early in the day. Looking at a giant Google map with Binghamton in the center, it seems we've seen and done every single cool thing within a hundred-mile radius.

And while this is a very good problem to have, and a testament to how adventurous and devoted we are to getting out and doing stuff, it doesn't make our weekend planning any easier. Sometimes you want to go back and visit a favorite place. Sometimes, though, you crave the new experience.

We hemmed and hawed for awhile, and even thought about undertaking a two-and-a-half-hour drive through Pennsylvania. When I finally noticed a tiny freckle of green on the map, a fairly nearby state park we'd never been to, our decision was made.

This is Fillmore Glen, another one of those unbearably beautiful Fingerlakes gorges. We learned a lot while we were there. Like, for instance, that Millard Fillmore, number one least-notable US President, was a good old upstate New York boy.

We learned (and not for the first time) that coyly hopping a TRAIL CLOSED FOR SEASON, NO TRESPASSING plastic fence is usually a good idea. The ferns, and the shy coltsfoot buds were ours alone.

And the goofy smiles were entirely too much fun to avoid.

On the joy of sitting.

Yesterday, I bought 36 broccoli seedlings and three forty-pound bags of humus. I spent all afternoon hauling and digging and turning, breaking apart sod with my hands and crumbling cakey earth. I'll spare you the pictures, but take it on faith that there are now 36 broccoli seedlings rooted in that trampled patch of earth in the picture, just to the right of my shoes.

The evening featured activity of a different sort: a three-bar, three-show, three-beer Wednesday evening, complete with two-mile round trip on unforgiving sidewalks in not-quite-broken-in-yet sandals. When the time came to roll into bed and pop in a movie, I was asleep before the opening credits.

So you might be able to expect, then, that today would find me propped up and limping just slightly on a sore hamstring, nursing a minor sunburn and toting my water bottle around like a fifth limb. It's another gorgeous day, but friends, the broccoli is in the ground, the garden is turned over, and, blessedly, there is nothing to do now but enjoy that fact. And sit.

What I'm Wearing: Spring colors

Cardigan: Thrifted

Tank: Old Navy

Skirt: Refashioned from women's dress

Stockings: Sock Dreams

Boots: Steve Madden

Scarf: Made by me from Anna Maria Horner Little Folks voile

I can't believe how long it's taken me to wear this fabric. All autumn I'd been watching, on Anna Maria Horner's blog, as she unveiled one gorgeous project after another. My mouth watered. I lusted, a tiny bit. And then, just after Christmas, what I'd ordered came in the mail. I immediately sewed up this scarf, and then it sat. It sat, because these colors, these watery blues and sprightly pinks and yellows, these are spring colors.

And now, hallelujah, it is spring! It is spring, and I can drag the prettiest colors off their hangers and out into the sun. I can dress like an Easter egg, and that's okay. And I can finally drape some of this gorgeous fabric around my neck.

And pick daffodils. It's a good day.

Let there be peas on earth

Apologies, everyone. I'm sure by now you're all very sick of dirt-and-growing-things pictures, as well you should be. For going on two weeks now, it's pretty much all I've been doing. This is the time, though, the season when Sweetfern Handmade turns into a seedling mommy-blog.

I planted these guys the same day I started my radishes; by now it feels like years ago. The snow had barely melted, the daffodil shoots had barely broken through. The season's first robin was spotted that evening. Now we've seen temperatures in the eighties, the daffodils are blooming, robins are everywhere, and snow is only a grim memory.

And I'm afraid there'll be lots more seedling baby pictures to come before it's all over.

Spring weekend

In happy celebration of my first work-free Saturday in a long time, Patrick and I enthusiastically got out of Dodge this weekend.

We stood in warm winds by the water.

We welcomed green things.

We rejoiced in sandal toes!

We stopped by old cemeteries. (This is one of my favorites, the Old Covert Cemetery.)

We greeted coltsfoot.

And when our day was over and we returned home, we brought it inside with us, to remember.

Nothing can possibly beat the feeling of being on the lam with the one you love. Not that we were running from anything, really, just embracing the chance to shirk away responsibility and enjoy each other. The projects can wait. The work can wait. This one was ours: an eighty degree April day. And we took it.

Where did the weekend take you?

Preparations: planting

Plunking rows of peas-to-be into their furrows and tucking them in is the sweetest part.