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Xristos Anesti! Care for lunch? Here's what we had (and are still having): Lamb: 2 rolled boneless legs from Whole Foods (8 lbs or so).  I rub salt, pepper, oregano, thyme, and lemon juice on them, and made small incisions with a knife to insert garlic cloves in several places.  Then I seared them in a hot pan of my dad's olive oil and placed them in a crock pot for about 5 hours.  A very delicious alternative to roasting on a souvla (spit).  I drizzled a bit of red wine on them about midway through cooking. Kefthedes (aka meatballs): I used ground beef from the cow that Jeff's step dad, Ben,  gave us for Christmas.  It was already butchered.  But we were still really happy about it.  Anyway- 3lbs ground beef hand mixed with salt pepper, parsley, oregano, cinnamon, chopped garlic and onion, 1 cup bread crumbs, 1/2 cup parmesan, 2 eggs.  And a douse of red wine. Red Potatoes: chopped and mixed with fresh garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper, lots o...

Of course I agree with them. Eastern Orthodox Easter is one week later than Western Easter this year, so in addition to getting all your Easter candy on sale (thanks for leaving some), I also have an extra week to absorb some really good egg dying ideas.  In addition to our traditional solid red eggs, as soon as I saw my friend Alicia's botanical eggs, I was dying to do it (pardon the pun).  Falling in line with their typical kid selves, the children did not trust me when I explained the process.  There were smirks, huhs, quizzical brows, rolled eyes, and every manner of mom-yer-dumb looks on their faces.  Then I pulled up Alicia's post on my laptop and a chorus of aaaahhhoooOOOHhh came over the room.  Why do I always have to prove myself to this bunch.  Hmpf.  This is one rare occurrence where I am totally happy to give someone else the credit (even if those stinkers shouldn't need proof).  (Anyway, Alicia, and then they kept reading your blog w...

I didn't remember until I was uploading these pictures of Eleni and Leo, that my sister (Eleni) and I used to do the same thing when we were waiting for a rainstorm. We would pile all of our stuffed animals and blankets in front of the sliding glass door in the dining room and watch and listen. We enjoyed rain, thunder, lightening, and a sunny outdoor meal this weekend. Spring is so crazytown. xoAM

He has the happy and the jumpy down pat. I am sure the rest will come in time. best morning lesson ever. xoxo, Anna

Feeling so much better. Antibiotics don't hurt. Nor do candy canes, twinkling lights, sparkling snowflakes, homemade cookies, happy children home for break, cuddley overgrown puppies, loving husbands, squishy pillows, warm quilts or hot tea with honey. Where shall I have your prescription sent? xoxoAM

Yes, its normal to want to go straight to your local craft store now and purchase glitter. No, its not normal after doing so to think about what your yellow lab (insert any human, pet, automobile or piece of furniture here) would look like with some glitter. You must inhale just enough during your projects to mess up your brain a little. Last night we ooohhhed, ahhhed and barely blinked we were so excited to try every next color. Totally worth the line at Michael's that stretched to the back of the store. xoxoxo, fluttery eyelashes and glittery kisses to you, AM & the sparkle team (burnt lightbulb rehabilitation program found here )

Post Disclaimer: All photos reference the THAT of which I am thinking and not the THIS of which I am doing. There are too many THISs to photograph. Doing:: Replacing six 10 1/2 ft structural porch columns on the front of our house :: waiting impatiently to have this installed in the dining room :: and two of these and one of these in the hallway :: attending to the lingering details in Nicolas's room and the girls' room after having renovated both :: considering which day to buy our Christmas tree and therefore decorate the whole house Thinking:: About picking up all the little sunshine crochet squares I started last winter on the couch with Juliana and lots of Whoppers :: Wondering if I need all those things again to be able to do it :: Yes, I do :: I was originally inspired by an amazing blanket that I saw either on etsy or flickr or both.... I think by a talented (Northern?) European woman.... and she had it styled on a modern gray couch.... anyone? I have seen sever...

I typically gauge the success of any time off with how happy I am to be back at work. Our time away was perfect, though we always wish it a bit longer. It must have been just enough, because I am happy to be back. Before I left, I had meant to mention a giveaway of some of my loot over at the Cloth Paper Scissors blog that I think is being announced today, so do hurry over! It helps to celebrate my moved-into-studio being featured as the cover story for their STUDIOS winter issue. So honored. Hope you're glad to be backatit today, xo, AM

Le nom de scène, Foxes ... Le vrai, Louisa Rose Allen . Le titre, Home . Le commentaire, tout simplement un gros coup de cœur.

I sometimes feel that settling back into the routine of the studio after Quilt Market is as taxing if not more than preparing to leave, because attaining that settled state is a more elusive goal than the concrete preparations we make to get there. Jeff and I had such a smooth go of traveling there, most especially when compared with one year ago . I think that trip will forever make all subsequent market experiences seem like a breeze. Though this time we had a unique little emergency that came on slowly, ramped itself into near panic, and then resolved itself quite gracefully. Huh? Yeah. So. After a the smooth beginning to our setup on Day one, I woke up on Day two with a sort of fuzzy spot in my right eye that grew as the day went on. I kept ignoring it as though there must be something in my contact lens and went on about setting up, giving my first school house talk (thank you if you were there!) until soon after in the late afternoon, the fuzzy spot seemed to be growing at...

I have been out of my habitat for quite a while now. I've missed you people and that fun back and forth thingy that we do here. My latest back and forth has me just returning from fall Quilt Market in Houston. All went so well, but naturally the preparations had this blog a little quiet, quieter than expected though. I was finally getting through it all at just the right pace, when this house fell silent..... we lost our beautiful little Lemon, the canary. In the grand scheme of life, it is a loss we can bare, so we don't dwell or wallow but I'm left a little lonely without his constant song. He did look so sweet and peaceful when we found him, so that helps. We wrapped him in beautiful citrus yellow fabric, placed him in a tiny box, tied it with a ribbon, buried him deep in our garden and planted flowers above him. Then we thanked God for the gift of getting to care for this gorgeous, innocent and sweet creature.... asked forgiveness in case we could have done a be...

("sinister swarm" print detail in progress) Hoooa No. Man. Thanks for all the moth info . I think. Ick. No really, I'm glad to take a sampling of all the common denominators in those comments and figure out our plan of attack (defense?). In other maybe not so unrelated-to-icky-moth news, I am here to talk more about boys. The boys I currently have in the house- 39, 13, 11 and 2 - keep me exposed to everything from heart-achingly wonderful to utterly disgusting. You can make your own assumptions about that limited information. I knew enough about boys when I was first pregnant with Roman to know better than to actually want another one. After all I was (and still am) married to one and I was (and still am) raising two others (errhhh- am I raising all of them....?) But I did really, really hope that he was a boy before I knew. I dreamed that he was. I felt like I had figured boys out and was finally over the fact that I can't put dresses on them. It was like...

A few months ago, as I began to assemble inspirations and sketches for my 2012 fabric collections, I decided that moths among other naturalistic thingermaggigins would play a feature role in the line. Not much later we discovered we had a serious moth problem in our kitchen. I don't mean a couple of moths flying around. I mean that I open a brand new box of pasta that has never been opened and a few moths fly out. I then almost hurl, throw away the pasta, grab my purse and holler that we're going out. We cleaned out the pantry entirely. Like, scrubbed. They're back. Moth balls? I thought moths liked wool. Or flames. Ours like carbs. My feelings towards that moth art have changed. I almost decided I couldn't handle making moth art. But this collection is a little bit based on throwing yourself into the midst. Of anything. And studying it. So I decided it should not just be a beautiful print, but a shrine-like offering to the moths, depicting the most beautiful moths our...

Do you know that your beautiful coat inspired my floor color? Nutty, creamy, beautiful, soft. I wuvvssu Weo. Thank you for running faster than me (aka kicking my butt) today. This weekend I will be serving in the appetizer booth at the Greek Festival (she's going to kill me for that link), so come and say hello if you get a chance. The food is so good, and I have a whole gaggle of folk dancing children who will be performing too. One of these days I'll have to share all the costume making I've done for them for years. Which I should be getting back to now.... ps. you can see all of my bare white pre-moved-into studio and read about my inspirations in this quarter's issue of Studios Magazine . They are also going to follow up in the Winter issue with the moved-into studio feature. It was clean for like 2 hours. We took pictures. It hasn't been picked up again since. I am just glad there is printed evidence in their forthcoming issue. sunny, cool days to yo...

It took me creating a new little embroidery- specifically for a table scarf- to tidy up my dining room, the whole house really, and share some pictures of it with you. I don't remember where I left off in showing the changes that I've made to the mess hall. I know you've likely seen it in its Raindrop blue stages here a few times. I also vaguely recall talking about how I wanted it to be cream colored by thanksgiving one year (didn't happen, it was all I could do to stuff a turkey that year)... and then I still picture these pictures of my boy on crutches sitting against cream walls. Anyway. The curtains are not new, but a patching of two fabrics that I created a few months ago, after deciding that no single fabric was doing the job for me. And I found myself hopping from the one turquoise fabric to another red fabric , deciding on neither, making something out of a whole other piece with some patchwork thingermagiggins across them only to take them down afte...

My friend Kathy was kind enough to ask me to share a look at my sewing space, so you can see that over here today , as well as lots of other very inspiring sewing spaces for the rest of the month! Anyway, it goes without say, that I have been chomping at the bit to get this place in order enough to share some looks at what the new attic studio has been turning into. I am a firm believer in slow realization for any kind of living space. In other words I think the best spaces are those that get decorated, adorned, furnished, over time after use and function come to light. You can certainly fill a space in a matter of days, but really making it come together in the best possible way for me takes time and doing it wrong a few times, shifting, etc. The only problem with this method being that it makes me and my room a bit camera shy until it gets where I want to be....wherever, or whenever that is. But you know. Every space in my house is a work in progress. So with this new space ...

I tended to two gardens this weekend. Only a tiny bit more of this, indoor, patchworky one (oh, but the joy found there). Much, much more time spent on the outdoor gardens. And not the charming kind of tending either, more the chainsaw, electric trimmer, 2000 sq ft of black plastic kind of tending. We've needed to trim back trees and wayward undergrowth from trees for a while, as well as hedges, limbs and all that. I also decided that I was finally going to do what I've been wanting to do forever with our front beds and that is increase them by about ten times. I currently only have narrow borders about 3 or 4 feet wide along the front walk and house perimeter, and I find that perennials just overtake one another, and quickly get shaded by the flowering trees, etc. I just need more space. Everything needs digging up, dividing, and replanting in a more thought out arrangement. So the process has me trying to kill about 1500 sq ft of grass without using chemicals. Withou...