Orchidea phalaenopsis

I love orchids.  These seem to be quite happy residing on my kitchen table along with a few african violets.  I am hoping that they will like it so much they will continue to grow and bloom.  I have tried to grow orchids before, sadly, not too successfully.  But on a beautiful and sunny day as today was, I am very hopeful!

Saturday Still Life

I bought this piece of batik fabric at a rummage sale today.  It is just gorgeous.  I can't decide what I will do with it so for now, it is a tablecloth.

Saturday Still Life

The weekend went by so quickly and peacefully.  Yesterday, I was up in my sewing room at 8 in the morning trying to decide what to do. Then, I heard on the radio it was going to rain so I thought I'd better clean out the rain gutters.  One thing lead to another, trim the tree, cut the grass, rake up leaves, sweep the street gutter, clean the storm drains for our area, then the creative energy of the day was spent.  And then no rain.  Today, it rained pretty much all day so I was free for creative pursuits and sewed at my leisure.  I had the windows open to air out the house and left them open until late afternoon.  The rain seems to have cleaned the dust from the air and streets making it feel almost spring like.  It doesn't seem much like fall and I'm not ready for winter.  Hence, the pastel gerberas.

Saturday Still Life

Oh, the zinnia of it all!

I just adore zinnias. I have been too busy lately to make regular bouquets of flowers but I finally cut as many of the zinnias as I could from the garden and was pretty pleased with the large bouquet and the rich colors. When I finally get my backyard in shape, I plan on having lots more space dedicated to the planting of zinnias!

Saturday Still Life

Bouquets of flowers from the garden.

A mixed bouquet of hydrangeas, calla lillies and aglaia daisies.

These are cone flowers otherwise known as echinaceas from my garden.

I couldn't decide which photo I liked better. Plus, I just love these flowers.

Some more flowers and greenery from my garden as well as the first squash minus what has been already eaten (I did try some batter fried zucchini blossoms stuffed with mozzarella cheese with little zucchinis attached this afternoon-delicious!) . We also made some frutti di bosco jam as well as some pickled beets. I was lucky enough to find golden and chioggia beets at the farmers market on Saturday.

Saturday Still Life

Saturday Still Life

Parole italiane del giorno:

(Devo smettare traducendo la canzone del Claudio Baglioni, Fammi Andar Via, che triste!)

1. lutto - mourning

2. luttoso - mournful

3. boia - executioner

4. crepare - to kick the bucket

5. crepare dalle risa - to split one's side laughing (si, ho fatto questo, dopo ho letto crepare nel dizionario)

6. crepa - crack

7. crepacuore - broken heart

8. vigliaccheria - cowardice

9. fuorimano - out of the way place

10. irraggiungibile - inaccessible

bonus words:

fossile - fossil

conchiglia - shell

roba - stuff, things, possesions

Saturday Still Life, Italian in 10 Words a Day

Flowers in a Laura Ashley blue chintz pitcher. Fiori nella blu chintz brocca da Laura Ashley.


La giungla aspetta...

Italian Words of the Day:

Parole italiane del giorno:

1. dettaglio > dettagli - detail(s)

2. svolazzare - to flutter ( past participle - svolazzato)

3. scendere - to go down (past participle - sceso)

4. salire - to go up (past participle - salito)

5. accendere - to turn on (past participle - acceso)

6. spegnare - to turn off (past participle - spento)

7. lo spicchio - piece, slice, (clove of garlic or segment of citrus)

8. il bagliore - flash, dazzling light

9. un bagliore di speranza - a ray of hope

10. raccoglimento - meditation

Saturday Still Life

Bringing me much needed calm


and, distraction....

Saturday Still Life, Italian in 10 Words a Day

I haven't really been happy with the lighting for my still life photos and I have been wanting to try a different view or location to see if I could get more natural light. But first I have to, err, tidy up a bit so you couldn't see the pile(s) of books, Italian lessons and dust in the background!
This vase of my garden zinnias is my favorite. They are about a week old and have held up pretty well. I used the soft focus feature of Picasa on the photo below.

I'm still working on the Italian words in some of my previous posts, but here are a few Italian words for the day:

1. polvere - dust

2. aspirapolvere - vacuum cleaner

3. mettere in ordine - to tidy up

4. riordinare - to tidy up, reorganize

5. organizzarsi - to get organized (reflexive verb)

6. mettere via - to put away

7. sporco/a - dirty

8. pulito/a - clean

9. pulire - to clean

10. assai - a lot

Saturday Still Life, Italian in 10 Words a Day

I love these spiky, white hydrangea (paniculata) flowers.

Words of the day:
vetro - glass
vaso - vase
un vaso da vetro - a glass vase
un vaso d'aqua - a vase of water
l'ortensia - hydrangea
un ramo - branch
cogliere - to pick, gather
mirtilli - blueberries
pantano - bog
torba - peat

Saturday Still Life - Italian in 10 words a day

My latest treasure... I wanted a jug for flower arranging so was pretty pleased when I found this majolica jug (and yes, at a thrift store, it just has a few nicks but good enough for flowers) ... God knows there would be no way to haul something this heavy back on the plane especially now they are going to start charging for checked luggage.
I bought the little bowls in Amalfi, I think that they are olive pit bowls. And, the dishtowel is from Tuscany, I think when I was in Montepulciano. This was my mock up photo. I try to play around with colors to see what is brought out by the background. Here I used Japanese silk shibori scarves and a fake sunflower.

Words of the day:
1. ceramica - ceramic
2. ceramiche - ceramics (plural)
3. brocca - jug
4. brocche - jugs (plural)
5. asciugamano - towel
6. strofinaccio dei piatti - dish towel
7. sciarpa - scarf
8. ciotola - bowl
9. scodella - bowl
10. paniere - basket (with a handle)

I have trouble with some plural words. In Italian, masculine words generally end in o or a. Masculine/feminine words like ragazzo/ragazza are easily pluralized to ragazzi/ragazze but I need to work on the irregular pluralization like brocca to brocche and ceramica to ceramiche.

Saturday Still Life

Hydrangeas on washi. When I was a little girl, I would spend my allowance on pottery animals from Soko Hardware in San Francisco (I think the small ones cost a quarter and the bigger ones 50 cents). I still love Soko Hardware and hardware stores in general.

I usually don't cut my hydrangea blossoms preferring to enjoy them on the bush. But with the schizophrenic weather we're having this year, last week 106, today in the 70's and rain, I figure they won't last very long outside either.I love this little washi covered tin. We looked at these as possible favors filled with candy for my sister's wedding but opted for something else.

Saturday Still Life

The first of the zinnias and the last of the pansies. Plus some cast iron teapots from Japantown in San Francisco.

Saturday Still Life

As the lady of the house (I say this in my best Hyacinth Bucket voice), my first priority on Saturday morning is to make sure that cut flowers are placed in the important rooms of the house. That would be the kitchen, the bedroom and the bathroom.
These are this week's arrangements. Mostly roses, a few gerberas and calla lillies. The summer flowers are just starting to come on. Sometimes I fill in with lavender (didn't want to disturb the honeybees this morning) and although, they really can't been seen, leather leaf ferns and other greens from my yard.
After the sun goes down, I can look at this arrangement in my kitchen from artist Angus Macaulay.