i’ve always loved embroidery, and i love old heavy linen and old patched up cottons.  i finally decide to put them together and do some flower drawing embroidery on the back of an old linen calendar towel.first, i practiced drawing a fig branch on paper.  then i drew it on the dishtowel (clamped to a masonite drawing board) with a disappearing ink pen from the fabric store.  it disappears in 12 to 24 hours, so you have to get cracking with the embroidery!  then i put it in the hoop and stitched the drawing .  it was really fun.  i have more projects like it on the way.

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serenbe has received no shortage of press. it is an intentional community outside of atlanta with a mix of new construction and shared open spaces. a small “town” exists and on the day we visited we passed folks out on horses, running on the woodland paths, and people just sitting outside the local cafe enjoying their cool drink (it was a hot day…).

we were happy to finally try this spot:
while it now has a new owner, it was originally started by this friend of ours.

we loved the donkey in our cupcake:

then, we found a footpath that led from town straight into the woods:

and finally, on our brief tour, we loved the customized speed limit and stop signs:

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but, it was also fun to walk around callaway garden itself. one of their neatest things is the butterfly center which is home to hundreds (maybe thousands?) of butterflies.
seeing them close up was a treat, especially for the two year-old that was there with us.

here are some hatching butterflies:

and here are some just flying about:

they have these beautiful watercolor studies in their entrance hall:

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thanks again to design*sponge for including us on friday.

here are some more images from the supper. hugh’s recipe for shrimp rolls follows…
enjoy!

rebecca standing in the door of her idea shack:

the light inside is insanely beautiful- dim, but glowing.

meanwhile, outside…

we all loved looking at the reisling gelee’, or as we called it that night, “Fancy jello shots”…

it was paired with sweetgrass cheeses and roasted grapes

we all set the table with odds and ends and cuttings from rebecca’s and rinne’s gardens:

steve made sure everyone was well-hydrated. it was close to 100 degrees!

luckily, there was the slightest breeze:

some of our food:

by the end, everyone was scraping the last morsels from their plates:

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HUGH’S SHRIMP ROLLS

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Little
Shrimp rolls

Serves Four

1 tablespoon Old Bay

2 bay leaves

1 sprig of fresh thyme

1/2 pound medium sized (41/50) American white shrimp, beheaded, peeled and deveined

1 tablespoons mayonnaise

1 tablespoon crème fraiche

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon minced celery

1 tablespoon chopped capers

1 teaspoon minced shallot

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 tablespoon chopped flatleaf parsley

1/4 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme leaves

pinch of red chile flake

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper

4 six-inch pieces of soft baguette, cut like a hotdog bun

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 400°F.

- Bring a gallon of water to a vigorous boil and add the old bay, bay leaves and fresh thyme.
- Add the shrimp and cook for four minutes and then remove the shrimp and cool in an ice bath.
- Remove shrimp when cooled and set aside.
- Place the mayonnaise, crème fraiche, Dijon mustard, celery, capers and shallot in a bowl and stir with a wooden spoon.
- Add the lemon juice, parsley, thyme, chile flake, salt and pepper.
- Stir to combine and then add the shrimp. Toss well.
- Spread the inside of the baguette portions with butter and place on a sheet pan.
- Toast in the oven for five minutes, or until nicely golden and toasty.
- Remove bread from oven and equally fill with dressed shrimp.
- Eat.

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our friend nancy calls them “natures embroidery”.  they weave their way up our trees, through our windows, along the sides of our homes, and across our ceilings.  many of us have a love hate relationship with them.  one one hand they knit a lovely fabric of natural beauty and the other hand, well….they take over.

enjoy these photos of southern vines that i have seen throughout the years…

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• old mirrors. magnolia bloom
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spring is finally here! the daffodils came first, then all at once, the white pear trees, the pink japanese magnolias, the yellow forsythias. peach, apple trees, and redbuds will soon follow. the grass is vibrantly green and the sky is rain washed blue. the brown dirt is crying out to be planted, but before the rush of gardening chores begins, we will glory in a hillside of daffodils…

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even though we live in the south, it still gets cold here.  right around this time of year it becomes a little harder to find colorful flora.  you might find a few a few camellias here and there but that is about it.  i decided to take a walk in our state botanical garden’s indoor garden.  it was so nice to see some flowers blooming and take in some of the colorful beauty. sometimes it is just what you need to get you through the long winter.

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• happy new year!
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• homemade hot cocoa and marshmallows

on warmer days out in the idea shack, i can study my cotton; learning its’ symmetry and its’ gestures, absorbing its’ character and rhythm. back in my ceramics studio, i’m working out the colors and making the plates. once it all comes together – loads of cotton plates will fill the shop.

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David lived around the corner in the late 80s, when the house was still occupied by members of the family that built it in 1903. When David set out to buy a place of his own years later, he remembered the little cottage on Pulaski Heights that he had always thought ideal. It had since become a rental so he found the owner and after a surprisingly brisk and successful negotiation signed a sales contract without even having been inside. Naively, he took three weeks off work to “fix the place up,” but it wasn’t until many years later, under Cassie’s influence, that the table saw finally disappeared from the of the living room and hammers and drills from the kitchen counter.

The house sits very near the street, so we installed the shutters you see in these photos to maximize privacy while preserving ventilation.   French doors lead from the front porch into the library and we are able keep the house open to the outside for three seasons of the year.

Most of the art in the house is by local artists and friends. The blue bird was painted by Andy Cherwick.

The house originally had a few small rooms and over the years the original owners added still more small rooms. We’ve knocked down several walls so that, now, the center of the house is one large room with a chimney and woodstove in the middle. It can be partitioned by closing two sets of glass, folding doors on either side for the chimney.

=

The dining room opens out onto the side screened porch through floor-to-ceiling doors that were for the formerly the front doors of Farmers Hardware at the east end of Broad Street. Photographs of Isak Dinesen’s home in Kenya, inspired us to bring the outdoors inside for as much of the year as possible. Her house was little more than a pole barn with a lavish interior.   We haven’t gone that far but sights, sounds and smells of the outdoors reach every room.

The kitchen also opens to the side screened porch, which can serve as an extension of the kitchen or dining room as needed. But, mostly, we use it to relax and entertain. Just off the porch, Cassie’s kitchen garden supplies us with herbs and cut flowers.

Our dog, Miss Brown, enjoys the yard most of all. We’ve gradually replaced the lawns with native understory plants that provide habitat for wildlife and food for birds.

This giant post oak is the glory of the yard.

The Topkapi Palace in Istanbul inspired our landscape design. Topkapi is not a palace in the conventional sense, but rather a walled enclosure in which separate buildings with the various functions the rooms of a home. The buildings are spread out over a park-like setting. We acquired an old municipal water tower site adjacent to the house and have   tried to create the feeling of an enclosed garden. A circle of 12 large, concrete piers that once supported the legs of the water tower add a little monumentality to the setting. We’ve added a tea house and a couple of other structures here and there. It’s not exactly Topkapi, but it’s a great place to watch the sunset as the chimney swifts circle overhead.

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