New Colette Patterns Coming, and Happy Birthday to Little Hunting Creek

Are you ready for summer? I am so ready. I'm a former California Girl, and in winter I dream of sundresses, shorts, going coatless and bootless and scarfless. These pretty patterns will inspire you to make shorts and sundresses even before the weather heats up, because they are so darn cute.



Since it it Little Hunting Creek's tenth birthday, we're going to take pre-orders on these patterns now, and ship when they arrive next week. As a little birthday bonus, we'll give FREE Shipping if you buy TWO or more Colette Patterns (instead of our usual THREE patterns. We'll take the discount off in the shopping cart, so don't be alarmed if you see it.)

These shorts are the kind of patterns that I'd like to make ten versions of, in every sherbet color.
May summer last a thousand years!

The Accidental Diet

No sooner had I come up with a brilliant idea for a cookbook that I immediately decided to write, Mr. Hunting Creek decides to go on a diet. He does this occasionally, and all of us shiver in awe at his dedication and annoying success. He is a fanatic! Dieting is like a religion to him, including the periods of self-denial, ritual fasting and feasting. He never cheats - never!(Once several years ago, when he went on Pritikin, we were so fat free I used to dream at night about butter and olive oil. I am not making this up.) Only when my sister and I threatened to excommunicate him from cooking did he let us bring olive oil back into the kitchen. My sister still remembers this period with a shudder. After that debacle, he was forbidden to even utter the words low-fat in our presence.
This time he decided to combine Atkins with power-walking. Our children and I told him that while we totally supported him, we were not going to go totally carb-free. When we went to Ray's Hell Burger for Mother's Day, he ate his without the bun. Even though I am not on a diet, I had to stop baking, which is my main form of entertainment. Our son and I can't eat a whole cake or batch of cookies and then I'd just have to throw it all out. So in a way we are all inadvertantly dieting because it is no fun for us to eat dark chocolate brownies alone. However, it has been a challenge to design entire menus that do not include excess simple carbohydrates. It's like having vegetarians come for Thanksgiving. You have to be creative. When we had an Easter Brunch I made all the dishes so that he and his fellow dieters at the table could easily avoid the carbs by just not eating the home-baked soft rolls (which were awesome, by the way), and not putting sugar on their strawberries. I discovered that ground almonds make a nice crust for a savory cheesecake and an admirable addition to crab cakes.
This made me think what if there were a cooking site that could convert recipes to conform to different diet regimens? For example, suppose you want a cheesecake - just plug your recipe into the recipe converter and it sends back a converted recipe with suggested changes. My rule would also stipulate that nothing fake could be used, since I don't approve of artificial sweeteners or fake anything. Usually when I imagine something this awesome, the Universe nicely invents it for me and I don't have to do the tedious work of making it happen. (I 'invented' non-electric ice cream makers this way). I'm working on inventing low-carb Ice Cream and cake that has nothing fake. Wish me luck!

Wild Things

We live in the woods not far from Mount Vernon. Even though we're only about twelve miles from the Capitol in Washington, you'd never know it from the view out of our windows. This week has been Nature Week at Little Hunting Creek. We have had two deer on our back porch, just walking around and looking for hostas to munch on, a wild turkey this morning and yesterday - a SNAKE in the downstairs hallway. Yes, you read that right. A black Snake, just outside J. Hunting Creek's bathroom, in the downstairs hallway, just chillin'. Mr. Hunting Creek almost ran into Mr. Black Snake and called me from downstairs, yelling, "hey, there's a snake in the hallway!" That's the kind of announcement that gets my immediate attention.
Two years ago in summer, I had spotted Mr. Black Snake in the living room. J. Hunting Creek had left the back door open a smidgen and that was just enough for Mr. Snake to come in and make himself at home. I thought he was a belt on the floor and almost walked over to pick him up until he moved and I realized that he was not a belt at all. It is a heart stopping realization that what you think is an inanimate object is in fact alive. I was alone in the house and had a brief panic attack, and then got hold of myself. I called Mr. Hunting Creek at work. No luck, he was on one of his eternal conference calls. I called my daughter. She is always full of practical advice. She said to call Animal Control. They sent over a very nice man who told me all about what I need to know about snakes while he searched for my snake, who had decided to make himself scarce while I was letting the officer in. My son joined in the search and the officer told us everything we ever needed to know about capturing black snakes. Basically, they are harmless, and we were so lucky that the snake would eat our crickets and mice. No problem that we couldn't find him! He would let himself out!
Well, now we know that he did NOT let himslf out, because there he was in the hallway yesterday. Mr. Hunting Creek felt some hesitation about just grabbing him with his bare hands and I don't blame him. I thought fast - why not put a box over him, slide my large rotary cutting board underneath, and have my own personal Team Six- Snake Removal Division, remove him to the front yard? The capture went flawlessly. The cutting board/box on top of snake prevented escapes, and it was easy for Team Six to take him outside and set him free. I held the door.
It's been a busy week and it's only Wednesday. (This is an excellent reason, if you needed a reason, to buy a large rotary cutting board. Useful for rotary cutting patterns and snake captures!)

The Right Stuff

Wasn't that a lovely wedding? The bride was radiant, the groom was blushing, everyone looked happy (except for that one bridesmaid) and now we're all off to search for a pattern for Pippa's dress. Having got up at 4am this morning, I can't be trusted to do anything more complex than load patterns on my website. I may have loaded several thousand vintage patterns in the last few years, and I think that there might be two kinds of Pattern People: the Stuffers and the Folders.
The Stuffers take their used pattern pieces and without regard to envelope size or shape, wad them up into a vague rectangular blob and jam them into the poor envelope, shoving the instructions in along side the wad of pattern. Witness the photo above.
Whereas those of the Folding School of Pattern Care gently fold their ironed pattern pieces, softly and reverently slide them inside the instruction sheets and close the envelope. The Stuffers sometimes can't close their envelopes, so they frequently resort to staples! (Oh the horror!) Those of the Stuffing persuasion may be closely related to those sadly misguided souls who cut out their patterns with Pinking Shears. My Junior High School sewing teacher felt that this behavior was just one step on the road to perdition, and I can't help but feel that she may have been right. How can one line up the pieces accurately if they're cut with pinked edges? I do not approve.
Of course I feel that my way is the only correct way: when the garment is sewn and the pattern is no longer needed, gently fold the pieces, making sure that all of them are together with the instructions and place them back in the original envelope.
I am always shocked to hear of people who cut up their envelopes, tape them to manila folders, and shove the pieces into ziplock bags. Or they tell me that the have all of their patterns sorted by number. (This is OCD madness, and I hear that there is medication that can help.)
I have mine sorted by pattern company, and then by type of pattern, because when I want to make a skirt, I am not going to remember the number. I just keep all the skirts together.
But there are people with complex systems who scan the patterns and have whole galleries on Flickr. I suppose I could do that, but I like to look though them.
I never cut up the envelopes and I never mangle the patterns. (What would Mrs. Funk say?)
What say you - are you a Folder, or a Stuffer?

Search Me

It is my morning amuse-bouche to read the daily search terms that people use to find my blog and website.
This morning the terms used were: hunting baby quilt, Hunting dress pattern, hunting paint. This left Mr. Hunting Creek and me scratching our heads. What on earth would a hunting baby quilt look like? Babies with camo and shotguns? Babies in duck blinds? Babies out with Springer Spaniel puppies, looking for ducks? (I hope they didn't mean that they were hunting for babies...what kind of creepy person would do that? And combined with quilting? It boggles the imagination.)
We're also uncertain as to what a hunting dress pattern might be, but I like to think it looks like an English Riding Habit from a romantic novel. Maybe Hunter Green and velveteen. With a hat that has a long black feather.
And as for the person who was looking for a pattern for a curling holder...I think that they are just making stuff up. Unless it's for a curling stone for curling the sport, which would also be weird. In that case, they are on their own.

Little Hunting Creek in Fall Colors

Here is an osprey platform on the creek. There are several nesting pairs all along the Potomac and we frequently see them carrying fish to their nests.





Yesterday was a beautiful Fall day, warm and calm, as you can see by the reflections on the water.





There were no mosquitoes and hardly any bugs at all. Just warm sun and still water.




Nature makes some beautiful abstract compositions; better than many works of art only a few miles up the road in the Smithsonian.




Here's a different view of the Potomac; you are looking at the bridge over Little Hunting Creek. North is left and south is right. Through the bridge and you go out into the Potomac. Turn right and go south to Mount Vernon and further south down to the Chesapeake. Go north about ten miles and you are in Washington, DC.
The land in the distance across the river is Maryland.



Here's is one of our neighbors dressed in his fall colors. He was eating a catfish and then took a walk.

All photos above taken by Mr. Hunting Creek from his canoe while on Little Hunting Creek yesterday afternoon.

Since I can't go out...

Since I can't go out in the heat (MS sufferers can't take the heat; if it weren't true it would be an excellent excuse to crank up the air, but it is in fact, true) I might as well post some new patterns. I've put up 12 new McCalls and Butterick Vintage patterns with more to follow. Halloween decorations, costumes, classic dresses, tops, Home dec and more. Just go to what's new on the website and enjoy.

Hunting Needed

Our business is called The Little Hunting Creek Company; it is a historical name and it is right in our neighborhood. Just a short hop, skip and jump down the hill from here, in fact. George Washington once owned Little Hunting Creek and all of the surrounding land. Most of the land nearby is either National Parkland or protected marshland. It is especially beautiful here this time of year, when everything is green and blooming and all the birds have returned. We enjoy going out on the creek in our canoe, and the dogs (pictured in a previous post) have been known to jump in.
But our company has nothing to do with hunting, as even a quick glimpse at our website will show. Nothing even remotely connected with hunting.

Imagine our amusement when we received this email yesterday (names have been redacted)
DEAR SIR, WE ARE INTERESTED IN HUNTING AT YOUR PLACE I WANT TO KNOW THE COST AND ALSO I NEED MORE DETAILS ON HOW YOUR HUNTING ACTIVITIES ARE LIKE,

1 DO YOU HAVE ACCOMMODATION,
2 TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES,
3 DO YOU HANDLE FEEDING OF THE HUNTERS

I WILL ALSO LIKE TO KNOW THE HUNTING PACKAGES YOU HAVE AND PERIODS OR DATES AVAILABLE AND OTHER NECESSARY THINGS HE WILL NEED TO BRING ALONG FOR HUNTING
HE WISHES TO HUNT FOR 2 DAYS AND IT WILL BE FULL DAY HUNT.

I WILL BE EXPECTING YOUR SOONEST REPLY WITH PACKAGES AVAILABLE THE DATES AND AMOUNT SO THAT I CAN MAKE ARRANGEMENTS ON HIS ARRIVAL AND PAYMENT OF THE HUNT
NOTE: DO YOU ACCEPT CREDIT CARDS AS A MEANS OF PAYMENT
REGARDS.

Mr. Hunting Creek loves this idea. He says he would be happy to take people fishing for the mighty snakeheads (spellcheck suggested skinheads as an alternative instead. Spellcheck has a quirky sense of humor, have you noticed?) on Little Hunting Creek. We do have authentic English Springer Spaniels, but they have never hunted birds. (They did catch a squirrel once, but I think that was pure dumb luck.) Did this Englishman even LOOK at our website? Does he imagine that we do quilting and sewing, with hunting on the side?
Mr. Hunting Creek is all for doing British empire-style hunting on the side. He says this is a perfect opportunity to wear clothes like Robert Redford's in Out Of Africa and have elegantly dressed servants to assist the hunting party. He is imagining the part of the movie where they go on Safari and are dressed formally for dinner in the middle of the wilds of Kenya. That's the kind of hunting he has in mind. He wants a Hunting Lodge too, and the staff that goes with it. However, no one hunts on Little Hunting Creek. People fish for snakeheads and catfish. There are beautiful ducks and herons and geese. There are deer, foxes and possums, but alas for our English friends, no lodges or shooting parties. No food for the hunters either (unless they want to dine in Old Town Alexandria). Perhaps I should do restaurant reviews on the side? But I draw the line at hunting.
Oh wait! A quick scan of the internets shows that he might have us confused with these people!(But he had our email address. He had to have gotten that from our website. Didn't he get just a teensy bit concerned when he saw the Vintage Vogue Designer Patterns and quilting software? I'll send him a polite reply. Dear Sir, We regret to inform you...