cold weather makes me sleepy.

like this:
warm sunbeams on the back porch are the only place to be. also, hot tea makes a comeback.


a second round of patty-pan squarshes:


seasonally confused honeysuckle:

the meyer lemons are just about ready for harvesting...what will i do with 30 lemons? i'd make lemon curd and put it away for safe keeping but everytime i've tried to make some sort of preserve it ended with disasterous results. anyone up for the challenge?

the lemon tree (albeit small right now) looks like something out of candy-land with it's little lemon drop ornaments. can you imagine how it will look in several years when it's as tall as me? crazytown!

hot tea: jasmine, chai, and blooming! have you ever had tea that blooms before? i wish i had a clear teapot to brew it in. alas, a big mason jar and a kettle of boiling water will have to do for now. pictures to come!

whoa! so much going on in katinkaville! i need an interactive calendar for the blog...anyone know how to make one? this month and the next are going to be so busy! i started making some smaller headbands (less ostentatious frippery is what i mean by 'smaller')...they seem very 'woodland' to me. sadly, i have no pictures of them at the moment, but you can find them at Garbo Salon right now. lots of tiny little tattery vintage millinery flowers, a feather here, a feather there...some bits and poufs of old hat netting, a snippet of antique lace. i just ordered big box of vintage millinery goodies that i found on schmeebay, which i'm over the moon about. so many tiny little velvety and chiffony little buds! i cannot wait to put more of these little woodland headbands together so you can see them in le shop and at the wheatsville + adelante shows!

wednesday morning zen.

mid-november harvst.

i can't believe it's november 10th and the garden veggies just keep coming. only in texas, my friends. well, maybe in california or something...but still. i think i'll chop these up and make quesadillas tonight.
SHOP787 is but a memory now. i made so many contacts, new friends, and new customers. the event was moved indoors due to the rain, but i was overjoyed to be sharing a space with Garbo Salon! i also met a wonderful artist, Annie Bradley. i traded a pair of birdy earrings for a fantastical peacock print of hers...check out her work here.

i only had a {roughly} 4' x 8' space allotted to me so i really had to squish as much frippery as i could into my little nook, but i think it all worked out well.

the lighting was a bit weird in these photos...it makes my space seem a bit cold, maybe? in real life it seemed very magical to me, bien sur! lots and lots of compliments came my way and a whole slew of friends and fambly came to visit. {thank you! xoxoxoxo}

one of the girls distributing maps + info for SHOP787 made her way to my table and to see what the fuss was about; she said she all day people had been asking her where Katinka Pinka's booth was. this Made My Day, y'all. the cockles of my heart were warm and pink and fluffy and i'm pretty sure glitter and pixie dust fell from the heavens after she told me that.

so it's back to the grindstone now. i just found out this morning {when my phone bleeped at me at 8:09 AM from incoming emails} that i've been accepted to the Wheatsville Art Festival. FUCK YEAH! december 5th + 6th, all day; mark your calendars! {and keep your fingers crossed that we have decent weather}

after that i have my trunk show at ADELANTE on december 19th and then i will breathe and have a little eggnog and then the holidays will be over and a whole new year will begin. every year my little business grows, bit by bit, and i'm more thankful than mere words can express to all my friends and fambly and customers, new + old, that have made it happen for me. thank you, thank you x 1000!

second spring, autumn harvest.

they listened to me! i told them to ripen and they finally did.

this is an 'olive cucumber'. cucumbers the size of olives. i guess.

No! IT'S NOT RHUBARB. it's chard, dammit.

the borage always takes over. it has returned with a vengeance.

mexican marigold and purple salvia:

calamondins. like tiny sour oranges. use them like lemons.

water spinach fleur. not growing in water.

thems yer wednesday morning zens. i'm tired and cranky and my stomach hurts because i'm freaking out about everything. i feel completely unprepared for SHOP787 on sunday. COMPLETELY. this is normal, though...i assure you. i will be working until 2AM saturday night if everything happens the way it usually does. i will sleep all day monday and then start with holiday madness. i wish i could just find some semblance of balance. someday, someday...my life will be cozy and organized. for now it's chaos and anarchy and i accept it. i embrace it and am one with it. sort of.

speaking of holiday goodness, i am having a trunk show at ADELANTE in ATX on December 19th! it's going to be fancy and lovely, bien sur! and just in time for last minute hexmas shopping and finding a few bits of frippery you might need for merry-making parties that you will inevitably attend around the last few weeks of the year. more info and updates on that to come.

DON'T FORGET, dear pixies! SHOP787 is this SUNDAY from noon 'til dusk...and it will cost you $10 to get in unless you purchase TICKETS in ADVANCE. advance tickets are a mere $5 and you can get them here. tickets will benefit the Dell Children's Hospital...don't forget to bring a new children's book to donate to their book drive! merci beaucoup, mon cheries!

walking after midday.

so i think i mentioned awhile back that i've started walking my packages to the post office instead of driving. i go just about every other day. and i finally started using my iPhone like an iPod and i listen to musique all the way there and back. it makes the walk seem 10x faster, bien sur.

sometimes, make that most of the time, when i'm walking...i don't know what to do with my hands. they feel uncomfortable just hanging at my side and i don't want to swing them around like some kind of crazy power-walker. i have a 'messenger' bag that i sling across my body and so i usually sort of clutch on to the strap of that. i'm a total geek. how many other people don't know what to do with their hands when they walk? i'll never be normal.

on saturday we went to our neighbor's, jessica + ian's, wedding. jessica wore a fantastic Katinka Pinka headpiece that i concocted from a cream ostrich plume, champagne peacock feathers, and a giant red rose. naturally, i didn't want to be without a headpiece either, so i came up with a hot pink number and put together an outfit around it:

my pink and black stockings were a hit!

true love:
miss jessica's fantabulous frippery:

i snapped this photo, below, and once captured and viewed on a screen, it seemed very painterly to me:

cheers, y'all!

a beer-swilling 'maid, with yet another Katinka Pinka feathered bit of frippery:

i was rather amused at the way she held her bouquet and beer in the same hand. tres elegant, no?

in closing, i leave you with, dah dah dah DAH...cupcake wedding cake:

yum!

a throbbing behind my eyes.

headaches-ville.

i made tiny sterling razor blade necklace. hand-sawn, nary a straight line to be found.

it makes me laugh. yes, it's very, very sharp; what would be the point of making one that wasn't? my hope is that, when worn, it sends a message. and that message is: PLEASE TAKE THREE STEPS BACK. i sort of like the vaguely crooked lines, the uneven heart. i like to see the perfection in imperfection, you know? it has nothing to do with my relentlessly shaky hands, i'm sure.

so much going on! 8 days 'til SHOP787. i can't wrap my head around it yet. i've been afraid to draw up my little sketch-plan of how i will set everything up. i just don't want to think about it yet. i received a jewelry supply order from Rio Grande yesterday and, of course, the chain i so desperately needed for some ultra beauteous antique glass lockets i have is BACKORDERED. WTF? they didn't tell me that when i ordered it. aaaarrrrgggghhhh.

i did receive some fantastical 24k gold vermeil lotus pendants and earwires that i'm very excited about working with, though! and also a BIG bottle of {already prepared} liver of sulphur for all my oxidizing whims. i always enjoy bottles of liquid chemicals. they make the husband nervous. someday when i'm very, very crazy i will barricade myself in a corner with all my chemicals. i often wonder, {when i'm working with metals} if i'm slowly but surely doing myself in. ever since i took up photography in 10th grade i've been fearless of dipping my bare hands in vats of toxin-laden liquids. i don't have any explanation for it. while everyone else wears heavy rubber gloves and leather aprons i'm barefoot and maskless. NO FEAR I TELL YOU. i know i should be careful, but i'm not. i hold my breath when i heat oxidize brass with my torch....isn't that enough?! after a few hours of silver-smithing my face is smudged with soot, polishing compound, and tiny bits of sterling shrapnel. i had a special, expensive mask to wear while tending to such tasks, but one of the dogs chewed it to smithereens long ago. like always, i shrug my shoulders and put my nose back to the grindstone. poisonous fumes be damned! (and i'm positive that my constant headaches have nothing, absolutely nothing to do with my utter lack of disregard for chemical safety precautions!)

your morning zen in pictures

MONSTER FIG!

morning winter feet:
RIPEN DAMMIT!

GIANT KALE!
winter clematis:

pink ladder:

garden variety:

winter wind blows the roses away:

hyacinth bean vine:

pink turk's cap:

home grown:

garden helper:

my head is killing me.

i've had a headache for 3 days now. it's a strange one, too. not my usual skull-crushing migraine, but more of an all-over dull ache. one of the side effects of my cymbalta happens to be jaw-clenching, which i find myself succumbing to more and more often...so maybe this headache has something to do with that. maybe it's my sinuses. maybe it's the weather. maybe it's just the impending holiday madness that afflicts me like....like i don't know. i just know i have a show in less than two weeks and prepping for it is only making my headache worse. i have no inclination to sew right now and i know i really need to whip up some more slip dresses.

i've been making earrings and single-stone pendant necklaces like crazy; however, i've only photographed one pair so far:

i get confused this time of year....i don't know what i should put in my etsy shop and what i should save for my shows. i know this is probably me just being lazy; i should list the stuff on etsy and remove it if it sells at the shows first. my brain is just going in so many different directions right now! i'm already thinking about cooking for thanksgiving and hexmas. i am not one of those ladies that cooks all the time; i rarely make dinner. if it's not frozen veggies that i steam in the microwave and top with crystallized mediterranean sea salt then it's fresh sushi rolls or roasted chicken quarters from the deli. I DO NOT COOK. it might be different if i had a proper kitchen (which will not happen until i have about $6,000 more dollars in my savings account, and the way the economy has gone down the crapper, that may never happen); until then, i can only make coffee and vegetables. anyway, i DO cook for holidays. a turkey wrapped in hickory smoked bacon, green bean casserole, cherry-cola salad, ambrosia, all that junk. so my brain is kind of starting to get nervous about all that. on holidays, i get so nervous about getting all the food done that i wake up at 5:30 in the morning to start cooking. and I AM NOT A MORNING PERSON. seriously, the earliest i ever get out of bed is 9am and that's pushing it. this rant is going nowhere. i would clean the house today but it's raining, and that means muddy dog paw prints and mopped floors that never dry. last night i packed up all my etsy orders and merely have to drop them off at the posty today. i need more manilla tags from office depot because fetpak.com has them back-ordered until mid-november (LAME!). feathers have been ordered and are on their way. neighbor's wedding order is almost finished. birthdee partee to attend saturday night and wedding on sunday. wimberley next saturday and then SHOP787 on sunday. still have no confirmation for wheatsville (WTF?). almost cried the other day whilst shopping at central market because they have a fresh pasta section and we don't have anything like that in san marcos. all i want is to be able to go to a market and buy fresh, semi-prepared food for my 'fambly'. and by fambly i mean myself and the husband. and maybe that's not really a 'fambly'. can you tell i'm feeling a little tired and bitter today?

the only cure is xanax and chocolate.

all together now.

the last few days have been pretty ho-hum around Katinka-ville. i've just been spending money and making myself nervous about the upcoming holidays. you have to spend money to make money, right? it seems like i always run out of everything at once: pink tissue paper, gold earwires, packing tape, peacock feathers, gift boxes. also, i need a manzanita branch or two. do you think any florist within a 50 mile radius of me would have some? nope. add that to the list of sh!t to order. oh yeah, and my container of liver of sulphur got wet somehow, leaked, and now i have nothing to oxidize my silver with. i'm going to have to hard-boil some cracked eggs and use the water to soak my wire. frustration station! i have a ton of fantabulous labradorite waiting to be made into earrings and no dark wire to wrap it with. it's making me woe-ful!

i need to make some serious money this weekend on etsy or i won't be able to pay myself this coming monday! also, the price of gold and silver keeps going up, dammit! i keep waiting to buy some raw materials, thinking the cost will go down and i'll stock up then, but...major FAIL. i have also had fruitless efforts in the last couple days in an attempt to teach my nephew to say, "bitch, PLEASE." he counters with, "geh!" everytime. this calls for donuts. with sprinkles.

updates to come.

boudoir-ish.

before i tell you about anything else, i MUST share with you my latest acquisition!

a 1920s boudoir doll headboard lamp. I LOVE HER. i have been DESPERATELY wanting one of these lamps, like, FOREVER.

she is, in my eyes, the ideal beauty. perfection. i hope when i grow up i look just like her. (maybe minus the bruises on my neck.) her dress is entirely hand sewn from pink ombre' silk ribbons and tulle. she is, ever so slightly, absolutely falling to pieces...and for this i love her even more.

"where ever did you find her, katinka?" you are wondering. let me explain. yesterday was my sweetie's birthdee...he turned 39 but for some reason i have thought he was turning 40 for his last 3 birthdees. anyway, we went to gruene to meet his dad for lunch at the gristmill and afterwards did a little antiquing. so, of course, in honor of lee's birthdee, i bought myself this lamp. i know what you're thinking....Katinka! that is so selfish! well, get over it. i'm a selfish queen and i already bought him a new reciprocating saw as his old one recently died. we practically had to hold a funeral for it! it had served us well...all through savannah and, obviously, well into all our houses here in texas. let me think.......five houses that saw worked on over a course of 7 years! it's a dewalt, by the way, if any of you are in the market for such a tool. at any rate, lee was shopping for old farm equipment to make into a new plow for his tractor and i was on the hunt for old lace. there was no lace to be found but i did snag a black tulle and rhinestone be-decked apron (huzzah!) and then, of course, my beloved lamp.

as soon as i saw her i snatched her down from her perch and carried her through the store like a baby. i think i first spied a boudoir doll many, many years ago on ebay and i have been searching for the right one ever since. NOW SHE IS MINE!

don't worry about poor lee. i went out later and bought him a cheesecake and the latest yeah yeah yeah's cd, which he was quite pleased with. my sweetie is not a fan of being surprised by gifts. he tells you what he wants and you either go by yourself to buy it or you take him along for the ride so he can pick it out. this is fine with me because dudes are notoriously hard to shop for. it's not like shopping for your girlfriends, where you can pick out any frilly, glittery, lacy thing and be done with it.

no.

men? you are almost impossible.

next order of business! remember that wild passion fruit-ling i showed you a week or so ago? well, it has grown exponentially:

apparently, the vine is maybe not as 'wild' as i had thought. turns out the variety is named 'incense' and is known for being very persnickety about producing fruit. HA! i'm very excited because of all the passion fruit varieties that we've had actual fruit from over the last year, this one seems to be looking the most like the kind you can buy at the store and is actually tasty! keep your fingers crossed that it grows to the size of a baseball and turns purple, okay?

we are definitely having a second spring, as the fig tree is in full production again:

on a final note, i believe i'm well again. i spent ALL of saturday in a mass of quilts on the sofa sorting gemstones into pairs. seriously, for 7 hours i compared facets and mindlessly watched 'say yes to the dress' on TLC (because now we have fancy cable again thanks to a cable man's careless ways!). if you don't know this show, the premise is that of sales consultants selling high-end wedding gowns to rich bitches at kleinfelds in NYC. after 7 hours of hearing about $12,000 dresses, i'm convinced i could work there and sell them all. really, i could do it. i can be very persuasive.

in closing, i leave you with dew drops on figs:

oh mercy.

oh mercy me, i am sick! my poor head feels like a gnome has taken up residence in my sinuses and i've sneezed, oh probably, 101 times in the last two days. poor me! no gadjo disko! no dinner with friends! it's just me and benny. (benadryl, silly!) honestly, i really do hope it's just terrible allergies because i went to the gem show yesterday and shopped with tissue in hand. i felt really guilty for doing it...for possibly spreading germs...but you can't miss a gem show! i tried to keep my tissue in one hand and use my other hand for everything else, but i think it was almost impossible to balance a tray of gems, a wallet, tissue, and a purse. anyway, without further ado, i present you with my platter o' gems:

whoa! a strand of some of the best labradorite i think i've ever seen! i think all but 2 briolettes on the strand have incredible blue flash, or labradorescence, if you want to get technical. pink topaz, chrysoprase, champagne quartz, rock quartz, carnelian, prasiolite, smokey quartz, rhodolite garnet, more pink topaz, and freshwater seed pearls.

i usually only go to the spring show, so this was my first time attending a pre-holiday event and it felt like there weren't as many gems. i wanted more amethyst briolettes but i couldn't really find any up to my standards...i like clean, sharp facets and a dark purple hue...well, it was one or the other, so i had to pass. but i'm very inspired with all my new stones, which is good because SHOP787 is in a few weeks and i need to make a ton of stuff!

today is dedicated to trying to breathe and sorting gems to find matching pairs. that is all for now, my friends. xoxo

snoots!

woke up with a stuffy/runny nose and sneezing fits. seriously hope it's only allergies and not a cold. took half a benadryl to cope and am trying to consume mass quantities of coffee to counteract the sleep-inducing qualities of the antihistamines. normally, in a situation like this, i would take a whole benadryl, eat some chips and super hot salsa, drink some orange juice and fall asleep under a cave of quilts on the living room sofa. it's a perfect day for it, too--grey and blustery--the wind is blowing just so and in a direction that makes the trains that cross the tracks 7 blocks away sound like their coming straight down the street, barrelling towards the house. the old bones of my cottage creak and the metal roof pings as the wind shifts. the screens rattle, the lace curtains move a bit from the 104 year old drafty windows.

yes.

it would be a perfect day to succumb to a medication-induced haze in a nest of blankets in this creaky old house...but there are things to do! like going to austin for the gem and mineral show! i suppose i could wait 'til tomorrow and see if i am sneezing less, but gadjo disko is saturday night and if i decide to truly brave the wilds of downtown ATX on a saturday night i'll need a day of meditation and preparation in advance. i am a home-body, through and through! it takes so much to coax me out of my cave, but once in the midst of a party i always end up having a very good time. plus, i have a fancy outfit that i've been assembling in my mind!

yesterday i walked to and from the post office through a swarm of butterflies. literally! a swarm! i'm pretty sure they were Libytheana carinenta, or 'snout' butterflies. i like to call them 'snoots' much to the chagrin of my sweetie, who corrects me ("snouts!") every time. it makes sense that there would be so many of them right now, as they have the ability to wait out extended periods of drought (such that we've experienced this summer) via reproductive diapause (basically, a slowing of the metabolism that curbs maturity and, in turn, reproduction) and all at once creating a population explosion once cooler weather and drought-terminating rains set in. i wanted to take a picture...they were flying into my hair and for a minute i thought they might try to carry me away to their tropical over-wintering paradise somewhere in mexico...but they are relatively small, butterfly-wise, and they don't really show up on camera. alas!

in 2005 texas experienced a similar weather pattern to what we've seen this year; severe drought followed by a brief period of heavy rains resulting in a population outbreak of snouts; one area was estimated to have witnessed a swarm of 7.5 million butterflies in a single day! there were reports of cars crossing the padre island causeway driving through clouds of snouts! i don't think i saw that many yesterday, but i was having to brush them away from my face as i crossed the corner of guadalupe + hutchison.

that is all for now, dear pixies...i am off to pack etsy sales and make my way to austin for a little gem shopping. reports to follow!

homesick + no hot water.

i've been having overwhelming feelings of homesickness lately. except that i am home. this is a sign that my medication is not working anymore or my lady hormones are trumping the cymbalta, which would mean this is just a temporary thing. i'm wondering if i should think about adding on abilify. or just quit everything and start drinking again. the strange thing is, i feel these pangs of homesickness and i look at a picture of san francisco that i have on my computer and i feel a little less crazy. i started looking at rentals on craigslist SF again last night and found a tiny 200 sq foot commercial space for $795/month:

it's in the tenderloin area, a bit of a gritty neighborhood where you don't walk down the alleys alone at night but a place that feels comfortable to me whenever i'm there. i'm imagining setting up the front as a tiny storefront, where i hawk my jewels and frippery; in the back, i hide my living quarters, disguised as a studio. i figure i could afford it with my etsy income plus whatever i would make retail-wise. this is all a fantasy, though. i'm married with a farm and many pets and a houseful of stuff that would never fit in a 200 square foot place. not to mention there is probably not a shower or bathtub in the bathroom, seeing as how it's a commercial space. there is the crazy notion of lee staying here with the animals, farm, and house, and me moving out there--i'd still transfer the same amount of money i give him every other week to pay the mortgage and bills and cross my fingers and hope that i made at least enough through the storefront to pay the rent and utilities. then we could fly back and forth from texas to SF to visit. we'd always have a place to stay in cali. i don't have a clue how well the storefront portion would go, though. i'm just sort of running my brain...sort of playing "what if". anyway, here's the ad: http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/off/1419752384.html it's just thoughts, y'all....please don't fret.

also, i haven't had hot water in a long time. the 'solar' hot water heater only 'works' when it gets a goodly amount of sunlight during the day and it's been so damp and cool and cloudy here for so long now (but we needed it!) that there hasn't been a drop of anything even remotely warm to come out of the hot water spigot. which means i've been bathing alot less often that i really should. and washing my hair in freezing cold water makes me crazy. i'm really filthy right now.

also, i just realized that SHOP787 is coming up on me faster than i expected. it's november 8th! which means i need to put my nose to the grindstone, like NOW. i'm supposed to go to ATX tomorrow for the gem and mineral show but my money is so tight at the moment that i've been debating over whether or not to go for the last few days. i dunno. let's see how today goes and how much i get done and how much money i can scrounge up. now, somebody rent that damn space in SF before i really lose my mind and run away from home to rent it myself.

365 days.

i have officially been an Auntie for an entire year now.

i think it's much better than being a mom. at least as far as i'm concerned personally. yes, i think i feel very safe just being an aunt. i have some terrible emotional issues that would get in the way of raising my own spawn, i think, not to mention a house full of lead paint.

so happy birthdee tiny jj...i can't wait for you to start talking so that i can teach you all sorts of foul language.
♥

clean. ish.

i mopped. finally. it's raining hard and everything is feeling really moist. those rugs that i washed yesterday? still damp. muddy dog paw prints in the entryway. the bunny has been insisting on peeing and pooping next to his litterbox instead of in it. i'm going to log off from the interwebs today because the last few days have found me spending more than 7 normal human's allotted web browsing time floating around cyberspace. production time has been severely affected. will report back tonight. signing off.....xoxoxoxo