A new blog & a new career!

This online journal has moved to: blog.clementinestore.com  for Clementine, a small shop nestled in Middlebury VT that I opened in the fall of 2010. It's filled with handmade, vintage and fetching new finds for you, your loved ones and babies. And you can shop online at www.clementinestore.com 

Please bookmark, visit, comment & join me over there.
xo Emily

breaking up is indecisive at best

sophie & eleanor postings have taken a few day hyatus while I contemplate leaving blogger.

Since Monday I've been tumbling in aesthetic cartwheels (/wasting a lot of time) trying to find a tumblr template that suits. I'm not going to say it's a decision tantamount to marriage. But it's testing my ability to commit. It's also a gazillion degrees in Vermont and I'm spending all of my free time trying to find new rivers to swim in, which is gloriously not conducive to being anywhere close to a computer.  In conclusion, stay tuned, S&E may be moving. 

As for the marriage, I found a husband who makes nutella ice cream in secret at 6am on a Saturday morning and biscotti after work. He's a hell of a lot easier to commit to than html.

piles of vintage, sacks of love

The other day I walked out of an antique store with a little pile of finds, already daydreaming about what I was going to make. I opted to carry them to my car without a bag and when I looked down, I realized how great the little pile looked together.  Ready for their project, but pretty great just stacked on a table.

also, a new obsession with grain sacks is in full swing:

these cow stamped sacks are my absolute favorite:

mountains from molehills

I have piles of vintage linen, lace and scrap cotton which I keep in the back of my mind, and brainstorm projects. A few weeks ago, I got an idea and left it to incubate. Finally, on a free evening I began. Here's a bit. More to follow:

dear strawberry

I swear, I do still make things. But these days I've grown increasingly devoted to images that make my heart flip flop (in the least indecisive way). This is probably due to my camera - my husband's brainchild of a perfect gift this Christmas gift.  I never had any interest in taking photos, I just wanted to make things. But something about this camera, makes the image collection almost as fun.

So I'll start to post things made again soon, but in the mean time:
strawberries distract.

It seems I've begun a series of letters to food that I love. A series it is.

when we were young

For me, it's impossible to think of Vermont in the summertime without thinking of my friend Sophie and the zillions of hours we spent barefoot in fields, scavenging in the forests: generally completely unattended. We gathered twigs and branches, rocks and ferns, leaves and moss, imagining and constructing tiny houses and villages in tree trunks and shady hills. I don't know how much actual time we spend doing this, but my kid memory is full of these tiny architectural designs.

Like building sand castles there's something that I still love about pulling tiny bits of the world together to make a little home even if only for imaginary things.

Last weekend, Drew built a raised bed, and there was a large gap at the bottom which I was going to fill with a little stone wall.  I went into the woods with a big orange bucket ready to rustle up rocks, but within moments I was filling it with long branches and moss instead. This is how it goes. Moss, branches, ferns and me for the rest of the afternoon, 31 going on 7. Completely in heaven.

dear maple ice cream

You get it, we had a great time in Italy, we took a lot of photos and are thinking of culling the blurry ones and inviting you over to watch them on our basement wall.

But I digress, because it's summertime in Vermont. As a few of you know, there's no drug better than a Vermont summer. Mossy walks and crisp streams. Hot days and perfect outdoor evenings. It's lush and enveloping and a kind of heaven. Foliage and ski side nights are great, but nothing is better than summer here. Especially if you discover the one food item I would choose in the game of "if you could only eat one thing for the rest of your life what would it be?" Easy: Maple Ice Cream.

Specifically, Strafford Farms Smooth Maple Ice Cream. Where the cows eat alfalfa and are happy and make ridiculously delicious ice cream.

To hold the ice cream I got these adorable little bowls (that are much bluer than the photo lets on) at Anthropologie last weekend for .95c each.

All I want in my kitchen are white bowls. And white plates and white mugs and mismatched vintage silver.  And maple ice cream. Someday. When someone builds me this house to tuck into the woods. And I have tea parties again.