When Life Hands You a Lemon, Part 1

Maybe you’ve heard this one before. "When life hands you a lemon, make lemonade." Having taken a road less traveled (how many Americans do you know living on farms in Tunisia ?), this motto comes frequently to mind—I probably drove my kids nuts with it. Lately, it’s become literal. Here’s my lemon crop.

Fortunately, I learned a simple lemonade recipe last summer. Now, I’m not one to give out recipes and I would not presume to tell people how to cook. I’m a Happy Eater surrounded by Finicky Eaters. That is to say, I don’t mind fast food hamburger joints (to please the grandkids) and if someone takes the time to cook a meal and put it in front of me, I’ll eat it no matter what. It’s the thought and work that count. On the other hand, I can recognize fine cuisine and resent going to an expensive restaurant and getting mediocre food (happens frequently). My own cooking is simple and done from scratch with fresh produce and some of my own spices.

I have rosemary,


and thyme,

and sage, which intends to take over the garden, 

and bay leaves (would that be a bay tree?).

After this digression, the lemonade recipe will have to wait, because my sketchbook/journal takes precedence. Although I know how to draw, it doesn't interest me that much because I'd rather spend my time stitching a labyrinth. However, I've been experimenting with sketching on fabric, which began here. And that, my friends, might be the best of both worlds. Of course, this is not an original idea--take a look around the internet--but, I'm re-inventing the wheel for myself.
It occurred to me that I could sew a piece of fabric to a page in my loose-leaf sketchbook/journal (loose-leaf so that the pages can be removed to work upon).










I chose a quiet piece of fabric from a 
men's shirt, then went out to find a couple of scarce lemons left on a tree.
I added more fabrics, and traced over the drawing with a black permanent pen (like a sharpie).
Then began the fun part of free motion sewing. I went several times around each form with black thread to suggest a sketch-y look, after which I wrote the words with pen and sewed over them.





                            So maybe I could reconcile myself to the idea 
                    of keeping a sketchbook/journal on a more regular basis.