Monday, January 11, 2010

Project: Me

Self Portrait: Family, Pittsburgh Children's Museum, the week Zadie really started walking

I am married to the venerable Mr. Lemon and we have a daughter, Zadie (formerly known as Baby Lemon). I have a bunch of degrees but teach technical writing (not one of my degrees) at one of the nation’s highest ranked party schools. We live on the outskirts of the student ghetto close to town and campus in a small house with an enormous yard and a summer vegetable garden.

For as long as I can remember, I have been sewing. My first project of merit was a small purse with a really big button, all stitched by hand. Out of those patches you buy at the grocery store to fix the holes in your jeans, I made bizarre outfits for my lego guys. Mom let me help her pin and cut out patterns, reminding me to leave the notches.

In college I took a course called Flat Pattern Design because I wanted to be able to make and alter my own clothes. My love of really awesome fabrics led me to make plush bellies out of satin, silk shantung and velvet. And then I wanted a baby so I started making baby clothes. People loved my stuff so I opened up an Etsy shop and the blog to promote it and the flickr to have more pictures.

It took about two years to get pregnant and it’s been over two years since then. Zadie has taken over our lives and we are not looking back. I love sewing her little dresses and puffy quilts and crazy dolls. With Project: Project, I will talk about all that process and some of the other things we consider really important to us like how we eat and the products we use, and living in a house smaller than most Manhattan apartments so that we can travel.

For more information about Project: Project, read this post.