English Country Gentleman

Jamie and I started watching the tv show about a year All Creatures Great and Small about the veterinarian James Herriot. James Herriot is a veterinarian in the English countryside in the 1940's (the show was made in the '80's). Basically Herriot and another vet stomp around in their galoshes in the middle of the night to get to cows and then put their hands into animal bellies. They use real animals in the show, and although it its probably meant to be "family friendly" it gets pretty gross. After watching several seasons, I decided to create a sort of James Harriett Wardrobe. Rachel Scott describes it as "English Country Gentleman". I just recently finished one of many essential pieces, a great grey wool vest to add to this very dapper look!

Parking and Kansas City

(Photo From Commuter City: Introduction By Ersela Kripa and Stephen Mueller of AGENCY)

AGENCY, a design, architecture, and research practice based in New York, has written a series of interesting articles about car culture and its architectural effects on Kansas City, MO. And best of all, nice graphics and photos!

Commuter City: Introduction
And

Transient Space

Also, this group had a show at Charlotte Street Foundation's La Esquina space in the past month or so, they appear to be everywhere.

Yearlong Projects Completed

I started working on several crafting projects during the summer of 2008, and have only recently finished them. I never anticipate a project taking this long, nor do I anticipate having the patience to spend a year doing a mindless crafting task! This is a huge crochet blanket (If interested, I used a pattern from the book Vintage Crochet)


I also just finished a much too large quilt! (Some hand quilting and some machine quilting)

Greatings in the New Year!

Julia's back from California and Jamie's less sleepy, so here at KCMasterpeas we'd like to welcome you into The New Decade!


And as we look forward, join us in looking back from last new year with Jamie's Patented All-In-One 2009 Annual Mix. Think back wistfully with songs that hark to a simpler decade with 2009 Recession Era hits like the Original Dr. Who Theme Song, Life is So Peculiar and L3t teh B34t C0ns013 Yov (Pewep Merix)!



Jamie's 2009 Mix

Enjoy 2009 like never before with some of our favorites from times gone by!

Here's to you 2009!

Whats that Smell?

There has recently been a rash of interesting news stories about a variety of toxic materials in Missouri. All of the stories are unrelated, gross, and some involve sludge!
Kelly Eckerman/KMBC
The first and grossest comes out of Cameron, MO. It turns out farmers in and around Cameron, MO have been spreading a toxic sludge as a fertilizer onto their fields. Here's the best part- it comes from a tannery, and its the stuff that takes hair off of hides. (Above is a picture of a guy holding some). National Beef Leathers owns a tannery in St. Joseph, MO and distributes the sludge to all those lucky enough to want it.
Now here's the problem, other than the obvious, there is a strangely high rate of brain tumors in Cameron, MO. Is there a correlation? We're going to have to wait to find out! Stay tuned!

The next is in Leadwood, in the heart of Missouri's Old Lead Belt region! The days of the old lead mines are over, but there is a significant amount of mine waste still there. The Doe Run Co. owns the mines and is responsible for the cleanup.
The debris left there, called tailings, are contaminated with lead and are also huge. Too huge to move. So they decided to cover the tailings with grass to keep the tailings from blowing away. Now here comes the sludge- Doe Run Co. decided to put treated sewer sludge over the tailings to get the grass to grow, a fertilizer of sorts! Unfortunatly, the neighbors are complaining and the EPA is ready to regulate!
Stay tuned for more updates on current and future sludge issues!

New Etsy Update, Summer Style

New Etsy Update! Summer wares!

Rachel Scott courteously wrote the hilarious captions for the pieces and Laura Frank lent her bodacious bod as a lovely model.

Breaking News: Ratastrophe!

The KC Masterpeas are for the first time bringing you live breaking coverage of a real-time situation. There's a rat in the fridge!

Or at least there was until we tried to catch it in this box. It was too fast!

Unbelievable! He/she ate the rhubarb pie Julia just made! What are we going to do?

Jungle Kitty : Friend and Foe

Now, I usually refrain from posting about various pets that I see, mostly because its kind of like hearing about other peoples kids or dreams: boring. But here you go blog readers! Pet story!
Our neighbors have a cat that we have named "Jungle Kitty". When we moved in and there were still thriving plant life, neighborcat would hang out under the plants. It was like he was in the jungle.
Then winter came and all the plants everywhere died, and we worried for Jungle Kitty. It appeared that he lived outside and would be trudging through the snow! We doubted that the neighbors loved or cared for him at all, because they weren't cradling him in their arms and shielding him from the snow. But then things started to warm up again, and the neighbors have ventured outside, mostly to take photos of Jungle Kitty! Tons of photos all the time! So it turns out they do love Jungle Kitty and want to share that "photos of Jungle Kitty" love with others! I've caught them in the act!
Oh also, his real name is Perry! Don't be fooled though, Jungle Kitty is in fact mean, and yeah, you know it, a scaredy cat!

Photo Intern

For those that wonder what do I do with my time besides make biblical type scarfs and look at neighborhood pets, rest assured, I am busy! I've been interning with the Sun Tribune, a newspaper company (they have several weekly papers in the area) that's north of the river. (Jamie and I live south of the river, which is sometimes described to me as "scary" by people I talk to north of the river. why this is should probably be its own blog post!). With the internship, I've been taking photos of high school sports, Easter egg hunts!, arbor day events, and an Easter service. Its pretty interesting and I get to go places that are nice old small towns that I would have no clue about otherwise. A few of them are centered around turn of the century universities (Liberty and Parkville Missouri) and have older downtown areas.

Parkville, MO (photo by neal1960)

This Easter I took some photos of the Grace Community Church in Smithville. There were too many people to use the usual church, so they were in the Smithville High School gym! Here's the associated article, the photos and text are from yours truely!

Spring/Summer Etsy Preview or Kudos Rach Scott

Here's a small preview of what I'm working for my Spring/Summer on Etsy! Thanks to fashion icon Rachel Scott's great suggestions for new fabric wares, I've made a new skirt and giant plumage-like fabric scarf.