cozy socks!

while taking a sock knitting class in the fall,

i finished one sock, and the ribbed cuff of its partner.

this past week i was determined to finish the pair.

on thursday afternoon i turned the heel,

on friday afternoon i knit the gusset,

and yesterday, by the fire, with henry's "help",

i finished them up.

(grafting the toe has to be the hardest part.)

there are some funny spots, 

where perhaps i knit when i should have purled.

but they are cozy and warm and homemade.

and finished!

when finishing something feels this good, 

why don't i do it more often?

how are you at finishing things?

(an aside...) yeah, neil!

illinois fields, august 2009 (prairie wind)


congratulations to my very favorite rocker,
neil young,
on being celebrated last night,

 as the MusicCares Person of the Year.

neil young sang me through my teenaged years,

rocked me through college,

and he's been part of my life's soundtrack ever since.

he's done so much truth telling with his music,
so many good things for the environment, the anti war movement
 and kids who live with challenges...

and his music gets me in the gut.

for a mellow winter evening watch
heart of gold.

long may you run, neil.

notecards

thursday's paper skrippy scraps turned into 

friday's fabric skrippy scraps.

these notecards, stitched with fabric scraps, and stamped monograms

were made for quilting buddies, cathleen and juana.

 wrapped them up in simple waxed paper sandwich bags

and tied them with string and added a plain tag.

i am so happy to have my sewing machine back from its tune up!

we are about to set off on errands in the cold, projects this afternoon
and dinner with friends.
how about you?

spaciousness

Om is the Goddess herself as sound.

-Heinrich Zimmer

sweetness

skrippy scraps.

that's what we call tiny pieces of things
that we can't quite put in the trash.

like snippets of origami paper, a flour bag,
beautiful flowers from magazines,

candy wrappers (that's the heart of gold),

canson paper scraps, photos of skirt fabric from catalogs...

now they have become HENRY LOVE!

little hearts, strung with button thread from
my grandmother's sewing caddy.

valentine's day is coming soon...

kumquats

There are two ways to live your life.

One is as though nothing is a miracle.

The other is as though everything is a miracle.

-Albert Einstein

my clever mumsie

On Sunday, on my way home to CT, I stopped in to go to church, have lunch and visit with my Mumsie. She has always been fascinated with miniatures, and has built many fun little houses in her day. This one, put together in an old medicine cabinet, hangs in the kitchen I grew up in. I propped a spoon up in the mini studio, so you can get a sense of scale. She makes a lot of her own furniture and many of the accessories. She clips pictures from catalogs for wall art, uses beads for pencil holders and pin heads for drawer pulls. If you look carefully, you can see a tiny print of a painting my Dad did of our family's church.
  
She has also made some lovely, all natural pieces, using twigs, seeds, acorns and bark.

Sometimes, while waiting for the tea kettle to come to a boil, you can get lost in her little worlds...