Green Postcards

Karen's latest monochromatic postcard swap is focusing on the color green. Last night, I carved a stamp inspired by the painted silk scarf at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. (I talk about the scarf in the last post.) I decided I wanted the print to be the outlines of the drawing, to most closely resemble the print on the scarf. This, or course, was the most laborious decision I could have made as far as carving the stamp goes. Whatever. That's what I wanted.

It took about two hours to carve the stamp, and towards the end I was getting a little lost...I just kept my eyes on the pencil lines on the carving block and trusted those to be my guide. I am utterly delighted with the finished stamp.

Here's a finished postcard--I made four in the series. (I even numbered them.)

On the back, I explained the inspiration for the print. These are, as my 8yo pointed out, much simpler than my previous postcards (blue and yellow). The background is green watercolor, left to dry with some plastic wrap on top to create some texture. The stamp is printed in dark green acrylic, and I painted the border.

It's not just the finished cards that please me, or the stamp, although I really do love it all. It's that this is a direct result of getting to visit an art museum on Monday. I was inspired, and that is such a good feeling.

My Day in Boston

My husband is gone 25% of the time from February through mid-May. Shortly after he returned home from February's trip, I learned the Embroidery + Embellishment class I'd registered for at the RI School of Design was cancelled. I was feeling sort of...desperate is a good word, desperate for something of my own in the midst of all this hard work of keeping everything running smoothly with no help during all this travel of his, and I asked for a day before the next trip arrived. I wanted a day during which I was responsible for nobody's needs or wants save my own--no school work, no home work, no lunches or dinner. He checked his calendar and came up with some options and yesterday, I took the commuter train to Boston to visit the Isabella Steward Gardner Museum, my objective being to sit somewhere beautiful for a while with no responsibilities.

Absolutely no photography is allowed within the confines of the museum, not even without flash, not even in the gift shop, so I have no pictures of the museum itself to share with you. It's an interesting place, though, because its items are from the collection of Mrs. Gardner; she also had the museum built and arranged her collections the way she saw fit, and then stipulated that nothing could ever be changed. It is a collection frozen in time--and this is why, after the shocking (still unsolved) theft in 1990 of several works, the empty frames remain hanging on the wall. The rooms can seem overwhelming; on the other hand, small delights are found everywhere. And in the center of it all is a courtyard, the place I remember most from my last visit to the Gardner, in my early 20s. It's warm, even in winter. Fountains trickle, green things grow, there are places to sit upon and just be somewhere beautiful, with no responsibilities at all.

I sat on a ledge and sketched. (I increased contrast on this photo since my pencil lines were so light; only pencils are allowed in the museum.)

I took my time wandering the rooms, looking at what I wanted to, not having to deal with anybody else's hunger or need for a bathroom or boredom. In the tapestry room I was drawn to this small silk scarf. The room is enormous, with huge tapestries everywhere, but I ended up kneeling before this small bit of silk, trying to sketch the tree motif.

(Even with increasing the contrast, that sketch is still hard to see.)

I was able to take my time in the gift store, too. I was hoping to find some postcards with images of lace from the lace cases--yes, cases of lace collected by Mrs. Gardner. How I wish I could have taken some pictures. The lace was gorgeous. You can get just a glimpse of the cases at this link. But the store is only about a year old and they haven't added any lace images yet--although I hope they do. However, the store is one of those gift shops that feels curated itself, a collection of carefully chosen items. It was lovely to browse for as long as I wanted. I bought a few things, too.

The card shows one of the stolen paintings, Chez Tortoni by Manet. The book, oh my, the book. It's just filled with images like this:

And this:

I want to embroider them. To my eyes--my biology-loving, ocean-loving, art-loving eyes--this is a book of embroidery patterns. This book had to come home with me. Of course!

I had some time before the train home, so I sat in the museum cafe and ordered the only appetizing-sounding gluten-free item I could find, a shockingly expensive bowl of mixed baby greens. But they made up for that by having really good coffee and a flourless gluten-free chocolate cake, and I ate it all, every last bit, except for the raspberries, because I do not like raspberries, but I do like flourless chocolate cake with chocolate sauce and a bit of whipped cream, and I don't mind sitting by myself in a cafe, reading a book and drinking coffee.

When most of your time and head space is given over to thinking and doing for everybody but yourself, a day alone is so, so necessary. I have requested, if possible, a day to myself in between all his business trips. I'll start dreaming about where I'd like to go after he's back from Thailand and before he leaves for Belgium...

Projects

I feel I've been neglecting this space! My ongoing crafty project, though, isn't too interesting to blog about. I'm still working on my sweater--I'm ready to begin the bottom ribbing.

Beyond that, I've been taking Diane's e-book class (highly recommended, if you're interested at all in that sort of thing), planning a map-making/sense of place class for ages 6-9 for our spring session of homeschool co-op, and working on a new series at my other blog, aimed at encouraging and mentoring adults to create a family art habit. It's called Art Together, and I'm pretty excited about it.

Actually, I'm excited about all of those things. I'm less than excited about all the international travel my husband has coming up; he's leaving for Thailand at the end of this week. I managed to schedule a day for myself before he leaves again though. I'll be back later this week to report on it.

Happy March, y'all.

Grown-Up Projects

I'm guessing if you don't have kids you may never have visited Lori Pickert's Camp Creek Blog. Or maybe you have kids but you're not homeschooling, so you've never landed there. But no--you need to visit. I'm biased, sure. I like Lori a lot, and I like her book, and I'm using her guidelines and practices with my own children. But now she's begun a series of posts for adults, and I think it's such important reading. Lori feels we all deserve to have the sort of life that some of us are trying to create for our children--one where time is spent pursuing interests and passions--a whole life, I would say. And--and I appreciate this very much--she is not writing lovely-sounding things and leaving the reader to send wishes up to the universe. She's got some concrete steps we can all take. I look forward to Monday mornings because that's when she posts her project posts for grown-ups. And she is saying things I already believe in.

How can you learn to use the time you have? (And you do have time.)

What does your space say about you? Do you need to change it so it reflects the kind of work you want to do?

What kind of negative self-talk do you  have going on? Stop it, already.

These things resonate with me. When I'm on my game, I can get quite a lot of my own work accomplished in the nooks and crannies of my day--because otherwise, it won't get done. I don't care if you stay home with kids or have a full-time job out of the house, it takes mountain-moving to get a hour or two chunk of time in which to focus on your own projects. So you squeeze it in. You learn to work in small increments. Every time I see the advice to leave a first draft (writing, or painting, anything, really) and come back to it with fresh eyes I just laugh, because I am always walking away from a work in progress to attend to somebody's needs. I always have fresh eyes. Lucky me, right?

And my house? My house is...cluttered would be a nice way of describing it. This is a picture of my chair, the one that is so clearly marked as my territory that guests rarely try to sit in it.

My knitting is sitting right there waiting for me. If I have a few minutes, I can knit a bit. If I have an embroidery project going, it's usually on the footstool. The binders on the bins to the left are full of printed-out knitting and sewing patterns. Most of my pattern and reference books are downstairs, but the ones I'm using for the current project are piled up next to the chair. My sketchbook is there, too, along with a zippered pouch of sketching pencils. So if I want to sit down in the evening and work out some ideas, I don't have to go far. The basic supplies are right there. It looks pretty messy. But it works for me. (When company comes I've been known to pick up all the piles and just dump them behind a closed bedroom door for a few hours.)

Projects or fabric-in-waiting is often sitting out on the ironing board. Goodness knows I don't use it for anything else when I'm not sewing. (My husband moves my piles when he irons his shirts.)

These two embroidery pieces are waiting for their respective display solutions. I need to get on that.

Downstairs is also where our art area is. Everything I need is within reach. If I--or the kids--wants to start a project, materials are gathered within minutes. We are so well stocked--I feel so fortunate there.

Ahem. That's just some of the storage down there. It's not very...tidy. It's so accessible though!

In the comments of the third post (which is about getting out of your own way) I admitted my personal big negative self-talk hurdle: "If my passion/interest/project isn't earning any income, it's not worth the investment of money or time taken from the family." This is something I deal with as the at-home non-wage-earning parent. It's completely self-generated. I don't hear it from anyone but myself. But always, in the back of my mind, is the constant circular mumble: Is there a way to make money from this but I don't want to figure out an at-home business it would kill my joy I don't have time for that I'm working quite a bit as it is but why take a class just for fun it doesn't benefit anyone but me that's so selfish is there a way to make money from this?

I could probably benefit from the extra brain space I'd free up if I could silence that inner voice completely.

So. No big words of wisdom here. I'm still working this out. I show up on Mondays and read the posts and get reminded that I don't have to have it worked out, that having my own interests, passions, and joys is necessary for a well-lived life, not to mention it sets a good example for my kids. This is how I've always tried to be. I've always had interests and creative pursuits; I've never stopped learning. But there are periods when I don't work at it as hard, often when life is feeling its hardest--which, of course, is when I need these things that feed my soul the most. So this series of posts is serving as an excellent reminder to continue to value what I need, all the time.

Drawing + Painting

A little of what I've been up to this weekend, not counting the knitting, which will get its own post soon, I'm sure. Part of what is making Pages and Paint pretty cool for an online course is that it's the first one I've taken that includes snail mail. Before the course began, we each received a little packet in the mail with some odds and ends, plus an envelope to open each week. (That's 200 packets that had to be compiled and mailed out--whew!) One of the odds and ends was a snippet of fabric, and this week's bonus assignment was to get out the paints and try to re-create the pattern on the fabric. What a great idea! What fun!

So this was my attempt. First off, I'd have liked some black to mix with the blue and white, because that background is really more of a blue grey, but the supply list had the primaries and white, so I'm sticking to those for now. (But yeah, I'm going to have to use some black. I like shades as well as tints.) Second, I didn't reproduce the fabric exactly. Once I had the white circles (made with my fingertip), I mixed colors and added them as I pleased, more trying to get the spirit of the thing rather than the thing itself. (With a nod to Wallace Stevens.)

I had fun. Also, I really like mixing paints. I've said before, yes? I'm realizing that this is one of those things that I think is easy because I can do it (a common way in which I don't appreciate my own skills or talents: I think if I can do it, it must be easy). Many people are relating how they are struggling with mixing paint colors, so that is another benefit of this workshop--I do not recognize my strengths, mostly. And while I still think if I can do something, certainly anyone can learn to do it too (and I do think this is a skill, not a talent; it is entirely learn-able, and my kids can all mix colors with varying degrees of success because they have been given the paint and the opportunity to do so), I'm going to take a moment and appreciate my love of color and willingness to experiment with it.

Okay then. So after doing that assignment, I decided to vary the theme, and came up with this.

Earlier in the week we were told to play with text and different ways of writing it. I used some letter stencils and some letter stamps (which is what you see here). In this instance, I stamped on tissue paper and then glued it over the painted background--squares instead of circles, different color palette, but still a direct descendant of the fabric assignment. This is the text, which might be hard to read:I have spread my dreams under your feet/tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

They are the final lines of a poem by W. B. Yeats, "Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven." Would you like to take a minute to read it all? I'll wait.

Isn't it lovely? I'd written this fragment in one of my many notebooks a year or so ago, thinking I'd like to do something with it, something illustrative, with embroidery, clearly. And I moved on to other things, and forgot about it, and found the notebook while straightening up the studio the other day, and wanted to remember it again. (I need to get better at keeping all the ideas in one place.) I love poetry. You probably knew that already though.

One more picture for you. A couple of weeks ago, iHanna posted about mandalas, and she included a video. I watched the video, and not too long after began drawing one every night before bed in a small notebook. It's very soothing. I think it's perfect to do before bed. Here are some samples.

The one in the larger notebook was done one rainy afternoon when I thought I might interest my older kids in trying it if I sat and did one myself. They were only sort of interested, but that's okay. They may decide to try at some point. All it takes is paper, a fine-point marker, and patience.

And you? Did you find some time to be creative--or contemplative--this weekend?

July

I have so many ideas zinging around my head, and so many things I want to share and show...in time. My goals for July? Because I have been keeping up with setting monthly goals.... June's was to spend less time on the computer during the day, and I'm continuing with that goal into July (which is why all my posting is done in the evening lately). It seems I will soon be entering this century when it comes to cell phones...having stubbornly resisted anything smarter than a flip phone that merely makes and receives calls--and, annoyingly, receives texts even when I don't want them, because they're not included in my plan, and I have no idea how to return them--I have now agreed to a smarter phone and a better cell plan.

My attachment to which phone is nonexistent; my husband is in charge of that because I don't care. I tell him what I'll use it for, and he does the research, which he enjoys and I do not. I can see how having a phone that checks email will enable me to spend less time on the computer--a good thing--and that it could be handy to text here and there, especially when my husband is traveling. As long as I remember to treat the phone as just a phone when I'm out in the world, I think I'll be okay with being dragged into the world of pocket technology. I don't want to have my face in a screen all the time. So.

Other goals for July? At least one beach day per week--and think of that, a whole day set aside to just sit and be, to play in the sand and water with the kids, read a little, find sweet little shells and stones... I am deliciously unbusy this summer, as much as possible. I've signed the kids up for nothing. Our days are our own. Day trips, beach days, days spent lolling around in the yard...

They read cuz they want to. Yay!

I've signed myself up for Pages and Paint, which starts tomorrow and is at cross-purposes with my no-computer-during-the-day goal, since new posts go up in the morning. I just have to remind myself, the point of an online workshop is that it is there and waiting for me, not the other way around. I can wait until nighttime to see what goodies Sarah has for us that day.

This week, I hope to have a tutorial ready to share--it's been awhile since I've done one of those. I want to show you what I made with this month's Whimseybox supplies. And there are some good links to zipper advice in the comments section of the last post; I have more fabric cut and just need to clear the art table off so I can set up the sewing machine again.

Today, though, we spent the day at the beach (again), where I found that sweet little piece of polished clam shell--I love those small bits of shell, tossed around by the ocean until they're perfectly smooth. This is a piece of the hinge, just the right shape to show how I feel about spending my day where the ocean meets the land.

Squam Stories: Into the Woods

There is a me inside of me,
inside
the outside me
you see.

--Karla Kuskin

Back in January, I wrote that I was worried, after more than a decade of nearly constant company, that I may have forgotten how to be alone: "Somewhere buried within the organized, capable Mother is still the girl who would leave her apartment with nothing but some cash, lip balm, and a blank book; who landed in Paris without knowing a soul there; who was happy to spend hours just sitting and people watching with a notebook. Who felt that anything was possible and adventures definitely were for her. I want to take that girl to the woods of New Hampshire in June. I want to let her loose." 

I am so thrilled to report back that I am still completely comfortable by myself. It's such a good, life-saving quality, I think--the ability to be content with only your own company. Saturday afternoon I packed my backpack with some art supplies, my camera, and my water bottle, and I set out towards Longhouse, where my class had been that morning. I'd noticed the color of the water right there and wanted to get back to it.

I would have liked to try to catch that color green in watercolors, but it was so breezy I didn't think I'd be successful with the paper and paints, so I settled with trying to capture it with my camera, for later.

I'd brought a map of the camp with me and noticed there was a trail that followed the edge of the lake, so that's what I attempted to find. I took notice of whatever caught my eye. Interesting shadows--

Interesting textures--

I sat down on a bench with a dock and pulled out my sketchbook and colored pencils.

It's not a terribly good rendering of my view, but no matter. The words say, "It is strange to be around water that is not influenced by the tides."

Along the way, I took this rather goofy self-portrait.

That's me, perfectly happy, by myself in the woods.

And that's my final, most important story. I was able, over the course of those five days, to spend lots of uninterrupted time with the me inside of me. I affirmed that yes, I am just as interesting of a person, to myself, as I was before having children. I suspected this was true, of course, but it was important to me to prove it; I can't begin to explain why.

Thank you for coming along for these stories, which are just my unique way of sharing this experience. This is the last Squam story I'll be sharing in this space, although I have some projects inspired by my time there (and more to come, I'm sure). You can read many more Squam stories by many other attendees by checking out the list here.

Squam State of Mind

You'll know me by my tiara...

Everything I wrote five months ago about my Squam-related anxiety is still true, to one extent or the other, but it's all been boiled down to two main thoughts, flip-flopping through my head as I pack.

I'm going to miss my kids like crazy and I want to take that girl into the woods.

Honestly, I don't have many expectations of the next five days. Tomorrow morning I'll get up, get my big kids off onto the bus (hopefully; they're both home sick today), send my daughter off to her music class with her daddy, finish packing, and pick up a fellow Squammie at the local train station so we can ride up together. (She needed a ride and posted she was willing to take the train from Connecticut to Boston. How about to Rhode Island, I offered. So I'll pick her up at the station ten minutes away. It'll be nice to have company on the ride up, too.)

I do, however, plan to be out of contact. My cell phone is only good for making and taking calls, and I'm not sure how good the reception will be anyway. My husband can get ahold of me if necessary, and I can call to say hi to the kids. I can't tweet, text, or post pictures from my phone (I've kept it that way thus far by choice; when I am out in the world, I want to be out in the world, not in a screen). I thought about leaving my laptop at home but decided to bring it just in case I want to research places to stop on the ride home--it's helpful to do that ahead of time if I think I'm going to want to stop for lunch, since you can't always tell where you might find gluten-free food on the road. But I don't plan on checking or sending email, posting pictures, or, well, being in a screen while I'm away. I'll report back next week--this also gives me time to soak it up, take it in, and think about it before talking about it.

I am bringing way too much stuff for someone who used to travel light. I have a bag of yarn odds and ends and needles for one of my classes, a backpack full of various art supplies (although I'm not sure the weather is going to cooperate with any attempts at plein air painting), my box of embroidery floss (because I offered to teach anyone who wants a floss bracelet how to make one, since this is, after all, sleep-away camp), clothes for all temperatures, and I'll be bringing a bag of food and a cooler, too, because of my own food issues. I'm bringing my two current knitting projects, but I'm not sure how much free time I'll spend knitting. Knitting (and embroidery too) pulls me down and in, focused on what I'm doing, and I would rather be up and out, noticing what's around me--which is why I'm bringing the drawing and painting supplies. And I'm also bringing binoculars and my bird book, because I think I'll wish I had, if I don't. And I really, really want to hear loons, and see them too, if possible.

I'm not sure I ever mentioned which classes I'm taking. I'm starting with Three Tools, because I know nothing about woodworking, and am also taking Dive Into Design, because it sounded like it would apply not just to knitting but also translating what I see into other forms as well. I believe I'm also down for the Squam Extra Manipulating Stitch Patterns, but I think those are very loose and if I'd rather have the free time, that's okay too.

So, I will report back next week on my little get-away. Here I go...

Honoring My Crafting Needs

I am a selfish crafter. Not because I don't make things for other people--quite the contrary, I make things for other people all the time. But because, for the most part, I only make what I want to make. I don't need to worry about what color might be trending next year or whether I have enough items to stock a shop or for craft fair season or whether foxes are the new owls (or is the other way 'round? I can't keep that straight). I just make what I please and what I need to make--not "need" in terms of the finished product but "need" in terms of soothing my soul.

I've noticed this month that all I really want to do is sew and knit. Possibly this is because it's Truly Spring, and it's a good time of year to sew skirts for me and my daughter, and that knitting pattern I chose to try and finish for Squam is very spring-like, too. But I think it's more than that. I think, in this very chaotic and anxiety-inducing month that May has become for us, I am instinctively turning to the very basic acts of making something serviceable out of nothing more than cloth and thread, yarn and loop.

Yarn through loop, over and over, until a sweater emerges.

I wasn't consciously thinking these thoughts when I began sewing my daughter's skirts, of course. I just thought, It's time to sew a skirt. And then another. And now I'm working on another.

It's just a pile of orange at the moment, but it's supposed to end up as an a-line ruffle skirt. Kim posted in the Ravelry sewing group that she was looking for test sewists for a pattern she is planning to sell, and I volunteered. I think the sole reason I volunteered is because I have always avoided ruffles; they look complicated and difficult. And I know if I've promised someone that I'll make this, I'll deal with my ruffle intimidation. (My sister, who can sew anything, told me ruffles deserve their pain-in-the-butt reputation and the way to deal with ruffle fear is to not make any. But I'd already committed by that point.) I'm supposed to have this done by Saturday, but all I've done is cut. I decided the sewing will have to wait until my husband is home, because I am so tired by the time evening comes when he's away. (Yup, he's gone again, but he's coming home late tonight.)

So I cut the pieces earlier in the week, after my younger two kids were in bed but my oldest was still up. Instead of reading his book or playing his DS, he decided to hang out with me while I traced and cut. He didn't want me to be all by myself--even though, if his dad had been home, he'd have been upstairs with him and I'd have been by myself anyway. It was very sweet, and he asked about the rotary cutter and why my clear ruler had lines on it and what a selvedge was and he marveled over the disappearing fabric marker--no doubt pondering its possible applications in the spy trade. I thoroughly enjoyed having his company while I worked.

While I was rummaging around in the fabric stash for something my daughter would like for the ruffle skirt, I came upon this.

There's three yards of it, and it's part of what I gathered from my mother's sewing room after she died. I didn't sew at the time, although I felt it coming (I bought a sewing machine just over a year later, eight months pregnant with my youngest). So I've had this fabric nearly five years, and I have no idea how long my mother had it before that. It was still folded up from the store, with the cutting tag stapled on. It's a big, all-over-the-place pattern, isn't it? I want to make a long, a-line, drawstring skirt out of it, hopefully before I leave for New Hampshire.

I know I'll be coming back to embroidery soon...I had my camera out at the playground today, wondering if I could capture, with fabric and floss, the sensation of being enclosed by the big tree that the kids call a fort. And I have lots of mixed media/painting in the future in the form of a class and a workshop. But for now, I follow my desire to cut and sew and press, to run yarn through my fingers and around my needles, to make exactly what I feel I must, something out of nothing, comfort out of cloth and string.

And because I couldn't walk by the delicate veins of the iris petal, the softly clinging raindrops, without taking a photo, I will share it with you. I hope you are crafting some soul happiness, too.

Shared with my creative space...

Knitting + Some Birding, Too

{I announced the giveaway winner in that post--congratulations again to Naomi! My son has a fever but as soon as I can get out of the house during the PO's office hours, it'll be on its way!}

Friday night I did some clearing-the-decks knitting, getting the current, almost-done project out of the way so I could start a new one.

I finished the Branching Out mitts from Coastal Knits. I used Cascade 220 for these, which is a worsted weight, not the called-for sport weight, so they're a little off, but I thought they'd be okay, considering the total number of cast on stitches is only two less than what I cast on for my favorite worsted-weight mitt pattern (Evangeline, of course). These are still a little big on, though. (No cables pulling them in, of course.)

And the thumb is funny. Pouchy, almost. But it looks that way in one of the photos in the book, too...I probably should have adjusted it a bit for the heavier yarn...although I think partly it's that the gusset starts right after the cuff, instead of a few rows up, like I'm used to. You know what fits your own hand, you know? But even still, I'm happy enough with these gloves, and I love the purple against the light grey.

I was clearing the decks, of course, so I could begin Azami.

Which I did, Saturday night, several times. Don't ask. I think I've got it now. (ETA: Nope, I frogged it again.) The yarn--I'm using the called-for yarn, Valley Yarns Southwick--is very soft but loses its twist easily and then it's just a bunch of strands. Sigh. I do like wool best for knitting with.

I wasn't the only one making things this weekend. Friday I noticed a bird flying back and forth under our deck. I didn't see anything there when I looked, but Saturday morning I saw some vegetation, by Saturday afternoon it was definitely nest shaped, and this is what it looked like Sunday morning.

The orientation of the photo is funny because I basically just stuck the camera up there and clicked blindly. The nest is built on a crossbeam underneath the edge of the deck. I'm pretty sure it's a phoebe who's building it; I've gotten just glimpses as she flies back and forth, but she looks phoebe-like, and the nest site is consistent. (The rest of this post is about birds, so you can skip it if it's not your thing!)

The birds in our yard are making me so happy. This is the first year I've put out a feeder; the advice in heavy deer tick areas is not to have a bird feeder because it draws mammals into the yard, and they bring ticks. Well, we have ticks in the middle of the grass where they have no business being anyway, plus I hung the feeder off a tree on the edge of the grass, near the scrubby, figuring it would make the birds feel more comfortable if they didn't have to leave the shelter of the trees. The result is that we are seeing more of the birds that we hear every year. If we want an even closer look, we still need binoculars, but this is the first year I've seen, for instance, a red-bellied woodpecker. (No, it's belly isn't red. Don't ask me.) I saw a pair of downy--or maybe hairy, I can't tell them apart at that distance--woodpeckers on the bird-feeder tree, too. The towhees like to walk around at the base of the bird-feeder tree or sit in the branch and sing. And the white-throated sparrows (Oh, Sam peabody peabody peabody!) are at the feeder all the time.

This is in addition to our usuals: titmice, cardinals, chickadees, goldfinches, and nuthatches, who visited the feeder all winter, too; the goldfinches have packed away their dull winter feathers and replaced them with their bright yellow ones. They travel in a mob, flitting and chasing each other all over the bushes. Mrs. and Mrs. Cardinal visit the feeder together. The veerys (veer-veer-veer) and woodthrushes (eee-o-lay!) are back, but deep in the scrubby, where I can only hear them, not see them (yet, anyway--maybe I'll see them this year, too!). There's something that sounds maybe like a worm-eating warbler, but I'd like to get a look at it. My younger son likes the teakettle song of the Carolina wren best, and the catbirds are back, mewing away.

I don't know what it is about them--but whenever I'm near a window on that side of the house, I look towards the feeder. It feels pretty special to catch a glimpse of these creatures going about their business and deigning to do so where I can see. When we're waiting outside for the school bus in the morning, the birds provide a raucous, cheerful soundtrack. I don't mind hearing them when I'm still in bed (or the barred owls at night, either, and I'm hoping the whip-poor-will comes back, too, they're so cool to hear at night). The birds are part of why I love where I live, and loving where I live is a big part of who I am and what inspires me.

Do you watch the birds? Do you have any favorites?

Yes, This

The red maple trees are in bloom. 

The towhees are back, right on schedule. This morning I stood still in the early morning quiet, full bird feeder in my hand, and watched a towhee in the tree hop and adjust himself. I waited and watched and hoped he would--yes--the joy and rightness of being alive in Spring bubbled over and out of him for both of us. His song was tentative at first--just the last two notes, your tea!, as if he were trying it on for size. Two, three times, then he flew away deeper into the scrubby. Before too long he was shouting out his full song, Drink your tea! And, not having the towhee's gift of song, all I could do was spin around, arms outstretched, happy with thankfulness.

A List of Praises
by Anne Porter

Give praise with psalms that tell the trees to sing,
Give praise with Gospel choirs in storefront churches,
Mad with the joy of the Sabbath,
Give praise with the babble of infants, who wake with the sun,
Give praise with children chanting their skip-rope rhymes,
A poetry not in books, a vagrant mischievous poetry
living wild on the Streets through generations of children.

Give praise with the sound of the milk-train far away
With its mutter of wheels and long-drawn-out sweet whistle
As it speeds through the fields of sleep at three in the morning,
Give praise with the immense and peaceful sigh
Of the wind in the pinewoods,
At night give praise with starry silences.

Give praise with the skirling of seagulls
And the rattle and flap of sails
And gongs of buoys rocked by the sea-swell
Out in the shipping-lanes beyond the harbor.
Give praise with the humpback whales,
Huge in the ocean they sing to one another.

Give praise with the rasp and sizzle of crickets, katydids and cicadas,
Give praise with hum of bees,
Give praise with the little peepers who live near water.
When they fill the marsh with a shimmer of bell-like cries
We know that the winter is over.

Give praise with mockingbirds, day's nightingales.
Hour by hour they sing in the crepe myrtle
And glossy tulip trees
On quiet side streets in southern towns.

Give praise with the rippling speech
Of the eider-duck and her ducklings
As they paddle their way downstream
In the red-gold morning
On Restiguche, their cold river,
Salmon river,
Wilderness river.

Give praise with the whitethroat sparrow.
Far, far from the cities,
Far even from the towns,
With piercing innocence
He sings in the spruce-tree tops,
Always four notes
And four notes only.

Give praise with water,
With storms of rain and thunder
And the small rains that sparkle as they dry,
And the faint floating ocean roar
That fills the seaside villages,
And the clear brooks that travel down the mountains

And with this poem, a leaf on the vast flood,
And with the angels in that other country.

***
Don't forget, Poem in Your Pocket day is coming up on Thursday. And I think I'll be ready with a give-away by then, too.

Springing

The calendar says five more days of winter, but the weather has been all about spring this week. Monday my daughter and I spent all day at the zoo. Yesterday morning it was rainy, but we still fit in a walk in the afternoon. I've been continuing to try to walk at least two to three times per week, usually turning around at the mile point for a two-mile walk. Two weeks (or so?) ago we walked all the way to the end of that road, for about a 2 1/2-mile walk, and I felt pretty awful afterwards. (In October, pre-Lyme, that walk was fine.) So anyway, I've been consistently walking two miles and it's been good.

Along the way, wherever swampy freshwater wetland borders the road close enough so we can see it, we look for skunk cabbage. This is what it looks like at this time of year, late winter/early spring, just starting to poke up. It can create its own heat to melt ice and frozen ground as it blooms (not that that's necessary this year). I showed my daughter what to look for, and once she recognized it, she was able to spot it everywhere, even far back where I don't notice. Now when I put her in the stroller, she says, "Let's look for skunk cabbage!" Skunk cabbage is a wetland indicator species in Rhode Island. In other words, if you see skunk cabbage, it's a freshwater wetland (and subject to regulations--leave that swamp alone!).

Yesterday, we thought we heard frogs. On this morning's walk--all the way to the end of the road with no ill effects!!--we were sure of it. We heard a riot of frogs, squawking loudly. They sounded goose-like. There are wetlands all along that particular road, bits of swampiness hidden behind upland trees, which will probably be bone dry in August, but right now they are literally hopping. We didn't see any, even at the pool closest to the road, but boy did we hear them.

After lunch we headed to a local park that has a playground. It also has a very small pond with a beach area. Apparently it's popular in the summertime, especially for families with small children, but I've never been; we always go to the ocean beach. But today I suggested we walk down and look at the water.

She started like this, throwing sand into the water.

Then she progressed to this--and look at that glorious springtime light!

And it wasn't long before my girl, who hates wearing socks, even with winter boots, went all the way to this:

Low 60s--perfect toe-dipping weather, no?! Meanwhile, I sat down on the sand, sunglasses on, sun warm on my face, bliss.

Sketching at the Zoo

Monday's weather was supposed to be fabulous--and it was! Over 60 degrees at home, and ten degrees warmer in the city, where my daughter and I spent the day at the zoo. She's been asking to go for a while, and here I was, with a beautiful weather day and no plans. The bathroom, in dire need of cleaning, was ignored. To the zoo! With sketchbooks!

Over the weekend, I received an Amazon order. (My husband and I were jointly given a $50 Amazon gift card for Christmas. He turned it over to me.) It included Drawing Lab: 52 Creative Exercises to Make Drawing Fun For Mixed-Media Artists. I don't know if I'm an artist, never mind a mixed-media artist, but I do want to get in the habit of drawing daily, and I wanted some fun prompts. I love this book already. One of the "labs" is to sketch at the zoo. Why had I never thought of that before? There are several tips on how to approach moving animals, including gesture drawings (of course) and starting drawings and going back to them when the animal returns to that pose, but...no tips on how to do this with a three-year-old along... (this is only a sampling of the sketches, many of which were even less successful...clicking should make them a little bigger)

Chickens

I brought her sketchbook too, and gave it to her while I tried to sketch chickens. Chickens move fast, and mostly they were showing us their back ends, pointed up to the sky while they pecked. While this was amusing, and rather characteristic, I think, of a chicken, it got old fast. Unfortunately, I used up my daughter's interest in her own drawing with the uncooperative chickens.

Fish

I did a little better with these fish, which were (a) inside a building and (b) really interesting to my daughter, who loves fish. I was only able to sketch a bit of that scale pattern, enough to remind me to see if I can find more photos of this type of fish online, and maybe mimic that pattern via stamping.

Super quick (maybe a minute, if that?) gesture drawing of my daughter watching the tortoises.

Three-year-old human

Three-year-olds move at least as fast as chickens. {And, you know, ignore that hand.}

I really wanted to sketch the camels, from the minute I thought of bringing my sketchbook along. Camels have such personality. When we got to that exhibit, one's back was to us and the other's face was hidden behind a tree. Eventually I found a decent vantage point, and then realized that these animals, which looked at first glance to be completely motionless and lying down, never stopped moving. Up, down, shift, move a leg, stretch the neck, every time I tried a quick line contour and came back to where I thought I'd begun, I was somewhere else. (Good Picasso-style camels, I suppose.) Finally I quickly managed this:

Camel

...and looked up, only to realize my daughter was several feet down the path, climbing the wall. (Look at that horrible mother, letting her child get away while she...what is she...drawing? What the hey?!)

I gave up on the sketchbook after that! But it was still fun, and something to perhaps try with my older kids, another day. I've already shared another "lab" from this book with them, turning watercolor blots into creatures. This was my result:

I explain how we did it and share the boys' work, too, here.

Like I said, I'm completely loving this book so far! It's so much fun, not stressful drawing at all, which is what I wanted. I have taken drawing classes, a very long time ago, and I enjoyed them very much (and was better at it than I thought I would be, at the start), but it's been years and you sort of lose confidence in the connection between your eye and your hand. So something fun is a good way to get back into a drawing habit.

ETA: Taking Karen's suggestion, I linked up with Paint Myself Pretty's do-it-together Drawing Lab link thing.

Winter Tree in Watercolor

One of my challenges to myself this year is to get out of the house and find the real-life community I've been missing. Sounds simple, right? But I've spent the better part of the last decade home in the evenings, nursing kids before bedtime and generally being on-call (this was by choice; I'm not complaining), which meant getting to a knitting group or sewing class or anything at night, really, was just not happening. Now that I can do such things, the challenge is to get myself to go, because it's easier to let my natural homebody impulses take over, get into pajamas when the kids do, and snug up at home. But I'm not going to meet anybody new that way, am I?

A couple of weeks ago, while I was out for knit night (see? I got out that night!), I saw a flyer for a one-night watercolor class at a local store. One-night classes are great, especially at this time of the year, when my husband travels a lot. So I went home and signed up. On Friday my daughter woke us up at 5:30, and we spent most of the day out and busy. By the time dinner rolled around, my eyes hurt, I was so tired. I filled a travel mug with coffee and went to the class anyway. I'm so glad I did!

I wasn't sure what to expect, and I was so happy with the class. I hoped she wouldn't have us copy her exactly so we all ended up with the same painting, although I figured I'd at least learn some techniques that way. But she didn't! She had a stack of photographs of winter scenes and she had us each pick one. I smiled when I saw most of them included trees; it seemed like a good sign. Then she talked us through how to approach the painting, which means I came away feeling like I'd learned quite a bit in only two hours. Although I've been playing around with the watercolors at home, I haven't had the confidence to make that leap to attempting anything representational. I understood the general process, but I really needed someone right in the room saying You can do it, and this is how.

I came home full of happiness, and my husband and oldest (who wasn't in bed yet) were suitably impressed--it's nice to have an in-house cheering squad. (My husband has mentioned it would look nice in his office.) It's a first try, but it's given me the excitement and confidence to try some more, on my own. The instructor is a natural-born teacher; she teaches kids and adults and clearly finds her joy in sharing what she knows and inspiring others.

This was a good way to begin the weekend. I hope you are enjoying yours!

Pretty Things + Surprises

I had the sort of week where every single night, I went to bed thinking, Tomorrow is a new day and I will do better. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday...I failed to do better each day. I was so far from the me I want to be. In part I blame February, such a tough month for me. I know last winter was colder and much, much snowier, but I feel like this winter has been darker. We got more sun last year, and whatever we got was intensified by all the snow cover. I think that's the difference. In the understated way my husband has, he ventured, "You always have trouble in February and March." This was some point after a kitchen drawer literally fell apart; eight years of me slamming it shut when irritated in the kitchen finally took its toll. Thankfully, after that, I stopped falling apart too. Friday was better. Want to see?

Four headbands I've made lately, three of them finished up Friday morning. The two larger ones on the bottom are mine, made from fat quarters bought just for that purpose. The two smaller ones are my daughter's, from stash fabric. Aren't the colors so springish and bright? On purpose, of course. I really do love these. They take minutes to sew up, they're so useful (my hair is long, long, long and heavy, too, and my daughter's is also long, and elastics slip right out of her baby-fine hair), and I always get complimented on them. I'm planning an embroidered denim one next.

After that, I put the stroller in the car and my daughter and I drove into town. Wednesday and Thursday, it was cold and wet--not only couldn't I take a walk, but the damp bothered my hip. Today the temperature hovered near freezing, but it was sunny and dry. I parked at one end of a stretch of bike path and walked the path from there to Main Street, where we stopped into a couple of stores. At one, I paid for a one-night watercolor class I'd signed up for over the phone, and at the fabric store, we did a little of what I called February Recovery Shopping.

Two fat quarter bundles and a 1/2-yard cut--that's the polka dots--for another headband for my daughter, because why not? She likes to pick out fabric too. Fat quarter bundles are the fabric store equivalent of a nice skein of sock yarn. You want something, you don't have anything in particular in mind, and they're so pretty. This store makes them especially pretty, don't you think? You can't see all the fabrics in this photo, of course, but on the left is a variety of beautiful greens, and the right has four pieces of Japanese fabric that feels lovely and told me it wanted to be embroidered on somehow.

When I got home I found unexpected goodies in the mail. I think I mentioned I participated in the Squam Double Dog Dare for February? I said I was going to walk at least twice a week, because I felt that moving my body would help me recover from the effects of Lyme and help me with the quicksand naps I was falling into daily. I'm happy to say I both made good on my word, and that it has helped. And this is what the Squam fairies sent me:

Yes, that's just the package. It's decorated. I had to take a picture before I opened it. There's a note on the back, too.

Honestly, I don't know how they have the time for such personalized love, how Elizabeth and her staff are keeping the spirit of Squam so true as it gets so big. This is what my daughter and I found inside:

My daughter helped me empty it, which is how we ended up with sparkly blue stars all over the rug!

Notecards, a dog tag that says I'm a top dog, glitter lip gloss, sticky notes (which is awesome, because I'm always hunting for sticky notes while I'm knitting), and FLOWER SEEDS!! Because spring, oh spring is coming, y'all. Oh, and everything was wrapped in what I think is a doggie neck bandana. Hmm, maybe I can get the cat to wear it? I'm sure a stuffed animal will be pleased to receive it, if the cat isn't.

And another sign of spring landed in my mailbox today:

That, my friends, is this year's National Poetry Month poster. Those of you who have been reading since I first began blogging elsewhere may remember that often in April, I posted a poem a day. I'm considering doing that again. I love poetry, love it, I love sharing it, it makes me happy. Spring and poetry and pretty things and walking and surprises and getting through Friday behaving more like the me I want to be...it all makes me happy.

{P.S. I set myself a March DDD challenge too...and you don't have to be registered for a Squam workshop to participate. There's something about publicly setting a goal, no matter how big or small, and feeling accountable, that does wonders. There is a lot of good energy over there.}