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...

Blizzard!

The last big blizzard around here was in 1978; I was the same age my daughter is now. I wonder what she'll remember of this? I remember my mother didn't want to let me outside because the drifts against the house were much taller than I was. I remember she put milk in the snow on the deck to keep it cold; we'd lost power, but we still had heat and the stove, which were powered by gas, and plumbing, which was hooked up to the town system. In my current house, losing power means losing heat (oil with an electric starter), water (well with an electric pump), and the septic system (a fancy-schmancy required-by-law system that uses electric pumps). I also remember that my father, who'd been traveling on business, was stranded in Canada. My husband is scheduled to fly out on business on Monday. I'm grateful that trip wasn't this week, or this storm didn't come next week.

How much snow? I took this photo first thing this morning.

22 inches. All at once, that is quite a bit of snow. I only managed a narrow path on the walk and up the stairs.

And this...under here somewhere is my husband's car.

It took a ridiculously long time to first, get to it, and second, unbury it.

I had to make sure I waded through the snow to refill the bird feeder, too. It's back behind that cage of snowy branches--branches that were, until yesterday, much higher up. The snow is heavy and wet and weighing down the trees.

Speaking of trees, we have four juniper bushes that go across the edge of the yard. They're under here somewhere.

You can sort of see one all the way to the right. But not really. Just trust me, they're there.

I wanted to share some pictures because I know for some people, this sort of snow is unimaginable! We've had snow-filled winters before, but getting it all at once like this is certainly not the usual--although clearly, it's not a once-in-a-lifetime event, either. I hope the power stays on (after Sandy they shut it off while making repairs elsewhere) and they restore it quickly to the thousands of people who have no heat--a situation that could quickly become dangerous. If you are in the northeast, I hope you're warm, safe, and home with your family.

Frost

I went out to fill the bird feeder this morning and frost was everywhere, shining in the sun. This isn't our first frost, but I was out there at the right time for it to catch my eye, so once the bird feeder was filled, I went back inside for my camera.

I'm still using an automatic and lusting after a digital SLR so I can control the focus better.

Mostly, these shots focused the way I wanted them to.

What I would really like is to save up for a digital SLR and buy it with my own money; being a non-income-earning mother is a lovely luxury, of course, but sometimes my utter dependency on someone else's income gets to me.

I don't do well with cold, dark winter. It's good for me to stop and take notice of the small bits of beauty. They are worth going back into the house to get the camera. Stand still and recognize, before the frost melts and the fleeting beauty disappears.

I'm still plodding away on my art every day project, although I don't quite always manage to make art every day. I have more to share, when I get to scanning and posting.

Garter Stitch

I began this blanket a few weeks ago--it's intended for a baby due in December--but I made huge progress on it this past week. It's a simple garter stitch blanket that grows out from one corner, then decreases down to the opposite one (Easy Eyelet Blanket). I've knit it numerous times, including one for each of my own children, which are still on their beds. It's a blanket that well outlives the baby years. And, as the name says, it's easy. And there is nothing like garter stitch to soothe a knitter.

I knit loads on this blanket while waiting for Sandy, during the storm, and after. I worked on it during my middle child's allergist appointment. It sat in my lap while I kept him calm during the scratch test. This blanket grew so much this week, it's almost done. I hope none of the anxiety transfers to the baby. I may have to give it a wash first, just to be sure.

We are fine...far enough from the coast that we didn't need to evacuate. We lost power for much of Tuesday--it stayed on all through the storm, but then they shut it off while they were making repairs in the area. A huge tree was down, all tangled up with wires, not too far from here, and I think our power went out when they began working on that. Truly, we were lucky in Rhode Island. Damage to coastlines and buildings but not people. I've signed up to help with debris clean-up this weekend (I'm waiting to hear if/where I've been assigned), and I've donated online to help victims further away. And I keep knitting, because it soothes my anxiety, which seems to have increased, generally, with age.

Garter stitch, garter stitch, garter stitch.

I hope all of you and all those you know and love are safe, every day. It's what we all hope for, isn't it? Every day.

List-It Tuesday: Overheard

Yes, it's Thursday. I've had a couple of Weeks Like That, okay, and only two days late is actually pretty impressive, considering. The topic this week is overheard, and it's just too juicy to let slip by.

My daughter takes a preschool gymnastics class. Last year, when both my older kids were in school, I spent the 45 minutes sitting and knitting. Most parents stand at the viewing window and chit-chat, but I was too tired and achy from Lyme Disease to stand for more than ten minutes at a time. (Sad but true.) This year I have my eight-year-old with me. He does his math chapter and then we play some Uno, or he might read while I knit, or, usually, some of all of that. Today, I eavesdropped a bit. Some of these were said by parents, and some were said by the group leader who runs the before-school care for kindergarteners. In case you can't read the scan (the scanner doesn't like the spiral binding) or my handwriting, here is what it says:

* You're not being a nice boy. You're staying right here. Who's going to win this battle? [This was said by a caregiver--not sure if she was a nanny or a grandmother--but it seemed pretty clear to me the kid was winning.]

* Every single one is like chipped but a handful. I don't know what I was thinking when I registered for these. [Sigh. A few of the moms have a "like" speech impediment, as you'll notice. It like drives me like crazy.]

* They're like up the walls.

*Then it all like slowly unravels.

*I was feeling in control of my life for like a little second.

* It's definitely like guilt.

*I'll be making like 15 things for the school bake sale.

* Please sit down on your bum and eat. Sit down and finish your lunch. I'm going to have to glue you to that seat.

* Do not put that over your face like that EVER! You can see through plastic. You can't breathe through it.

*If you did say it don't say it again because it's not appropriate.

It's worth it to go back to Aimee's post and check out all the links...some good overheard stuff this week!!

Birthday Shirt

It's about that time of year again...

I realized when I made last year's shirt that I was going to have to make this a tradition. This year, though, it's not a surprise (although she won't see the finished shirt until her birthday). She just assumed it was coming because, after all, her number is changing, so she needs a new shirt. She had advance say on colors and design. In the end, she chose what I wanted to do anyway--a four with a crown--although for a while there we were awash in her initial in a circle with a crown and the four. I'm happy simplicity won out.

Goodness. I love that design, I really do!

I also really enjoyed sharing photos of where I live in the last post. Here's one more, a different pond that I drove by four times today (on the way to and from preschool gymnastics, and on the way to and from karate).

I didn't have my camera earlier in the day, so this was taken about 5 pm and it's not as vibrant, but still. Autumn is pretty here this year. Last year we sort of missed the colorful part entirely thanks to Hurricane Irene. The leaves that weren't stripped were salted, or something like that. There are a couple of trees on the way into town that are, as my son put it, so bright that it hurt his eyes to look at them. Next time I go in that direction I'm going to have to make time to stop, find a safe place to pull over, and take some photos.

Finally, I signed up for the Art Every Day Challenge. It takes place in November. I don't think I'll be posting every day, but I hope to have something to show for every day, when I do post. By the end, I'd like 30 postcard-sized pieces of artwork. I'm thinking of a variation on a theme--an animal per day, or 30 trees...something like that. Usually, if I make time to draw, it's a better day.

Before that, though, I need to sew up a sparkly cape. I didn't think I was sewing anything for Halloween this year, but the almost-four-year-old has other plans, and who can argue with the Birthday Girl?

List It Tuesday: I Love Where I Live

This week's theme is "What I love about where I live," and I felt it needed to be a photographic list as much as possible. So here goes.

I love my yard, especially the view off the deck.

I also love the animals that visit our yard or make it their home. The bird feeder is hanging from the tree directly behind the corner of the deck (you can't see it in this photo). A bunny has been lurking around underneath that white pine. We occasionally see deer, although I know they visit overnight when we don't see them, too, and I love when the wild turkeys march through. And I adore the reptiles and amphibians, like this common snake

and, of course, the red-backed salamanders.

I love that we live so close to the ocean. In less than fifteen minutes, I'm at the beach. Just knowing it's so close calms me; if I need to get there, I can (and sometimes I just do).

My kids are growing up with an intimate knowledge of the ocean; I love that. One of our favorite beaches is a barrier beach, with this salt pond behind.

We love it here. It's calm and shallow and we swim next to little fish and sometimes come across crabs and even horseshoe crabs, and I love that my kids (and myself!) have the chance to "know" these creatures in their own habitat, not just behind glass at an aquarium.

It's a slightly farther drive, but we can also easily get to some great tide pools.

There, we can find hermit crabs and snails and sea stars (although not this year), again, in their own habitat, where we are careful and grateful visitors.

I also love that in almost any direction we drive from home, we pass horses or cows.

And every time I go into town, I drive by a pond that is gorgeous in all weather. This photograph was taken on a very grey day last fall.

We are surrounded by all of this, yet we're only about 40 minutes from Mystic, CT, 45 minutes from Providence, RI, and 90 minutes from Boston.

I realized when I was thinking about this list that it doesn't include any particular stores or communities of people. Back before I had to cut out gluten, I'd have told you I loved a certain coffee shop, and the pizza place in town, and how we used to pick up our CSA share at the co-op, order a pizza for dinner, and then browse in the used book store. But the used book store closed, the CSA stopped letting kids on the farm so I couldn't work off half our share anymore, and most of us can't eat regular pizza. My love of this place is very much centered on the landscape. Whenever we idly talk of moving I always say I don't want to be any farther from the coast than I am now, and since it's about four miles "as the crow flies," that limits our options a bit!

What do you love about where you live? Is it the landscape, the community, or both?

I Got Nothin'

So, last week? Crazy times. And not in a good way. I did not finish my Ravellenic Games lace scarf (last seen here). I was trying to do one repeat per day (64 stitches times 24 rows), and I was on pace up until three days to go, so I guess that would be Thursday. At that point I weighed what was left of the skein of yarn and realized I had enough for six repeats, and since my real goal was to finish the scarf by using all the yarn I had, I knew I wasn't going to make it. But I still thought I could finish out the Games with 17 repeats. But, like Tom Daley, I got distracted--not by the flashbulbs of adoring home-country fans, but by the way my week exploded, not in a good-busy-doing-fun-things way, but in a solo parenting-all-heck-broke-loose way. Unlike Tom Daley, I'm not going to petition for a re-do because, y'know, it's just knitting.

So anyway, I got nothing to show you, except this seagull mug shot.

He and his gang were trying to thieve our lunch at the salt pond today. I think he's a new initiate; he looks like a juvenile to me. But there you go--this week is already better than last week, because we spent the day at the beach. I would say, Geez, how could it not be? but I'm afraid to curse myself.

How about you? August treating you a little better so far--I hope?!

August

This week, the one that begins with my mother's birthday on July 29 and ends with the anniversary of her death (five years this year) on August 5, has the potential for being rocky every year. I say "potential" because these things vary. Some years it's okay. Others, not so much. Sometimes bracing yourself for it just means it pops up somewhere else. I still have a lot of big, yucky feelings, understandably. To add into that, my 96-year-old grandmother was discharged last weekend from the hospital to a nursing home--the same one, actually, in which my mother died. When I visited my grandmother in the hospital I really thought, well, I thought I'd better tell her whatever I needed to tell her, and I did. Last weekend we brought the kids to see her in the nursing home--this is her third rehab stint there, all after hospital stays--and my oldest looked drawn. He remembers just enough of visiting my mother there. But we visited again on Thursday and he noticed right away how much better she seemed. She sat up and visited with us, enjoyed the kids, and she and I joked and laughed together. I felt so much better after that visit with my grandmother.

And despite the sneaking feeling that I spent a goodly part of the week lying on the couch in a heat- and inertia-fueled stupor, that's just not so (although there was some of that, too). We began the week by taking the kids to Watch Hill's Flying Horse Carousel. This was my daughter's first ride on the carousel.

While she was riding she was almost solemn. She smiled when we waved to her, but otherwise, I think she was just quietly soaking it all in. After her two rides were over and I went to help her off her horse, she didn't even say anything (unusual for this talkative girl), she just wrapped herself around me and hugged me tightly, so overcome, I think, with absolute excitement and joy. That ride was just so wonderful she was rendered speechless.

Later in the week I took the kids to the zoo, and later still, the oldest, youngest, and I painted rocks. My daughter had been asking to paint rocks again so on a hot hazy afternoon, we did. My oldest and I took our inspiration from an activity in My Art Book, which I borrowed from the library. It's based on Australian dot paintings from the Balgo Community--but really it's just taking the technique of painting dots and transferring it to rocks, not trying to reproduce the traditional paintings (which would give me pause). My son opted to paint a turtle but without the extra layers of dots; since he was painting a local turtle that already has spots, he kept his dots to the shell. I decided to paint a snake and go all out with my dots.

This was just super fun to make. And since I have acrylic varnish on the shelf (what don't I have, I wonder), I made it shiny. I want to make more--and even though we have rocks aplenty, I couldn't help but bring more home from the beach today, to become more animals, more shiny rocks, more brightly colored happy things.

Which is why I also painted this:

It's on a 6x6 gessobord, in need of a frame. It's a fragment from a favorite poem, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot. (I have also embroidered this fragment on my jeans.) I was trying out some different Pages + Paint techniques here, although no collage. It's just a happy piece, created to make me happy.

In the same vein as beach rocks and mermaids, this week I received a sweet little package of sea glass and driftwood from Cameron at Paint Myself Pretty.

The bag is shiny so it's hard to get a good picture of all the goodness inside, but it's also so pretty with that sticker and all that I haven't been able to make myself tear into it yet, even carefully. I'm just enjoying looking at it the way it is. But soon I will pour the sea glass into a little bowl and put it on the table so I can just look at it and enjoy it all. Thanks, Cameron!

And I've been working on my Ravellenic Games lace:

I've been trying to do a repeat per day (64 stitches times a 24-row repeat). The pattern says it took 15 repeats to get a 60-inch scarf, but my gauge must be different, because even with stretching, I don't think that will happen. That length right there is eight repeats. So while I may meet my Olympic goal of a repeat per day, I don't think I'll be done with the scarf at that point. I want to use every bit of that skein of lace weight. It's really pretty stuff, too. Here's a close-up; unblocked, of course.

So that's been the week, pretty much. Posting may be spotty for the rest of this month; we'll see how it goes. Pages + Paint had me in the computer a bit more than I wanted to be in July, trying to contribute to the discussions on the blog, in the Flickr group, and in the private forum. I'm feeling I need to counter-balance that and step back a bit (so much so that for two days this week, the laptop was not only off, but shoved under my bed so I couldn't even see it). Summer feels like it's slipping through my fingers, and I'm not quite ready....no, not quite ready.

What good things snuck into your days this week?

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.

Mixed Media {Intensive}

"Intensive" is the right word! I am exhausted, but in a good way--Saturday and Sunday I drove back and forth to Providence for six hours of class each day in mixed media, taught by Mara Metcalf, who was completely down-to-earth and welcoming, funny and approachable. The class contained a good mix of people with varying skills, experience, and backgrounds, and I'm betting not one person there felt they didn't belong. Taking an Art Class can feel pretty intimidating, especially at a place like RISD. Honestly? I've gotten over that. I've taken classes there myself, although it was a long, long time ago, and always through continuing ed; plus, I have an art minor in my background, so I no longer feel that Art Classes (capitals intended) are for Other People But Not Me. But continuing ed, truly, should be open to everybody. I think that's the idea of those programs, yes? And Mara was such an easygoing, natural teacher. I think it would be a good use of my time simply to look for more classes by her and try to take them, no matter the subject.

But what did we do, you're asking. Enough of the preamble! Basically, we messed around. Some people had an idea coming in, but I had none. I find mixed media challenging. Why? It has no rules! Anything goes! And I think that is exactly what challenges me. When I had the opportunity to pursue an art minor, I focused in photography. It had a nice rigid framework that I could experiment within, and boundaries to push against, but rules aplenty. You had to know the rules (of exposure, and chemicals, and development) so you could experiment with them. Wide-open-go-anywhere-do-anything-use-anything is hard. It is hard for me to just let loose.

This is what I ended up with after the first day.

We practiced with gesso and packing tape transfer. I'm familiar with the tape method (it's how I made this label, among others), and I'd seen the gesso transfer technique demonstrated during last spring's printmaking class, although I hadn't done it myself. (You can Google "gesso transfer" and get lots of instructive links.) So these three are a mix of transfer methods, collage, adding into the transfers with various materials...just playing around.

Sunday we were supposed to be a bit more directed. I didn't really have a plan, although Saturday night I did another gesso transfer onto prepainted paper, and another packing tape transfer, except I used contact paper instead, which is much less shiny and can be cut to the size of the image, instead of overlapping the strips of tape. I used both of those in Sunday's projects, which you can see here, pinned to the wall next to Karen's.

Karen's are the three on the left. Mine are on the right. First a close-up of the bottom one.

Talk about not having a plan! Not a one, beyond using the gesso transfer of the iris and the image of the girl, which is from a vintage sewing pattern envelope. (Hat tip to my sister, who provided the vintage sewing patterns!) And then I just winged it. There's some tissue from a sewing pattern, and some actual thread stitching, and some extra yellow glaze. Some marker lines that sort of mimic stitching, and finally, because the flower was sort of getting lost, I went in with some paint based on suggestions from Mara and a classmate. And then, you know, we all thought it more or less worked. (As an aside, I love mixing paint colors using only primaries, black, and white. I know there are a gazillion colors of paint available, and still, I almost always choose to mix my own. Love.)

The larger piece incorporates the contact paper transfer of a tree photograph...here's a detail shot.

Because I didn't think to take a close-up while it was on the wall, this has a bit of shadow and glare on it. I painted the underlying paper a yellowish green, then painted the dark green of the tree's leaves directly onto the contact paper transfer. You'll just have to believe me that this looks much better in person. The photo is one I took a month or two ago of a huge tree near one of the playgrounds we visit. It's one of those trees that spread out and the leaves fall all around you, and you can walk right under and it's like a play fort (especially if you're a kid) or a hideout (ahem, teenagers, it's not as private as you think), and the light is just magical in there. And then the tree has all these carvings on it. So I took reference photos both of the leaves surrounding you when you're inside, and the textual qualities of the bark, because these will, I suspect, show up as embroidery sooner or later. That's the plan, if I can clear the decks of all the other projects swirling in my head or on my work table.

And that right there is why I think mixed media might be a good solution for me. I like to do so much--paint and carve stamps and embroider--on so many surfaces--paper and cloth and canvas--that perhaps if I find a way to just combine it all together, I could get more ideas out of my head and into the world. And yes, I do stop to think to myself, What am I going to do with all this? I'm paying to take classes, so, to what purpose? Because we adults do tend to think we need to justify ourselves. But I'd never question my children that way. I'd never say, What are you going to do with that drawing, anyway? So the answer, for now, is that I simply need to do. I need to create.

And that is the other benefit of taking this class...time with other people who feel the same way. After class on Saturday Karen and I hung out for a bit and had dinner together. Those opportunities, for me, are few and far between, and rarely do I feel like I can completely be myself, because my self is kind of weird and a little awkward, but I felt completely comfortable around Karen, and in the class, too. And now I should go write down all the half-baked ideas swirling in my head before I forget them. I'll be back in a few days, hopefully with a finished project; meanwhile, the postcard giveaway is still open to comments until Tuesday night.

How was your weekend?!

Getting Ready

(Giveaway is still open--postcards inspired by the lake!)

I will be spending Saturday and Sunday taking a weekend intensive in mixed media through RISD continuing ed, so I've been gathering my materials and preparing for this very exciting (and somewhat intimidating) experience. I signed up because mixed media feels so challenging to me. I'm hoping to exit the weekend feeling far more confident with it. To add to the excitement, Karen is taking the class too. I am very much looking forward to meeting her in person.

Linking up with my creative space--lucky me, I get twelve hours of creative space this weekend!

Changing Rhythms {And Some Knitting}

It's summer. Rhythms are changing. All my kids are home--hurrah!--and we sat down to brainstorm what we might like to do this summer. We engage in cooperative list-making twice a year, for the summer and for the Christmas holidays. It was a suggestion I saw in a book on simplifying Christmas, the idea being that if you don't sit down as a family and talk about what you want to do, the family planner (me, in this family) might end up doing a lot of unnecessary work planning things that nobody would miss. Better to put the effort into activities everybody really wants to do. So together, the kids and I talk about where we want to visit, what we want to make, and what we want to do over the summer. This year, I decided to make the list a little prettier.

As you can see, there is room to add more as we think of it (we already have!). It's okay if we don't do all of this. Sturbridge Village is a carryover from last summer; we still haven't made it there. And we already have circus tickets. Not everything is big, either, or costs money. Some things are hopeful thinkings out loud. Everybody's ideas are on here.

We've already had our first of many beach visits--that's where we decided to spend a goodly part of the solstice, since it was predicted to be quite hot. We visited the barrier beach that has a salt pond side, too. The pond is shallow, with no waves, and I felt comfortable, this year, knitting a little bit while the kids played in the pond. My youngest is old enough for that now. (Still no knitting on the beach side, though.)

This is my take-along knitting, a second long, skinny Saroyan (since I liked the first one I made so much). I bought the yarn in December as a pick-me-up, the week my husband was away and the cat killed the TV and I finally went to the doctor and ended up diagnosed with Lyme. The colors reminded me of the ocean. It doesn't get serious attention, this knitting. I rarely work on it at home. It's the knitting I bring with me, mostly stockinette so I can hold a conversation, with just that bit of lace edging, and I can usually figure out where I left off in the repeat even if I forget to mark it down. I think it's entirely perfect that I was able to knit a few rows on a saltwater shore.

I'm linking up with my creative space, even though my creative space feels a bit sparse this week. It's all about (happily! so happily!) adjusting to new rhythms.

Saturday Sewing: A Skirt For Mama

Yesterday I was awakened at 5 am by the sound of pouring rain. (I went back to sleep, no worries!) This worked perfectly into our no-plans Saturday; I wanted to sew a skirt for myself anyway. So I spent the day turning this

into this:

It's hard to see the ties there, but they're of the same fabric. I made this with a drawstring waist. Perfect? Nope. If I'm going to make more of these (and I think I am), I'm going to have to get comfortable with the buttonhole foot on my sewing machine. I did these two by hand, which definitely gives me more control but takes much longer, and probably isn't quite as neat--although I don't know, the one time I tried my buttonhole foot, it didn't seem all that fantastic, really. Also, the casing is a little (accidentally) gathered in one spot, but since the skirt itself gathers with the drawstring, it's not a huge deal. I don't expect anyone will be investigating my waistband anyway. (That's a bit too personal, no?)

Here's another view, from the back:

This skirt is really comfortable and flow-y. I love the line of it. It's a simple A-line, drafted using Sew What! Skirts. I used their suggested minimum of 2-inch ease for the top width, but I think I could go down to one. On the other hand, I like the slope from the waist to the hem the way it is now. And as you can probably tell from the one-day sewing, this was very easy to make.

And hey, look what the kids and I scored on Friday:

Someone was Freecycling wooden cigar boxes. Having never seen any before, I was picturing something less polished, that we could decorate and use for treasure boxes. We like these the way they are, but we could still personalize the inside covers, if we wanted. There are five boxes, and five of us, so we'll each get one. (The big people in the family are rather taken with these, too.) I plan to use mine for paper ephemera. I don't usually respond to Freecycle posts; it's often not anything I want, and if I do, it's already taken. But this actually worked out, and I had two of the three kids with me when I picked them up, and goodness, were we excited.

I hope you're enjoying your weekend! Today is sunny, but not too hot. Oh, and the cowbird chicks fledged...the whole story (with pictures) is here. Just so you're warned, it didn't end well for the phoebe's eggs.

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...