Still Blooming

After hard freezes, snow, pounding rain and wind these tough gals just want to keep blooming at the end of the year: camellia sasanqua 'setsugekka', viburnum bodnantense 'dawn', kerria japonica, rosa 'the fairy', jasminum nudifolium, prunus 'accolade'. They're inspiring for their fortitude, and a welcome foreshadowing of spring.

Wishing You A Wonderful New Year

Go out and get some exercise, eat well, laugh lots, tell people you love them, give to the less fortunate, teach someone something that you are passionate about, plant a tree, kiss a bunny and smile because you know you are beautiful. Peace.

Brule

Each year I make a new catnip mousie for the wild one. She chomps on that thing like it is a real critter. Then she gets worn out and tucks in for a long winter's nap.
What a lovely holiday! Snow falling all day long adding that extra touch of holiday cheer to our day. We finished our high caloric intake day with creme brule. I don't think I will be hungry again for three days.

Fluff

Ahhhh, it feels good to sit down after baking all day. First up were dinner rolls, then creme brule, then I needed to use up all those egg whites so meringues followed in the oven. The house is nice and toasty with the oven going all day. Time to sit down for some tea.
Cheers.

Ho Ho Ho

This cookie baking season I had a revelation. In the past my sugar cookies never held the cookie cutter shape very well after baking. They always seemed to ooze out of their shape and get quite flat. I always wondered how my favorite bakery made cookies that had such crisp edges compared to mine. Thank goodness for grocery sales, because one brand of butter was ridiculously inexpensive compared to my usual brand and so I purchased this other brand for my holiday baking. Well, what to my wondering eyes should appear but perfectly intact shaped sugar cookies so happy and dear. Yay! I'll never go back to my old brand of butter.

Blocked

Early this morning a big bang was heard at the front of the house. Birds crash into our windows often, so I looked for tell tale feathers on the windows, and a body on the ground. But nothing could be seen until I looked out over the porch roof where an immature Cooper's Hawk was splayed out on the roof. Alive but stunned, its legs were horizontal on the roof. I watched as he gathered his composure and after several minutes he hoped up onto the talons of one foot, the other tucked up under his body. Did he break a foot? His cadmium yellow leg beamed in the morning light against the black roof. His head pivoted back and forth to gage his surroundings. Such a range of motion for that majestic profile! I retrieved my binoculars to get an amazingly close view of the creature. His banded feathers, that beak, the tail feathers helping to prop up his body, oh so beautiful in his unfortunate state. Then it was time for Nini to head out the front door for the school bus and the sound of the front door slamming and her presence gave him such a start that he mustered all of his strength and took to flight right above her. Glad he was able to fly again she gave me a big smile. Good luck birdie and look out for windows!

This is the first year I haven't made linoleum cut holiday cards in probably twenty five years. I had a design all created and purchased a block to carve, but I just didn't have the energy to expend on the carving. Pain has just zapped my inner resources to create. I feel so weak and a shell of my former self. Am I a hundred years old? It feels like it. Tomorrow marks the solstice and is an important marker for my psyche. It means the return of light. No more sliding further into darkness. Perhaps my pain is amplified by the season of cold, damp and dark. Tomorrow it should be better.

Fresh off the Sewing Table

Sometimes I'll find a scrap of fabric and it talks to me. It tells me what it wants to be. This furry scrap wanted to be a bear with a pretty scarf. So off I went to fulfill the scrap's destiny. The pillow behind the bear was recently made from fabric that my mom brought back from China maybe twenty-five years ago or more. Could there be a truer red?

Nobel Peace Prize

First Wangari and now Al. Yeay!

Read Al Gore's acceptance speech.

Sustainability?

A link from Treehugger directed me to an article in the New York Times by Michael Pollan (an author I admire!) called, Our Decrepit Food Factories. Aside from the alarming struggles that bees go through, amongst other relevations, Pollen focuses on the over/irrelevant use of the word sustainability . This has been a source of irritation to me for over two decades how the use of sustainability, without regard to its essential meaning, is used as a badge of affirmation and elevated status. Michael Pollan is well qualified to speak to the issue and he draws in disparate examples to make his point, as he did so well in the novel The Botany of Desire. Back in my younger designer days there were architects that latched on to the term with such a firm grip that seemed so disingenuous. Today the term has come to have no meaning when our local main street streetscape plan is labeled sustainable. When the the shopping district will be ripped up from end to end, costing millions of dollars (adding 20 years of public debt to the tax roles), and requiring massive amounts of new materials for the redesign of the perfectly functional existing street the term is a joke. Labeling the design sustainable seems to brand it with a healthy honorific glow beneath it's deceptive appearance.

to all

Country Wreath

Only two ingredients this year: variegated holly + hawthorn berries. I love looking around the garden to see what inspires me from year to year. Most years the wreath starts out with a redwood base (oh the fragrance!) and lots of ornamental evergreens are added, but this year I thought I'd keep it super simple. My wreaths are never the perfect circles like you see sold at the grocery store, but hey, this is a home made country garden wreath with character. Good thing I bought some new gardening gloves since the holly prickery leaves and those four inch hawthorn thorns are not something skin wants to come in contact with, YIKES!
I'm surprised that the Crataegus berries are still around. The robins swooped in one day and devoured the Ilex berries, the gorgeous purple Calicarpa berries, the white with a blush of pink Sorbus forestii berries (such a lovely sight in fall with their scarlet and cadmium orange leaves against the white droops of fruit), and the lovely orange Sorbus alnifolia berries. The birds have left the Pyracantha, Rosa, and Crataegus berries for now. I think they are waiting for their sugars to ferment a bit longer for some nice ice wine flavors for a new year's treat. While hanging the wreath at the front door I saw the peregrine again. He took off after a meal in a hurry. Hope it wasn't one of my sweet song birdies that visit my feeders.

Nutcracker

I don't think there could possibly be a better production of the Nutcracker
than by the Pacific Nortwest Ballet.
I looooove the Maurice Sendak stage sets!
What a treat!
I wish I didn't have such a yucky cold right now, so I could have enjoyed it more thoroughly.
Thank you Miss Nini for taking all of us.

Crash

Our tree crashed to the floor in the middle of the night

and some of the prettiest ornaments were smashed to smithereens.
This is just a fraction of the broken glass everywhere.
Oh well.

Let The Decorating Begin!

the signal flags say, "merry christmas"

i love getting out my favorite toys around this time of year. i would play with these for hours on end while growing up (must have influenced my interest in urban design!). whenever i find new tyrolean wooden pieces i just can't resist adding a few more to the village collection.

Happy December!

I love snow!

Thanks

Ahhh, so much yummy food to enjoy in a warm house with healthy family all home for the holiday...that's a lot to be thankful for. Happy belated Thanksgiving to all!
Our new bunny is inside enjoying some running around time. And he has a name that passes the approval threshold of the 4-H bunny girl. She wanted a Spanish name for him so the name that I came up with, Carlos del Huerto, was met with surprising glee. My husband prefers the first name that I gave the little albino, Fred. Fred/Carlos's fur has become much softer now that he has good nutrition. And he is no longer skin and bones as he was found in the garden. Oh, "del huerto" means of the vegetable garden, where I found this little sweetie.
The best part of Thanksgiving is all the left-overs that make for hearty munching for many days with little effort. Yeay. I could go for another piece of Marionberry pie. Wow the crust was perfect thanks to the baking skills of the bunny-girl. She even cut out pieces of crust in leaf shapes to decorate the top of the pie. How festive and beautiful. I'm a proud mama.

Latest Knitting

My latest knitting project is a wisp of a sweater. It's an old Rowan pattern and is made of mohair and merino. The pattern is simple but knits up in a manner that I have never employed before. The merino knits up on a large circular needle and when finished with the row the stitches are slid to the other end and the mohair is picked up again for three rows on smaller straight needles. It will be a cardigan without buttons.
A light spring or summer sweater.

Visual AIDS

The Visual AIDS Postcards from the Edge exhibit is coming up on World AIDS Day, December 1st. Here's my submission for this year.
It's called, "You Found Me After All These Years". I had to give up my white New Zealand rabbit when I went away to college, and when I found a young albino rabbit in our vegetable garden last weekend it was as if my bunny had returned to me after thirty years.

This postcard has a crocheted mohair skirt, needle felted wool hair, cotton batting bunny and cotton + linen applique. This is the third year I have made a postcard for the annual show.

Halloween in a Greedy World

No one ever trick or treats for UNICEF anymore!

Why?
What ever happened to empathy
towards the rest of the world
on the night of total indulgence?

All of our pumpkins were home grown this year and what a crop is has been! We have quite the stash of roasted pumpkin seeds. Pumpkins must have been a revered crop for the Pilgrams. I looked up the nutritional value of those seeds and the protein, fat and calorie content is enormous. What a perfect food machine. Ours will become pies, cookies, muffins and bread.

The Visitor

I looked out the window on Sunday afternoon and saw a little white bunny munching away in the vegetable garden . I went out there right away to try to catch it and to my great surprise it allowed me to get close and pick it right up without any kicking or biting (I'm the bunny whisperer!). He is a young ruby-eyed white something or other (if it's a pure breed it could be a New Zealand). I put up a sign in the neighborhood and called the local animal shelter but no one so far is missing him. He is so sweet and gentle! He came to the right garden to be loved instead of eaten by coyotes.

A Peek in the Garden

Wow, It's Been A While!

Now that I am taking my medication regularly I am back to my regular old self again at last! Gee, it has been quite some time since I have felt normal. I hate taking medicine and so I wasn't taking it consistently, not an effective way to manage pain. So happily, I return to the living again. Funny how inspired I have become since regaining my old self. For the past months I felt so void of inspiration and lust for creativity. But it's back in a big way and I am ready to cook, well, make stuff rather.
Here's what I finished yesterday:It was made without a pattern and in an improvisational mode. Just sewing away and seeing what happens next.Here's the other side that has a zippered pocket with more Kaffe Fassett fabric (ooh that is delightful stuff) as the lining.
The saffron harvest is ongoing. There is something so enchanting about plucking the stamens out of a crocus blossom and then watching those crimson threads stain a pot of risotto.
Before this glorious sunshine disappears I am off to plant some grape hyacinth bulbs imagining their fragrance in spring.

Year of the Pumpkin

It is one fantastic year for pumpkins. Quantity, size, color...it's all there waiting for pies, bread, cookies, and carving. Shown are cinderella pumpkins that ripen to nearly red in ideal years like this one. This is Pistacia chinensis....oh isn't fall delightful!

i fiori del oggi

Questi sono i fiori dello mio giardino.

Last Thursday

I started this post last Thursday in the midst of exploration of the inner workings of my left boob.

Under the florescent rectangles on the ceiling, in a windowless room of extraordinarily cohesive drab colors, I wait. Another is told she is fine and come back in a year. I wait for the same conclusion.

On the way over, on the ferry and on the walk up steeeep Seneca Street I listened to the soothing voice of Brenda Dane from the podcast Cast On. Interspersed with delightful music Brenda's weekly trek through the world of knitting eased my anxiety as I maintained a quick pace up the hill to the hospital.

Escorted to the radiology room the technician took a quick peek and changed the paddles from normal to small due to the pancake profile of my boob. And then the stance: grab the bar with the right hand, cheek pressed against the machine and then the panels are dialed in closer and then the squeeze until I uncontrollably utter, "ohhhh!" Such a squeeze! Hold my breath. The picture is taken and I'm allowed to breathe again. But wait, the image is all white. Try again. Yet more squeezing. Same result. Then another technician is called in to help figure out why the machine can't read my boob. They decide on manual exposures instead of automatic and the result is far better after a third smashing.

Then the machine is twisted on its side. I'm instructed to put my arm out like I'm swimming (nice thought right about now) and the clamp comes down again until I can't take any more pressure. A man must have invented this torture for women. There has to be a better way than to smash my boob until it is in extreme pain.

So with the films seemingly good for review by the the radiologist I am sent back to the waiting room until the conclusion is made. Cancer or no cancer I'm waiting to hear. I am ready for either one. In the tiny windowless waiting room, with three other women, we all wait. There is a steady stream of women into the changing stalls, stripping their upper half and donning a striped gown, tied in the front. I make a big happy bow on my gown. I'm sitting in the oddest elevated chair and joke as I enter the room, "oh good I get the high chair". Joking in this environment isn't exactly what these women want to hear right now. How long will it take for my results? I'm told to keep my gown on just in case. In case? Should I start another Cast On podcast? Will it be another hour? The thought of Brenda's voice helps.

I didn't sleep very well last night, as usual, and when my kitty crawled up on me I started to pet her and the pain in my chest seemed to melt away. I guess I need to bring my cat with me wherever I go for pain relief. Maybe that's why Paris Hilton always has such a blissful look on her face, because of her little dog companion. But does she still carry that pup around anymore? I thought I read that she got rid of it.

And here I wait, with two women now. One was escorted away for her films. What will be the result? But what I really want to know is why I have gripping pain in my chest.

I've got so much catching up to do. Lots of pieces have yet to be started for my November show. There seems to have been a never ending stream of needs in the last couple of months.

And then my name is called and I'm given the come here finger signal. I think that can't be good since I heard another woman's all clear diagnosis right in front of everyone else. The technician said the radiologist described the polka dots on my film as "probably benign". This is not quite what I had expected. I wanted to have a black of white conclusion. Not a "probably", that leaves reasonable doubt. They want me to come back in six months to see if anything has changed. So in the mean time I live with do I or don't I? Uncertainty. I want concrete conclusions, no kinda sorta maybe. And now over a Chinese chicken salad, next to a scrambling three year old, I just want to cry. Cry about my boy I left at college yesterday, cry about uncertainty, cry just because I'm tired.

Forget crying how about a mood swing by trying on a designer dress. And it has to be one of the most gorgeous dresses I have ever tried on. By Nicole Miller. I felt dreamy. Perfect colors. Soft luxurious exotic fabrics. And that dress, that lovely dress, melted away my anxiety and mad me feel fabulous. Thank you Nicole.

Manzanita

i had never been to that part of the oregon coast before. what a treat to slip into a charming town for a few days in a delightful cabin within walking distance of the shore! the timing was perfect for warm temperatures and the added bonus of shopping at the local farmers market for fabulous produce. what a great town! wish i could stay for the rest of my life. but i know what the oregon coast can be like in the winter, gales over 100 miles an hour. yes, but on days like those we spent there the desire to spend more more more time amoungst the sand drifts and rustling beach grass is great. and who would have guessed that in a nearby town, wheeler, with a population of only 300, that there would be a superb fabric store that has been there for over 25 years. more later...daybreak on manzanita beach
the yummily soft sand at sunrise
watercoloring at the beach

Population 300

In the tiny town of Wheeler, population 300, I found a fantastic fabric store that was loaded with delightful offerings in this Oregon coastal hamlet. I wish our local fabric store, in a town 76 times the size of Wheeler, could offer such an array of goodies. Creative Fabric has thrived in that tiny town for over 26 years. Thanks to my family for indulging my need to stop there. It was great.

Knitting in the Garden

Waiting around has its advantages, especially when something tangible is produced. Although with this pattern I have had some major ripping seasons. One misplaced stitch throws the whole thing into chaos. I have to train myself to check each row before continuing on to the next row, instead of blissfully knitting for twenty rows and then taking a look. There is great satisfaction in solving a knitting riddle. Several of my stitch markers had slipped under yarn-over stitches and fouled up the whole sequence of the pattern. I finally figured out the problem and am now happily knitting again instead of the dreaded rip. This yarn is delightful to work with. I bought it at an alpaca farm in Oregon, near Mt. Hood (alpaca babies have to be some of the cutest things on earth!), even though I found when I came home that it is also available at my local yarn shop (but not in the color I chose). The color seems camouflaged amongst the geraniums, so I guess it will feel like I'll have a garden wrapped around my neck once it is finished. I bought two skeins of the yarn, not knowing what I would make with it, and I will continue the triangle until I run out of yarn.

great find

maybe not everyone's top choice at the biggest garage sale in the state, but for me, finding this assortment of metal zippers in their original packaging was fantastic. at last after so many long years of waiting in their package some have been freed to finally be functional. a couple of the zippers were custom made. i also found very old wood frames that are waiting for paintings (when will i get a chance to do some summer painting?!). several years ago i bought a big box of basket making supplies. i made one basket but need to revisit that box and make some more baskets(so i can have more room in my sewing area).

no presents?

The invitation said no presents, please, to a birthday party. Doesn't everyone like to get presents? I know I do. Anyway I like to make presents and here is the latest. I recycled a worn out shirt to line the purse.

s u b l i m e

my first etsy treasury, entitled "sublime", can be seen
here on etsy.there are just so many lovely shops on etsy it was hard to narrow the selection.

assignments

i love a design challenge! i was asked to make a spinnaker pouch that's tied down to the deck of a dinghy from which the sail is unfurled. so i crunched up the sail, measured the ideal size and started sewing away. i made channels on the bottom to thread lines for tie-downs and corner loops for more tie-downs. when the inspector general came into my sewing nest i was told to add more tie-down loops on the top corners of the pouch. sewing was a challenge after inserting custom cut fiberglass battens into the casings at the top of the bag. it has been tested as sea-worthy by the sailor man and given the thumbs up by his crew.

i'm thriving with my next assignment: 5. i just love a widely interpretable topic like that. one of the first things that came to mind was haiku. now that the haiku has been composed it's off to embroidering....
the goal for this and other new pieces is to be exhibited in november.

hybridized painting

circular knitting needles and an ebony knitting needle crossed with an owl doodle.... that's today's hybrid painting. the owl, oil pastel + oil paints on linen, is the size of an atc (artist trading card). the atc phenomenon is something that i thought i might try and after i had cut the painting to the specified size i placed it on top of another painting temporarily and low and behold there seemed to be a marriage in the works.

i had originally planned to sew the owl painting onto cardstock to make an official atc, but as you can see that's not how she ended up. i'll put her in my etsy shop as soon as i can figure out the postage. i bought a postage scale recently yet every time i use it the machine measures a different weight. gggghhhrrrr!

just messing around

on a drizzly day what else should be done but to mess around in photoshop for a bit? well, i can think of plenty of things that NEED to be done, but that's another story. here's a sketch from museo correr in venezia (seen earlier in this blogorama) layered with our garden leaves + biglietti from my solo trip to europe long ago. just pencil + paper for sketching on that trip. no color. just pure illustrative simplicity. on days like today it is wonderful to be transported back to those cool marble steps, where i sat + sketched, in that unairconditioned museum looking up at that vast fresco. ahh memories are a wonderful thing. i hope to keep them around for a long time.

palette creator

just discovered this cool web tool where you input any photo and the site generates a palette of colors from the photo (with web code numbers). the photo shown here i took at the ferry dock.

details

leek

yummy

i think zucchini buds look like a man eating plant.
echinacea mango meadowbrite....love that color.
i wait all year for these beauties. and oh the fragrance! they get soooo tall! if the painters even brushed these babies i would pummel them. such destruction has been wrought upon the garden by the house painters that i am really stressed out right now. all my shrubs had matured to glorious natural symmetrical orbs. yet now, with the mass of broken branches, they look so beat up. i know for my next garden to place the precious beauties far far away from the house.