What a Beauty!

It's a startlingly gorgeous morning. Snow, sunshine, visibility to the Olympics, new flowers, pheasants and bunnies. The cherry tree is just starting to bud out. The hamamellis is at its peak, crocus are bursting and narcissus are sprouting. Spring is on the way despite winter's grip on the temperature and white precipitation. Oh my oh my it is just gorgeous out there! It's a day to say, thank you for being alive!

Necklace

My latest crochet.
Cotton lace thread #40 Daiso.
I used my great grandmother's hook.
It is a lovely decorative steel hook.
I wish I had more of them.

NW Flower + Garden Show

I love the pattern + patchwork quilt quality to their display!

Ah the texture of California!

Wow! What a trough!

I loved these succulent balls hanging around the shop.
They had upside down succulent pyramids too (see below).

This year marks the last for the garden show in Seattle. It has been the biggest garden show on the west coast. Rats! No more browsing the delicious lily and dahlia shops. No more garden show great deals from Lee Valley. No more chit chatting with the experts. What a shame to end this rite of spring. Shown above is my favorite spot at this year's show. It's the Smith + Hawken shop booth. It wasn't even a garden display but it was far more inspiring than the mediocre grand displays that get all the attention.
Long ago I quit my job from a sexist bullying landscape architect's office to study for my landscape architecture exam. During that time I worked at Smith + Hawken in their original Mill Valley store, before they sold out to a corporation, and Paul Hawken's office overlooked the nursery from across the street. He didn't like it that I wore my Ville du Sole (oh I miss that store!) French hat while working in the nursery. He sent word to the store to have me remove my lovely hat and wear a Smith + Hawken straw hat instead. Too many customers were asking where I had bought my lovely French hat, and he was getting miffed.
That was a lovely summer. The plants were propagated in part and selected by the great plantswoman Sarah Hammond. The planting displays were exceptional! She said that they had never had another employee in the nursery that could sell as many plants as me before. It was my unbridled enthusiasm that roped in the buyers. After studying at Oxford, a few years earlier, and writing my research paper on Folly Farm, a Gertrude Jeykyll garden, I was fully engulfed in the English perennial border mania that was rising at that time. It was dreamy working regular business hours in a lovely inspiring place. That store is no more. The corporate takeover wiped out that little haven for garden aficionados. Sarah gave me a gorgeous Deutzia 'Goldsal Pink' when my son was born. She had brought back the plant from England and propagated it in her Bolinas nursery. I still have that plant growing in my garden and swoon when it blooms. By the way, I passed the five day landscape architecture license exam that summer, quit my job at Smith + Hawken, and went to work in another architecture + urban planning firm in the city. Yes, I made more money as a professional, but working at Smith + Hawken was more enjoyable by far.

Crochet

Using a tiny crochet hook
I made a cell phone pouch
to easily find my phone in my purse.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Crochet stuffed with lavender, I love the asymmetry of the shape.
Great pattern found on Ravelry.
(You have to join to see the web page)

Pretty morning

Hamamelis 'Arnold's Promise'

I think that the pheasants watch for me to put out the bird seed.
As soon as I step back inside
they seem to come out in a flash
to gather up the droppings from the feeder.

We're getting close. Close to my self-determined date of the return of light. I consider making it to Valentine's Day, with sanity intact, as the date when the length of daylight is no longer an issue, and when I breathe a sigh of relief. By then I no longer subconsciously complain about the grimness of the northern winter. By then there is a sufficient amount of daylight to quell any longing to go south. And just at this pivotal point in the earth's rotation a lovely dusting of snow reminds of winter's renewed grip. Yesterday, while tidying up in the garden, I found crocus pushing up through the surface of the earth with tight buds. Soon the vast expanse of purple petals will be here. Those guys are such prolific reproducers. I don't mind one little bit that they have spread all over the garden.

Hooked

All of the patterns in Kyuuto! Japanese Crafts Lacy Crochet are lovely. It was fun and I will definitely make more patterns from this book.

On the Needles

I'm trying to use up yarn in my stash.
This Rowan pattern, called River, is a light airy shawl.
I'm using a mohair yarn that just happens to be the same color as the pattern photo.
They call the color smoke in the specifications.
True to the name it seems to disappear.
I love watching the pattern evolve with each row created.
This will be one soft wrap, but not quite as diaphanous as the yarn specified in the pattern.

Friandes aux amandes

For our celebratory inaugural dinner I made friandes aux amandes in mini muffin tins, easter egg tins and shell tins. It was quite an assortment of shapes. Next time I'll make them in madeline tins. I am in love with the shell pan. I finally figured out how to make the cakes slip out easily after they are baked. I have had some disastrous madeline bakings in the past where, after all the preparation, they were cemented into the pans. Grrr! These were lovely cakes however. I am in love with this delicate recipe. They would be perfect for a tea party.

Happy Inauguration Day!

Yeay!

Happy Day!
Cheers!
Good luck and Best Wishes Mr. President

Sunrise to a New Time

Due to the policies of the outgoing administration I have been ashamed to be an American for nearly a decade. My children have not known much of before all the mess that has been wrought upon the American image. After all the foreign policy catastrophes, although I have to grant the benevolent aid to earthquake and tsunami ridden regions of the farthest reaches of the world and AIDS help as exceptions, the policies of rewarding the crony rich and powerful with further riches, of lowering standards for environmental quality and enabling pollution to increase, to condoning torture, the callous disregard for the lives of our military personnel, to dismissing the Constitution, and the willful neglect of a glorious drowned city to name just a few instances, it is hard to believe that a new day is dawning tomorrow.

The dream of an intelligent thoughtful, considering, engaging President seemed a lofty goal and a steep hill to climb towards success. How could our country have re-elected such a bumbling idiot to a second term? It just further shamed me. Where would the country and the world have been if the Supreme Court had not handed the presidency to 43? I wonder if the depths of our condition had been widely different under a Gore presidency would the rise of 44 have been possible? Could it be that you have to reach rock bottom before enlightenment can occur to a nation? It's amazing to me that it took the emptiness of one's own purse to change the pulse of American contentment. That moment of gaze into that open purse couldn't have come at a better time. We are verged on a precipice and need the strongest leadership imaginable to convert the wrongs to goodness, health, fairness, transparency and peace. It is still so hard to believe that the country chose wisely after not such a good track record of many years.

I am in joy today. I am in joy with anticipation. I am an American again. I will proudly display my flags tomorrow. I embrace a new era. What a contrast of images, and worlds, between the sneer of the outgoing VP to the giddy gorgeous girls of the new President. The image of those lovely girls portends a glorious new beginning of possibilities for our own children and children throughout the world. I wish you good luck in your new job Mr. President. Thank you for stepping up when we needed you most!

Finished!

Knitting the last stitch of a sweater is exciting indeed. But it is far from finished at that state. There is all the weaving in of the yarn ends, then blocking and then sewing up all the pieces. This pattern was constructed far differently than other sweaters that I have made. The fronts and back were knit at the same time on a circular needle, while the pattern demarcates a side line or division between the vertical stitches of the back from the diagonal stitches of the fronts. The only seams were for the sleeves. The yarn is very soft, Debbie Bliss Cotton Angora, and the pattern is called Jess by Debbie Bliss. The pattern is pretty frumpy but will be a good throw on sweater for the spring. Yeay it is done!!! Now on to finish another sweater that doesn't have much further to go.

Needle Felting

Here's the latest needle felting project... an attempt at a Rufous Hummingbird.
I'd like to try to make lots of little birds.

Here's another photo from a few nights ago.

Something New

I'm going to try something new this year. We'll see how long it lasts. Each week I am going to quote something that I have read that just gets to me, makes me dream, makes me laugh or inspires me. This week's quote comes from the travel section of The New York Times article about Banff National Park, a place that I have long wanted to visit. Under a two page wide photograph of a single ice skater on frozen Lake Louise buried in the story reads:

"In the waning hours of the day, the town of Banff is lovely. The sun takes its time sinking into the west, and the deepening indigo of the sky limns the surrounding mountains with startling clarity." --Matt Gross

He hooked me. I want to go right now.

Back home on late Sunday night when the snow kept falling and falling until we had four inches by 10 pm Mr. and I went out for a walk. The stillness was punctuated by the crash of tree limbs under the weight of the snow in the woods. The whiteness everywhere created such light in the winter night. It was magical.

Happy New Year!

Timing is everything with forced bulbs, and it worked out perfectly this year.
The peak of bloom on New Year's Day. What a lovely celebration.
Happy New Year!

Just started a lacy wrap, called River, by Rowan.
This will take a while.