marvelous

I flipped the pages of the magazine halfheartedly, my eyes roving tiredly. Ahhhh, the Book Reviews. Catchy cover art works, doesn't it? My eyes focused on the title, and drifted down to the review.  Here was a book warning all takers of the dire and deadly dangers of sugar. I think the word poison was tossed about.

The entire bottom half of the page was a marvelous Sugar Cookie recipe.

November sky

Seagulls, their wings a flash of white against the gray, November sky.

list

My granddaughter gave me her Christmas list. It was so long she kindly put it in a duo-tang folder.

perhaps another

Isn't Pinterest an Aladdin's Cave of Wonders?

While clicking and scrolling there blissfully one evening, I came upon a quilted bag that stood out from the rest of the pencil cases, quilted pouches and cosmetic bags. There were enough photo angles of it to see that ten squares of fabric had been sewn into a zig-zag grid with seams that interlocked like magic. I was in!

Sewing the first one was fun, like figuring out a puzzle.

And once I had it assembled, oh joyous day, I discovered that it opened up as wide as a whale's mouth. No more rifling by braille in the dark depths for tweezers or a nail clipper that is somehow missing in action.

I had a stash of charm squares that divided temptingly into the makings for five more.

If one was wonderful, wouldn't a bunch be better?

Gifts!

I sewed them in an assembly line over several days in little pockets of time.

Little endless pockets of time it seemed.

For some reason, I had to make myself finish them.

I even vowed to never make another.

Strange how mass producing something seemed to drain the joy.

Looking at the pictures now, a few weeks later I feel the same spark of interest again.

Perhaps another charm pack....

many

 

Many

 

 

many

 

 

many

 

masks

 

bundle of blank

I  pounced on a bundle of blank cards at the thrift shop. They are such a wonderful color, brown like paper bags, embossed, and have nice heavy envelopes. Be still my heart!!
The embossed part seemed the only negative until I had one in my hand and colored pencils in the other.
Wood grain!!
I felt like I was drawing on wood!
What better subject for wood, than a horse.
This card is mixed-media.
I've always wanted to say that.
It is colored pencil, watercolor pencil, and felt pen.

prowly owly

When I was a child we had a cat that we had imaginatively called Kitty.
It was a lovely prowly, owly sort of cat.

paper and pencil

All you really need when a creative urge strikes are paper and a pencil. All the better if the paper is as dark as night and the pencils are colored.

originally

Another tote, oh joyous day! You absolutely can't have too many tote bags! Good thing because this denim was originally destined to become a chisel roll. A chisel roll was before my eyes as I chopped out the pieces, five in all and hemmed the edges. And a chisel roll was fixed firmly in my gaze as I began to lay out the pieces for assembly. Sadly, that's when it became as clear as a summer day that I had vastly underestimated the sizes of pieces I would need. You can always go down in size but you can't go up. As I gazed forlornly at those lovely pieces of hemmed denim I had an epiphany. Hazah!! A tote bag! The chisel roll is ripening on the vine.

a clutch

A clutch of pom pom bookmarks.

floor show

An Achilles tendon injury has placed my husband on the couch with his foot up. Ice has been involved, and a heating pad by turns. It tends to flare and heal so that he is alternately, immobile, hobbling, limping, or gingerly walking.
On the weekend, while he was in a gingerly walking stage, we struck off for Aldergrove Lake Park.
We took lawn chairs and parked ourselves on a grassy rise overlooking the water.
Dragon flies patrolled the pond edge.
A turtle on a log was using solar power to plan its afternoon. 
An aggressive red-winged blackbird was the floor show though, as it chased cedar wax wings off of the bull rushes, and out of the reeds and away from the shrubs and out of the trees. Its flute-like, reedy call shrilled over and over.
Bullfrogs added the lower notes and our ears hummed with the sound of a thousand bees on the wild rose and blackberry blossoms.

instant tidy

Fabric baskets are a great way to coral the sewing notions running amok in your house.
My couch-side bench often has a sewing needle stabbed into a piece of felt, a few spools of thread in the color of the day, scissors, tiny pompoms, seam ripper, buttons....
What a joy it is to scoop them up and drop them out of sight (almost) into a fabric basket. Instant tidy.
This fabric basket is a practice run. It is meant to be a generous size but I wanted to SEE how it would look before I made a fabric commitment. I wanted to FEEL how it would go together before I chopped up perfectly good fabric and stitched it back together willy nilly.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with commitment issues when it comes to diving into your fabric stash.
Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

a daisy a day

"I'll give you a daisy a day

I'll give you a daisy a day

I'll love you until the rivers run still

And the four winds we know blow away." 

-Jud Strunk

voila

I came upon a charm-pack wedged in the very bottom of a box of fabric. Now who was the clever soul that thought up charm-packs? Or their name so apt? And for goodness sake, who thought of sewing them together like this to make a bag? All those zig-zag edges interlock in the most fascinating way. Who says you don't use math in your every day life?

A few blocks sewn together and voila! A generously sized cosmetic bag/travel bag/storage pouch.

I love this little bag so much I have the beginnings of five more. I could have used the blocks to make a lap quilt. A lap quilt or six fabulously floral bags. Hmmmm. Yup. The bags have it.

creeping

A creeping cat card.

bite-sized

I've stitched up a batch of little zippered pouches. They have four corners but create a three sided shape. Isn't math marvelous?

Some zip up to the point and some zip down from the point. Variety is the spice of life. Good thing too because I never gave the direction of the zipper a thought when I began.

Once I did give the zipper a thought, I tried placing one in a side seam instead of a center. It is the zipper then that causes this little pouch to be the shape of a triangle. When the zip is open, the bag is flat. Sheesh. Who knew.

These little quilted pouches all in a row remind me of samosas. Bite-sized quilting. A little quilted treat.

trio

A trio of felt bookmarks.

One for the reader of Harry Potter.

One for the Zoomer Puppy lover.

One for the friend of foxes.

timeless play

It is unbelievable to me that this picture of my apple-cheeked Aunt was snapped nearly 100 years ago. Gadzooks! How can 1927 reach out of the past and clasp me by the hand, here in 2020?
I'm beginning to carve a doll head and wouldn't her little face be the perfect inspiration?
Her trendy bobbed hair.
Her dress, just as at home today as then.
It just takes little bits of fabric to sew a dress for a little bit of a girl, a small project, but Gramma has lovingly trimmed the pocket and collar and cuffs.
Oh my Gramma could tweak fabric and sew magic.
The wagon with hand carved wheels is my Grandfather's contribution to childhood happiness. He was creativity itself, which you needed to be if you lived in the boonies in the 1920's.
A wash tub hangs against the log wall making the most of vertical storage space.
A broom that has swept a thousand sweeps leans tiredly against the door frame.
A Toddler Interrupted gazes sternly at the photo taker.
Timeless play.

recognizable

After a bunch of this...

And an astonishing bunch of this,
I have shaved my small blocks of wood into something recognizable.

Turns out we all have a certain bird shape somewhere in the back of our mind.

And a certain duck. 

 I loved how something solid could be made to curve and seem to bend.

As with most creating, no one can tell you when you are finished.

You just keep on until it seems the right time to stop.

I will definitely keep on with these two although the end is just around the bend. 

In keeping with a new passion I am already on to the next.

It will be a giant leap.

My great gramma Minerva carved wooden dolls for my Mother and her sisters nearly 100 years ago.

I'm hoping she would have been pleased to see me try.

seeing

My husband has carved some pretty amazing ducks and birds but it is these little whittled creatures that I love the most. His ducks ripple with life, their feathers etched and curving, eyes agleam, and they are truly beautiful, but I love to SEE the marks of the knife. I love to SEE the grain of the wood. I love to SEE through the eyes of the carver.

oh no

We were heading out to walk in a nearby field while a cat was apparently heading back.
A big orange cat.
Its step was brisk.
Its head high.
In its mouth it held....?
Was it a fat mouse for dinner?
My husband said he thought for a moment that the cat was carrying a kitten, but realized with horror that it had a grip on something, a death grip.
We both exclaimed at the same time.
"Oh no!"
"How sad!"
"Oh no, not a baby bunny!"
Dinner in for the cat.
Tragedy for the bunny.

It seemed especially sad because just the day before, while weeding in the yard, my husband suddenly appeared beside me. "Come quick," he had whispered.
"Why?" I said skeptically.
"Just come," he added, his voice urgent.
"What is it," I asked suspiciously, hesitantly following.
And oh my, there in a tiny little space was a tiny little rabbit.
Oh it was the tiniest little bunny I had ever seen.
It would have fit so nicely on the palm of my hand.
We summoned the grandchildren who each crept as close as could be and peered down into the brown eyes.
They raced off and returned with snippets of carrot.
The baby made a tiny hop under a fern and we were parents crowing over a babies first step.
So sweet and tiny.
Soft and wild.
Be careful little one.
Stay under our hydrangea and keep in the shadow of the fern.   

happy things

something to show

I've been hand sewing.
Needle stab, pull, jab, stretch, untangle, jab, tug, knot.
It's been distractingly satisfying.
Except for when I stitched the little felt hamster up without stuffing the feet first.
Or made two left legs for the frog.
Or forgot gussets.
My right wrist has wavered back and forth so many times I could have conducted Opus Clavicembalisticum.
( I looked that up. It is the longest piece of piano music you can imagine)
But I have something to show for my suffering. (more than can be said for the audience listening to the entire Opus Clav)