all eyes and beak

A little pom pom baby crow.

You can make a pom pom by winding four meters of yarn around the tines of a fork. Make two and you can create a baby crow; all eyes and beak.

made for walking

Very tall boots

for a very tall doll

who never takes off her ballet slippers

 (They have ribbons that needed to be covered)

when she isn't dancing. 

THESE boots are made for walking.

with love

to comfort

like her sister

A small backpack for my small granddaughter.
She wanted one like her big sister's.
She showed it to me on Facetime so I would see what to sew.
She gave me permission to use any colors (but she wanted it to look like her sisters), and have pockets on the front (like her sister's) and a drawstring at the top under the flap and buttons (same reason). She especially wanted to be sure I added buttons (like her sister had) on the heart ( she gave me a nice close-up of that) but a butterfly was optional (in case that was too hard).
I thought about front pockets in bed that night as I tried to fall asleep. I cut them out in my imagination several times and sewed them together just as many times and ways too.
In the morning I snipped and sewed.
Amazingly, with a kind of muscle memory, I cut and sewed little pouches using the same darts I had used sewing face masks last week. Now when does that happen I ask? A sort of sewers transferable skill.
I used wooden buttons. (see above brackets for reason)
And a butterfly was absolutely NOT too hard. I had a little scrap of fabric with blue butterflies fluttering all over it. I had half a dozen to choose from.
It will be love she can carry around with her.

made me happy

I had a brown hoodie that I never seemed to reach for. The color was lovely though, warm and chocolatey. And it had raglan sleeves which are so comfortable. And pockets too, side ones instead of the usual kangaroo ones most hoodies have. So many good things but it still went unworn. It didn't seem much of a risk to upcycle it.

I snipped off the stretchy ribbing around the bottom and the sleeves and chomped off the hood.

Some gray fabric with strawberries and sunshine seemed just right. And lining in a warm yellow green. And binding in an even warmer yellow green.

Wavy quilting made me happy.

And the finished jacket/sweater made me even happier.

I'm pondering a button. Or not.

very daily

In January, Wuhan seemed very far away.
By February, a distant virus wasn't seeming so distant. Little dots begin to appear on maps around the world.
By March, the changes came day upon day and hour by hour.
What had been usual and everyday was suddenly a danger.
By April, our life has become 'daily.'
Very daily.

for you

If you were here, I would try to make you smile with this very vintage Japanese toy.  

Oh who could that be?

Surprise!

I dance and I clap

for YOU!

at the same time

I found this amazing bag at a thrift shop last fall. Plastic shopping bags were cut into strips and crocheted. It's tough as nails and lovely as can be at the same time. Isn't the mottled pattern of color wonderful?

sketchy

A sketchy doodle

shiny

Shiny fruit is so much fun to paint. I might still add a leaf....

all around

A robin soaking up the weak sunshine of early morning.
Flash after flash of barn swallow.
Sparrows hopping and hopping through the tangle of dry grass at lake edge.
Towhee sounding like a creaking gate opening somewhere deep in the hedge row.
The bugle of red winged blackbirds and high overhead, the white arched wings of sea gulls.
Birds all around.

forever

I grew up singing hymns.
It was like a course in memorizing with zero effort or even the realization that I WAS memorizing.
Hymns have fallen out of common use in most churches.
But, wonderfully, it has been a case of out of sight NOT out of mind.
The words are retrieved just when I need them and often just as I rise from sleep to waking.
This morning I woke to the triumphant words of Low in the Grave He Lay.

Up from the grave He arose
With a mighty triumph o'er His foes
He arose a victor from the dark domain
And He lives forever with His saints to reign 
He arose!
He arose!
Hallelujah, Christ arose!

a scrap

I made masks for a friend and whilst a smidge of inspiration still clung about the edges, I sewed one up for myself as well. I used a scrap of fabric left from a long ago project. My mother was still alive then and she kept commenting on the piecing as they emerged from the sewing machine and appeared on my design wall.(which is the floor)
"Someone is trying to quilt with newspaper," she kept exclaiming with disbelief.
I had to keep assuring her that someone had printed fabric to LOOK like newspaper.
She was just as incredulous about that.
Oh my momma.

restlessly

I restlessly cast my eyes over fabric spilling from boxes and instead, went into my bedroom. I rifled through my jeans drawer and pulled out a pair and critically eyed them. Then I chopped them up as quick as wink. The making of the tote bag wasn't quick as a wink of course. It consumed several pleasant hours and an even pleasanter finish line. Aren't finish lines lovely? I don't always feel like 'doing' something. It is sort of the same feeling as standing on a dock. The water ripples below but you can't bring yourself to jump in. It will feel cold at first. And then you step off the edge and in a moment you are swimming for your life.

convinced

My daughter texted me a picture of her hands stirring dough.
And she texted me to tell me that the paska was out of the oven cooling.
And she texted me to ask if I wanted mine iced and sprinkled.
And she texted me to tell me that she had put some in a container on the picnic table in her yard and I could fetch them anytime.
She would be watching from her window.
Oh my goodness! My eyes are filling up with tears as I type this because that is exactly what happened when I came to collect the paska and she slid her window opened and called out a hello. I opened my mouth to say thank you and nothing came out. I could feel my eyes beginning to fill and waived a kiss and smile her way and hurried to my car.
We can be connected with texts and emails and phone calls but our heart isn't convinced.

just us

We no longer have to fit our walks in around work and weather. We do have to choose times and places that others aren't also choosing though. Today it was just us and the birds. A White-crowned sparrow clung to a branch in the sunshine and sang its sweet, sweet song. Then it turned and sang towards us and turned and sang again. North, south, east, west. It seemed to be sending a message out in all directions.
A little further along, a flicker called. There was a flash of orange and then there were two. One called from a baseball backstop while the other clutched a fence and listened with all its might.
We spotted a rock painted by a child.
And a flash of blue forget-me-nots.
Bright sun but cold, crisp wind as we were huffed and puffed down the sidewalk and into our yard.

travel light

I found a pattern for a gift card holder that is perfect for holding my drivers license and bank card. Sometimes I want to travel light.

more music

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;

Close to the sun in lonely lands,

Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;

He watches from his mountain walls,

And like a thunderbolt he falls.

by Alfred Lord Tennyson 

I have a soft spot for Tennyson. He's the master of drama and his words are like music to my ears.

I can remember quoting this poem and having my grandson say the last line. I loved to hear him chant, "And like a thunderbolt he falls!!" That was like music to my ears too.

Pictures of eagles always make me hear this fragment of Hebrew poetry from Isaiah.  "But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles"

More music to my ears.

little sparrow

I startled a little sparrow into stillness.

fistful

a fistful of spring

pinkish purplish bluish

The colors of this runner make me think of The Pinkish, Purplish, Bluish Egg by Bill Peet.

"Drew the egg - colored it pinkish purplish bluish- and printed the title under it, and then wondered for a few years what could be in the egg. (I) went on to other things. I thought at first there might be a dragon in the egg, but then I thought, well, there have been so many dragon stories and I thought I could find something a little different. Finally I decided it would be a griffin." Bill Peet in an interview with E. Edwards, post 1970
  
" Soon all sorts of birds began flocking around
To see the big egg that Myrtle had found-
Blue jays and redbirds and noisy magpies
And a big stuffy owl who was worldly and wise.
'It won't hatch, said the owl. 'That egg is stone-cold.
Why for all we know it's a thousand years old.'
"If it does hatch,' a jay said, 'I'll bet it's a turtle,
For, after all, you are a turtledove, Myrtle.'
But the dove didn't listen to what the birds said;
She was bound and determined to go right ahead."
Bill Peet from the book The Pinkish, Purplish, Bluish Egg 

righty tighty

My husband relies on his reading glasses.
When the tiny screw holding an ear piece in place fell out it was a mournful moment.
You can't make a quick trip to the optometrist for repairs if you are hunkered down, social distancing.
We peered at the carpet. Well, I peered. My husband needs reading glasses to peer.
We got down on our hands and knees.
We got out the flashlight.
We used the light on our cellphones.
We slid our hands over the carpet searching by braille but to no avail.

I have a pair of reading glasses that is missing a lens.
It is now also missing a teeny tiny screw.
Of course, to transfer that little screw from one frame to the other, we had to find a screwdriver first that was also teeny tiny.
Hazah!!!
I knew just where to find one.
I had just finished sorting and organizing.
Now when does life stand and sing in unison like that I ask.
Not too often but as I held the old frames and twizzled out the needed screw I felt grateful.
"Maybe you should do that over a plate or something in case you...," he suggested.
".....drop it."
Which of course I did, right on cue.
More peering.
More flashing light and fingertips on carpet.
The vacuum roared over the floor.
The dust as fine as cornstarch was dumped onto a bag and more braille ensued.
A crumb.
A crumb.
Yep.
There it was.
I washed it so carefully.
Gadzooks.
And managed to balance the teeny tiny screw point in the right spot whilst turning the teeny tiny screwdriver.
Is it righty tighty lefty loosey?
Yes, thank goodness.
I tweaked it into place and my husband can peer now too.
He is wood carving today.
He doesn't need his glasses for that.

wireless

Way,
way,
way up on the roof across the street is a tall, spindly legged man.
It is an exceptionally steep roof.
A ladder is balancing between the lower, 'take your life in your hands level' to the much higher 'I sure hope you have a will level.'
He has no visible means of support;
No safety equipment at all, unless you count his giant boots.
He does have his cell phone though.
And, he is wandering around, over peak and valley while staring at his phone.
He's holding it up in front of him as though looking for cell phone reception.
He is taking his wireless connection to a new and terrifying level.

interrupted

The Jackman Wetlands have a padlock barring the way to the parking lot now.
It's just as well. I haven't felt like walking there since we interrupted a snake eating his lunch.
Spring frog, over easy.
Or maybe it was Young Frog on the Rocks.

fair weather

"Euphorbia," I exclaimed, turning to my husband.
"I knew it started with an E," I added triumphantly.
I'd had a feeling of unfinished business since the afternoon before.
Usually, the names of plants scroll before my eyes in a comforting way, their lovely Latin names like poetry.
But yesterday, I walked with half a mind.
My easy recall was missing in action.
My memory stumbled.
Even trolling through the alphabet didn't help.
But by this afternoon, the letter E seemed to have its hand up in the air waving madly to get my attention.
"Euphorbia," it shouted.
"Euphorbia," I shouted.
The alphabet is a fair weather friend.