Fairy House

The only thing better than being outside on a warm spring day is making your own fairy house to enjoy it in.  My mother-in -law found a huge piece of lace in an antique store for a ridiculously low price.  She bought it and brought it home, knowing her granddaughter and I would certainly find some use for it.  She was very right!  It's been many many things, but this is one of my favorites.  We used the lace to make a sweet roof for our wonderland home.  We used another bargain find for the "floor" or rug.  After filling the house with herbs (Fairy food according to my girl) and Nekots and water (girl food according to me ) we were almost set!

With the addition of a Nancy Drew book we were reading for an hour of reading.  I couldn't believe a five year old could sit still for so long!  Rose petals fresh from the garden made our rooftop dreamy...

Cathedral Quilt

I started a cathedral quilt last week and have become quickly obsessed.  Yes they are complicated, but I've wanted  to make one for a long time.  I love the option of including so many different colors, kind of like framing beautiful individual pieces.  I have so many fabrics that I love, I just wanted bits of them all together.  Some people do these quilts in tiny pieces.  I knew I would not have the patience for that, so I started at about triple the size of the normal quilt.  You have to fold and fold and fold these suckers- Origami Quilt might be a better name in fact.  After creating a rather large piece I realized that I didn't want every diamond to be filled in with a patterned piece.  I wanted some places for the eye to rest.  Here I noticed my mistake.  If I left the quilt as it was, there would be more solid pieces than fantastic patterned pieces, no matter how many squares I added.  I let it sit for a day.  Could I really undo all those squares I had completed?  All of that hand stitching?  I made my choice this morning.  I set to work with some trusty scissors and undid them all.  I knew that looking at that quilt as it grew and grew and wasn't quite what I wanted would eventualy break my heart.  Sometimes it's worth a little...okay a lot of extra time invested to get something you'll be really proud of.  I feel oddly relieved.  I made the right choice in something!  It's not a What do I do with my life kind of something, but it will bring comfort and joy to me every time I look at it.  That's great too!


You can see I'm really into oranges and greens right now. 

I've decided to do a lot of rearranging since I have to take it all out anyway.  This red piece will move to a completely different part of the quilt.  It was too big of a show-off here!  I love this print though- it looks Scandinavian to me, or maybe like a story book pattern.

Cicadas, Lavender and the Search for Spring

I have had the pleasure of spending some lovely time outside the past few days.  Even though my daughter would have everyone believing it is full on summer with her chants of "PLEEEEEZE can I run through the sprinkler!" (at 8:30 in the morning when it is a balmy 45 degrees and overcast with rain likely) or "Let's go swimming in the river!! (later in the day- basically same weather conditions.)".  She simply can't fathom why everyone doesn't want to be in water all the time...okay she comes by that honestly!  So despite her desires it is Spring.  This is certainly spring, with it's fickle weather and lovely beginings everywhere.

These lovely baby lavender blooms caught my eye today.  I didn't even see the spider web line as I took the picture.  I love the general soft  green that fills the landscape.  These petals look soft and they are, already fragrant too.  The leaves smell wonderful and taste pretty good too.  I've baked lavender in bread before, but only recently tried it on its own.  It's slightly spicy and bitter at first with a very sweet aftertaste that lasts for a long time.  Definitely worth the initial bitterness.

Also new this week were these red eyed cicadas.  Apparently the Joe Schmo every year cicadas have black eyes, but the ones that are cyclical, with long underground larvae stages have red eyes (or other colors).  These guys live years- from 2 to 9 years underground where they feed on plant roots.  Then they emerge for a few weeks to shed their skins, grow their wings and mate to create the next generation.  The one who love my Iris leaves have most likely been underground for seven years. Today they are slow, barely moving around.  They look like I feel- trying to take it all in and wondering exactly what's going on!

I found this shell, left by a cicada probably earlier today.  There were many on the sword-like leaves or the giant irises.  I thoughts this one was truly remarkable, so tenuously hanging on to the very tip of a tiny vine.  It made me wonder in the little guy climbed out there purposefully to lose his shell, or if he was just exploring and got stuck when the change started.  I think it just goes to show that any time, any place, can be a ripe time for change.

Well, as I'm writing this my daughter has just said, "Mommy Mrs. Sun just gave me the most wonderful present!!  She knew I wanted to use my 'slipping slide' today and so she's making it hot!! My body says 'get in the water right now!  Can we?"  Oh my.  Well at least one of us likes Spring!

Designing's Devine!

I have been in full design mode for the past couple of weeks.  The more life starts to swirl around me the more I want to join in.  I mean that in two ways- as spring pushes more and more things into breathing, scampering, twittering, growing, glowing life all around me I just want to create too.  I want to show my love for all of that energy and the beauty I see around me. 
As events are swirling around me, the whir of global events and personal decisions I want to feel more connected to something sure. I want to feel a little more control over something. Creating, and being in control of that process feels great.  I may not know what will be going on in my life, or in the world, next week or next month, but I know how to finish this row, or where to put that button.  That just feels lovely.

Here's one of my latest designs, a convertable shawl/ wrap in a soft combination of yarns.  The colors made me think of all things comforting and luxurious- green growth, soft white clouds, dark delicious chocolate.

How to Make a Decision Plan 3

Sometimes you are faced with a decision and you have to respond immediately.  You do not have the luxury of slipping gently into the grey by choosing both.  You do not have the time to put out some pathways and wait for fate to do her thing.  Sometimes it's all or nothing.  When this happens trust your gut reaction.  You primary instinct is almost always correct.  There's a scientific explanation for it.  A part of your brain used to digest information quickly and act simply takes over, and it's a great thing it does.  If you are being chased by an angry bull, say, through the streets of Madrid (not that I'm in favor of the running of the bulls, this is merely included as a life threatening situation)  you do not have the time to think, Which of these fine eateries would be best foe my exit from his street?  Are my shoes up to this dubious task?  Am I wearing any leather products which could possibly further enrage my charging enemy?  Nope- thankfully your body just runs and does whatever else it needs to do to get you out.  Similarly, if you are faced with a less life threatening situation like whether or not to lie to your child about the hideous spider you just killed because it was crawling up inside her nightgown (her very nightgown!!) like it had every right to be there doing spidery things, then follow your gut.  My gut said LIE!  Lie to her for she is the most compassionate of all creatures.  She will not watch the bad guys get hurt in shows!  Even when they hurt themselves it still bothers her.  I know this, I know that she will not tolerate any violence of harm to another creature.  But what do I do?  When she calls me on it I try to explain the truth.  No she didn't hear the door open because this guy didn't make it outside.  While she didn't witness the execution, se had basically caught me putting the the Tissue of Doom in the trash.  She knew.  "What really happened Mommy?"  With the truth out I was suddenly horrible.  The situation was only remedied minutes later when Daddy (wise to the whole thing) checked and found the spider had miraculously "gotten up and run away."  After promising to always throw them outside from now on, I was reclaimed into my own family.  All of this drama because I did not follow my gut.  Always follow your gut.  My brain was busy weighing the moral consequences of lying to my child (she can't handle the truth!)  and my heart was wanting her to know that I was Mama- Slayer of All Things Bad in her world.  My gut knew the right thing to do all along.

If you do not care for spiders please do not look below!  I don not really like them, but I took this picture of a garden spider or Writing spider last summer from a very safe distance!  She was not in my bed so she may go about her business!

   

How to Decide

Today was a day for decisions, just as they all are.  Mine weren't all monumental- in fact none of them involved life threatening events.  Maybe they were all life changing though. Who knows these things? As they apparently say in every other country but America....which is why we find so many other countries so much more charming than our own.  They are willing to give up the control of knowledge of the future.  I know it's not a completely American sentiment, but it does seem like we are always in a rush to know, to control, to win, WIN, WIN. Sometimes it's okay to not win, to not rush, to just wait. It's okay not to know.  Almost nobody does.  If you really think about it everyone is struggling every day to make the decisions that fill their time and make their lives.  Here are two of the decisions I faced today- one light and easy and one not so much...
First decision- sweater or flip flops?  Both!  Decision Making Plan # !When you have a decision and it's possible to go both ways a little to test the waters- go for it and see which feels more right.  I want warm weather- today my Virginia home simply didn't bring it.  I worked with it and the sum total of a warm body and sunny toes felt great.

There have been much larger decisions looming for a while now.  Will we be moving soon?  Work, income, schooling; the questions usually pile up in my head, whirling nonstop.  Almost every single time for the last year or two when I have gotten to go to the river with my family the questions grow to a fever pitch.  Something about the fresh air not only sets my creativity loose, but has me looking for creative solutions to all life's problems as well.  Today there was only silence.  It was welcome.  Decision Making Plan #2: Just wait for fate.  We put a lot of things in motion, now is the time to focus on each day and just wait for what fate brings our way. I'm sure all of my questions will be answered it ways I hadn't imagined.
   

Tomorrow's Post: Decision Making Part 3: Decide on the Fly!

What's Coming...

There are many exciting new developments at home and abroad... if by abroad you mean in the far away world of the Internet, which I do. On the homefront first: this week we have decided to suspend Spring in all her glory and push headlong into Summer.  Hot, hot, hot! I can't complain really- I love the sun and the warmth.  Most of all I love the chance to widen our places to play.  For some reason this spring has brought a new tradition.  We are really enjoying "fancy dress" pic-nics.  We dress up in lovely dresses and head for lunch or afternoon tea (aka snacks) out among the wilds.  We can do this until the bugs get too insane, so we're living it up.  Incidentally, May flies did not get the memo that they are, in fact, due in May.  Not April Bucko's.  May.  Sigh.

Of course when it gets too gnatty we can come in for a little art therapy.  Painting nature when the real things too rough does help!

On the business side of life I am excited to say I will be coming out with more products very shortly. I'm adding cute pillows, rugs, purses, bags, patterns, and the cutest little crocheted sheep to the items currently for sale. I will post more pictures as soon as I can. Unfortunately my camera must have heard my mutterings about its fuzziness in a few shots I was trying to capture. The very next time I picked it up one of the interior lenses came unglued. I have no duct tape that can fix that bad boy. Hopefully I will remedy it somehow shortly.

The bear is stuffed with dried lavender- so he smells lovely too!