We Have an Owl

A Christmas present made from a gentleman crafter in North Carolina, made from cedar, a present from my husband:

But last evening THIS is the picture of our very own backyard owl who made a visit.

We are so happy he came around and stayed over half an hour.  Maybe he or she will start a family there up in our tree.  We think it is a saw-whet owl.

Yarn Bowls in Crochet

My friend Mrs. Tittlemouse, whose name comes from a Beatrix Potter character, is quite a crafty gal. She wrote about making crochet bowls on her blog here.

Being one to follow the leader, I was spurred on to copy her in trying to make similar ones.  Mrs. T's are prettier, but mine came out OK, too. Using these instructions for a crochet bowl, I made two different sized bowls.  This is a smaller one:

And this is a larger crochet bowl:

I sorta cheated on the second bowl, making it larger and without a pattern, but it worked out just fine. It is now holding yarn.  See?

Mrs. T. uses beautiful pale pinks and lavenders and and celery greens and cherry reds, her favorite colors I think, for her crochet and sewing projects.  Her pictures make me happy just gazing on them. Please take a look here at the lovely bowls she made.

I am going to use the larger crochet bowl as a roll basket on the table at Easter because the colors whisper spring to me.

Selling the Family Silver

We rarely use sterling silver flatware pieces, and it requires constant polishing. Entertaining around food centered themes?  We usually do that in the back yard in the summer, sans formal table settings. Then throw away plates and plastic forks and spoons are the usual cutlery.

We have an embarrassment of riches in sterling silver. So now it might be the time to sell those three sets (my grandmother's, my mother's and my own),  Each of the patterns has complete settings for eight. That is a lot of sterling silver flatware.

I decided to do some research about how to undertake this task of selling silver without being robbed blind.

Mr.Money Mustache.  Have you heard of him?  He was a wealth of information.   Regarding selling old silverware: unless it has sentimental value, go ahead and ditch the silver plated stuff is his advice. Or give it to someone who can make jewelry from it, like my dad did in his day.  (I have a blog post about dad's jewelry business written in 2010 and you can read it here.)

(some of my dad's hand crafted key rings and jewelry he gave me)

Back to Mr. Money Mustache and his article about selling silver.  He says

Silver flatware actually comes in two varieties: 

Silver Plated, which looks and feels just like silver, but is actually only covered with a thin coating of silver. Other, cheaper metals lie within. This stuff is not worth much in this context 

Solid Sterling, which is always stamped “sterling” on the handle. This stuff is 92.5 percent silver metal.

Today's silver price is $16.86 per ounce, down from a ten year record high in 2011 of around $48 per ounce.

source

So now might not be the best time for selling the solid sterling, but I can get the silver pieces cleaned, sorted and piled into the sell-able silver, the 92.5 percent sterling pieces, vs. the sentimental pieces (mostly my grandmother's from the 1920's).

Let the polishing and sorting begin.

Cottonwoods Are Thirsty

Old Trees (NM)

Old trees
Cottonwood shade.
Leaves fall in summer time
We are alarmed to see this change
Why now?

They thirst
Nature's moisture
From mountain snow is less.
Last year they needed supplements
To live.

Times past
They thrived with creeks
Sending mesa snow melt
Supplying water from nearby.
Not now.

(Cinquain poetic form described here)

(our cottonwood trees last spring)

In Colorado, last summer we were in extreme drought:

source

Our cottonwood trees in the back yard required much more water than in previous years.  The news for the summer of 2015 may be better.  More here.

Needlepoint for a Mouse

Trying to get more even stitches, I ventured out for a second piece of needle point work.  Cotton embroidery floss is what comes in most kits for about ten bucks, so I really could not complain about the quality of the fiber, but cotton floss is not near the quality that wool gives in stitching.  My continental stitches are beginning to show some improvement in tension.

Anyhoo, here is another 5" x 5" piece of needle point, again from a kit, but this time from overstock.com for a low price.  Who can argue with a happy red ladybug wanting to be a mouse pad?

The computer mouse did not glide over the stitches so it was encased in plastic, which works much better.  Plastic is from a bag, recycled and repurposed for this use.  It was fun.

Shrinky Dinks for Earrings

Back in 2012 I worked with shrinky dinks laser print pages to make charms and earrings.  Those Downton Abby and Frieda Kahlo earrings are long gone, having been given away to family members in Texas and a new friend in Colorado who wrote of Kahlo in one of her poems.

After the writing retreat when our talented author Sandy Dorr expressed appreciation for Ursula Le Guin, it made sense to make her some earrings of an image of Le Guin, along with one of her quotes.

Steps for making shrinky dink earrings:

• Find an image you like and tone down the colors (I used 30% on the gamma scale in Photoscape).

• Select a second image (optional) for the back of the shrinky dink paper.

• Select 10 per page of the image and print on a laser ink jet printer, using the special paper available at hobby stores

• Cut off all white edges on the image.

• Use a hole punch and punch a hole in the top of the image about 1/8 from the top.  Make sure you cut the hole twice the size of the cutter because both the image and the hole will shrink to about 1/4 of its original size.

• Line a cookie sheet with foil and place the images on it.Bake in a preheated 275 degree oven for four minutes, until the image has both shrunken and flattered.

• Either paint on varnish or polyurethane, several coats will do, allowing the objects to dry between coats of finish.

• Remove from oven and cover with paper or foil and put a heavy book on it for 30 seconds.

• Make earrings or knitting markers using beads and findings.

A New Venture

Over the past ten days, I have committed to try learn to write in a more conscious manner.  This new desire has been spurred on by meeting eight women who write in a manner that makes me think in different directions, expanding my spirit, exercising my mind in styles that I embrace.  I want to do that, too!  This new venture came about from participating in the women's writing retreat held in Redstone, Colorado last weekend, directed by Sandy Dorr.  Then I signed up for her writing class "Path to Writing," eight sessions extending through April.

Homework for the pathway to writing has consisted of reading and discussing other writers and their work.  So far, we have read from Ursala Le Guin, Jane Hirshfield, Sara Teasdale, Rebecca Lee, Claire Keegan, Jamaica Kincaid, Robert Pinsky, Sharon Doubaski and Ellen Bass.  Many more authors were discussed but I was so full of words and pages of writing that I cannot hold them all together in one hand right now.

If you are interested in my pathway to writing, hop on over to my new blog, Path of Writing.  Please comment and give constructive criticism.  I value your thoughts.

I leave you with this image and verse shared by Katie who also attended the women's writing retreat.

Needlepoint: A First

Sitting on the floor by my mother back in the early 50's, I remember her separating strands from a skein of dark grey wool yarn into single threads.  The single thread was then slipped through a large needle for her project.  It was a rose she stitched around, and I recall that I did not think it was very "pretty" in my child's eye, but neither was it ever questioned that it would not be beautiful simply because she needle pointed it.  The back was full of threads and tangles, and I have since learned that a true needlepoint artist does not leave a thread unattached on the back of a piece.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago when I started needle pointing my first piece, simple, small, but I knew I had to accomplish this task of a 5" x 5" piece to place on an address book.  Yes, while working on it, I was reminded of my mother doing this same type of needle art while living in that simple dry land farming ranch house all those years before. It also pulled me back to consciousness that I was also performing the same craft, now more than twice my mother's age when I was on that wooden floor at her feet.

Needle point has certainly changed over the years.  Mother performed one stitch, endlessly, the continental stitch.  Now my current book shows over 250 different stitches that can be used to create beautiful canvases.  If you are so inclined, go here to see some of my favorites that others have stitched.

My first finished piece from a simple kit provided by Dimensions. This was the kit picture.

The koi piece was worked and then attached to an address book, embellished with findings, gold cording and magnetic poetry words.  All objects were adhered to the address book with a hot glue gun and only a few fingers were burned in the process.

It was fun to sew this little piece and now I am starting a more ambitious project, a Klimt painting, The Serpent, on canvas 15" x 20", that will be sewn onto the front of a shoulder bag when completed.

SEG de Paris Needlepoint - Medium Needlepoint Canvases - Le Serpent (d'apres Klimt) Canvas

Have you tried needle pointing?  Where do you find your materials?  What is your inspiration?

Our Dog Mercy

She has a need to be alone. It is her primal nature, for she was bred in the north, Calgary, where the cold wind blows. She was meant to stay in solitude for hours in small spaces and to keep quiet, the perfect condominium animal, bred over twenty generations for solitude and minimal barking. Keeping still and silent is necessary for some animals, the owl, the snake, the wolf. Now it is in her genetic makeup as well.

In her essence: a she-wolf. She observes, focuses, and is a watchful waiter when human food is being consumed. Patient, patiently watching and waiting until that last bite, knowing it is saved for her,  is gratefully taken with intense poise into her gentle mouth. It is almost a kiss she gives when taking her small treat. Her mustache is smoothed down with a light human touch, and she is told she is loved.

This is her day: a short walk led by the man of the house, a bit of play time, kibble and water, and then sleep. For sleep consumes the majority of her day. Snuggling down into the pillows on the bed, uncovering the bolster if necessary in order to reach her master's down pillow, her favorite, she takes time to make her day nest. Here she will stay for hours, only nature's call for elimination of fluid urging her out of this nest that only she inhabits. The others in the house, her sister animal friend and the humans, do not inhabit this space of hers called the peoples' bedroom. Those others stay in their own dens doing whatever it is they do during the daytime hours...reading, knitting, cooking, talking. But here, on this bed and on the once forbidden pillow, she stays.

Occasionally, when dreaming, a slight whimper will come from deep within her throat. It is not unlikely that she yelps. Perhaps a play date with her sister dog is in her dreams, or maybe it is one of those pesky UPS men ringing the doorbell and making her jump to attention, shaking her from that sleepy lethargy. Whatever the cause, those yips and slight low growls sometimes can be heard from farther rooms when she is deep in slumber. Her distant presence is made known.

Now the night comes. The people in the house retire to this, her place, at night. At first she welcomes them, and snuggles down, this time at the foot of the bed, into the old down comforter throw that is kept just for her, although the feathers are slowing disengaging from the seams, and little white fluffs can be found on the bedspread beneath her silky throne. With the lights off, now surrounded by these human masters of her universe, she again settles and sleeps.

After two or three hours of this nighttime darkness, she awakens and feels the presence of the humans and realizes she is, indeed, not alone. She jumps from her downy nest on to the wooden floor, her toenails making a soft, padded sound. She yips, awakening her masters. They interpret the yipping noise to mean that she wants out to pee, and the one called Gene cooperates, reaching for his flashlight at the headboard of the bed, pulling himself up and out of slumber, releasing her out into the cold night air. Upon command, she performs her duty, and both the human and she return into the room.

Circling round just the right number of times, she replaces herself on the nest. She again sleeps. But I often wonder if what this canine really craves is to be alone, again, on the bed she calls her own. Sometimes, when the owners correctly interpret throaty call, her name is sternly called out in the darkness to return to bed. Reluctantly, she comes back to her rumpled place at my feet. Perhaps she woke to realize she has others in her space. Her primal need was again calling her to solitude.  All she really craved was to be alone.

Redstone, Colorado in Winter

There was yoga (Susan, our esteemed teacher practitioner)

At the ice skating rink, skates ready for fun

 Chrome Hubcap Sculpture in front of Redstone Inn (by O. Louis Wille, obituary here)

A few of the group

Initial Writing Exercise

Directives given in first assignment:

Think of an object

What is its shape?  What is its texture? What color is it?  What does the object evoke in you?

Write about this object.  Timed for thirty minutes maximum.

Green Man on the Shed Door

He lives on in the cold January exterior.  His face is a yard wide, painted on rough cedar planking in acrylics of burnt sienna, thalo green, color of lemons and limes interwoven in the giant leaves of his face.  Stark black outlines his wreath of greenery making up his features.  Green Man's wide mouth, though worn down and made more faint by five harsh summer sunbeams and the like number of winters and cold rains coming down on his weathered cheeks, is nonetheless visible in a malevolent moue. His brows are painted veins of leaves twined between foliage.

Frozen boards below him are stiff with winter chill and the skiff of ice on the shed entranceway gives warning of careful entry into his kingdom of plastic chairs and worn pots.  He guards entrance to the lawnmower, now stiff from disuse, with his silent stare.  Guardian of the tool shed, he is a symbol of earth, of all things green and growing.  He is a mystical creature, a keen observer of creatures moving in the garden, animals gambling on the lawn.  In day, his countenance is obvious, but at night, he keeps close count of stealthy foxes and raccoons, always on the lookout for night creatures of mice skittering through tall buffalo grass.

The Green Man smiles, at least his painted-on moue perhaps grimaces at some unknown secret not yet revealed.  Maybe he is contemplating his future of soon-to-be warm days when perhaps yet even more undiscovered observations will occur under his benevolent, hooded eyes.

Is that smile on his face?  Or maybe it is I who sees a generous future harvest of wild flowers, showy zinnias, blue iris, herbs, all welcoming a much anticipated spring, and his face is reflecting my wishful gardening thoughts.

Writers Weekend Coming Up

Tomorrow and over the weekend fifteen women will be attending a writing workshop in the mountain of Colorado at the Redstone Inn, a quaint hotel originally built as a boarding house for coal and marble miners at the turn of the nineteenth century. I am delighted to be included in this group of women.

One of our readings in preparation of the workshop, in case you might want to take a further look at an author with whom you might be unfamiliar, is entitled The Tiger in the Grass by Harriet Doerr.   Born in 1910, Doerr began writing at the age of 67 and made a splash of a debut with her novel Stones of Ibarra at the age of 74.

excerpted from The Tiger in the Grass:

Updating information from the workshop next week.,,

Heralding our 25 Years of Marriage

A quarter of a century we have been married.

Gene and I have seen several family and friends' marriages occur over these years.  A few births in the family have happened, several pets acquired, and we have helped more than a few people through their last months on earth.  My husband and I have traveled a bit together, I was away in North Carolina for a graduate degree, and we both have since retired from our economic careers.  We have been through sickness and health. There has been a small lifetime of tragedies and triumphs through the years.

So I made a movie for Gene as an anniversary present.  (Journey supplies the lyrics and music.)

Through the Years

A faded wedding photograph.
You and me in our first dance.
Our eyes are closed.
We're lost in one sweet embrace.

Since those days the world has changed.
But our love remains the same.
God knows we've had our share of saving grace.

And I'm proud of all the blessings you have given me.
The mountains we have climbed to get this far.
We've learned to take the laughter with the tears.
After all these years.

You make it feel brand new.
After the fires that we walked through.
Against the odds we never lost our faith.

In a house we made our home.
Where our children all have grown
Precious moments time cannot erase.

Make a living up and down the gypsy highways.
The seasons that we had to share apart.
Somehow in my heart I always keep you near.
After all these years.

After all these years.
You stood by me the days and nights that I was gone.
After all these years.
You sacrificed, believed in me, and you stood strong.
Cause with our love there's nothing left to fear.
After all these years.

After all these years.
You stood by me the days and nights that I was gone.
After all these years.
You sacrificed, believed in me, and you stood strong.
Cause with our love there's nothing left to fear.
After all these years.

There is Just No Explaining

There is Just No Explaining 2014

Dave Berry says it all here.  I laughed out loud.  Go the the link if you want to be amused or bemused at the state of our union.

Justin Bieber?  The White House having security not as tight as a Dunkin' Donuts'? a state dinner for French President François “Le Muffin de Stud” Hollande, who arrives at the White House driving a red scooter with two women riding on the back and three more chasing on foot?  And those are just the highlights of the first eight weeks in 2014.

Really, just read it.  The cartoons are great.

credit for illustration goes to Charlie Powell seen here

New Year's Eve

As seen here:

Detail of people drinking, from a treatise on the Seven Vices, Add MS 27695, f. 14r

A picture above of revelers from the past making merry in their own way.  For us, champagne at home and asleep way before that ball descends in Times Square.

Three loads of fabric including linens and clothing in the trunk of the car for a Good Will run, house cleaned, and soup about to be cooked.  That is my New Year's Eve, in a nutshell.

This is a five star recipe from Alton Brown from Food Network.  I am hungry already.  Lunch soon.

What are your evening plans, if I may ask?

Thread Painting, Needle Painting

There is nothing new under the sun.  That Old Testament saying definitely applies to what I though was a "new" technique of painting with thread.  And here I thought that drawing my pup with embroidery stitches was going to be a state of the art gift for my husband.

Several years ago I painted our nine year old shih tzu Mercy, and the husband has been asking for a companion piece of our eight year old dog Libby Sweetpea to hang up in his office over his computer.

Mercy in Oils, 2006

So I decided to try and embroider the second dog using just threads to make her portrait (as a surprise Christmas present).

Half way through the project of stitching Libby Sweetpea's face in white wool threads, I found all sorts of references to thread painting.  Even an e book is available free from Quilting Daily entitled The Art of Thread Sketching: Free Thread Drawing and Thread Painting Techniques.  Just join Quilting Daily and you can download the book without charge (no charge to join Quilting Arts, either)  Excerpted from that e book:

Think of thread as you would paint: you can make dots, smooth strokes,or long, sinuous curves. Like paint,you can apply thread sparingly or very heavily.  Going over an area with several layers of thread can create wonderful texture, but you need to make sure our surface is sufficiently stabilized to support these layers without puckering. 

Pinterest has beautiful images of thread work, but does not allow for copying of their images.  If you log in, you can see stunning needlework pinned by others under the category of "needle painting" or "thread painting."

Here is a half baked version of Libby, and no, it was not completed in time for Christmas.  Still need to work on her eyes, nose and little buck tooth.

Wonder if Libby approves so far?

Updated December 30, 2014 (yes, after Christmas)...

Fair Isle Knit Socks and More

Phew.  Those fair isle socks (only two yarn colors per row, knit intermittently while holding the opposing color in the back of the knitting) are complete.


What with all the self striping sock yarns now available, I doubt if anyone other than an experienced knitter could tell that the technique used in whipping up these socks was indeed "fair isle" knitting.

Alas, one of the women from the Shetland Fair Isle Knitting Guild (link here for information and pictures) (link here for more pictures) (and also here for a knitting workshop blog post) would be able to differentiate and critique this knitting.  They could right away spot my errors.

But I continue working on the technique and do have a bit of prior fair isle knitting under my belt:

(Our Mercy)

Wolf in Sheep's Clothing kit by Sandra Manson and Kate Davies, using all nine shades of 2 ply Shetland Supreme wool yarns from various types of sheep on Shetland) .. kit available here

Now I have the bright idea of trying to create a portion of this picture in fair isle knitting, along with reference help from the Book of Fair Isle Knitting by Alice Starmore. 

Giovanni Battista di Jacopo (Italian Mannerist painter, 1494–1540), known as Rosso Fiorentino (meaning the Red Florentine in Italian) Angel with Lute Madonna dello Spedalingo

If I can graph this out correctly ensuring the shading on the cherub, it should be a year long knitting project taking a lot of patience and many shades of yarn. Pinterest has some graphing aides, along with Starmore's book.  There are very few Renaissance needlepoint kits with angels, and none that I could unearth on the internet linking angels, Renaissance and knitting.  If you know of any such kits, including needlepoint, please leave me a comment as it would save lots of time if I could find a kit readily available.

Linking with Ginny's Yarn Along this Wednesday.

Now is the Third Sunday in Advent

One of my favorite Christian authors, Fredrick Buechner, writes of the advent season in a personal manner that sets me pondering on thoughts sometimes outside the usual realm of a spiritual Christmas.  He writes about the ugliness in me (yes, I personalize that ugliness for it is in me, not necessarily in you).

Buechner talks about our faults, our sinful ways, our selfishness, our arrogance.  He has a way of revealing all our human flaws, yet reminding us that God actually loves us.  And that every fault in our beings that is wrong, just wrong, is most certainly known by God.  But He keeps on loving us because grace is there, a present, a real Christmas present, that He gives us just for the asking.

With over thirty books written by Buechner (link here to his website), he has a way of unveiling grace to us, making it alive even in our somewhat sin-disguised and tawdry lives.

Episcopalian Rev. Barbara Taylor Brown said in a speech what fans of Buechner have always believed about his writings:

From you, I have learned that language itself is revelatory, with power to ignite hearts, move mountains, and save lives. 

From you, I have learned that the good news is not the cheerful news but the dismantling news of what it is like both to love and to betray the Holy One who has given me life, only to hear the saving question asked anew, for the umpteenth time, “You, you child of mine, Do you love me?”

This is what Christmas is about: the opening up of God's love to me, even me.  Such a powerful present, and it is there just for the asking.  Imagine.

From Whistling in the Dark:

The house lights go off and the footlights come on. Even the chattiest stop chattering as they wait in darkness for the curtain to rise. In the orchestra pit, the violin bows are poised. The conductor has raised his baton.

In the silence of a midwinter dusk there is far off in the deeps of it somewhere a sound so faint that for all you can tell it may be only the sound of the silence itself. You hold your breath to listen.

You walk up the steps to the front door. The empty windows at either side of it tell you nothing, or almost nothing. For a second you catch a whiff in the air of some fragrance that reminds you of a place you've never been and a time you have no words for. You are aware of the beating of your heart.

The extraordinary thing that is about to happen is matched only by the extraordinary moment just before it happens. Advent is the name of that moment.

The Salvation Army Santa Claus clangs his bell. The sidewalks are so crowded you can hardly move. Exhaust fumes are the chief fragrance in the air, and everybody is as bundled up against any sense of what all the fuss is really about as they are bundled up against the windchill factor.

But if you concentrate just for an instant, far off in the deeps of you somewhere you can feel the beating of your heart. For all its madness and lostness, not to mention your own, you can hear the world itself holding its breath.

It is Advent.  I am enjoying my candles, my Mother and Child icons, and perhaps holding my breath, just a little. And opening up that present called "grace".

Join with Angela and others in blogging about Advent.  Here is the link.

December Happenings

One of the blog feeds that comes to me daily is that of BJWS. Her blog is entitled "It's About Time," a reference to the many essays and pictures she posts from various historical eras.

BJ posted a picture several days ago that I will try to paint in oils for future Christmas display.  It is from the 13th or 14th century, and depicts angels and lutes.  The colors are vibrant.  It just "feels" like Christmas.

Mariotto de Nardo (1394-1424) Virgin and Child, Detail Angel musicians

We shall see if I can do it any justice.  It may be personal hubris to even try to recreate this angelic scene, but if seeking to paint with humility, realizing one's small talent, and/or simply trying to make a spiritual feel in one's home is hubris, so be it.  The quest continues.

Other than trying to keep down a persistent cough and struggling with viruses in both body and computer, I have been knitting intarsia socks.  Have you tried TOFUtsies sock yarn?  It is partially made from wool, soysilk and Chitin (made from shrimp and crab shells, a marketing gimmick that tells the fiber has naturally antibacterial properties).  It sold me. And the price point is practically a give away.  After waiting with bated breath over the weekend, this came in the mail yesterday,  The TOFUtsies yarn was even packaged in a little happy net bag with a silk ribbon drawstring.

This is one Salsa Sock in progress, found on Ravelery here.

Next month, I am looking forward to attending a women's writing retreat taught by Sandra Dorr and Susan Crosby.  If you google Sandra in Grand Junction, you will find out that she is an author, teacher, artist, and all around Renaissance woman.  Susan, a yoga teacher, likely has similar credentials.  All the information about the retreat can be found at this link. It will be held at the Redstone Inn in mountainous Colorado.

This is a teaser on the above link that caught my eye:

“You are perfect just as you are. And you could
use a little improvement.”

Suzuki Roshi

More history and lovely photographs of The Redstone Inn, an historic mining community built in the late 1800's, can be found here.   Come join in the wilderness experience!

First Sunday in Advent: Questions for Angels

A pilgrim on a pilgrimage
Walked across the Brooklyn Bridge
His sneakers torn
In the hour when the homeless move their cardboard blankets
And the new day is born
Folded in his backpack pocket
The questions that he copied from his heart
Who am I in this lonely world?
And where will I make my bed tonight?
When twilight turns to dark

Questions for the angels
Who believes in angels?
Fools do
Fools and pilgrims all over the world

If you shop for love in a bargain store
And you don't get what you bargained for
Can you get your money back?
If an empty train in a railroad station
Calls you to it's destination
Can you choose another track?
Will I wake up from these violent dreams
With my hair as white as the morning moon?

Questions for the angels
Who believes in angels?
I do
Fools and pilgrims all over the world

Downtown Brooklyn
The pilgrim is passing a billboard
That catches his eye
It's Jay-Z
He's got a kid on each knee
He's wearing clothes that he wants us to try

If every human on the planet and all the buildings on it
Should disappear
Would a zebra grazing in the African Savannah
Care enough to shed one zebra tear?
Questions for the angels