dreamy rainy cloudy days....

red tail hawk?

sharing space with a beautiful white crane.

another of the collages, it had been misfiled in the system.

just had my 100th post! realized as I went to add yet more images. thought that maybe that post had more than enough, so will create a brand new post....

has been raining and raining here. this morning it was coming down so hard, with such a beautiful wave sound that I got up from the studio table to watch the rain pour sideways through our backyard, watching all the buds - on the fig tree, on the rose bushes, on the plum tree (should have pruned the lemon? tree earlier this season, it's a tad overgrown). I *love* the rain. Yesterday we went for a walk along the beach and timed it perfectly. I felt tiny drops of rain on my toes as we were three blocks from the car. We got all situated in the car and it began to drop bucketfuls on us. We both love a rainy day at the beach...it's quiet and the colours are so dreamy. (actually the only days we don't like the beach is when it's full of people and their unmanaged off-leash dogs.)

daily collage posting catch up

i'm going to attempt to put a few comments near each collage.
i love this simply rendition of our church. the courtyard and the bell tower are two of my favorite bits.


faith. this is a clipping found years ago. i liked the idea of creating my own collage for the cover of a retreat booklet sometime. it's inspiration one of my next daily collages will be my own cover page retreat booklet. maybe represent our churches guiding principles?

one of my favorite rooms to clip and save are studios! this is the wrapping and mailing section. i do have an area reserved for this, but it certainly isn't this beautiful - yet. love the style of these slippers. would like to knit, full/felt, cut and sew my own -- it's low on the priority list though :)

i love this smaller rosary. i was baptised catholic as an infant but it's been decades since i've been catholic. i did recently go through a prayer bead creation frenzy. i like the simplicity and elegance of this style - i think i'll give this a go too.

i think one of the things on this list that i most need to be aware of regularly is saying no without guilt (who's with me on this one?) i love the wire leaf sculpture, gonna try this one day too.

the ultimate studio...the wrapping paper dowels! and the butcher paper holder/tearing thing! the cabinet to close, the glass jars of yummy bits. the pendant lamps. what's not to love?

i love the business card sized bits of paper collaged on the wall here...

love the hair and the glasses!

love the christmas card wire rack, the wood for the fireplace in the big patina'd bucket, the berried twigs

love these stars...we had a similar chandlier in our past home. i love wreaths!

love making these happy, dancing people

one of my etsy items.

just a bit of another one of my favorite assemblage/altars.

love her too.

i've been sorting through my stack of magazines, trying to use up images I love, they've been absorbed into these past several days of paste and gel medium.

yarn stash (and burn?)

the french press cozy (my over-dyed wool yarn from Australia days) for my work coffee. and a little mixed media collage I made for my little space.

my progress on these socks. i am *thrilled* with the colourway on these (my own hand-painted yarn!)

we have another yarn dyeing day coming up quickly and i am *s0* making more of this colourway and similar blends.

quick post with just a few photos -- i'll update the daily collages later.

*long* and *lovely* weekend led to lots of around the house projects. not the least of them being "the organization of the stash" - which isn't really too out of control, but i really wanted it sorted and pretty enough to leave one basket in the livingroom. so, i brought all the containers of yarn into my studio, dumped them out two baskets at a time and rearranged.

all the wool into the big handle basket.

all the sock yarn into the round laundry looking basket (including three unfinished sock projects)

all the ufo's into the drawstring baskets (one has all the purple and blue bits I collected for making a shawl, the other has the rest of my ufo's - a rug, fetching gloves i have to frog one of because i didn't cable it to the same level of the other, a bag to be felted)
all the acrylic -- for teaching folks to knit, tyeing up skeins for dyeing, and assorted mystery projects into the plastic bin to be stored in the garage.

one bag of yarn to be returned to rachel. (handed it off today at work).

0ne empty basket to return to it's previous duty of studio area paper recycling container/waste basket (two bags fit into it).

lovely.

practical.

took about an hour. (de-tangling a bit, sorting needles and accessories, etc). totally worth it!

catching up

Moss Beach. We went exploring for a few hours yesterday. Beautifully sunny, a little windy, but that's why we love hoodies, right? Tied my hair back and put the hoody up and all was good for the tidepool hunt. I don't think these photos begin to capture the amazing colours out there. The purple, orange and both starfish, the deep purple sea urchin, the pinks and greens in the rocks. Gorgeous, we were constantly saying, 'hey, come look at this!' Great day! And we stopped at Barbara's Fish Trap for lunch too! Great clam chowder and ocean view - love it there.

Catching up on a few of the previous collages.

orange cones up around these napping seals. so cute, they waved, we waved, a little communication going on.

lots happening here. been creating up a storm, many projects going at once (ahem, that's nothing new as my friends and family will attest).

finished the blue and green socks.

started another pair of toe up elfin socks with another of my hand-dyed yarns and -oh-my-goodness- i *heart* this colourway!

making new pendants and pocket tokens and taking photos to post at my shop.

took a few packages to the post office and stopped by TJ's on my way home.

Great here. Hope you are having a great day too!

it's never too late to jump in the race....

spending time in the studio with my ipod. followed some links and added a bunch of new ones. have you listened to the new knitting/stash podcast? i *love* it.
also added several new (to me) NPR podcasts. Right this minute, Brian Unger is my favorite, and this one made me laugh the hardest.
more later today, photographs of my projects.

a tree grows....

the newest collages (haven't done todays yet, though i have been making other collages, i'll share those later).
it's raining and raining.
i *love* the sound of rain, especially on leaves and the evergreen tree in our front yard.
i imagine this is where the strong tree imagery is coming from these past few days.
i also finished up my originals for my ArtFest book. gotta get 'em photocopied, then add the embellishments and ship them out.
i've been making up lots of Valentine's goodies -- because it's always good to spread the love, non? photographs later.

sniffly

so much for my super powered immune system...
i'm a bit under the weather today.
slept in.
drinking lots of good earth tea caffeine free (after a latte, because, well...being sick with a caffeine withdrawl headache is *no* good).

doing a bit of mindless blog surfing.
ear-flap hat pattern my mom requested, her church is working on knitting projects for Bethlehem Inn (homeless shelter). I've knit *bunches* of these, they fit adults too (depending on your gauge and bulky-ness of fibre).
this and this for cordelia.
i'm even more fascinated with Flickr. i've got to try to work in this.

wish we had a big claw foot bathtub with a fireplace and a view of the mountains (or water). since we don't I'm bundled up in my grandmother's quilt daydreaming of these memories

i feel at home with you.

two new collages. (i'm taking it slow with the camera today, so more daily collages will be posted later this week).

pruned most of the rose bushes today.

knit more of the latest socks (magic loop, toe-up, widdershins). got a little confused with the transition between gusset and heel flap. the frustration led me to put the project down for the night and walk away. this photo is from yesterday (i dare not try to take a picture of the socks right now).

count your blessings

the gift has arrived, so I can post the picture:
i love the lattice frame, it was a little more fussy to do than I expected, but I love how the finished piece turned out. definitely more to come.

Taught a beginning pmc class at church yesterday, it went really well. everyone asked for this to become an annual event. Our church does this big fundraiser called "Pick a Party" members plan parties, describe the event, it gets published in a booklet of all the parties (dates, cost, and all the details are listed). We go through the booklet, 'pick' the parties we want to attend, check our calendars and eagerly anticipate the morning we get to sign up. On a Sunday morning before church we gather in the coffee hour room and get reminder directions. "Be mindful of the folks around you, sometimes in your rush to get to sign up for your parties people get shoved unintentionally". It's wild and fun. There are about 100 parties to choose from lots of themed dinners, game nights, hikes, camping, retreats, use of time shares, children events, etc. This was the first year I offered the class through Pick a Party and it sold out :). I'll do it again next year too.

Lots of hearts created yesterday. Today, I'll be working on some more Valentine pieces.

molly ivins

peace be with you Molly Ivins.
and give Ann Richards a big hug for me!

the curl is back

i began painting on the collages this week. i like it. i started knitting with my newly produced sock yarn. not really enough to photograph yet, probably tomorrow's post (we have a netflix movie to watch tonight).

new haircut today. i love it. new city, new hairdresser (yes, i haven't gotten even a trim since May - eek), and she created exactly what i hoped for. my description to her: short enough to bring the natural curl back, long enough to pull into a ponytail, no mullet. when it began to look as though the front was going to be too long to have good front curls, i amended to say that i was happy to use bobbypins to pull back a few strands. she cut a little more and i can still get it all pulled back (for studio time and walks and sleeping - i guess this is one of my weird things - as seen on many blogs these past few weeks - i never liked sleeping with loose hair, short as it's ever been, i would find some way to pull it back at night, scarves, headbands, multiple ponytails...)