holiday goodness

One of our stops last sunday night. First up that night was christmas tree decorating at my SiL's flat. Beautiful tree, lots of chatter about the history of many of the ornaments. Then crabcakes, salad and other yummy dinner. Afterwards, sugar cookie decorating. Amazingly I took no photos of any of this!
Next stop. Bellevue for Snowflake Lane. Big crowd. *over*the*top* decorations and planned to the second. Great uniforms, lovely to see all the projected snowflakes and the soapbubble flakes falling. We were running a bit late so we powerwalked right by the Chiluly sculptures on the way out. Afterwards while I craddled my Tully's decaf latte, I was thrilled to see all of this!
Isn't it marvelous? I'll have to go back sometime in different light to take more.
Love!
Stop after Bellevue Square. Apparently they have workshops to show you how to make these light sculptures (and I'd imagine you're a bit obligated to help with filling this place up too). Many more photos at my flickr...
Talking with my mom the other night, relating all the excitement of this evening, she mentioned that I spent my first night out of the hospital in Bellevue. (and my birthday is coming next week, so we were enjoying that)
my favorite scene here.

we've been thoroughly enjoying preparations for the holiday season.
making handmade holiday ornaments for the Second Annual Holiday Ornament Swap (that link sends you to their flickr album - amazing craft out there!)



i've receive three so far. aren't they great - and wildly different?



we are looking forward to buying an eliptical machine -- it just pours here too often for consistent walking. and longjohns for the days when it's not rainy and we can go for our favorite new walk along the water here.


i made this yummy tomato sauce the other day - totally inspired by dona's blog. i just wrote down a few ingredients, ran upstairs, chopped some stuff, threw it in the pan and boiled some pasta at the same time. topped with a bit of parm. yum.

snow covered mountains

The mountains were peeking out a bit this morning. I love being able to see snow covered mountains again! Also enjoy watching all the holiday decorations going up all around in our neighborhood.
Yep, it finally dawned on me to knit the fingerless gloves in magic loop. What took me so long? And these are going to have embroidery on them because I would like a more practical knitted embroidered product (in the past I've just had the purses - you can see 'em on Ravelry if you have access. Or on my flickr account under fibery goodness).

Saw another abc's of me meme on someone's blog and thought -- I want to do that in my journal...so here it is. There will likely be more embellishments along the way. But, I got distracted by the wintery pages I'm also working on. And figuring out how to make prints of my daily collages.

I won a prize! After listening to Insubordknit's podcast,
I took a guess and this recently arrived in the mail. The artwork of her young son. The detail and the lettering - awesome! An excellent illustrator and storyteller!

winter wonderland

So beautiful. Saturday nights snow. Then it rained, um, poured for two solid days. Flooding. We are at the top of a hill, so no problems at our house, thankfully.
Early in the morning before heading to my first craft show in Washington state! (It went well, and I am now free to post bunches of new items to my etsy store. Sold several mixed media collage pieces and tons of the little collage pendants!) The snow did keep the numbers down a bit at the show, but it was so beautiful watching the big fluffy flakes falling all day. I also got to trade for a bunch of soap! (One of my favorite trades, because we love handmade soap, and I haven't made it in years, though I have all the necessary supplies...one day, perhaps. Though really trading is so fabulous!)

Wearing these (the red ones are mine) right now as I type, it's cold! I wear them quite a lot and think they'll make fabulous gifts this season. Knitting up several more pairs.
Available at my little handmade items on etsy site. Dreaming of Malabrigo lace, trying to work up the courage to try my hand at knitting Forest Path Stole (photo from Ravelry search):Isn't it beautiful?

coffee and chocolate

Good chocolate, hand dipped right here in Washington state. We took a short road trip to see the chocolate mecca for the R family. I'm sure it was a great place to go years ago before Issaquah became another overgrown mcmansion 'village'. Wow! What on earth do people need 5,000 square feet of living space for? And it just was so sad, to see these *huge* homes - easily over 4,000 square feet, so close to their neighbors homes that they could likely stradle the property line and reach out and touch their wall and the wall next door. Crazy. We are so hoping to find a home with 1500 square feet (and even that seems excessive for our small family sometimes) and as much yard as we can get, for privacy, for a chicken coop, for fruit trees, and for a couple of big raised vegetable beds.

Spent a bit of time yesterday catching up on my video podcasts while turning the heels on these socks. Which was fabulous because then I could begin the round and round of knitting to the end of the yarn. As I see the pattern emerging (first time I've knit this pattern - Tangled Up in Blue) I am ever more confident that it is the perfect yarn and pattern for the gift recipient.

I've been tagged by exile's return for a Mug Meme - to share and tell stories about my 7 favorite mugs. Since we are still living out of boxes waiting to find our new home (the house we bid on had problems with the inspection, we asked the owner to take care of a few major issues, she declined and our offer disappeared, so we are back to looking....) I actually only have 4 mugs out, however, since I *love* to get tagged for memes, I'm going to dig through the packed up boxes to try to find 3 more mugs to take photos of.By far my favorite mug. I love the size of it, I love the handcrafted look and feel of it. Other things I love about it: mermaids, fish, sand, Cambria (where I bought it), the beautiful turquoise glaze.
Forgot about this one...the perfect mug for my (decaf) espresso shots in the morning. The only mug that fits and the little "snowflakes" indicate how long to run the espresso as the nectar of the gods drip out of the tightly packed handle. Yum.
My favorite travel mug. Stainless steel inside, love the red, love the motto.
I *love* the bright, shiny red of this mug. When we had our Subaru, the UCC mug didn't fit in the holder, so I used this one everyday. (Another stainless steel interior)
This clear mug was one of two received a few Christmas' ago from a colleague who made hot chocolate mix to add to the package. Yum.
I decided against opening any more boxes, so I took a picture instead. I'll decribe 2 more mugs: Before the mermaid mug, my favorite mug was a Laurel Burch mug from Grad School days. One of my office mates gave it to me during the HOlidays. It's creamy with a tribe of beautiful faces on it. A Life is Good mug (also part of a set that friends gave us years ago) with the sweet little dog on it. I used this mug everyday at work to put my keys in. I love the classic cafe style - heavy, curvy, white, sturdy.
I tag anyone interested, please put a link in comments if you do the meme too.

teeny tiny collage necklace (c)

Production for the first Holiday Show in Washington
I'm super in love with these new pieces.
One of my favorite finished pieces for one of its glamour shots for the etsy update. And a shot of the production work going on in the studio these past few days. I love making these teeny tiny collages and had been mulling over the various ways to renew and present them this season...and I am so pleased to debut them here today, at the show on Saturday and on etsy Monday. (More social events tomorrow will likely keep me from being able to post them to etsy tomorrow).


It's been a social weekend. Breakfast out with friends from California visiting family (and us), great place - Maltby Cafe -- we'll definitely go back.

And look at how cute this espresso stand next door! Later an apres Thanksgiving dinner in Kirkland - yum, those brussel sprouts were *so* good and the sage-y dressing and pumpkin pie with cool whip - it was all good. Artsy folks too - he welds really amazing sculptures and household items, she makes beautiful art quilts (and this year's Advent banner that will be unveiled at church tomorrow morning).

thank full

For temp work -- lots of organizational projects. I love doing all these tangible things! Clearing piles, making filing cabinets pretty and easy to read. And look how pretty the view is from the break area! The first day I was headed there to make tea though...I saw a rather large harbor rat run across the floor up a pipe and over the ceiling of the Registrar's office! Ack! The place is really beautiful and very clean. Cannot stop the wharf rats from coming in from the rain and cold. And it was *pouring* down rain that day! So dark that I didn't even notice that we drove right under the Space Needle. So these other photos were taken on other mornings.

Around the Seattle Center. I love these swirly like photos.
Thank full also for the beautiful places we have found to go on walks. Will be thankful when we find thermal pants to wear under our sweatpants for these walks. It's colder here! A wet, windy cold.
To be incorporated into jewelry projects.
A very cool two-sided sculpture in the park.

Taking photos while waiting in the Park and Ride lot on the way to the temp job in the morning. It's *dark* at 6:00 a.m. The rest of the photos are from after work waiting to be picked up. (We are currently a one car family).
A few items from my thankful list: love, family, being in the Pacific Northwest, health, excellent library system, PCC, Trader Joe's, Thanksgiving leftovers, beeswax candles, decaf wet cappucinos, Good Earth Tea, art days, flickr, *comments*on*my*blog*, craft swaps, mail, making new friends.
What are you thankful for this year? Hope your Thanksgiving is full of grace, laughter, stories, games and good friends/family.

Finally, an all out art day!

It's been much too long since I've spent more than a few minutes on art.
So, yesterday though there are still to do lists "a mile long" I ventured down into the basement studio to spend hours spilling paint, smooshing it all around with my fingers and hands. pulling out all the media to use pens, oil pastels, paste, stencils (Mary Ann - yes, I used stencils yesterday. Soon, I'll be making some again too).
And today I got a temp job for three days! (So needed)
Sermon today was all about abundance
and
abundance rocked the house today.
Signed up for my first Holiday Show in the new town.
December 1st.


Gotta find the boxes full of product
Make new business cards (I see the reason for using just website and cell phone number now - definitely leaving off the studio address this time)
Make new hangtags

New signage for the booth
New frames for new artwork

More photos of the art day on my flickr page too.
(Please leave comments here, or on flickr)

a new house (photos next week)

My new hat. We were driving back from signing all the house papers! And ran across this huge red and white sign -- Reindeers and Red Ribbons Holiday Craft Show (or similar words -- with a bright red reindeer wearing a big red ribbon). We stopped, for a bit of a visual change. A *wide* variety of crafts represented. I bought this great hat - it's acrylic (I know, yarn snob), but I love the colours and the bulky, elfy shape of it. Love it!

Also, this wise owl stuffie.

Also picked up a lot of flyers for arts and crafts shows in the area. Gotta find places to get out and sell my work too. And trades this season. If you make stuff, let me know if you are interested in trades.

A block, maybe two, from our new house. (Still have the inspections and stuff to go through in the next week). It is certainly a wild and busy time, full of excitement (and stress), we fall into bed each night hoping for a deep, restful, restorative sleep -- missing it because we are so full of questions, fears, stresses and creative ideas for all that is happening in our lives. And yet we are thrilled with all the journeys we are on.