small hands

The weather this weekend is gorgeous.



Martha was right about the Alchymist rose. She has always raved about it, so I finally planted a bush in my garden. I was very patient, waiting three years for this rose to get its act together: start climbing and blooming profusely. But it was worth the wait. And the blooms smell amazing!!

The rose at the 2:00 position in the bouquet is another Martha favorite, Pearlie Mae. It's one of the first rose bushes I ever planted, close to the house, and it actually got too enormous. I moved it further away from the house and it took a couple of years to recover, but now it's blooming away.

I'm very excited for the flowering potential this spring and summer after so much rain.

I went out for Japanese food at Kirala last night with my dear friend, T. and she told me all about her four months in Europe (for work) and her side trip to Egypt. Then we went to see The Glass Menagerie at the Berkeley Repertory Theater, which was well done. I always have the best time with her.

There comes a time in a project when I get discouraged. When I think I'm never going to finishing quilting a project. When I think about how much more fun piecing is than quilting. When I think: this quilt does not love me.

I'm there now. I will never be done with this quilt.

I am quilting between each piece of fabric and then in the shape of each white piece. That's a lot of sewing.



I learn during every project. On this one I'm learning that the key to momentum is consistent progress.

When I had stomach flu, there was no way I could even think about sewing. I didn't appreciate until then how important health and stamina are to sewing/quilting/ crafting.

This whole month I seem to have lost my sewing mojo.



I do not blame Use What You Have month. I think it's a superb idea. I recognize that buying new supplies creates excitement and enthusiasm for a new project, but (at least for me), buying new stuff can be consumerist and wasteful.

Coincidentally I saw an interview of Michelle Singletary on C-Span which I enjoyed. I read her columns on the Washington Post and I listen to her segments on Day to Day on NPR. I've read her books and found the advice to be a bit extreme and also rather basic.

I know she could get behind a concept like Use What You Have, as she advocates shopping in your own kitchen and cooking the food that is in your freezer and cupboards. [Basic, right? But common sense that actually might not occur to people.]

So the Use What You Have month has given me the opportunity to take a good look at my crafting spending which has expanded to looking at my other spending. I've noticed a precipitous drop in my trips to Target, Costco, etc., in part because I've have what I need and I don't need more.

I passed the half way mark in the quilting this morning, so I think the rest of the way will go faster. I hope so.

Since this is Use What You Have Month, I'm going to re-use the previous post for this one.

My daughter wanted to go up to my parents' cabin and play in the snow. I was a bit nervous that there would be any snow, as the weather has been warming. However, this has been a very, very wet late winter/early spring, so there was still a lot of snow at 7000 feet.



My kids also love to just be at the cabin, sweeping pine needles, building fires in the woodstove, playing pool, and consuming lots of hot chocolate.

We listened to Prince's new CD, 3121, which I bought because fourfour told me to. And because I've been a Prince fan for over 25 years. The kids love the CD, especially Black Sweat. My favorite song is The Word.





It was excellent to be up in the mountains and I recommend to everyone to get out into nature. It is so relaxing to walk amidst giant Sequoias and to be in a quieter place.

I also found new respect for the proper outdoor gear. We had ski pants and I wore a snowboarding jacket and we were all very comfortable. Not entirely dry at the end of it, but able to be in the snow for hours without real discomfort.





The snow is melting, as you can see from the creek in Murphys.



We sat creekside and had lunch from the Pick and Shovel Cafe, before going to the Columbia Candy Store in Murphys. Oh the candy they have there. The kids wanted Turkish Delight, because we're all about The Chronicles of Narnia movie right now, but they were sold out because there are lots of kids into the same movie. [The movie enhanced their enjoyment of the snow as well.]

I bought a quarter pound of something called Candy Pebbles, which the store employee described as adult jelly beans. They were so good and I know from candy. I wish I had bought two pounds, but I guess it's better that I didn't. I guess.

Isn't the Murphys Library pretty?



It was good to get away.

I really like this book.

It's written by Dave and Amy Butler and it's very, very well done. They use flea market and curb side finds in a really cool, not actually-very-expensive-but-pretend-"shabby" way.

If you can locate a copy at your library, you'll be glad you did.





The sun is back. My energy is returning. It's not all the way there yet, but I'll take what I can get. There is chicken on the barbecue, the first time I've cooked anything but soup in a week.

Thank you for the good health wishes.

I am the one who got it, Wednesday night, and then my little guy got a milder version of it.

I am back at work today, but my energy is low, I'm dizzy, and my appetite is AWOL.

This is a mean bug. I spent Easter by myself, puttering around and doing very, very little. I didn't eat one jelly bean, though I did manage to make it through Mass, holding on to the pew in front of me.

My sister says she tells her patients to expect it to last for a week or two. Alrighty then.

Stomach flu.

Because I purchased a subscription to Marie Claire Idees, Amazon suggested that I buy this book. Intrigued by the cover, but, being no fool, I decided to check it out of the library. I waited and waited and at last it was my turn to check it out.

Here is my mini-review:

1. The pictures are very staged, which I find unattractive. The studios are immaculate and also crammed with supplies, which are attractively arranged.

2. All of the artists are quite affluent. One woman has "carved 1000 square feet out of the center of her home" to make her studio. It is fair to assume that she has more thousands of square feet left over for living.

3. There are no women of color featured. Not one. I find this disappointing and upsetting.

[I think one aspect of the big deal about the quilts of Gee's Bend is the (new to some) notion that women of African descent are also artists, and not just the ones who sing.]

I am glad I saw this book on the same day that I came across this image.

I am not going to follow Amazon's purchasing recommendation.

Inspiration Tuesday.



I came across this article while I was re-reviewing an issue of Canadian House and Home. It's about a Canadian quilter named Lisa Free. I Googled her this morning, but her website is not working.

You can see a bigger scan of the article here. I really like her color schemes for her pillows.

On Saturday, I took the kids to the library to get library cards. I hadn't done it earlier because I check out books for them from the library next to my job and my daughter uses her school library, which is very, very good. They were so excited to get public library cards and my son checked out three different books with the same title: Lizards. It feels like one of the big to-do's on my mothering to do list has been crossed off, with getting the cards.

It's raining again. The other day I was feeling crabby (about many things) and then I heard my son playing a harmonica in a distant room. It felt like a ray of light and it made me feel much better.

I've decided to share the weather with you.



I like to sit on this kindergarten chair (low and sturdy) and weed the rose bed, throwing the weeds in the metal tub.



Notice the pool of water on this outgrown tricycle seat? And the tremendous height of the grass?

Is it sunny and dry where you live? Lucky.

Last night I read my boy this book. It's about a giant panda who gives three children zen Buddhist teachings, which enable them to get along better. We enjoyed the book, reading it all cuddled up in my bed.

I don't usually have my kids on Thursday evening, so this was a bonus night. Earlier in the evening, my son asked me to play baseball in the back yard. He is improving so much and we had fun in the twilight, before the sun set. He was satisfied with our time out back and hugged me sweetly and said thank you when we went back inside.

There has been a break in the rain (about 24 hours), but the clouds are back now. I hope to spend this weekend organizing my kids' rooms, seeing my mother, quilting.

Good morning.

Daylight Savings time can kiss my hiney on its first Monday--with a disgruntled boy and a very tired, never-a-morning-person daughter, but...we have cake:



I saw the recipe for it in last week's New York Times Magazine and it looked so easy that I had to try it. It was even easier than it looked, especially dumping everything into the food processor to make the frosting.

Here is the scanned recipe:



I was cleaning out my son's room when I remembered that I had a cake baking, but it was just a wee bit overbaked.

I read a very interesting post on Use What You Have Month, which placed the emphasis on use. The idea is not just to refrain from buying any additional crafty supplies for a month, but also to make stuff this month. I'm plugging away at my quilt and I expect to get it completed in the next two weeks. I also, after admiring for months the panda made by the gloriously talented Lyn of Molly Chicken, made one for a sweet boy turning 7 next Monday.



From the angle of the photograph, the panda looks a little angst-y, but from a different angle he looks cheerful.

The beginning of Use What You Have Month, what could be finer?

Well, I got an amazing bouquet of tulips from a wonderful woman* for my birthday (March 30). Turning 41 is way less traumatic than turning 40.



The tulips are standing up straight because I put a penny in the vase. I learned that from Martha.

I was stuck in a trial most of the day and had to postpone my birthday lunch, but later my younger sister took me for a pedicure and...my first eyebrow waxing. I was surprised that waxing did not hurt as much as I expected it to (the waxing lady is very good) and my brow area is so smooth now. Love it.

Maybe I'll turn 41 into the year of grooming.

My son likes my company.* He wants me to hang out with him in the evenings while he plays or watches a movie. So, I've been working on little handstitched projects, using what I have (scraps, embroidery floss), which I can do away from my sewing machine.



I love making little houses, inspired by the Japanese books [ISBN4529040984] and artists.



*an understatement