bee creative

changing colors

Adding a bit of red to the shawl in progress.

I was worried that I'd missed seeing the bank of magnolias bloom at one of our local parks but I was right on time.

Playing with photoshop again:

The current reading list:

A library card is a wonderful thing...I check out books I wouldn't necessarily buy.  It's possible to do things like check out the book version and the movie.  I've already watched Handmade Nation, but have just taken a peak at the book.  I'm not sure the movie said anything new to me, but it was interesting (warning if you watch the trailer all the images may not appeal). 

Almost every movie needs popcorn, even a documentary:

This is a spicy version:  cinnamon, nutmeg and chipolte powder. 

some weekends...

It wasn't that I got distracted this weekend... although yesterday I picked up a copy of Digital Expressions by Susan Tuttle from the library and did spend some extra time on the computer today.  

I didn't even spend the weekend napping or being lazy...

(This blanket was perfectly flat until Lola decided to arrange it to her liking.)  

I just didn't do most of what I planned to do. 

Rather I seemed to spend a lot of time day dreaming and shuffling fabrics back and forth and thinking about whether to cover (the middle of this did not turn out the way I wanted), or to cut.  To use this pattern or that pattern. 

And I did discover that the secret to making good (what I think is good anyway) nut butter is to roast the nuts and not be stingy with adding oil. 

And I did find this really good interview with Bobby McFerrin (he talks about improvisation) which I think applies to all types of creativity.  He talks about the need to just keep going.

I did that. 

 

 

 

moon and clouds

From my indigo fermentation vat!  It took me three weeks to get this vat working, but it does dye fabric.  HOoray!

I don't have the necessary tools to make a really clean circle, but I love the shadows that were created by what I was able to do...

Also, just finished reading When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams.  It's a wonderful, wonderful book that I know I will reread more than once.  I'm not going to share my favorite quote as the idea is more wonderful if it is discovered after reading all that comes before it...

unwrapping "grow"

"Each of us harbors a homeland, a landscape we naturally comprehend.  By understanding the dependability of place, we can anchor ourselves as trees." Terry Tempest Williams

"Having once put his hand into the ground, seeding there what he hopes will outlast him, a man has made a marriage with his place, and if he leaves it his flesh will ache to go back." Wendell Berry

 It always seems that the words I need at any particular time tumble into my life.  I just started reading An Unspoken Hunger by Terry Tempest Williams.  The sentence above are words that make so much sense to me.  Words that I want to linger in my mind.  

I've carried images and pieces of Wendell Berry's poems in my mind for a very long time, the first book of his poetry a gift from one of my favorite teachers in high school. 

Being able to grow, the capacity to change, is an important part of creativity for me... but growth isn't always a good thing. 

Today I planted indigo seed, madder, safflower, calendula, cabbage, broccoli, swiss chard, and onion seeds. 

As one grows larger, the other grows smaller...transformation. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

knitting knits and sewing knits

I've been reminded that sewing with knits and altering patterns can be a bit scary...

I have made a lot of pj's with my experiments.  Some don't even make it to that stage.  Those end up as rags. 

My latest experiment will have to be used as a rag...good thing I used scraps from the t-shirt.   And that's actually part of the process, testing the pattern.  Especially if the body type is not considered "average." 

On Saturday I decided to try the tank top pattern from Alabama Studio Style.  I didn't have high hopes that it would fit, but I wanted to see how close I'd be to the sizing. 

The results?

*A good case of the giggles.

*Knowledge.  I know that it fits, sort of (surprise!).    But I would need a lot more ease to feel comfortable. That's pretty easy to fix with this pattern as it has princess seams.  The length was way off.  But again, the princess seam will make that easy to fix too.

 

 

This was much more successful.  If any part of a t shirt is going to be difficult for me, it's the neckline.  I decided to try the binding method described in Alabama Studio Style and did some hand stitching.  The first time round with the binding looked nice but didn't lay right.  I decided to fold it over one more time and stitch it down again.  It worked! 

For anyone thinking about trying a project with knits; the most important thing I think is to start with a new needle designed for knits (if using a sewing machine) and to go slow. 

And then there is the hat:

Hello everyone! 

 

 

moon stories

 

This

 

plus this,

layered together in photoshop elements and then adding an "overlay" filter (found where the opacity is set on the far right hand side of Elements)

equals:

I was eleven or twelve the first time I thought about rings.  I was (and am!) a huge fan of Madeline L'Engle and read A Ring of Endless Light as soon as I discovered it. 

One of the passages quotes a poem by Henry Vaughan, "The World:"

"I saw Eternity the other night/ Like a great rind of pure and endless light/ All calm , as it was bright."

One of the gifts of poetry is how an image, an idea,  can be caught in just a few words.

A few years later I read one of Ursula K Leguin's books and found a passage that just added to my love of circles.  It's rather long so I'm not going to re-type it tonight.  I posted the quote here a few years ago. 

It seems I'm circling back...

 

dawn of two different years

The pink dawn, yesterday...December 31st 2011.

The orange and gray, today...January 1st 2012.  More gray than orange. A small flock of robins is darting in and out of the holly trees across the road from me.  Another look and now there are a few stellar jays, juncos, and a bird I don't recognize (maybe a woodpecker of some sort?).  

I recently rediscovered a book I've been meaning to read and started it last night.  Dawn Light by Diane Ackerman. 

"Whatever else it is, dawn is always a rebirth, a fresh start, even if familiar routines and worries charge in clamoring for attention."  

"Nature includes both the one and the many, the squirmingly minute and the invisibly huge." 

The beginning of the calender new year is always a bit of a strange thing for me.  I believe any day, any moment can be a new beginning.   January 1st seems out of order when I consider the natural world.  And yet, there is something amazing about a group of people, a community, reorganizing and beginning again...

 

shelter will be the word

I recently checked out a few books from the library about shelters (thanks again Henrietta!).  One of them referenced a few builders/writers of books that I already had in my collection.

So now the current pile of books I am reading looks like this:

I read the same way I do everything else...a bit here, a bit there and then eventually I will finish.  But not really, because the best books are re-read and thought about and change with perspective and experience. That's the way all things are for me. 

More connections forming.

Shelter, I think that is something I've always been working towards.  And so "shelter" will become the word for 2012. 

It's the why.

I was recently remembering these two came from a shelter...

Shelter can mean so many things.