bee creative

shape shifter

One of today's tasks: sorting through the yarn stash. The yarn in the basket is what I have set aside to add to the blanket I've been making. 

The original plan was to make three panels of stripes and to use up as much of the stash as possible.  But to make it as large as wanted, more yarn would need to be purchased and I'm not really interested in that. 

I want to be working more with the yarn that I've spun.

I have other ideas to explore.

Once the first panel is the width I want it to be, I have decided to switch from knitting to crochet.

The white section will be knit, the shaded section crochet.  Switching to crochet will make it easier to stop when the yarn runs out or to add just a little bit as wanted.

And because it's on my mind: 

 

 

Thinking:  The act of making, of creating, makes us shape shifters. Or whatever it is that we are working on becomes a shape shifter. 

New posts up at bee creative cooking.

 

a day spent in the rain, wind and a bit of sun

Spent all day helping at a garden sale.

Posts at bee creative cooking up tomorrow.

between rain showers

tension holds some things together

A couple weeks ago I finished repairing my porch swing by weaving a net seat.

Just in time for a few sunny breaks between the rain showers.

 

spring knitting

Thinking of transformations.

And butterflies.

 

New posts up at bee creative cooking. 

in the spring garden

Last fall I gave myself a present of 100 tulips

Kaufmania tulips, sometimes called waterlily tulips.  They are short, early, and longer lived then some of the other varieties. 

Other things are blooming today too...

Liverwort, or anemone hepatica

(which for some reason makes me think of the act of distilling)

and

Lungwort, or pulmonaria.

(breath deep) 

For better or worse, I tend to read many books at the same time.  I started Tom Robbins book Skinny Legs and All in January and was waylaid by a few others so I'm just getting back to it.  I knew I wanted to though because I was completely hooked by a paragraph about mockingbirds and this passage:

"Jonquil bulbs fired round after round of butter-tipped stalks, all sorts of buds were swelling and popping, birds (not just mockingbirds) strung ropes of birdsong from treetop to fence post, bees and other insects were waking to the unfamiliar alarm of their own faint buzz; all around, the warming natural world was in the process of rebirth and renewal..." 

 

color absorbed

Onion peel and red cabbage for color.

A mixture of cotton, linen, and silk.

Undone and now being rinsed in the rain.

The purple of the red cabbage will probably turn blue. 

Following directions from India Flint's stuff, steep + store.

This morning,

standing on the covered porch,

listening to the rain and the train as it goes along the edge of the bay...

Deciding that I like to look at the blossoms on the apricot from a distance.

They have a luster.

A patch to add to other patches. 

Today I see blossoms in yarn.

And

I am reading Enchanted Hunters the Power of Stories in Childhood by Maria Tatar.

She writes:

"The German philosopher Walter Benjamin mourned the loss of story telling traditions that once had the transformative power to make storytellers of us all.  He eloquently describes how intimately storytelling is connected with labor, and how the disappearance of repetitive household chores imperiled that art.  But, most important, he points out that the activity of listening gave rise to the gift of narration, creating a community in which all were empowered to tell stories."

 

tools for communicating

I've been thinking about the tools we have to communicate with.

Words.  I can tell you about my cat. 

She was given away.  I brought her home. 

For a long time she didn't like to be touched.  And now she is aggressively affectionate. 

She loves Briar and tolerates Lola (the dogs).

Her name is Hazel, as in the tree. 

I can share a picture.

One of my favorites. Taken several years ago.

And I can paint a picture (this is still in process):

Last Saturday I was trying to draw pictures of animals and I was frustrated.  The drawings weren't looking the way I wanted them to. I asked myself. Why?  Why am I doing this? 

I decided to focus this year on drawing and painting, on making images because it's fun.  As a child, "art" was one of my favorite activities. I doodled and drew when I had the chance.  And then it was let go as I became older.  As was writing poetry.

Some of this letting go seems natural, we hone our interests.  But some of it happens because we become too critical. We get caught in being practical.  We need to be experts at what we do.  We need to "grow up." 

I don't want or need to be great at this.  I just want to feel like it's another way that I can communicate.  I want someone to look at something that I make and think, that's a cat... And for it to be fun, to find the way for this to be fun.

Good enough

(new posts up at bee creative cooking, another way to communicate!)

just this

first daffodil of the year

glorious day

9:00 AM Looks like a garden day.

But first breakfast on the porch.

Apricot so close to blooming.

The crocus will start the party.

5:00 PM: After the gardening...a little dye experiment suggested by India Flint in stuff, steep + store.