A Contemplative Life

This hat comes first because I made it before the other two, and it's already been through the wash, hence the fuzziness around the edges. Because my chickens need some sun! And I need to appreciate the lessening daylight just like I adore the lengthening days.... It's also five weeks until the last Sunday in Advent, but I didn't know that until I checked the calendar, finding that the solstice coincides with Advent. Which isn't so much what this post is about, but it is fascinating. Anyway.... What made me think about the solstice was the chickens. They get so little sun these days, and that won't improve significantly until, well, February. Lol. Poor chickies, not that they know any better, but I do and.... And there's very little I can do about it, other than let them into the garden when the garden is getting sun, then waiting. We live amid plenteous tall trees, and not until this year has the lack of winter sun been an issue, as thankfully I don't suffe...

Crystal Manning fabrics (with a Speckled center) from a few years (or more) ago. This will be appliqued onto a light pink t-shirt, once of these days. Gotta fix a cup of Metamucil, then I'll be back to expound upon this ominous title. Okay, so getting used to life without gluten, dairy products, and red meat and NO CHEATING on those edicts has been...fine. Kinda like using Draft2Digital is FINE . It is what it is, and you get what you get and you don't pitch a fit. My eldest granddaughter used to say that when she was little, but now at ten years old, I don't hear it from her much anymore, LOL. I don't mind the Metamucil, although it will be a cold day in hell before my husband drinks it, as it figured heavily in the lives of his elderly parents. It wasn't anything my parents used, and it still tastes like watered down Tang, no big deal. I feel good, have lost six pounds, and my knees don't hurt, so if dairy was aggravating those joints, it's a trade-off wor...

From a UK craft magazine at least twenty years ago, but now it's done! No sewing occurred over the weekend, but I dabbled in other crafts hearkening to my past. Past Me needs some props, for starting the cross-stitching above that I completed with ease. I uncovered this kit a couple of months ago, and in finishing it, I found why I had given up halfway, a mistake made in the pale blue floss. Skirting around that error, I happily stitched trees, then added the backstitching in that bold red. It will be a for a dearheart in a little over a month's time. I then dug out my cross-stitching bag, finding pieces of my creative past long before I dreamed of quilting. Yet working with my hands has mattered for AGES, first in crocheting right after I had my eldest child. Once we moved to Britain I got into cross-stitching, and now in Humboldt County that pastime has emerged with stealth, lol. Not sure how much more I'll do of it, although a HUGE project remains, about on par with my A...

I just LOVE these hues! Not completely rainbow, but multicoloured and just gorgeous. My hubby and I just got back after spending a few days with our son. It's lovely visiting with family, yet always a treat to return to one's own domicile. I admired the results of a very wet winter; green flora flourished EVERYWHERE! I deeply considered my novel-in-progress, making notes not in longhand but on my phone. I did a little hand-sewing and a dab of crocheting, completing a blanket proper and starting the ruffle. Okay, maybe saying I 'completed a blanket' doesn't ring true until the border is finished, but it felt like a win regardless. (Unlike how I managed to center this paragraph inadvertently, quite a fail....) The above picture is one of the treasures. The truths came about like drops of scattered rain, concerning my writing mostly, but not merely the WIP. I pondered why I only publish novels as ebooks, accepting my place as a simple storyteller who takes full advanta...

Machine quilting joy with plenty of pics; enjoy the colour-fest! Yesterday was spent mostly at my computer, reading over my fictional WIP. I'm nearing the end, very cool, and wrote a chapter and a little extra this morning, which initially I left as one long chapter, then I split the last scene off into a new chapter that I will complete tomorrow. Previously I would have kept writing, but as I have stated earlier, or certainly meant to note, I am attempting to pace myself because much remains and I will get there when I do. In the meantime, there are quilts to quilt and designs on the wall to cut fabric for and more quilts to consider, ha ha ha! Plenty to do, rain or shine. Perhaps the last of the machine quilting; I might hand-quilt the rest.   Pondering completions is a nice feeling though, in books or blankets. For the novel, the last few chapters feature big emotional payoffs, which I am itching to write, yet I'm not rushing those tear-fests. I cannot state enough how GREAT...

A colourful WIP that has grown in recent days. Sometimes the best laid plans are scuppered by a spur-of-the-moment stream of writing that seems beneficial. Seems is the key word; sometimes when I crochet, I'll start the initial row with far too many stitches, but after completing an entire row, I end up pulling out all those stitches to make the blanket or scarf less lengthy. Just now I deleted about a chapter's worth of writing, less than I thought needed the ax, which was heartening. I don't lament the missing prose; at times the muse leads one on a wild goose chase just for the fun of it. I could claim writing under the influence of over-the-counter pain meds and heaps of cough drops. My cold remains a force to contend with, although I napped this afternoon, which I never do. Throat is still sore, eyes are gunky, I'm a bit of a mess, like the writing. Not that the actual prose was cruddy, just traveling (or more rightly unraveling) in a direction I'd not foreseen...