Fresh off the Sewing Table

Sometimes I'll find a scrap of fabric and it talks to me. It tells me what it wants to be. This furry scrap wanted to be a bear with a pretty scarf. So off I went to fulfill the scrap's destiny. The pillow behind the bear was recently made from fabric that my mom brought back from China maybe twenty-five years ago or more. Could there be a truer red?

Nobel Peace Prize

First Wangari and now Al. Yeay!

Read Al Gore's acceptance speech.

Sustainability?

A link from Treehugger directed me to an article in the New York Times by Michael Pollan (an author I admire!) called, Our Decrepit Food Factories. Aside from the alarming struggles that bees go through, amongst other relevations, Pollen focuses on the over/irrelevant use of the word sustainability . This has been a source of irritation to me for over two decades how the use of sustainability, without regard to its essential meaning, is used as a badge of affirmation and elevated status. Michael Pollan is well qualified to speak to the issue and he draws in disparate examples to make his point, as he did so well in the novel The Botany of Desire. Back in my younger designer days there were architects that latched on to the term with such a firm grip that seemed so disingenuous. Today the term has come to have no meaning when our local main street streetscape plan is labeled sustainable. When the the shopping district will be ripped up from end to end, costing millions of dollars (adding 20 years of public debt to the tax roles), and requiring massive amounts of new materials for the redesign of the perfectly functional existing street the term is a joke. Labeling the design sustainable seems to brand it with a healthy honorific glow beneath it's deceptive appearance.

to all

Country Wreath

Only two ingredients this year: variegated holly + hawthorn berries. I love looking around the garden to see what inspires me from year to year. Most years the wreath starts out with a redwood base (oh the fragrance!) and lots of ornamental evergreens are added, but this year I thought I'd keep it super simple. My wreaths are never the perfect circles like you see sold at the grocery store, but hey, this is a home made country garden wreath with character. Good thing I bought some new gardening gloves since the holly prickery leaves and those four inch hawthorn thorns are not something skin wants to come in contact with, YIKES!
I'm surprised that the Crataegus berries are still around. The robins swooped in one day and devoured the Ilex berries, the gorgeous purple Calicarpa berries, the white with a blush of pink Sorbus forestii berries (such a lovely sight in fall with their scarlet and cadmium orange leaves against the white droops of fruit), and the lovely orange Sorbus alnifolia berries. The birds have left the Pyracantha, Rosa, and Crataegus berries for now. I think they are waiting for their sugars to ferment a bit longer for some nice ice wine flavors for a new year's treat. While hanging the wreath at the front door I saw the peregrine again. He took off after a meal in a hurry. Hope it wasn't one of my sweet song birdies that visit my feeders.

Nutcracker

I don't think there could possibly be a better production of the Nutcracker
than by the Pacific Nortwest Ballet.
I looooove the Maurice Sendak stage sets!
What a treat!
I wish I didn't have such a yucky cold right now, so I could have enjoyed it more thoroughly.
Thank you Miss Nini for taking all of us.

Crash

Our tree crashed to the floor in the middle of the night
and some of the prettiest ornaments were smashed to smithereens.
This is just a fraction of the broken glass everywhere.
Oh well.

Let The Decorating Begin!

the signal flags say, "merry christmas"

i love getting out my favorite toys around this time of year. i would play with these for hours on end while growing up (must have influenced my interest in urban design!). whenever i find new tyrolean wooden pieces i just can't resist adding a few more to the village collection.

Happy December!

I love snow!

Thanks

Ahhh, so much yummy food to enjoy in a warm house with healthy family all home for the holiday...that's a lot to be thankful for. Happy belated Thanksgiving to all!
Our new bunny is inside enjoying some running around time. And he has a name that passes the approval threshold of the 4-H bunny girl. She wanted a Spanish name for him so the name that I came up with, Carlos del Huerto, was met with surprising glee. My husband prefers the first name that I gave the little albino, Fred. Fred/Carlos's fur has become much softer now that he has good nutrition. And he is no longer skin and bones as he was found in the garden. Oh, "del huerto" means of the vegetable garden, where I found this little sweetie.
The best part of Thanksgiving is all the left-overs that make for hearty munching for many days with little effort. Yeay. I could go for another piece of Marionberry pie. Wow the crust was perfect thanks to the baking skills of the bunny-girl. She even cut out pieces of crust in leaf shapes to decorate the top of the pie. How festive and beautiful. I'm a proud mama.

Latest Knitting

My latest knitting project is a wisp of a sweater. It's an old Rowan pattern and is made of mohair and merino. The pattern is simple but knits up in a manner that I have never employed before. The merino knits up on a large circular needle and when finished with the row the stitches are slid to the other end and the mohair is picked up again for three rows on smaller straight needles. It will be a cardigan without buttons.
A light spring or summer sweater.

Visual AIDS

The Visual AIDS Postcards from the Edge exhibit is coming up on World AIDS Day, December 1st. Here's my submission for this year.
It's called, "You Found Me After All These Years". I had to give up my white New Zealand rabbit when I went away to college, and when I found a young albino rabbit in our vegetable garden last weekend it was as if my bunny had returned to me after thirty years.

This postcard has a crocheted mohair skirt, needle felted wool hair, cotton batting bunny and cotton + linen applique. This is the third year I have made a postcard for the annual show.

Halloween in a Greedy World

No one ever trick or treats for UNICEF anymore!
Why?
What ever happened to empathy
towards the rest of the world
on the night of total indulgence?

All of our pumpkins were home grown this year and what a crop is has been! We have quite the stash of roasted pumpkin seeds. Pumpkins must have been a revered crop for the Pilgrams. I looked up the nutritional value of those seeds and the protein, fat and calorie content is enormous. What a perfect food machine. Ours will become pies, cookies, muffins and bread.

The Visitor

I looked out the window on Sunday afternoon and saw a little white bunny munching away in the vegetable garden . I went out there right away to try to catch it and to my great surprise it allowed me to get close and pick it right up without any kicking or biting (I'm the bunny whisperer!). He is a young ruby-eyed white something or other (if it's a pure breed it could be a New Zealand). I put up a sign in the neighborhood and called the local animal shelter but no one so far is missing him. He is so sweet and gentle! He came to the right garden to be loved instead of eaten by coyotes.

A Peek in the Garden

Can You Guess What Cities?

Some favorite places.
Oil on canvas.
Each 4 x 4".
©

i migliori a roma

For the November show at Gallery Fraga I made this piece called, "I Migliori A Roma". The theme for the show is five (for the gallery's fifth anniversary). My piece is about my five favorite places in Rome (Pantheon, Palazzo Spada, Campidolio, Fontana di Trevi, Piazza del Popolo). I love maps and have wanted to paint maps for quite some time. This map is in silk, cotton, nylon and rayon however. Il Tevere, the river, offers some orientation to the map along with hints of major roads, parks and Il Vaticano.
Happy Anniversary Kathe + Jeff! Cheers.

Wow, It's Been A While!

Now that I am taking my medication regularly I am back to my regular old self again at last! Gee, it has been quite some time since I have felt normal. I hate taking medicine and so I wasn't taking it consistently, not an effective way to manage pain. So happily, I return to the living again. Funny how inspired I have become since regaining my old self. For the past months I felt so void of inspiration and lust for creativity. But it's back in a big way and I am ready to cook, well, make stuff rather.
Here's what I finished yesterday:It was made without a pattern and in an improvisational mode. Just sewing away and seeing what happens next.Here's the other side that has a zippered pocket with more Kaffe Fassett fabric (ooh that is delightful stuff) as the lining.
The saffron harvest is ongoing. There is something so enchanting about plucking the stamens out of a crocus blossom and then watching those crimson threads stain a pot of risotto.
Before this glorious sunshine disappears I am off to plant some grape hyacinth bulbs imagining their fragrance in spring.

Year of the Pumpkin

It is one fantastic year for pumpkins. Quantity, size, color...it's all there waiting for pies, bread, cookies, and carving. Shown are cinderella pumpkins that ripen to nearly red in ideal years like this one. This is Pistacia chinensis....oh isn't fall delightful!

i fiori del oggi

Questi sono i fiori dello mio giardino.