I received two fantastic OWOH prizes in the mail yesterday.

The first was this stunning collection of photo art from Marie of Lost Aussie Designs. I tried to pick a favorite and couldn't. The best I could do was narrow it down to two that were lovely and three that were all my favorites (the tree, the birds, and the faded angel, since I know if I were you I'd be thinking "Which three!?") You can see them all, and other great images, in different posts on her blog.

Thank you Marie - I know some of these will end up framed in my home and the others will probably enjoy a spot on my bulletin board until I find the perfect use for them or the perfect person to gift them to. (Dang, how do you write that sentence so it doesn't end in a preposition?)

Next, I received a fun "keep in the car and consume in tiny bites while waiting for William to get his books out his locker or Jeff to run into the bank or Shelly to show up for our dinner date" type book by Jeanne Chambers of Life in the Along called Life is Too Short to be Ordinary.

Here's a picture of it... uhm.....

.... Rosie, what are you doing? I'm trying to take a photo....

Okay. Well, I see it's also a handy book to use as a chihuahua pillow.

Useful sans furry little companion as well, I've already dipped into the pages and found a chuckle or two. Thank you Jeanne!

I'm putting up the last of the photos from York today, both here and over on Beach Treasure. I've got to hurry up if I'm going to finish up one European holiday before I leave on the next one. (I never ever in my life thought that I would hear myself utter a comment like that! It just goes to show you never know what unexpected twists and turns your path will take!)

A growly sort of fellow


Wow, my flash on my camera is really powerful! Ha ha - not. They have spotlights on the York Minster at night.


Ruins of St. Mary's Abbey. I wonder what sort of flowering tree that is - it reminds me of the flowers on a California Buckeye - although I doubt if that's what it is. For one thing it's on a different continent entirely (is England considered part of the continent? I guess it wouldn't be, would it. It is it's own self, an island, yes?) For another thing, I've never seen a Buckeye grow that tall - although England is a lot rainier than California.



Another section of the ruins.



Another view of the York Minster



If I recall corrrectly, this little nest was tucked into a window slit of the circular stair well up to the top of the Minster. It was in some stair well in any case.


Doesn't it look like he could just leap off the building and fly away at any minute? Maybe, under the cloak of night, he really does.



A Greenman.

Don't forget to click over to Beach Treasure now to see more York scenery and shenanigans.

No, I didn't deal with my photo uploading problems. I just got a box of memory cards I ordered delivered in the mail today. Six 1GB SD cards. Why do I need six 1GB you ask? Well, because, I'm going on vacation soon and I want to take lots and lots and lots of photos. Where am I going? I'll give you a clue or two. I'm going to visit two cities - the name of one city rhymes with Laris, the name of the other city rhymes with Pondon. Can you guess? If you give up, you can click on over to Beach Treasure and read the post I put up a couple of days ago.

So, I bought all these SD cards and now I have to try them out and make sure they work properly. And I still have to deal with my photo uploading problems, by uploading and copying all the photos now currently stored on all my other SD cards, so I can bring all those SD cards with me too and take bazillions and bazillions of photos. When I'm in Pondon and Laris.

But today I didn't go any further than the supermarket on the edge of town, where I took photos of these wonderful dusty pink and lavender roses.


I liked these roses too, with the color all sealed up inside the rose until the petals unfold. Plus, I liked the little splash of green in the corner.


Now that I'm armed (with a camera) and loaded (with SD cards) and dangerous (I've got a flash and I'm not afraid to use it!), I can catch up on photographing a lot of new treasures I've been anxious to show you. I haven't had time for making any new art lately, but I have brought home some great new finds.

Psssst - Deirdre - what do you think your new photo program could do with these roses?

I won a prize from Peggy of Peggy's Mixed Up Art! blog in her OWOH giveway. It arrived in today's mail. It's a wee box, about 2-1/2" square. Isn't it cute!?

I love how the little girl has her hand on her hip and a very bossy look on her face. It's rather... cough, cough..... ME. And red too. One of my fave colors.

I opened the box to find this adorable polka dot tissue paper - I'm saving it. I'm sure I can find a use for it in my own collage work - just as soon as I can find time to clear a work space and DO some collage work.

And when I opened up the tissue paper, there was a tiny heart charm. I really like the way it's pulsing - radiating - aura glowing - however you want to describe the little rays surrounding it. It reminds me of Mexican milagros.

For the last six weeks or so I've been wearing a tiny snowman charm on a chain around my neck. I think it worked "like a charm" as we had a VERY snowy January. We're finally melting away some of that white, cold, icy stuff and getting some above freezing temps, and now that I've finally started to believe winter was fading, we've got a week's worth of snow in the weather forecast - ARGH! NO! I'm done with winter, please. I think it's definitely time to switch necklaces - I'm going to put this little heart on tomorrow.

Thanks again, Peggy, my gift is VERY MOI - I love it.

Today is the day for all the participants to announce the winners of their One World - One Heart giveway prizes. I had these three little hearts to giveaway so I needed to pick three names.


Some people picked their winners by using this random number generator. I took a look at it but then decided "nawwww", where's the fun in that? So I used a different random number generator. Here's a photo of mine -

I ask you, what could possibly generate more randomness than a teenager!? Well, okay, maybe a toddler. But still, a teen is pretty high up there on the random meter. I called William on his cell phone (I mean, what self respecting teen would be at home when you needed them?) and said "Do me a favor. Pick three numbers between, and including, 1 through 83." And he did. Didn't even ask why. 'Cause he's my kid and so he's used to his mother's odd requests and strange behavior.

I've already notified my three winners by e-mail. Congratulations to Angelika of Toscania-Art-Life, Heather of Bumblebird, and Enzie of World Market Portraits. I only wish I could clone myself, and my little hearts, so I'd have enough hearts, time, and postage to send one to each and every one of my visitors. In a perfect world, eh?

This was a lot of fun, visiting everyone else's blogs, looking forward to a mailbox full of visits from other bloggers. I'm already thinking ahead to next year - I can only assume that such a great event will be an annual phenomenon. Hopefully, next year I'll have more time to plan and I can put up my post earlier. In the meantime, I hope I'll be able to continue to visit some of the great new bloggers I've met in the last week. And those folks that visited me, please, remember, come on back round anytime. Day or night, I'm always up late. Okay, maybe not anytime near sunrise, give or take a couple hours. But anytime else, yeah, don't be a stranger!

I have finally caught up with visiting all the participants in the One World - One Heart blogger's party. And what a party it has been! Of course it's fun to enter the giveaways and fantasize about winning one of the many lovely prizes being offered. But even if I don't win a single prize, I already feel like a winner for having met so many new and wonderful bloggers. Now, if only I can find the time to return and visit some of them again. So many new friends, so little time!

It's been a whirlwind and as much fun as I've had, it's nice to come home, kick off my shoes, and relax for a bit. I feel like took off for the party at a moment's notice, leaving behind a messy house, unfinished projects, and errands to check off my To Do list. It's time to get back to my real life and get some things done.

Yet, it turned out to be time well spent.

I've spent the last 3-4 nights on the computer visiting other bloggers, almost every single one sharing their creative side, and at first I felt sort of guilty taking so much time online. Until yesterday when, I realizes that along with meeting fun new people, the blog surfing was helpful in another, unexpected way.

I tried to be selective in the giveaways I participated in. If I visited a blog but didn't comment for a chance to win their prize, it wasn't because it wasn't a thoughtful prize or because I didn't like it. It was simply because I don't have pierced ears or because I didn't know where I'd display something or because I felt guilty thinking of some international blogger having to mail something heavy to me.... any number of reasons. I figured that it was better to leave some art pieces to those participants who would truly love a piece than to just willy nilly enter all the chances. Those giveaways I did enter, I know I'd truly cherish if I was lucky enough to win.

The process of making those decisions - enter this giveway?, don't enter this giveaway? - helped me to sift through all the dozens, nay HUNDREDS, of creative mediums and genres vying for my attention, and find those that consistently make my heart thump wildly.

I read a book last year by author Eric Maisel called Deep Writing. It focused on helping writers but the idea of "deep writing" could easily apply to artists and the process of "deep creating". The theme of the book was this - that anyone can write/create. It takes time and effort and space and energy to do so. Why use all our resources, why settle for "just" writing/creating. Why not give it some thought first and choose only those projects that reach deep down inside of you and engage your soul, your heart?

It's so easy to get distracted by what other artists do, what the latest trend/genre is, what we think others will like, what we think is acceptable or saleable art. And we spend our time making/writing things we think we should make/write, that we think others will approve of or find worthy of our time. The truth is, only WE know what is worthy of our time and effort.

I had a similar, smaller epiphany a few years back about my quilting. I have the absolutely delightful pleasure of hanging with a large number of creative textile artists and quilters, many who enter competitions and deservedly win many accolades for their work. I knew that I had it in me to match any of these amazing artists, work for work, and yet I wasn't doing so. It wasn't about being capable of doing it, it was that I wasn't doing it, and no one was making that choice but me.

Instead I was busy making comfort quilts for friends and family. Time passed and brick by brick I began building a wall of guilt that I wasn't using my talents the way I SHOULD be using them. Until one day, a thought broke through and I suddenly realized that I was in fact accountable to no one but myself. I'd been complaining about not doing this or that and my friends, trying to be helpful, encouraged me to find the time, make the time. Of course this only made me feel more guilty because I knew even if I hadn't admitted it to myself yet, that nothing was truly standing in my way except a choice I'd made without knowing I'd made. I'd gotten caught up in the enthusiasm and excitement of other artist's paths without stopping to think if I even wanted to be on that same path. There they go, off to Africa, without me. Here I am, waving them goodbye. Why aren't I going with them? Not once had I asked the real question - Did I WANT to go to Africa? When I did finally take a good look at my frustrations, I realized that a very large portion of it was placed there not by others, but by me. No one was telling me or judging me, they were just trying to be encouraging because I was sending out "feeling left behind" energy. I was the one piling up the guilt.

The truth was what felt important and right at that point in time wasn't to create competitive pieces for people to ooh and ahhh over. What made my heart sing was to create simple but love filled quilts for people who needed to wrap themselves in the energy of knowing that someone cared. There were people coming into the world and leaving this world, celebrating or crying, in the quilts I made and that meant more to me than all the ribbons or awards in the world. I would have saved myself a lot of emotional wear and tear if I'd been able to think it through and say "Hey, Africa, how cool is that - have fun! I'd love to join you but, y'know what, I'm busy getting ready to take a trip to China." And then my friends would have said "Oh, cool, China. Well, you have fun too!"

Not there's anything wrong with going to Africa. I have creative awards and ribbons. They're lovely to win and display. Mine are now laying in a big dusty pile waiting for me to rehang them in the studio after some remodeling. But what made them important at the time wasn't the acknowledgement of others - although don't get me wrong, that's a fantastic feeling! - it was more importantly the sense of having accomplished something for myself, having overcome some challenge or pushed past some level I thought beyond me, going beyond my own limits and awarding myself the sense of a hard won, deserved personal victory. It was because it was the right path for me at that moment in time.

Of course one of the reasons I didn't speak of and say I was going to China was because I didn't really want to go to China. I didn't know WHERE I wanted to go. That was the problem. Did I want to go to China? Or would I rather go to Alaska? Indonesia? Cabo San Lucas? Minneapolis? I couldn't pack my bags and leave because I'd hit a point in my life where I didn't know where I wanted to travel.

I came to a decision about six or eight months ago to allow myself a year (or so) of discovery. No need to choose any directions, no need to make any long term goals. For a number of years I'd been trying to FORCE myself to find my own path and the approach was dismally and frustratingly unsuccessful. I wanted to see what happened when, instead, I greeted each day as open to an possibilities and see where it would organically take me. I haven't yet found a path with rays of light shining down on it. No neon signs flashing "This Way". But I do think this approach is working. I'm closer to finding a new direction now than I have been for a long while. I've gotten a lot done this past year, although in bits and pieces so I had to take a good look back at things to see that this was so. And I don't wake up anymore with anywhere near the weight of frustration or fear that I'm lost, that it's "too late", that I'll never find my way. I'm feeling guardedly hopeful.

For a while now, don't know how long it's been simmering, I've started to see some ideas bobbing closer to the top than others. This last half week of reading and visiting other blogs, a use of time I thought of as somewhat selfish and frivolous, has ended up being the perfect "excercise" in focusing my muse. At some point along the blogging trail the idea of "deep creating" started to accompany me. I started to visit each blog with this question in mind - who seemed to be creating from the heart, who didn't? - and more importantly - Where could I find my own deepest wellspring? I've come home from the party with a lot more blogging friends, but, happy surprise, I've also come home with a lot fewer directions calling for my attention. Flip that round, I came home with more focus. Out of the chaos comes the form.

Now I'm home, back to my real life, less frustrated at all the things I don't have time to do, and more enthusiasm and peace for working on a few more carefully chosen projects.

So - maybe it will help you to ask yourself some of the same questions about deep creating -

What purpose? What medium? What process? Small and intimate? Large and in your face? For you alone? Paint? To make a statement to the world? To seek beauty? To test the comfort zone? Quilt? To find reality? To step outside of reality and create new ground? Decorate? To simplify? Expand? Sing? Move through grief? Find joy?

What makes your heart thump wildly?

I'm completely hooked on visiting all the other One World - One Heart participants. To say I'm getting little else done is, alas, an accurate accusation.

I've been cooking though - that's always a shocking accomplishment these days. Once I get back into the swing of things, I really enjoy cooking. But with all the coming and going over the last few years, and hubby working swing shift and William thinking most of my menus are highly suspect, it's just hard to build up any enthusiasm for cooking for, most of the time, myself.

I'm also still working on my gray cowl scarf and I am cautiously excited because it appears, now that I'm about a quarter of the way finished and there's enough to see to figure it out, that I am indeed doing it correctly. I'm rather amazed at that. Give me a sticker! Applaud me! I feel like I'm two years old and proudly showing off that I put my pants on ALL BY MYSELF!!! I'll try to take a photo to show you the progress. Soon. Maybe tonight will be the night I get my photo mess worked out.

Since I always feel bad if I don't have a visual for you, I'll end by sharing two rather pretty views of the York Minster. They go along with another holiday photo post I've put up on Beach Treasure today. Go check it out for more photos of the Shambles.

A lot of my favorite bloggers are participating in this lovely networking project - One World, One Heart. The idea is for bloggers to meet and greet other bloggers. Each participant rewards their fellow bloggers by offering a free giveaway to anyone who leaves a comment on their One World, One Heart post.

I spent several hours last night cruising the list of participants - which you can find on the project site, just click on the image or title link above. I certainly left comments for some of the lovely giveaways offered, but more importantly, I spend some time with old blogging friends (some I visit regularly, some I haven't had a chance to visit in awhile) and met some wonderful new bloggers who I hope to add to my list of inspiring blogs to visit whenever I can find a minute or two minutes or sixty eleven hundred minutes.

I was so inspired by the variety of blogs and prizes I came across, I wanted to spend part of today finding or making something to offer in return. I was going to make something but then I found the perfect treasure at the thrift store when I stopped there on my way home from a couple of errands.


We're supposed to share hearts. Look what I found - HEARTS! The photo is lousy, sorry 'bout that. Still haven't fixed my photo storage issues. But trust me, these little hearts pins are so sweet. I didn't make them, but they are obviously handmade with love and attention to detail. Some have ribbon flowers, some are button flowers. Approximately 3" X 3", perfect to wear on your coat or sweater from Valentines Day through spring and on into summer. They'd be equally cute being held by teddy or doll, or used in some other decorative fashion. I have one pinned to my scarf at the moment.

I'm going to keep one each (button/ribbon) - one for myself and one for a friend - and send a heart off to three lucky bloggers. All you have to do to enter to win one is leave a comment here on this post. You must have an active blog of your own to participate. Make sure your comment links back to an e-mail or to your own blog where I can post a comment to contact you. I'll pull the names of three lucky winners at the same time as everyone else - on the evening of February 13.

Of course, if you're new to my little corner of the web, I hope you also take the opportunity to browse more of my posts either now or later when you have more time to visit. You can also hop on over to my general blog, Beach Treasure. I'm a bit more of a blabbermouth over there and since a lot more people read that blog regularly, I'm having a separate One World - One Heart giveaway there too!

Here's what I've been working on lately and what I'm using as my efforts for the last couple of days of Thing-a-Day.


What you see in this not-very-clear photo is a very pretty skein of gray angora yarn and a pair of double ended needles with knitting that wraps around and around. It will, hopefully, knock on wood, if I've done it properly, be a moebius scarf/cowl.

I thought it would be super easy. Just cast on a bunch of stitches onto circular needles and then twist them once before connecting them into a ring. WRONG! I had to do a bunch of net surfing and reading before I understood why that wouldn't work. Because it creates a 360 degree twist and what I wanted to make was only a 180 degree twist. After more reading and heaving thinking (the hardest part, oh my old brain hurts!), I decided I was as unconfused as I was likely to get and I started the project. This blog post was very helpful because it provided a few step-by-step photos and this site was helpful because it gave the most detailed instructions. There may be many more helpful sites out there, but that's as far as I got before picking up my needles with not a small amount of trepidation.

The yellow you see in the photo are the stitches I cast on. They are not a permanent part of the scarf. When the scarf is completed, the yellow stitches will be snipped or pulled out. The oddest part of this whole project is that there is no front and back, no SIDES, and you knit it from the inside out to the the edges. After the first round of gray stitches, I had to knit the second round into the bottom of the first round, intead of the top round that are looped around the needle already, and then leave that first round on the needles while picking up a new round of stitches, doubling how many stitches I have on the needles and coiling the needles around each other in two loops. Confused yet? If that made no sense to you, don't worry, it didn't make sense to me the first half dozen times I tried to understand it either.

The first several rounds were really hard to maneuver. It's getting a bit easier now that I've gone round for a bit and there's some stretch between the two coils. The scariest thing about this project is that you don't get to see it unwrapped and working until it's done and cast off the needles. So I'm knitting this on BLIND FAITH. Ack! I sure hope I'm doing this correctly!

My big plans for Thing-a-Day, and for my own benefit, was to spend tedious but necessary hours transferring years worth of photos from my overstuffed photo program and filled SD cards into multiple storage - uploading them to online storage, burning "hard copy" CD's of the files, and then moving them onto an external hard drive so I could delete them from my program and the cards and have S P A C E to once again unleash my digital muse. However we've had more stormy nights (and days) and the power flickering on and off, so it seemed like a bad time to undertake any computer projects. Maybe tonight, as I am looking out the window and see the oddest color in the sky - BLUE!

However I did search through my latest SD card and deleted a few photos I didn't care about to give me room to shoot a half dozen new photos. I had visited another blog yesterday (which I was going to link to but my Bloglines list seems to have eaten it and I can't FIND it! ARGH.) showing photos of some winter garden pots. The winter shown being a San Francisco Bay Area winter, all green and misty. It inspired me to take a couple photos of my own winter garden pots which, now that I've set you up, you won't see here - I've posted them over on Beach Treasure. But I do have a couple more that I thought turned out artsy to show you below.

Tracks

Snowed In

Last night I decided to work on a quilt. I worked on "piecing" it together and finished in one go. Oh, okay, so it was a quilt puzzle.


I used to do a lot of puzzles. Sometimes alone or with my kids while we watched television in the evening, sometimes with my mom out at her place. But since my mom has moved away and I quilt, which I think has a lot of similarities to puzzle making, I don't do puzzles very often. I don't have the time. Or rather, if I'm going to spend that sort of time on something, I'd rather piece together quilt blocks and end up with something permanent for my efforts. But last night I was feeling a bit "under the weather" and so it was pleasant doing nothing much useful. They do say that puzzle making is good for keeping one's brain sharp as we age though, so I guess it was a teensy bit useful.

I've been working on my tan and pastel scarf and I finished it tonight while watching American Idol. I was a bit apprehensive when I first started it that the yarn wasn't really right for scarfmaking, but it ended up very soft and comfy. I like it.


It's a nice size, thick and wide enough to wear with a coat but not actually as large as it looks in this photo and so it's nice to wear inside (it was -4 degrees last night and supposed to be just as cold tonight!) because it's not so long that it will fall forward into the sink or my coffee or whatever I'm trying to work on. The green of the bathroom walls skews the color a bit, it's more accurate in the photo below.

I wanted something in brown and beige neutrals. Adding the pastels makes it less flexible in my wardrobe, but I like how it came out. I like how knitting it horizontally made these unusual vertical rows. I switched colors somewhat randomly and I also left the fringe in random lengths to add to the raggedy look.

I still have to make something in only neutrals. Maybe a darker brown. I just couldn't find any browns I liked at the time. I also want to find a really fuzzy, soft white and make a white scarf. I haven't worked on the gray mohair scarf because I decided to rip it out and start over again on the circular needles I used for this scarf and make it a twisted cowl instead. So, that's next.

Oh, and being a night owl has a few perks. Late, late, late at night.... or if you'd prefer, early, early, early in the morning, I discovered our cable channel DIY airs a show called Knitty Gritty. Check it out, they have patterns and videos of the shows online. They also have a quilting, general crafts, and a scrapbooking show as well. I don't want to stay up so late on a regular basis, but I'll try to set it up to video tape so I can watch the shows at a more reasonable hour.

York Minster Gargoyles

I'm trying to finish up the Photolog of our trip to Europe. It's coming up on two years this May so it's time to wrap them up. Originally I was showing the more artsy photos here and the touristy ones over on Beach Treasure but the last handful of posts I've just put them all up over there. You can find them all on Beach Treasure by typing in "Holiday Photos #" and they should all pop up for you. I put some up about a week ago and more today. I hope to remember to post them even more often in order to get through them all. Go see.

It's been snowing on and off, on and off, for what seems like forever. I posted a couple of photos and waxed on about it on Beach Treasure yesterday. I can't remember what a sunny day feels or looks like. Still, I'm not complaining. Some winters I feel the need to work with bright colors to offset the winter gloom. But not this year. At least not yet. I'm sure I'll be yearning for green eventually but for now I'm enjoying these soft, monotone landscapes. In fact I'm feeling compelled to do a small quilt piece based on the muted colors of the season. To that end, I turned the heater on in the studio this afternoon so that it would be warm enough to work in when I got home tonight from dinner out with the family.

I did get into the studio and it was warm enough (with a sweater) but I hadn't realized I'd left it in such a mess still from all the holiday visitors. There was no way to even reach my fabrics, much less a clean surface on which to spread them out or do any cutting. So, unfortunately, my enthusiasm was thwarted.

The good news, I didn't just turn off the heater and go watch television. No, I stuck it out, sorting and cleaning. (Well, I did turn on the television in the studio while I was working.) Got almost everything organized into piles. I still have an hour or two in front of me getting each of these piles into the appropriate storage boxes. I might not have actually done any art but at least I'm moving in the right direction. Even though it's not perfect, once everything that's sorted is stored away, I'll at least be able to reach most everything in the room, including my fabric.

I don't have any photos of my cleaning efforts, but I can share these I took this evening.

This little fellow was all fluffled up against the cold.

I particularly like the very subtle changes in background color behind the lace foreground of lacey branches.

If you pop on over to Beach Treasure for a minute and check out the photos I put up today, you'll see why our family is mostly lounging about, cuddling in our new Minkee blankets.

Charlie and Mongo have the right idea. Keep warm.

I haven't been doing much creatively. This whole month I've just felt like hibernating with that aforementioned new blanket, a stack of books, and a big pot of tea wrapped up in it's own warm cozy. So that's mostly what I've done. Oh sure, I've done some grocery shopping, cleaning, laundry, even some cooking. I've got the holiday decorations almost all packed up and ready to be dragged back out to the garage. As you can see, I haven't done much blogging.

It just hasn't felt like the beginning of a new year bursting with creative possibility yet. It feels more like a time to lay fallow, a time to wait for it to get a bit warmer before trusting any seeds to survive the germination process. Creatively, I've settled for snapping a few photos and then wrapping back up in my blanket to do a bit of knitting. Totally basic stuff.


I started this fuzzy, gray mohair scarf and then set it aside, perhaps to finish, perhaps to pull apart and use the yarn for something else. Or maybe pull it apart and try it again on smaller needles. It's looser than I wanted it to be.

Instead I started this. Not sure if you can see it well all scrunched up on the circular needles. It's a cotton scarf knit horizontally instead of vertically, if that makes sense. I'm using the two yarns to make an uneven vertical stripe, making it up as I go along. I almost pulled it apart after the first six rows or so as it felt too stiff, a bad choice of yarn for a scarf and the reverse of the gray yarn, knit too tightly. It was hard to tell since I couldn't stretch it out, so I decided to treat it as an experiment and keep on knitting. I'm thinking now it will be fine, it's more pliable than it was, but it's certainly different than a fuzzier, softer yarn. When these two skeins are used up, that's how thick the scarf will be. We shall see.

With the BIG STORM (see news coverage of your choice for Northern California) and all the power outages we've been having, I've got a hankering to do me some knitting the last few days. I mean, one can only read by candlelight for so many hours. Knitting by candlelight isn't completely easy either but I figured as long as I didn't attempt anything with a pattern, it wouldn't matter.

So, a scarf. I've discovered I'm lacking a few colors in my scarf wardrobe - purple (although since I rarely wear purple, this is probably not a problem - although now that I've said it outloud I think it will bother me that I don't have a purple scarf - damn), beige and/or browns, and white. Yellow too, now that I think about it. Double dang. Moving on. I had a skein of fluffy white yarn I'd bought a couple winter's ago to make a scarf and hat (I know, I can't make both a scarf and hat from one skein - I was going to make the scarf and go back for more yarn for the hat) as a gift for someone. But then that someone went and bought themselves a matching white scarf and hat set so that blew that idea out of the water. I kept the skein anyway because it wasn't worth the trouble to find the receipt to bring it back for a couple of bucks. I decided to find this skein of white yarn and make a scarf for me.

Looking through a monster pile of craft supplies for ONE white skein of yarn in the dark with only the pale, low battery light of a cheap flashlight isn't a particularly useful way to find anything. (Note - one of my 2008 resolutions is to get all my craft supplies organized) I didn't find the white skein but I did find a bag of beautiful mohair yarn I bought in assorted colors to make all the girls ponchos a few years back when ponchos were in style. Of course I never got around to making all of them and now ponchos seems to have gone back to the style archives where things like shoulder pads and midriff shirts are lurking (and waiting - shudder) - although surprisingly enough, leg warmers seem to have come out of hiding again. Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah, so I didn't make the ponchos. Well, I did finish one and then my mom said "If you're pretending you made this for Lisa and you're saying we're about the same size so you can measure me for her but you really are making it for me, well, I'm sorry honey but I wouldn't wear something like that." So. Uhm. Yeah. And I've got one started for myself and halfway through hit a point where I could take a left or right turn and make a shawl or scarf instead of plowing straight ahead and making a poncho and I can't decide and so there it sits at the intersection of indecision. But ANYWAY, I have all these other lovely colors, including three multi-color skeins in a white/gray/black palette. I don't have a gray scarf either. I pulled it out, found myself a pair of pretty wooden needles and started a scarf.

I've started it twice now. First time I realized after several rows that it was wider than I wanted it. Ripped it out and started over. Now I'm about five inches into it and think that it's a looser weave than I'd like. I'll probably start it over again tonight on smaller needles. Or maybe... now that I think about it, maybe I did eventually return the white yarn and maybe I'll go back to Walmart (only place in town that sells yarn, sorry to say) and buy myself some fuzzy white yarn and make a white scarf after all. It will be easier to see in the dark if, knock on wood, the lights go out again.

I just did another daylight dig through my supplies, both in the studio and garage, and I'm pretty certain that I did return that yarn. What a mess. What a lot of stuff. This leads me to the uncomfortable thought that maybe another resolution for this year should be not to buy any new supplies until I've used all the stuff I already own - a noble idea that I know to be doomed even as I type this, and which I would pretend to start after going and buying a skein of white yarn anyway, but which might still be a good resolution to make with the understanding that the objective is to see how few times I can break it rather than trying not to break it at all. Hmmmm.

Well, anyway. I'm off to Walmart to buy some white yarn.

Back in November I discovered a lovely new (to me) blogger, Susan, of Black Eyed Susan's Kitchen . She was having a little.... well, not so little actually... raffle. All you had to do to enter was leave a comment. Well, I was going to leave a comment anyway but LOOK! I won the raffle!


She sent off this entire box of lovely books and magazines. They arrived before the holidays went into full swing but I've been so busy that I only tonight had the opportunity to pull them out and start browsing through them. The Tiffany Table Settings is very retro, fun to browse just for the "history" of it. Crafting Vintage Style has several craft patterns in it that I'd hoped to find online and now I don't have to go to the bother to find them. I'll probably read the magazines next - I've never even scene a Canadian House & Home magazine before - probably because I live three states away from the border. And I'm saving the best for last, I love flea market and junk crafting - LOVE it. Thanks Susan!

You might think you've seen this next photo before but, au contraire. I did show you my holiday mantel earlier but I've added something to it.

The VERY large candlesticks. It's really hard to get a proper perspective on the size of them here. They're really more like pillars than candlesticks - about 28" tall. They aren't specifically holiday themed but they were in the clearance sale of holiday items at my favorite decor shop in town. Even on sale they were pricey but I really loved them and they're perfect for the mantel. They look fantastic with the decorations but they'll stay up after I take down the rest of the glitter and gold. They're too tall to put candles atop them - I'm thinking of adding glass balls or maybe drape some fake grapes over the top.

The angels face each other. This one looks left.

And the other one looks right. There really isn't any of the gray this photo shows, I think it just looks like that from the flash reflection. The color matches my tall new lamp perfectly. Aren't they beautiful!?

Another winged creature to show you, this sweet little fairy. She was a teensy bit pricey before Christmas so I waited and got her at half price after Christmas.

Our holiday family/company have all finally departed and soon it will be time to dismantle the decorations. I used to take everything down on New Year's Day but for the last decade or so I've waited until Jan. 6 so we could relax and enjoy everything after the crazy activities were finally over. Some years even later. Somewhere I read that it was tradtional to burn the holiday greens on Imbolc, known to most folks as Groundhog Day, so nowadays I figure I've got until at least the end of the month before it becomes an urgent task.

I wanted to put up a post over at Beach Treasure with my New Year's reso...I don't like the word "resolutions"... let's use the word "goals". Resolutions have a bad reputation for being forgotten, abandoned, and embarrassing. Goals on the other hand seem more a useful and helpful selection of purposeful direction. Not only is it a new year, but in a week's time it will be my birthday, I'll be 51. I've always liked how my birthday falls neatly in the start of each year, no troublesome need to keep track of calendar years and biological years separately. I decided a year is long enough to figure out the territory in the second half of a century, it's time to start working towards some new accomplishments over here.

The problem is I've had a house full of family and activities for weeks and weeks on end and I haven't really had any down time to speak of, in which to reflect and choose some new goals and directions. Sometimes I feel like Pooh Bear, who finds thinking requires great effort, and who is easily distracted by pots of honey and visitations of friends and fearful thoughts of heffalumps and woozels. I am very much in need of some uninterupted peace and quiet at my very own thinking spot.
Until I find that time, I thought I could at least make a list of creative goals I'd like to throw into the arena for consideration. How much I'll acomplish this year will depend greatly on which directions I choose to go. I'm still undecided how much time I want to spend hanging out with WORDS and how much time I want to buddy up with IMAGES. It's like having two very dear friends battling to be given the title of BFF (Best Friend Forever). I don't want to choose. But I don't know how to split my time between them and they tend to bicker and wrestle between the two of them. About midway through last year I'd had just about as much as I could take and I made a pronouncement that I wasn't going to allow myself to be pressured to make a decision just yet. I would spend my time as I pleased with both, or either, or neither, with no expectations. I'm still in that floating undecided place.


But let's pretend, just for this one night, that I have unlimited time. A time turner perhaps, like Hermione, so I can take all the classes at Hogwarts and I don't have to choose. With a time turner I could make all sorts of grand goals.

A Wish List of Visual Art Goals for 2008

I want to spend less time buying supplies and more time using them.

I want to get my supplies organized enough so I can actually FIND them when I need them.

I want to finish UFO's.

I want to join a few online swaps or challenges that will help me stretch and reach out beyond my comfort level. Just enough swaps to be fun, not so many that I'm stressed for time or lose sight of personal projects.

I'm not at a point in my life where I feel the need for an organized artist's group but I would love to have a half dozen or so scheduled days or evenings in the year to get together with a friend or two and create together. My daughter-in-law is usually up for this sort of fun. My friends Shelly and Shirley would be fun to create with too, if only we could fit our schedules together somewhere!

Still going with the fantasy "anything is possible" goal, I'd love to create a body of work large enough to show at our local county arts council. On a more realistic level, I'd like to create enough work to at least participate in a group showing by the end of the year.

I'd like to select, enlarge, and frame some of my favorite photography.

I'm not much of a class taking type, but I'd love to go on an artist's retreat.

I'd like to feel free to create simple crafts without guilt that I should be making something "fancier" or more "sophisticated". Just plain ol' FUN time - bring out the pom poms, Elmer's Glue, poster paints, charm squares, and popsicle sticks.

I'd like to finish (finish being a relative term as a home is always an evolving space) the decorating changes and upgrades I started in 2007. (This fits as both a creative goal and a more general, practical life goal.)

I'd like to learn some new techniques.

I'd like to make time to visit more art museums and galleries. Since I'm fantasizing, I'd love to visit artist's studios as well.

Of course the time turner would make it possible for me to visit all the inspiring blogs I wanted and still have time to shower, clean house, and cook delicious and nutritious meals every night for my family. (snort! now we're really talking fantasy!)

I'd like to get back into sketching and painting.

I'd like to paint some murals in my home.

I'd like to knit, quilt, make textile art, photography, collage and assemblage art, altered books, garden art, and art dolls. Oh yeah, I don't want much. And of course, write a novel or two and travel extensively and remodel my home and gardens and read all the books I want and.....so on, ad infinitum.

I'd like to (ideally, magically with no effort whatsoever) learn how to use Photoshop. If that doesn't work, I'd like to take a class at our local community college that helps me learn to use it.

I want to make at least two fantastic costumes for myself for the Faerieworld Festival.

I want to spend more time reading my art books and magazines instead of just stacking and restacking them after cat attacks.

I want to have more work to show and share here and I want to create an ever more inspiring and welcoming blog that will keep me in touch with all the wonderful artists in the Blogging world. Yes, each and every single one of you. So, like, now I'm like Santa, with magical powers to visit the entire globe in a single night. Only unlike Santa, who only attempts it one night out of the year, I'd like to do it at least once a week or so.

Okay, now I'm just being silly. Time to call it quits for the night. It's getting late and my brain is becoming even more Pooh-like.

So. What are your creative goals for this bright and shiny new year?

I made myself a pot of tea this afternoon. Chocolate orange truffle black tea, one of the many wonderful blends I brought home this summer from a little shop in Ashland, Oregon called Alchemy Botanicals. I spent a happy hour browsing their wall of bulk teas, filling little bags with samples of Chocolate Orange Truffle, Redwood Chai, Moonlight Spice, California Fields, Leaves of Provence, Pear Caramel, Rose White .... I'd give you a link to the tea but unfortunately I don't remember the company name and the little label stickers on the bags only have the name of the shop on them.

I discovered the shop a few years ago on one of our trips to the Shakespeare Festival and the moment I walked through the door I felt like I'd passed through a time portal. It smelled like the classrooms and gardens of the California School of Herbal Studies, where I spent a lovely summer apprenticeship many long, long years ago. Talking with the owner of the shop I discovered it wasn't a coincidence, she had also studied there. Ahhh, good memories. Anyway, back to this afternoon's tea...

I needed it to stay warm for awhile since I was cleaning and puttering, so I used the new tea cozy my mom sent to me. Isn't it pretty? I really like the style. I've never seen anything like it before. I've seen the old fashioned "toaster cover" style that simply sits over the tea pot but not under it, like the ones shown here. And the popular gathered version that you have to "dress" your tea pot in, like these. This one is slightly different. It has a bottom and is pulled together on the top like the gathered version, but is less fussy to fit. You simply set your tea pot inside the two sides and slip the elasticized band over them to keep it together. It seems to keep the tea warmer than the toaster style but is easier to use than the gathered style. My mom said they came in two sizes, I think this is the smaller of the two sizes.

This isn't a decoration. It's my gift from my husband. I tried to make it a decoration because it was sooooo pretty, wrapped up not by my all thumbs husband but by my favorite gift shop. Don't you love the black and white paper? And the glittery ribbon and retro card!? I tried to hang on to it but the family forced me to open it.

Inside was a pretty new tea pot with matching creamer and sugar bowl. New tea set. The local tea room was closed. There was only one thing to do.

Set up my own tea party.

Isn't the green pattern pretty? And I've had this great little tea spoon for a long time, just sliding around at the bottom of the utensil drawer.

My new demitasse peppermint striped cup and saucers from Starbucks this year. They were on sale for $3 a cup. I didn't realize when I purchased them that they were so tiny. When I opened them up I figured they wouldn't be very useful but they'd still make great decorations. Surprisingly, they worked out just fine. You just have to pour twice as often, that's all.

I got to use my my ..... don't know what you call the little butterfly. It holds the little sponge under the spout and keeps drips from hitting the tablecloth. Not to mention, it's pretty too.

A tea cup full of starlight.

"This tea party thing is fun Papa!"

"And this tea cup is juuuuuust the right size for little ol' me. Slurrrrrp."

On second thought, it was worth opening the pretty boxes to find such a lovely afternoon stuffed inside.