winter garden

the garden calls to me in the winter with a full deep voice. sultry. seducing me. making me twirl with desire. so that i am desperate to feel warm earth under my nails. and when may warms my skin, i dig and rake and trim and haul. and then rarely touch the garden after the june lavender harvest. until february leaves me spinning and frantic to garden again.

beating rain and a singing sewing machine

a full day in the studio today. mostly dark and gray, heavy rain and wind wheezing around the house. i finished a quilt and made another quilt top. and then enjoyed an hour or two taking photos of items to list in my shop. and then suddenly the light shifted and from the back window there was this stunning tangle of branches and stone and sky and light.

i listed a boy baby quilt as well as a gorgeous girl baby quilt and i added several baby bloomers.

i will try to finish some embroidery to list tomorrow. but first i need to clean the kitchen and make myself a cup of chamomile tea.

since christmas i've been doing alot of paper stuff. the kind of work that i can lose myself in for days and days with piles of yellowed pages fluttering all around me. but last week i made a few quilts. and realized how it balances me to make a few quilts a week. i have a bright one listed on etsy. and a neutral one as well. quilts make me happy.

for the past several summers i've been saving all the chipped and jagged little eggs we find cushioned in the grass. it's always such a dreamy little thrill to find one, that i began taking them home, cradled in my hand and collecting them in a lovely little robin's egg blue tea cup and saucer. they are so delicate and always seem warm to touch and steeped with the scents of summer. in january it makes summer seem real again to look into a cup of baby bird eggs.

this house is beautiful and intriguing to me. i love it`s sagging eyes, it`s boarded over door, and the paint that has faded and chipped and refused to be any distinguishable color. i think i love this house for it`s defiance. it`s rebellion. it stands proud and refuses to believe that it`s anything other than strong and beautiful. i love this house. we found it a couple of years ago, without realizing it had a twin. but yesterday as we drove further up the road....only about half a mile....we found the same house, that had recently been restored. certainly brought back to it`s original beauty. the same slight curve on the front windows. the deep box around the front door. with wonderful detailed moulding. the same angle to the peak of the front dormer. all of it distinct. and identical. were these houses built together by two family members? i love this little discovery. although my favorite is the faded one with hay in the front yard, this certainly celebrates new beginnings.

we had a great 2oo9 and i hope for happiness and wonder for all in 2o1o. happiest of new years to you all.

i'm spending this week cleaning out drawers, reorganizing closets, throwing away things that we've been keeping out of habit for a decade. all the things that are keeping our house from functioning smoothly. i draw no inspiration from tv shows that make heros out of nazi organizers, or that take rooms and strip them into vacuous lifeless boxes full of color coordinated department store crap. i draw inspiration from my own home. i love my home. i just need to get rid of the stuff i don't use, need or love. my wall of books in the dining room is perfection for me. if i ever try to over-organize this, something has gone terribly wrong in my brain. this is the top half of my wall of books. the bottom section is 2 feet deep to hold all my large art books. books are the foundation of my life and our house is built around finding homes for them. one of my favorite book features is the built in bookshelf on one wall of our staircase. when we were restoring our 150 year old limestone house, i felt such excitement when i saw the inside of the walls, the lathe and plaster, the beams....i didn't want it all covered up again forever. so, on the staircase, we removed the top layer of plaster, exposing the joists and lathe & plaster of the other wall. in the several inches between we created shelves. i love glancing over my books every time i run up the stairs, and seeing 150 year old plaster oozing between the thin strips of wood holding it all in place.i have learned to shelve my books two layers deep, where i can. i have a fabulous old corner cupboard that i absconded from my parents garage. my father had kept his tools and gardening equipment in it for 30 years. but i thought it was much better suited to books. it's about 7 feet tall and full of books, 2 layers deep.i'm also firm in my belief that my books need to be surrounded with all the other curiousities that i find interesting. so they are at times haplessly thrown together. but it works for me. i need/want to see all the things around me that i love. in fact, several years ago, i decided to take the dors off our kitchen cupboards so i could see things better. i find if i don't see the things around me, i forget they are there. this is so much more manageable for me. but back to the books. there are so many. and i love each of them. this summer when i was moving studios i moved books with the wheelbarrow, loaded on a blanket to keep the remnants of dirt out of their pages. i still have the garage stacked high with the books i haven't moved. that will be a project for next summer. but the book room at chasing lightning bugs studio has enough beautiful piles that it is a perfect winter hideaway.and now back to organizing. and cleaning and preparing our house and our books for a new year.