there is wind curling all around the house. it makes deep shadowed sounds against the stone walls and into the living room chimney. hollow and vibrant. it makes music with the giant spring that tries to keep the door of the front porch closed. and picks up the door and slams it. the moon is large and dramatic. dancing with the layered changling clouds and the thick black branches. there is a sudden high pitched scream of the wind through a flag pole. the sort of sound we hear in the summer when the boats and the wind become a possessed sort of choir. but our harbour's boats are quiet and still in their winter poses. silenced in their tombs. now i will head up the stairs to my crowded warm bed. with the baritone roar fresh in my ears. and there will be scraping of branches across the the little bedroom window. with the moon smiling from behind. the distant sound of waves cracking. and the contented sounds of sleepy tom and sleeping cats.

what will today be? i'll be sewing tunics. i know that. i'd like to tidy and organize my sewing room but that will be a future endeavor. there are predictions of a warm and sunny day, so i'll take edgar along the lake. and i'll make things to fill the studio for our sale on sunday. i'm looking forward to it. i feel the spring-ness of it. i feel the spring in these tunics that i draw on butcher paper and then watch come to life. each one is different. each one is new and lives to find it's match, it's person. i had my beautiful friend samantha with her model-like loveliness visiting me at the studio yesterday. she tried them on. and seeing them on her made me giddy. really. they look as fresh and free and simple and breezey as i'd hoped. as i see them in my mind while i draw and cut and sew them into being.
there will be all sorts to choose from on sunday. our sale is 10 until 4 on sunday march 11. 55 mowat in beautiful portsmouth village. i hear it's supposed to be a sunny and warm day, so bring the family for a little outing along the lake. you won't be disappointed. and remember we have wonderful natural soap products from liv simple farms as well.

on the weekend i found a new product that i'm in love with. it's a completely natural surface spray (think febreze, but without the chemicaly-ness). homegrown lavender, grapefruit and mint. sprayed on the rugs and the sofas and edgar's bed. the rooms are fresh and breezey smelling. like spring has arrived. with edgar and the cats, keeping our house smelling fresh in the middle of winter is always a challenge, but this surface spray has just made it a little simpler.

livia simpson of liv simple farms is the brains behind this great product. there is also linen spray, room spray and a line of great goats milk soaps and lotions. they raise the goats and grow the lavender and turn all that goodness into amazing products. tracy and i are both smitten with the products and have invited lovely livia to take part in our next sale. and she has agreed.
so this coming sunday, march 11 from 10 until 4, we are welcoming you to the little white house at 55 mowat avenue in portsmouth village. tracy is working on some new felted pieces and she has still some wonderful encaustics available too. i'm making new spring inspired tunics for the young and the even younger, as well as totes and quilts and napkins etc. there are journals and pendants and pillows and all sorts of loveliness to feast on. and an amazing line of handmade home and body care you will absolutely want to try.

i'm waking up slowly this morning. edgar who woke me up to take him outside at 6.45, is now happily asleep in front of the fire. there has been a cat brawl in the middle of the street under our bedroom window involving ellsworth. i'm hunting everywhere for my wallet that seems to have disappeared sometime yesterday afternoon. and tom is playing 'the violent femmes' on the guitar in the other room, and after rocking out to it for ten minutes he's decided to sing it as a ballad. it's a funny morning.

i took photos upstairs at the studio yesterday to give you all a peek. tracy's encaustic paintings float about the walls. her little red room with the big blue chair sits under the eave. i love the cans of colored wax.

long exposures tonight. some of them almost 10 seconds. tom playing guitar, the movement is non-stop. the room glows. i'm on the sofa under a quilt with my legs stretched out along edgar's belly. and stella won't leave us, surfing on my legs as i move. tom is finding great songs in his head. u2. madonna. kermit the frog. phish. the grateful dead. ryan adams. a perfect little night of songs. we ordered pizza and tried to watch a movie, but it was a guitar and camera sort of night. it wouldn't be denied.
i worked on my french painter's smock in the studio today. since i drew it freehand on butcher's paper, my first try needs a bit of tweaking. it's a little too much like the child's version....a bit shapeless and not fitted enough. but my next version may be the right one. and i'm already imaging different beautiful versions.

i love this blurred photo. lit by the fireplace. i took it a couple of weeks ago. the winter light that is swiftly moving into spring.
edgar dislikes this time of year. there is ice in the yard from the soft muddy ground freezing. and then wet snow on top of the frozen mud which is now frozen as well, creates a layer of slippery that makes edgar tense and shaky. his long legs unstable. he hates it. so last night after bringing him inside and seeing him shaking and uncomfortable on the sofa, tom suggested i cut his front nails.....they were getting long and it could make him feel unsteady. i agreed and started clipping away. dora and gala, my other great danes wouldn't let me near them with the nail clippers, fighting me with everything except their teeth. but edgar is complacent and allows me to nip off his nails with no struggle. i should do it more often, but i think i'm still scarred by dora and gala and i think it's going to be a huge ordeal. but after i'd smoothly made it through half his nails, i hit a bleeder. his foot (and the quilt on the couch) was immediately in a puddle of blood. he seemed unphased by it, he didn't yelp or pull away, but the blood wouldn't stop. we used corn starch to quell the bleeding. and it helped until he got up to eat. huge bear sized footprints of blood across the floors. i have a spot where a chair wore the finish from the floor. and now his blood is worked into that spot, the wood stained red. it made me think of 'the red violin'.
now he has a bowl of flour beside him to stop the bleeding if it starts again.

this morning we awoke to heavy wet snow on the ground and in the air. the combination of a snowy morning and a busy night last night has made me a bit lazy and slow this morning.
i took a few photos last night, but i don't ever remember my camera until the signs are in and night surrounds us and the light is weak. so the pictures aren't lit very well, but they give you a glimpse. the tunics hanging with tracy's encaustic on salvaged board. the cotton vessels i'm obsessed with. and pendants draped over the loveliest piece of hollow tree that fell earlier in the winter and we brought into the shop. linen table runners and matching napkins infused with french sensibilities. and there is so much more upstairs. i didn't get up there with my camera, but you would have seen many more of tracy's beautiful and dreamy encaustic paintings, lovingly arranged under the sloping ceilings. i'll get them for next time.
we met some lovely people last night, people who braved a cold and snowy night to share our little evening. we appreciate them and hope to see them again. i feel really fortunate to be able to spend my time in such a rewarding and satisfying way, doing what i love doing.