honeyflake

in like a lion

... out like a lamb.

in celebration of the end of another month, the successful completion of my freelance project, spring weather, and well, just having an empty pair of knitting needles sitting and waiting, i whipped up this wooly knitted lamb last night. (from toymaking with children). after being so busy mainly just creating files on the computer all week, i felt the need to create a small tangible something. since i already had the white wool yarn (leftover from the scarf being worn in the banner photo up top) and a quiet friday night i decided to try this project for the second time (the first time was last summer and the result was a little critter who very much resembled a cat rather than a sheep). so now we have another bit of spring around, a new lamb for a new spring month... a month that i see is already holding many new opportunities. welcome april.

w is for wednesday

w is for winner.
thanks to everyone for leaving enthusiastic comments on the gnome post. i wish i had enough extra gnomes for all. we put the names in a little basket today and the golden winner was... beth (there were actually 2 beths in the basket, i marked one "beth" and the other "beth d.") congratulations. they'll be on their way soon.

w is for work @ home.
getting reaquainted with photoshop. saying good-bye to and missing quark xpress. getting aquainted with indesign. this week i received a surprise and much welcomed offer for a quick freelance design project. so i've been here at the computer in the day and well, well, well into the night... reminding me somewhat of my sleepless college all-nighter days, moving photos around, juggling layers of type, and who let that child in my dorm room and why does she keep asking me for breakfast?

free spirits

this basket of spring gnomes is headed to margaret's school for a seasonal celebration. i signed up to bring something in, and since all the other items like snacks and juice were spoken for, i opted for the last blank line... toys. so i tried to come up with something simple. simple and home-made if possible. i couldn't stop thinking about the great gnome pattern from this natural crafty book.

so a little green felt, a little natural wool - and an assemblage of sprout-hued gnomes came to be. hi guys. the result of a few hours of quiet crafting in the living room over the weekend. i'm hoping perhaps that while i was busy cutting and sewing these wee hooded gifts, the magic of creating was impressed upon margaret's observing and growing spirit.

and yeah, we got carried away and ended up with a few extra. i thought this would be a great excuse for a honeyflake blog giveaway. i've seen it done, and am excited to give it a whirl. here's the drill.... leave a comment here by wednesday, noon EST. i'll put your names in a basket, hat or box, then i'll pick the one golden winner, who will then receive a few gnomes. good luck.

branching out

form & function

form: curved round monkeypod wood bowl
(from today's thriftstore visit)
function: tea party dish
(serving up greenbeans, within minutes upon ariving home)

w is for wednesday

w is for welcome spring
march 21st. out with winter. in with spring. today was the vernal equinox, marking the official beginning of a new season. observing the fresh green growth of the garden poking its way up through the old withered seed pods and twigs.

w is for winter wardrobe
wool sweater. worn out jeans. my most worn, warm and cozy ensemble this winter. the seasons may have changed today, but my mama uniform did not.

w is for walnut shell
amazing how many treasures can find their way into the cozy hollow of a walnut shell... nature's little containers.

w is for what next?
my on-going winter project is nearing completion. i've knitted all the pieces. next up is stitching it together into a wearable cardigan... so close... but first i should probably figure out which way the arms go on.

heirloom creation

torta. torta is a northern italian kitchen creation of a thinly rolled out dough filled with a variety of fillings. this afternoon i, with margaret at my side, made a torta. i don't have a recipe for this, i just have a few key words scribbled on scrap paper, dictated to me by my grandmother, which i keep tacked up on the side of my refrigerator for reference. i've been eatting tortas for as long as i can remember - but only started cooking them myself in the past year or two... growing up my grandmother and her sister would work as a team in creating these. one would make and roll out the dough and the other would make the filling - which they varied from a spinach based filling, a rice based filling and a potato based filing. they learned to make theirs from their mother, and perhaps were influenced by others along the way like my grandmother's mother-in-law (she didn't like onions so she would make half with onions and half without), and the lady who lived upstairs from them while growing up in new york city (she always got hers so nice and thin) who whipped up tortas too. each little part of the process has so many people connected with it. my favorite part is the dough process. i do not measure, i try to estimate and play around with it. sometimes heavy handed with the flour, sometimes a little more water, etc... and these subtleties make a difference each time. the filling we chose today was the spinach. originally my grandmother told me she makes it with spinach. then later on she mentioned that sometimes her mother would mix in greens like chard, or whatever they had or was seasonal. so that has been my inspiration lately - the extra greens. today we mixed in a little chard. each time is different. and i like critiquing it too - tonight's was good, but not as good as last week's. maybe too much olive oil in the dough? maybe i didn't chop the onion enough? anyway. the end product is not actually what is important. it is totally about the process. a process that i know has been passed down from generation to generation. and after all these torta sessions margaret is well on her way to being a master dough maker herself.

green. the new black.

i've traded in the st. patrick's day green threads for some green threads of another ilk. continuing to be a mama that wants to embrace all that is earth-friendly and inspiring, i treated my inner-hippie to a few yards of hemp. yes, lovely, simple, natural hemp. sustainable fibres like bamboo and hemp (which are fast growing, need little pesticides, do not deplete the soil etc....) aren't relegated to crunchy music festivals and college towns any longer - they are everywhere, which is quite awesome. so i thought it was time i encorporate them into my own home creations. after admiring some little textile swatches that i've had here for some time, i decided to go ahead and place a small order of the hemp linen and a hemp/organic cotton blend. i'm really excited to see what they are like. what they will inspire me to create for my family and home? new shower curtain for the bath? apron for mama? the peasant shirt? i'll let you know....

bit o green

the get-up

to margaret's surprise, tomorrow is finally st. patrick's day. to my surprise, she is super excited because it is the day she gets to wear all green. apparently she is really looking forward to dressing up and let me know this today, the day before. being that she is a wee bit irish, i felt i needed to help out the little lass. i did a quick scan of what she had in her drawers and closet... all i could come up with was last winter's smallish 2T solid green turtleneck. hmmmmm.... so being that we would be indoors all-day, due to some sleet and snow, i decided it was a good opportunity to whip something up. at first i thought perhaps a dress, then i remembered that i've been wanting to try the cool little smockette pattern from over at the mayfly blog. so i dug out some green (almost teal) fabric and went with it. and as you can see by the photo above, the st. patrick's day get-up is almost complete. i was hoping for it to tie on top of her shoulders and be reversible, however i think it is a little too small for that - so i'm going to go ahead and add some buttons to the straps, which i stilll have to choose from my slim button collection, and that should give it a little more length. so i hope.

and that was my friday. a nice ending to the week. indoors, sewing, listening to itunes with margaret, creating. and to top it off i just may have found a silver lining in having to have had that cold... it has left me with a somewhat scratchy throat, which i discovered makes it a lot more fun to sing along out loud with the ever raspy voiced grace potter. cheers.

anahata

tuesdays and thursdays. a steady weekly routine to get out and go to yoga class. last night i mixed it up a bit and added wednesday night mediation class. something a little different... and it turned out to be great. aside from the usual guidance "to let go" was something new... guidance to open the heart... to relax into the deep core of your spirit. with just this slight suggestion i had a whole different experience. who new that the mind could relax into the heart? i wanted to remember what i learned and to be able to encorporate it into my daily home practice. so as a bit of inspiration i felted up this little symbol. it represents the heart chakra - anahata - our center. i plan to keep it near my candle and yoga mat as meditation inspiration. to help me remember the heart.

w is for wednesday

w is for walk on the beach.
with a beachcombing basket in hand, we did some seaside strolling today. warming up, but still chilly enough that we wore our winter hats. amongst all the mermaid purses and crab claws we found some lovely shells. and just when i was about to give up hope, i dug out from a clump of sand and seaweed one beautiful chunky, smooth piece of white seaglass. hip, hip, hurray!

w is for weathered.
tibetan prayer flags hang along a string above our small veggie patch and they are showing the wear and tear of being out in the elements over the past year. i'm trying to decide if i should hang up a new, crisp fresh set this year or just let these be for a little while longer.... i like embracing the wabi-sabi-ness they bring to the garden and enjoy the frayed and fadedness.

w is for wncw.
tapped into a cool little north carolina radio station today and their great afternoon segment called tour memories which highlighted a little grateful dead tune - rubin and cherise. so happy to catch that!

w is for weir.
speaking of the grateful dead, i came across these photos today of bob weir in a suit. yes, bob weir in a suit. just awesome.

all buttoned up

urban excursion

east side. west side. all around the town... after spending far too much time resting and recouperating the past few weeks i had a real need to get out and get moving today... a need to be out and about. i also had a need for one more skein of wool yarn to finish margaret's cardigan... so my fearless travelling companion and i picked ourselves up and took a little trip into the city where i knew there'd be both wool fibers and endless places to wander...
we started the mega-walkabout down in soho where there is a sweet little knitting shop which carries the exact type of wool i had been using in the sweater. i was really excited to be able to go there - when i used to live in the city, i didn't know how to knit. i used to walk by this downtown shop all the time and wish i had the skills to create with all those colorful strands i'd see in the window, now that i'm picking up the knitting needles for a project here and there i am unfortunately not so close to them. but today was the day. i was able to check out more yarn than i could ever imagine using and i happily found the one that i needed. after that mission was complete we began to meander. stopping only briefly in some of our favorite shops, walking through neighborhood after neighborhood after neighborhood, taking in everything there is to see in the city, and of course, playing at our favorite playground (after the yarn, this was priority #2). we were just moving all day - east, west, north, south - throughout the urban grid, just seeing where the day would take us. this was exactly what i needed. and now the journey is done and we are back home. although perhaps, i think a big part of me felt back home all day.... thanks nyc.

hello warm

the sun was warm, the tea was warmer, and the family time was warmer still. just the three of us hanging out in our yard on a sunday afternoon. synching up with the new daylight hours. spring ahead.

fastnaughts

growing up there was (and still is) a bakery that made these donuts called fastnaughts only during lent. i loved them and looked forward to them every year. we would drive to go get them on sundays for breakfast after church. i'm not sure why during a time associated with fasting and sacrificing do they make such an enjoyable sugary treat. but i'm glad they do and... i do know that not only are they made on sundays - but thursdays too (as well as mondays, tuesdays, wednesdays, friday and saturdays). yummmmm!

w is for wednesday

w is for white stuff.
a little dusting of snow covered everything outside. snow flurries on and off all day.

w is for waking up.
so begins this years veggie patch. the first tomato seeds have been awakened and are now up and above the soil. looking good.

w is for wooden van.
its a dollhouse on wheels. room for an entire family and all of their travelling gnome and fairy friends. the adventures are boundless. it has been keeping us busy on these wintery afternoons.

warming up

no i haven't been away travelling, nor busy working on some other glorious project. i've just been neglecting my blog a little, while still trying to beat this lingering cold. each day is flowing better and better, and a little more back to routine. tonight i was happy to make it back to yoga for the first time in over a week. missed that. and i missed blogging. maybe i'll just start up again with a quick warm-up post tonight... how about a few things that have got my attention the past week aside from tissues and tea...

1. saturday's lunar eclipse was pretty interesting. did anyone see it?
2. the warm weather that we were treated to last weekend was exciting. we found ourselves down at the beach for a little beachcombing (see shells above) as well as bagels and juice for breakfast on the boardwalk. now it is as cold as ever again. totally looking forward to a little more warm.
3. even more exciting is that patagonia is now carrying footwear for both men and women. yeehaw.

not a whole lot... but things are picking up. happy march.