cloth.paper.string

framed

You might recall that back in December I fell hard.  And was subsequently crushed.  You see, there was a certain letterpressed print offered up at Tiny Showcase that I happened upon after each and every print in the edition had been snatched up.  I lamented.  Little did I know that the bit of woe I posted would send my dad on a secret mission.  A few days later, with the help of my brother, his mission was accomplished.  On Solstice I held in my hands a printer's proof of Alec Thibodeau's Good Libations 2008 Lunar Calendar!  To say I was thrilled would be quite the understatement.

Fast forward three months and you'll find me a bit sheepish to admit that I'm just now hanging it on the wall.  But it's framed.  And I did it myself thanks to The Small Object's tutorial, a handheld mat cutter, and a frame from IKEA. 

To help get up the nerve to cut such a big piece of mat board, I practiced on a few other prints I had been meaning to frame for ages including a set of letterpressed stamps from Nikki McClure.  I still have a big pile to frame, but no longer will I shell out many dollars or wait many moons to put more prettiness on the walls.

brrrrr....

When this the scene on the inside of my bathroom window (yes, there's a moisture issue in this old house...) and wind chill advisories warn of near immediate frostbite on any exposed parts of those who venture outside,  I can't help but wish I had made myself one of these, or knit myself a pair of those.  Luckily I can easily whip up the hot version of this and dream of the days when she will visit my garden (mind you, this is still months away).   What is warming you these mid-winter days?

circle round

For the last six years I've made a solstice wreath for our front door.  A bit of greenery in the grayest of days; a reminder of the green days before and those ahead.  A symbol of the wheel of the year, the turning of the seasons.  A circle like that of the sun. 

Last year we gathered the pine boughs from a nearby forest, carefully snipping little wayward bits from many trees over many acres.  We set out today to do the same and instead happened upon a grove of trees that had been topped within the last few days.  Pines chopped at their midsections by some careless and greedy person.  From the branches strewn about, we picked up just enough boughs for a wreath. 

Back at the lake, I gathered a few bunches of berries from the numerous Mountain Ash trees that dot the shore.  Berries from a tree that symbolizes protection.  Protection from the cold, from the long dark days ahead. 

Weaving wreaths, I can not help but remember the winter my mother and her friend decided that they'd make wreaths for every window and door of their houses and barns.  Dozens of wreaths.  And if that wasn't enough, they vowed to hang them all as soon as the Thanksgiving dishes were washed so that when the sun rose on the first day of the Christmas holiday season, their homes would be festooned with holiday cheer.  All of this was to outdo (or at least surprise) the flamboyant neighbor who was the belle of the local holiday home tour.  In the days leading up to the unveiling, Mom and her friend trekked out to the woods to gather pine boughs -- forgetting twine to bind the branches for carrying, so that they ended up fashioning bungee cords from their bras to carry mammoth piles home to the clandestine wreath assembly line that had taken over the basement of our barn. 

I don't remember the reaction of the neighbor that Friday morning; but green florist wire, brisk air, and the scent of pine boughs mixed with leather gloves will always conjure up the image of my creative and spirited mother getting a complete kick out of making stuff with her friends.  I remember as a twelve-year-old thinking they were absolutely nuts.  But now, I completely understand.

upstairs

I'm ever-so-slowly settling into my new room upstairs. 

A place for making.

A place for dreaming.

A place for crafty ingredients.

A place for coziness.

A place for me. 

home :: history

Looking back on the past month of reflecting on home, I realize more and more that within these walls that make home there is history revealing itself and history in the making.  Layers of story, like layers of paint.  Plants taking root.  Meals being made.  Work being done.  Sleeping.  Playing.  Creating.  Living.

Much of the last few weeks has been spent transforming a large room in the attic into a work-play-creating space for me.  I had been using this space since we moved into the house, but the stories of the room's past seemed to speak louder than my story.  Lavender paint.  Water damaged ceiling and wall.  A hook in the ceiling from which the previous owner's punching bag swung.  Now these have all been refinished, repaired and refreshed.

Tonight I'll put the last coat of paint on the floor.  Tomorrow there will be some touch up painting, cleaning of windows.  Then I will unpack my tools and ingredients for making and get back to creating a history of my own.  In a room of my own. 

home :: environment

To me home is outside as much as it is inside.  We decided to make our home in this part of the world due, in many respects, to the natural environment.  But lately I've been feeling disconnected from the natural wonder around me as the myriad of home improvement projects currently underway have relegated my wanderings away from the homestead to hardware stores and home improvement meccas.

This weekend we played a little hooky and spent the day hiking and picnic-ing at a nearby state park.  So much a reminder that nature truly nurtures.  And that our little family needs to spend more playful time together as three, which not-so coincidently is the little one's new favorite word.  Three.

The day was also a reminder that, like the seeds on wispy tendrils pushing their way from a pod, the season is fleeting.  Thankfully we're nearing the end of the current round of house projects.  More to come on that soon.   

home :: afternoon sun

When the days are shorter, the sun shines directly onto the back of our home in the mid afternoon.  On lazy days we find ourselves settling in to the swatches of brightness, creeping every so slowly across the floor following the warmth offered by the sunlight.  Following the cat's lead as closely as she'll allow.

And closer, scratches and all.

home :: roots

While there have been a number of communities and at least twice as many houses that I've made home over the last decade, there are a few things that have remained constant.  One in particular is a pair of jade plants.  Propagated from stubby little clippings off a strong specimen in Albuquerque, these plants have grown and grown.  Depending on where they've spent their days in relation to the sun and the drafty windows that also seem to be constant in my homes, they have displayed times of pallid legginess as well as rich dark robustness.  They been hacked up by our cat, knocked about by the lively tail of our dog, nipped by frost, bumped about in the back of a u-haul over countless miles, toppled in their pots, and snipped at so that they would multiply on the windowsills of friends and family.  Resilient they are.

Our dining room window is currently home to one of the pair.  Nestled amongst the decorative randomness that comes with whisking things out of a toddler's reach as the toddler is able to reach, this succulent is pleased.  I've heard that jades are symbols of prosperity.  I look at the vibrance of these succulents and am reminded that even though it doesn't always seem so, there is much richness in my days. 

home :: work

The recent days of rain have hampered all exterior home improvement projects.  Our house is a sight to see, and I think the neighbors are starting to get nervous.  The front of the house is festooned with four colors of window trim if you count primer-white.  We're aiming for two colors ultimately, but so far only one has escaped the confines of the paint can and reached its destination.  On the roof we currently have two colors of shingles.  The roofers were driven away mid-project by rains and winds whipping off the lake, leaving this scene on the roof outside our bedroom window:

The pitchfork lies waiting to help rip through the many layers of shingles of the old roof, exposing even more colors.  Red, brown, gray.  As soon as the sky becomes less gray...

And if home-work wasn't crazy-making enough, work-work is finding its way home this week. 

It's actually good to finally knock some of those lingering things off of the to do list while in my jammies, but I'd much rather be knitting while watching the most recent netflix lineup with my sweet.

Oy.  This hasn't been an easy month to challenge myself to reflect on home.  But then again, there hasn't been much more than home stuff going on, so maybe this exercise is just what was needed to keep me from vanishing altogether from the little slice of sanity called cloth.paper.string.

home :: rocking

Afternoon sun in the living room, warming the seat of a special chair.  A wooden rocker from my great-grandfather's Maine farmstead; passed down to him, to my mother, to me.  The chair came to my home the week after our daughter was born, in the back of the car driven by my parents from Massachusetts to Minnesota.  A chair brought as a gift to honor the first of the next generation.  So that she could be rocked just as those before her. 

I like to imagine the number of days this chair has been graced by the sun in this manner, with the light filtering through the woven seat.  The number of times a distant relative fell asleep in the arms of a loved one while rocking in this chair; the number of times the said loved one fell asleep as well. 

As I rock my wee one in this chair the slight creak at each end of the rocking cycle is familiar to me, it is soothing.  In some ways this is home.