So it turns out….

…that sometimes it is more important to live your life than it is to write about it.  There has been a lot going on behind the scenes here and I had other places where I needed to spend my time and energy.  But spring is finally in the air a little bit and I feel like clearing a few cobwebs.

Just a few weeks ago I lost two very dear ladies in my life.  My Gramma Muriel was a storyteller.  She made up adventure stories for us when we were kids and told them to us while she buzzed around the kitchen at the farm house.   The last time I saw her, my husband and I spent a wonderful quiet evening with her just talking.  She told us about all kinds of things in her apartment that were special to her and funny stories about my dad.  She loved to read and we talked about books (we liked the same kinds of stories).  She taught me to do the lazy daisy stitch which has always been one of my very favorites and she gave me my first sewing box.  I remember thinking it was so weird because it was full of all these strange tools like seam gauges and bodkins.  I know she was so proud that I know exactly how use all of those tools now.

We also lost our darling Lucy Thunderpaw, age 16 1/2.  We got her from the humane society over Christmas vacation when she was just a little pup .  She was an “overstock clearance” because the shelter had too many puppies since they don’t usually adopt out over the holidays (too many come back).  She was a crazy handful of a puppy and a truly sweet and loving old lady.

So there is lots more interwoven between those stories and our lives, but that is enough to say for here and now.

We also celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary this last weekend and a dear friend got married.  When you see her face in the photos you can’t help but smile right along with her.  We planted heirloom tomatoes that a friend started from seed – beautiful sturdy plants.  The blue flag iris and the bluebells are blooming at home and although I am not there to see them, my mom has been taking and posting gorgeous photos of them.

I haven’t had time to really make any art, but I did decide to take an hour and do something  purely for fun this afternoon.  This is mawata silk.  That means it is silk cocoons that have been scoured (washed) and stretched out into a square shape layer by layer.  Each layer is one continuous fiber.  My friend Doreen dyed them.  I am knitting them, straight from the fiber.  Because I can.  You pull up one layer, stretch it and draft it out into a big soft “rope” and just knit.  The Yarn Harlot caused a big trend making mittens this way.  I am making nothing in particular except that it is soft and shiny and highly entertaining.