cherry tomato

spring is in the air

I'm so happy Spring has finally arrived. I love Spring in Seattle. Oh sure, it can be frustrating when the weather takes the opportunity to demonstrate just how little meteorologists really can "predict", but I don't mind the uncertainty because as long as I get a little sunshine, I'm satisfied.

My mother is fortunate to share her birthday with the first day of Spring. She has developed quite an affinity for birds over the past year or so, so I decided to make her a little nest for her birthday this year.

I had this vision of what I wanted to accomplish, and while this didn't turn out exactly as I had envisioned, I'm pretty pleased with it. I cut pieces of wire into various sizes and tied and wrapped torn fabric strips around the wire. Once I wrapped the pieces of wire, I formed them into the nest shape. Finally, I filled the nest with some marble eggs I bought at a local shop. It was much more challenging than I had anticipated, and I have a new appreciation for the talent of all those nest-making little birds out there. However, Mom was happy, and that's all I could have asked for.

Happy Spring!

how NOT to behave in a crisis situation

Thank you for the kind welcome back. It's nice to know there are still people out there interested in checking in on me. It is much appreciated.

This past week was filled with odd occurrences, not the least of which was my darling puppy getting her right eye scratched by one of our cats. The event went something like this:

- cat runs up to dog and scratches her eye
- dog lets out agonizing whine
- dog's eye starts dropping tears
- Mary looks at dog's eye and FREAKS OUT
- Mary's freaking out scares the dog even more
- Mary starts running around the house trying to get her brain to function because, apparently, in trauma situations, Mary loses all brain function and ability to breathe.
- Eric arrives home and calmly assesses the situation.
- Mary continues to freak out because she can't breathe
- Eric calmly calls vet and finds out what we need to do
- All to go vet
- Mary cries the whole time

As you may be able to tell, I don't handle crisis situations very well. The good news is Zoey has a good prognosis. I'm still extremely worried, fussing over her at every opportunity, but she should be okay.

Poor little girl:

Now, I'll leave you with some photos from a walk in the neighborhood over the weekend. Spring officially begins this week, and the signs of its arrival are everywhere. I couldn't be more pleased.

 

yikes

It doesn't seem possible that it's been so long since my last post. This year, more than any in recent memory, I've really spent the winter hibernating. However, just as the spring buds are starting to burst open, I feel my creativity waking from it's wintry slumber. I've been a terrible blogger - so bad that I haven't even been keeping up with others' blogs.  I have a lot of catching up to do.

I went to Portland to visit my sister last weekend and had a wonderful time going to antique shops and fabric stores, and I picked up some fabric for some home projects.

For the first time in what feels like ages, I spent the afternoon in my studio while listening to some of my all time favorite music. A perfect Sunday.

I'm not quite ready to jump into a huge project, so I just started with something simple. I made two sets of curtains for rooms in our basement and some napkins. Eric and I regularly use cloth napkins, and some of ours are starting to get a bit funky. Plus, most of our napkins are just solid colors, and I wanted to make something a little cuter.  I feel a  twinge of guilt about using nice designer fabric for napkins, but I'd much rather be using that gorgeous fabric than have it collecting dust in my studio. Here are the ones I made this afternoon:

As soon as Eric saw these, he said, "These are so nice. We'll have to use them when we have people over", to which I immediately protested. I'm not one to save things for a special day. I'm all about using what you have. I don't mean this in a morbid way, but I know that if you save something for a special day, that day may never come. I think it's better to use the fun stuff instead of saving it and make every day just a little special.

It's good to be back.