. . . but while I breathe Heaven's air, and Heaven looks down on me, And smiles at my best meanings, I remain Mistress of mine own self and mine own soul.

~Lord Alfred Tennyson
from The Foresters

stitches

I am too clumsy for pilates (and I have no idea what my "core muscles" are, or if I even have any), and I just don't have the attention span for yoga (that part of my brain is stuck on "two-year-old who had a whole box of frosted flakes for breakfast" mode). So, how to relax? Trickery. Occupy my mean Left Brain and let Righty run wild; that's the best I can do. I am one of those weirdos that finds ironing and vacuuming relaxing... anything that requires concentration but not thought.
But my favorite "relaxing hobby" is knitting. I am not great at it. Well, I am good enough to almost never make a mistake (because I don't have the patience to learn how to fix knitting mishaps) as long as I do the same stitch, and there can be no counting whatsoever. I've gotten to the point that I can do it in the dark, which was really good last Spring when I got the majority of this scarf underway. I was given the incredible, only seen in movies, would have wished for it the rest of my life opportunity to fly from Brooklyn to CA so I could sit up all night every night at my dear grandmother's hospital bedside during one of her last weeks of her amazing life. We listened to opera, laughed, cried, and she told me lots of stories I had heard a thousand times before. (the last time you hear it is the best, I promise)
My favorite was about the one time she took up knitting, to do "her part" for the soldiers during WWII. (as if taking a boat to Germany to protest against Hitler hadn't been enough). There was a USO campaign to get the ladies at home to knit up scarves to keep the service men warm, and they were handing out balls of yarn. Being the over-achiever that she was, she loaded up as many as they'd give her, and knitted her heart out... the only thing she didn't know how to do was cast off. "No problem... one of those women down there can figure out how to divide them up, right?" So, when she told her mother (who was a domestic goddess) what she had delivered to the USO ladies, they ended up laughing until they cried... some guy ended up with a scarf that was about 12 feet long.
Someday I'd love to meet the family with the story... "when grandpa was in the war he got the longest, worst knitted scarf in all the world..."
So, my project may take years to finish (look at those tiny stitches!), and I lost the ball of brown yarn (on an airplane, I think) so the design has become a little wonky. But those stitches will tell their own story, and this will forever be one of my most treasured possessions.

California dreaming...

Oh, California... I know I came from you, but the longer I am away the stranger you become. Your people seem to not even notice the tree robots that watch them from alongside your many freeways. Who started the rumor that they were cell phone transmitters? Maybe the trees suggested it through their mind altering radio waves. How else would they believe that a palm tree and a pine tree could live happily so close together?

show & tell... button of the week

I have been told that this little one is an old diaper button, probably from the 1800's.

girlie girl dress

so, the photo is a little obscure (I call it "self-portrait and hip, and by the way that is just a shadow on my armpit") but I had to show off the cute dress I made. It's a blending of two of my favorite designers, Heather Ross (fabric) and Aimee Dolby of Betsy Ross Patterns ("girlie girl" dress pattern)
It's like we're all hanging out together... sort of

show & tell... button of the week

I really love these guys. They are Bakelite and HUGE.
When I first started collecting buttons about 18 years ago (geeze, that sounds like a long time!) I wanted them to make jewelry out of. But after the first few that I destroyed by removing the shanks and gluing them together to make a brooch or something, I had to stop. I felt like they weren't meant to be anything other than what they already are. And they all have a story.

I imagine these two, on some great slubby wool swing coat, braving any weather for the adventures of their coat's owner in c. 1964. (picture Marlo Thomas or Audry Hepburn in big plastic sunglasses and boots made for walkin')

deep sigh...

Hope Wallace, will you be my friend? Or maybe you can just come over and cover the walls of my apartment with your magic...