Twist me, turn me, and show me the elf. I looked in the water and saw MYSELF!
This week my Daisy scout bridged to Brownies. We are lucky to have such a beautiful park with this fantastic bridge to make the ceremony extra fun.
The girls filled our little corner of the park with laughter and squeals of excitement. They’re all pretty awesome.
This Moment is a Friday ritual inspired by Amanda Soule.
Still working on the honey cowl. I’m making progress, but it’s slow going. I pretty much only work on it at my daughter’s soccer practice and at knitting group. I was tempted to skip tonight. It’s cold and rainy/sleety/slushy/snowy out. I’m glad I went, though. I have a feeling I might be stuck indoors tomorrow.
Is anyone else experiencing crazy Spring weather?
One of the most accurate signs of Spring are dandelions. You can have a few warm days or an itchy nose from tree pollen, but Spring hasn’t truly arrived until the dandelions come up. Most adults consider them a scourge on their lush, perfectly manicured lawn, but not me. I actually think they’re quite beautiful, and how can you not when…
…watching children run around all smiles and giggles picking giant bouquets of them.
…discovering them thriving in the harshest of environments, like cracks in the pavement.
…seeing a group of kids in the store all wearing them on their heads in the shape of a crown.
…knowing that you can pick them, mow them, and poison them, yet they still survive.
Dandelions are little puff balls of sunshine that turn into magical featherlight wisps perfect for blowing in the wind. They are tenacious survivors. They take whatever we give them and continue to bloom in spite of us. They are strong with their roots fiercely attached to this earth, while their seeds blow high and far away, searching for new places to live.
I know I’ll never convince anyone not to yank them out of their yard, my husband included. However, the next time you see a lone dandelion growing out of some impossible place or a field of them by the side of the road, take a moment to admire their unique beauty.
Or not. They don’t really care. They’ll keep on growing no matter what you think.
Over the weekend my daughter announced she wants to build her own clubhouse. This is her blueprint, drawn in blue marker of course. She figured we could use some scraps of wood from the garage. Hmm…
I can’t believe my little girl will be bridging to Brownies this week. Next thing I know, she’ll be a second grader! (Actually, in one month!)
In my quest to do one creative thing a day, I asked her to pick something out of my Crochet Embellishments book for me to make for her. She picked a daisy hair tie, of course.
I made it last night and left it on the kitchen table for her. She ran into my room this morning so excited! I need more little creative projects like this. They’re worth so much more than the small amount of time they take.
I gave up on growing our own veggies last year and bought a share in a local CSA. I’m doing it again this year, but my daughter begged asked me to please buy a few plants from her school fundraiser. We got some impatiens for the front, in Husker red of course, and some veggies for the back.
She chose cucumbers so we could make pickles. She also picked grape tomatoes because we didn’t get enough from the CSA last year. I bought a cilantro plant, but passed on the basil because that’s something we definitely did get a lot of last year.
It doesn’t seem like much, but I really enjoyed not having to worry about our veggies last year. Maybe I could put her in charge of taking care of them?
Our biggest problem is pollination because we have a screened-in porch. I can’t put them directly into the ground because we have a lot of hungry bunny rabbits in our neighborhood. In order to be successful, we’re going to need something portable like a 5-gallon bucket planter or something on wheels. I’ll need to move them in and out of the screened area, especially when we get storms.
It already sounds difficult. Wish us luck!
Last night at knitting group, one of our members brought two huge bags of yarn she was destashing. I told her I had a friend who would love it and brought it home with me. I’m pretty sure my friend doesn’t have a ball winder and lot of the yarn was from abandoned projects. So I sat down in front of the tv and started winding balls.
I forgot how fun it is to deconstruct knitted items, especially handmade ones. Everyone weaves ends and sews seams a little differently. It’s interesting to reverse engineer the process.
resources: I’m sure I’ve posted these before. Some of my favorite tutorials for unraveling sweaters are from Neauveau Fiber Art. Photo tutorial here and video tutorial here. Also, here’s a short video on finding the “little v stitches” to unzip a seam super fast.
If you live in Lincoln, this weekend is the Goodwill 99 cent sale. A sweater’s worth of wool for under a dollar? You can’t beat that!
You know how sometimes the universe feels like it is trying to tell you something? That it’s been trying to tell you something for awhile, but you didn’t hear it until you were ready to listen? Yesterday when I opened Cloth Paper Scissors, I landed on this article and it hit me.
I’ve been struggling with my creativity for a long time now, which if you read this blog regularly, you’ve probably noticed. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and there are many excuses that I can come up with to justify the creative emptiness. But the excuses don’t really matter. I know I can be creative on demand, my job requires it. So what happened to everything else?
Establishing and keeping a routine can be even more important than having a lot of time. Inertia is the death of creativity. You have to stay in the groove. When you get out of the groove, you start to dread the work, because you know it’s going to suck for a while — it’s going to suck until you get back into the flow. – Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist
Whatever my reasons, the result was I just stopped doing creative things. I got out of the habit. Being creative was no longer a routine. Instead, it turned into something I loved and missed, but couldn’t find my way back to. Yesterday, that article made me realize that there is no path back to creativity. You just have to start doing it.
It’s going to be uncomfortable. Photos aren’t going to be perfect. Words aren’t going to be eloquent. The only thing I can commit to is documenting one creative thing each day.
I’m jumping back into the flow.
Last night I was knitting while watching a movie and didn’t pay too much attention to my yarn. Today when I pulled my project out at soccer practice, I found I only had a tiny ball left. Luckily, I had a second hank in my bag, but it needed to be wound before I could use it.
I learned this trick from a fellow knitter, and it works like a charm. Untwist the hank and put it around your neck like a necklace. Untie the threads holding it together and find the end. Start winding it into a ball, unlooping around your neck as you go. There may be times where it feels tangled up, but don’t take it off your neck. Just keep winding and unlooping until you’re finished.
I can’t tell you how many times this little trick has helped me. I hope someday it will be helpful to you, too!
