It’s a wrap – 2011

1. zig zags and dots, 2. Anthony Hat, 3. knitting dots , 4. hope, 5. Pedigree Pooch, 6. wkshp_shawlette, 7. Blanket Squares, 8. Oceanic Hotel, Star Island, NH, 9. Windowsill in Bloom, 10. Benefits of Worm Castings as Fertilizer, 11. Photo Award Button 200×157, 12. Spring, 13. I made it within the deadline!, 14. Creamsicle Smoothie, 15. February Lady FRONT, 16. Friday afternoon, 17. Miniature Holiday Art display, 18. snowflakes in my window, 19. Miss Marple, 20. Snow flakes

Everyone’s talking about it: acknowledge the past year’s accomplishments before looking forward.  Prevailing wisdom advises that writing ideas down facilitates bringing them to fruition. But for a look back, I began with a visual list. Nothing like a bit of photo fun with the mosaic tool over on BigHugeLabs. Here are a few crafty highlights from my year:

• an afternoon spent under the tutelage of professional photographer, Gale Zucker, during which she taught knitters about photographing fiber objects  (photo #6)
• a winning entry in Southern New Hampshire’s 24-hour A Day in the Life photography contest (#11)
• a roaring good time as online voting took my quilted Spring Runner into the top tier (#13) of the sew-along challenge
• the inclusion of a brief memory narrative and accompanying photo in an upcoming book by friend and entrepreneur (#14)
• a terrifically successful birthday gift for my mother, a knitted dog (#5). Jacqueline Russell, as I named her, was delivered to the birthday girl with an authentic birth certificate, and I don’t think my mother has ever been so enthusiastic about one of my gifts. That feels like an accomplishment worth noting!
• Handmade Holiday gift-giving (#1-3) dominated my list this year, with hats, felted bags, and homemade cocoa mix with marshmallows; sadly, I never got around to photo’ing the Cocoa Kits.

My blog host, Word Press, surprised me with a summary of the year’s activity on “My Artful Life.” Thank you — for reading, subscribing, taking the time to comment, and being on the other end of my keyboard every time I click the ‘publish’ button. Here’s to another year — !

A Day of Beauty, or Saturdays are for Road Trips, part 1

What better way to celebrate the arrival of an out-of-town friend than to organize an all-day art tour? That’s what my friend Cynthia did, and Trudie and I were fortunate to be invited along. The day was full of many wow!s, beginning with a tour of C’s house and gardens, and an al fresco breakfast served on the porch. Sun hats provided by the hostess!

Did you notice that that’s a repurposed grill from which a butterfly garden now spews forth? Clever!

Rose petal and blueberry ice cubes for our iced blackberry tea were an elegant embellishment to the menu:  Tomato Frittata  –  Scones and Corn Muffins with Lemon Curd  –  Strawberries dipped in Yogurt. The rose petals were freshly picked, too. It would have been easy to linger on the porch, but we had places to go! First stop, apotheca flower shoppe & tea cart, a feast for the eyes and heart, in a charming train depot in Goffstown village.

There were so many handmade and vintage delights to admire here, not to mention an astounding number of beverage choices. But we had many more artful destinations in front of us.
As C pulled up alongside this path, we all called out “photo opp!” in unison. Talk about Vitamin N — this was pure intoxication. After experimenting with various camera settings with which to capture the most sumptuous range of greens, I resisted temptation and got back into the car.

Stay tuned for more photos and Part II of our Saturday Artist Tour of southern New Hampshire.

More yellow

for this week’s Earth Wonders Photo Challenge: Last year’s Indian summer dahlia garden.

My daily Vitamin “N”

I love my public radio stations, but too often the message is doom-and-gloom, and frankly, it’s stressful. Who needs a reminder of what’s going wrong in the world?  Richard Louv, on the other hand, during a recent radio interview, soothed my spirit as he proselytized on the benefits available to all of us with a regular dose of Vitamin “N” (for Nature). Even the title of his latest book, The Nature Principle: Human Restoration and the End of Nature-Deficit-Disorder, has a hopeful spin.

I love the idea of fresh, clean produce. So it was a real treat to be able to go blueberry picking at an organic farm with a friend last week. All the while, humming to myself about the hefty dose of Vitamin “N” that was part of the deal.

I like the idea of easing bits of nature into my everyday life, rather than pretending I’m going to go hiking on the weekend.  (Not going to happen — or if it does, only rarely.) Puttering in the garden, or dead-heading and watering my window boxes, certainly qualify as communing with nature, but I know I need more than that. Foraging for blueberries — even if they are someone else’s cultivated bushes — felt just right and put me in a glorious mood for the rest of the day.
And the bonus is, we’ve been munching on these beauties all week!

Just like Artist Dates, I think I need a list of Nature Dates. Would love to hear your ideas on how you incorporate the natural world into your life. Do tell!

The Glad Game

Saturday! My favorite day of the week.

A very cool movie theater posted on facebook that a favorite movie from my childhood would be playing for one day only. Not going was out of the question! There were girls in period costume, special occasion buttons for movie goers, and assorted memorabilia on display. Who knew that Pollyanna author Eleanor Porter was a local literary treasure? And that there is an organization that works to keep her legacy alive? I had no idea.

So, in keeping with her sentiments, I thought I’d follow Pollyanna’s “glad game” lead and give you a tour of this week’s garden highlights …

The excitement of real fruit in my own garden!

The peonies have returned in profusion, thanks to the worm castings donated last year by my neighbor, a bait wholesaler. (I highly recommend worm castings as a fertilizer — powdered gold! No clumping or fermented odor.) I wish I could share the flowers’ scent here — it’s spicy and sweet.

Delicious.

Wishing you a beautiful week.

Fairy Gardens for Grown-ups, another how-to

Last Sunday afternoon I went over to my friend J’s house to help make a fairy garden. In spite of so much off-the-shelf cuteness available for purchase, we both agree that a heavy dose of handmade is key. Another consideration is shelter from extreme elements, so I suggested a container that could be moved about. After a half dozen drainage holes were drilled into the washing tub’s bottom, we filled the base with about 6″ worth of old bubble wrap and plastic grocery bags. On top of this we poured a large bag of container potting soil.

In anticipation of our gardening date, these lovely polished rocks, just the right size for fairy footsteps, and the miniature tree, had been ordered from Two Green Thumbs. The teeny tiny leaves of the baby tears fern are the perfect proportion for a fairy garden and moss from the back yard lend a homey, lived-in feel.

Follow my instructions here to make your own wattle fencing. Multiple sections arranged around the perimeter of the garden would be darn cute, wouldn’t they? Amongst her crafting supplies, J found the miniature bricks, clay pots, and gardening tools.  The fairy residents have already filled their acorn tops with woodland treasures! Always one for party lights, I didn’t want the fairies to go without, so between two willow stalks I strung silver flower-shaped beads on repurposed silk twine, adding a few knots on either side of each bead to keep it in place. Can’t you just imagine the moonlit festivities?!

There’s room for more plants, such as a cluster of creeping thyme or a miniature fuschia. And I think those diminutive woodland gardeners need a bench for resting, don’t you? The possibilities are endless. Tell me about your fairy garden – I’d love to see pictures!

How to Make Miniature Wattle Fencing for your Fairy Garden

Ingredients: willow branches, wide tape, heavy duty scissors, string (I used the strings from a tea bag)

How-to:
1. Remove all leaves from the branches.
2. Posts: Cut 6″ lengths of the willow branch; for this garden, I worked in a 7-stalk panel.
3.  For the weft, as we call the horizontal fibers that weave in and out in weaving, I found that the more slender the branch, the easier it was to work with. For the length, I began with 12″ pieces.
4. With the wide tape, secure the top (1/2″ or so) of the “fence posts” to your work surface.
5. Beginning with one of the 12″ weft pieces, begin to weave under and over the posts, leaving about 1″ dangling free on either end.
6. Just like we used to do with pot holder loops, alternate the under and over with each row.
7. Continue for about a dozen woven rows, or until you have the desired look for your fairy garden fence.
8. Now, working with the repurposed tea bag string (!), do an under-and-over through one end of the wattle weaving. I made 2-3 passes on mine. Tie a secure knot and trim ends.
9. Repeat at the other end of the fence panel.
10. Install your oh-too-cute panel into your fairy garden and enjoy the swooning admiration of garden residents and visitors!

The tea-bag-string-closure is not scientific and is open to customization as desired.

The wattle fencing, installed in the fairy garden.

Sunday Artist Date

I love the freedom of a day with some leg room. Why not a spontaneous artist date? One of my favorites is a meander around The Mixed Border, an indie garden nursery in the next town over.
The pergola was positively dripping with wisteria. Swoooon!

Sweet vignettes and lovely established garden beds left me feeling refreshed and my imagination reignited with expansion ideas for my own “secret garden.”

My "secret garden" a couple of July's ago.

Kewpie Comfort

While I wasn’t looking, Kewpie leapt off the window sill and made a giggling dash out the open door. Somehow I think she knew that a mini photo shoot would cheer me up after having lost the Zig Zag Table Runner Sew-along Contest. (sigh…)
The peeps didn’t have a chance of surviving beyond Monday. Between Kewpie and me, the week’s bonus Weight Watcher points have come and gone.

Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you
for all of your encouragement and voting support during the sew-along contest. It was a fun and exhilarating run, while it lasted!

Tea with a Friend

It was a spur of the moment invitation for a cup of tea and one that I initiated. I hadn’t seen my friend’s sweet little Victorian since she’d moved in over a year ago. Her California roots have taken hold and inspired such elegant outdoor living. My jaw dropped at the bounty of morning glories still in bloom at three o’clock in the afternoon. And then I saw the tea party she’d set out. Exquisite. As the dinner hour approached, we each grabbed a quilt, poured the last of the tea, and kept on chatting, in spite of the chill. 

I love my life, but if there is one thing I long for, it is what I call the village lifestyle. Quality time spent with friends seems to require calendars and appointments that are squeezed in between too many obligations. I miss spontaneous drop-in visits — at your house or mine — and the easy flow of day-to-day news. For one afternoon, my desires were perfectly satiated. Thank you, my friend!