Monday, March 21, 2011

tickled pink ...

well i'd be a bald-faced liar if i didn't confess to being absolutely tickled pink over the article written and illustrated by seattle times news artist Gabriel Campanario ...

gabi visited our fair city last week ...

he met with my "partner in yarn", suzanne, and i ...

we shared the recent yarn bombing trend with gabi and he asked loads of questions ...

suzanne shared the process of procuring approval for the year-long tree sock project ...

afterwards we retreated to suzanne's studio to show gabi two fiber artists in action ...
suzanne churned out what seemed like miles of knitting on her machine ...

i wound balls of yarn ...

many many balls of yarn ... towers of yarn balls ...

and gabi sketched and painted ...

and the end result was the article "fresh socks may tickle fans, stump critics" ...



thanks gabi for spending the day with us ...

we tried to be on our best behavior but we did warn you ...

now speaking of tickled pink, here's a sneak preview of what's blooming in sammamish for spring ...

think pink ...










Thursday, March 17, 2011

the squire ...

i've taken to calling our dog "the squire" ...

now those of you who know the dog formerly known as Sgt. Pepper can attest to how hard he worked to earn that title of Sgt ... he truly spent much of his day chastising those about him ... barking orders and commands ...

take me for a walk ...
stay away from this yard stranger ...
what are you doing ringing my door bell ...
how dare you sit on my couch ...
do not leave that package on my porch ...
did i say you could walk on that sidewalk in front of my house ...

and on and on it went ...

bark bark bark ...

command command command ...

well ...

can i just say ...

he's a changed dog ...

he struts about the pasture like he's the king of the world ...

every dog has his day ...

eventually ...



Wednesday, March 16, 2011

dare i say it ...

i awoke this morning, albeit a bit late, to blue skies and i'd be lying if i didn't say my heart gave a little jump for joy ...

but of course in light of what is happening in japan, i shan't complain about our weather ...

as an aside and just to have a "proud mommie moment" to share, my youngest cherub asked his teacher yesterday if he could organize a coin drive at his elementary school for some of the victims of the earthquake in japan ... he has a generous and kind soul he truly does ...

however ...

i think it might be time for ms heart to fill in some of the gaps in the blog ...

looking back, i realized i went from planning for the happy valley arts & crafts fair to NOTHING for weeks ...

and then i leaped right into the brook ...

so if any of you are still listening, let me catch you up on what has been happening in my little corner of the world ... 

in december, shortly after the 2nd annual happy valley arts and crafts fair ended -- on a successful note i might add -- my "partner in yarn" and i got to work on a huge knit art installation for our fair city ...

but let me go back even further ...

once upon a time, on a busy corner in our town, there stood 6 beautiful old evergreen trees that reigned over the main street of town ...

however, with progress came a widening of the roads in our fair town and irreparable damage was done to roots of the evergreen trees ...

and so it came to pass that the trees were destined for removal ...

rather than cut the trees to the ground, though, they were left as 20 foot stumps ... not nearly as regal without their evergreen crowns ...

oh there were several suggestions made on what to do with the stumps:  remove the stumps, carve the stumps, cut the stumps up for fire wood, etc ...

but my "partner in yarn" came up with a grand idea ...

we'd been mucking about with the idea of covering the trees in knitting as any fiber artist worth their weight in yarn would ...

so she designed a multi-season project, presented it to the city representatives, sought out grant money and, many months later, the trees have been crowned again ...



here are my cherubs helping with the installation of our knit sox ...





now one of the goals of art is to get people talking about art ... and having six, 20-foot stumps in the heart of one's city, covered in knit sox and snowflakes certainly got people talking ...

mostly people loved the sox and their rather dr seussical whimsy ... but there have been dissenting voices as well ... and that's ok too ...

but now with spring time, comes a new season ... and so my partner and i are busy with knitting machines and yarn winders ...

so i've babbled on like my brook for long enough ... and i haven't even gotten out of the month of december yet in catching you all up ...

christmas has come and gone, two family birthdays have been celebrated, i've traveled to the east coast of canada to watch a niece play ringette in the canada games ... and joined a new small group at my church ...

i spent a last birthday with a favorite uncle ...

and moved from my suburban neighborhood to a more pastural property ...

unpacked mountains of boxes ...

painted ...

prayed ... a lot ...

and today i am looking out my kitchen window ...

across the pasture ...

the skies are blue ...

and it's a good life ...

so happy knitting ... is there any other kind? ...

of course if you were privy to some of the knitting machine sessions wherein we knit thousands of rows of knitting at a time, you'd know that sometimes knitting is not always a happy time ... knitting machines jam ... yarn snarls and tangles ... and the air can turn quite blue at times ...

until next time, enjoy your day and do something nice for someone else ...



Monday, March 7, 2011

blogs from the brook ...

it's been a long time coming ...

years in fact ...

but i finally have my waterfront property ...



now perhaps i should have been a bit more specific ... in my mind, it was a windswept cottage by the sea ...

but with children still in the coop and the need for good schools, we have found our beautiful brookside property to be ideal ... and if you've read Anne of Green Gables (and if not, why not?) then you'll also understand my feelings about living next to a babbling brook ...

we don't have the Haunted Wood she wrote so often about but the howls coming from the pasture certainly feed one's imagination late at night ...

so if you've been wondering where ms. heart has been, i've been packing and purging ... plastering and painting ... getting one house ready for sale and another house ready for living ...

and as of saturday, our old house is sold and the new house ... well the new house is liveable in that everyone has a toothbrush and access to running water ...

now my dear friend linda suggested i post a photo a day ... i'm not sure i am that prolific but i'll definitely share what inspires me ...

as often as i can ...

whether it's a tiny bird bathing in the dirt outside my kitchen window or the wanderings of the lovely white goose that lives down the lane ...


and in the meantime, with prayers and a happy heart, we begin our new journey ... in our new house by the babbling brook ... where i hope we'll live happily ever after ...

or at least until that brook becomes a mosquito nursery and we are forced indoors for the duration ...

have a wonderful day ...