Tulip Time

It's tulip time again! That's the time of year when we are so desperate for some sign of spring that we will pay anything they ask for a little bunch of tulips to put on our table and pretend that spring is on the way.

This winter has been particularly stinky for those of us in the Northeast. We have had at least one snow storm a week, and on some lucky weeks, two. Even though things warmed up a bit last week, melting off most of the nasty icy patches, mounds of snow are still piled up high at the edges of the curbs, and big hills in parking lots threaten to persist for weeks to come. The tv weathermen are promising a warm up, but they caught me this morning and tricked me into wearing stockings and a skirt to church, and I paid for it with freezing legs.

Oh well. Off to the breakfast room to admire my tulips!

Tough Times

The Holidays. Counselors always say that the holidays are hard for a lot of folks. Ours are usually fine, since we get along with family. But for us it is also a tremendous amount of work, since most of the entertaining takes place here, and many times includes overnight guests, which means that the "living spaces" of the house have to be as lovely and clean as the "public areas."

My folks and my son and his wife came and stayed at Thanksgiving and we had a grand time. We were 20+ for dinner, and invited guests in for leftovers in the following days. But, my mom had several scans scheduled for the week she went back home. The scans showed the worst possible thing that they could show--all a very big surprise to everyone, including the doctors.

It became obvious that it was only a matter of time for her, and we all hoped for longer rather than shorter. After New Year's I headed south to my parents home, but there were phone calls saying that Mom was not doing well at all. She was getting the best of care, and was comfortable, but it was obvious that her decline was rapid. Stunningly rapid. She passed in the wee hours, as they say many souls do, only a little more than a month from the date of the first scan.

I was grateful that I got to say goodbye. We didn't get to talk much, but she told us that she loved us. I came home, and we planned her memorial service. Family and friends came back to our house, and we had a pretty good party in her honor. I'm only sorry it wasn't her birthday party, but then, eventually this day would have come anyhow. Sorry, Mom, it was so short. Somehow 87 years doesn't seem like enough.

White Christmas

Well--White-after-Christmas...Thankfully, Christmas Day was lovely and clear.

Today, the 26th is quite the different tale. The blizzard is predicted for Long Island, and we seem to be getting it. Yesterday, everyone was able to get here and be on their way without the agita of weather to add to their travels. One family even escaped to Florida by leaving on a 6am flight. How clever of them! By 9am there were tiny flakes in the air, and by 10, it was a full raging snow storm. Church finished by 11am, and I drove home on the ugly, untouched roads. When I got down to the Village, things had been salted, and the roads were only wet and black. NY State doesn't seem to feel the need to anticipate, and always leaves the salting out on Rt 231 until there is too much snow on the road to make it work without the plowing. The wind is coming in sideways from the north, and so are the flakes. Oddly, for the last number of hours, the wind is still blowing, but the accumulation is less than I would have thought.

But, there have been a couple of ominous flickers of the lights, so here's hoping the power stays on. We have a fire place, but the wood pile is out back, untouched for quite a number of years, since building a wood fire in our house seriously throws off the temperature in the whole rest of the house. We have a fancy candelabra in there now, and that kind of subs for a real fire (when we remember to light the candles.) But, if the power goes off, and we need some serious heat to keep the temperature of the house up high enough to keep the pipes from freezing, we are going to need the fireplace. Here's hoping the tree limbs all stay where they are, and the electricity stays on. This storm is supposed to blow until dinner time tomorrow. Right now, though, things sound pretty quiet outside--don't hear the wind hitting the house the way it was before. I don't understand the way it can cool things off in the house, even though MyTreasure has spent countless hours sealing up everything he can stuff with weather stripping. As soon as the wind comes up, this place feels like an old log cabin, with spaces between the logs.

Merry Christmas, everyone! We had fun yesterday, not so much today.

I Don't Know...

I confess there are times when I wonder if I've gone over the top. Those moments you look at yourself and what you are doing, and say "How on earth did I get here, and how off the charts is this?" I arrived at that point two afternoons ago when I found myself ironing feathers. Does that sound ridiculous? There was a good reason, but for heaven's sake, who would think they would end up ironing feathers. Who even knew feathers could be ironed?

I found this cute little pattern for lavender sachets. The picture showed them trimmed with marabou. Marabou is that fluffy stuff that they use on the edges of fancy lingerie, satin slippers, and of course, your classic feather boa. Ha! I found out that they are nothing more than turkey feathers! But, I digress.

I found a cheapie boa in the dollar store, and thought for a buck, I could experiment. Seems the ends of the feathers are rolled into strands of string, and then wrapped with thread that keeps it all together. I cut it apart, and found that the feathers could be used, but they were all crinkled up from being wrapped. So, like any good crafter, I experiment.

The quill is almost like a natural plastic, and goes nicely back into shape when flattened with an iron. I have one of those tiny triangle irons, and it was perfect. The steam from the big iron actually revived the fluffy part of the feathers. Well--whatever works! I didn't think hot glue would be a good thing, so I attached my little feather pieces with Fabri-tac, which sets up very quickly. I think they came out pretty cute. Now we'll see if anyone at the church fair wants to take them home...

Little Dragon

October is birthday month around here. Most of the grandkids seem to have been born in October and November, so those parties march along in a row on weekends in the fall, and we get to celebrate. Besides the family parties there are "kid parties" for friends and classmates, and there is usually a "theme". Last year it was Pirates and Greek Mythology, and this time it is Dragons. I'm not sure how this will be carried out by the hosts and the guests, but an old pattern came to mind, and I took myself up to the attic to see if it was possible to locate this buried treasure. I confess that my section of the attic is challenging. I picked a likely place to begin the search, and what ho!--there it was. I selected some fabrics from the collection, and headed downstairs to the sewing room.

It took quite a few times reading through the directions until it made sense--I always have trouble with written directions. Give me a diagram any time. Really, they were pretty clear, and so I made my templates, stitched on the lines and started stuffing. The whole deal is doing the stuffing so that it isn't lumpy, and it turned out pretty well.

MyTreasure said I should have included a "Top of the Mornin' to ya!" squeezy button and a mini flame thrower, but I did no such thing. Little Dragon will be on his way to his new lair on Sunday--Happy Birthday Hadn!

That Was Fun!

I confess I am easily amused. I had wanted to try these cupcakes, and an appropriate audience was coming for dinner on Sunday, so I gave it a try. We had a leftover box of ice cream cones, and a way too big container of rainbow sprinkles calling to me from the pantry, and look how cute they came out! And, tasty too...

They are top heavy, however. I lost some of them moving from the kitchen to the dining room, so for the next time I have to invent some kind of a holder--I'm thinking a cake board with holes cut out--that ought to do the trick.

Heart Doll Project

My doll club was approached by two women from Women Heart, a volunteer group who visit women in the hospital who have suffered heart attacks. We offered them dolls to take to patients and they thought it was a very nice idea. Someone suggested that we make Raggedy Ann dolls, and the club ordered lables to be sewn onto each doll.

I couldn't get my head around the raggedies--seems like when your whole life has just turned upside down you need something more than "cute". I had seen other artists work doing "healing" dolls or tokens, and decided to go in a different direction. I took a pattern for a little "Friendship Doll" by Jill Maas and redrew it larger--more like a pillow to hug. I beaded them, like the original pattern, and added a hand and a heart. The heart/hand symbol is from the Shakers, and means "Hands to work, hearts to God". But, it could also be a healing hand, and since the hearts in these cases all are having problems, it seemed right.

I confess I can't leave anything alone--I always have to put something extra into a recipe when I cook, or tweak the pattern when I sew, so my doll has evolved into a "Life Map". I decided that rather than fool with paint or dye, I would buy batik and use the colors as they fall on the fabric. This is a bit time consuming, since I have to design a different "map" for each doll to fit the color , but it is intriguing thinking up new little scenes, and each one is unique. I may rethink the batik part, and give the paint a try. So far there are only three of them, and goodness knows, what with all that is coming up in the next month, plus the church fair and holidays looming in the background, that may be the end of them. I really enjoy doing them though, and I'm thinking there will be others down "Life's Winding Road", especially if they have places to go, and won't be just hanging around my sewing room looking back at me.