Crafting update!

I've still been beading quite a bit, but haven't kept the shop fully stocked for a while now. I just lose money when there's more than eight to ten items in there. Here's some of what I've been doing!







Sensing a THEME? I love rainbows and have been making lots of them. :)

In knitting news, just before Little Hawk had his heart attack, I was working on a sweater pattern called Gex. Actually, I was test knitting it for the designer, and it was a crazy fun pattern and I was loving it.







Actually, I was knitting it when Hawk had his heart attack. And I haven't been able to pick it up since. There's just too much going on in my head. But it's so pretty! I really want to finish it! Someday, after I come to grips with what happened.

I've also been spinning!



That's a new flyer for my wheel, I got a jumbo flyer and bobbins so now the flyer doesn't match.


Some lovely Criolla wool my friend Peacock gave me.



An AMAZINGLY SOFT alpaca batt my mom gave me.



Camel-silk roving that I won in a raffle.

Anyway, that's the main crafting wrap-up! I'll post current projects tomorrow!

It's been a while...

Yikes. I haven't been on in a few years. Again, there's reasons for that. My husband, Little Hawk, (AKA Husbandface) has been a handful with the issues he had before, and now, some new ones. What's new? Well, he had a heart attack. Don't freak out, he's alive, but it was touch and go for a few months. He's now in what's known as a Persistent Vegetative State. This means that he isn't able to do much communicating with us, is unable to move himself around in bed or out of it, and is not able to safely eat or drink, he most likely would choke.
         That's a lot to deal with. And I could have let them pull the plug on him, but I didn't because A), I love him and I couldn't bear to let him go, and B), he told me that in such a situation, he would want to be kept alive no matter what. Those were his exact words.
         I also could have put him in a skilled nursing home, but I didn't seriously consider it, for a number of reasons. The main reason was that he has a horror of ending up in a nursing home, and I promised him a long time ago that I would never let him go to one.

        So, we were in the hospital. At first, he was totally unresponsive. Only breathing because he was hooked into a breathing machine. Intubated. Kept alive by a feeding tube down his nose. And while he was like this, the doctors told me that he was brain dead. That he would never recover. I was numb, unable to keep a coherent thought together. I told them that I wasn't pulling the plug, that I would take him home and care for him, for the rest of his life. How long would he live? Nobody knew.
        However, he slowly improved. One day he started fighting the breathing machine, trying to breathe on his own. So they turned it off, to see what would happen. They waited until I left to do that, I would just like to point out. And he breathed on his own. They extubated him, and he kept breathing. Suddenly his survival factor jumped way up. Now there was no "pulling the plug," he was fighting to live on his own. He underwent surgery to have a permenent feeding tube placed, and he was, eventually, moved out of the ICU onto a different floor. He had spent a MONTH in the ICU.
        He continued to improve. He opened his eyes, winced in pain when he was pinched, and once, so quietly, told me, "I love you."
         Eventually they let me bring him home. Now I have a caregiving team that helps me turn him every two hours, to prevent bed sores. We wash him and fill his feeding pump and keep him comfortable in bed. We use a hoist to move him to a wheelchair so we can watch movies or take him for a walk. At night, I get up every two hours to keep turning him in bed.
        And he keeps improving! He is seeing a Speech Therapist, who has guided him from occasional nods and shakes of his head to verbally answering questions. He tells me he loves me every day. He calls me his Little Bird again.
        This is hard work. I won't pretend it isn't. I am his legal guardian now. I have to do our finances and comply with a nearly draconian set of legal regulations regarding care and finances. There are court appearances to prove that I am not misusing or squandering his money. It's scary and tough.
         But it's 100% worth it to know that the love of my life is alive and getting the best care I can give. I would give up a hundred freedoms and every penny we have if it was needed.

Now I'm all worn out from typing all this up. Crafting reports tomorrow!

Meeting Goals

As you can see, I haven't exactly been posting regularly. There's a number of reasons for that, and most of you know them already.
Hawk is still sick, still has early onset dementia, and is still a lot of work. I'm running Little Bird Studios, and am working hard at making beautiful things. It's really fulfilling, but takes up all of the time that Hawk doesn't.
I honestly don't know how often I'll be able to post, but I'll try a couple of times a week. I plan to do some demos of what I'm working on, post links to cool Etsy shops, post some inspiration pictures, and talk about myself.
I also have a spinning wheel now! It's delightful I got it from Bluebonnet Spinning Wheels in Texas, and if you're in the US and need an affordable wheel, I'd highly recommend them. I love my baby. My mother stained and finished it for me in a custom color, and made and stained a matching niddy noddy. She's pretty awesome. :)

 

It's so pretty. I love it forever. I've been busy making yarn with it, too! My handspun all gets hung on the wall, because even though it's beginner's stuff, it's still ART.

And that's it for tonight! Hawk has pneumonia, so I might have to run him in to Urgent Care for oxygen if he suddenly gets worse. I also have beadwork to do!

Mood-Setting Monday

     This Monday, I'm thinking about rain. The smell of rain is renewing, refreshing, soothing, and healing. The air smells clean and moist, with undertones of green, growing life, and rich, damp earth. Having always associated rain with renewal and growth, I have come to cherish listening to rain drum on my roof, flinging open the windows to fill the house with freshly washed air, and even taking long, soaking wet walks without an umbrella.  Luckily for me, I live in Washington, which averages over 27  inches of rain annually. This is an average, because my city gets over 50 inches a year, and the peninsula can get over a hundred!
      Granted, not all of my experiences in the rain have been amazing. I remember as a child, spending the autumn frantically hauling and stacking loads of firewood to keep our cozy little farmhouse, well, cozy. Usually half of that work was in the rain, and we would be moving loads of wood all day, with our leather gloves becoming sodden and muddy,the wood seeming to double in weight from the waterlogged moss still clinging to the rough bark, and the frantic ants, centipedes and spiders frantically seeking shelter from the wet. We spent the days soggy, cold, grumpy, and in terror that an earwig or spider would run up our sleeve. (They never did)
     At the same times in my life, however, rain has been a comfort, a blessing, a release. I remember the comforting rattle of rain on the roof, lulling me to sleep. Then, there's long walks through the woods, listening to the patter of rain on leaves, watching for frogs and salamanders and newts to play with.   I remember building little dams, bridges, and making leaf boats for the hundreds of little rills that would spring up on rainy days. For those of you who didn't amuse themselves by reading the dictionary cover to cover, a rill is a very tiny seasonal stream.
      I've never really used an umbrella, mostly because the summer after I watched Mary Poppins, I jumped off our roof several times, smashing beyond repair a succession of umbrellas until my dad threw up his hands in disgust and swore that he would never buy an umbrella again. Given that this was twenty years ago, he may have changed his mind, but I not only still wistfully look to the sky and wonder how to float off into it, I walk in the rain with no protection from it's sodden charms. While I might not ever use umbrellas, I do like them, especially this cool black steampunk umbrella, this awesome retro umbrella, and this amazing wrought iron decorated umbrella, on Etsy.
     While I love being in and listening to the rain, I can certainly understand why lots of people don't see the same attraction in being either trapped inside, or soaking wet and cold. Well, for the rest of you, here's a cute, fluffy little cloud that nobody could object to. For we rain-lovers, here's a sampling of amazing rain images and ideas that I yanked from my Pinterest.

Well, enjoy the rain, let it cleanse your spirit and leave you refreshed. Also, I'd love to hear your stories about rain, rain-related accessories and crafts, ect. Please comment and join the conversation! 

  

Tea-spiration Tuesday

              Today, I'm drinking Earl Grey. It's piping hot, rich, sweet, and flavorful, with half-n-half and four sugar cubes, in a silly Pemco NW Profile cup.

I found it in Seattle, and yes, my coffee order is always ridiculous. Baristas would hate me if I wasn't a good tipper. On a side note taking this picture prompted me to figure out the ISO settings on my camera. Bam! One hundred percent better photos. I feel like a technology god.

          Anyway, I like Earl grey because it has a complex flavor. I have two boxes, one by Twinings, which is my favorite tea brand EVER, and some decaf by The Republic of Tea, which is excellent, especially when I'm supposed to be in bed soon but want another cuppa. Traditionally, Earl Grey is a black tea, with bergamot oil added to enhance the flavor. Bergamot has a rich, bitter, piney-citrusy taste, and accents the dark earthiness of black tea beautifully. I like to add cream to it sometimes, to offset some of the earthier notes, but I have been informed that cream in tea is tea heresy. Oops.

           While I prefer to buy my tea from Twinings, there are lots of interesting handmade blends on Etsy, including ones with rose petals, lavender, lemon and even mint added! I happen to like this cute rubber stamp of a happy tea bag, and the nerd in me adores the quote on this mug. I've never mentioned this before, but I have a fascination with French macarons, and the Earl Grey macarons here make my mouth water.

            I have a whole Pinterest board dedicated to tea. To me, every tea has a different effect and mood. Earl Grey  and its flavorful cousin, Lady Grey, speak to me of richness, the earthy taste speaking of nourishing, of the farms where the leaves are grown. The bergamot adds higher flavor notes that inspire thoughts of wealth and grandeur, of English women in satin and velvet drinking from bone white china. Its a powerful, intense tea that is an acquired taste.

           Well! What teas are you drinking today? What are they inspiring in you? What mug are they in? Please comment and join the conversation!

Sneak Peek Saturday

I'm posting this a bit early, because I plan to sleep late. (lol) Later than usual, anyway. Here's something I'm working on as a fun needlefelting project.

And, of course, here's Coraline wishing you all a wonderful weekend! See you on Monday! 

Foodie Friday

I was going to post a BIT more this week, but I succumbed to the flu. Argh.

       Anyway, I wanted to discuss food today. I was rather bad and made chocolate chip pancakes: pancakes from a mix with a handful of chips sprinkled onto each one as I poured it into the pan. Mmmmmmm. I had to fry them in butter, too, because I couldn't find the vegetable oil. Unfortunately for me, I couldn't eat them all. Well, that means I get some for lunch!
        Chocolate chip pancakes are particularly special to me because my mother used to make them for special occasions. My mother is an amazing cook, and used to make all kinds of amazing food when we were growing up on the farm. I don't know if I've mentioned this, but I grew up on a remote, self-sufficient farm in the Cascade Mountains. We made our own electricity, grew our own food, and were home schooled by my mother, who had an excellent college education and drilled us ruthlessly. We spent summers exploring the mountains, hunting, gathering wild berries, nuts, tasty greens, stocking up on hay, and learning advanced survival skills. In the fall, we would gather in all of our garden and orchard goodies, dig up bushels of potatoes to store in bins in the root cellar, harvest dozens of massive winter squash like Acorn squash and Hubbards, gather cords and cords of firewood, finish canning hundreds of jars of vegetables, fruit, meat, jams, jellies, and apple sauce, and hunt deer in their season. Winter was spent mending tools that had been broken, studying, playing in the two feet of perpetual winter snow, playing on the frozen pond and ice fishing, and planning for spring. Spring was a frenzy of planting the garden repairing the fences, gathering the first delicious greens, watching chickens hatch broods, calving milk cows, picking out the perfect suckling pigs to raise, and watching the streams and rivers carefully for flooding.
        It was a pretty awesome way to grow up, but everything was from scratch. Want a cherry pie? Stand guard over the tree all spring and part of summer, then, to make sure the birds don't steal the cherries. When they are finally ripe, pick what ones the birds haven't stolen, pit each one by hand with a hairpin, put in fridge.   (fridge is powered by propane, because the nearest power lines are five miles away) Whip up some piecrust from Crisco, butter, flour and salt. (the flour is storebought, but the butter is home-made from our grouchy Jersey cow's rich cream) Preheat stove, (also propane, unless you're feeling adventurous and want to use the woodstove) place crust in pie plate, put in cherries and sugar, bake. Fend off horde of hungry siblings with a stick. Serve pie hot from the over with a pitcher of fresh cream.
     Despite the extra time involved in making everything from scratch, it's extra delicious that way. Our cow gave four to six gallons of milk EVERY DAY. A third of each gallon was a thick, heavy cream so rich that you could pour it into a sieve and it wouldn't flow out.  It was slightly more viscous than sweetened condensed milk. You could cut it with a knife. Sorry, I tend to wax eloquent on the subject of cream, but it was one of my favorite things about the farm. Breakfast? Big bowl of fresh blackberries and peaches with cream. Lunch? Thick pile of ham or chicken sandwiches on homemade bread , tall glasses of milk, with homemade tapioca pudding- made with cream. Dinner? Grilled or steamed zuchinni, roasted chicken or chicken pot pie rich with big chunks of potato and carrot and spring peas, baked squash with brown sugar, butter and nuts, green beans with butter, onions and bacon. More tall glasses of milk. Lots of wild green salads, venison, and ham. Thick bean soup with ten kinds of beans, salt pork, and bacon. Cornbread with rabbit enchiladas. Her sourdough biscuits- oh, don't get me started on them. Amazing  mile high, crunchy crust with a flaky inside, amazing with pork or rabbit gravy or with jam. Rich, buttery rolls, and her plate-sized cinnamon rolls, studded with walnuts and raisins, with a secret caramel sauce.
           Ever heard of Creme Bulgare? It's a sort of whipped heavy cream with a yogurt starter, and DELICIOUS. My mom would make crepes and serve them with fresh berries and creme bulgare in summer, and berry jam and creme bulgare in winter. Lots of easy, soft cheeses. Lots of egg custard. In fact, she made me an egg custard just this past week, with wild rice and duck eggs. YUM.
      Ok, I have to stop now. I'm too hungry. : D