house wren studio

teaching and travel

Looking ahead to a weekend fireside with a basket of mice. Thanks for all the orders, and there is still time to order a love-mouse. I'll add them to the Etsy shop as needed and ship on February 7th or sooner if you are one who wanted yours there earlier. Doing my bit to populate homes everywhere with lovely little mice. 

Also, speaking of creative get-togethers, I can tell you now that I am going out to Portland, Oregon where I will be teaching this class (Enchanted Felt Cottage) and another (Prada Schmada) at ArtFiberfest at the end of June. Very exciting! I've never been there before and am so honored to be chosen as a teacher for this well-loved annual retreat at Reed College on the city's edge.

Friday's class is this felt cottage project, my new favorite, favorite design. I have it front and center in the studio where I can just admire it. Every now and then I pick up some little thing lingering on the table and stitch it on. Without overdoing it, I'm on to another version now and have ideas and the beginnings for more. Enchanted, indeed.

And, after seeing how much everyone enjoyed this creative class at Silver Bella last fall, I'm teaching Prada Schmada again too with some new extras to keep us busy for a longer class session. Registration begins February 25 for the event June 24-28. Hope to see you there!

xoC

birds of a feather

A gorgeous package arrived full of playful paperie. Everything inside and out was so pretty, so sweetly Brenda and the bundle dropped onto the doorstep just in time for my new scrapbooking class.

Mom and I have been stalking her neighborhood rec center, lunching next door at the diner and then stopping in to see what the daily offering might be. Hoping that some event would be a good match for her interests, she was surprisingly eager to try it all. Yoga was great, Current Events, too, Bingo- not so much, but there wasn't anything to fill that creative arts need. 

So I offered to teach a class on scrapbooking. I figured that the creativity plus sharing all those photos of loved ones or self as a younger person would help form new connections in a scene that continually reminds me of the first day at a new school.

And I was right. I hauled all my scrapbook stuff and tools to the first meeting and jumped in. Who can resist all that beautiful paper? Or a book full of someone's artfully composed life in pictures? Or even the personal history of an old photo? Our small group bonded pretty fast. In the space of an hour, a little community came together.

My mom and her brand new pal, Marge, chatted throughout, told each other their stories, exchanged phone numbers like school girls. It turned out that almost all the women were new in the area, mostly moved from out of state to join their grown children, settled and busy with their own lives. Such amazing women so full of courage and spunk!

(photo courtesy of Library of Congress archives on Flickr)

We decided that we could try lots of different arts as a group in our very sunny, cheerful activity room on the lower level. Scrapbooking for awhile, then maybe knitting or textile arts and then painting for sure. After all, Shirley has 2 art degrees, Sheila is a well known basket-maker, Marge used to knit dresses and coats for her family. The average age was about 80, but I have a feeling I'll be a student myself. Each of us a teacher with stories and expertise. 

I was sitting there cutting paper, listening to the busy chatter- increasing with laughter, thinking about how each time I moved, the first thing I did was find a group to knit, craft, quilt, sew, yak with. Even wrote that book about it. Don't know why it took me so long to realize this would be the way to go- for Mom and kind of for me, too.

Sneaking into the senior center underage, and it's awesome!

the love-mouse

Introducing the Love-Mouse, available to order on Etsy and send as a Valentine to someone you love- or to your lovable self. I will make as many as I can, listing them in small batches and have them all sweetly boxed with a gift message, ready to ship Saturday the 7th for arrival before the 14th. (The box can handle two to one address.) Each has a little garden with a wool heart tagged with LOVE. Signed and dated, each is handmade to match the one you see here. For shipping outside the US, please email me for costs.

And, yes, I do love him. I totally fall for these little guys every time I make one. Such a delight to open a box and see his adorable little face peering up, so lovingly in all his valentine sweetness.

Yummier than chocolate.  xoC

studio stack, number two

Perfectly crisp and lovely photo turned all funky and blurred with Typepad's new platform. I agree with Alicia and wonder why they tinkered with something that worked fine before? I really don't like it anymore. At all.
So, I'm leaving technology alone today (as I should anyway) and playing with a new stack of woolly stuff.
However, I do suggest you come back tomorrow for more blurry sweetness. xoC

our coze house

When Maggie was 6, she had a red wool duffel coat and grey snow boots that she called her Cindel boots. Anyone remember the Ewok Adventure?

This is the one page story she brought home from school in 1987. So many reasons why I love this and still have it hanging where I see it daily.
The perfectly rendered self-portrait complete with red nose on a cold day.
The sweetest compliment a mother could ask for.
The spelling of coze.
Let's officially change it to that, shall we? I'm coze. Are you?

in a letter

I save everything, and lots of that is useless sentimental stuff to let go of, but I guard the box of letters. Over the years so much of our family history has made its way into that old file box. Rummaging through it, I instantly recognize the handwriting of so many- Andy's mother, my father, my camp counselor, my old friends. Reading their letters is a bit of time travel back to that day or week or year- so much information, minutia and encrypted memory there.

I miss writing letters. I miss my own handwriting, something I once took such pride in. I remember spending an entire day practicing a certain slant, drawing letters and relearning a new signature. For 13 or more years my dear camp counselor, Betty and I wrote to each other. With illustrations, exclamations and dramatic underlines, I laid out my entire angst-ridden teen life for her dissection and her teacher's mentoring words in response carried me through many a confused moment. In later years, I sent stories of college, Andy, the babies and their drawings. If she had saved the letters I wrote to her........ well, I'm glad I at least have hers.

In our spare room is a vintage glass vanity lamp with my dusty handmade shade. I made it years ago using an old clip-on lampshade skeleton found at the thrift. Re-covered with copies of old letters from my save box, it always makes me stop and look when I turn it on. There is Betty....and Tom....and Holly. Each panel a different part of a letter, from a different part of my life.

 As I remember, it was pretty easy and quick to make. Copy, cut and whipstitch lace the trimmed paper pieces onto the wire shade form with raffia threaded into a big needle. Maybe not the sturdiest structure, but surely the most interesting. A recent houseguest declared the lamp his favorite handmade thing in the whole house.

Tonight on the eve of this incredible moment in history, I plan to write a letter to each of my girls. I want to consider through words and the act of careful handwriting what we are thinking about today, the excitement and hope for their future, the spectacular promise of Barack Obama.

I envy those heading to the Inauguration even though the snow continues to fall. I won't be there, but it's a good day to get out the pen and a blank sheet. Write a letter. Something for them to unfold someday, something for their save box.

studio stack, number 1

Saturday morning.
Remember that gift of a quiet house, frosted windows, no school, robe, slippers, eat pancakes, watch cartoons on the floor, play with toys. Near the radiator.

Be there.
Just play.

flights and flocks

I was going to use this photo for some post on creative flight or the new year or some other optimistic thought. Changed my mind.

A few weeks ago when I was down at the park, I noticed the size and number of these geese. Huge. 

They are everywhere on the waterside park grounds, spreading across fields without concern, as if the park was made just for them. The fake coyotes are all torn up now from the wind, still spinning on their bent stakes, but the geese continue to graze in their shadow, fairly confident that they'll be undisturbed. It is pretty impossible to try to navigate around the waste they leave behind.

I walked the path and came around a sheltered corner where those few burst into flight. They usually ignore the walkers, our steady laps around the track as unthreatening as the hired dog who comes in the morning to chase. Geese flutter to the water, dog leaves, geese come right back. The strength in number makes them as nonchalant as the deer grazing at my door in the evening. 

 

Like the poor starved deer in their subdivided habitats, this mess is pretty much of our own making. Clipping their wings decades ago for the sake of live decoys to aid the sport hunters encouraged them to stay north and stop their annual migration. So here they are. Adapted to the new deal. All ours.
After yesterday's US Airways crash as a result of engines ingesting these birds in flight - right down the very same river, leaving the very same airport I use - I'll add this to my laundry list of flight worries. I had one or two spots left I guess.

Thankfully, the pilot did a heroic job, saved the day with the help of the NY Waterway ferries and the story ended well. Except for the bird strike, it was looking like a good day to fly.

So I've said my piece, spoken up for the lamb, the deer and the goose. I'd better get back to crafts tomorrow. 

stone barns

What a great surprise last night to see our own Stone Barns on Top Chef! And there were the lambs, their dog, the chickens, the pigs, the fields and barns that we love to visit.

But then, o, no, there was the lamb again!
On the table.

It is a working farm and it does support a restaurant. If you were a big fan of lamb, I guess this would be the place to go. But not on my list, I only like them in the meadow.

For us, Stone Barns is a nature center, a chance to visit with animals, dogs and their people, a place to tiptoe through muddy fields, glimpse a turkey wandering in the woods, discover a herd, a flock, a harvest. I used to go there much more often because Jake liked to walk there too. He loved the attention of giddy children and friendly dogs. He would stare at the cows wondering what kind of ginormous dog that could be.

You can peek in the kitchen windows and watch their own top chefs prep for the evening.

Walk into the greenhouse and smell spring in fall. A seasonal farmer's market is there too.

 

And if you are lucky and plan ahead, you can have dinner in the award-winning restaurant, although I've never managed that.

There is also an outdoor cafe with a pavillion for common tables. Visitors rest there, enjoy the simple foods, watch their children romp around the courtyard, dropping bits of sandwiches all around the tables and plaza.

Jake liked it right there too.

Probably best of all.

that girl

I keep forgetting to tell you that my new bio photo is by my lovely, talented, generous, heart-full friend, Kim Kwan. Thinking about her today and sending good thoughts her way. She took this shot while we were out on a camera safari, as she called it, at Silver Bella with Cori and Becky. Roaming the old market district of Omaha, we had such a great time looking for interesting scenes- walls painted desert blue, wrought iron stairs, ivy-covered buildings, old smudged signs, loading docks. 

It was hard to choose the shot I liked best combined with the fact that Becky's camera was clicking away too. I had a favorite of hers as well. That's saying a lot because I never like photos of me. I just don't do well with a camera unless I'm holding it and even then....

The incredible b/w photo in the banner above and here is of my mom. Captures all her mischief, mystery and sweetness and it inspires me every time I see it. Don't you wish you could have known your parents when they were young? Just as little toddlers revealing all their natural personality so unwittingly. What were they like before life swept them up and carried them away, forward to us? Anybody else ever wonder that too? Sure is something to think about.