Dec. 26 Boxing day

There are so many memories of Christmas past. Many more to come I hope, though things have changed so much from when the boys were little and our Christmas mornings were filled with piles of torn paper, empty boxes and Lego's everywhere.

I am looking forward to their kids, and mayhem and mess all over again.

The photo above is of my sister and brother, I am the skinny waif in the blue skirt. Brother Bill is in mid rock on the much loved horsie, he nearly wore the springs off of the thing and my sweet sister with her Mona Lisa smile.

This year has been an exceptionally odd and stress filled holiday season, just two weeks ago my sis was diagnosed with a particularly aggressive melanoma, right now she is sporting several huge incisions and multiple staples but she is, for now, and God willing always, cancer free.

Her family has had multiple trials recently but the excellent results of her cancer surgery is a great gift, one of the best any of us has ever received.

Today I am boxing up the Christmas decorations, though it is not the traditional meaning of Boxing Day, that is what I am calling it anyway. So today is for cleaning, boxing up Christmas crap as it is lovingly called and preparing for knee replacement surgery tomorrow.

I am not happy about that I must confess. The idea of bone surgery is a tad freakish.

With a little luck and some hard work, by spring I will be able to walk the dogs and work in the yard, rebuilt my fish pond and do many of the things I have not done for a couple of years now.

I am planning on taking advantage of the pain killers too, usually I don't use them but I think I will this time, happily and with abandon, to hell with the idea of toughing it out!

Somewhere some mom is missing out on her child's creation. I plucked this heavily glittered charmer out of a snow bank near the elementary school. With no name on it, and the zero likely hood of finding it's creator, I brushed the snow off and took it home, it now hangs on my office wall. Kid-art is the best art of all. I love it, wish the camera could capture the true effect of excessive glitter, it's quite nice.

And a few days ago I finished up the quilting on the bird quilt. It used up nearly 15000 yards of white thread. So it is done and put away, the photos sent off for the competition and I hope they send for it so they can see the detail in person. It would be nice to win but I never get my hopes up. Pointless waste of time. Just do it and let it go, if it is meant to be it will be.

Right now as I write this I am having an internal debate as to cleaning the laundry room and really scrubbing things down before surgery tomorrow or just sitting here on my ass and doing nothing. We do need to make a grocery store run to make sure there are supplies for the men in the house to eat and heat up since they are usually fed by yours truly, but other than that I really don't want to do much of anything, so the sitting on my ass idea is winning.

Oh and I have to tell you, another really bright spot this year, was a hand written thank you note from a three year old in the church, I adore this precocious child, she cracks me up, and the tiny toddler in red and white striped jammies who invited me into her humble house with the sweetest little "come-in, come-in" then hugged my leg even though she had never seen me before, and the kindness of friends, the notes in the mail, my family whole and healthy, sons well and all together, bright spots, good things, kindness and love......I am grateful.

May you all have a wonderful coming year, hold your dear ones close and hang on for the ride!

sigh

I know I should be painting, but right now I cannot find the desk top. Buried. Totally buried, so I'm quilting, will show you later, what I am doing.

Oh, and I got a fantastic Norwegian sweater for my sis for Christmas, and, thank heaven, I did not have to knit it myself. Whew.

antique couch, so close to finish!

All that is left to finish the couch, is cover the staple edges with trim and decorative nail heads.

It needs a great deal of trim, many yards of it, so I have to order the yardage.

It is a gorgeous taupe linen. I love it, it is now covered in heavy plastic and everyone has strict orders not to touch it. Woe to any animal who thinks it looks comfortable!

I will repost pics when the trim is finished.

There is new burlap straps on the bottom, new burlap over the old springs which I restrung. Then there is foam covered with many layers of cotton batting, the edge wire is also covered in heavy cotton linters and covered in burlap, as a sort of fox-edging, then over the batting is a muslin layer and then the linen.

The arm rests and the backs still contain the over 100 year old batting and horse hair.

It wa a lot of work but I love the way it looks, it was so worth it.

Christmas Knitting

Selbuvotter mittens, or the style of knitting from Selbu Norway. Very pretty mittens, they will be a present for somebody. Not sure who will get them yet.

Thanksgiving

Normally we do not have dogs at the dining room table, the boys did think this was pretty funny though.

Tigger kept jumping onto Josh's chair, he would have eaten right off the plate had we let him.

Mr Tinky looks pretty content don't you think?

Supposedly if you stare at it hard enough it will pop right into your mouth.

Last night when I was cooking the boys brought Denzel in, he looks a little concerned, there he was sitting on the fence sound asleep and he is whisked into light and warmth and confronted with a box of stuffing. Disconcerting to say the least.

And no we don't eat anyone we have been introduced too, Denzel is safe, he has had his cat food treat for his Thanksgiving dinner, he and Katie Google are fine and happy

embroidery

After much internal debate and a ton of procrastination, I have decided to embroider a single bird for the back of the antique couch I am finally finishing.

The couch is an Eastlake style, beautiful mahogany, with three back panels of fabric insets. They will be plain natural linen except for this single bird.

I will post pictures of it when it is finally finished, Thanksgiving cooking might get in the way of finishing it off, but I am making huge progress on the thing.

Everything has been stripped the wood given a new oil buffing while retaining the old patina, the springs retied, new burlap straps, and really all I need to do is layer the stuffings for the seat and staple the linen in place.

Then when it is finished it will be covered in plastic with razor wire all around it to protect it, there are just too many animals in this house, somebody will be overly tempted to pee on it.

Okay maybe not razor wire, but plastic?, yes.

Photos

Some more photos from the Great Salt Lake....don't know why I'm posting these except I really, really like 'em.

Spiral Jetty explained

Probably should have explained the Jetty a bit, it is an "installation" art piece literally installed into the Great Salt Lake. It was done by an artist by the name of Smithson and it think it was in the seventies? not sure of the date.

The area surrounding the lake is covered in black igneous rock, the bed of the lake is white from salt deposits, sometimes there is an algae bloom which turns the water red. Smithson wanted to play off the colors of the water, the rock, the algae (and when the rocks had been submerged by water rise and fall they become encrusted with salt crystal), the contrasts between the black rock and sparkling crystal.

The dike itself and massive rocks were laid by a company in my own town, about an hour or so away from the sight and about a half an hour away from the Golden Spike monument, where the last spike of the trans-continental railway was laid.

The Jetty is off a small promontory in the shore line and juts into the lake, it is simply a gigantic spiral of black rock.

The west desert of Utah is spare, wild, outrageously beautiful, barren, windswept and an extaordinarily odd place for an art installation and yet there it is. Smithson is gone now, he was killled in a airplane crash, but the Spiral Jetty is still there and still seemingly solid and unmoved.

Spiral Jetty

A friend and I went out to the west desert along the Great Salt Lake to see the Spiral Jetty. The lake was a bit high so only the top rocks of the Jetty were exposed, it was oddly misty over the lake, the far mountains were barely visible. They looked as if they were floating in air.

The alien sign tagged out in the middle of nowhere was pretty amusing.

Spiral Jetty, its much larger than it looks.

Great Salt Lake....

wide open vistas....

Quilt top

Well its pretty much finished except for a few tiny applique details, but now to quilt the dang thing!

Yoda is pretending to be a muffin. She loves her one-size-too-small antique bowl.

Rogue, my extra fat dog, and I went for a short car ride the other night, just down the street. She loves car rides, that and hot dogs are her favorite things. I was feeling a bit down because I had just been to the Dr. to schedule knee replacement surgery for the end of December. He says I am too young for it but I have difficulty walking so I guess it must be done or continue with pain. Oddly it is one of the few things I am to young for, that, retirement, AARP....neither Rogue and I can walk very far, we are quite the pair. I would like to think I am not as fat as she is but according to my sons it is a close call.

This was taken not far from our house, and at my favorite time of day when the light is low and gold, it seems to grace and beautify everything it touches. It something like this does not lift the spirits then the only alternative is a massive dose of chocolate.

Quilt

This is the applique quilt top I have been working on while I 've had a totally craptastic cold. A few more borders and it will be done. Then to layer and quilt it!

Happy Halloween

Batty

As the crow flies.....

and now to go make fudge!

Hmphf

Terribly annoyed at not having a camera, if the one I ordered does not come soon I shall go mad I tell you mad.

October

HAPPY FALL, YA'LL!

My Three Sons

It is the greatest regret of my life, that I was not able to have more children, and equally regrettable, that I was often too sick to truly enjoy and cherish every second of my children's growing-up years.

Son number two and son number three had birthdays this month. All three of them are remarkable young men, profoundly kind, honorable, decent, charitable, hard working and honest.

Personally I don't think I could have asked for more, they are everything a mother could ask for.

They are my reason for living, my hope, my heart, my joy. There are not words in the English language to express my gratitude to them and for them.

My sons, mamma loves you.

cats

Hemi (otherwise known as pee-boy) and Hannity.

Love-fest on my desk.

stuff

Happy happy little dog, Mr. Tinky in relaxation mode thanks to Jacob.

Denzel on my messy desk.

Been canning peaches with raspberries, so pretty, looks delicious don't you think?

stupid camera

Stupid, stupid camera. Stupid, stupid cat who I suspect might have peed a little on said camera, he is not to be trusted in the house but even though I tell everyone "DO NOT LET HIM IN" they (and I) always seem to give in to the enormous eyes and pleading mews.

Anyway the much loved camera is not working right, the screen is dark and the settings are not correct which leaves for some wonky pictures. It is about five years old so perhaps it is age and a great deal of use, but it seems I will be looking for a new one, and ditching the old.

It makes me a little sad. It has served me well, I should not say it is a stupid camera but since it is refusing to continue to work as I ask it to, I feel it deserves the appellation.

As for Mr. Naughty Cat, otherwise known as Hemi, I will have to be doubly sure I don't leave anything of value laying around.

In the movie "Shrek" there is a scene with Puss-in-Boots where Puss looks with gigantic pleading eyes, pathetic, endearing and innocent, that is exactly the look Hemi gives us when he wants to come inside, all the other cats are inside why not him? He even meows at bedroom windows trying to get someones attention and of course we let the pee-boy in, geez. He is a remarkably sweet cat though, he lets little dog Tigger pull him all over the wood floor by his ears, he is placid and sweet, incredibly good- natured and beautiful. So he stays even though he is a pee-boy.

Out of the six cats we have he is the only one allowed outside, he is the bane of field mice, Tiggers cat toy and a great friend. We love him.

new illustration.

Want snow? the seasons are changing!

Hmmmm

Thinking of getting an Angora bunny, the fiber would be nice to spin. Help! Someone stop me while it is still just a random thought!

Friday fun

Son number one is flying with Utah State University. The school has some really beautiful little planes. Today my brother and sis-in-law brought the kids up for the day, my son was so good to take them out to the airport and let them sit in airplanes. We all had a good time. We are surprisingly easy to entertain.

My sons, the kids and sis-in-law....

Kidlets ready for take off.....

One lone toddler on the tarmac.

Love, love my fambly, or as my father would have said, the whole fam damily.

Speaking of my father, he would have been thrilled. My father was in flight school during WW 2 ended up being a radio operator his brother was shot down over Germany towards the end of the war. He always loved planes and when my other brother worked on plane engines at this airport dad would often go hang out with him, work on engines and occasionally fly with him. I know my dad would be out of his mind proud of my son, all three sons.

It is one of the great sorrows of my life that they are not here to see these boys and an equally great sorrow that they did not see my brothers little kids. They would have been over the moon over these kids. That little toddler on the tarmac? sweet baby girl? my mom would have lost her mind over that baby, so in retrospect maybe its a good thing mom's not around.

debut

She has her dress held out and ready to curtsy, now if someone would ask her to dance. She might still be a bit young for a dance card, but her hopes are high anyway.

doll.done.

Well she is done.

She does not have a name yet, maybe it's Emma. She is 19.5 inches tall, handsculpted head and hands, her body is of canvas with a layer of gesso and tightly stuffed with cotton linters. Her face is painted with oil paint.

Her petticoat is lined and corded with a stiffened edging of cotton. she has pantaloons, a chemise and the dress is fully lined and removable. She aslso has a little padded bustle in the rear which is removable. I have made her as accurate as I can,to circa 1840-1850.

My camera is acting up, sigh, but I will get more pics as soon as I can and then she will be listed on my Etsy shop.

more progress

So here she is in her underwear on my cluttered, well-worn desk.

She has a Chemise, long undies, a padded, removable "bolster" to puff out her skirts in the rear and her petticoat is padded around the hem and corded. It is all done by hand except the really long seams and they are done by machine.

I like her a lot. Today I will finish the trim on her dress, age it abit and work on a stand for her then she will be done.