Branching Out

I have been contemplating this beautiful light fixture I came across in a shop called Lola & Emily last week. I'd never been in before, stepped through the door and Woa! this blew me away. I stood and stared at it for a few minutes before asking them if they minded if I took a snap of it. "Not at all!" they said, adding that they had watched with fascination not long ago as the woman who'd made it put it up.

I have had branches on the brain for about a year now, wondering how I could incorporate them into my surroundings (indoors, as I figure mama nature has the outdoors covered). I often see clusters of branches bundled for pick up along with other yard refuse and have been sorely tempted to pick them up. But what to do with them? Do I have to soak them to make them pliable? What's the best way to bind them together?

As fate would have it, I have also been sequestering a shoe box full of crystal chandelier drops for about five years, moving them with me from NDG, to St. Lambert and now back again.

Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

No Idea What I'm Doing With This...

Something tells me I need to get outdoors and clear my head. Take a walk. Go to the pool. Go buy that huge set of red floral wall stickers I had in my hand yesterday. Stop taking this so seriously, all of a sudden.

Thanks for listening! As you were.

Sew Brain Dead

You know those days when everything runs smoothly and you feel you're making great progress? Not only that, you think maybe you have a genuine talent that's been lying latent and all it needed was a little prompting in order to burst out and change your life? You know what I'm about to say next, I bet - that today was not that day. I mean, not to say I'm not happy that the PJ bottoms are sewn together, because that's actual progress. However, if I learned anything in today's sewing lesson, it was simply that learning a new craft takes time. It takes time and patience. The bobbin will run empty, the machine will unthread itself, and you'll realize it only after you've been "sewing" a few minutes. You'll become acquainted with both the small and large stitch ripper and you'll remember that there are lots of ways to get creative with the word "F***er!" - and that it really does help blow off steam.

One of your cats will chatter non-stop, attack the tape measure, and roll on the fabric until banished to the bedroom. You'll feel brain dead at the end of the day and have no desire to make dinner, not that you ever really do. You'll remember that slogging through is necessary if you're ever going to get better at something and that even if you get to be really good at something, you'll probably still need to slog through many times. You hope you really do remember that so you don't throw up your hands and say "F***er!" so often that it loses it's lustre, or give up new craft altogether. You blog when you feel you have nothing important to say, when you think

nobody is reading and then you eat that last piece of strawberry-rhubarb pie.