- Chattanooga Choo Choo ... not

The Arctic Express barreled through St Louis last night ... leaving double-digit negative wind chill factors in its wake. Not a day to go outside. So what better to do than make cookies? Molasses cookies ...

Just one problem ... the planned-for warm and fuzzy Kodak moment resulted in a resounding "Yuck!" 

So, back pedal to a chocolate chip cookie moment captured last month by Meliss and you can see what I was going for ...

Oh well, it's still a favorite family recipe with my girls ...

Recent needle-work (and I'm using the term deliberately) has been focused on trying different stitches on some worn jeans. After invisibly basting some old necktie silk on the back of a shredded hole ...

I made multiple passes in back stitch, after realizing early on that running stitch was too open to hold ...

Still not satisfied, I tried split backstitch halfway through a second repair site, with some color variation in order to better see the alternation between horizontal and vertical passes ...

I have an idea of what I want to try next ... that is if Meliss is willing to risk offering up another pair of jeans. 

And now, a new mondegreen moment:

Two year old Jackson is very good with four month old Baby Jace. He loves to share.

He's also very good at asking for help.

"Choo choo, Nana."

"You want to play with your trains?"

"No, choo choo peas."

"Ummm ..."

"Tissues, Mom," Meliss explained. "He needs a tissue."

And so he did ... which is how he managed to share his cold with everyone, even Baby Jace ...

who's fortunately none the worse for wear.

- The back of beyond: A new direction in stitch

I've found a new Kindred Spirit in Amy Meissner ... specifically her post B-sides (oh, I am so jealous that she used that post title first). I'll add links to this post later, but for now you can find her in the links to the right.

I love looking a the back-side of needlework, as many of you know ...

So much so that I'm deliberately working a piece backwards, sketching on the back with a Pitt pen ...

then working a very open backstitch from the back ... 

which is looking very interesting from the front (although I think I'll try a smaller moon next time) ... 

And now a mondegreen moment: 

Two year old Jackson politely asked for "more please" at dinner.

"More what?" we asked.

" Apple tacos," he said ... which we thought was adorable because we were eating red chile chicken on tortillas. So I promptly got him some more apple sauce.

Except while he was eating that he once again said, "Apple tacos please!" And it hit us ... he didn't want apple anything ... 

what he really wanted was more "avocados."

- Be it resolved ...

I have an on-again off-again thing about New Year's resolutions. In the past, I made predictable resolutions to eat better, lose weight, exercise, etc. etc. which resulted in failure more often than success ... the resolutions abandoned, most forgotten mere weeks into the new year.

And once upon a time, I also made New Year's predictions ... at the annual party hosted by Barb and Ray Laroche, where we would all read our predictions from the previous New Year's Eve, then write new ones for the upcoming year. The one I  love to recall was from 1992, when we were all prompted to write down who we thought would be elected in November. My prediction that it would be Bill Clinton was met the following New Year's Eve with exclamations of "Who even knew who he was this time last year?" I was a rock star. Unfortunately, every prediction I made after that one was an absolute, totally forgettable let down.

Still, there's something about the new year that begs for my attention, a yearning to find my better self. So a couple of years ago I decided to try one-word resolutions ... clear, simple, memorable, accountable.

In 2013 I resolved to Create which resulted in ...

A return to stitching ...

A first attempt at cloth book-making

Re-imagined placemats

Plus lots ...

and lots of bibs and burp cloths ...

There were also a number of wood and metalworking collaborations with Don ...

Flying fish ...

A funky whale ...

 

Birth flags ...

A Chesapeake skipjack for a dear friend

And a reimagined construction site 2x4 honoring a new home

There was more, but much of it went undocumented, leaving a gaping hole in the 2013 blog archive.

In 2014 I resolved to Blog ... which got off to a slow start, quite honestly. After a lone post in early January, I dropped the blog-ball big time. Then it happened. On March 9, 2014 I discovered that my blog had been accruing thousands of hits on the Rain Chain post from 2012, mostly from Pinterest links. Who knew?!?!

It was just the motivation I needed to get blogging again. And blog I did, as you can see from the chronological BLOG ARCHIVE to the right. However, after the initial rush of enthusiasm and a mini-spate of posts, I once again lost heart ... most of the hits on the blog continued to be rain chain views. What was the point of blogging if no one was reading?

Fortunately, the story has a happy ending thanks to Jude Hill's Spirit Cloth. After discovering the concept of slow cloth (via Pinterest) I read Jude's entire blog from 2006 to present, then signed up for two of her online classes. Spirit Cloth 101 gave me to a new way of looking at cloth-making, but the solstice-to-equinox journey through Considering Weave gave me a new community within which to make it.

When Considering Weave ended in September, I was determined to maintain connections to my newfound cloth-mates. More and more my posts were directed to them as an audience and as I visited their blogs, I belatedly realized that some of them had links from their blogs to mine. Inspired, I created my own  KINDRED SPIRITS links, with which I now follow the latest missives from the blogosphere.

The conversations that have resulted from these interconnections are sometimes hard to follow (where did I post that comment?) and some revelations have sidetracked into private emails. But there's no question that I am now a part of a very real community. There have been shared experiences, such as the post about it's only RAIN that led Saskia to a Mystiqueros concert in the Netherlands.

And our home is now enriched with pieces of work from Jude ...

 
and Grace ...

and Mo ...

                         

More to the point, the friendships that have been forged encircle the globe, enriching our spirits ... because the truth is that Don has become a steady, if stealthy, reader.

Thus it was clear, as I updated my profile yet again, that my focus has shifted over the life of the blog from cooking to crafting to stitching (a term I now prefer to "needleworking" which sounds a bit too much like ... well, work). I have come full-circle to where my creative life began.

For 2015 I hereby resolve to Stitch ... and to share the journey by creating and blogging (almost) every step of the way. I hope you'll join me.

- The way we were

Christmas decorations always bring to mind the church where we were wed, which was redolent with pine ...

An old kerosene lamp from my mom's summer house in the Catskills
and a hallway mirror found by my folks at an antique show
bedecked each year with boughs and bells

37 years ago Don and I said a midwinter "I do" ... and this time around we'll mark the occasion by grandparenting for the next ten days (which may cut into my blogging time a bit). I wouldn't have it any other way.

 

- These are a few of my favorite things: The (creative) year in review

It's been a fun year ... easier to review because I've actually kept track for the most part. So here in chronological order (because I can't possible rank them) are a few of my favorite things ...

The continuation of ...

 the family sampler ...

My first (and probably only) attempt at mixed media collage ...

New paths around the house ...

Don's folk art fish and whale ...

The Homestead kitchen towel before the trees were added ...

A torn and tattered heart from Considering Weave ...

Plus a most unorthodox "loom" from the same ...

 Don's Beach or Mountains? assemblage ...

Crafting for a new grandchild ...

Weaving inserts for a pair of pants ...

Adding poetry to a kantha stitched top ...

Sewing/Sowing a peace flag for the Solace Project ...

Trying dyeing ...

Don's impressions of  New Mexico, going once ...

Twice ...

Three times ...

Exploring the utility of boro/kantha ...

and the joy of hand-lettering ...

Finally becoming the hippie I always wanted to be ...

and coining my own phrase for a change ...

Last, but not least, stitching a lullaby (not yet complete, so there will be something left to show in the new year) ...

- Mondegreens deliver us from eagles ...

I woke up with Kevin Welch singing ... too old to die young ... in my head. It's a cold, grey day, rain falling (a good thing), but I'm already pondering how I might stretch the food in the meagerly-stocked fridge until tomorrow. I'd rather stitch than drive ...

So this old world must still be spinning 'round ...

But what I really want to say is I'm still on a thought-train about hearing (see yesterday's post on My own personal soundtrack, which links to the previous day's post about peace-full music). Because even though I usually have the musical part of my personal soundtrack down pretty well, I'm pretty shaky when it comes to the lyrics. Which leads me to mondegreens ... the auditory equivalent of DYAC (which I like, strangely enough ... because I'm usually not big on four-letter words, but somehow find their unintentional use hilarious ... I'm sure therapy is in order here).

Side note: I have been asked repeatedly not to read Damn You Auto Correct in Don's presence since he finds my spontaneous bursts of laughter a tad bit disconcerting ... so of course, now I'm reading the DYAC link and Don is saying, "What are you reading?" to which I reply, tears in my eyes, "Damn You Auto Cucumber."

Ah well, you had to be there ...

Anyway, back to mondegreens, which are misheard or misinterpreted words and phrases ... that is to say, a large part of my life. The classic example (in addition to the many good ones in the Wikipedia article link above) is my memory of saying the Lord's Prayer in Sunday School at St. Andrew's in Williston Park, earnestly praying to "deliver us from eagles." The more mundane examples pertain to my misunderstanding normal everyday speech, substituting what I expect to hear for the speaker's intention ... which can make for some very puzzled looks. Add to that my all-too-frequent question to Don, "What did you say?" to which he usually responds, "I was singing."

Yes, well ... as I said, that's my life.

Are you smiling to yourself? Do you have one better? Please comment and share your favorite mondegreen(s) below, because I love to laugh.

... da da da dum ... da da da dum ... the opening bar of Beethoven's Fifth ... time to change my hearing aid batteries.

- My own personal soundtrack

When I referred to hearing music in my head yesterday, I was speaking literally, not metaphorically. And wanting to explain to you how that could be, I googled "NPR musical hallucinations." After picking through a few of the entries, I found the radio broadcast entitled Pop Music that I first heard a couple of years ago.

I remember the broadcast vividly ... I was driving through the Hill Country, my radio tuned to NPR, the car winding down Ranch Road 170 in Driftwood, listening to the story of a man who heard music in his head and thought he was going crazy.

I hear music in my head all the time ... not always the words, since lyrics usually escape me unless I make a concerted effort to learn them by rote ... but music, always, almost every minute of every day ... music.

So I listened to the story of the man and of others who have "musical hallucinations" and the talking heads on the radio said, "They're not crazy ... there's nothing wrong with them ... there is a pathway between the ears and the brain that can run both ways ... [and someone theorized] if the sound from the outside stopped, there would be a backflow ... most of the people who have musical hallucinations have one thing in common ... "

And as I drove past La Ventana (the window) I shouted out loud, "They're deaf!"

"They're deaf," echoed the radio.

As am I ... at least virtually so, since I now wear hearing aids that go a long way toward remedying my genetically-inherited deafness.

It makes for an interesting life ... all we are saying, is give peace a chance ...