Texture & textiles
December 31, 2011 § 1 Comment
I have been getting all caught up in Dear Genevieve, another room makeover show on HGTV that’s somehow more fun than the rest. Genevieve is so talented and rather enchanting in the way that she works with her clients and team, and I like getting drawn into the creative process of seeing what is and what can be. So I watch it while I am knitting or cooking. And I’m noticing that it affects the way I look at the world around me. Isn’t it fun how sharing perspectives and ideas can do that?
Walking the other day, I found myself noticing all different sorts of texture. Colorado is not, from my perspective, particularly colorful (despite the sign at the Nebraska/Colorado border which reads “Welcome to Colorful Colorado” – comically placed in the dry, tumbleweed, eastern plains part of the state). And this time of year, color is especially scarce. All seems shades of brown and gray, except for the blue sky and sometimes the white snow. So as we walk and I look for what is pleasing to the eye, I am drawn to nature’s textures.
I think – and Genevieve confirms! – that in designing a room texture is key – especially in rooms that use color sparingly. A white room needn’t feel sterile with the right textiles and woods to warm it and soften it. A room that involves lots of browns or dark colors can avoid being heavy or dull with the right surfaces to reflect light and maintain interest.
I love design that is nature-inspired, culture-inspired, and especially that involves reclaimed objects. I love walking through nature thinking about what I could make to reflect it. I love looking at how other people have expressed the landscapes they live in or travel through.
Here are a few of my favorite Etsy shops:
And I’ve just gotten started on Pinterest! Here’s where you can find me:
What kind of design do you like? Does nature inspire you, or do you find inspiration somewhere else? How do you decorate your homes – or dream of decorating them?
How we feel about handmade
December 30, 2011 § 3 Comments
When Renee was here, we took a day to swing by Firefly Handmade, a market for artisans and craftspeople in the Boulder area. We saw lots of pretty things. Here are a few:
Renee took a home a blue silk flower for her hair and a handmade lip balm that smelled so fruity-luscious that it made your mouth water. I saved my pennies, this time, but took notes and business cards. And a sample of a salted caramel.
Afterward we almost passed the Dushanbe Tea House. Instead of passing, though, we paused. And went inside for another teatime. (I must mention that the next day we toured Celestial Seasonings. It was a tea-filled weekend.)
The tea house was built in the 1980s as gift to the City of Boulder from the capital city of Dushanbe, Tajikistan – a country I perhaps once heard about in eighth-grade geography, but must have promptly forgotten, as it sounds kind of made-up to me. Here’s some interesting history.
Inside we waited to be seated with our heads tipped upward. The tea house has the most beautiful ceilings.
And a delicious house chai.
It was an uplifting day!
So much art to be seen, touched, tried on and even tasted. Best of all with the best of friends.
That’s what I call progress
December 30, 2011 § 2 Comments
The needles have been clickety-clacking. This is a calmly happy thing, a new discovering of ability and possibility. There is something soothing in the repetitive motion, something satisfying in having a finished product make its way out, inch by inch, from your fingers.
Our culture has long looked humorously, even scornfully, at the grandmothers sitting in their cottage corners to knit or crochet. With a braided rug, a fireplace, and a cat. Probably also some cozy slippers.
Well now. Maybe I am old-fashioned, but . . . other than the cat (give me a big dog, please) that sounds just perfectly gorgeously pleasant. Warm, cozy, quietly artistic. And who can deny how beautiful yarn is, tucked into a basket, twisted and tied with ribbon?
If comfort and beauty are the things for the old souls, I am happy to be among them. Even in these last few months of my twenties. Finding such things along the path towards greater self-sufficiency and away from debt – that means progress to me.
Thanks to family members and also to Borrowed Pastures for the beautiful 100% wool and wool/alpaca blend yarns!
Feeding time
December 29, 2011 § Leave a comment
These days I get to see the sun set every evening that I am at the barn to feed horses. We begin when the sun is close to the mountain tops. We end in darkness. The fading light is our timer, keeping us on our toes almost as much as the horses pacing and snorting and nickering for their food.
Snowmelt
December 29, 2011 § 2 Comments
It was not a white Christmas. On Thursday Colorado got a heap of snow, and on Friday I drove out of it to a balmy, brown Iowa, and on Sunday I drove to an equally balmy, brown South Dakota.
No one complained about being outside without a jacket on, however!
Today I am back in Colorado, where we have had an interesting morning. You try moving 34 horses through a slick, sloppy mess of mud and ice – and add some powerful gusts of wind! (Forecast predicts the winds will get up to 80 mph today.) It’s a bit of a workout. At least the weather is warm. At home I poured a cup of peppermint tea, stretched out for a short rest, and decided Miss T. deserved a walk.
So we went outside to watch the snow melt.
There is sun and blue sky and water running, running everywhere. The snow sort of crunches and slides beneath your feet. We splashed through puddles at every intersection.
Miss T. gave herself a bath with more than one satisfying roll in the lingering patches of snow.
And we found evidence of snowmen . . . who had seen better days.
Despite the cone-laden evergreens, twinkly decorations, and a pile of newly-opened Christmas presents, can I just say that it feels like spring?
Stillness
December 27, 2011 § Leave a comment
We had two hectic Christmas Eve/Christmas days with extended family – and it’s always exciting to see everyone and so interesting to get caught up on their lives. But I have to admit what I have especially enjoyed is the quieter time these past two days with my parents and siblings (plus one spouse and one fiance). We had slow mornings, went for walks, sweated in the sauna, sewed and knitted and shared Pinterest boards and recipes, checked out each others’ Christmas presents, told stories, played games and made dinner and drank tea. These are the relaxed things of home.
I am not ready to go back to Colorado tomorrow! Why does it go by so quickly?
The happy discovery of today is that I happened to peek online and find that this article has been published!
I hope you find some stillness in this between-time. Looking forward, yet, to the New Year.
The Christ Candle
December 27, 2011 § Leave a comment
The final advent candle, the Christ Candle, was lit at home, as much as Iowa is home still. It shone steady and white, surrounded by three purple and one pink candle in the middle of an evergreen wreath in Christ Chapel. The church that I went to as a teenager and young college student has been meeting in this college chapel, as an engineer recently told the congregation that the roof of their old brick building is on the verge of collapse. So we filed into the chapel of my college days and sang classic Christmas songs and watched families gather.
I don’t have a picture of this fifth candle, but it is the most important one. The birth of a King. A humble coming in what is, to me, a perfectly beautiful, earthy, close-to-the-world way to be born. In a stable, surrounded by living things, with nature nearby. It seems right for the King who would not be afraid of the world’s grittiness, but would instead engage with it. One who would find beauty where others could not; who would draw forth joy and shine; who would dedicate His life to restoring His Father’s creation, and to training and imparting others to do the same.
And it is a reminder, isn’t it, of who we might be, wherever we come from. Because of the One who was an example. And the One who made us with purpose. Where do we come from, after all? What might we be?
Heaven and earth. Heaven on earth.
A Lake Superior Poem
December 19, 2011 § 2 Comments
My graduate school and poet friend Amy just chased her heart north, to the North Shore of Lake Superior. I am so glad for her, especially because this place is one of my homes, too – never a place I have lived, but I place I have known myself to belong to, to be somehow intangibly (and yet, so very tangibly) connected to, smitten with, inspired by. It is a place I crave.
The summer after I graduated from high school, my family took a trip up to the Lake of the Woods, into Canada, and down along the North Shore Drive. When we reached the lake we had been in the van bickering and bored for too long, and then we’d gotten out at a rest stop and stumbled upon a trail. Suddenly we were all in better tempers, as the water reached blue into the distance and the breeze whisked its way around us.
And there was a moment when I stood on the rocky shore and felt my chest fill so terribly, wonderfully full. And I felt my heart know I belong here. For a long while I outlined my plans for the small house I would have where the waves rush and fall against the rocks and the pines.
I have since then known that same feeling in other places, though not so many as to make this one decrease in significance. Instead I am glad to find them, to gather them like precious stones. A few years ago three friends and I went up to ski at Lutsen, and I got to see my lake in winter. Several weeks later I wrote this poem.
—–
askance
at winter’s edge of shoreline, Lake Superior breaks into glass,
shards that creak and clink when we step softly across.
white-blue sky reaches down to the distant blue-black
where ice gives way and water moves free. now and then,
a rumble and groan. we keep close to shore. hold a stillness.
listening, it is, for beginners. only common sense in asking
the lake if we might cross its cracks and heaves, if
we might find the rare structures of winter on water.
—–
The fourth candle of advent: Peace
December 19, 2011 § Leave a comment
The fourth Sunday of Advent (which was yesterday, I know, I forgot!) is the candle of peace, or The Angels’ Candle.
The Angels’ Candle reminds Christians of the angels who appeared to the shepherds on the hillside, announcing the Savior’s birth.
“Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.'” Luke 2:13-14.
Happy holidays from (kinda) Home Depot
December 15, 2011 § 2 Comments
Have you all seen that Home Depot commercial? The one where you take an old, empty window frame, paint it red, insert c-hooks, hang ornaments, and place the finished product on your fireplace mantel? I must have seen it about a hundred times, and kept thinking how fun it was.
So one random day, when I was feeling like I needed something satisfyingly tactile to accomplish, I looked around the apartment and considered how I might imitate that idea. I roped my roommate in and we set to imagining, planning, and crafting.
We didn’t have a paneless window frame, but we did have a trellis that I hardly used this growing season and didn’t plan to use again. I sawed off the legs and we painted it with a Martha Stewart silver-blue glitter. Three coats and we had the sparkle we wanted!
Then we selected fabrics and ornaments, and tried out a few arrangements until we discovered what we liked best. Instead of traditional red and green, we favored silver, blue, white, a little red, and a little brown.
We screwed in the c-hooks (which was harder than you’d think), hung the ornaments, glued the fabrics, and put it all on display above the fireplace.
Ta-daa!
Kinds of Honey 