Remembering a jacket

The best part of moving my studio has been going through boxes. I'll never get organized because I keep stopping to have memory-dreams. Today I came across a little jacket I made for Adeline in 1998 - she was ten years old. I made it by combining parts of different sweaters. Of course, first I turned the sweaters into wool felt, by shrinking them in the washer. I wish I could find a picture of her wearing it. Emma chewed off part of the bottom. Bad Emma! She was always chewing wool. Now that she's no longer with us, I can relax about leaving my studio door open. But she was sweet, and we miss her. The ten-year-old is long gone, but it's nice to have the jacket to reminisce with. And Adeline enjoys these finds as much as I do. Two sentimental fools are we, enjoying our personal history - sounds like a Gilbert & Sullivan lyric!

How will I ever get organized?

Adeline and I are trading rooms. I am moving out of two rooms - my office and my studio - into her one room, which is large, with good light, and has excellent 'OM' as we like to call it. At the moment, my new studio/office is a huge mishmash of boxes and STUFF. In fact, it is really difficult to get organized and put things where they belong because it is nearly impossible to walk around. Adeline has already turned my old studio into her bedroom, even though I've left a few things behind that still need to be moved. Like one of my bulletin boards and one of my vintage quilts. And, what about my wonderful wall of wool threads? It seems to have become Nola's climbing wall. Nola, as I'm sure you can figure out, is the cat. And I need my regular spools of thread, too. They are now sharing a wall with Adeline's dolls. You know, no matter how old you are, there are just certain dolls that stay with you. I still have my teddy bear from when I was about one-year-old. My old office is now Adeline's den/TV room. It is also in pretty good shape. In fact, it is being used right now by Adeline and some of her friends. They are listening to music and generally having a good time. Nice. My new office/studio, however, is a nightmare of boxes and piles of STUFF. How am I ever going to get everything where it belongs? Photos, top to bottom: Nola, climbing the wall of threads, the mess that is facing me now, the quilt I left behind.

Best thing about spring? Nature wears her bling.

I never had any other desire so strong, and so like to covetousness, as that one which I have had always, that I might be master at last of a small house and a large Garden. ~Abraham Cowley, The Garden, 1666
My fabulous daughter, Adeline, wandered around the yard and captured these beauties. How do these colors, and these shapes, with their attendant dizzying fragrances come to exist?


People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us. ~Iris Murdoch, A Fairly Honourable Defeat  
 

If you've never been thrilled to the very edges of your soul by a flower in spring bloom, maybe your soul has never been in bloom. ~Audra Foveo   
 

I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers. ~Claude Monet