Gardens come in

I got quite carried away with the houseplant rescue thing this year. I buy the "nearly dead" at the local nurseries for pennies, bring them home and give them a dose of TLC and a sunny place to rest.

Now I have more healthy patients than I know what to do with. Two pots of lavender that need wheels, several tropical plants of unknown species that are now over four feet tall.  This little Swedish Ivy was a gift from my sister Kitty. It's a descendant of a plant at Bill W's place in Katonah.

It's getting nippy at night so I'll have to move some furniture around to  accommodate everyone.

And you can be sure that no matter how carefully I inspect everything, there will be at least one lizard or tree frog coming along for the ride. Never fails.

Wishful thinking

I brought this with me today and remembered to find my spare sewing glasses. Notice there's almost no stitching on this, just some hasty basting.

That's how it is and I remember it well.

Thankfully for Jake and Missy, Charlie is figuring out that sleeping through the night, or at least a good chunk of it, is the civilized way to go.

Of course, this means that while the sun is shining he's looking to interact with his world and me. Today we read aloud from John Sandford's latest crime novel, listened to a bunch of good music. No stitching.


Charlie flung a bunch of bodily fluids around, tried to eat a stuffed frog and worked hard at turning over. He  likes Ben Webster and Frank Sinatra. He's almost eleven weeks old and he is planning on stealing my earrings any day now. I better switch these hoops for posts.

These thoughts founded the day.

the odd day

Anyone taking selfies will tell you that you have to take more to get a good one as you get older. Looks like my phone camera has some kind of built in sensor to pop on a lovely filter when the person using it turns sixty-five. Or maybe I need to clean the lens.

We've been having monsoon like rain all day and it was somber inside and out today, but lightened by a visit from Jake,  and Colin returned home from being in NY for a week.

I spent the morning focusing on a dreaded editing/rewriting task - you may have heard the writing expression "kill your darlings"? Well, there was figurative blood all over the place this morning, but it was needful.

I did go over  and look in the river basket was too distracted to sit with the stitch today. restless. Having lost something.  Someone.

I just remembered. The very first birthday gift Jimmy every gave me was a sewing machine. Sear Kenmore Free-Arm. Innovative in its day and a workhorse for over twenty-five years. The man knew what I was all about.

sleeper

A cloth sketch, not even a work in progress yet, just a little something to hang on to.

Charlie doesn't sleep all day anymore, but he is starting to nap pretty predictably.

Hands free time..maybe.

Course correction

Today was shaping up to be a rocky one, emotionally. They still come, unannounced. I have chosen to surrender from time to time, but nothing is accomplished, no purpose seems to be served. I prefer to be the architect of my own emotional state, thanks, so today I thought I'd try some cloth and stitch, put up my own sails. But you can't always get what you want.

Dumping out and restocking the river basket had to come first, fresh palette and all. I sat in the late day light in my winter stitching chair and started a new vigil cloth.  

Looks like it's been a year since I've started something that was non-functional. This is just a sketch for the moment, but that's where I always start. 

Congratulations to all the stalwarts who have been called to Quilt National...a hard row to hoe.