Weekend Project

One of Two, 2013

Done.

Two little rustic mats (6" x 7 1/4")  for hot plates, bowls, ramekins, or even small pots.

If you'd like to make your own, it won't take much time. You might even have the materials on hand.

I used a ball of twine, two size 13/9.0mm knitting needles, and scissors.

Cast on 16 stitches and knit, purl, knit, purl each row until you reach about 7 inches (or your desired length) and cast off. Weave in ends.

That's it.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

~Denise

Toast

New Landscape, 2013

I prepared a slice of toast that rivaled the memory I have of my mother's toast. This was something I believed out of my reach. And then today it happened.

Light brown, just to the point where the face of the bread is crisp enough to create a solid sound when tapped with a fingernail. Then a thin layer of salted butter to seep into the crispness and soften it, slightly.

A bite at this point is lovely, and a corner dipped into warm maple syrup sweetened oatmeal is heaven.

It feels funny, like this is a threshold I was not supposed to cross, and the universe will lean slightly off-kilter until I trip and fall.

Old & New

Faded, 2013

I'm considering something new, joining a book club. Have you ever belonged to a book club? Did you like it?

Springtime

Today I woke an hour and a half earlier than usual. I'm between things. Current work must rest. After the initial thud felt upon completing a project phase there is new energy. The mind is more active, more free to wander. I've busied myself in other ways, ways that occupy the body and keep the mind free.

My thoughts continue to return to the senseless pain and sadness in Boston. A reminder that things can change so quickly. We are not always in control. I look around and appreciate my now. 

We've had sun and wind here. A choppy bay. So much is in bloom. I found out I'll have a poem in Taproot this June. We have strawberries. I've finished reading one book and have selected another.

If you are in the mood for peaceful music, you might enjoy this soothing song mix. I did.

What have you been up to lately?

of note

A small boy has climbed the tree outside my window and begun yodeling.

The Same Terrain

Kitchen Light I, 2013

Kitchen Light II, 2013

Changes aren't always better, sometimes they're just different.

Change isn't always better, sometimes it's just different.

Sometimes change makes things better and sometimes it just makes things different.

Sometimes change is better and sometimes it's just different.

.............

Change is always different, sometimes it's better.

Process

Lines, 2013

I've never seen things in a linear fashion.  I have to pull back, circle the task at hand as if it is prey, and then pounce on it sort of haphazardly. 

There is repetition of what resembles a cycle, but it varies enough to avoid the classification.  Irregularity makes analysis difficult.  The process leaves me, its host, pricked with anxiety and the feeling someone else is pulling the strings.  

Logical steps or equal sections are not visible to me before I take a nice long look at the whole.  I'll zoom in quickly for a detail, losing focus on the way, pull back through the blur, and reach the whole again.  Necessary patches of blank quiet space are randomly pressed into the process.  Mealtimes and bedtimes are sometimes forgotten.  There can be waking in the fog of night with a plan.  Some groggy mornings, some good.

I'll turn it inside out, then back to right.  I'll hang it outside to absorb the sun and allow the breeze to move through it.  Give it a curt shake, as with a giant bed sheet, just to rid it of any dust that might have settled.  Look at it with a tilted head, a squint.  Then it is done.

And I cannot know if it is what others will desire, only that it is done, and is somehow a portrait of who I am at this moment in my life.