"Guess how much I love you, Naomi."
"That only begins to describe it."
It's been such a full (full!) month that I haven't had much time to post.
The inchies are all lined up in their little places, but most of them haven't made it out into public yet.
I've managed to tell a few of their stories without including their pictures, but I think it's time to just gather them in groups and do the best we can about the rest of their histories.
We'll just call this first group "Give and Receive"; I see a pattern in my life when I look at the inchies.
These were made by Dear Reader Annski, whom I now consider a first-class ring-and-runner (as well as a first-class seamstress).
I don't think she'd mind me telling you that the pattern for these lovely birds is available on the Spool website.
If you make a bird mobile of your very own, don't forget to share a photo with them (and us, of course).
I'm so grateful Annski shared her mad skills with me.
But I'm more grateful just to be her friend.
I had lunch with another friend on the 13th of April, and she surprised me with a gift, too.
She found a set of six little birdie candles when she was doing some power-shopping in Dallas.
She said they reminded her of my little paper birdies and she wanted me to have them.
Look how perfectly they fit in the egg cups I bought in Eureka Springs after our failed camping trip.
See those other lovely things on either side of the sweet little candle?
I recieved those in the mail on April 14.
They were made by Dear Reader Fran.
...which I thought was very kewl.
And the Easter egg came in a decorative take-out box, which was also very kewl, but which I neglected to photograph.
I did, however, draw the egg on the inchie, so I hope that counts for something in the way of keeping things even.
Whether or not I can keep things even in the give-and-take is another matter.
But my friends don't seem to hold it against me.
Speaking of blessings, how wonderful it was to hear that my daughter-in-love not only wanted an apron, she loved the apron I made for her on the 19th.
It's cute on the inchie, but it's even cuter on her.
I love some other families, too.
The wonderful family we met on our camping trip last August sent me an envelope full of homemade goodness, including a card made with inchies, a little, teensy hanger with paper doll clothes on it, a beautiful Easter drawing, and a paper hero doll with an 'N' for Naomi on the front (which I am told includes many super powers).
And when I opened the mail on April 23rd, I felt super-excited, too.
I sometimes think Dear Reader Annski has radar.
I hadn't even had the chance to tell her that the sewing bug had just bitten me again, and I am searching for time to make some summer clothes for Baby Girl.
"Who the heck is Gwen?"
Naomi's Beeg Seester asked her if she wanted to go walk around the lake on April 2.
Naomi said, "Um. The whole lake?"
Her Seester said, "It's 9.5 miles. If I can do it, I'm sure you can. You're always taking those long walks."
"Well, how far do you think you can go? You can always have the Prince come get you when you've had enough."
"I might be able to do three miles. You going to carry a phone?"
"Well, okay then, I guess."
Things went a lot better than Naomi expected.
After they'd walked three or four miles, they actually started doing some running (at least they called it that).
At the six mile marker, the Prince was called to please bring water.
"Honey, are you going to keep going?" he said.
"I feel pretty good. I think I will" Naomi said.
At the seven mile marker Naomi began to come to her senses, but it was too late.
Who wants to get that close to the finish line and then quit?
I'd love to tell you that was the end of that nonsense, but Beeg Seester liked that whole running thing and she's been getting Naomi out there pretty regularly.
And this week, when Beeg Seester has much weightier things to attend to, Naomi is being all grown up and she's forcing me to be her jogging partner.
Yesterday, about a mile into the run, I heard Naomi saying, "God, it's harder to find coins when I'm running, and I'd sure like to find a coin."
"Let me rephrase that. I am lonely to hear your voice, God, and I'd like to find the coin you placed for me as a reminder that I am still yours, still loved, and You are not far off. I want to love You more."
I'm glad Naomi found her precious coin.
Guess what she let me do?
Since she was being all grown up and everything, she let me be a kid for the last few blocks.
We like to play this game; we find something in the street to take turns kicking until we've kicked it all the way home.
On good days we find a golf ball, or a nice round stone.
It was a lot more challenging to kick this all the way home.
I mean, there are rules and everything, and this shape made the game rather difficult.
If the object crosses the center line of the street, that's a foul.
And if it rolls under a parked car, that's a foul, too.
But, if the object jumps the curb and stays there, well, the game is over.
I saw Naomi cheat once and put the pinecone back into play after it came to rest on someone's lawn, but I didn't say anything, because I wanted my turn to kick it.
She's been collecting pencils from the mean street for quite awhile now.
She finds them just about as often as she finds the pennies from heaven.
When her Chicken Raising Seester sent her the link to this amazing art work done with old pencils (scroll down when you get there)...well.
You can imagine the explosion when Naomi's collection of rescued pencils collided with her plan to have a wall full of alphabet art!
I'm trying to keep her sanity intact.
We went out running again this morning.
And I heard her talking to God again.
"I hate to be piggish, and I am having a hard time asking, but it was so wonderful to recieve that penny from You yesterday and I'd love to be loved again today."
"Oh! You are so kind to me! Thank you!"
"There's a nice round stone."
It's been a long time since I gave you an update on my chickens, Alistair and Ambrose.
Alas, I must tell you that Alistair has moved on to some other chicken-raising place.
My Chicken Raising Seester said "Too many roosters do not a happy farm yard make".
I did finally get out to visit Ambrose a few weeks ago, though.
I took the Little Man and Me Darlin' Mither, too.
Ambrose was on the run and, no matter how the Little Man chased him, we couldn't seem to get him into a good picture-taking pose.
...and I hope you can see what a beautiful fowl he's turned out to be.
Some of the other fowl were much more obliging for the camera.
These three paused together in this spot for quite a few minutes (I don't remember any of their names except Elvis; the black duck with the pompadour) .
When we went inside the chicken coop, Little Man spent a long time trying to catch and pen up the four little black chickies.
I had to help him catch them, but he did a fine job of holding them this time.
Remember when he put the stranglehold on one of the chicks last year?
But let me show you the funniest thing we saw in the coop this year.
My Seester caught up this duck for us so we could see the crazy place he'd decided to get his first feathers.
Doesn't he look absolutely wild-eyed?
Maybe he wasn't happy about having his picture taken on such a bad hair day.
It was pretty darn hot day, too, so when Seester offered to get the hose and let Little Man and I give Sherman a bath, we were both right on it.
Neither of us had ever 'wershed' a horse before, but we're pro's now and I, personally, like the way it looks on my resume.
One of the things I was planning to do when I went to Seester's place, was to ask her if she had any spring-y looking dishes I could borrow for the tea party I told you about earlier.
Just as we were getting ready to leave, I asked Seester if she would show me the inside of her new office building.
She does a lot of buying and selling of vintage and antique household items,and she had some of them in the office at that time.
I was looking through a box which held a collection of postage stamps she'd recently acquired when she held up some dishes and said, "Do you know anyone who might be interested in these?"
The Grand Weaver placed the perfect dishes in my hands with perfect timing!
...which meant nothing to me at the time, but which I've since come to appreciate.
I have only seen one piece of this particular pattern available on-line, though I have seen other pieces of Harkerware for sale.
I am so glad I bought this set from Seester.
It was perfect for the tea, and it was lovely on our Easter table, too.
Guess what else I brought home from Seester's?
I brought them home on Sunday, April 3rd.
And on Wednesday, April 6, Wilma layed her first-ever egg.
I got pretty darn excited when I saw this little beauty!
Though, admittedly, Wilma was probably even more excited when she layed it.
While we played a couple of games of Sequence, we also talked about the fact that this is the first year in ever-so-long that we won't have any chocolate bunnies in the house on Easter morning.
Maybe that's what gave me the wild hair (hare?) to make the almost-chocolate bunnies when I got home from work Thursday.
They won't make good eating, but Miss Mary Mack has already developed a crush on the littlest one.
Here they are, standing guard over an empty bowl.
It should have Easter eggs in it.
The Easter eggs we should have dyed earlier this week.
But this is also the first year in ever-so-long that we didn't dye eggs.
Good thing my Chicken Raising Seester gave me some beautiful brown (and brown speckled!) eggs when I saw her.
It was so thoughtful of her chickens to color the eggs for me this year.
I am very, very tired this evening, so I am spending my time with the Prince listening to some teaching from Ravi Zacharias.
Maybe tomorrow there will be some almost-chocolate bunnies in the house.
For now, there are only almost almost-chocolate bunnies.
And it is almost almost-bedtime.
I wish I could write one, long, meandering blog post to show you how the Grand Weaver puts together all the different things that make up any given day, and then weaves all those days together into a cohesive whole life.
But I don't know if I could pay attention long enough to write it, much less expect you to pay attention long enough to read it.
So, I'll weave a shorter (though probably not short) tale which involves the paper dogwoods and the first phase of my occupation with them.
Remember this picture I showed you of "what the sofa cushion next to me looks like tonight"?
This whole thing started when I saw the paper dogwood blossoms on Martha's blog.
I loved the thought of having some of them around for spring.
I thought they'd look perfect in the foyer, sitting atop the black credenza-which-is-still-in-the-garage-being-sanded-and-painted.
When our D'Art group meeting for April 1st (first Fridays we do art together) needed to morph so one of our members could welcome a new grandbaby, Miss B said she was game to motor on down to Gwen's to make paper dogwood blossoms with me.
Since we made our blossoms from copy paper (rather than the cardstock Martha specifies), and I just happened to have (I see the Grand Weaver everywhere) the perfect rubber stamp for the flower centers in my studio already, I had only to add a few sheets of green cardstock to get the project rolling.
We cut our squares about 4 1/4" (half a sheet of copy paper) when Miss B and I did this, but I later cut the size down to 3", which I like even better.
Because I knew I would be making many (many!) of these branches, one of the things we did (actually, Miss B was kind enough to do it) to make mass production easier was to cut two different size leaves and then trace them until we'd filled an entire sheet of copy paper.
I used that sheet for a master and ran my green cardstock through the copier (those are the sheets you see in the background of that first photo).
This way, all the tracing is done only once.
Now, the reason I knew I would be making many of these is that I had a table to decorate for a tea at the church, and I have a wedding shower (outdoor/picnic theme) I am co-hosting in May.
...and added some aqua-colored paper birds (tanagers) I made to match the sweet dishes which the Grand Weaver placed in my hands just in time (and that's a story for the next post!).
It got a little crowded at the table once we put all that lovely food on it.
I made favors for each of the ladies at my table, because I had planned to give the larger branches to the guest of honor and Me Darlin' Mither.
My hands felt like mitts when I was trying to fold those little teeny weeny pieces of paper for the small flowers!
Lovely idea...thank you, whoever you are!
...and real flowers, of course.
When she exclaimed so enthusiastically over the favors I'd made (ever meet people who are just out-and-out cheerleaders for others?), I told her I was planning to give her mine after the tea.
She said, "I'll trade you real flowers for the paper ones."
I had no idea she meant an entire plant!
I don't think it was a fair trade, but I'm sure enjoying my beautiful hydrangea.
It reminds me of my beautiful friends.
Blue Gingham Apron - Where's Dorothy?
Last weekend, Able Baker Dana went to Dallas to do some power shopping (I am so grateful God gave her other friends who like to shop) and one of the things she brought home was a Waverly brand apron - or 'apern', as I like to say.
I liked the pattern so well, and Dana is so kind to me, that I brought her apron home before she had the chance to tie it on even once.
Now, I didn't tie it on either, but today I did draft a pattern from it so I could make one just like it.
I've had this fabric for, hmmm, awhile now, but I've been waiting to find an apern pattern that I really liked before I sewed it up (or at least that's what I tell myself).
I liked this pattern because you get a bit of ruffly detail without having to actually make ruffles; which makes it fun, but still easy to sew.
...and has that vintage look which just makes me feel like everything is okay and "Here, have a fresh-baked chocolate chip cookie and some milk, honey".
The fabric is also lighter weight than I thought was appropriate for an apron, so I used some of the rescued fabric (cotton curtain lining?) I had in the stash and just serged the two pieces together.
...but I actually made it for someone I love.
Someone to whom I gave a bread-baking lesson and some recipes; who then went home and made more bread and publicly posted this statement on a certain social network: "I think I need an apron."
And it won't hurt my feelings if you'd like a different style or fabric.
You know it would just kill me to have to add another apern to my stash.
But for you I would do it.
My dear friend, Miss B, is teaching another Zentangle class here in Oklahoma City this month.
You can read (and see) more about Zentangle, Miss B, and her qualifications on this previous post.
If you missed the last opportunity to tangle with Miss B, here's your second chance.
March, apparently, was for the birds.
Four different birds are pictured in the line-up (along with that extra inchie I couldn't bare to part with).
But they were just the winged parts of a month full of blessings.
Dear Reader Annski, who keeps track of these things (bless her pea-pickin' heart), informed me on Friday that I hadn't posted inchies for two of the days in March.
... which represents the awesome tote Annski made from a bird seed bag and gave to moi.
Even more ironically, Annski was here in Gwen's studio on Friday, being interviewed for Gwen's first-ever guest blogger post; which will include a link to the tutorial for making these bags.
There's a little teaser for you.
You'll have to stay tuned; Gwen has her fingers in too many pies these days (and this week, some of them will be actual pies!), so I don't know when she'll get around to turning the interview into a post.
The other neglected March inchie represents a video titled "A Man Named Pearl", which I watched with the Prince on the 22nd.
It's a documentary, slow moving and easy to watch, about - you guessed it - a man named Pearl.
He took his 3-acre yard in Bishopville, South Carolina, some plants rescued from the compost heap of a local nursery, and (with no formal training or education) spent 20 years creating what is now an internationally reknowned topiary garden.
He is the son of a sharecropper and, training or not, he is an artist.
We were delighted to find that his garden - which is open to the public on a donation basis - is only a two hour drive from the North Carolina shore where we'll be spending our vacation this fall.
We plan to tour the gardens and, if we can arrange our schedule just right, worship in the church Pearl attends (it's featured in the documentary).
And that, my friends, really does bring an end to the March inchies.
Though there are sixteen (!) April inchies waiting impatiently for their fifteen minutes of fame.
Miss Mary Mack is here. She's trying to teach the old dog new (blogging) tricks.
I don't have any funny stories or long-winded explanations about the inchies for the last three days in March, but they still represent blessings in my life.
My stars! All bottled up.
Want to see something very kewl?
Look at this awesome old milk bottle which was just made to house my growing collection of paper prayer stars.
Just think how many more prayers can be written and folded into stars before I run out of room again!
Know where this bottle came from?
It was purchased at the little antique store where we browsed after our camping trip got washed away in the rain.
It was purchased because I'd been looking for quite some time for a new shelter for the stars; I was waiting for a jar that would say to me, "I'm the one. Your stars will be happy living with me."
Thing is, when I saw this jar, I was already holding the big ball of saved string and I couldn't bring myself to spend money for both items.
I pointed out the utter kewlness of this jar to my fellow soggy, would-be campers (as we'd been doing with various items throughout the shop) and then we walked on.
Monday afternoon I recieved a text message from Bro saying he had something we "really wanted" and to let him know when we'd be home from work.
We thought he'd found the (beloved old) hammer we'd lost during our breaking-camp-in-the-pouring-rain party.
He brought me a gift bag.
And he said, "Sometimes ya just gotta do these things."
After we packed up our soggy stuff and our soggy selves, we headed down to Eureka Springs, AR to do a bit of browsing in the tourist trap.
During the drive, we turned the car heater on full blast, closed all the vents except the ones near the floorboard, and I made the trip barefoot while my poor drenched All-Stars and socks were rotated under the heat until they were all dry and toasty (I didn't really want to wear my hiking boots...which were the only other shoes I'd packed).
Of course, this made the car stifling hot, so we had to roll down the windows - whenever the rain let up for a minute - so we wouldn't suffocate.
We didn't browse long in Eureka Springs; the shop with the beautiful handmade papers was closed for the day, and it was still drizzly and pretty darn cold.
I did, however, stumble upon a set of flatware that came with scissors.
You know I couldn't pass that up.
And the price was incredible.
Of course, the scissors don't actually cut, and the flatware is only good for dieters.
We spent that night in a hotel somewhere...I can't even recall where.
The Prince and Beeg Seester and Bro (who had actually slept all warm and cosy the night before)went out to eat that evening at some fantabulous chicken place, but I holed up at the hotel and messed around with some Zentangle patterns.
When we got home the next day, Miss Mary Mack was waiting for us with some blue chocolate chip cookies she'd made.
On St. Patricks day they were green.
I think she's making her way around the color wheel.
I don't understand where my shoots picked up this habit of playing with their food.
But once you make it through the sensory confusion, it's good eating.
And, "Nothin' says lovin' like something from the oven."
You break camp in the pouring rain and wind, throw your dripping tent and tarp in your rubber lined trunk, throw everything else in the back seat of your car, and you move on down the road.
... and your Beeg Seester sees a big ball of saved string that she says needs to be in your house.
You look at the big ball of saved string and you say, "How very kewl."
You show the big ball of saved string to your Prince and say, "Isn't this kewl?".
And your Prince studies your face very carefully because he doesn't think the big ball of saved string is that kewl, and he wants to see if you are trying to fool him into thinking you do.
He sees that you are serious and he says something very tactful about the big ball of saved string and your love for it.
You buy the big ball of saved string and bring it home and love it.
You draw the big ball of saved string on the inchie for the day.
You take a picture for your Dear Readers, and you wonder if they ever knew anyone who saved string, or even knew that people used to save string this way.
And then you take another picture of the big ball of saved string sitting next to one of the new vintage coffee cups you got from your Chicken Raising Seester, because you think it will help the Dear Readers appreciate the size of the big ball of saved string (and you really love your new vintage dishes).
Then you write a blog post about the big ball of saved string and ask your Dear Readers if you are a bit freakish, or do they find the big ball of saved string attractive, too?
But you don't really want them to tell you that you are a bit freakish.
I wish you could have shared my camping experience at Roaring River the last weekend in March.
If you'll use your imagination, perhaps you can at least get a feel for it.
Close your eyes and envision yourself in a nice warm cocoon in the darkness .
You are very tired and the warmth is so comforting.
Now imagine that your head is stuck in the deep freeze, and your stomach is swelling because a single hot dog rarely agrees with you, and you ate two at the campfire in the great outdoors earlier.
Now imagine that someone is rustling a potato chip bag right next to your right ear and someone else is sawing wood right next to your left ear.
The sounds just a little further off include a constant clang, clang, clang and some significant roaring and howling.
Stay in this imaginary state until you really, really, really have to go to the bathroom.
Now, picture yourself crawling out of your warm cocoon and immersing your entire body into the deep freeze.
But it's a big, walk-in freezer...and you walk in it.
When you've gotten some relief, you get back into your warm cocoon, pull the hood of your sweatshirt up around most of your face and move yourself about four feet away from the crinkling potato chip bag.
Now you have some relief from the cold air of the deep freeze and the noise of the chip bag.
Moments later, you see flashes of light, the roaring increases, and the potato chip bag lands on top of your face.
Then it flies up in the air and comes back down on your head.
And someone starts spitting very cold water at you.
Can you see my side of the air mattress shoved up against the nylon tent which is being blown by winds so fierce that it is constantly crinkling in my right ear?
Can you hear the thunder and see the lightning and feel the temperature drop into the 30's?
Can you see (and hear) the Prince, busily sawing logs on my left?
Can you feel the intensity of the storm increase and the tent cave in on my face?
It's time to walk to the car in the driving rain and turn on the motor, and then the heater, and thaw yourself out.
...at least we had some good laughs around the campfire last night.
I should be posting the last of the March inchies, but my Beeg Seester inspired me to walk/run the 9 1/2 miles around the local lake with her this beautiful spring morning, and now I am too tired to think.
I am never, however, too tired to cut.
So, here's what the couch cushion next to me looks like tonight.
When I can move again.