Seeing Green

Here is a celebration of Green for St. Patrick’s Day!

Green candy on my window sill

Green and white striped candy canes

Green buttons

Green thread

Disposable fountain pen with green ink

My favorite sweater, a gift from my friend and colleague Kathy who finds treasures like this at thrift stores.

A new batch of Green Velvet Soup with ham (see my blog post for 12/10/2011 for the recipe)

Green shamrocks on my sister's Bleek sugar & creamer

Watercolor sketch of Bleek sugar & creamer

Seeing Red

Here is a celebration of red for Valentine’s Day!

Red candy on my window sill

Red-and-white striped candy canes

Red DMC embroidery thread

Red buttons

Red spools of thread

Hand-quilted dresser scarf in Bear Paw pattern

Three red quilt blocks

Darning Socks

“Tending the things around us and becoming sensitive to the importance of home, daily schedule, and maybe even the clothes we wear, are ways of caring for the soul.”
— Thomas Moore, Care of the Soul

Hole in one of my favorite socks

I admit that I rarely darn socks.  I do wear socks until they get holes in them, but it is too easy just to throw them away or make them into rags and buy some new ones.  But these blue snowflake socks are one of my favorite pairs.  They go well with my most comfortable blue jeans.  So I took a few minutes to repair them.

I didn’t have suitable thread, so I found some embroidery floss in a color that almost matched.  The darning didn’t take long at all, and now my socks are good to go for another cold season.  A satisfying project!

Turn the sock inside-out and position a darning egg under the hole.

Darning is like weaving -- across and up-and-down, the needle going in and out.

The small woven patch is complete. Now hide the ends of the thread.

Turn the sock right-side-out. All done.

Mended sock. Good to go.

 

Leaf Hanging Like a Suspended Criminal

Fallen leaf dangling on a thread from a spider web

Hanging from a thread, the leaf dances in the wind.

Last Week in October
by Thomas Hardy

 The trees are undressing, and fling in many places–
      On the gray road, the roof, the window-sill
      Their radiant robes and ribbons and yellow laces;
      A leaf each second so is flung at will,
Here, there, another and another, still and still.

      A spider’s web has caught one while downcoming,
      That stays there dangling when the rest pass on;
      Like a suspended criminal hangs he, mumming
      In golden garb, while one yet green, high yon,
Trembles, as fearing such a fate for himself anon.

Collections You Can Hold in Your Hand

Marbles, buttons and spools of thread

I have to chuckle at the title of this poem.  It’s obviously a given that one would collect books, but what else?

Besides Books, What Do You Collect?
by Richard Jones

Foreign coins,
skeleton keys,
old French primers,
small tin boxes —
any little thing
I can hold in my hand
that like a prayer says
be attentive
this is the way we live —
bits of blue glass
polished by waves
and saved
in a jar
in a drawer.

Blue and green buttons from my collection of buttons

Shells, two decades old, found on Sanibel Island

Watercolor sketch of buttons

Another watercolor sketch of buttons

Paintings and the buttons that inspired them