". Arranged Words: 2017

12 Dec 2017

Just Popping in To Say. . .

 Hello everyone,

Time has been flying by and Christmas will soon be here. I can't believe it! 
Because we put the tree up early this year, everything else seems to be falling into place with relative ease. I've sent out the cards and parcels, and most of the wrapping has been done.  Next week  more cleaning and a bit of baking and that should round things out.

In the meantime, I've been enjoying a few Amaryllis blooms and all that glitters both at home, in the malls and the snowy neighborhood.






A cute snowman. I find some of them rather creepy, so he's the only one I have.

A ship conjures up thoughts of home.


Paperwhites on the grow.

Backup beauty ~ on the way.



So...basically I just popped in to say have a Merry Christmas Day! 

If you do not celebrate Christmas, enjoy the holidays.

And my very Best Wishes to all of you for the New Year too!

28 Nov 2017

Wonderous Things

Hello lovely people,

I hope my U.S. friends had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I always wonder how you do it, with Thanksgiving so close to Christmas. Both times require a lot of preparation, so my hat goes off to you all.

Earlier this year, I made my way to Toronto and I thought I'd share a few pics. I saw a painting by Rubens that the AGO recently acquired for 150 million dollars.  I was vastly overwhelmed by the subject matter, so I didn't take a picture of it. However, with that said, it was amazing, vivid and looked like it had been painted yesterday.

"The Lady of Shallot" by Tennyson a favourite poem of mine has, thankfully, been painted so beautifully by John William Waterhouse. I am not sure how many he painted in that series, but they are all wonderful.

'I am Half-Sick of Shadows,' said the Lay of Shallot.

Click here to see a clearer version.

"On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And thro' the field the road runs by
       To many-tower'd Camelot;
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below,
       The island of Shalott."
Tennyson
 
Loreena McKennitt's song "The Lady of Shallot." You can listen here.

 Monet


Lady with Soup. Picasso ~ Blue Period

* * * 

I absolutely love Greek sculptures.

A favourite of mine. From the palace of King Nebuchadnezzar ll. c 600BC.
I love to imagine what the palace was like.


A wondrous totem pole. Taken at the ROM

Georgia O'Keeffe.

 I made it to the O'Keefee exhibit with only a day or two to spare before the closing date. Pictures were prohibited.  However, this wonderful photo covered the wall at the end of the show.  And people were lining up to have their picture taken with Georgia.

* * *


My orchid has been blooming for more than two months!

In keeping with my usual winter habits, I've planted a few Amaryllis bulbs. I should have one in bloom next week.

* * *
"I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life and I never let that stop me from a single thing I wanted to do."
Georgia O'Keeffe
Cultivate your dreams. 

'Til next time. . .

21 Nov 2017

An Artful Winter Wonderland



Hello there,

Thank you for stopping by.  As you can see we've had a snow storm that has beautifully covered the world. Although I am not enamored with winter, I do love a downy snowfall.

Humming and Singing " It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas."



A squirrel came out to check it out too. I think he/she was somewhat amazed. He kept jumping about like wow what's this.
Jumping for joy, or he has cold feet.  From my vantage point it looked like joy. It must be his first winter. (Cell phone pics...sorry about the quality, but even fuzzy joy is definitely worth seeing.)

 * * * 

These two paintings have been sent to a good home. 


I found a scrap of heavy paper, so I put it to use for this rose bud.

I added a few embellishments to this wee violet painting.

And a few embellishments added to this one too.Watercolour paper on a birch panel. First attempt at multimedia. A learning lesson for sure since I don't really now what I am doing. :)  Because framing watercolour runs into added expense, I am hoping to use birch panels for other paintings. I may finish the sides, although I do like the look of the raw wood. 
This one isn't finish yet. Normally you finish with two coats of spray varnish, and then apply  Dorland's Wax Medium.

Framed "In the Tropics"

* * *
"Kindness is like snow. 
It beautifies everything it covers."

Kahil Gibran

Cultivate your dreams!

Have a lovely week...

28 Oct 2017

A Story


Many years ago, I wrote this very story for my son, Jesse.  Since it's nearly Hallowe'en and it's a story set at Hollowe'en, I ask him if I could share it.

Let me say that John, or Johnny is a great name, but people do have preferences and when my son was young (perhaps 6 or 7) with a mind of his own, he said what you will read as the last sentence in the story, but not in this context. 

If your name is John or Johnny, or you know someone who's name is John, please do not take offense and send me an email. When it comes to names, we all have our preferences, especially an opinionated 6 or 7 year old boy whose own name was often misspelled with an ie, which he found tedious.  He still does. :)


                                                                  Not Johnny

    He had decided earlier that afternoon to go out trick or treating.  His mother said that he wasn’t too

 old to go, but he felt old—old because at ten and a half he was just an eighth of an inch shy of five 

feet eleven inches. He considered his height a curse, but the ungainliness it had brought with it

was the worse.  Lately he kept crashing into tables, chairs, electric poles, closed doors, and various

 other things that, although he tried hard to avoid, always seemed to be in his way.

      He had stared at his mother when she said he wasn't too old to go, and, of course, she was right. 

 But what she neglected to mention was his height. She knew, although she hoped and prayed that it

 wouldn’t happen, that distant neighbours would say to her son, when they opened the door to greet 

his cry of trick or treat, “You’re too big for this!  How old are you, anyway? And when he truthfully 

answered ten and a half he’d hear a resounding, “Yeah right!”

               Tonight he would be what? All he knew was that he wasn't going to wear that stupid pony 

mask his mother had bought him. There had to be something in the closet. As he dug around on the 

floor he thought about being a cowboy, but he couldn’t find his cowboy hat in the rubble, though he

 kept pawing through baseballs, bats, soccer balls, hockey gear, and two pairs of skates and old 

running shoes that gave off aromas of places he had been and wished to be again.

               Finally he gave up the search and sat down on the edge of the bed and looked out 

 the window at the old oak tree that was tenaciously holding onto its leaves. Upon reflection he felt

 that biggest curse about being tall was that everyone expected him to be perfect. He couldn't

 horse around like other boys, couldn't get away with a thing.  Everywhere he went someone was 

always yelling,  "You're too big to act like that."  So to stay out of trouble, he tried to act like an adult,

but under cover he sported his youth.




   Being tall made his life difficult in so many ways. Why even his bicycle had betrayed him by 

shrinking into a contraption that bruised his knees. So while his friends talked about and couldn’t 

wait to be grown-up, he spent a lot of time, laying on his captain's bed with his feet dangling 

over the edge, day dreaming about being a kid.  

     And being a tall daydreamer didn't help either. “It’s damn ridiculous to be this tall at ten and a 

half,” he’d yelled at the top of his lungs when he banged his head for the third time. 

His mother said many things as she patched up his skull. Although he knew better, he had half 

heartily listened just in case there was a point. What was the point?  The point was that his mother 

just didn't get that he was too damn tall. He eyed her suspiciously. He wondered if she had 

heard anything he had said because she just kept blathering on about swearing, about having all of his

limbs, a roof over his head, good health, and had rounded it off, while he looked at his big toe poking

of his nearly new sneaker, that she and his father worked very hard to put food on the table. And if

that wasn't enough, she added in a strained voice, “Young man, go to your room, and don’t come

downstairs until you write down a hundred things that you are grateful for.”  As he stomped up the

stairs, he promised  himself he would never, ever, say anything remotely like that to one of his

kids.

               He pulled the chair out from under his desk, turned it sideways, sat down, stretched out

his long legs, slipped a notebook out of the drawer and scribbled: What am I grateful for in a

bumpy graphite script that he underlined in red ink before tucking the pen behind his left ear. Clearly,

he would be grateful if he had a larger chair, but he decided against jotting that down.

 What was his mother going on about anyway? Of course he was grateful; he wasn't a total wash

out.  But a half an hour later the empty page was still glaring back at him, and then, without warning,

inspiration struck, flooding his brain like sunshine.  With his brow in a buckle and his eyes dancing

with intensity, he slowly printed in bold letters:   

 1 – 100.  
  
 I AM GRATEFUL THAT MY NAME IS NOT JOHNNY.  

                             Always fun at Pumpkin Inferno. Apparently,  you can do a lot with pumpkins.
           

                                 While these carvings are all miraculous, I especially admire the Girl  with  the Pearl Earring.


         

                                              
                                                                                                 * * *


                              I'm slowly adding autumn leaves to my hawthorn berry painting. 


Enjoy Hallowe'en!

'Til Next time...                                                    Cultivate your dreams.

7 Oct 2017

Swallowtail Shawl


I recently finished the Swallowtail shawl. I love the ease of Evelyn Clark's clear and concise patterns. A definite must for a fun knit.  If you'd like to knit this shawl, the pattern is free, and can be found either on Evelyn's website or on Raverly.

Because of the two ply yarn and a small needle, 3.5mm, the shawl is small, but that's exactly what I wanted. For this shawl, I used Brooklyn Tweed's Vale. I was a little worried about 2 play yarn, but  this yarn has loft. What a lovely, soft yarn!

A few of you wondered about the nupps. They are a design element from Estonian lace knitting and do add special texture to a knitted garment.  In an earlier post, I mentioned that the nupps were difficult to pick up on the purl side, especially if, like me, you knit tight. This pattern had 5 strands to pick up, but you can also have 7 or 9.


Blocking 

 After a twenty minute bath in lukewarm soapy water and then on to a a good rinse, you roll the shawl in a towel and trod on it to squeeze out the excess water, and then it's on to the blocking mat.    Since I still don't own blocking wires, I thread yarn through the top loops, pull it tight and wrap it around t-pins on either side. It makes a nice straight edge. Because I am out of practice, I had to keep shifting the pins.

Details
I haven't decided what to knit next. There's so many stunning patterns to choose from, and that's part of the fun, beauty, and peaceful quality of knitting.  Hopefully, I'll decide soon; I really do miss knitting a few rows each night.

Happy Thanksgiving to my Canadian friends and to my family many miles away.
 xx


Enjoy the week...                      

      Cultivate your dreams.

26 Sept 2017

Different Directions

Hello lovely people!


 I hope you all had a great week. 

Sometimes people talk about the weather when there's not much to talk about. But the current temperatures are amazing and worth a few words.  30 C-33C, or 86F-91F.  The trees must be confused, but they are turning and many have already lost their leaves because of the cold nights.  Of course, these temps won't last but while they do hurray. But, then, when I think about it, it must be difficult for the kids at school. So it's probably better that temps return to normal soon.

Because they are available, I've been out buying pumpkins.




And this dapper foxy fellow dressed for fall was too cute to pass up.

* * *
Off road.

In case you don't know, dragon flies are accommodating. This one was flying around like mad, so I sweetly said, could you just stay still so I can take your picture and it did! My son just 👀 at me. 😉

Bee cause she's a worker. 

* * *
A little art.

 Mixed media on a wood panel.

* * * 
Stitching

Lately, I've been doing a little work on my cross stitch Shepherdess Sampler.
 One of these years it will be finished.
I've almost finished the large tree on this detailed final section.

 Enjoy the week. 
Cultivate a dream.