Some Things That Mean Everything

It’s Monday, May 7, and my sister turns 40 today!  We had a great surprise party for her last night with lots of friends and family.  I’d been working on the party for most of the last two weeks, so being totally wiped out this morning, I unloaded the dishwasher, picked up only a few of the hundreds of things that were out of place in the house, looked at piles of laundry, and decided it all could wait one more day.

Instead of getting things tidy, I sat down with my favorite five-year old for a couple of hours, she with her practice (copying a drawing of a country church) and me with mine (the Daisy Chain Sampler).   We talked and listened to music and it couldn’t have been nicer.

I was feeling pretty contemplative after the weekend, looking at old photos from my sister’s life (and mine) and being surrounded and loved by family and friends, so, matching the mood, Patty Griffin was heavy on our playlist:

And as far as I can tell

Most everything means nothing

Except some things

That mean everything

from “Railroad Wings” on Children Running Through

New Stitches

Somewhere in my home-school days (I only did it for ONE year) I started thinking it would be a good idea to have the kids embroider.  I had dabbled (and I mean dabbled) in embroidery and thought it was a really accessible way to introduce them to the joys of making things with their hands. So, I got four hoops, cut some pieces of leftover canvas,  opened my half-decopaged shoe box of cotton embroidery floss (a gift from a friend in SF) and let them have at it.

We started with letters of the alphabet, their names, and the easiest stitch, the back stitch.  Being left totally to themselves, they started drawing their own pictures on fabric and embroidering around the edges.  They could get pretty gnarly.  And sometimes they would ask me if they could embroider and I would say “no” b/c I knew I would be asked to re-thread their needles about seventy times in the span of five minutes.

My most quiet, quirky, and sensitive (and horse-loving) kid has been the one who is most persistent about getting the hoop and thread out to work. Now that she is 8, she has a lot of the coordination and patience necessary to make smaller, neater stitches (something that really makes a difference), and to thread her own needle and tie her own knots.  We had some time alone recently and she declared (as she likes to do) that she wanted to embroider.  So, we found a picture of a horse (of course) and made a copy.  She transferred it to fabric with transfer paper, and she worked for a couple of hours on it, taking breaks whenever she needed it.

Here’s the almost finished product.  She’s pretty excited about her “horsey” (as am I).  She even learned how to do a french knot for the eyeball.  We are already looking at embroidery books together for new stitches and skills.  We’re both pretty into it, so if anyone has any suggestions for books to websites to check out, let me know.

And some unrelated fun stuff:

This dressing. Oh my.

Fancy chickens

Daisy Chain Sampler and check out her free downloads, too. I love some of the dishtowel designs.

AND I took this picture to my hair stylist and said “give me this”. I’m all over the map about it, loving it followed immediately by wondering what I was thinking,  but I think I’m settling down, now.  What else is there to do, right? It’s a good change, I think.

AND, AND I finished our taxes on time!! Relief.