(at the workbench) - the aunties come to visit

Just a picture or two of the visiting aunties and uncle. Peter and Lotte are always happy to see them  ,looking forward to all the adventures the day ahead will hold.


It was very special for me to have this extended, happy family working their way through my workbench. As a custom order,  I can't help wondering what sort of days they are having in their new home.

Ps:  I've just listed another set here just in case you have some of your own ideas how they might spend the day with you. :)

(at the workbench) - other conversation

this week at the workbench, the children have been busy ....




asking more questions than you may have ever been imagined ...


forest mama have such good ears though to listen

a visit to elsa beskow lovely "children of the forest"

 but meanwhile, in another part of the forest, other conversation are going on  ....

mrs acorn and mrs hazelnut have so much to catch-up on...

the children have other ideas in mind, we'll just have to see how the afternoon turns out ...

hope you have some wonderful adventures this weekend yourself whatever thoughts may be bubbling up now! 

(glimpses) - a little yarn

between these days....where seasons change and are somehow unknown....

with winter-filled autumn days of snow and falling leaves.... and autumn/spring-like winter days, when even snowflakes question whether they should themselves be little raindrops or freezing rain....

 inside we are beyond all these undecided seasons and weather ....

 


with a few balls of yarn, there are many stories waiting to be told ... between days spent sick in bed and both sleepy  and sleepless nights ...




























from these squares and blocks have begun... little repetitions and clusters newly learned .. .while I wonder listening to falling winter rains,  what the fisherman's wife was dreaming while mending his nets late into the fire lit winter long evenings ...
.

(this moment) - two years ago today

{this moment - Inspired by Soulemama. A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment.}

The original post can be found here.

(at the workbench) - folk flowered pinwheels

Sometimes ideas are persistent - a bit like young children .












My new Folk Flowered Pinwheels and Summer Quilted Pinwheels just happened to be this way.

As much as I like visiting my local lumber mill or the hardware store, I do love a visit to the fabric store. Aisles and aisles of such pretty colors, prints and patterns - little by little, a beautiful yard or so of this or that fabric comes home with me. They sit neatly stacked -looking so inviting- and waiting for project of their very own.

I never took home economics in school. Sewing becomes a needed skill when an idea or project is in process. In the end a sewing machine might not be so different from a bandsaw!

I love that with simple materials, an enduring classic plaything can be remade. These pinwheels are eco-friendly, wind-powered, stitched and quilted, modern folk flowered, calico fabrics, fun.


Who doesn't love seeing a twirling , spinning pinwheel on beautiful summery day.

spring, fairytales and imagination

(NOTE: These pictures are from an ice storm of 2008 that placed our towns in a state of emergency for two weeks as we were held frozen in ice and time )

In some places SPRING has already arrived.
Here Spring remains a dream - a very far and distant memory. A time almost forgotten.

This Winter, just as Autumn was barely passing us by, a great ice storm arrived in the quietest hours of that early December night. Lying in bed, I could only imagine what was in that dark night as an enormous, thunderous noise filled all the space of night. The mighty, giant pines that circle the house, where splitting and falling nearby bedroom windows. I don't think a parent slept that night considering what to do next..




The next morning was to discover the world we knew frozen in ice. In that ice was frozen the power that gave warmth, ran the pump for our water- even time stopped frozen as clocks turned black. Outside piled high on hard, frozen grass were enormous broken limbs of trees. A once leggy lilac hedge was doubled over with the weight of the ice. Not a corner was not encased in a frozen world of that storm.

In our frozen land, we were to live for nearly two weeks in nothing less then the Snow Queen's realm (a wonderful Hans Christian Anderson Fairy Tale.) There is imagination in taking up a life of days gone by in a strange, seemingly unending, wintry world. To even deepen the mysterious a frozen world, those weeks lay squarely in the year's darkest nights with the approaching of the Winter Solstice. Only days before Christmas eve and for some just Christmas day, that saw the electric lights rekindle their glow. And still more strange the furnace to warm the home and the slow return to modern life.

I sometimes find it hard to imagine Spring even in March, when Winter can only hold on another month or so. But somehow even in the everyday, there are fairytales to discover, imagined worlds to dream and stories to be lived.

a little introduction to prettydreamer

Perhaps there's still a part of you (that five year old or that eight year old child self) that managed to stay with you through all the years ... well to me, that is the inspiration of Prettydreamer - that open-eyed, eager, curious, precious little being.

Toymaking is a way of giving life to the cherished plaything. Kind of an honorable old profession that brought with it a great excitement as birthdays and holidays do for children. Somehow, I hold an image of far away days of workshops and kitchen tables in many close and distant lands where love and imagination crafted and shaped a wonderful plaything. I remember a a special little red and spotted-white strawberry spinning top I had... though a little thing, I thought it might be one of the neatest things I ever saw and missed it when it went lost.

Now taking this a step further, to take a thought or idea (and all it's little nuances) and with hand, tools, materials, color and intuition to form something you can touch -especially something with its own life such as wood and fiber - wow!

For me, whether making a toy for a child (or the child in us) or something for all that just captures the heart, that is the desire of Prettydreamer!

Thank you for visiting!