abundance continuing

gratitude

the internet supplies patterns should you wish 

to make skin mittens

several patterns are keeping me thinking.

i don't need to make mittens just now

but i'm thinking about them.

about how we shape around our own frail skins

protection

to keep warm.

these mittens (below) are for the greenland kayakers

see the similarities

and 

the differences?

can you see why they are made each way?

 winter's arrived 

with snow and ice 

but it's still fairly warm,

37 today.

 the flat light of the short 

(just ever so much longer) days

 is just that.

and the solar panels don't keep us in enough

electricity without a generator boost.

 my red camera lens is hopelessly scratched

so i bought another 

for australia.

 daylight wanes

on days when i am totally unplugged.

 the ice overhang

gallops to the ground now and then.

BOOM!

 and i find that i am in need

of some kami-ito.

a little while a little work

and i'm all set

for some more stitching and shifu.

new year thoughts

were happily frolicking,

almost troublesome, but not really

last night in bed.

i got up once or twice

to hunt pen and paper

to grab thoughts as they flew through.

sketches.

excitement and more,

as some new work begins to make 

teeny tiny rootlets.

i love these beginnings.
~~~
and michelle sent
a link to a very fine and appropriate 
poem.
www.rattle.com/poetry/a-toast-by-wendy-videlock/

fiber=happy

yesterday i received a phone call from a friend, jody horwitz, who is a knitter. she asked if she could swing by my house and drop off something, i said sure, thinking it might be something for hannah, who worked for jody last winter at the yarn shop. well.

she gave me these beautiful mittens that were from a kit that leena sells. leena dyes her own wool from her flock with natural (cochineal and mushrooms in this case) dyes. this is fiberwork i could never do--oh, i could dye the yarns and raise the sheep, but never ever could i knit something like this. i was stunned, and so very pleased. and my hands will be warm and happy this winter.

a feather from a mourning dove, i think. on top of the cover of a rock book.

front cover and pages of rock book.

the rock books are coming along. all the pages for two are made, but not finished (!) and the third is in process. i have used badger paper and black walnut dye and daylily and mica as well as abaca and a variety of others that i harvested from my freezer and my yard. this has been a productive papermaking september and october for me. 

and i have news this week which i will share later on. right now, it's sunday evening. i must prepare for work (lessons!) and for being away a night. 

a little bit of abaca shifu, colored with pigment from carriage house. i made this paper 25 or so years ago, fully intending to use it right away for shifu. it's aged well. me, too!

the legs of a papermaker after an hour's work. pulp. water. happy. the sun helped dry me out. a sunny but quite cool day. winter's coming on.