Try Not to Smile

I was looking thru pictures from Annie's first year and couldn't help myself,

I had to post these.

Here she is at 3, 5 8 and 10 months old.

Try not to smile.

Baby Frida's first pumpkin pie on Halloween 2001.

Felt Fun in the Studio

I love working with felt. Especially the wool felts.

It's so easy and satisfying with little (or no sewing) and such wonderful colors and contrasts. I will add another Fun and Easy Felt Workshop to the Alameda StudioTime calendar soon. If anyone out there wants to come and make ornaments, gifts, patches, brooches and other wool treasures, please let me know so I can schedule it in time for the holidays.

Isn't She Lovely?

I've been laying low for two days now with a cough + lower back thing and my dear Annie has been my cozy companion and court comedian. This morning, after multiple trips down the stairs, and quite a while in the kitchen, she prepared this lovely breakfast tray for she and I. She also stepped up to clean the kitchen so that it didn't pile up, and ran many small "fetching" errands around the house for me, so I didn't have to get up.

*Blink*

*Blink*

Not that she isn't helpful and willing on a regular basis, but she has never made me a meal, cleaned the kitchen or taken responsibility on like she's done the last two days.

*Can you hear the triumphant choir from above singing
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah?*

Wow! I can. For the first time I'm getting a small glimpse of how, after eight years of what seems like constant giving and doing for her, there might be more shared responsibility and independence down the road.

And...
Isn't she so lovely?

ooooooooh

I'll Meet You There...

...out in the fields, beyond that tall stand of trees, where the witches meet and dance and conjure up the spirits of this world and the next!
Happy Halloween!

A Day and a Half...

...until the witching hour! Annie thinks she likes scary things now that she's eight and a half, but really she's still very unsure of masks, dry ice fog, being out at night, and of course spooky sounds and screams.

Little Golden Circus Dog

My friend Mary gave me a gold fabric wine gift-wrapper thing recently, and being right on the heels of seeing Bright Star, (Fanny Brawne hand stiches a wonderful four tiered mushroom collar), I had to make our lady Harpo one to match. She really is our Little Golden Circus Dog! Now I'm now making a matching skirt...

Oh, and go see Bright Star right now! If you love poetry, Jane Campion, period pieces, and fantastic art direction and locations, it's for you. Bring a hanky.