Here’s a look back over the years at some of my best Goodwill finds. Goodwill is my favorite store to shop for clothes. I love saving money and rescuing perfectly good garments from a grim future in the landfill. Our local Quincy Goodwill is a …
In the eighties, when I was in high school, my mom took a doll-making class and made three porcelain dolls, one for me and one for each of my sisters. During this time she was working as a night nurse at the hospital, putting in …
I’ve made a few new ornaments for my Easter tree! I like to spend the dark winter evenings making funny, ridiculously cute Easter ornaments and dreaming about spring.
I’ve only recently started crafting again after a 30-year hiatus. I grew up crafting because my mother was and is a devoted crafter. Her very favorite activity has always been “making things,” as she says. She sews, knits, crochets, embroiders, makes wreaths, does ceramics–the list goes on and on–and she’s very industrious; she knows how to get a project done.
When I was a little girl, my father would go out of town sometimes, to conventions. Daddy going out of town was a rare and wonderful event, cause for celebration. (Nobody could relax when he was around.) The first night he was gone, Mom and my sister Kris and I would get dressed up in our Sunday best and head to the craft store at the Tallahassee Mall. We’d each pick out a craft to make, then come home and work on it all night in my parents’ big bed as we watched Hawaii Five-O or some such fare on TV.
We’d have TV dinners for a special, fancy treat. I always got a Salisbury steak dinner, and Kris got fried chicken. Oh, and we’d have dessert too, which was also very special–maybe a frozen cheesecake with cherry topping, or cream horns and gingerbread boys from Heidi’s Bakery.
Anyway, whenever I craft now, it’s very comforting to me, and it feels like coming full circle, to the very beginning again. It feels like a return to my essential self. It’s heaven to sit and sew and listen to audio books with a cat or two on my lap.
I know it’s after Christmas now, but I just have to pay tribute to my mom’s Christmas spirit. Even at 81 years old, she can still create Christmas magic like nobody else. At Christmastime (and, really, all the time) there’s a wonderful feeling at Mom’s …
This morning I finished up another felt Christmas ornament–a ballerina bear! I’m afraid I hit a snag when I was working on her tutu, because it turned out looking more like a cape than a skirt. Oh, well. She’s still super cute. A book I …
This weekend, I made another felt Christmas ornament—a Christmas queen! Before I got started this time, I did a little research in preparation—I read up on the basics of embroidery. I tried hard to be neat, but, despite my best efforts, things went awry and several knots ended up on the outside of the ornament instead of on the inside where they belong. Oh, well. I was able to cover up most of my mistakes with the queen’s fabulous feather boa and “diamond” earrings.
My ornament-making always involves numerous trips to JoAnn Fabrics for fancy trimmings. I love going to JoAnn’s. It always feels like a stroll down memory lane since my sister Kris and I practically lived there when we were teens. Back then, we were really into designing and sewing our own crazy clothes, which were hilariously flamboyant and poorly constructed and eventually helped earn us a nickname around town: “The Double Weirds.”
Our homemade outfits were so dumb and funny (for example, we tried to copy Sting’s on-stage look during the Synchronicity Tour), but it was heaven dreaming them up. We’d sit poring over the big pattern books in the sunlit store—excited, enthralled, our stomachs full of butterflies. The aisles of tulle and satin and lace would fill me with joy and inspiration—just as they do when I shop at JoAnn’s today. A sign I saw by the cash register on Saturday expressed my feelings exactly: “Sew much fabric, so little time!”
On Friday night, I started making a new Christmas ornament–a snow kitten! I had so much fun. Rob was playing a show with his band, so the cats and I were on our own. As soon as I got home from work, I changed into …
When I was a child, October was my favorite month. I loved Halloween and the special crispness and sparkle of the early-fall days. All month I’d live in a state of high excitement and dread going to sleep for fear I’d miss something–a visit from a talking owl, maybe, or a witch flying by on her broomstick.
When you’re an adult working full time in an office, it’s easy to lose sight of the world’s wonder, to be overwhelmed by stress and grinding routine, so this year I’m trying to rediscover the magic of October. I’m trying to spend less time on my phone and computer and more time smelling the tea olive, picking bouquets of goldenrod, collecting acorns, cracking pecans, carving pumpkins, lighting candles, and looking up at the moon.
Tonight I took a stroll around town so I could appreciate my neighbors’ Halloween displays. They really go all out. The dark porches and yards were resplendent with orange twinkle lights, pumpkin-headed scarecrows, fake tombstones, and the ghosts made from sheets. It was so much fun admiring everything, to be out under the stars in the still-warm October air, to have escaped from my office, to be free, even if just for a little while.
