Lap Loom Generates Hours of Pleasure...

... and a Lot of Wall Hangings !~!

The small twelve by sixteen inch Lap Loom that I ordered when I began this weaving adventure has given me hours of pleasure and a bunch of cute little wall hangings in bright colors and various textures. I have used yarn, roving that I dyed with food coloring, fabric strips from my sewing supplies, and redwood twigs to create the little gems. I decided that the small hallway would be the display place; I took down all the other stuff and created space for the little yarn projects to be displayed. Love it.

My desk in the living room where my computer lives. Here is where
the majority of my handwork gets done. An amalgamation of craft supplies, remote controls, baby clothes, books I am reading and bottles of water.

How it begins...

My current favorite combines embroidery thread, fabric strips and roving. 

Baby Boy's first birthday comes next week.
This is the start of his little piece.

Hallway with displayed pieces. I've added spun, dyed silk to several of them.

Solar Installation Program Graduation Brings Smiles

Poignant Moments Create Memories

My daughter graduated from her Solar Panel Installation training program last night and it was a fun occasion. Thirteen young and middle aged individuals completed Solar Richmond (CA) Training Program and received their Certificates and the well-wishes of their families and friends.

My daughter completes Solar Panel Installation Course,
adding another set of skills to her repertoire.

The buffet table groaned under the weight of the spaghetti prepared by one guy's mother and all the fixings made a nice meal for the forty or so people who came to cheer for their graduates. This is Solar Richmond's second class of qualified technicians to complete the program. Solar moves toward the forefront of our alternative energy choices and these are the talented trained people who will be climbing on our roofs placing the panels.

Congratulations to Each and Every One of You

Special Warm Hugs of Love to Dimitris and Iris 

November 2013 Solar Panel Installation Graduation
Solar Richmond CA

Autumn Arrived Over the Weekend

Cooled Off and Got Windy

Perhaps a weather report is not why you dropped by LyndaLand today but here in the land of "no weather" it is noticeable when it changes. The leaves are dropping in full force, the clouds cover the sky altho rain has yet to fall and the time switch sealed the fate of evening outings for a few months.

This marks the last autumn for our trio of decorative pear trees; fire blight has hit them and after two attempts to halt its spread, the remaining option is to remove the infected trio and hope that stops its spread thruout the courtyard. These three were among the first planted on our absolutely bare lot when we moved in Dec 2002. The place had been left unplanted for ease of care by the elderly man who lived here and for more than two decades, this corner lot in Atchison Village had sat barren. 

We began with a queen palm, moving from three decades in Florida seemed reason enough; in our home there we had planted a trio across the front of the lot and watched them stretch taller than the telephone pole in just under six years. We wanted a queen palm here too to mark time.

Queen palm started at just under three feet tall; she's done well in twelve years.

The blight can be seen here right of center-it's bright red.

All three trunks are visible. Wonder what will take their place ?~!

Time passes, trees live their lifespan or it may be cut short due to disease. Sounds familiar when humanized too. Lots of loss due to disease that one wouldn't expect has given me an appreciation for what's Here Now. Trying to stay in the Present by living and loving that which is still within my reach.

Will it Ever Get Easier?

We said Good-bye to the Pug we walked everyday at noontime for the last eight months. Old age took her at fourteen; she had had an excellent life with two devoted humans in sequence. She never lacked for love, affection, dinner, fresh strawberries and tomatoes, or a soft bed in which to snore her nights away. May her pains be gone as she ends her earthly visit and may the tomatoes be year-round ripe where the next plane of her existence takes her.

Reblogged from Sew Katie Did

::Sari Bari’s 2013 Quilt Auction and Raffle::

November 3, 2013

I wanted to share with you Sari Bari’s 2013 Quilt Auction and Raffle taking place through November 10th.  I hope you’ll take a minute to read more about Sari Bari’s wonderful efforts below and support their fundraising cause.  You’ll have a chance to win a beautiful quilt made with Indian saris while supporting the women they employ as the artisans!  Please feel free to copy and paste this to your own blog.  Let’s spread the word of their work!  Thanks Beth Pinckney for the heads up on this.

Sari Bari and What They Do

Sari Bari is in the business of making things new. We take cast off saris, the traditional dress of the Indian woman, and stitch them together in the Kantha style of Bengal, a simple running quilt stitch done by hand. We piece and patch and layer to create beautiful, unique quilts. We are lovers of transformation and are exhilarated by the unique possibilities and potential within each sari to create something new.

More profoundly we are interested in the potential and possibilities of the women who make the products of Sari Bari. These women have found their way to freedom from the sex trade through employment at Sari Bari, where they find an opportunity for a different kind of work and a different kind of life. Sari Bari provides a safe place to be restored; to receive training as a quilt artisan, educational support, support for dependents, and retirement and health insurance. At Sari Bari not only are saris are uniquely transformed, but the women themselves emerge from the broken reality of lives as sex workers, to empowerment, healing and a way forward– truly a difficult… and a beautiful process.

This year Sari Bari has engaged the talented quilt artisans of Sari Bari in Kolkata, India together with quilters of all skill levels from around the world to create a unique collection for the 2013 Sari Bari Quilt Auction and Raffle. The auction will be held at www.saribari.com from November 1 to November 10, 2013. Each quilt is stitched from either new or recycled saris. The quilts produced by Sari Bari women are made from recycled saris in our traditional five-layer style. The other quilts reflect each of their creators, using a variety of design choices, patterns and construction techniques.

In addition to the auction we will conduct a raffle this year, giving everyone a chance to own one of these amazing quilts. For only $20-$30 you can purchase a raffle ticket for a chance to win one of the unique quilts. You will be able purchase your raffle ticket for the quilt you choose via www.saribari.com.

How to Participate

You may place bids and purchase raffle tickets at saribari.com at any time between 5:00 p.m. November 1 and 4:59 p.m. November 10, 2013. Winners will be announced November 11, 2013.

If you’d like to make a direct donation to the work of Sari Bari, visit  http://www.saribari.com/donate. All gifts are tax-deductible.

All proceeds from the auction and raffle will go toward supporting Sari Bari’s ongoing freedom work which will include:

• Purchasing a property in the Kalighat red light area so we can employ more women for freedom.
•  Opening our second prevention unit in 2014 in an area that is notorious for trafficking young girls and women into the sex trade.
• Training for at least 50 more women who are waiting to choose freedom.

We are so grateful for your interest in and support for the work of Sari Bari and the women whose lives are profoundly changed.

Thank you , Katie, so very much for letting me repost this wonderful opportunity to put our money somewhere that matters in such a tangible way.

Halloween - Many Kids, Lots of Dark Clothing...

Terrific fun for us too as the neighborhood fills with Latino families and their delightfully attired brood of youngsters. Some nearly too old and yet wanting "their" part of that free chocolatey haul, littler ones so small they have to be helped up and down our two steps, still others in their strollers trying to stay awake and say Trick or Treat. My heart warmed to witness a three-y/o young lad who, without even thinking about it, took his 18 month old sister's elbow as they descended the steps. She accepted the help graciously without pause and he assisted her so naturally I could just tell he'd been doing it for her since she began to walk. Love, respect, caring; I cried a bit for the old days... 

This year we asked them "Salty or Sweet?"  The choice between a small candy bar or a small bag of chips or pretzel. Mighty funny to watch them interrupt their established routine of speak-get candy-mumble thanks-walk away with a startled, "What?" Then I squat down to their level and ask them individually which they'd prefer. A pleasant change for us all from the usual grab and go routine of previous years' interactions.

Halloween Treat Bags

Patchwork Treat Bags for my Favorite Young Girls

Last summer (yes 2012) I stopped at A Verb for Keeping Warm to browse the quilt cottons and the yarn. In the fat quarter box, which often I find cost prohibitive, sat a great-looking skull pattern with teal and purple background peeking thru and gold around many of the bones in the Sugar Skulls. So I bought it with the idea rattling around about Treat Bags for my Littles. Well, October got away from me and I realized this year would be a repeat if I allowed it to happen. No, I vowed, I would sew these up and get them delivered if it took all week.

Well of course it took only a few hours one afternoon and there they were: linen-lined, with a silk strap that goes all the way around the bag so no tearing loose. The skull fabric ranks as the centerpiece six-inch square and then I surrounded with coordinating prints just varying slightly so they can tell them apart and I can still work it as an assembly line type operation. Three inch wide strips only needed to go once around to be the correct size for youngsters.

Ginger (L) and Piper show off their costumes and their treat bags at their Halloween event.
Our favorite dads catch up in the background as the kids have fun.

Jen, more commonly known as Mah-Ma!, and Ginger delight in the treat bag.
Gingin's such a gracious recipient, I love making and giving her gifts.

I am Linking up with Barbs October FO Linky Party and my treat bags are my FO for the month.
I have Barb's button on my sidebar there if you'd like to check out all the cool Finishes for the month.
And you Don't Have to Finish to play-isn't that cool?

Barb's husband, Mike, is in hospital so if you have a spare minute to either drop by her blog at Cat Patches and offer a word of encouragement. We all know how hard it is when our partner is away from home and who on earth wants to be in hospital. Here's to a solid recovery and a trip home soon.

Sweetness that Makes One Weep with Joy

Daughters Do the Most Delightful Things

I read thousands of words a day when I can; I'd rather read than eat or sleep. Blogs are my fodder and I have followed Jen's stories of her four kids for several years-maybe three or four even... Henry's getting bigger alla time !~!

So are the triplets and recently one of them made her mom the happiest woman alive. I had to share with you, my readers, because these gestures, made by kids for the ones they love, send my heart soaring. My faith in the goodness of people restores itself. Do enjoy it for yourself.   

Teeth are Sooo Cute... and Sharp

Oh my, counting teeth could become a seasonal pastime here in LyndaLand.

The Girls Come Visit Once in a While and Fun's on the Menu

 As is macaroni and cheese !~! They love to eat and mac and cheese sells to every kid I have ever cooked for. I don't have pictures of us preparing the feast however we ate it off the picnic ware and sat on the floor as we do and it was lovely for all of us to be together again.

Linen Bowl Holds Embroidery Thread

I put together this linen bowl/open box one afternoon when I wound up with a strip of grey linen that cried out to be folded into an open-topped box. I trimmed it with pink embroidery thread and toss into it the current crop of colors of that same thread for whatever project I have going.

May have to stiffen it somehow as I see it sagging in the photo. What does one use for such an application, I wonder, without losing the lusciousness of the linen ?~! Hmmm, suggestions, sweet readers who have made similar items...

Happy Autumn, may each step we take lead the way to Peace.

Weaving Completed

She's off the loom and looking for a tall spot from which to hang with her mate from last semester. I'm linking up today with Linda in South Africa's blog Natural Suburbia and her weekly regular feature Creative Friday. There are lots of lovely blogs there with a wide range of cool "finishes". Click your way around a bit, you may find a great new blog, or six, that just fall into your interest range and onto your blogroll !~! You never know until you click. (Oops- I see that top piece of driftwood leaned. I must tie it into place.)

Weavings from 2013 classes at Richmond Art Center with Stacy Speyer.

Hanging past the curtain rod and draping over the couch lasted only until Burp got here the next morning and decided that they looked like Fun Toys !~! Yikes, as KarenT would say. Meet Karen, blog readers; she's appeared in these pages before and today takes us with her to swim next to a dolphin during a cruise to the south Caribbean. 

Who is kissing her ?~! Karen meets a dolphin up close.

Karen and I have been soulmates since the late 70s when we met in Key West. At that time Key West was a small artist colony and shrimping port with Treasure Salvors diving for the Atocha and Fantasy Fest just getting underway. We could roll a bowling ball down Duval Street in June and never hit a soul in those days. However, the drinking and drugging atmosphere pervaded; there was so much cocaine money in the Keys in those days that the high school kids had to peel thru the hundred dollar bills looking for something small enough to buy a $3 cheese steak sandwich for lunch.

Between weekends working in the ER at the local hospital and the rest of the time a partying fool, I stayed busy altho not out of trouble. Driving while blacked out under the influence was a near-nightly occurrence and it is only by sheer luck that I am here to tell the stories I don't recall. I should, by all rights, be either dead or in jail for behaving that way. Honored to report that I have been clean and sober for nearly thirty years. 

It was on a flight from here in the Bay Area back to Key West in Feb of 1984, while trying again to remember what I had done the night before that I decided to quit drinking. The steward had already sold me a bottle of vodka and a can of grapefruit juice when it occurred to me that if I didn't do something quickly I may not have a future worth thinking about. Motioning to the same steward who had sold me the untouched bottle, I asked him to take it back. His response: that he was unable to refund my two bucks. The least of my worries at that instant in time. I drank my can of grapefruit juice, silently and solidly waved good-bye to alcohol and began an entire new lifestyle.

Best decision of my life-bar none. I slept thru a lot of my off time in the next few years and continue to use sleep as the therapeutic it is meant to be as well as the escape from situations that would have been riotous in my past. When I am feeling overwhelmed, anxious or tending to out-of-control I find that a nap restores my balances: physical, emotional and psychological better than any other form of treatment. Exercise has its place too and I try to get enough to keep myself limber and toned but I have been blessed with a physique that does not require hours a day of maintenance or long runs in the parks to keep functioning. Yoga has been a life saver for me and the Littles. We practice together and learn how to calm ourselves from the inside outward.

One of the mainstays of my sobriety has been Karen (with that dolphin up there). Never a drinker herself she stood by me thru my recovery and into the decades since. Living on opposite sides of this large continent presents its own problems, but with all the accoutrements of modern living we keep in touch quite closely. Trekking back and forth over the years since I moved here in 2000, we have each seen the Grand Canyon, high desert, Las Vegas, the mighty Mississippi River, Rockie Mountains, wheat and soybean fields, and oil derricks by the thousands over Texas and Oklahoma: much more of the country by air than we will ever be able to see by road in this lifetime. My friend, my sister, my soulmate; I am incredibly fortunate to have a soulmate and a husband-such a rare and wonderful situation.

My Heart Reaches to New York

My sweet friend, Lizzy, is burying her father today. Words are inadequate to express what I feel; so I will borrow: All who go, go too soon. Saying good-bye to fifteen of my friends and family in the last half dozen years has shown me the truth in that statement so clearly. I hold you up, Lizzy, to the Universal Healing Power and hope that time will soothe what reason fails to explain.

 Namaste, father of my friend.

October Cools Off and We Settle Into the Routine

Baby Boy shows off his Kickstarter campaign Nikola Tesla onesie.
He's nearly walking, standing unassisted and crawling SO fast it's unbelievable.
His teeth are giving him fits some days-six in with two more tops trying to push thru.

Ormond bought himself a Honda Reflex scooter to get around in style.

I crocheted in some hand-dyed (with food coloring) roving for a bit of interest in the cowl.

My weaving project is almost finished. I have used silk/bamboo for the warp and more of that with variegated silk for weft. It's looking so cool; the colors delight me over and over as I send the shuttle back and forth.

The Month Slid By...

I have some pictures to share !~!

Piper (L) and Ginger model blanket fashions
and discuss strategy for their next imagination-rich game.

Sequoia twigs held with white linen thread decorated with cotton yarns
brought to me from Holland with Erica, my sister of another mother.

Nearly there with a four-block by four-block 'Diamonds in Corners' knock-off.

Working out a corner diamond. 

My newest cowl in progress using the August mailing of hand-dyed merino wool
from Chandi at Expressions Fiber Arts.

Yummy, what was it? he seems to ask when we feed him from our plates.

Here are two of his current crop of six teeth. The other four are on top.

Savasana at the end of a three-hour run of continuous activity.

Head to toe, bone to skin, my beloved yogi, Ronnie Dubinsky,
 used to say as we rested, feeling every cell buzz.

Wyatt grows so fast and gains new skills each week: cruising while holding the furniture or my pant leg, drinking from a water bottle and a cup, climbing down the doorstep and off the couch without clonking his head nearly as much as a few weeks ago. He uses his budding language skills to get what he needs even tho understandable words are still a bit in the offing. He can crawl nearly as fast as I can walk comfortably which makes evading him harder and harder-not that I resist his pleas, please, to be picked up and loved on. He grabs my face and comes at me with his drooly mouth wide open looking for Kisses; is there anything sweeter in the world than a baby's freely given kiss ?~!

I think not too.

Happiest Autumn and October.

May each step we take lead the way to Peace.

September Breaks Summer Rhythm, Brings Summer Weather

September dawns and the pace of our lives changes to a much more structured one. Start earlier, end later; include weaving classes, ripening fruit, shortening light hours, warmer days and evenings. All these re-orderings combine to remind me that winter will soon arrive.

But first we get thru Summer here in the Bay Area. September and October are actually the warmest months of our year. My favorite months actually altho I wouldn't want it to be this hot for longer than a couple weeks at a time without a break of 65 degrees for several days in between hot spells.

Wyatt grew so much over the summer that he's a new boy-crawling very rapidly, pulling up on everything, climbing whatever he can, eating real food with his incoming teeth, napping less, wanting more, gnawing on all that he handles. He loves to empty cabinets, drawers and shelves...

Clearing the Shelf Under My Desk and 

Playing with Found Shoes and Purses

Climbing Pooh Couch & Toy Drawers
Developing Coordination of the Best Kind

Ormond adds his socked appendage as a stable perch for W's left foot.

See that right foot looking for a toehold ?~!

Up the toy chest to see what's atop.

Eating Fresh Produce out of Hand is so Good for Him

Peel a washed apple fresh off the tree or a lemon cucumber from the vine in the garden out back and he'll gnaw it all day long trying to help his teeth come through the gums and satisfying his need to feed himself. He has no problem with hand to mouth coordination.

Weaving Class Begins Tuesday

I am excited to begin a new semester at Richmond Art Center with Stacy Speyer using yarn that I received in the Expression Fiber Arts monthly club August mailing. It's gorgeous and will be the Silk weft to the Silk/Bamboo warp in three colors (Black, purple, aqua).

Materials for the scarf I plan to make in semester two with Stacy.

The silk/bamboo on the warp board.

I hope your September can be a time of renewal and making plans,
creating and generating good will.

May each step we take lead the way to Peace.