loose dogs at mathyld's

photo by Ampelopsis of FallInPics. (i love her pics!)
styling by mathyld. (it's her flat and her things..)
mobile by emilie of bloomsong. (how cute is that?!)
embroidery by yours truly.

weekend alone, but not

(wonderful pieces of my growing art collection by mon petit fantome and astulabee!)

stitchy-dishy connexion

even though i am hopeless when it comes to dishes, i always drag home ridiculous loads of chippy floral shabbies... i never knew before this last round of junking that there is a stitchy-dishy connexion. i mean dishes with stitched designs. this is a thrifted bunch by johnson brothers called "fruit sampler" (there is a newer version, this is the old one). see all the little stitches in the border? this brings me extreme satisfaction. but wait! there's more... to be continued...

good morning, guineas

once in a while, it sounds like the sky is falling. i scurry around looking out for meteors or frogs or shards of apocalyptic juju. it turned out again this morning that it was the guineas on the tin roof. they are some of the strangest critters i've lived with. all seven of them move as one unit, at all times. even aside from the roof antics, the sounds they make are horrid - have you ever heard them? something like metal being crunched, or buckshot with a twang. and it just goes on, and on, and on. they are skittish and hard for me to photograph close-up, so this is TTW (through-the-window) of them looking so innocent as they eat their fill of ticks.

rooster tail feather

this might be the very grandest feather i've found, the king of all feathers. i might wear it in my hair tonight for the opening at the studio. i also noticed a tree at the edge of the yard with unidentified fruits heavy all over it. is it some kind of pear?

old vintage and new vintage

i got a huge vintage embroidered screen almost ten years ago at scott antique market. i loved it then and love it now. this is just a small portion of it. it includes a whole night forest landscape with lots of owls, stags, and the moon. mum hung on to it when i moved because my lifestyle had been rough on it. there was some kind of chrysalis embedded in the silk, and my cat figaro (rip) had made short work of most of the trim. so mum lovingly cleaned and repaired it and now it's a nice partition to hide some of her works-in-progress..

then this weekend we went to the very same market, and i returned with this guy:

i haven't noticed antique mounted fox heads before, but i saw two this weekend. i thought the second one might be the long-lost missus, but after agonizing i thought one fox head is probably enough for one household.

i have such dissonance when it comes to objects. i am always battling with clutter because i worry that i have serious hoarding tendencies. we only have a tiny farmhouse and i need to be able to breathe in there and be able to find my stuff. but now i seem to be falling into selling vintage. mostly because i have it, i love it, i love finding and collecting. and i come from a long line of women who have bought and sold old things. my grandma was constantly toting something in her yellow pinto (she called it her "junking car"). my great-grandmother went to auctions almost daily and sold to dealers. she was known to redecorate her entire house on a whim. and then there is mum, the master. her knowledge and skill and luck are uncanny. antique dealing as she does it is art, or magic.

you may have noticed that i am (perhaps nauseatingly) nostalgic. i am always on the lookout for vintage linens for my stitching, but then i find myself feeling sorry for some little abandoned thing and taking it home. i wonder if it's a little psycho to be concerned with rescuing objects. but do they not have all kinds of emotional resonances about them? even when they are not tugging at our heart strings like my fantastic mr. fox head (who said, "take me home NOW! i was freakin' ripped apart by hounds, don't let me rot here on this shelf!") even when they are not so beseeching, they still might remind us of something we once knew, or felt, or the future we want to live.

tea at mum's

admiring our finds..

i was at the studio getting some things ready to leave town, but got distracted with label making. the vintage dymo label writer was only a buck thrifted! then there was my adorable friend sierra out back with her wee guitar, on break from making pottery.

*drawn-out rasping screech*

couldn't wait to share mon petit barn owl..




i did this piece for a swap with a certain amazing artist.. hope he loves the little hobgoblin!

from owlpages.com:

Other names for the Barn Owl have included Monkey-faced Owl, Ghost Owl, Church Owl, Death Owl, Hissing Owl, Hobgoblin or Hobby Owl, Golden Owl, Silver Owl, White Owl, Night Owl, Rat Owl, Scritch Owl, Screech Owl, Straw Owl, Barnyard Owl and Delicate Owl.

crafting amidst it all

i've been meaning to show you my very favorite embroidered hankie..


and newly spun laceweight yarn from greta, my pretty ewe..



and then there are the feathers, feathers everywhere..



it turns out that miss hadley has feline leukemia, but she should be alright as an indoor and only kitty. it's been kind of a chill week, stitching and reading and waiting for news on my dad. he's finally home from the hospital, at least temporarily, but very weak. i'll be going down to visit my folks soon, and i'm sure we'll find a way to work in some thrifting here and there.

today's haul

morning meditation

gathering feathers