i've come full circle.

i started this blog following my first retreat to squam art workshops in june 2009. as so many have shared their love and appreciation for elizabeth duvivier, i feel immense gratitude for so many of the dear souls that are now in my life thanks to my time spent at squam. this would take an entirely different post, thankfully lizzy house wrote a beautiful post about this back in 2013. she spoke of all the love that comes from shared connections. sometimes the joy can be overwhelming...all from one choice.

i am just coming back around to making the time to create full-time. my original goal with the blog was to offer ideas that we have found effective to be gentler to the earth with our daily needs. i am getting back around to this.

while i was away from the blog i spent much of the time learning to sew garments for myself.

i received a gift from my sister-in-law and brother-in-law. they returned from a trip to italy with a bag made from washable paper fabric. it took me a while to find a source and to discover how best to sew the material that in many ways acts like leather. i have created a few products and felt that i was ready to sell! i decided that squam art fair would be the perfect place to begin this new adventure. i knew that i would have lovely support there. virginia and noah from gather here were hosting the first squam modern quilt show and several other makers who i know and adore would be there too. i was thrilled that my very dear mother was available to make the trip with me.

we had a lovely evening as expected. received a beautiful reception, informative feedback and my favorite part of the evening was discussing the washable paper fabric that i have been making many of my products from. i feel strongly that this product is a game changer. i have so many things that i want to make with it and collaborations in the works. hoping to share more soon. thank you to those who have encouraged and supported me.

i've started this blog so many times. the last of which was in may when my grandmother would have been 90! it was one year ago today that she passed away.

she has been an inspiration for me since the beginning...for as long as i can remember.

i tried to write a post for her when she died but we were all so busy getting ready for the celebration of her life. i did write a few words for her funeral. i have wanted to share this but i really want it to be just right! rather than never get this post done...i'm getting it done. one of the many things my grandmother wasn't was a procrastinator (clearly and sadly i am) she didn't have the luxury of not getting it done.

I wanted to share some of the stories that I have heard many times either from her or from other members of the family. And some of the ways that grandma shared with us throughout our lives.

family was grandmab s number one priority. this sounds really cliche but it's true. she really gave so much to her family, not only her love and time but countless things that she created. clothes, toys, dolls, doll clothes, christmas stockings, crocheted ornaments, tree skirts, pillows, curtains, slip covers, costumes, sweaters and blankets, just to name a few. she never really looked for praise for what she created; it was just what she did. what she was most proud of was the fact that she and grandpa were only children and as of now they have 22 descendants! she mentioned this so often. now this is what she shared with everyone. she loved to talk about all of us and what we were doing. this is what she was most proud of.

grandma spoke often about her mom who died when she was thirteen. she missed her so much. grandma always said how talented her mother was. if you visited grandma's room you may have seen the incredible quilt that her mother made hanging on the wall near grandmab s bed. (we think it was what her mother was working on when she died-the quilt top was done). grandma never had this completed, she never did quilting and i don't think she would have ever spent the money to have it done. she gave it to my mother many years ago and a few years before she died for christmas we had it completed for her...she loved it. she said that so many of the fabrics in the quilt were from dresses that her mother had made for her when she was a little girl.so overwhelming.

grandma learned very quickly to keep house for her father and herself. she grew up very fast. she told of when she was very young she learned to sew. she would make something and show it to her father and he would suggest that she could do it better and she would go and tear out the stitches and try again. grandma found that she could do it better. this seemed to carry through grandmab s life. everything that she did was so well done. she had so many challenging skills and made them seem effortless.

one of the many dresses that grandma made...she made four of these holly hobby dresses at the height of little house on the prairie for her four lovely granddaughters with matching dolls to match to color of each of our hair with dresses to match our dresses~bonnets too. seriously~we were the luckiest kids to have her! this has been one of my daughters favorite dresses for years as it was one of mine. she has been wearing it to laura ingalls wilder day for the past 3 years...she will still fit in it for a few more years to come!

recently I was making a list of all grandmab s talents and tasks when she was raising her family. here are just a few; sewing, knitting, crochet, cooking, baking, canning, keeping house, gardening, needle work, drawing, and singing. she did all of these things while working a full time job and keeping house in the 40s and 50s with four kids and none of the current conveniences. grandma hung the laundry and made many of her kidsb clothes and toys and ironed everything...no permanent press then.

it seems that they always had an extended family member living with them that needed grandmab s care and attention too. she cared for her grandfather and her mother-in-law lived with them too and her father all of them nursed by her until the end... my grandparents didnb t have siblings but they had many great friends. they also took care of them when they could by taking them to doctors, caring for their yards, driving them where they needed to go, doing their banking, making meals.

grandma also had an aunt who was seven years older than she was (no need to look this up, grandma always mentioned it). her aunt alma was like a sister to her and I think that she helped through so many challenging times and she loved her so. when I was growing up grandma had so much to share with her grandchildren too. she was still working, she still took the time for us even though she was probably very tired. i remember that we rarely had a sitter when my parents went out, we would stay with our grandparents. we spent so much time there. she would color with us play cards, board games, walk us through the woods for ice cream. We would pick snapdragons down the street for her and admire her large selection of pansies that my uncle would always get for her every year for her birthday-she was proud of this too...said he had done that since he was a little boy.

grandma was such a good cook. some family favorites were buttermilk pancakes, potato pancakes, corned beef and cabbage, chop suey, turkey coquettes, i would like to share just a few more stories that we heard so often.

grandma had a great sense of humor and she loved to laugh about these. one of the stories that we always teased my grandparents about was how they met. the story is that grandpa picked grandma up on the corner in front of the library. she would very quickly tell you that was not the case. they were properly introduced.

my girl wants to add a story that she has heard so many times.

" Grandmab s ears were very ticklish. When her grandchildren stayed over on nights when their parents went out on the weekends, when they woke up, they would crawl in on their hands and knees to their grandparents bedroom. thinking they were so quiet but they were so noisy. they would go on each side of the bed and climb up and start tickling grandma and grandpa. it was a tickle fight, they would all get tickled and laugh out loud. i bet it was very fun. but i wasnb t born to know that yet. but when i saw grandma i did tickle her ears my mom taught me her ears were ticklish. the end."

i apologize for all of this lists, grandma did so much over her 89 years, i could find no other way to share it all with you. we are so happy to have so many creations remember her by. and all of our very sweet stories.

i was very fortunate that we lived so close to my grandmother almost all of my life and that she lived so long...so many great memories and experiences that we all shared with her. i was so thrilled that my daughter spent so much time with her and loved her so. i was also so blessed to see how much joy our girl brought to my grandmother. they really adored each other. for the first four years of my daughter's life we picked grandma up every week and took her shopping, we really enjoyed these days together.

grandma we miss you so. we know that you were so tired and missed grandpa so much and suffering without being able to see and create for the last 7 years of your life...such a cruel turn of events. i'm trying hard to us some of the many goodies that you left behind for me to use to create. i'm so happy that i have finally learned to sew on your machine that dawne has graciously let me borrow and using your needles to knit and teach helen so many of your talents. i so hope that we can make you proud...thanks for all that you gave to all of us. we love you.

i still need to find some older photos and post them, this is one thing that has been holding up my post. i will update the post when i find them. hope those that knew her will enjoy this and for those who didn't and get through this ridiculously long post thank you. she was really an inspirational woman. those who think that we are busier and have more commitments than women from the past only need this to remember that maybe this is not so!

when our girl turned 5 we celebrated with a harry potter birthday party. we had so much fun...maybe one day we will revisit that! but for today i want to share the fun that we had on friday celebrating her 8th birthday.

it all began this year with a formal request for attendance. we had fun making these personalized invitations this is all i can share given each invitation had the guests name "engraved" on it...they were so sweet though.

we made this newspaper bunting thanks to the marvelous mayamade for her creativity again!

many of the attendees are huge potter fans...we did have a few that do not live and breathe potter so i wanted to make sure that we had robes (in this case capes) my quick and affordable solution was to purchase some inexpensive black felt and i cut it into pieces that were about 25x35 and about 5 inches down on the long side i sewed a 14 inch black gross grain ribbon on each side to use as a tie. they were so quick (even for me) and they worked great. they were actually much cooler for the girls than the robes.

hermione granger was practicing her flying before the guests arrived.

airborne!!!

my husband and i enjoy harry potter as much as my daughter. we came up with some fun activities. of course they took a very small fraction of the time we thought that they would and also a very small fraction of the time that it took us to put it together. all three of us have been talking about what we could do for weeks now, here is what made it to the day.

we decided to do a treasure hunt using port-keys to move you from one clue to the next!

this boot was the first port-key. my husband wrote great poems for them so that they could find each of the port-keys

my daughter told us today that they didn't really pay much attention to the poems...they just wanted to find the next port-key. sometimes the honesty is appreciated...sometimes not!

the final clue led them to this suitcase. inside they found the makings for wands from mr.ollivander!
they found the wands that my husband and i carefully prepared for them to personalize with colored tape and ribbons...once the wand had chosen them of course.
all the wood was found in our yard and my husband cut them down to size. they were all carefully labeled with the type of wood and the core ingredient, the length of each wand was also included.

this new wand looks so much more authentic than that plastic wand. we also had potions making class...my husband was the very stern professor severus snape. we used different types of juice and unusual berries and coconut for the ingredients. our secret ingredient was pop rocks to add at the end for a little magic! most of the potions were very tasty. i can't say that the girls drank many of them but i did. they were really more interested in concocting. too bad they missed out on some very powerful magic. my husband printed out the names of all the potions that were discussed in the books so that they could name them. my husband also showed them what happened when they put baking soda and vinegar together.

we also held an herbology class where the kids took interesting looking succulent plants and cacti and replanted them in clay pots. my husband labeled each of the plant with a name and definition of a plant from the book, as the kids replanted i read each of the descriptions and we did a few trivia questions about the herbs from the books.

we found some bertie botts every flavor beans the girls had fun trying some really gross tasting jelly beans~gravy, fish, cheese, sausage, onion and banana. i was just given a pizza...how'd they do that? it really tastes like pizza in a really gross sweet way. ewwww! they spared us earwax, vomit and buggers this time (we have had all of these before-really gross).

we had some of the yummy jelly bellies too.

i made these parchment sewn bags again thanks to another great idea from mayamade. when she posted this i thought oh my, i can use this in so many ways. thank you maya i love these.

i made these bags to put chocolate frogs that i made from a mold. (i found a better mold that i will have a link to on the sidebar) and harry potter collecting cards in to give to the girls. i always loved the idea of the chocolate frog from the book how it would jump away.

hermione had a great day! thanks for all who shared it with us.

how can it be the summer solstice already? happy day to you! well i really want to finish my posts on squam but i have been working on so many exciting things away from my computer that i will get back to that soon when i have a little more time to give my continued squam review the time that it deserves...this week i'm going to spend sharing pictures images of what we have been doing this spring that i hope will be carried over into the summer. please feel free to share links of what you have been doing.

i know that many that attended last year were wondering if it was going to live up to our previous experience. my thought was it "is" going to live up to last year. in reality i was very nervous again because i don't see myself as an artist. i was very overwhelmed by how creative and talented people are. it was very interesting when i sat down for my first class painting in a day with the marvelous marisa haedike creator of creative thursday - marisa went around the room and asked everyone to share why they were taking the class. many said that they were not confident painting. that they had fear! here are the painting results from her class.

needless to say these artists need not fear. when we went around the class at the end everyone expressed an ease and expressed their joy in their finished paintings. thank you marisa.

am discovering (happily) that i enjoy trying new things (clearly the case with the number of barely used tools in our creative space)

i actually

clever mobiles taught by the lovely lizzy house

the class that got away... reinvention with the magnificent maya donenfeld creator of mayamade

well this isn't how i thought i was going to begin my blog post about squam!

i'm just now overwhelmed with the desire to share what i just a few moments ago while chatting with my husband discovered about myself.

i have some strong beliefs about happiness. the most primal to me is that you choose to create your own! i've met many people along the way and have learned this to be so. we can be slung so much negativity, but we can really choose how we respond to it.

what i learned about myself just now is that i feel the calling to help people learn to choose happiness!!!

i haven't figured out yet how i'm going to make this a reality...i just now know that i will!

i also learned

~ i really enjoy being around creative people

~ i really enjoy seeing the process of making something new and beautiful or something old beautiful

~ i love the energy that is present in this environment...safe, nurturing, positive, encouraging and supportive

~ i realized that i'm not an especially creative or a talented artist

~ more importantly i've realized that i'm comfortable with this revelation

~ i've learned that i can still enjoy the process of creating without the pressure or need to create something extraordinary.

~ i can create for the enjoyment of the process, the opportunity to learn something new and for the experience of being with very talented, creative and supportive people that love to create and express themselves beautifully.

~ most of all i've discovered that i want to be the supporting, nurturing, calm, caring person that i know i am and that can be the amazing gift that i give to my family, friends and others that i meet along the way

that is what i'm thinking now.

i'm going to write another post about my second amazing adventure to squam. hoping to have it out this afternoon. thanks to all that have inspired me and help me to come to this conclusion.

~~~sunshine and happiness to you today

my sweet little girl has been making these little paper bunnies using her new wooden egg laying bunny as a pattern.

another beautiful day here. outdoor play in the sunshine...what could be better? handing off the tax return!!! something to celebrate.

another new soup, i can't wait to have these last two soups in the height of the summer with all the wonderful fresh local green veggies. i am hoping to start eating in season beginning this summer. i've been reading barbara kingsolver's book animal, vegetable miracle again. i started it about 3 years ago when we moved i lost the book. i took the book on cd out of the library last month and i just love it, her family is so inspiring. i think this book should be required reading for anyone who eats!

this recipe is adapted from multi-bean medley created by the american institute for cancer research they have some nice recipes there. i have changed this recipe a bit, it only called for 1 cup of broth but i wanted it to be more like a soup so i added about 5 cups of broth and modified a few other things.

multi-bean medley soup

1/2 pound of any type of green beans, trimmed and halved crosswise

1 pound bag frozen shelled edamame

2 tsp olive oil

5 green onions, sliced thin you can take it pretty far into the green

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 bay leaf

fresh rosemary sprigs to taste (i would have loved this but my love does not love rosemary)

1 can of small white beans, rinsed and drained

1 carrot, diced

1 celery rib, diced

5 cups of veggie or chicken broth (we were thinking this might be good with miso broth)

freshly ground pepper to taste

fresh parsley to garnish

we also added some sriracha sauce because we seem to put that in all of our brothy soups.

~bring 2 medium pots of salted water to a boil. add the green beans to one and edamame to the other. cook until they are just tender. drain and drop in an ice bath until they are cool then drain again. set aside.

~in your favorite soup pot, heat olive oil, add onions, garlic, bay leaf and rosemary. cook over low heat stirring until the onion is soft about 5 minutes.

~add white beans, carrots, celery and stock. bring to a simmer and cook, covered for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

~add green beans and edamame and simmer uncovered until heated through.

~season to taste with pepper, discard bay leaf and rosemary sprigs. finish with parsley.

honest pretzels by mollie katzen we have been wanting to make these for a while and today was the day!

this has many steps and takes a while. as with all recipes it takes me 3 times as long as the recipe calls for. i did have some trouble with the dough it seemed very sticky. i tried to knead it and it just stuck to my hands so i tossed it back into the kitchen aid and just added a little more flour and let it run for a few minutes. i did not get the full zen experience of kneading by hand nor did i get the anxiety of the dough sticking to my hands and not getting to where i needed it to be.

here is a little a note to those who have not made homemade dough before.

i had an a-ha! moment the other day when i was listening to animal, vegetable, miracle they were talking about making bread in the kitchen aid. i am just starting to learn to make bread at home and all the recipes say to mix the ingredients in a food processor, my food processor groans when i do this. so of course the power house kitchen aid with the dough beater (a-ha!) that must be what that dough beater is for! well this is great but i am sure that most have already figured this out.

well the pretzels were pretty tasty. i think that we had a little too much water in the pot and it did not stay hot enough. next time we'll use a little less water and our widest soup pot.

my daughter told me "they were pretty good for a first try" i guess they were since she had three and probably would have had 6 if we did not stop her.

we tried a few rolled out in cinnamon and sugar instead of flour and then topped with cinnamon and sugar...pretty tasty.

we tried one with fresh shredded parmesan cheese...we were sorry that we only had one of those.

we served them with local mustard and yummy local honey.

as with most of mollie katzen's recipes...another success.

great story about children in haiti and los angeles on npr this morning...

npr also reported on the the knitting graffiti