I store my clothes in suitcases.

I was thinking about this today. why do I do this? I am so aware of the temporal nature of life. Security is not much of a concern to me; in fact, I am inherently unstable, but well able to navigate through my days despite this. This is not to say that I lack a solid living situation. Quite the contrary. Still there is a whirlwind nature in the way I live.
Maybe it comes from having grown up in teepees and caravans.

the skamokawa post

Here’s a little trip to Skamokawa, WA. For starters, it is pronounced Ska-mok-a-way. People have a tough time with that. It’s tiny village, in fact, there is one website that calls it a semi-ghost town. I feel it when I pinch myself, so I know I’m still alive (if pinches measure that sort of thing, which I doubt they do) but it’s possible that the history of this place is larger than its present.
This is the center of town, or at least where the post office lives.

And this is our fine postmistress, Luanne, and the post office cat, Shorty.

Shorty and I are great friends. I am fond of Luanne, too.

Skamokawa itself is on a creek that feeds into the Big River, but if you head toward my house, you drive through a valley that is separated from the river by a range of hills. There are farms there, and remnants of farms. I recently spent some time photographing the interior of a house that is slowly being taken apart. I wanted to capture the layers that had been laid down (or pasted up) by the 100 years of family life in that home. It seems I was successful. Someone made this comment about this photo.

“Hi, I’m an admin for a group called photographic immortality, and we’d love to have your photo added to the group.
Love those old style bath tubs, you have given this shot photographic immortality, great shot.”
I was glad to hear it.
There are many more photos of this house to be seen here.

A flickr search of the Skamokawa tag revealed this photoset taken someone who was on one of Mark’s tours last year. I especially like this photo of Andrew in his coyote cap and buckskin leggings playing fiddle for the group.

One more house photo for you all.

mark’s birthday hat

mark’s birthday hat
Uploaded by bramblescratched.

Although his birthday is weeks past now, I never showed off the hat I knit for him. Double thick to keep the wind off his ears. some of my handspun in there, too. I wanted to embroider a salmon on the front, but my instinct told me it would be too flashy, and when asked he admitted it would.
I really haven’t made a whole lot for the man. He is rather understated, and doesn’t want much that he can’t throw in the washer, besides.

The inside of the hat, in which I attempt to get over my aversion to stranding:

The words refer to the Mingulay Boat Song, only it turns out ‘Isle A Ho’ isn’t in the lyrics. A mediocre example of a mondegreen, “a mis-hearing of a word or phrase in such a way that it aquires a new meaning.” (Except what would the new meaning be for the above? I shudder to think…)

new cuffs and a trip to the city

This is my first entry on the WordPress blog. I am tired of the limitations of livejournal (I want to participate in the things that need sidebar images!), so I will be moving over here, with a blogname change (as there is already a Handmade Life in the larger blogosphere.) I have hesitated about doing this for a long time, as I have a couple years of blog entries on livejournal and I didn’t want to lose them. I could export them to this blog, if I knew how to make an XML file, but I don’t, so I will be manually copying them over, a few entries at a time. So, new readers to this blog, you will be able to access the rich history of my crafty days, but slowly, slowly!

Here is my latest fo, a pair of knit cuffs for a swap. They turned out well! Although they a bit dull to knit (well, the trimmings are fun, of course.)

Yesterday I drove into Portland for a Glitter meetup. How I love the internet! (Sometimes.) I really love seeing the connections made manifest in real life.

We met at Mabel’s Knit Cafe which is a delight to spend several hours in. Yarn was purchased, patterns were perused, fos were ogled over. I saw examples of two of the projects I have considered over the years: eyelet from knitty, and the Sunrise Circle jacket from interweave press. I am particularly inspired to make this now that I have seen it in the flesh. The proprietress of Neither Hip nor Funky has made one and it is everything it ought to be. Very striking! More on that later.

Of course, a trip to Portland meant seeing the lovely Kate (represented here by her flickr page), with all the yarn giggling and BPAL chatter that we have become accustomed to. I got to see Kate’s shetland lace shawl which is so floaty, and besides, the yarn has quite a history between us. The skeins have been passed back and forth between us several times now. In fact, I took some of the extra home with me yesterday.

Since I am speaking of things passed between Kate and I. Here are a couple as-of-yet-unblogged examples. It’s about time I show them off!

I made a log cabin pillow for Kate’s hubby.

This project I have been meaning to do since Yule…

I am loving the different stories these fabrics have been a part of. Several of them are recurring, as a study of my log cabins will show.

And Kate made for me a thing that is small in size and HUMUNGOUS in spirit.

This pocket holds the music of Alela Diane, who is a wonderful song weaver. You can listen to some her music at her myspace page. (Sigh, myspace.)

One more photo to send you out.

coal fire. It’s a good life.