A Long Time Coming

 It has been almost 10 months since my last posting. A fun yet incredibly challenging ten months. So many changes in the way my business is run and staffed yet very grateful it is still standing and staffed. We have two teenagers just beginning their working lives as they earn money and skills to pursue higher education or just life itself. Esther is a knitter and Maddie is a crocheter. They bring all things teen to the shop and their new and young energy is fun to work with. Amy Rose is still our Monday woman and has a lifetime of knitting skills in just her little pinky. Need complex advice? She is the person to check in with on Mondays from 11 -5.

We have added in the new Swans Island Ikat yarns for fun knitting. I love the pattern in the yarn and it does duplicate some of my favorite IKAT fabrics.

We have settled for now on shop hours. We are open on Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 11:00 to 5:00pm and Sundays 12:00 to 4:00. We are closed on Tuesdays and Wednesday for much needed days in the studio for Lois. Hours are likely to increase during the summer which begins in my opinion on July 4TH. HAHA! ( P. S. - Masks and social distancing are still required. Let's squash this pandemic. We can all do it! )

I am thinking of having this bag made up for the shop. It is of course a warped, but only slightly view of knitting. I have a gentler quote I might add to the other side of the bag. This project is on my to do list and perhaps by that date of July 4th....

Malabrigo yarns are here!! The factory is sort of back to work and we have received some big first shipments. Arriving in late July will be the new sock yarns too. We also have new books from Malabrigo and some patterns too. For a sneak peek, mention this blog posting and receive 10% off your Malabrigo purchase. wOw! Think of the color knitting you will do!!

Finally, a little yarn humor because what today needs is more humor! Tomorrow I get my second Moderna shot and will need to wait 30 minutes after it. I am of course taking my knitting. Now the problem becomes which project to take??? Hmmm

Happy Knitting my friends and SEE YOU SOON! 

It is SPRING!

 I do not know much but I do know there is an actual spring in my step as I approach the longer days and the light that carries into the evenings now. Every day has been a gift as I see new things coming into bloom and the neighborhood waking up with birds singing and greeting each day! 

The bead shop has made it through the darkest days of the corona virus and the shut down. Thank you all for your vital, loving support.

Knock Wood. ( This woman is still superstitious, after all. )

We are still operating with a bit shorter hours and I am going to take this Easter Sunday off and celebrate the day and rebirth and spring and love with my family. Well, one person in my family. Still keeping that social distance. 

Anyhow, I just wanted to pop in with a few pictures of now and say hello. I hope to see you in the shop or on line soon. This one woman business and her husband bookkeeper are hard at work, making your in shop visits and inspiring your inner creative side -  the best experiences possible. Happy Beading! Happy Spring! Happy Now!

This is the LEWIS BUILDING in downtown Port Townsend. It was the first location of my shop way back in the early days, some 29 years ago!

Me, in my last winter outfit. Time to iron spring clothes!

With my last name, chickens are a favorite for me to watch. These are my neighbor's flock seen through my fence. They were all happily clucking away in some of spring's earliest sun. 

Peace. Love. Beads. Create. 

Ack! Already it is February!

 Even in the deep heart of winter, when much of the country is locked in snow and the days are growing longer a teeny bit at a time; life moves so quickly. 

Personally, I have absolutely been delighted that I am seeing so many friends and customers returning to their love of craft as they fill long hours away from close contact with others or they work from home. Craft, whether it be beading or embroidery or knitting or whatever, is soothing, familiar, and inspiring. A meditation of its own making. 

I have been reaching increasingly for a couple of crafts I have not done in many years - needlepoint and bead embroidery. I like the quiet, centering art of stitching. The building of a work a stitch at a time. The amount of thought I accomplish while stitching never ceases to astound me. I make daily plans. Future plans. Think about my family and friends. Come up with ideas for display for the bead shop or my yarn store. Tonight after work, I will work on our fabric and trim shop in the lobby and use the ideas that came into my head while stitching. It is particularly exciting to me to see young women and men, boys and girls, coming into the shop to pick up and learn a new craft like bead stringing or earring making. They are so dang creative! I can learn things from them too instead of just the other way around. They truly inspire and brighten my day.

Today is Friday so I will head into the shop at 2. We are supposed to have a trunk show box show up today of artisan handmade jewelry. Exciting! A Christmas in February!! I just know I will lust for all of the pieces! 

For the rest of this blog post, I am going to leave you with some photos which I hope will entice you to drop in and visit the shop. Let us see your face and show off your projects! I am always happy to share your photos too, so send along those pictures! If you can not stop by, we are always open on line at wynwoods.com or FB or Instagram. 

Happy February Love to all! 

This last picture is a throw back of a painting I sold in the 1990's.

My former high school math teacher was visiting from the east coast 

and bought it from my little third floor walkup gallery.

She just emailed this picture as a "do you remember ? "

A Winter’s Evening

 Already well into December. How can this be possible that the dark days of winter are heading so quickly into the winter solstice. Soon, moment by moment, we will begin moving into longer days and shorter nights. I have always loved winter. Sitting in the big leather arm chair, engrossed in a movie, knitting or crafting away the darkness of evening. This winter though is challenging. Friends are missing. Hugs, long coffee breaks, an arm about a friend’s shoulders. All kidding.

In my bead shop it is the same. I am missing the kaleidoscope of customers that arrive at the door from not only all over this region but from areas around the country both far away and then back in my own yard. Conversations are welcomed, warm greetings extended and we are all excited to see and hear each other for the brief moments we pass each other in the aisles of the shop. In this season of both aloneness and at home ness, I wish you peace, comfort and creativity. 

I am going to immerse myself in the Crown series right now on Netflix and work on the little pink scarf for my neice that may or may not make it in time for Christmas! ♥️☀️🌀🧿

moving further in

 November has rolled around and with it, dark early evenings. Here in the Northwest it seems as if it is getting dark by mid afternoon and I reach for that cup of warming tea. Sometimes I dream I am living on the rugged coast of England in a stone cottage by the sea and I think of the mist rolling in as I settle down with beading or knitting, maybe even a good book. I think craft all the time, of course and lately I have been taking my two days off from the shop, we are actually closed for those two days, and spending most of the day in the studio. I have become addicted to British television shows and I am happy to put one on  the television and listen while I make jewelry or construct treasures. Sometimes I am just getting beads or gemstones ready to be sold in the shop. Nothing arrives in the bead store the way you see it in the shop. It must be strung or counted, tubed or looped, bagged or labeled. I like to do this work. I think I am putting love and energy into everything and it will leave my shop with its rightful new owner, imbued with energy for the the next incarnation of itself. 

My studio is divided into work areas. There is beading, sewing, needlepoint, drawing, metal work, resin work and the main work table is available for anything and everything and everything. This afternoon for 20 minutes, I found myself doing nothing. Just sitting and looking out the window. The pandemic has made me more introspective and I allow my mind to roam freely, giving it a little vacation. We have stellar jays all around the yard now as the neighbors have figured out the perfect snack for the, They are so blue and noisy and flighty and playful. Hypnotic in their little games. I can see them wearing little necklaces of crystal beads or maybe red. In my mind they are the women of the neighborhood, having their day at home, listening to the kids, planning meal, walking the dog. They are friends telling stories, sharing gossip, talking up their families and life in the 'hood. What fun and when they become bored and their talk is over; off they fly in swooping , graceful arcs.

Well, enough romance on this blog tonight. I will be taking pictures and adding to it later. I never seem to have pictures here on the computer although my mind is full of images. Happy November.

Herewith, I leave you a little dark night magic as these are glass glow in the dark beads! Just what a dark November night needs - captured sunlight! 

Almost Halloween

 Halloween is tomorrow! Can you believe it? Even during the pandemic, time continues to fly by. Starting Sunday, the days will get darker earlier and I will be finding time to do beading or drawing or knitting in the studio with a good ( hopefully good ) Netflix movie or series on. What will you do for the winter nights? Just imagine, it will be warm and summery again before we know it.

While this picture may seem out of place on my blog, I love it. It is a friend's completed fence, or property screen is perhaps a better word; everything about it is inspirational to me. The contrast of the circles of wood against the open wire work of the structure, the negative space below- it all conspires to make me want the same imagery in my drawings and beadwork. You will just need to stay tuned to see what I come up with. I have to say the blue of that sky, the greens in the trees and the mellow brown color of the ground are also inspiring. Nobody does color like the natural world. 

So in our coming darker evenings and stay home time, enjoy these mellower moments, time to be creative and stay well. 

 So here it is now October 16th, 2020, four years after the last post. In the middle of a pandemic. Closed for 90 days without income. What did I do? Had a creativity explosion in the studio and made all kinds of things. Even sewed but most of all I ate. For comfort. For stress relief. Out of boredom. Not any exercise really. Tonight, oh good grief, I noticed my second belly roll had become a tire! Bigger than a mountain bike tire. My body aches. Is it the fat or pandemic worry? I threw out the Dove milk chocolates. At least the remainder of the bag. Journey starts. Onward until next October.

So I read the first novel of a young plump writer recently. Dietland. I liked it, sort of. The lust she expresses for food about three quarters of the way in, feels and sounds like me. Except for the baking. I do not bake anymore. Truth is, I have never really enjoyed baking but prepackaged cakes, cookies and candy. Shoot. I could eat them all day long! I liked her anarchist writing against men who demean fat women, physically attack women, rape women. How I think it would be cool to have an avenger to help erase the hurt, death, pain and mutilation that men afflict on women. Even women they purportedly love.  I liked that the woman at the center of the story, Plum came out of her shell and by the end of the novel had decided to live life now and not wait until she was thin. The story talked about the mutilating aspects of bypass surgery. How can a person even think of slashing into their body when one of the side effects of this surgical mutilation is death? Could be death. Death is better than being fat?

Just this morning I read on line of a new pill to make you thinner, have less appetite. There was no discussion of side effects or effectiveness, just a like our page post. People, mainly men, wrote mean things underneath in the comments about getting off your fat ass, shut your mouth, don't eat anything in a package. Why is fat the last, last cruel joke people play on themselves? Each other? Be fat. Claim yourself and if you do not want to be fat. Work it out. But for all those mean, evil, small minded butt wipes who think it is okay to insult someone who is different, f them.

I can not seem to do it. Stop eating chocolate. Today, work stressed me out when I thought of how slow it is and began to worry about sales and making a loving and paying the bills and having some huge bills coming soon - so I ate candy. Candy!! What am I - 10? I needed comfort to ease my troubles and I ate candy. Pathetic creature.

Here it is August and this was the month I was going to do without chocolate. I was going to try very hard, I am adding, to not eat the damn stuff. I am pathetically weak. It is my drug. I can not resist it. You could tell me anything horrible about, how much better I would feel without it, how it is hurting me in every part of my life and I would call bullshit. Everything about it makes me want it. The texture. The smoothness on my tongue. The ah, deep breath I take when I first consume it. I want all the chocolate until I am sick and then, even then I would feel better in a bit and begin again. First thing in the morning I think of it. Want it. Last thing at night I swear to myself I will do better tomorrow. I am losing. Just freaking losing it!

Tuesday, August 9th and other than have a big $ 12.99 salad from the Spruce for lunch; I silenced no cravings and in two days, ate an entire bag of Hershey kisses. I have no idea why. I get depressed when I am home alone with the dog working in my studio. I feel isolated, frustrated.... beats me. For tonight, I will go to bed and read surrendering to the loss of this day and I will stop beating myself up!

Last thought of the day - tomorrow will be better and I will eat less and silence the cravings. I will not eat chocolate I say. I will be strong. Pffft. I am lousy at doing any of it.

First thought of the day - I will be good today. I will not eat anything I shouldn't. I will be strong. I will rule my day. Not food. Pffft. I can't do that either.

No will power when it comes to food. I am a disgrace to myself and a risk to my family and it all makes me sad.

I rather hate to admit this but I think my weight is hurting my health. Details to follow.

At work today, Kathy said that she did not consider leggings pants and that they also showed jiggly parts just like the sweatpants men wear in public. Ot must make her feel good to say mean things to me around other people. She was sitting in Diva when she said this. I hate making a comeback when there are other employees around and a potential customer or two. Somedays I am so frustrated with her and her seemingly ignorant baiting nasty ways. Bitch.

Right up until today, when I found the little bag of chocolates in my studio, I had done pretty well in the eating department. Watching what I eat, not heading out for candy on work breaks and not eating after 8, except for last night which was a Saturday night after all. A night I used to party during school, a night four family when I was previously married and a date night when I was no longer married. Now it is a TV night so it calls, doesn't it for some kind of treat?

I do know that my energy level increases when I eat carefully. I like that. I just have a difficult time ending a day and I can rush from thing to thing, place to place all day. I guess my clock will reset itself.

I am trying not to be harsh with myself but I am wicked cruel when evaluating my food failures. You would think after and honest to God lifetime of this overeating nonsense, I would have some idea of how to reign it in.

Whoa boy. Have I screwed up. I am totally, unbelievably, horribly overweight! I saw in the doctor's notes how much I weigh. I know it is just a number, a BIG number but everything about me is tied into it. I need to eat less. I need to give up chocolate and sweets and late night snacks and oh so much more. I don't want to feel deprived but for now and many, many months in the future, I must do just that, deprive myself. Damn! I hate having to watch what I eat. Misery.

I am sometimes ashamed at all the times I have berated and hated myself because I was fat. What crime is that? Why do I feel ashamed to put my best self forward. Never again. I will stop this hateful journey with myself this day.

It is a thousand points of anxiety that wake me at night and cause me to have a tachycardia attack which could descend into an out and out anxiety war within myself scary stuff. I feel like I am living jr's life what will he do out of high school? How can I help him in his life. Money flies out of my life at him and he finds a ton of ways to spend it. I know his life is not mine but he so impacts it all and I am scared for him eating is almost out of contro

I am what I feared most - an older fat, fat woman. I see my mom in my face and her waist line in my pictures. It is a sad day that I can not control what I eat. Sad. I head to Paris this fall as a fat woman. A scary, scarred, american fat woman.