Not-So-Quiet Valentine's Day

VALENTINE'S DAY was looking to be rather quiet until I learned of a benefit concert taking place at the Hotchkiss School. Donations cheerfully collected to benefit the Haiti Relief efforts and as a special incentive Haitian dancers from the Alvin Ailey dance company of New York performed to a Haitian drum to start and end the concert. In between we were treated to the enormous talent represented by our local private high schools and their vocal groups and the combined efforts of all as the gospel group of Michael Brown. When that effervescing personality sits at the piano and starts pounding it out on the old 88 and mouthing direction to those vocal artists, whatever could keep anyone sitting still? And just how does he get so much sound out of those seemingly small students? My, my...

So I give to you a belated Valentine of my Cheerful Cherries Ornament upon one of my favorite fabrics, cherries again on robin's egg blue background from Lakehouse Drygoods Doll Dresses, Holly Holderman. I love this fabric in all its innocence and purchased this piece a couple of years ago on Bainbridge Island in the Puget Sound. I've not yet cut it for anything and still just love to sit and look at it.

My Cheerful Cherries Ornament is featured in the Lark book of Designer Needle Felting by Terry Taylor and Candie Cooper which first came out in Oct of 2007. Coming March 2 is the paperback version of the same. Thanks to dear people like you who have supported the book the printing continues its success around the world. I have already ordered a copy so I can take a look. Very exciting!

And as far as tools go, I mentioned the Clover Felting Tool in a post on Ravelry. This tool is the perfect piece for making such ornaments as you can use the three needles to work the background and continue felting through the details.

Meanwhile, I find myself humming the tunes from Michael Brown's tribute to the music of the late Michael Jackson. Now and then I burst out with a slice of "I'LL TAKE YOU THERE" and the not-so-quiet continues into the week.

Countdown to the UK: 6.5 weeks!

XX,
L

Scheming not Dreaming...

LIFE IS FULL of things without which we cannot live. Beyond the obvious needs, it is a blessing to know what your passion happens to be... and a curse when that passion is inaccessible to you.

For me, travel has always been a top priority. Not that I like rumpled clothing and bouts of dysentery along with bumpy flights but the lure of distant lands, fresh faces, discovery, the sunset from another vantage point. Just mention the word "passport" and I'm there!



However, the busy-ness of life gets in the way of living. Work schedules, relationships, a challenged wallet seem to demand our attention and resources until depletion is what we have left at the end of every month, only to begin again for the next go 'round on another date label "1" on the calendar. Tiresome. And then...



Every now and then there is a break in the gray clouds and the sun comes gloriously shining through to bless with an opportunity. An opportunity, for me, means dusting off the old passport and finding a ride to the airport. In this case my passport is stiff and new and waiting for stamps to be applied. Application of that ink on a virginal page is a gleeful prospect and I have officially begun the countdown toward an adventure of the most delectable kind, which combines many passions of mine into one tingling anticipatory thrill.

Travel, knitting, friendship, more travel, more friendship, food and laughter and more knitting. What more needs be mentioned? Aaaaah.
Destination: Fuzzpot Lane, which on the world atlas looks to be vaguely west of that little town called London and very much east of Connecticut.

Countdown: 8 weeks

XX,

Lisa