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This pretty much defines our holiday preparations in one photo: new candles, some greenery (we also have a tree) some other candles, and the silver skull left over from Halloween.

Plus a lot of dinosaurs.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dancingcrow/11610168686/player/

Our neighbor has four chickens that like our driveway. Every time they cross the road in front of me I feel like a punch line.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/dancingcrow/11584772623/player/752152b0d5

I'm thinking about a photo a day, for a year. Since starting on Jan 1 is intimidating, I thought I'd try it now, and see how things go.

Little Yolk is a hand stitched triceratops made from patterns we've (Alice and Red Kate and I) have been re-engineering from the Manhattan Toy Company dinosaurs circa 1986. My mother has Sunshine, who donated some DNA to help with the pattern. The rest of the dinosaurs are camped at our house until Red Kate is finished moving. There is a Nativity scene with them all – Yolk played the part of the Christ Child.

So – I've been sick. Not hugely ill, but sit peacefully on the end of the couch and knit levels of sick. And I decided to work on getting better at two color/two handed knitting, with some limited success. I finished the applied i-cord edgeing last night, and the directions say "pat it, admire it, photograph it, and then felt it"

So I did. This is the before felting picture. It is kind of huge and floppy, which generally means it will compact nicely when run through the washing machine.

I have to keep remembering it takes me a couple of tries to get a new thing. I applied i-cord edging 3 different times before it suddenly looked reasonable, and felt correct. I'm really grateful to the people who post you-tube videos and tutorials for how to do these things.

I'll report back after the felting process…

Part of a commission I worked on today – a single file of 5 horses headed downhill, in front of (or under?) a sunset. The sunset was fun! I dyed silk organza in six different shades of pink, yellow and orange, and then experimented with layering them in different orders. I twas startled at how much difference the order made, especially the top two colors. The end result is a little garish; I may have to tone it down somehow.

Alice's first day as a sophmore. In High School.

For most of one summer, Al and George and I rode our bicycles together. Every weekend we'd mount up and set off, arriving home sometimes the same day, sometimes the next. Together we traveled over almost every inch of paved road between the Holyoke Range and the Vermont border to the north and south, and out to the hill towns on the east and west of the river. We joked about never believing a Bridge Closed sign all that summer. We crawled over and under obstacles and dragged our bikes with us so we could see what was on the other side of all those enticing bridges. One bridge was well and truly out, under construction, and we had to wade across the stream.  It was that or go back. Which would be boring.

Our exertions brought us to some really beautiful places. I still remember those rides with pleasure. And where ever we see a Bridge Closed sign, Al and I scope it out, and generally agree we could make it across. The road on the other side always looks enticing.

One of my favorite places in the valley is in the middle of the river. I am not sure if that counts as only one place, because I suppose technically it is a long line. Except the easiest way to get to the middle of the river on a regular basis on foot is on a bridge. This is a view from the Sunderland bridge looking north, across the end of First Island. The next island north is Second Island, and the third is, you guessed it, Third Island. Further north, Sunderland stops and other people have the naming of the islands. 

They are ephemeral in geological time, migrating across the river, and increasing and decreasing as the river itself moves. I've watched First Island expand to twice the width it had in the 1980's, and the channel on the east side get deeper and faster.

Aerin comes home tonight! Well, shortly after midnight, so tomorrow really, but I will still be awake, so it will feel like part of today, and I will hug her and squeeze her and be so pleased to see her!

Queen Anne's Lace is one of those things I grew by mistake, but I am pleased it is here. I used to pick it for the girls to dye different colors by adding food color to the water. When they were wilted and dreadful, I'd toss them into the garden, where apparently they have volunteered and thrived.

Like ferns, these are self-similar, and like ferns, I can fall into the details of the blossom, admiring the levels of umbels and umbellets and tiny flowers. I have spent an inordinate amount of time trying to print Queen Anne's Lace, with no success at all. This idea has come closer than most.