The place I'm at when I should be doing something else...

Soooooo....  You know I've been busy. With lots of things.

I have the ABC's of busy...

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A is for Apples

 in the orchard- more than I can keep up with cooking, canning, feeding to my children, our neighbor's cows or the deer.

B is for Bird-sitting

 our chickens when they are out of their pen in order that the nasty bobcat that ate one doesn't get anymore!

C is for Canning

because I planted too much veg, inherited too many fruit trees and generally got too ambitious when ordering peaches via our friends at Live Power Community Farm with our CSA (Community Sustained Agriculture... its a mouthful to say and eat) box.

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The alphabet goes on and on and on (like Gone With the Wind but with no war, elegant dresses or Rhet Butler ... just lots of me looking flustered and throwing tantrums about someone messing up the quilt draped artistically over the back of the couch AGAIN!!!!!) finally ending in:

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Z is for Zombie*

...sometimes... sort of... not really...

but M. sometimes acts like one.  He has been really really busy too and starts talking about going to bed the moment the children are up the stairs to go to sleep at 9 p.m. Naturally my instinct is to rebel and go to bed at 3 a.m. so I'm kinda a zombie too some mornings. 

*no photos of "Z" for the protection of the innocent

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  but the letter that has been consuming my time and mental space is S.

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S is for Sweet Little Wood

and Shop!  I am officially set up in a beautiful shop called Gin'Gillie's Vintage Home Collective in Gyserville California!

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When we left England we had some idea of opening a vintage/handmade sales space of some kind but we were uncertain of what exactly we wanted to do and more importantly where! I have a space on Etsy but in order to make it work you need a large-ish shop and really you have to push yourself to be proactive in order to keep your listings popping up because there are so (I cannot stress this enough) SOOOOOOOOO many sellers on Etsy. 

So the reasons Etsy is not really for me are that I am: 

1: too lazy. 

2: too annoyed/terrified by the postal system in the USA. 

3: to lazy

So this is what I enjoy doing. I find stuff. Old busted (sometimes) not really loved stuff. I take it home buff it up and show it I love it and then put it where someone else might pick it up and decide they love it too. Then I spend time with my family and make stuff I love with my hands... while the kids do homeschool... while I wait for the twelve jars in my canning pot to get to the right temperature... while I sit and wait for yet another interminable visit to the orthodontist to end...  while I inwardly gripe that M. has gone to bed at 9:01 and I'm not anything like tired yet.  Then I put that handmade stuff where someone else might pick it up and decide they love it too.

The long and short of it all is that when I should be watering watermelons that are taking over the back acre, keeping my little chickies from going stir-crazy in their pen, or sleeping with my husband at 11 o'clock.:  I can often be seen thinking about, designing, creating, washing, dusting, stitching, drawing or daydreaming about  Sweet Little Wood, my sweet little space that I can play with and make my own.

x(yz)  Jo

P.S. if you have never seen a tiny little baby watermelon...

 they are the cutest darn things ever!!

P.P.S. Does anyone know if apples are bad for cows?!?!

Selling my soul

This could be the most terrifying thing I've ever done: it does feel like I've just put my soul up for the whole world to gaze on and judge. So **gulp** go visit my Esty shop, I'm not sure if I care if anything sells, I just hope nobody goes "Oh would you look at that rubbish!"
Here goes. . . SOUL FOR SALE! ! !

On another subject: I am finally getting a few projects finished at last. And my beautiful lamp which once was rather boring and plain is now a smorgasbord of buttony goodness! !

I had seen this on a lamp where they had used just the metal frame of the shade and had the light through strung/wired (?) buttons. However the light in our lamp is something like 6 gazillion candle power and will fry your eyeballs if it hits you right on so I decided to sew the buttons to the shade. With the light off it looks like I like: kinda grungy and handmade-ish but in the evening it turns into the star of our living room. Buttons which previously looked normal turn into the most stunning visual feast.I didn’t use any special bits, I purposely used buttons I was going to donate to a charity shop because they were so very ordinary.
yum yum yum yum!
For any who might be interested we are planning a trip WEST!! It is going to happen in 2012 it is just a matter of when the tickets aren't going to be totally out of proportion due to the Olympics being a couple of hours away from our house. Okay must stop before I hyperventilate with excitement.

Pottery love

Last night was my first evening in an 8 week ceramics and pottery class which M. gave me for my birthday. I've never really had a drive to do ceramics. I keep myself neck deep in projects that need finished without the necessity of three days cooking in extreme temperatures (thank you very much). Needless to say as people moved into the ceramics room and were chatting like old friends and began to raid cupboards and pull out almost finished pieces I began to have a creeping sense of how wrong this class could be for me. And I wished for a sinking hole in the earth to swallow me and save me the embarrassment of admitting my ignorance. HOWEVER…

Oh my giddy wonderful racing heart!! I LOVE it!

I was encouraged to start with moulding but. . . err. . . being a bit hard headed and not having been at all interested in doing moulded clay I said with total ignorance of the processes, limitations, and qualities of clay "No I want to either throw or do sculptural stuff." So I was sat down with a piece of paper and pencil which is no hardship as sketching is my favourite diversion.

What came out was a regurgitation of something that I have been sketching on the borders of notebooks and corners of sticky pads for at least 16 years. This (above) is the earliest sketch I have of it which is from 2002 but it has been bouncing around my head for much longer. Then I sat with clay and just did what I had in my head. And it was so peaceful and soul centring, like a meditation on form and touch. I sense that I could have closed my eyes and felt what the clay wanted me to do with it. I learned a few things about the process and how to make sure my piece doesn't crack in the kiln or take four years to dry for that matter.

I cannot wait till next week. I have a coral reef in my head and hands which is burning to escape and become tangible!

As a BIG aside I am about to go onto ETSY and see if my makes are as nice to anyone other than me. . . eeeek! This embroidered broach (modelled by my obliging but terribly embarrassed 12 year old) is one of the few things I have to sell. It is slightly larger than life size and a Peacock butterfly which is very common in our area of England. It will be on sale in a day or two. Wish me luck!