Ordinary Time

Last week I shared all the quilt pieces I had cut out because I was suddenly consumed with making the Sparrows quilt. By the next day I had made one of the blocks.  The instructions don't have you make one block at a time, instead they are written to make all 24 in assembly line fashion. Because I had everything cut out and labeled, that is what I decided to do. I wasn't quite sure how I would store all the pieces, so this would get it off the studio table as well.  For this past week I have pretty compulsively worked on this. It happens sometimes that I get an idea in my head and need to drop everything to focus on the idea. This was one of those times.  As of this afternoon I have all the blocks nearly completely finished.  This is a much bigger quilt than I had thought. The blocks in the above photo are overlapped in order to fit on the table. They will also be wider when they are finished.  The fabric in the birds that seems as though it's tan is actually gr...

The view from my barn, that is. And I am filled with thankfulness every single time I'm out there. 

I'm in the middle of a book called, "The Renaissance Soul: How to make your passions your life" by Margaret Lobenstine. I had randomly come across the title and was curious. Here are a few questions from the opening quiz: "Are you capable of becoming passionately excited about a wide variety of subjects? Do you have a hard time choosing between one interest and another? Do you find yourself interrupting yourself, dropping one task to pick up another before it's done? When you really understand how something works, or master a new activity, do you feel bored and ready to try something new?" (p. 16) It probably won't surprise you that I answered yes to nearly all the questions on the quiz. I felt for once as though I was actually someone's target audience. It was an unusual experience.  Until I realized I am not really the target audience. This is because this book is aimed at people who haven't figured out that it is okay to have a myriad of inter...

"Horses, as prey animals, rely heavily on neuroception [an unconscious process by which the nervous system continuously scans the environment for cues of safety or danger, shaping behavioral responses accordingly] to assess their surroundings and determine whether they should engage socially, flee from a perceived threat, or shut down in response to overwhelming stress. Unlike cognitive perception, which involves conscious awareness, neuroception is an automatic, subcortical process that allows an organism to react before it has had time to think. In horses, neuroception is finely tuned to detect minute changes in their environment, including human body language, vocal tones, and the emotional state of those around them. This sensitivity explains why horses often respond to subtle shifts in human intention, posture, or energy before explicit cues are given." (pp. 124-125, Horse Brain Science by Dr. Stephen Peters) This is why Equine Assisted Learning works. When watching a cl...

This morning L., Y., and G. headed off to school. (Actually G. started yesterday.) L. and G. are Josh school seniors doing dual enrollment and Y. is officially a college freshman. She's going to do this year at the community college and has plans to transfer later on.  So this is G. and L.:s last first day of school picture. (Which is amusing because they're first one was last year.) It also marks my last year of being a homeschooling parent. This will be my 31st year, though I think that's stretching things a bit because really the two being "homeschooled" are taking college classes and doing their own individual learning. My part in all of this is incredibly minor.  The only real difference for Y. from last year is that she is taking a heavier load, but still continuing with Japanese tutoring. The way we homeschool, they'd is a rather blurry line between high school and college. I'll spare you my actual thoughts about typical high school right now, thoug...

And some of those projects really need to get done, especially if I am going to weave things to sell at Christmas. You start a new and completely unrelated project of course.  Over the weekend I became overwhelmed with the desire to make a quilt I have the pattern for. No, I don't know why, but that's what happened. So on Saturday I dug through fabric and on Sunday I spent much of the day cutting out all the pieces.  Some of those piles have 48 pieces in them, most have between 12 and 24. It was a lot of cutting especially because I was mostly using up scraps, which meant I couldn't make nice piles and cut several at the same time.  Here is what I'm going to make. Cute, huh? This is made with solid colors, but I realized I don't have a lot of solid colors in my stash. Mine will have more patterned fabrics. My color palate will also be different. Here are the four colors that will make up the birds. The whole quilt will have a slightly darker toned aspect to it.  My ...

The pasture is kind of out of control with things the horses don't really like to eat. J. usually mows them with Chuck the Tractor. This time we thought, "You know who really like this plants? Sheep!" We have sheep. We have portable fencing. We had a plan. So J. and G. set up the fencing in a corner of the horse pasture. This morning, before I turned out the horses, they brought over the sheep.  The horses were very interested in what was going on.  The sheep got right to work.  We weren't sure what the horses would do when they were turned out. The answer was not much. By the end of the day, the sheep had eaten down about a third of the weeds. I expect it will take them another couple of days to eat this patch down. But don't worry! There are plenty more patches in the pasture for the sheep to eat.