East

This post will mostly just consist of photos - - we've been traveling a lot.  A lot a lot.  In the past three weeks, we've slept in 8 different places.  Boy, are we ready to unpack and stay put.  Our family has returned to Montana now, where we'll stay for a few more weeks before finally, finally retuning home to New Zealand.  It's been a wonderful trip, and time with family has been amazing.  All the same, I imagine that settling into the quiet of our daily life will feel very peaceful and right once all of the travel has come to an end.  Reassuring to think that even when this once-in-a-lifetime trip has finished, there is still much to look forward to.

Anyway, prior to this we've spent some time in the East -- mostly on an island in the Isles of Shoals.  It is an intentionally un-techy sort of place, so we didn't bring our computer with us.  It was nice to feel a bit disconnected; but now of course, I appreciate being in touch with the wider world again.   Hello, world -- it's good to be back!

These photos are from Star Island -- the first was taken by my husband, Jake.
 

Less than a week from now my husband and I will have another wedding celebration lakeside; we were married a while back in the Abel Tasman, but now it's time to include our American family and friends.  Our celebration will be pretty laid-back:  swimming, BBQ, homemade pies, and an awesome bluegrassy band.  I imagine the next few days will feel pretty full as guests arrive, we complete some (er, all) last minute details and finally finalize our vows and the ceremony (eep!)  Wish us luck.

 PS. As soon as I can dig my camera out of my bag, I'll take a few shots of the gorgeous shawl I won over at Maehe Girl and share them with you.   It's gorgeous.  Thank you so much Cadi!

Photos: Unedited

My new thing: bare-bones photography.  I've been challenging myself to take photos and use only the settings on the camera to alter the effects.  If the picture doesn't turn out, it doesn't turn out -- no Photoshop allowed.   In some ways, it's refreshing.  In others, frustrating.  But I think making a few arbitrary rules like this will help me to become a better photographer now, when I have the time to mess around endlessly.  A few selections below -- perhaps editing could make these better, but here they are, as is:

Most of these were taken not from our house, but from the home of a family friend, where we spent yesterday evening at a fourth-of-July picnic.  The one at the very top was taken from our moving car; I desperately wanted to stop and take more photos of these beautiful, startlingly yellow fields, but impatient kids who have probably spent far too much time in the car recently made that somewhat impossible.  Maybe I'll be able to sneak away and take a few more photos at this spot some other day....

My Creative Space

 For the past week, my creative space has been primarily in my head -- lots of ideas and lots of living and soaking up experiences. However, one thing that's more concrete and creatively satisfying has been figuring out my 5+ year-old digital camera a bit more.  For the longest time I've been convinced that if I bought a new camera, all of my photography woes would be solved.  I subscribe to the Etsy newsletter (though I have yet to set up my Etsy shop....) and again and again I've read about studying one's camera (and camera manual) and learning to take better photos.  Well, through much much experimentation, I finally feel as though my old camera and I are getting to know one another a bit better.  I'm even growing rather attached.  You could say we're becoming friends. 

This evening I took a walk through the meadow behind our home here as the sun set and a thunderstorm gathered; along the walk (which ends in my great-grandfather's apple orchard) I also took a few photos.  I'm getting to the point of liking the photos my camera and I take even without any editing (aside from a little cropping.)  Huge progress!  And fun to boot.   I won't be replacing this camera anytime soon.  Isn't it satisfying to learn to work with what you've got rather than rush out and buy the latest new-fangled thing?  I feel like I get this reminder all the time: everything I need, I already have.

Check out many other creative spaces here, on Kootoyoo.  Always a pleasure.....

We've Arrived.

 We're here!  After a 24-hour flight, a week of stopover in Portland, Oregon, and a 12 hour drive through the western states we've arrived in heaven (also known as summertime in Montana.)   This is where we'll be spending the majority of our time during our trip and also where we'll celebrate our marriage come August.  My family has a house on a lake here.... a place very dear to my heart, it was built by my great-grandparents, immigrants from Lithuania.  Though it's been a few years since our last visit, upon arrival it feels as though we never left.  Just as with a few rare and magical friendships, it seems we can pick up exactly where we left off, regardless of how much actual time has passed. 

I thought I might use the rest of this post to share a few photos from the drive -- one I've been doing for 18 years, but never fails to stun me anew with its breathtaking beauty and inherent sense of Americana.  We stopped at a roadside diner in Ritzville for BLTs, burgers, and homemade pie; we drove through a tiny, one-street town aptly named "Paradise;" we passed countless farms and roadside fruit stalls....It was a good drive, getting better and better as we came closer to our destination, recognizing important landmarks and finally, thrillingly, spotting the lake as we crested a hill.

I love the additions of the windmills through the Columbia Gorge.  There's something truly majestic and beautiful about them.   No aesthetic objections here -- a far better sight than pollution any day.

P.s. I spent the more peaceful parts of our drive today reading this amazing, brilliant book, which happens to be written by my brother-in-law, Eric.   I literally could have kept my nose in the novel through the entire, gorgeous drive but it was also an enormous treat to put it aside until our arrival and savor the final chapters as I nursed my babe to sleep.  The late sunset outside, the sound of crickets chirping through the open windows, the last, satisfying pages of a wonderful book.  Bliss.

From One Equinox to Another

We were rained out yesterday morning -- no market to be had.  I had a premonition (aka, the weather forecast) of this possibility all week, and while I tried my hardest to harness the amazing power of positive thinking, it seems that even that has its limitations.  Either that or someone with far more powerful brainwaves than I was hoping for rain.  Hard to tell.

Anyway, alas...Normally, we'd just postpone until the next sunny weekend, but the family and I are about to embark on a stint of traveling -- time to head to the northern hemisphere for visits with family and a few Very Important Weddings (my sister's and also a second one for us -- we were married some time ago on the beach in the Abel Tasman, and now it's time to celebrate our commitment with a different set of family and friends.)

I'm closing up my Felt shop for a little while.  I'll really miss Seedling while I'm away -- the past few months of getting the business rolling has been amazing.  Thank you to all of you who have supported me in these early months through your readership and lovely comments.  I love love love doing my work, keeping up on the blog, and spending time in my studio....It will be hard to leave, but also wonderful to return in the early spring full of new ideas and designs.   I'll check in here on the blog from time to time, but otherwise - - see you all in September! xox

My Creative Space

 

All of the above are works in progress....the studio has been busy-busy this week!  I'm getting ready (gulp) for my very first day at the Nelson craft/farmers market this Saturday, June 19th.  There's certainly something about standing behind your work and saying, "I made this"  that's a bit, well, terrifying.  Ok, exciting and terrifying, both.   Kudos to those of you that do this on a regular basis!  You are all brave, brave souls.

I'll keep this brief today -- typing one-handed, with my sleeping baby on my lap...

Anyway -- wish me luck!  I'll let you know how it goes.

ps This is my first day officially playing along with "My Creative Space" on Kootoyou.  Check out many others and their creative spaces here.

Reading, Listening, Cooking

Monday is typically our quietest day.  My husband and I share a car, and Monday is his day to drive (rather than bike or carpool) to work, so the kids and I enjoy a peaceful "home day."  I try to leave our time unscheduled, and we often have a leisurely morning spent doing all of the undones from the weekend list.  Folding and putting away laundry, cleaning the bath, trying to stock up the fridge with a few meals and snacks.  Thrilling, right?  No, not really, but it does feel good to prepare ourselves for the week.  This morning I spent a good hour in the kitchen whipping up a lentil soup for the week's lunches, a roasted-tomato, garlic, and portabello pasta sauce for dinner, and a double batch of apple-cinnamon-oat muffins for snacks.  Aya hung out in the Ergo, and Solomon stood beside me at the sink making "water soup" and "water muffins" (And hoo-boy, let me tell you, those were delicious.  The kid knows how to make an excellent water soup.)

I finally had a chance to flip through a stack of books I picked up at the Founders Book Fair last week.   Founders is such a great place to visit with kids  -- it's a historic park with many old storefronts, a bakery, a brewery, an old WWII aeroplane you can go inside, a playground, a train, a barn full of vintage buses and wagons -- the list goes on and on.  It also features an annual bookfair -- I picked up these six beauties before I was hurried away from the books (and toward the aeroplane) by my impatient toddler.  I'm not entirely sure what I'll "do" with them, but at 50 cents a pop, the bright covers were hard to resist.

 I'm also just about to finish up this lovely book -- an interesting combination of fiction and autobiography, gifted to me by my sister some time ago.   I've been reading up a storm lately; there's something about winter that just makes me want to crawl into bed, oh, around 7:30 or so and just read and read.  And music from this talented folksy singer-songwriter has been on repeat lately.  I just can't get enough.  (Find another favorite video here.)

**Coming soon -- a few photos of the new one-of-a-kind "Welcome" sleep gowns I've been working on.  That is, if I manage to tear myself away from my evening-long reading sessions, and get out to the studio....