this is what a 29 year old looks like

Many thanks to everyone who helped me celebrate my birthday. I was touched by all the wishes and surprise gifts I received. Here's to 29 being way better than 28!

I love you guys.


My sister Muffin and me...

Call me Paulie....

My middle name is Pauline. So named for my Grandmother, Pauline Dey Vandemortel. Known to me as Grammie. She was admitted to the hospital today, no one knows when, or if, she'll ever come back out. She had her third stroke.

The entire family has taken a collective inhale.

My Grammie helped raise me. My parents, like so many of our generation, were divorced when I was a little girl. My mother was left struggling and my grandparents stepped in to support her. Grammie took the WATS (Wayne Area Transportation Service) bus to our house most everyday to take care of my brother and I. She hung the clothes on the line, took us for walks to see our mom at work and washed the floors with a rag. Once she even sprained her wrist doing it.

From the time I was little her hair was always red, I didn't know until much later that she dyed it. She was our family's Lucille Ball. I remember once she came shopping with us to help me find some back to school clothes, I was starting the 6th grade that fall. In the dressing room she got a hanger all twisted up into her ring and just couldn't get it out. We laughed so hard, and all any of us could think was this was our private episode of "I love Lucy."

I spent many summer's with her and my grandpa. Every night Grandpa had his beer and peanuts, I had mine with soda and we would sit on the front porch. I remember trying to hide my pajamas so I could wear one of her pretty nightgowns.

Around the age of 10 I developed a plan. I wanted any kids I had to know my Grandparents and so I had a plan so that that could happen. I'm sure it included getting married long before now. Probably by age 20 or something, so I could have kids by 23. I went off that path along time ago.

Her slow decline has kept me trapped in denial. Only today have I begun to allow myself to believe what's really happening, we're losing her. In the last 2 years she's declined so fast. No longer the woman who walked faster than me, would talk to absolutely anyone, and used to say "Blastoff!" when we pulled the car out of the driveway. Now when I see her she sits quietly in her chair, her hair now grey, and just sort of stares into the distance.

I've separated myself from it. I don't visit as often and I should and I didn't realize until today, why. I don't want to believe that the woman in that chair is really my Grammie.

My Grammie was one of the funniest, kindest most amazing women I have ever known. She taught me to love libraries and little potatoes; gardens and garage sales. I'm thankful that I've had the privilege of calling her my family.

I love you Grammie.

the plan

the plan was always to try to write in this everyday, to make a record of what i was thinking, what was inspiring me. but life often gets in the way of that and we feel compelled to close up and sit in the cave until we feel brave enough to come back out, patch up our walls and move on again. maybe put in a little table with chairs and invite people in for tea.

i try, but am terrible with this.

so today i thought i'd hide behind someone else, someone who is good at this, sabrina ward harrison. these words are not hers, but when i saw them today it occurred to me i knew someone else who would like them.

enjoy.

adam weekley

Adam Weekley is my best friend. We met back in grad school, and while I doubt he knows it his work has always been an inspiration to me. I am continually fascinated by his ability to twist reality- to take ideas that are so harsh and talk about them using materials that are seemingly benign.

As he puts it himself: “In many ways the work is about taking things deeply personal or visceral and imploding and exploding their potency by making art that is loud, seductive and full of artifice.”

Check out this video interview set in his studio as he prepared for his exhibition for last year's Beyond in Western NY.

I am currently trying to convince him to enter the craft world a bit- I see so much room for translation there. I'll talk him into yet...

purl bee

The Market last thursday was fantastic! My sincerest thanks to everyone who came out to say hello and extras to those of you who took home some of my little oddities. The reactions I get are always amusing. People often make reference to psych tests when looking at the tea stains and the breast sachets elicited a lot of laughter. When coming over people said they thought they were baby hats, acorns and also pin cushions. I could turn them into pin cushions if I made them from cloth- but sticking pins in them just seems so mean!

I have been continually getting requests to make male counterparts. Not a bad idea and certainly a pattern I could design. You guys tell me- would men buy sachets? And if so what scents? Cedar?

My craft blog virginity was showing a bit when a visitor to my booth told me about the Purl Bee blog and I was caught unawares. I checked into today and I am in love!

So many amazing projects, advice, tips.. Its hard to know where to start with everything. Will it be this amazing bag ...















Or these super cute little coasters? I don't know how to decide.

Now, that the sale is behind me I have time to get back to some of the nagging projects. It's get-it-together time.

I want to redo my website and finally open my own etsy shop. Neither are small projects. I think I'll be putting the etsy shop up first. I need to photograph everything but since the weather looks poor for the week it might take longer than I like. One lesson I've been picking up from my crafty friends is that photos look best when you use natural light. So we shall see...

If nothing else rainy weather makes for much knitting time. I absolutely have my work cut out for me. But that reveal will have to wait...

A table of her own...

So I packed up the "kids" and took them back home again and we're finally settling in. Though who knows for how long.

My mother let me take over the dining room table with all of my random crafts and things and it reminds me of Virginia Woolf, for even going without a space for a couple weeks while I settled in made me get a very particular kind of cranky.

All of you creative types know what I mean I'm sure...

Upon moving back home I finally got to know our neighbor's little girl Marta. She's about a year and a half old and as cute as they come. I had a number of my hats left over from the winter sale season and one of them was a little pink kid's hat. I decided she needed to have it. It's cotton but still seasonly inappropriate.. how cute to see her running around the back yard in it and her diaper.

Too Cute!







And last, but far from least! I am going to be sitting at the second storie} booth tomorrow at the grand re-opening of the South Wedge Farmer's Market!

I've made a bunch of little breast shaped sachets, and have plenty of knitted washcloths and head scarves. I also have my tea stained drawings and will have on hand some brand new tea stained greeting cards. That is assuming all goes well tonight... Wish me luck.

The market runs from 4-8 and is located at the corner of Clinton and Alexander behind Boulder Coffee. As it is the grand re-opening I understand there will be even more vendors. AND my favorite local band the Varnish Cooks will be playing just a few booths down from me! So please, come out say hi, get yourself some fresh veggies, groove to the tunes and support local growers, artists and musicians all in one shot!

Hope to see you there!

June 5 : joAnn mcGranahan

Be sure to stop at the South Wedge this market to see the lovely JoAnn at the Second Storie Booth this thursday from 4-8pm.

Visit her new etsy site here: refashioned

From her bio:
everything old is new again... my passion is to create beautiful new objects from salvaged and reused materials. in doing so, I can pass along to others the beauty I see in forgotten or discarded things. the weave of a particular fabric. the wonderful lines of an old textbook graph. it's the small things such as these that bring me joy.

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See you kids there!