Some days (lately) in the greenhouse, when it's spring but the weather doesn't know it (cough*snow*cough) there is hardly anything to do but play with seeds and dream out my imaginary flower garden.  So here you have it.  I love the wild, rather disheveled gardens of story books and fairy-tales.  Gardens where you can easily imagine an old woman gathering herbs for potions or a fair-haired child running with a fist full of poppies.  Seeds make me so happy and excited.  For one, they're like magic or miracles.  Two, they make me feel invincible, my thoughts go something like, "I have seeds! I can survive anything!"  And Three, the packets are pretty.  I love to buys seeds.

Do you have those things, were if you buy some of them you know your day will be good, simply because you know you bought it?  For me it will always be yarn, seeds, and books. And I wanted to leave you with a link to my garden page on Pinterest.    Have a good night!

Love, Clara

Breathe

This season has been full of weird lapses, unexpected short days at the greenhouse due to weather, car troubles, unpredictable mountains and valleys of energy and exhaustion, and so much more.  And I find myself thinking too much and forgetting to just breathe and be still while I can.  Saturday night I got a nice break after work, I was extremely tired, but also in need of something other than zoning out at home.  So I made myself go out with a friend, we went to B&N and got drinks, I bought a new journal, and walked around for a bit, but then we just got in her car and drove and talked.  And it was wonderful.

It was so relaxing, and even though I was so tired and we called it quits around nine o'clock, it was so good. The drive was beautiful, the light magical, and the conversation blessed.

I'm almost to the end of this book, my art journal, scrapbook, what ever you call it.  Which is scary and exciting at the same time.  Breathe.  I've been involved in for so long, through so many things, I can't help but something huge will happen once it's full.  Do you know what I mean?  Like, once it's complete, a special portion of my life will be too, and maybe things will change, maybe life will be different.  I know that that's silly, but I can't help but wonder, and hope just a little bit too.  I made this bread, which is in the picture above, and it was amazing.  If you try it you will not be disappointed.  I promise.  

Okay, that's all for today, I'm hoping I can finish this sweater tonight, it's almost done.  I just need to sew all the seams and knit the collar.  Have a good night!

Love, Clara

Indigo knitting

It snowed all weekend and it's supposed to snow more, but right now it's sunny and clear, so I'm hoping for the best.  I finished this hat! The color is a bit darker than these photos, most like the first one, a lovely rich indigo.  I love indigo, it give me thrills.  It's the color of the sky at night in Alaska, of blueberries and bluebells, of snow in the shadows, and my favorite stone.  I used this pattern from Tiny Owl Knits and Malabrigo Worsted which is actually what the pattern called for!  I bought it because it was beautiful, not knowing what I would make, and then I realized that it matched up with one of my favorite patterns I'd been wanting to make, and it all came together perfectly.  I love it.

Hope you are all enjoying your spring!
Love, Clara

One of my favorite things is, when reading, I come across a passage that metaphorically hits me right in the center of my chest.  It doesn't have to have great insight, or a compelling message, sometimes it's just in the combination of words and imagery.  Sometimes it's because it fits a longing into language without it minimizing the longing (which, believe it or not, is a very hard thing to do).  Sometimes it awakens a longing I never knew I had, and other times it's just so beautiful it makes me ache, and sometimes it spells out so perfectly where I am.  C. S. Lewis calls this Joy.  John Eldredge calls it Desire. Neither of those words are right for it, because really there isn't a word that's perfectly it.  It just is.  (Lately I've been seeing holes, holes in language, holes in "reality", holes in myself.)  So, this just happened a little while ago, while reading Perelandra.

Now that I've built it up so much, you probably have these high expectations for the passage I'm about to share with you.  And you'll probably be disappointed.  But that's okay.   Because things speak differently to everyone.  That's the beauty of art.  No one ever reads the same book, or sees the same painting, or hears the same song.  But that doesn't alter or diminish the beauty of sharing these things as we can.  So here it is, love the poem it writes for you.

"There is no moon in that land, no star pierces the golden roof.  But the darkness was warm.  Sweet new scents came stealing out of it.  The world had no size now.  Its boundaries were the length and breadth of his own body and the little patch of soft fragrance which made his hammock, swaying ever more and more gently.  Night covered him like a blanket and kept all loneliness from him.  The blackness might have been his own room.  Sleep came like a fruit which falls into the hand almost before you have touched the stem."
~ Perelandra by C. S. Lewis