crochet — Page 3

Thoughts on Wednesday

February 3, 2016 at 9:26 am by Claudia

It’s February and that means my blogging anniversary is coming up. On February 17th, Mockingbird Hill Cottage (the blog, not the house) will be 8 years old. The house is 125 years old.

Blogging has changed a lot during the course of those eight years; some of it good, some of it not so good. Several bloggers have recently written posts about wanting to go back to the way they used to blog, before everything became about being bigger, better, and earning lots of income. None of that is at all bad, but along the way it’s easy to lose sight of what drew one to blogging in the first place.

Above all, what drew most of us to blogging was the desire to share our lives, our thoughts, and to connect with others (like-minded and not so like-minded.) That’s certainly what drew me to blogging – the opportunity to write, which has always been a passion of mine; and not only write, but create a visual journal by taking photographs that corresponded to the text.

Simple, right?

I’ve been posting daily for several years now. The discipline of writing every day is good for me. It anchors my mornings. I’m very proud of what I’ve created and I’m very proud of the fact that every post on this blog – and there have been 2,337 of them as of today – has been written by me. That means original content (for better or worse!) with no photos grabbed from other sites, no posts that originated elsewhere that I tweak for the blog, no guest posts (which I routinely decline.) There’s the rare sponsored post, and they are truly rare, but again; honestly and candidly written by me. It isn’t always easy to find something to write about on a daily basis, but I’ve stuck to my vision and I’m proud of that.

I guess I never had to ‘find’ what kind of blogger I was because I always intended to write about our life in the country in our little cottage. I’m comfortable with that. Luckily, when I first started, the blogging world was still a relatively small place. Now, it’s much, much bigger.

I often think about that. It must be hard to find a interesting and unique blog name nowadays. I don’t envy having to come up with something new.

Anyway, more thoughts on that coming up on February 17th.

I wanted to tell you about an item that I ordered and which just arrived yesterday. It’s from the shop, Lucy Jane. I read about it via another book blogger and promptly bookmarked the site, though I didn’t get around to ordering it until a couple of weeks ago.

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It’s the Arrow Pencil Pouch, which comes in red, navy or black. It’s made of vinyl and is beautifully lined and the reason I bought it is because it is the perfect size for a Kindle Paperwhite. I tend to throw my Kindle in my bag when I’m on the road or traveling to NYC, and I was looking for something to protect it.

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See, I’m slipping it in the pouch….

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And there it is, safely nestled inside.

I really love it. I chose this bright red because I liked it and I thought it would be easier to find in the depths of my tote bag.

You could probably do the same thing with a cosmetics bag, and I have, but this is sturdy and has some heft. And it’s cute.

I’ve no affiliation with this company – just wanted to share it with you.

I just finished this scarf, it’s a special order.

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It’s made from a yarn I got at my local yarn store – Malabrigo Pure Merino Superwash Rios in English Rose. Isn’t it beautiful?

Okay. I have to go take a shower and meet my friend Charlie for coffee.

Happy Wednesday.

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Waiting

January 23, 2016 at 8:16 am by Claudia

I have had two restless nights of sleep in a row. I’ve slept, it’s not a case of sleeplessness, but my goodness, the dreams, and the waking up and the going back to sleep and the waking up…

Yesterday, my last dream before I woke up was one in which Scout had run away and I didn’t know until I came home and lots of people were there but no one was looking for her. I couldn’t believe it. Then someone told me the Girl Scouts were out looking for her, and I screamed at them that I was the only one who would know where to look. Unsettling, to say the least.

This morning, more dreams that, after two cups of coffee, I can’t remember. But it seems like the last two, no, make that three, nights have been filled with dreams where everyone I’ve ever known has made an appearance.

Enough already.

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I call this Waiting for the Snow. I took it early this morning and posted it on Instagram, but then I played around with some filters on a new app I downloaded called A Color Story. I don’t usually do a lot with filters, but I must say it’s sort of fun. Of course, I can’t remember what filter I used, but it intensified everything in this shot.

I’ve been up since 5:30. It’s now almost 8 and the snow hasn’t started falling yet. But I could sure feel it in the air yesterday as I walked home from rehearsal. Even if I hadn’t been aware of the forecast, I would have known that snow was headed our way.

I’m not called for any work today. I’d head home, but I might be called tomorrow. So I have to stay put. I guess I’ll take a walk when it begins to snow, as long as it isn’t too windy.

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I gave up on the Cara Black mystery – for a couple of reasons. I opened the book to find it had been damaged by some previous reader. The pages were warped, there were stains, and it was irritating. (The library had noted the damage on the inside cover.) And I also quickly realized that I didn’t want to jump ahead to the newest book in the series, in which the protagonist is now a single mother, without knowing how she got there. So, I put it down. I’ll return it to the library.

Out came the Kindle, where I immediately dug into the other Jane Casey I had downloaded, The Stranger You Know. After I finish this one, I believe I will be all caught up and ready for her newest, whenever that comes out.

Right now, they’re predicting 5-9 inches of snow for this area, with an additional 1-3 inches tonight, which isn’t great, but is certainly much, much less than other areas of the East Coast. It’s supposed to stop by tomorrow morning, so by the time I want to head home, it might be clear enough to make the trip. Might. Again…fingers crossed.

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Yes, I’m back to crocheting, but slowly, because my hands get sore after having made so many scarves last November and December. This one is almost finished and will go in the Etsy shop. Three more have to be made that are special requests. And then I’m done. For a long time.

If you’re at all interested, keep your eyes peeled on the Etsy widget in my sidebar. This is the only scarf that I will list for general sale. (The colors are a bit darker than they appear to be in this photo. But not much; it’s a really lovely colorway.)

Stay safe. Stay warm.

Happy Saturday.

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At The Controls Of My Starship

December 9, 2015 at 9:55 am by Claudia

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on yesterday’s post. I read every comment (well, I always do) but this time, I found myself reading them more than once. It helps to know that others feel the same way, that the free-floating anxiety and worry and, in some cases, outrage that we feel is shared by others. We need to draw strength from each other. And we need to take action.

As I sit here, sprained ankle on a pillow on top of an ottoman, cup of coffee to my right, iPhone next to the coffee, Kindle next to the iPhone, camera just a bit beyond the Kindle, laptop on my lap, I laugh out loud at the image I have of my “Command Center.” Oh, and now we’ll add coffee cake to my left, because Don just brought in a piece for me.

Gone are the days of being laid up and only connected to the world via a landline and the television set.

I feel like I’m behind the controls on the Starship Enterprise.

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I’m sharing two more of my Roseville Pottery pieces with you today. (I have a couple more Roseville scores on their way to me in the mail.)

The green basket is in the Apple Blossom pattern. As you can see, I am sometimes quite willing to buy a damaged piece. The third curve from the left has been broken off and there is a hairline crack that travels downward from there. I saw this in a local antique shop, priced at $25.00. I hesitated because of the damage and Don said I should buy it anyway because “It’s been loved and used. Besides, cracks let the light in.” An homage to Leonard Cohen.

So I bought it, and I’m happy I did. It would be three times, maybe four times the price I paid if it was flawless. But it isn’t, so I adopted it and now it has a home at the cottage.

The smaller brown piece is in the Bushberry pattern. This is the very first piece of Roseville I ever purchased. I found it in San Diego. At the time, Roseville prices were through the roof, so this remained my one and only piece for several years. It was living in the kitchen china cabinet, but I just moved it to the den, where, when the other pieces arrive and I rearrange the den china cabinet, it will live with its Roseville brothers and sisters.

Or, it just might stay on this music cabinet. We’ll see.

There’s a new scarf in the shop.

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This is the Obsession Scarf in Pompidou. Gosh, it’s so hard to capture the colors. It makes me crazy. The link to the shop is here.

A couple of blog housekeeping items:

• For some reason the email version of my post went out very late in the day yesterday. It should go out between 11 am and 1 pm. I suppose it was a Feedburner glitch. I’ll do my best to keep an eye on that today.

• WordPress has just had an update and there’s a chance that my comment reply plugin might not work. Can you let me know if you receive my replies to your comments? If you aren’t – and you know I reply to every comment – I need to know that and find an alternative plugin.

Thank you!

Happy Wednesday.

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Thoughts on Wednesday

Waiting

At The Controls Of My Starship

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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