Santa Lucia, The Return of the Light

Happy Santa Lucia Day. I love this day in December. Lovely memories... When my daughters were young we used to celebrate it by getting up really early in the morning and baking some rolls. Then we would arrange a tea tray with a beautiful cloth, teapot and the baked goods. One of the girls would don a candle wreath on her head (we actually lit the candles), wear a white nightgown and a red ribbon, climb the stairs with tray in hand, and serve each person in bed. I always followed them up, checking for hair fires and dripping wax.


Somewhere deep in my genetic recesses I felt that the light began to return on December 13. I thought that perhaps I was imagining it, but come to find out it's true. According to Katherine Swift, THE MORVILLE HOURS, daylight begins to "draw out again... Though the solstice is not until the 21st, from now on the sun will set a minute or two later each day. There is no net gain in daylight hours for another week, as the sun will go on rising later until 30 December." She goes on to say that before the reform of the calendar, St. Lucy's Day coincided with Winter Solstice.

Here's a few family photos from our Lucia days. And a few earlier winter ones. Where did the time go?


Is it just me or does it seem that Dad wasn't quite as enthusiastic about the early hour as we were?


And here's one of the old snow guys. Looks like we used most of the snow in the front yard to create him. Oui! Oui! Joyeux Noel!



Happy return of the Light and Happy Christmas to all!

Mary McCauley, Needle Felted Wool Sculpture

Mary McCauley makes the most wonderful wool felted sculpture. The thing about it is, these animal sculptures seem to have real life. I mean it's as though they have a spirit. I'll attribute that to Mary, who has been drawing, painting, sewing, whittling, beading and shaping materials for dozens of years. Now her felting needle leads her hands into creating specific dog breeds that look so real - they are real.

She first began to study art while in high school, enjoying pencil drawing and learning to hand build and throw pottery. I remember one of her pieces from that time. It was a wonderful African water vessel with a woman's head on the top. Seems she had the gift of creating spirit from the start.


While living in Alaska, Mary collected pieces of fur and leather and began to sew them into hats and gloves. Later she hand-made moccasins (called Mary's Mocs) and leather-bound journals of buffalo, elk, deer, and boar hides. This led into the Mare's Bears phase of designing and sewing stuffed bears of all sorts. She also worked with FIMO for a while, continuing her desire to shape and form.


About a year and a half ago she found a little book by Nobuko Nagakubo called Fleece Dog in a toy store right here in Bellingham. Mary told me, "I thought needle-felting looked really fun and the subjects that I could felt were endless. I bought wool and a needle and went to work. It is what I do in the evenings while I am resting, like some people do with knitting. I love felting all kinds of critters. Animals have always interested and inspired me."


When I asked Mary what she liked best about creating things, she replied, "It feels good to work at something and see immediately the product of your labor. I do it because I like the result, the little woolly creatures. It also feels good when others like them and appreciate them as gifts."



I'm really proud of my sister and her talent. She brought several of her animals with her to a family reunion this Fall. Each of us got to pick one or two of them to take home. Here's a photo of my pick: two curious Meerkats. They grace my piano and help me to practice!




If you'd like to get in touch with Mary about her sculptures (yes, they are for sale), here's her email: marymccauley@windstream.net



Here's Mary (on the right) and Charlia happily driving our sister's Mini through the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Phil Heaven, violist for Geoffrey's Nephew, in an interview with Margaret Bikman

Thanks to both Phil and Margaret!

Bellingham Entertainment, Movies, Restaurants | Bellingham Herald

The Fabric Tells Me What To Do

Tone Piper has been sewing since she was nine years old. She was born in Oslo, Norway, and her grandmother was a professional seamstress. Her mother sewed too, perfectly always. Tone started with doll clothes and gowns, then moved on to making her own clothes. As her own family grew she sewed all manner of garments for them, including costumes and prom dresses.

"The more experience one has using different kinds of fabrics, the more skilled one becomes." She draws inspiration from the fabric and with a twinkle in her eye says, "it tells me what to do. I love fabrics. I impulse buy something that I really like. I usually don't decide on the design until I have the fabric."

Then she turns it into a wonderful piece.




Such as this wedding dress for her daughter Cassiopia Piper (who will take on the new name Cassiopia Coyne on October 10, 2009). Cassy is a talented actress/dancer who lives in New York City. She acquired seventeen yards of designer silk blend fabric, which she sent to her mother, knowing that Tone would come up with something beautiful for her wedding.

She did.

As I write this, I can see Cassy in it, waltzing around on the dance floor like Cinderella. And Tone enjoying the fruits of her labour(s).



When asked what designing and sewing brings into her life, Tone replied, "joy, peace, a sense of centeredness, focus. It has given me self-confidence in general."



That joyous sense of confidence gets transferred to the lucky people who wear Tone's designs. She has sewn several pieces for me, and I love them all, especially the ones I wear for concert performances.

Hey... who is that behind the dress form? How did he get in here?

Capturing the last of Summer, a Goldenrod Dye Pot

A friend and I spent the day doing a Dye pot, that is dyeing wool from natural plants. We gathered goldenrod and tansy, those ochre-gold pungent herbs that bloom late in the summer season. It's a joy to pick them, to smell them, and then to stuff them into old pantyhose and drop them into a canning pot of hot water to steep. The hardest part was finding the old pantyhose - it's been a while since I've worn them. We let the water boil. Marya commented that it looked like we were trying to make Haggis. Indeed, the little stuffed britches full of botanical matter resembled what I've seen but never tasted of that Scottish...umm...delicacy.



We began by washing the wool with gentle soap, taking care to use lukewarm water at first, then adding more hot gradually. We added some borax to soften the water and let the wool sit in the bath for a spell. We had to mordant the wool with aluminum sulfate and cream of tartar. This took about an hour of simmering heat on the stove. It looked like noodles cooking. We poked it, but never stirred. Wool doesn't like to be agitated or to have an extreme change in temperature. I don't either for that matter.



It was time to add the wool skeins into the haggis pot. One by one we fished them out and in. They caught the color almost instantly. We cooked them for over an hour. They gradually grew to a deep yellow.



It was getting on in the day so we decided to rinse them in a clean pot of hot water and added a slight bit of vinegar to set the color. The rinsing seemed to fade the color just a little, which was sad. We hung the skeins outside on a stick between two chairs. It's important to dry them in the shade, so that's what we did. To our delight, the yellow seemed to brighten as the skeins dried. It's the color of late summer and I like it.



Marya is going to knit a blanket for her lovely boy, Kristijan. I wound my yarn up and put it in a basket, along with other yarn dyed from previous summers. It will eventually become someone's scarf. Someone who might enjoy the sight and fragrance of summer's end during the cold grey of winter.

India Slides, Vol. 11, Rajastan

Feels almost as hot today in the Pacific NW as it did in Rajastan, India this winter.

Mammoth Lakes, California

This is a journal entry from July 10, 2007 while we were visiting Yosemite.

I loom about the world
forgetting to follow my breath
I walk dizzy in the heat
I muddle about

We trek together
It's important to walk together
but not easy
takes patience

We wind about
though old forests
granite stones
heavy on the earth

Coming to the river
cool water dances
bouncing downward
upward
flowing cold

One puddle
in the rock
holds pebbles
so clearly they lie
so bright the light
catches
enlightens the water
and even though
I cannot see my reflection
I see my Self
in that
I am That.




This is a photo of Hannah and Lucas, our daughter and son-in-law, ever the enlightened jokesters.