I organize all of my blog photos in folders by year, and then by month, and then by day. In looking through November's this morning, I don't think there is any other month that starts as much in one season and ends as much in another. I love winter. I feel like I come alive, somehow. Winter, winter: Bare branches. Pink skies. Muddy streets. Evergreen scents. Misty rain. Cold mornings. Smoke from neighborhood chimneys. Kitchen afternoons. Fogged up windowpanes. Mimi takes a bunch of miniature fake pine trees and and sets them up in her room next to her mushroom nightlight. She fluffs up her bed, all flannel sheets and gingham comforter and quilt after quilt, and climbs in. "Mom, look at me." I open the back door in the darkness of early morning and sniff the chilly air. Delicious shiver. Hot coffee. Winter. I am a daughter of the North Wind.
I hope you are well. Thanksgiving was lovely. The whole past weekend was so wonderfully long. I kept getting my days messed up, forgetting where we were in the long stretch. We made the house a bit Christmassy on Saturday and Sunday and then I spent as much time as I could hand-stitching a whole bunch of felt ornaments for Amelia's little tree that we usually put upstairs in the big bedroom. I used so many different patterns (all other peoples' patterns) and they all came out so cute and I had so much fun doing it it was ridiculous. I will take pictures of them and show you next time. We haven't gotten our trees yet.
Fabric for the rest of the kits is supposedly on the UPS truck right now, coming to our house by the end of the day. Stacey just left after having pulled all of the floss. I'll pick up the patterns on my way to get Mimi at school. We are sure we can get everything out by the end of the week, so thank you again for all of those (new) orders. Love and Joy is sold out, and we won't be doing more. We've held out fifteen kits, as we always do, for emergencies and lost packages and all that sort of thing and once we have confirmed that everyone who ordered has received their kit we will trickle them back out onto the web site but for all intents and purposes, the kits are all sold and I thank you so much for that. Thank you.
Do you remember the Alice dress? That was 2010. I know. Dear me. All of it. This girl. And that lovely creature peeking out from behind her mother's elbow up there is my beautiful niece, who just turned eighteen. whole. years. old. this month. I recently found that painting (it started here, went wrong here, recovered here, and ended up here) I did of her in 2009 and gave it to her just this weekend for her birthday. Oh, time.
