Cold

 

Hi everyone!

I've been unable to post here on my blog since before Thanksgiving! Phone, computer, photo upload, Cloud sync issues. I think it is fixed now, but it even took my friend two days to make it all work again. I did fix my printer myself, as quite proud...but the Cloud etc! I read and read to fix-it posts, but nope. Just words, no comprehension. So now, hopefully back to usual format, tho pics may be meagre.

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Earlier this week was the Cold Night Full Moon, a supermoon. It glowed huge and white in the bright inky blue sky, accompanied by Jupiter and brilliant stars Sirius and Aldebaran. The light was so bright there were clear moon-shadows on the deck and I could clearly see the dune grasses, the waves, the details of the ships 10 miles away. Even the outline of the New Jersey coast to the  southwest, and the shapes of the lighted buoys that mark the shallows here.

The Cold Night lived up to its name though. Gale winds rose in the night and temps ''plummeted'', weather guy's fave word, to 19* with a 12* windchill. 

I woke up 2 AM to a very cold bedroom and no power. Taken aback because the windows looked almost like daylight, but my wonky phone said 2.07. A confused, sleepy Mo was asking to go out. The moonlit beach and super-visible night sky were stunning with all human light pollution gone. This is what ancient people must have once seen. The starry sky---moon, Jupiter, Orion, Gemini, Pleiades and their stars, the Milky Way. I wore my fleece over my nightgown and Crocs, stood out on the deck and marveled. Yes, cold and scary but also a joy. Unforgettable. A different world, filled with sparkling blue air and moonshine.

 A moment out of time, timeless......

If it was summer I'd have dressed and gone out to the beach. 

I've been working on my  2025 Christmas little quilt. It is rather last  minute, not what I planned. 

Based on the TQC October 22 quilt that was so fun to make,

plus a baggie of their Christmas "$6.oo Shop Scraps" and some Two Thimbles Christmas pretties.

I saved this rough hemp faux  feedsack for years. Just barely fits.

Now I have set it aside to do my tree and prep cooky doughs. My brother sent pics of his beautiful house looking like a chic fairyland--the outside all illuminated in the snow, the interior filled with darling tiny trees and their big tree of course. Each tiny tree has a different kind of antique or vintage ornament collection.

All the Christmas quilts are out, anyway. Priorities! Ready for display or airing.

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Mo had a spa day to greet the holiday month. New groomer, so wonderful. Here he is doing his ET in the Bath impression.

And showing off his last year's sweaters.

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My little friend [age 5! Homework! Crazy.]  came by to do a homework assignment art project w my help. [I didn't butt in, it was meant to be a child/adult project.] I supplied a tray of buttons and trims and wielded the glue gun . Fun! I showed her Silent Night, the Star quilt, but she and her dad gave it a a brief glance and a fast NO! I was sad, but not surprised. I'll finish it anyway, just have to do the Snow Babies. [January proj] It looked pretty great on my bed for the show and tell/ no takers thot.

Off to try again to find my Tree decorations. This is fresh ilex, leafless holly. Trader Joe's. They also had peonies, if you want some. [ilex is poisonous to pets! I have it high and inaccessible. Mo wouldn't eat it but just in case. I had forgotten why I don't usually buy the holly I love so much.]

Happy December, Merry Christmas! Have a great week.

love

lizzy

gone to the beach.....

December sunsets....

Today Dec 7, is the earliest sunset of the year, 4.27, I think. All improves from then on. In a verrrry slow sort of way.

Happy Thanksgiving

 Happy Thanksgiving  

Gatherings. A nod to my country childhood, we'd gather berries, branches, buckeyes and acorns and gourds to decorate our Thanksgiving table. My dad's ancient Thanksgiving Christmas cactus would be in lavish bloom. My mom would use her treasured Swiss grandmother's tablecloth, hand dyed a lovely salmon-rose red. My job was to hand down the wine glasses and polish the silverware. Plates were simple mid century white. And okay, yes, the honeycomb paper turkeys made a guest appearance too. And it might snow! ///In the Cape Cod years, after the turkey was in the oven, we'd pile into my mom's old red Jeep and drive around to all the Pilgrim sites, First Encounter Beach, Corn Hill and so on. Wendy's lunch and Nauset Light. Our own little pilgrimage, imagining those who came before. Back in the day, what a joy to recall.

love,

lizzy and Baby Mo from the beach......

The Subtle Beauty of November

 

Happy Sunday! November is drawing near its final week. My favorite month, tied with July-August, I suppose.

Autumn, true autumn, has arrived and when the wind is gentle, I've been enjoying walks to the beach, though sad and guilty Mo can no longer come along.

Many sightings of sea ducks, a lovely sight.

They don't form Vs, but long scraggly skeins, that ravel/ unravel in the chill November sky.

 

Golden eyes, squas, surf scoters. Buffleheads. I love their names.

Speaking of skeins, I took my yarn in my pocket one warm day, thinking a change of scenery might clear my head and I'd enjoy an hour knitting on the dune benches.

Sadly marked off limits. Repair, remove? Mo and I used to sit there sometimes on very quiet Fall days.

After one big wind blow I gathered leaves to press and save for my slightly neglected nature journal.

The pickings were meagre but the colors enchant me. Inspire me.

Colors echoed by the soon to be stored Fall quilts stacked here awaiting their airing before sleeping another year. Don't you love the cheddar Stars w the prairie points! It was ''misfiled'' for years. I'll add pics before storing this week.

The pumpkin and the bowl have been added to, how fun to get out the prim cooky cutters. On Dec 1st I'll bring the pumpkin to the beach for the small critters to feast upon.

The sewing box is empty now, summer projects are complete. It needs a tidy up, then will be stored under my cutting table until summer comes again.[7 1/2 months til summer]

One morning I made a few sewing gifts, end of day pieces that use remnants and saved bits and buttons. I haven't made any strawberries recently. So fun!

Perhaps I'm ready to work on them again. I kind of froze up bec I ordered real emery powder to use instead of my beach sand. But then was wary of using the emery, the fine grit seems iffy--I can just see me inhaling it somehow. ( yes, laughable, but thus speaks anxiety personified.]. I dithered all summer on how to safely use it but for these little tuck in gifts I went back to safe white sand. 

Yes, my strawberries are deliberately primitive and make do, mostly. For these I use old fabric bits, buttons, yarn or string. 

Looking for buttons was again a pleasing task. This time I found a bizarre nickel, very modernist, from 2009. And I found a new-ish penny on my leaf walk. Whatever will become of pennies now they're discontinued?  I wonder.

Have a good week!

Happy Thanksgiving. [below, look, autumn tulip. I'm thrilled.]

love

lizzy

gone to the beach...