Celebrating Spring with Memories

Vintage vanity dresser

My mother's birthday announces the arrival of Spring, and it is fitting. At every age she has brought us all the feeling of being surrounded by fresh air and renewed hope. March blossoms and fat robins always arrive for her special day, and she gets giddy like a schoolgirl with every gift or card she receives.

One of my favorite childhood memories is watching her sitting at a vanity dresser putting on makeup and then dabbing her face with a puff from the powder jar. Next she always accessorized with a piece of jewelry or two from her collection. If she wasn't in too much of a hurry she would let me look at all her treasures and fondle my favorites. Finally she tapped a little cologne behind each of her ears and on each wrist. My little wrist got a dab as well. She was a magical creature to me and as lovely as Angelina Jolie in my eyes. I wanted to be just like her.

Occasionally, Mom would give me an old purse, some empty makeup jars, and discarded jewelry to play with. It was the best time, and it started me down a path of no return. She's the reason I make accessories. She's my muse.

Today's Workspace

It's all about the bead bangles today. Those lengths of green and teal bead ropes will soon be bangle bracelets.

And just so I stay focused on this gorgeous sunny morning that I wonderfully have away from the office, the workspace is portable. It's all set up in a sturdy lid. It can follow me anywhere. Especially out to the deck.




It should have a strap! Then I could walk around the house with it like one of those girls selling cigarettes and candy back in the day.

Dance Fashion Limerick

In honor of St. Paddy's Day, by author unknown:

There was a young lady one fall
who wore a newspaper dress to a ball.
The dress caught on fire
and burned her entire
front page, sports section, and all.

Beads in Waiting

Sore butt and sore back--that's what a whole day of sitting and stringing beads will get you; however, you'll also have plenty of bead bangles ready to crochet.


These spools of bead cord have eight bangle bracelets ready to be crocheted in shades of teal, turquoise and green for Spring.

Dessert Bloom Yarn

Worsted Weight, 139 yds, 3 1/8 oz (90 g), 12 wpi

This yarn, in shades of raspberry, sage, and scotch, was spun from beautifully prepared Corriedale-cross roving from CJ Copec Creations. It was spun during the Winter Olympics.

Next during the Olympics, I spun two skeins of bulky weight, to be sure I still could. For those of you who do not spin, the typical tendency is for spinners to progressively spin finer and finer yarn while becoming unable to go back to spinning bulkier weights. My interest and goal is to spin between Dk weight and super bulky yarns at will.

Enticing Purple Flowers

Like I said in my last post, the unusually early Spring here in Oregon has gotten me dreaming of flowers. Here's lovely group of them in purple.

Chicory Flower by Aussiegall

Passion fruit flower by Nganguyen

Unknown flower by Ola Wiberg (Is it a Dahlia?)

Lotus - Beautiful Flower by Shamih ( iZZo )

Early Spring Flower, Columbine by photogirl7

Purple flower & bee by dicktay2000 (Lavender)

Label Cloud

It's taken a while, but I've finally got most of my posts tagged with some labels so you can find older posts that may be of interest to you.

There's a cloud of them over on the sidebar. Click away!

New Flowers for My Ladies' Bonnets

It feels like spring. Or it did until yesterday when there was a little snow on the ground in some hills around here and the temperature dipped below the unseasonably balmy path it has been on since January.

It's been in the 50's and 60's a lot this year so far. One of the warmest winters on record. Spring fever's been miserable as I look out the window from my work cubicle to a sunny scene with trees and shrubs blooming two to three weeks early. I've taken to closing the blinds so as not to see how pretty it is during my overtime hours.

On Saturday a fat round robin, looking almost big enough to wrestle with my cat, sat in the driveway and barely could lift himself out of the way so I could drive into the garage. I haven't been getting to the gym enough this past year and felt great empathy for him.

All this fair weather brings cravings for bright colorful flowers. So it was with delight that I watched a new acquaintance, Miss Gwendolyn, craft some nylon blossoms like ones my mom had in little head vases many years ago.

Above you see Myra. She's similar to the vases that Mom used to have. Myra wears a dressy little ribbon and straw flowers that have been in her chapeau for too many years. Below is Maisy, who hasn't had flowers or a bee in her bonnet in ages. They both needed something cheery to freshly adorn their hats.




Watching Gwendolyn fashion pretty little flowers from nylon and wire, I knew that her blossoms were perfect for my girls.



This is the bouquet that she fashioned for me. So pretty.




Doesn't Myra look sweet and charming in her new Spring colors?




Maisy looks the epitome of demure womanhood.

Doesn't it just make you want to go out and buy a flowery hat? Mom used to get a new one for us girls every Easter to wear to church, and she always got a pretty one for herself as well. (Mom is responsible for getting me hooked on accessories.)



Here are my darlings decorating my sewing table and looking so much more feminine than the pencil heads on my desk.

Check out Miss Gwendolyn's new Etsy shop. Her prices are more than fair and she's a sweet young lass. In addition to flowers, she has cards and lovely crocheted accessories. When you stop by, tell her I said hello.

Slinking back to the blog . . .

with my tail between my legs .

Yes, I had good intentions of blogging each and every day of the Olympics and showing you how much I was getting done. It worked for the first week; then I crashed and burned.

In a normal week I work 64-72 hours between my day job, my small business, this blog, and chores around the house. It's manageable because I don't have much of a life beyond all that plus getting out to three guild meetings and four dances per month, teaching an occasional class, and trying to whip myself over to the gym to justify that monthly membership fee.

Well, the overtime at work right now and the extra TV watching did me in. Major case of burn out.

So I apologize for being gone without so much a word for two weeks and hope for your understanding. Tomorrow morning I begin anew with photos of some little treasures.