Blog entry

Happy St Patricks Day! - Wonderful Handmade Wednesday on Indiemade

Due to my mother's side of the family, quite a lot of Scots-Irish blood flows through my veins, being a MacLellan and an O'Birney.  I grew up listening to old Irish ballads by John McCormack and others and also to Scottish bagpipe music.  I thrilled to the legends of Brian Boru, the Fenian Cycle and others - and also to the lifes of Irish saints (although those weren't quite as exciting).  When St. Patrick's Day rolls around, I find myself going though my CDs of Irish folk songs, popping one into my computer and singing along (probably much to the chagrin of Seamus - am surprised he doesn't howl along!).  In honor of the upcoming St. Patrick's Day, I also wanted to share handmade items from talented artist friends that use green as all or part if the design. 

Autumn Inspired Handmade Beauties

The cooler temperatures of autumn have arrived here in our area of the Desert Southwest.  It still gets into the high 80’s or low 90’s during the day but drops down into the high 60’s at night.  The monsoon season has pretty much ended, the horrid humidity mostly gone, and our drier air has been welcomed back by everyone.  It is so nice to turn off the air conditioner (at least until early afternoon) and open windows and doors to allow fresh desert air to blow through.  While I don’t see any trees changing colors yet, the desert is extremely green after the above average rainfall we received the last two months.  Maximillian sunflowers can be found all over, as well as masses of small yellow, purple and terracotta colored wildflowers that I don't know the name of but enjoy immensely nonetheless. My favorite time of the year!

Circles of Our Lives - Wonderful Handmade Wednesday on Indiemade

Sometimes the most mundane of things in life suddenly captures my imagination.  The other day, when I was outside with Seamus, the very handsome Shadow Dog, I started thinking about circles (yes, my brain does shoot off on a tangent sometimes!).  You see circles everywhere: most door knobs, most coins, the sun and moon, the pupil of most animal's eyes and the wheel, just to name a few.  Most people don't give them a second thought unless you're a mathematician, an architect or an artist.  As a gardener and an avid observer of nature, I daily feel the circle of life all around me on a more cosmological scale: day/night, phases of the moon, seasons, life/death.  And then I remembered a Wendell Berry poem, called "Circles of Our Lives", which I will share at the end of this post. This led me to do some reading about circles (inquiring minds want to know!) and copious note taking.

Breathtaking Blues and Greens - Wonderful Handmade Wednesday on Indiemade

Maybe it’s because I spent a good part of the week before last in a much greener part of the state, but blues and greens have been much on my mind lately.  In the Desert Southwest, the color blue is extremely well represented with our huge, ever changing blue skies.  But since the monsoon rains have been virtually nonexistent so far, the desert is still a toasty brown.  I long for the rains and the land to green up like it normally does this time of the year and be a perfect complement to the blue skies.