the Magnificat

My soul doth magnify the Lord.

And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid;

for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.

Because he that is mighty,

hath done great things to me;

and holy is his name.

And his mercy is from generation unto generations,

to them that fear him.

He hath shewed might in his arm:

he hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.

He hath put down the mighty from their seat,

and hath exalted the humble.

He hath filled the hungry with good things;

and the rich he hath sent empty away.

He hath received Israel his servant,

being mindful of his mercy:

As he spoke to our fathers,

to Abraham and to his seed for ever.

                                                        Luke 1:46-55

the visitation of Mary to Elizabeth

(observed today)

flashing

trying to stay cool, I guess

I think she's learning some new habits from Henry.

remembering the fallen

Remember, Lord, the fallen
Who died in fields of war,
In flaming clouds, in screaming crowds,
On streets that are no more,
That we today might waken
And greet this day in peace
With grateful prayers for those who bear
The storms that never cease.

Remember friends and strangers,
And those forgotten now,
Whose names are known to you alone,
Before whose love we bow
And ask that you surround them
With mercy's endless light
That they might live, and we forgive
The foe they went to fight.

Remember, Lord, the living,
Who bear the pain of loss -
A death she died who stood beside
Her Son upon the cross.
Remember all your children,
The dead and those who weep,
And make us one beneath the sun
Where love will never sleep.

  a hymn found in Magnificat,   May 2012

"the mystery of Pentecost"

"Today, O Lord, through the mystery of Pentecost, You sanctify Your church in every place and nation. Pour out the gifts of the Spirit upon the whole world, and bring to completion in the hearts of Your faithful the work of love which You began with Your first proclamation of the kingdom"

a very hot May day

a day for hot kitties in the window,

and breezy summer curtains in the living room.

a lump in the bed

Dolly, whose eyes grow big at the sight of bedclothes or laundry - ah, what bliss to be able to disappear for a while!

all my thread in one basket

Found a better way to organize my sewing supplies by getting rid of an overlarge and surprisingly unnecessary sewing box, and making use of some little drawers under my sewing table.  I am surprised (and relieved) to find that all my thread fits in one drawer.

Much neater-looking.

sweetness on the air

My red grandiflora started blooming last week, and the rugosa is blooming now too. But it's that invasive wild rose that's perfuming the air.

It's in the forsythia hedge - it's everywhere.  My brother redid the clothesline which was messed up from the October storm, but I can't wheel anything very far along the line because there's a big prickly bush of it right there. And I'm not cutting it till the blooms are done.


On another note, I was ironing in the living room late this morning, my brother out mowing across the brook.
I heard the motor cut off. A minute or so later, his voice,  "Hurry - come 'ere!"  You know, that urgent but trying to be quiet sound. "There's a deer in our yard!"  I looked out and there she was, big as life and five times as beautiful. I ran to get my camera and ran back in time to see her go into our neighbor's yard and disappear back up to where she came. No picture. What a sight! They're around town, but not in our yard!  Ah, well.


My chive picture will have to do.

a stack of towels

Debra is happy with her present, so now I want to show what I made her, because this is a great and useful way to use up excess cotton fabric.

Anna came up with this a few months ago - double-sided kitchen cloths the size of a dish towel, more or less.  Instead of dish towels!

I made myself some small ones for the bathroom, and use them every day. But I've got plenty of dish towels, so had no reason to make any of those. Until Debra's birthday loomed, and I thought she might like some of these. And she did!

I stuck with a blueish theme.

Right sides together, stitched with a space open to turn inside out and then topstitched all around. 

One thing I did do extra was put a row or two of  "quilting" in the middle on each of these. I wondered if the two layers might shift while drying dishes and thought this would keep things together better.

You can see I had some fun with this.

Seven in all.

I've heard of some who make their own single layer towels, but I like this double thickness idea. If you get your cotton on sale, it could be much cheaper than the real thing, which is often expensive.

They're pretty, Deb's happy, and I've used some of my fabric.  Now I'm starting work on a quilt.

joining Leila  this week

bunch of blues

There were several shades of blue involved in a birthday gift I've been working on, and after shrinking the fabric today I ended up with such a pretty ball of threads -

 

(Now that I think of it, should I have thrown it into the compost bin? According to Katherine Whiteside in The Way We Garden Now, she says you can throw in anything biodegradable that doesn't have meat in it. In her list, wool is a possible ingredient. She says, "your entire old ragged gardening sweater will compost". Well, cotton is biodegradable! But what about the dyes? Still, wool gardening sweaters come in all colors. Hmm.)

Anyway, the finished product is all wrapped in a nice length of bias binding, waiting for my friend.

prayer

"We are not meant to consider prayer as a magic button to touch whenever we want anything. Nor are we to ever stop praying, as if we were lacking trust in God, just because we think He may not give exactly what we ask. We are to come with total faith and total trust, believing that He exists, and that He does 'reward them that diligently seek Him.' We must believe that something specific takes place in history as His answer, something as a result of our asking, because He says this is so. Faith is believing even when we don't recognize or 'see' the answer."

                                          Edith Schaeffer,   The Tapestry

sunshine again

after a few rainy days.

beautiful greens

organic from the farmers' market. They gave too much to my friend Debra, so she shared.

like pink snow

The cherry blossoms finally hit the ground

sweet kitty

pea soup, compost and a breakfast companion

Joining Leila today for {p,h,f,r} -

and I'm very happy because my kitchen scraps will no longer go to waste

we're composting!

Dolly is pretty funny - when anyone's eating, she also wants to be companionable, and have a bite of something, too.  What isn't funny, is that somebody threw up afterward, and I think it was her!

Although it's May, it's been really chilly, and so today is definitely a pea soup day.

Thanks to Leila.

high hopes

and...

of course.

"an inner structure that brings ...delight"

"Time. How crucially time is linked to the mysticism of everyday life. For only when time is understood as precious, but not scarce, do we begin to live. Only when time is broken into discrete segments, and not allowed to become a blur of memories and projections - what I didn't spend enough time doing, what I won't have enough time to accomplish - can we hope to open ourselves to the opportunity of seeing God in the world. How distorted we have allowed time to become, fearing continually that it is running out. But when time is framed it provides an inner structure that brings intensity, awareness, calmness, delight. These wise monks have learned that when time is so regarded, when they live in the now, they transcend the constraints that time normally imposes upon us.

In essence, they experience eternity. For what more is eternity than the everpresent now?"

                             
                                             - Paul Wilkes,  Beyond the Walls

un ironed

A wrinkled tablecloth is sometimes better than none!

Henry in the window

Crictor

Have you heard of Crictor?   The children's librarian where I work has long (and I mean LONG) been thinking it would make a great book for one of her story hours. But she needed a prop.

It's the story of an older lady whose nephew sends her a boa for a pet. She gets over her shock pretty quick, and brings him everywhere, doting on him (I guess the nephew knew just what she needed!). 

She feeds him from a bottle.  Later, he graduates to drinking from a straw at an outdoor cafe.

It's very cute, but I don't want to give the whole story away.

But, back to Trisha, who was hoping for a stuffed Crictor.   Years ago, and I mean years, I was knitting something at break time, and she mentioned she wouldn't mind a knitted snake.  Well, I never did anything about that.

And, over the years, once in a great while, she'd mention Crictor wistfully, and my guilty feelings increased.

Finally last year I told myself to get to it, and we went through the donated fabrics at the library.  She wanted him in many different colors and fabrics, and long - seven feet or so; I didn't want him too garish looking, so I stuck with a basic color scheme of reds, blues and greens. 

I did pretty well with him, until I got hung up with his head, and then I stopped. And the guilty feelings accumulated.  But during Lent, I told myself that the time had come to finish this project. 

I just completed Crictor on Monday - not really Lent anymore, but.....

He's fifteen feet long!  I have no embroidery experience, so I just did my best with the eyes - they're all right, I guess. Trisha is very happy - she finally has her Crictor.  It took me way too long to do this, but she is like the woman in the Bible, who forgets the pains of childbirth because of the joy at bringing a new life into the world.  So, all is forgotten, my conscience is clear, and she can plan her new story hour.  Whew!

joining with Elizabeth today for needle and thREAD.

happy birthday, Will

The quality of mercy is not strain'd

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath

It is twice bless'd;  it blesses him that gives and him that takes

'Tis mightiest in the mightiest

It becomes the throned monarch better than his crown:  his scepter shows the force of temporal power,
  the attribute to awe and majesty, wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings

But mercy is above this scepter'd sway - it is enthroned in the heart of kings, it is an attribute to God himself;

And earthly power doth then show likest God's
when mercy seasons justice.

                                                                 -    The Merchant of Venice

by William Shakespeare, believed to have been born on this date, in 1564

teflon kitty

I guess Dolly is the teflon kitty, because I didn't have to wash her off as I'd feared.  Or maybe the soil is so dry, it just isn't sticking.

cherry blossom

wild turkeys

Along the road last week with a friend, a turkey crossed the road in front of us!

a little blurry

His coloring made me think of a waistcoat - Suzan pointed out his "necktie". He continued on his way.

Then, we saw a whole bunch of them.

Since then, I've heard mention of wild turkeys at least three times. Must be turkey season.

bird watching on the sly

from the back of a living room chair, close enough to see but not be seen.

a summer day

We had a treat today. It was more like August - in the mid 80s.  And, just like he often does on the hottest days of summer, the mockingbird sang all day.

I'm here to say that I enjoyed every minute of it.

an apron from Margaret

Last month I joined Rhonda's apron swap - they paired me up with Margaret, who lives in Australia. She finished mine pretty quick and it's so pretty.

The strap goes through a stripe! (say that five times, very fast)

The same piece which ties at the waist goes up through these casings and up around the neck - I hadn't seen that before!

I'm still working on hers.