Retreat Into Knitting

About a million years ago I was living in NYC and my boyfriend’s mother came to visit from Canada. While she was with us we got one of those spectacular snowstorms that hushes the city into a serene white wonderland.  She spent the weekend on our futon couch listening to the radio and working on the knitting project she had brought with her…a wool fair isle sweater with a yoke woven from brilliant greens and blues. I watched in awe as her needles clicked. I had never seen anything more magical. We pulled on our snow boots and trudged around the corner where I purchased my first set of knitting needles and some buttery soft merino wool. I began knitting that day, and have never stopped.

My Resolve to Create

The week between Christmas and New Years is one of my favorite weeks of the year.  There is a lull in the holiday action that I take advantage of to relax, reorganize and reconnect. 

Not much exciting happens, really.  I buy a funky new journal and commit myself to daily writing...again.   I send my holiday cards (which are much more fun to do after the buzz of pre-Christmas activity).  I call friends I have not spoken to in awhile.  Catch some local sales to stock up on warm winter sweaters.  Clean the house.  Take a few long walks with the dog on the beach. 

A romp with Willy on the beach

Art Workshop: Maine Kissing Ball

I know the holiday season is busy. Decorating takes time, and then of course you have to undecorate after the New Year. So who in their right mind would actually make their own decorations rather than buy them?

I would.

It forces me to stop. I put on some music, pour a cup of coffee, and do something unheard of - I sit down. My hands get stained by berries and sticky with sap from pinecones. I am thinking about nothing, just singing and twisting and snipping and poking. And afterwards I have two priceless things; something beautiful that I made myself and a clear head.

Want to give it a try but don’t know where to start? 

Try making this amazingly simple, all-natural, gorgeous Maine Kissing Ball.

A Complementary Art Workshop...

We all can most likely recall the day our sixth grade art teacher, perhaps while wearing a striped pantsuit and dangly parrot earrings (did I just date myself?), tried to teach us the color wheel. Emphasis on tried. Primary, secondary, whateverary. Making a science of color is like dissecting a poem –once you take it apart, the magic seems to disappear.

Idyllworks artists know how to teach without losing the magic. 

Here is a glimpse of a typical Idyllworks art lesson. Free of charge…and pantsuits.

We could tell you that complementary colors are found directly across from one another on the color wheel…red and green, orange and blue, yellow and purple. And you will not remember it.  But what if we instead showed you complementary colors...

Rediscovering your Inner Artist

My son, who is four years old, is afraid of knobs. Knobs on doors, knobs on drawers, knobs on cabinets – in fact, all knobs. He thinks they look like eyes peering at him.

Here is what the dresser next to his bed looks like…

We all chuckle at the absurdity of hanging superhero underwear on knobs to cover them up. We think it is adorable and weird. “Those crazy kids and their fears,” we say.

But look at what my son is not afraid of...