This is a test. Only a test. Do not be alarmed. I am trying to post to the correct blog and not my yarn blog. I will let you know how it goes. Sometimes when I am working on line, I feel like a total neanderthal and can not go the way I want to travel. If only computers had been in use when I was a kid so very long ago! Much love, Lois

So this has been summer. There has been sun, lots of sun and heat, way more than I like. Time has flown by and I moved from one day to the next, from one project to the next; never forgetting to do over and over, the jewelry that customers love. I spent time thinking, drawing, making, knitting. I had awesome visits with old friends and quick rendezvous with new friends. Plants grew, a tree came down and a new one planted in its place. Always a dreamer, this little tree, like me, will grow into s strong, straight one giving so much to those who come to love it.

Crazy night! Trying to post and make sense of my blogs has not only pushed me to the very edge of irritation but now I realize I meant to go to bed at least an hour ago! Argh! How is a girl supposed to find her creative muse when she is over tired?

Anyhow, until i find my footing again, here is a sweet recent picture of the Marvelous Maia and Astonishing Abagail. My favorite girls. Sweet dreams.

I have been drawing a lot lately and my imagery has gotten looser and brighter. I am thinking I like things this way. These drawings slash paintings have recently been framed and I will post pictures of them soon.

This blog post is an experiment to see if I can get pictures to post from my IPad. If it works....wowza! I can stop making my webmaster crazy, stop being irritated with my husband and stop wanting to throw all technology out the damn window including iPads, phones and computers! Ha!

I'll be here this coming weekend with new jewelry designs and new little paintings and drawings. Please come by, see what I have been up to and say hello. You know this building is literally ON the beach downtown. Get a hotdog and Dogs-A-Foot across the street, have a little picnic in Pope Marine Park next door or on the Wave Viewing Gallery and look at fabulous art and fine craft works when you are all done lunch! Pop on over to Elevated Ice Cream next for a cone and wrap up your afternoon at the wonderful shops downtown and then onto a terrific dinner. See you soon. ( You're welcome, by the way, I love planning someone else's day! )

As with all things, time does some changing to them. We are in the process now of changing up our website and moving this blog so you may link directly from the web site. Change is in the air! Maybe it is the summer that is stirring these feelings of needing change. The longer days, shorter nights that inspire me to keep busy with everything which in my case means CHANGE!

 Little to big, big to little, watch this blog and the website for changes. Have a couple of ideas? Let me know. Want to visit the shop? Come on over. Want to search our warehouse on a nice summer afternoon? Give us a shout out on the phone or via email.  

Come for the day and if I am off, we can craft together and share a meal. 

So happy summer. Happy beading! 

Here I sit in front of an illuminated computer screen thinking back to May 20th, 1992 when I first opened my shop to the public. I have yet to do a grand opening. I began a new life that day. One where I answered my heart's call, stopped doing street fairs and came in from the cold and began a working studio/ gallery/ shop. What a momentous and scary decision to have made but one that I have never looked back upon with regret.

I have truly enjoyed nearly every moment in my shop. The first space was in a crumbling ( still crumbling ) downtown building with great merchandise up front in a gift shop that had been established for some time - Great Expectations. I occupied the back left hand corner.There was a window,  a curtain across the doorway, my old dining room table, a chair and whatever display pieces I conjured up, my husband built or Gary ( the shop owner from the front of this big space ) gave me. I was so enchanted to be installed as a legitimate business woman.

My wise customers led me into the direction they wanted my shop to go. They suggested what to sell, how they liked to be sold to, what kind of relationships we would form. They were and are the wisdom behind everything. Those first years in my small 12 x 12 space were heady. Inspiring. Busy. Creative.

I learned so much from Gary & Jack, the owners of the business at the front of the building. They took a chance on renting me the back room. I think they were a little shocked when they figured out what I was selling. I explained to them I would be selling " stuff that I made. " I had such fun working with them and Jerry, their employee. We became fast friends. My mentors were fun. Interesting and that Gary? A great teller of jokes and prankster.

I had a window that let in afternoon sun and seeing the tiny, glittery motes float in the sunbeams, made me feel that magic lived in that space and lived in me. Faith in the world  became my companion.

Michael, just ten years old then, would come to me after school and color on the white paper bags I would give out to customers. He grew up and I learned to let go, a teeny bit then and let him walk to the shop from school and even to go to the office supply downtown where he would carefully try out and buy his pencils and colored pens.

I met my husband Phil there and fell in love. I planned my life there and my wedding and my romance within those four brick walls. To this very day, twenty five years later, I sigh and smile back at the memories and still can not believe I made that leap of faith in myself and my work.

Here's to another twenty five years. May I be blessed and lucky to still be in love with my work, my family and my customers. It has been a hell of a sweet ride!

Stormy spring afternoon when friends visited and we had an awesome outing! Lunch, shopping, coffee, conversation. This girl needs more of that!

Exhausted these days. Pulled in a thousand different directions as I search for my footing on this spinning globe we call life. Remember, those of us at a certain age, the old Calgon take me away commercials? I get it now. I could use a little take me away time. Freedom from the demands that a business or three make, freedom from household duties, civic responsibilities, all of it. I am not whining. I am not bemoaning my life or what I have made of it. I love what I do. I just feel like I need a quiet afternoon at the movies, or a cup of tea in a quiet far away place with sun and digging birds and couples walking arm in arm. I will find it on the interior side of my soul and there seek refuge in my artwork. A safety net exists there that makes me dream and live in my own little world.

Just look at this sweet child! Almost twenty one now and I miss the little boy he was.

Maia and me. One so young and beautiful and one getting so old and gray.
Generations of women. I see it now in my own life with my own granddaughter.

David's yard with the little doe hidden under the side yard tree.

A GIFT FROM MY PERSONAL Easter Bunny.

So this being a semi sunny Easter Sunday, I decided to visit one of my oldest friends here in PT, David North. We have been friends for decades, way before we ever thought about being the old people we are now. We were wild young adults, full of artistic inspiration and dreams and energy. We had our own language, our own ways, our own fun. Even today, we still had the tiniest touch of wildness about us, laying about like an ember waiting to erupt. Oh, he would be laughing if he were to read this! Anyhow, he declared himself Doctor Dave and said my knee would heal, to use it and then he gifted us with six colored hardboiled Easter eggs; asking me which colors I wanted. Pink, I said. We brought him a ham hock for his split pea soup. How we have become funny and sedate these last few years! Still there is love there. Humor. Friendship. How does the North wind blow? Only we know, David. Only we know.

I had a couple of days away! I spent them with three friends just an hour from home and we played, created, sang, ate in restaurants, shopped and did a wee bit of cooking and even had a little party! How wonderful is that? Time away from the shops, home and responsibilities that keep me from making things. Amazingly refreshing. As soon as my phone comes back to me from its wandering; I will even post pictures. Until then I will sign off as a happy woman wishing next year to make this time with friends l sat even longer!

Sometimes I wonder when I disappeared. Gone from advertisements, gone from beauty, gone from children. Am I irrelevant, an archaic version of my long ago youth? Do the dreams I have now matter as much as the dreams that followed me through my school years? As I approach my sunetting years, I want to feel the explosion of creativity in me. I want to still have the  inability to contain the excitement a new painting or technique brings. I want to vanish forever the doubt, low self worth, that my journey began with as I wandered into my adult years. Moonlight becomes me. Dreams bare me. Experience is me. Do not turn away but look into the direction I am heading now. No longer a wanderer.

I am working more in my shop these days like six days a week more so when I have time to be in the studio, I find I am working in short blasts of creative energies. Painting, now jewelry, now embroidery, now sawing, gluing, fusing... Then onto the office for ordering, calling, making more order from paperwork chaos and the less time I have? The more intense the creative bursts. Maybe the longer light in my days is contributing to this. Maybe a day without gloom. Maybe the teeny bit of caffeine that has crept into my drinks. I am not sure but I am thanking the heavens!

Still making awesome and creative charm bracelets and although they are not always in my shop; I am entertaining  the idea of adding them into my long neglected easy store.

When I think of all the ways, primarily on line, that I can access my customers, I am exhausted, frustrated and uneducated. I am a child of the 1970's and computers were not even in the forecast for this old lady dinosaur. I need a crash course in getting everything, everywhere on line.

There is so much merchandise in my shop that I could show you! I carry japanese indigo fabrics, cotton slug fabrics, original Bali cotton batiks, yarns, fibers, buttons, trims, ribbon, beads, beads, beads and all kinds of charms from my own designs to manufactured designs. All charms made in the USA. I could tell you stories, show you technique, teach you stitches and so much more but where will the time be found and what will you want to learn and see.

Tonight, my mind races in a thousand directions and they are not all points of light. Everything seems tall, unclimbable. The journey of this creative soul has become so much more than opening the doors of my shops and doing business. My paintings so much more than mere wall ornaments.

Sigh… I am running out of steam so I think I must go read this week's People magazine and call it quits for this day.

Good night all.

Things are turning to spring now especially after this nergetic sunny day. I pulled a few, very few weeds, took pictures, opened the blinds to the office and worked out there and even had a bit of time in the studio. Being in a bit of a funk, I comforted myself with some Cheetos. Ick. Now, the day is nearly done and already I am planning my shop day tomorrow. Display windows need chanfging, repair work needs to be done, trunk show merchandise needs to be priced. Here are a few photos of today's mostly mundane non adventures.... oops. Can not add pictures from my FB page do I will try again later!

We have had a bit of snow and although I did not get a snow day out of it, when I could close the shop and stay all day at home, I enjoyed it anyhow. I love the soft quiet that snow on the ground makes. The freshness in the air, the sting of cold on my cheek, the softness of the ground with all the layers of white. People who wish for snow and don't get it and feel sad - you could lump me in that group!

I have been spending as much time as possible working on a new collection of paintings done with saturated colors on watercolor papers. I am trying to reconnect to some of the organic, doodle like shapes and marks I make when emptying my mind of drawing and doing something else.  I do not know if I will be successful but I am enjoying the journey. 

All the while I am continuing to make jewelry and gather inventory for the Sew Expo in Puyallup at the fairgrounds March 2 - 5. I think this show, at which we work so hard and is equally hard on our bodies shall be our last. I will miss it but it is time to move ---- onto the internet! Plus more time in my shop which is actually one of my favorite places to be. 

Finally, a sad goodbye to my friend Ellen who unexpectedly and suddenly passed away. I did not get to say so long but not a day has gone by that I have not thought of her. I will be missing her a long, long time. 

Live in love and light. Hug the ones you love tightly. Life is so sweet, so short, so wonderful. 

I am a woman who has always loved winter. The cold, gray days, a possibility of snow, hot cups of perk all conspire to make me feel cozy, creative and inspired in the warm nests of my shops, home and studio. However, I am a bit over the season. Yet another cold, Lucas can not play outside due to his four paws and a lot of mud and I am tired of wearing socks. Northwest geek that I am, I have socks on with sandals. I would insert a picture here but I can not figure out how to do it. Blogger only wants to add old photos already used on this blog. Sigh. See what I mean about winter? Every single day has been filled with minor, irritating little blips. Anyhow, as soon as my laptop is returned to me from the shop debugging it; I will be able to continue on with this post and add photos. Until then onwards.

Today was my fifth day in Tucson and finally, the sun has agreed to share some warmth with the temperatures rising to the 70's. After a morning spent gem shopping, hugging friends and an adventurous  lunch, we made our way to an old friend's home in a part of Tucson that most people do not visit. Once upon a time, this area was considered outside the city limits, rural even but you would not know it today. I love it. It feels old, mid century modern. Lots of gnarly trees, low brick houses, adobe fences. There was the beautiful cooing of doves as we sat on the patio and the sun making dappling shadows across our arms and foreheads. Restful and peaceful, conversations light and easy and the day became evening and evening drifted into dinnertime, more conversation, a look at the moon and Venus and little bowls filled twice with chocolate ice cream.

Back at it again today, trying to get a few things done and listening to the strong winds and driving rain outside the dining room window. Tomorrow, I plan on returning to work. I have missed my shop while I was home with this plague of a cold and I am thinking it has also missed me.

So anyhow, when I should have been making jewelry or getting together grab bags of sale items for the shop; I decided to drag out a tabletop full of paints, markers and colored pencils and unleash my inner need to draw and hop to it. I started two bigger drawings and did this small one for the top of my FB page. A new cover! I love my bird cover but someone asked me to do a love cover and here it is.

Now, to brave the outside storm in order to conquer the inner storm and get something creative done in the studio. Neither rain nor winds shall keep me from my appointed studio duties. Snicker...

Today, I am sick. I have that awful cold that is going around PT. Today is day four. Today I am sick of being sick, sick of chicken noodle soup, sick of television, just sick. I want it to end. I need to play and get back to the shop and make pretty things and chat with customers and eat french fries at Tom's place across the street and then come home and create new things in the studio and try out my new alcohol pens and paint ravens jet black and cast some concrete into jewelry components and take pictures around the neighborhood and draw up a love and heart image for FB because Geoff wants me to and here I sit sick.

Tomorrow is another day and we shall see if the rabbit hole of cough and cold goes away, once again planted in spring like flowers and a rainbow of color.