the peaceful peacock

So awhile back, I showed you all some pretty sweet beer coozies that I made out of recy­cled wool sweaters.  DISCLAIMER:  MY MAN WANTS YOU TO KNOW THAT IT WAS HIS IDEA.  I had decided not to sell them online for a smat­ter­ing of rea­sons, most of all because they never really felt fin­ished.  I’m pretty big on qual­ity and some­thing about them just didn’t sit right.

Well, now it does.

Though the wool is felted and will not fray, there was some­thing about hav­ing a raw edge there at the top that was both­er­ing me.   I’ve finally found a way to resolve that lit­tle dilemma with a bit of fancy, stretchy trim.

It pro­vides a fin­ished, clean edge with­out com­pro­mis­ing the func­tion of the coozie.  In fact, it makes it even bet­ter because it pre­vents the top edge from stretch­ing out over time.

Lookin’ pretty sharp for a beer, eh?

And yes, you can buy them.  I give in.  Com­ing soon!

Sum­mer around here is short and sweet.  And intense.  A lot gets done with lit­tle time for the hum­ble indoors and for moments of reflection–as I move into my third year in the blog­ging world, I know bet­ter than to try and fit it all in.  So here’s a recap of the last few weeks ~

This year I think the dan­de­lions have won.  Sorry neighbors.

A pleas­ant moment in front of the screen…a much dif­fer­ent scene than mama all hunched up try­ing to inte­grate web design into the old brain cells.  Ouch.

Some­thing shiny for Mother’s Day…the fruits of which will be unveiled soon.

My new favorite spot.

Watch­ing things grow.  Cas­cade hops in this case–we’re hop­ing to finally har­vest enough for a batch of home­grown home­brew this year.

Learn­ing about nat­ural plant dye­ing from our local guru, Tina Gilchrist, at Total Immer­sion Fiber Day.  There will be much more about this in the months to come.  You know it.

Felt­ing, wash­ing, cut­ting, sewing.  Any­one wanna know some tricks on felt­ing wool sweaters?  I have a lit­tle expe­ri­ence in that department…

And wait­ing for sup­plies.  Patiently.  Hon­estly, I’m try­ing to be patient but this is almost like Christmas.

More soon!

Cov­er­ing but­tons, one by one…

These will be in coor­di­nat­ing sets at the Sat­ur­day mar­ket, which begins June 17.

So instead of tak­ing more pic­tures of the new tea blends, I got myself into a tizzy and cre­ated four more.  I’ll just show you some gra­tu­itous Mon­tana shots instead while I tell you about the new teas.

This beau­ti­ful place we call home is a major com­po­nent of the inspi­ra­tion, after all.

I’ll go into fur­ther expla­na­tion as the details get a lit­tle more solid, but for today I thought I would let you know the names of the new crew:

• Move Me Brightly
• The Peacock’s Fancy
• Glo­ry­bound
• Sacred Earth
• Green Go Lightly
• Prairie Shine
• Firedancer
• Beloved
• Black Moon
• Moun­tain Morning

Yep.  That’s ten teas that have erupted out of the flurry of flow­ers, herbs, spices, and top qual­ity teas over the last few days.  It was really fun but I think I’d bet­ter take a break for awhile.  I’m a lit­tle crazy from all the caffeine.

Whoops, for­got one.  Wood­land Maiden.  That one has hops.  And sticks.

So as soon as I get all the names rounded up, I’ll announce the win­ner of the Tea for Two set on Tum­blr (you can see it in the side­bar over there under “cur­rent state of mind” ~ it also auto­mat­i­cally posts to Face­book).  Thank you to every­one who entered!  I’m excited to see who gets to be the first to try Move Me Brightly–as for every­one else, it will be avail­able on Etsy pretty quick.

As cute as my lit­tle beans are, being a mama is tough work.  Each and every day is pep­pered with breath­tak­ingly adorable moments like this one, but there are indeed times when the work of moth­er­ing becomes an endurance test that could take down any Iron Man com­peti­tor.  Easily.

A friend once told me that “rais­ing chil­dren is like being pecked to death by chickens”.

Exer­cises in deep breath­ing are essen­tial, hid­ing in the bath­room at times with a stash of choco­late also helps.

In honor of myself and moth­ers every­where, I have com­posed a new tea blend this week that is sure to inspire strength, a sense of calm, and a tiny moment of bliss when you really, really need it.  This is a light blend, made with organ­i­cally grown white tea, laven­der, and rose.

It smells like heaven and almost invol­un­tar­ily prompts those deep breaths.  Kind of a mama time out.

The tea will be hit­ting the pages of my etsy shop very soon, but first it needs a name.  Some­thing ele­gant and rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the honor and beauty of moth­er­hood.  Some­thing that sounds relax­ing.  Some­thing this mother of a teether is too tired to come up with at the moment, so I think it’s time for a good old fash­ioned giveaway!

Leave a com­ment here or on Face­book if you have an idea, or leave a com­ment any­way if you’d like to try it and are too tired to think of a name.  Either way.  The win­ner will be cho­sen ran­domly and announced on Tues­day, May 11 some­time before I drag my weary self into bed.  Prize includes two reusable teabags made from organic unbleached cot­ton, two ounces of this beau­ti­ful hand­crafted tea, and a lit­tle satchel made from vin­tage fab­ric.  Oh, and a set of chop­sticks of course.

Thank you and good luck!

*** void where prohibited ***

So yes­ter­day I was mon­key­ing around with a new skein of yarn, try­ing var­i­ous back­grounds and tech­niques in order to cap­ture the spirit of the yarn in its best light.  Grey is  far out­side of the scope of my jewel tone com­fort zone so I’m find­ing it a bit dif­fi­cult.  A basic white back­ground washes it out, the rus­tic wooden table­tops that I love so much do it no justice…what col­ors go well with grey?

Another tech­nique I tried was tak­ing pho­tos of the yarn on top of a mir­ror.  Though it didn’t quite give me the results I was look­ing for, I was happy with what unfolded nonethe­less:

What I really like here is the spon­ta­neous color com­bi­na­tions and the extra detail that the mir­ror shows on the yarn.   I know it’s not “the money shot” for sell­ing the skein, but with a bit more edit­ing I will most likely choose it for my portfolio.