Craft Monkey

T, U, V

T is for teal & turquoise. They, along with aqua and the other shades of blueygreen, are some of my favorite colors.

U is for Ulinawi. It's the old Cherokee word for turtle, and the name we chose for our homestead. when we walked the land for the first time, we found turtle skeletons. On later walks, we found baby turtles in the rain. there's a big beaver pond on the property that provides habitat for turtles and water fowl.

V is for violet, another of my favorite colors. I had bright violet hair from 2004 until earlier this year, and it was awesome.

S is for...

...swapping! I'm super excited to be doing a swap w/ Heather, and have been looking for a way to have more swaps in my life. It's so much fun to be getting presents in the mail! I also love the possibilityof trading things in my stash thathave gone stale for me to someone who will love them, and get new to me things in return. I've had a couple of really terrible experiences with swapbot recently, but i don't really know of other options. Does anyone have recommendations? Anyone out there want to do a swap with me? I've been waiting anxiously for the next installment of BackTack...

R is for...

... roadtrips. They're awesome, and i'm going on one tomorrow with my old roommate. We're going from Jackson up to Fulton (~4hrs), then over to Starkville (~2hrs), then back down to Jackson again (~2hrs). In Fulton we're going to an old newspaper office to take a gazillion pictures of the archives (approximately 1200 issues, eep!), and then we're going to tour a persimmon orchard in Starkville. It's going to be a looooooong day, but i think i'm more excited about getting to spend several hours hanging out w/ Sarah than about any of the actual goals!

Letters O through Q

O is for orange, particularly orange cake w/ dark chocolate frosting. I think the combnation of orange and dark chocolate may be my favorite flavor combo ever.

P is for persimmons. We have a ton of native persimmon trees on our property. Did you know they're a pioneer species? We'd like to graft some Asian varieties onto the saplings we have.

P is also for patchwork. love it, love it, love it. only recently did i realize that it was the patchwork aspect of quilting that i love so much, not the quilting. which brings us to...

Q is for quilts. I love them. I have yet to make one, although I still have the pile of fabric from Tokyo, and a pattern, waiting to be turned into one for Logan. I'm still pretty intimidated.

N is for...

ندى

...Nada. It's my first name, and is Arabic for dew, with connotations of generosity.

M is for...

...Mississippi. It's where I grew up, and I've spent more of my life there than anywhere else. I always have had a love/hate relaionship with the area; my biggest goal as a teenager was to move out of the state, but i think that's pretty typical for a lot of folks who don't grow up in major cities and daydream about it. I love it more now that I don't live there. That's not my photo, it's a stock photo found via Google. The sunsets in Mississippi are still the most amazing I've ever seen. There's the vague thory that it's the combination of the extreme humidity and the lack of hills in most of the state that makes them soooooo pretty. I'm heading down to Jackson on Monday to visit my mama, see friends, and take care of some researchy type stuff in the northeast part of the state.

L is for...

...Logan. love that face.

K is for...

...knitting. It's the only crafting I've been working on for the last month or so. There's always something on the needles, and a project in the car. It's challenging, then calming once the new thing becomes familiar, until you get to the next new thing, then it's challenging all over again.

J is for...

...jewelry. I make a lot of it, but I tend to only wear the same staple pieces over and over again that I almost never take off or swap out: my nose ring, wedding ring, grandmother's wedding ring, carnelian spirals in my ears, and turtle pendant. The actual necklace featuring the pendant changes every few months. I started selling jewelry whe I realized that I really liked making it and playing w/ colors, but had more than I could wear.

I is for...

...Islam. Every single person in my side of the family is a Muslim, except for me. This can frequently complicate interactions w/ my family, but it's working out better the older I get. I can and do simultaneously disagree w/ many aspects of the religion, while vehemently defending their right to have and practice those beliefs.

I is also for Isaac, the doll I made Logan for his 2nd birthday. He's been missing for 2 months now, and I haven't been able to bring myself to make another one. I still have the pattern and leftover materials, but I keep hoping that he'll turn up.