Busy Hands Homestead

"I am sorry, I can't help", she says sliding my tax forms across the table. I don't remember if she wore glasses, but if she, did she would have been looking at me above the rims. "What is it that you do again?" I wince and opt to believe that the condescending tone was only in my imagination. Sylvan is sitting on my lap. "I am a mom", I say embarrassed.  Was I blushing?  I scrape a bit of dried clay off of my fleece, " I do lots of things." I am between day one and two of three days in the kindergarten classrooms at my daughter's elementary school.  I had spent the last two nights in the studio rolling out clay slabs until the wee hours of the morning. What do I do? I am a non-entity on a tax return.  I don't exist.  I am invisible. I do things. The thoughts run through my head. I am productive. I consider myself a valued member of my community.  Really. I smile. "Well.  Thanks for taking time out of your day t...

An Empty Gym.  Gallon jugs of tempera paint. Rolls of colored paper.   Scissors. Glue.  A closet of voting booths lined with canvas. Satin Banners.  A few busy kiddo's after school and busy mama's that stayed on for late nights and  Ready. Set. Go.  The backdrop for the Lowell Elementary Christmas show:   All the windows line up for one continuous scene.  Notice the snow flakes?   Snow flake crystals are formed on multiples of three... thee pointed stars, six pointed, nine, twelve etc...  I think it has something to do with the angle of the water molecules.  So,  I folded them on 30 or 60 degree angle resulting in stars that have either 6 or 12 points.  A super late school night for Ivory and Sylvan who patiently looked at Christmas books while Adam picked up our new stacked washer...  My coordinating skills are lacking sometimes - but then I thought that this back drop ...

I turned the pages of every knitting book I own. I looked through half a dozen knitting books from the library. I scrolled through pages of free patterns on the internet. I wasted time. Ivory had picked out purple grey yarn weeks before at the store.  I was planning to knit her socks. "Mama can you knit me legwarmers?"  She asked one evening. Of course.  Legwarmers made perfect sense. They would span the distance between the ends of all those size four leggings that fit her waist but come nowhere close to her ankles. No pattern for legwarmers. No more wasting time. I just started knitting: guessing here and there and finally coming up with a pattern that features a scallop on the top edge, super stretchy ribbing on the leg and a super stretch (new to me) bind off. I didn't get them done for Christmas, but I did get them done for the first day back to school. Materials: 1 Skein Premier Yarns, Serenity Sock Weight, 50% Superwash Merino  wool, 25...

November and December flew past. There were two craft fairs, an ambitious kindergarten wide art project and a Christmas show that needed a back drop. After these I scrambled to finish a few handmade gifts....  all of which were (or are) admittedly late. There was a lacy pair of knitted socks for my mom, a pair of legwarmers for Ivory I finished last night and sent her to school in this morning and a pair of socks for Adam that are at this moment only a few rows on a set of double pointed needles.  (More on all these projects coming soon.) Through it all I have been on a mission: to bake a  pretzel roll. Why? The Lowell PTA was having a bake sale and I wanted to contribute something savory. Sylvan and I practiced. Sylvan, his little friends, and I practiced. We tried all white flour and partially whole wheat pretzel rolls. (See the difference in the picture above?)  Rolls without butter and milk.  Rolls with butter and milk.  Rolls with p...