Down...getting things down (on paper), slowing down, working down the chain...the things I want to explore the most when I think of down. 

Recording an idea...thinking what if one of my old prayer flags was stitched to a new piece of fabric?  A few beads mixed in, some tiny bells, a few french knots.  What if I layer a scan of the prayer flag with a photo I took of the sky?  This might be my January flag, for inside, with a bit more work.  Sometimes the challenge is just to get something recorded, to get it written down somewhere before the idea is gone....moving on with the wind (which might get up to 50 MPH here tonight!). 

Or maybe just different?  Looking down... the skeleton of magnolia leaves.  The outer layer of the magnolia blossoms, so soft.

One of last year's prayer flags.  I printed images onto t-shirt transfer paper and then ironed the images on to cheese cloth. 

Mostly cooked, spun and knit today.  I've been working on stripes for my knit nine patch pillow.

A couple months ago I got frustrated with my yarn slipping around when I was binding off.  Here's my solution:

This will probably only make sense to knitters but...slide a crochet hook in just like a knitting needle for the knit or purl stitch and then turn and catch the loop with the hook when you pull through to bind off.  Easy!  The crochet hook should be about the same size as the knitting needle being used or the bound edge gets wonky. 

So I moved on to cleaning the refrigerator, the freezer and my cupboards.  Not quite as odd a place to plan a garden as a person might think. 

This is a mix of dried green beans, tomatoes, and peppers.  I meant to sort them out and never got around to it.  I've been tossing a handful into a variety of soups or other dishes as appropriate.  Today I decided to make a corn chowder with some corn I'd dried.  Tossed a handful of this in there too.  It was very good! 

Last weekend I cooked up some of the shell beans I'd grown and dried.  Made a very good soup. 

Also made some pasta (homemade with my eggs!) and tossed some frozen peas in the mix. 

The results of all this cooking and sorting:

Grow more peas for freezing,  shelling beans, green beans and cherry tomatoes for drying.  Plant an apricot tree (done!).  Grow less onions, more shallots (shallots are more expensive).  Just a few of the decisions made...

They know where they are going.  I heard them on the way to work this morning and looked up. 

I have a little voice whispering in my ear, don't stop now ... go further (more stitching?).

and further... (another row?)

(wool rolled with eucalyptus)

The moon going down beneath the horizon.  I like that I walked between the sun rising and the moon going down this morning.

It's been a quiet week in my world.  I did pull the roving out of my eucalyptus dye bath and liked it so much I tossed a bit more in.  It's more yellowish-green to me than this picture shows. 

My direction for the month of February was "east."  So many things I could have explored.  I pretty much stuck with my thought of east as the direction the sun rises from and new beginnings.  Appropriate I suppose since a gift (the carders) from my parents allowed for a new beginning that I know I'll be pursuing for a long time. 

I have, however, been thinking a lot about east as a place.  East as a cultural identity.  At the beginning of this month I attended a conference where one of the topics was culture.  It made me consider what kind of culture I want to live in, what kind of culture I create for the children I work with, and how I feel about how culture comes through in our life styles (food, clothing, music for example).  Nothing like a few big ideas to ponder.... 

A couple of years ago I started creating my version of prayer flags.  For most of them I created a digital image and then printed the image on silk.  I thought a lot about whether it was respectful to take something from a culture that I wouldn't be identified with and make my own version of it.  I've decided that really, it's impossible not to.  We live in a global world and I really don't think there is any going back.   I've decided that I want to make a set of prayer flags for this year.  One for each direction that I'm exploring. I'll catch up with January (in) and February (east) and then create one each month. 

The lenten moon, the last full moon of winter.  

Playing with layers a bit.  Moon and lenten rose. 

Looks like something from the murky depths.  Wool roving and eucalyptus.  The house smelled...strongly. 

Swatch of the day.  The gray in the white section is where the wool in one of my hand knit socks was felting.  I pulled it loose and tossed it on the carders with the white wool.   There are little bits of thread in this one too.  It's occurred to me that creating little strips like this could be a form of a journal.  Colors and fibers chosen to represent the day. 

Trying hard to not buy anymore primroses.  The pansies are coming....

Window was a recent gift from one of my brothers.  He brought it back from California.  Might be safe to say that I now have a window collection. 
 

A nine square.  Carded, spun, knit and crocheted. 

A little closer look.  The square is made of three knit strips.  The blue to white transitions in each strip were made while carding the wool and by spinning the colors together.  I like that they are essentially seamless. Different, but the same piece... 

The three strips were crocheted  together to make the block.  Three separate pieces joined.   This could be done (and has been I'm sure) by knitting or crocheting nine separate blocks and then connecting them. 

I will probably make more squares and make a pillow.