True North

Unbalanced

Was looking through some of my photos from last month, and realized I never posted these outfit pictures I had taken one day after a meeting of my mothers' group. Although this October has been beautiful and mild, still the idea of wearing shorts already feels crazy and far away... I remember feeling good on this day - a little rocker, a little glam, a lot comfy, just how I like it.

Moms' group is such a nurturing and accepting crowd, it's the perfect venue to debut your braver/stranger sartorial choices like, say, wearing just one long earring, 80's-style.

Actually, the earring I made myself. Came across some cheap old earrings I never wear anymore, hacked off the main dangly part from the hook and little pearl bead, leaving a tiny metal circle at the bottom, and then attached pieces of old chain to the circle - just threaded, clipped, or looped on the chain until I liked how it looked. And voila: new earring.

I'm wearing~ black silk tank: vintage inherited from my grandma, black jacket: Jones of NY acquired free at a clothing swap, shorts: Old Navy, black flats: Payless, silver cuff: thrifted back in college, other bracelets: gifted, thrifted, and DIY, earring: DIY, sunglasses: Topshop

Previous outfit post, where I talk about why on earth I'm doing outfit posts, here.

xoxo, A

Stepping It Up

In a very un-Alison move, I just registered for a five week painting e-course called Get Your Paint On: Beyond the Basics, taught by two artists with some significant online cred, Lisa Congdon and Mati McDonough. I've had an artist crush on Lisa Congdon for years - she's the first person I think of when I start running the occasional "I'm too old to start focusing on making art/ I should have gone to art school/ it's too late for me" loop in my head. She's amazingly inspiring. Mati is less familiar but I've certainly heard of her, and I love the idea of a team-taught course for the diversity of experience that will be reflected. The course isn't cheap; $139 for me is actually kind of astronomical, but when I first heard about it, I felt so pulled to do it that I called my dad and asked if he'd help me with the cost of registering. Again, not a normal thing for me to do. But I am trying to prioritize my art more, especially how much time I devote to making it, and putting up some money (even and especially when it's not my money to squander) will be, I reckon, just the thing to kick me into a new gear. I'm so excited. I haven't taken an art class since college, and I'm fascinated to see how it works online. The course starts next Monday. I'll let you know how it's going! And if you're inclined to take it too, go to the introduction page to sign up or just to learn more.

Creativity Quotes

Right now, these are really resonating with me:

 

To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong. 

~Joseph Chilton Pearce

 

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. 

~Pablo Picasso

Home-baked...

bread.

Everyday Oat Bread, specifically, from The Rhythm of the Family (yes, still very much enjoying that book). Also found online at the Soulemama blog, here. (Though the online version contains cinnamon, which the book's - and mine - doesn't.) It's delicious. Time-consuming, as all bread is, what with all the rising and waiting and whatnot, but otherwise easy. Somewhat magical, as all bread is, what with all the producing something incredible out of the humblest of ingredients and inevitable thinking about women throughout history doing the very same motions with their hands... Like knitting or nursing a baby, baking bread is one of those meditative, primal ways to spend time that make domesticity seem a little more like something sacred and a little less like one big chore.

I brought this bread, along with some homemade sweet potato-carrot-bean-ginger soup (no recipe, just threw some good things together and pureed) to my dear friend, Anastasia, this week in exchange for an acupuncture treatment. Bread for healing. A perfect trade.

Mini Sewing Girl

Maeve started Pre-K a couple of weeks ago - a half-day program at the same school Stella attends, where both girls will go through 8th grade. It has been a big transition for my little Maeve from the small, sweet, beloved nursery school where she spent the past two years to this huge, urban public school. She even takes the school bus home! One of the surprises of her time there so far has been the day she came home excited because she had "sewn" at school that afternoon. One of the activities in her classroom is those picture cards with holes around the perimeter that the child can thread yarn through, mimicking the up-and-down motion of hand sewing. She really liked it, and I wonder of the activity was partly enjoyable because it reminded her of Mommy?... At any rate, it gave her the bug to try some "real sewing" at home.

Her class of kids is called the Green Apples (the morning group is the Red Apples), so we decided to try sewing a green apple. Eventually we'll move on to stuffing or constructing something, but for this first foray into real needles and thread I thought it better to keep things simple, as close to the card + yarn she had done at school, so she just sewed two pieces of felt together. I had her draw an apple on green felt, then she helped cut it out and we used it to trace another one. I made a little brown stem, got it in place with a first stitch or two, then handed it over to Maeve. (And tried - mostly successfully - to keep my mouth shut and let her just do it, without interference.) She really took to it, and her tiny hand expertly grabbing the needle as it came through the fabric and pulling the thread taut was the sweetest image.

The next day, she gave it to her teacher, and it now hangs proudly on the bulletin board in the classroom. Giving her teacher a handmade gift seemed like a perfect, simple way to encourage her feeling comfortable at her new school. We brought a little piece of her class home, and then gave a little piece of home to her class.

Maeve's green apple, part of the way through being sewn

I think I might just have a little sewing buddy here!