Woolnimals

(Image by Taeeun Yoo, via Yoote on Etsy ) I'm caught amid the perfect storm of beautiful sunny days, caffeine, and restfulness (at last!). My inspiration has been humming. The cicadas are finally screaming in the trees and I spend my evenings fully immersed in Lake Champlain dreaming about art projects and freckling in the late afternoon sun. Despite how veritably summer it is, I can already hear the leaves scuttling down the sidewalk as autumn descends in my imagination. My fingers are itching for afternoons of crafting. But I'm giving myself this time to float, to be suspended in a cool hug; to be weightless for a time. I'm considering the possibility that there are a great number of people who would like to learn how to needle felt. I won't say it's easy, but it's something anyone can learn to do. I have a strong background in sculpture, clay, and 3D art, so I took to forming sculptures out of a pile of wool pretty quickly. Kits are a great way to begin, also...

It's been awfully hot in Vermont for the last few days. Farms are wilting, cats are sprawled out like watermelons on the floor, fighting one another for the windowsill when there's a breeze...and it's just miserable. Last night my husband and I were having a picnic at a park in Burlington, right on the lake, when a fast and violent thunderstorm ripped through. We huddled together in a shelter as the wind tore across the lake. It was horrendous, and beautiful. The wind blew the still-lit embers out of the public grills, and sparks went flying out into the black evening. There was something eerily gorgeous, and yet somber, about the experience. Gorgeous because I'm so rarely out in nature when a storm of that magnitude hits - and somber because it's still only May, and this isn't Vermont weather. This is something else entirely. I've been sitting around fanning myself and moaning about the heat. The lake is still too cold to go swimming, so I feel I'm in s...