Capped Man

I had two good long hikes today, but forgot my camera. Urrgghh. When I got home, Capped Man was waiting for me. I think his cap looks like a fez. I only ordered him yesterday from nonchalantmom's flea market. This fantastic service makes my head spin. T thinks he/capped man is Chinese. I think he is from a different Asian country but I defer to T in such matters since he has lived in several Asian countries. We both agree he is cute as the dickens. Little Hippo agrees.

Post Script: A friend has told me she thinks he is Moroccan.

Four Little Mifflettes in the Wild

Yellow Stripe Monkey found sitting on a rock in the woods -what is he planning?

Another little monkey sitting amongst the hosta. She's breathing deeply.

And two little owls, caught outside their hollow tree!

Surprise Visit!

We had a surprise visit from the grandkids this weekend! It was a reminder of how it feels when generations of family are neighbors. I heard the front door open and a little voice saying, "Where's Zadie? Where's Zadie?" It took me a portion of a second to realize that our dear grandchildren were toddling in. It was such a thrill. Zadie is repeating the story proudly to everyone as he is so pleased to be the Zadie that S sought. (That's D in the photo, not S!)

AND...It's day lily season and their lusciousness is spreading all over the garden path.

Party Season has Begun

Summer on Androscoggin Lake means the arrival of old friends who are only here in the summer. They come from Chicago, Alexandria, Las Vegas, Baltimore. It also means at least one party a week. This week there will be three. Leppie is excited because he can try to snatch hors d'0uevres on the deck when the party is at our house. Tonight we had fresh wild salmon, home grown potatoes and salad, homemade hummus, eggplant spread, local cheese and DOLCE CON LECHE homemade ice cream! Thank you, T, B, J and A! Summer in Wayne can't be beat. We hate leaving even for a day.

Rosa Pomar

During the Christmas season of 2007, I began making sock dolls from the book, Sock and Glove by Miyako Kanamori. I made sock rabbits, dogs, cats and monkeys for adults and children in the family. My sister encouraged me by giving me Plush-O-Rama by Linda Kopp. Since then the whole world of doll and stuffed animal-making has opened up to me. Of course I do have a large collection of vintage stuffed terriers and a Steiff animal collection that began in childhood. Stuffed creatures have always appealed to me.

Rosa Pomar's dolls are consistently the ones that impress me the most. She has now made 800 of them. I can tell you why I like them so much. First of all they appeal to children. They are not trying to be different. They are just naturally themselves and unique without any affectations. She seems to have developed several prototypes. The most common one, I think, is one she calls a kind-of-marsupial. It can be seen below in a Japanese print as she belongs to me! I think the flower eyes and stylized embroidered grin across each of her dolls is her signature, her stamp of individuality. You definitely know a Rosa Pomar doll when you see one. I have seen imitations and they are obvious.

She also makes a basic baby doll with pom-pom fringe hair and no arms that seems just right for a newborn infant. And she makes two other creatures regularly that are reminiscent of a monkey and rabbit. My grandson, Dexter, has the monkey seen above. He is sitting with a crib mifflette of mine that attaches with velcro to the canopy of his crib.

Her dolls are exquisitely made, of the finest craftsmanship imaginable. One of my friends swore that the details were machine sewn, but I protested that they were hand done and after examination with a magnifying glass, she finally conceded. You have to look very hard to see where she sewed up the hole where the stuffing was inserted. She uses the tiniest of stitches and is a seamstress with unflagging standards.

People who have never made a stuffed toy may not know how hard it is to stuff one. It is the hardest part of the process for me. I have made fifty dolls now and am still a beginner in this department. Rosa's are stuffed better than any I have ever felt. They are just right, not too full, not too soft and never ever lumpy.

Rosa's dolls have inimitable style, are made from the finest and well chosen natural materials and establish the highest level of craftsmanship for doll makers. I suggest everyone should have at least one. But beware! You have to watch her blog/shop vigilantly for the appearance of an available one. That is not a problem as her blog is fascinating, even if you cannot read Portugese. You will be competing with me, since I am on the lookout for a rabbit type doll.

I am trying very hard not to imitate Rosa, and yet I cannot resist using some of her well thought out techniques. In my research on dolls I have found many imitations of Rosa's dolls and many other dolls that have some of the same features, though I do not know if they came from Rosa or some other older source. A group of Guatemalan dolls I saw had some striking similarities, but I don't know if these creators had referenced Rosa Pomar. Sometimes a good idea just comes of age and then takes off on its own from many locations.
I just finished these two monkeys today. The green monkey is made from barkcloth from the forties or fifties. The arms and legs are circa 1900 French shirting remnants. The monkey on the right is from all Japanese fabric, Yuwa for the body and Melody Leaf for the arms and legs. I think they have a different character than Rosa Pomar's monkeys, but I used her brilliant technique for creating arms and legs that are floppy and allow the monkey all kinds of creative positions.
The owl is the third one I have made, this one from the same Yuwa Japanese fabric. He is fashioned much like the first owl I made featured in a previous post. I am still fooling with his talons for optimum effect.

I repeat that you really should visit Rosa's website to see what she is up to, what is in her fascinating shop and if she has any available dolls, because they are simply the BEST.

Berkeley, not Boston

My friend, Berkeley, died of colon cancer in 2001 at the age of 56. She was an architect, gardener, photographer and devoted friend. She gave me this hat which had been hers; I don't remember why. It's rather small and fit us both perfectly. The "B" has always symbolized Berkeley rather than the Red Sox to me. It's my only ball cap and I wear it all the time.

She loved hosta but hated the stemmy blossoms and cut them off as soon as they began their ascent upwards. I snip my hosta blossom stalks this time of year and always think of her. She's no longer gardening and my eyes are shaded by her B cap. It is in this way that we procure immortality, living on through the habits we pass on to others.

Tim Van Campen

I'm back to showing a bit of the garden tour of two weeks ago. Actually these photos are from the studio or gallery of Tim Van Campen who is a brilliant rug designer for Knoll and other concerns. I am not going to say any more, just take a look for yourself at these sumptuous, geometric rugs, then go to the website he and his fine art painter wife, Susan Headley Van Campen, maintain. Besides being committed artists, they are lovely people.

Maine-Boston-Cape Cod

Leaving our lake in Maine on a hot New England weekend, we drove straight to Boston to attend to a cry for help from the kids. Enroute, the White Mountains, as always, gave me a thrill.

And in Boston:

There was the usual brutal traffic getting to Cape Cod. It was worth it to see M who is undergoing radiation therapy and in need of perking up by friends. She is the most resilient person I know and able to regale us with stories of her visit to Provincetown this week (that left her exhausted to the bone, literally) to visit two other friends, one of whom had a show open recently at the Provincetown Art Museum. Marian Roth has done fascinating work with a shack as pin-hole camera. Her partner, Mary Deangelis, the clothes designer has joined forces with another P'town store this year. M's daughter, Liz was minding the store this weekend.
Do check out their highly respected and well known work.

Terrierist

I'm not really a dog lover, but I am a Terrierist. I had a Scottish Terrier as a child and a Welsh Terrier as an adult. I have an agreement with T that we won't own a dog so that we may travel easily, live in other places and be unencumbered. Still, when I see a terrier (which isn't often around here), I get wistful. I love their non-shedding coats, their button down ears, their square faces, but most especially their mischievousness. This one is a Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier.

Downtown Winthrop

Downtown Winthrop is a town one passes through on the way to somewhere else. Some friends from Boston who came to visit me were horrified that they couldn't find a coffee shop there. But I can get my hair cut for $5.00 which I did yesterday. I didn't feel like hurrying home (retiree mindset) so I stopped at the local book store and found a great alphabet board book, and then a jumble shop where I found a deck of old timey mix-and-match cards . I would have felt like I entertained myself nicely for under $10, but then I hit the gas pumps...

Garden Tour 2

I can't resist showing more of the Garden Tour from Sunday. Plastic dinnerware was used to create Geneology by Julie Levesque. It's fluid and dreamy. The human creative mind amazes me. Who would have thought that dinnerware could be used like this? Levesque did obviously. This piece is at Coppershead Gallery in Warren.

Gardens in the Watershed

For the second time, a group of us now-old-ladies went on a garden tour hosted by the Georges River Land Trust. This year's combination of six gardens was most pleasing, each one unique and inspiring.

Avena Botanicals Medicinal Herb Gardens are filled with the scents of 125 varieties of flourishing herbs, trees and shrubs, grown organically. I am sorry to say that we did not get inside the 1830s farmhouse to purchase products made from the herbs, but we did sample some sweet sun herbal tea that all of us are going to try making at home this week.

Yes, yes, yes, this IS a garden! The Stemwater Sculpture Works and Gardens was filled with rustic metal sculpture in a pine grove. Jay Sawyer has a sense of whimsy and irony that results in some hilarious sculptures. The entrance alone made me laugh.

I'm not sure I had ever seen a Japanese Willow before. This one at Little Fieldstone Farm was blowing in the considerable breezes of the day. It was literally dancing while we were there, captivating everyone. Besides the willow, there are over 200 varieties of hostas in woodland paths behind the early 1800s farmhouse, and many small stone benches and bridges. Owner Sally Littlefield maintains the property alone that she and her late husband designed.

North Atlantic Blues Festival 2008

T's brother founded the North Atlantic Blues Festival fifteen years ago. It's his passion. I am amazed at the breadth of this enterprise, the gumption it took to get it going, and the focus to keep it running year after year. It's a gift to thousands of people who love the blues.


Sugar Blue is a harmonica player who just doesn't quit. His playing fills you up completely with his fabulous spirit and sound and you hate it when he is through.

Ruthie Foster: What can I say? T says the show was hers, the whole show. He is already plotting where he can next listen to her live. She transports you to a world filled with nothing but soul.

The setting is perfect and this year the weather was too. The stage abuts the Atlantic Ocean with yachts in the background. Yip, that's T grinning in the foreground. Being family, we get to sit with the musicians under the tent while watching them gab and relax.

Jane Austen

I spent the day with Jane Austen. She needed watching while her owners were busy at work, as she is only ten weeks old. She is living a perfectly idyllic life in a tranquil home, surrounded by hearty gardens and woodlands and brick patios and lovely stone walls covered with granite slabs.

All of the steps up to doorways in her house are granite also. She hid behind them waiting to see what I would do next, where I'd place my feet, in which direction she would need to chase me.

She also loved dashing and darting in the bishop's weed (also know as snow-on-the-mountain and goutweed), tricking me into believing she was lost. It was the loveliest of Maine days.

White Astilbe

This is one of the most overlooked flowering garden plants I know. The white is just about to fade as the palest of pinks comes to bloom. I have masses of them along with hosta and ferns in my shade garden. The weather this year has made my garden a jungle of mature plants and I have no need to do anything in it but enjoy its sensual pleasures.

Olive Owl Arrival

Yahoo, Olive Owl arrived today from Great Britain. She is the fantastic creation of Donna Wilson. Please view her website and see all of her inspired creations. She fits in so nicely with the at-home mifflettes and Rosa Pomar marsupial.

Yummmmy Weekend!

Fourth of July Weekend = more sockeye salmon brushed with sesame seed, curry powder, crushed pepper and dijon mustard, topped after cooking with a tomato salad, snow peas stir fried in a glaze of scallions, garlic, vinegar and sugar, celeriac slaw, potato salad WITHOUT mayo, the best pound cake ever with mango puree and a dash of cayenne (YES, cayenne!), swimming at the Costa del I, lots 0' company, a reorganization of my workroom, and even the completion of some mifflettes and the intention to sign up to sell on Etsy tomorrow.

Too tired to read, but did manage an article on the science of scratching/itching and some keys to our brains by Atul Gawande and inching along in Lisa See's Peony in Love. (author of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, a favorite of mine)

Sears Experience

This winter T and I decided we would clean our own house to save money. Neither of us had done so in decades, so we were clearly out of practice. First we had to get a new vacuum cleaner. I did the research at Consumer Reports and purchased a Best Bet, Sears model 116.27914.

It never really worked well, but what did we know? We hadn't handled one of these machines in twenty, thirty years! It seemed like we pushed dirt around a lot without actually sucking anything up. T pointed out that if we used the pet attachment meant for upholstery and got down on our hands and knees, we could get good results on the rugs. I often used the dust buster after vacuuming to get the missed residue on both rugs and hardwood floors.

I figured I was just dumb to fall for the CR evaluations and should have bought an Electrolux like all the smart shoppers I knew. This week, I got to the limit of frustration (six months after purchasing the vc) and finally took the vc into Sears to ask if they would test it out for me, tell me if I was doing something wrong and/or if something was wrong with the machine.

It only took a few seconds for the salesman to determine that indeed, the power head was broken. I want to tell you that I was given a new machine on the spot without a sales slip, without my original credit card, no questions asked and they carried the new one out to my car like I was royalty. YAY, SEARS!

I used it today and it was so obviously operational! NOW I know why this machine was a best bet. (Plus while waiting for attention, another customer told me he had the same thing happen with an Electrolux with not nearly the satisfaction Sears gave me.)

Car Hugger

Dylan reflecting on/in Dad's Car
Originally uploaded by gramily

D is really just concentrating on perfecting his new walking habit.

Toys and Gender

Sophia the Trucker
Originally uploaded by gramily

Studies I've read suggest that when both toddler girls and boys are exposed to trucks and dolls, BOTH genders interact with vehicles, but only girls interact actively with dolls.

Owl Mifflette

Owl Mifflette
Originally uploaded by gramily

A promise was made to a friend for a mifflette for her birthday. One of her passions is owls, hence Ms. Owl was born in the mifflette factory.