Friday's here ...

Back here, in my effort to keep this blog more up to date and to keep writing in diferent ways. Just sent some small stones to http://asmallstone.com. Writing a small stone feels like that very slight change of position in Yoga  - not much muscle movement but it makes all the difference.

A M Homes novel May We Be Forgiven  stirred and steered my book group into a long and diverse discussion last evening... so its probably by that standard a good book group book. Most felt it was a good read, a couple really did not feel the characters were authentic, and there were the unfinishers, but they said they would now read to the end. We also celebrated Alice Munro's Nobel Prize for Literature and added one of her short story collections to our 2014 list. Amazing how many people do not read short stories -perhaps reading AM will change that for some. 

Also submitted to The Emma Press this morning ... 3 poems on motherhood, two written after a workshop at The Foundling museum many years ago. So far these have always been returned so fingers crossed this time.

Now to some more applique ... I'm still making blocks for the Christmas Quilt, its a good job that 25th  December comes around every year!  Hopefully I'll learn a different applique technique at a Penny Armitage workshop tomorrow ... always good to be taught by someone who's work inspires, see http://www.quiltersguild.org.uk/members/page/penny-armitage. Its all about trees tomorrow so very seasonal.   Maybe pics later, or maybe not ...

Jan 29 small stone

White narcissus bought two weeks ago, now paper flowers: matured beauty, fragile, asking to stay.

in place of small stones

Very aware that my small stone have stopped appearing -they are waiting to be transported to the computer from various journals and bits of paper ... that's what happens when life gets busy.  I'll get them together & post somewhere asap.

I still plan to continue small stoning for the year, or perhaps its better to say to continue to pay attention to the small.

Last evening  the Poetry and The Visual seminar met on line for the first time. This is another Poetry School course, led by Tammy Yoseloff. with, obviously, a focus on what we see and using the visual in poetry. After a few hiccups the seminar went well, lots of different poems and new people to get to know in the Moodle classroom.   The next poem has to be posted by next Monday evening so I'm already thinking, oh what to write, when will I have a small space to draft, redraft etc etc.


Ive decided to begin to write about my quilting journey on this blog ... better late then never! I have a quilting journal with entries for my practice pieces and  lots of photos.

Here's my New English Frame at home in France and one of the first practice quilts hanging up while I decided what patterrn and threads to use.

and this is why I need lots more practice....

I'm now planning a quilt for my bedroom in France, this is it so far, some lovely fabric, bits from my stash, and ideas from a walk along the beach at Rye  - some way to go

21st small stone

On Monday morning, with eyes closed, I take the temperature of the outside world: the slush of tyres through snow melt -time to end my hibernation.

20th small stone: see, hear, write

From my window , blackbirds argue in the fir tree -their harsh exchange interrupts the sound of snow falling through evergreen buttresses and here and there laying its flaky self down on branch, cone, needle.

small stone No 19

Potato peel, celery and leek root, one or two damaged leaves slide into the compost bucket, garnish for the decomposing eggs shells, apple cores, banana skin donated yesterday: a waste melody ready to return to source.

18th small (snowy) stone

Between the brick pavers and the kerb a spiders web, dusted with snow: like a glove of white lace, fingers stretched toward rust-red edges, palm in supplication.

Today’s small stone

There is expressionless sky all around me, I keep looking its way, forewarned of what it will bring, I see hardly-there layers - grey, cream, blue - keeping to their own space, like they’ve been shaded within the lines, but very likely they are accumulating, holding on to what passes, practicing patience until the pressure comes their way.

Yesterday’s small stone

The Basil plant on my kitchen sill is perky, its leaves ready to flavour my food - has blossomed with the neglect my absence bestowed.

small stone inspired by Macaroon

Setting aside my tendency to look to the visual for inspiration I’m graceful to Macaroon for this small stone. In the absence of any living thing daring to wander across his patch of garden, he spent time on Saturday ‘seeing off the rain’.  Bless.

The puppy barks in another part of the house - sharp, urgent, metronomic; later I ask what was that all about, just the rain, I’m told.

13th small stone

Fragrance of Clementine oils my fingers, citrus on my tongue: inside the peel a comforting web spreads from one torn edge to the other.

Wall to wall blue sky

Today the winter sun returned like a friend sorely missed: kisses to warm my face, my hands, smile-beams out of a blue cocoon

a small stone for Thursday

Last summer’s leaf, the colour of clay, dried to a crisp twist: a body shrinking away from the venous web that once delivered life.

very small stone

Knots and rings decorate the wooden floor, like doodles on a page, marks of time passing

Another small stone

In the middle of the night fox sounds reach me – eeech eeeech eeech – this is a regular call, connection, contact, then something else - urgent, incessant, a message that must be passed on.

A small stone for Monday

Early morning greeting, the barn cat’s fur sweeps the skin of my palm: weightless down signalling his winter night in the house

Sunday small stone

No walls, just space, paucity of light: width, depth, blues, greens, an inherited  melange to sit on, write at, a morning spot here, an evening one there, for reading, sewing, thinking, being ... places without secrets.

A small stone inspired by today's message from Kaspalita at Writing Our Way Home .thank you for pointing me to what is worth looking at and new ways of looking at familiar places and objects.  

Saturday small stone

My fingers and tongue dance with mango juice, then I slowly wash the last of the fruity caramel from the cutting board –so hard letting go.

Friday's small stone

The shush of morning mist keeps us within our fence of leafless trees: insensible to other, to more, to where-else.

a small stone

Sparrows are chipping loose plaster from the kitchen window ledge, regularly, routinely; crumbles of our old house for their new year's nest.