Hello internet! I've been reading your news voraciously, (Perez? check. Dooce? check. Craftzine? check. Good and Planty? check.) but I haven't been putting anything out there. Internet, I know that one sided conversations are hard to keep up, and for all 12 of you that read our blog (who I love to bits and appreciate so much) I am excited to continue chronicling our crafting exploits.

As this is a crafting blog, I am so happy I can skip over all the stuff that I has been occupying most of my time these last 4(!) months. (Fun stuff like getting our house ready to sell and such...) I have been cramming in some crafting, but as most of my stuff has been packed away, it usually involved a big mess, some swearing, and me saying repeatedly "Why did I not label these boxes" whenever I needed something like a hole punch or tapestry needle. Happy days are finally here and they started at an auction. Laura bought me a great work table at the Berea College surplus auction for 20 bucks. It looks like it was a lab table or something and has all kinds of stuff carved into it- "Tennesee Vols" ("sucks" added by a University of Kentucky fan) "Ruedy" and an alien looking hand. Best of all though it's really big and I have tons of room to set up my sewing machine at one end and work on other projects on the other end. I love, love, love it and know that I will make many cool things there. Thanks Laura!

She is re-doing her studio and gave me a shelf she doesn't have room for. I arranged my yarn and fibery stuff on it and it's a little place of organization and beauty in a tangle of other crafting supplies waiting to be sorted out. I put a bunch of yarn in the  yard sale pile and sorted out neutrals that I want to dye with. I love the rainbow order stash and it makes me think one thing of course- I need more yarn! Also, until I did this I never realized how much blue yarn I buy. I have been saving scraps and little bits for crafting and they fill a whole bin on their own. BTW- those are "decommissioned" tubs, Michael worked for the USPS a while ago.

Anyway, I am excited to finally  be blogging again, pleased to have my materials available, and space other than the dining room table to work on projects. I have a bunch of projects that are "rough drafts" or prototypes and my goal for this spring is to re-do them and find ways to make them super- cute and cool. I think I am up to the challenge.

Well, I'll skip the apologies and guilt for not blogging and jump right into the good stuff. Here is one of my favorite projects I have been working on lately. A painted rain barrel for Sustainable Berea's rain barrel festival:

Katie and I were inspired by Pennsylvania German Frakturs, the foliage in the paintings of  Rousseau, and other things that delight us.

Our barrel was well recieved in the live auction, and was a great reason to have to hang out at this great community building event. A couple other barrels that caught my eye:

Painted by Beth, a local painter who's work I love and whose last name I can never remember. 

Isn't this guy great? Painted by Heather Richardson.

What a fun day of building a more sustainable community, educating us all about water issues, and getting folks to buy local art pulled off in a remarkable way by Sustainable Berea. Hooray!