breakfast alone and thinking

All of my family was out this morning so I found myself relishing some alone time. I walked around in the front yard and felt the warm, stormy wind blow past me, I noticed again how rich the colors look outside after a rain. I watched my cat drink from a puddle and then laughed sympathetically when he started to climb the screen because I came in and accidentally left him out. I took the time to make myself a decent breakfast and ate while the only sound was the wind whipping through the trees. And I had time to think without a whole lot of other stuff going on around me. Bliss, really.

Creatively I've been venturing down a new path and it feels rather exciting. I was due for a change, a new direction to explore. I'll be sharing some of that with you soon, but for now I wanted to pass along something I've been pondering and am finding very inspirational. It comes from the book Applique Stitchery by Jean Ray Laury (a gem of a book I've mentioned here before) She says...

"To be significant, work must be personally meaningful. Speak only for yourself. You need not try to comment on the world, or on all mankind. Try, rather, to make a simple and honest statement about a single idea with which you are familiar. If you succeed in this, your specific comment is far more likely to contain a general element of truth. As I am neither a deep thinker nor a profound one, I make no attempt to be profound in my work. I can offer only a personal response, and if that response arrives at something basic, it will evoke a response in someone else."

Without rambling on why, I find her words very freeing. I think I might write them out and pin them up somewhere near my workspace.

(thank you for all the blanket kindness! some asked how i felted the wool, actually this is one time that i didn't. i didn't have much to work with so i didn't want shrinkage. i'll wash this in cold water and hang dry as i do all my wool that i don't want to shrink.)