Early Spring Crafting

Welcome!  I'm so glad you stopped in for a visit and I hope you will leave a comment and let me know you were here.  February had some lovely sunny days and I was happy to see Mount Hood, near Portland, Oregon, peeking over the roof of my unit one day.  It looks tiny, but a few blocks away it is visually vast!  I don't understand the science behind the difference I see here and there.  I just love seeing Mt. Hood in all its snowy wonder and would love for you to see it in person if you haven't.

Bouquets of delightful cheery Daffodils like these at my neighbors are opening in the area around me.

The pretty purple Hyacinths by my front step are opening beautifully although I have not smelled them scenting the air yet.

These trees near where I park my car are beginning to beautifully bloom and I have been enjoying seeing other trees in the area around me fully displaying blooms of pink or white, promising Spring is coming.

My four Dianthus plants defied being frozen in their mid-sized clay pots on my patio this winter, and have been producing sweet-spicy scented blooms since last Spring!!!!  I currently enjoy this little posy of blooms balanced in a little clear jar on my kitchen windowsill.  Amazing!!!!

The facilitator of our once a month worship art group at church challenged us to choose a Bible verse about God as our Refuge and illustrate it.  I thought about the image of God hugging us in His embrace as a mother hen spreads her wings over her chicks.  That image prompted me to remember the chicken range on our research poultry farm when I was a child.  Little chicken coops dotted a fenced in field. They were closer to the ground and not solid wood like I painted, never-the-less whatever they actually looked like they were there so that someone could coax the chickens to huddle inside them at night to protect them from predators.  No baby chicks were ever out there although I painted in the lower right corner of the picture some primitive brown and yellow blobs that are meant to represent a mother hen with her wings outspread to her chicks. The process of meditating on God as my refuge, my Immanuel, with me in all my circumstances even if my pencil sketching, watercolor did not conform to the internal images I imagined, was humbling, comforting, leaving me ruefully smiling.

This past month, my stitching has been invested in five projects.  I added more rows to two blankets not pictured here.  The project on the left is my first attempt to make a provisional cast on for a sock that is to go on a 9-inch circular needle.  I looked at a YouTube video for instruction.  I started knitting another purple dishcloth and am closer to completing it than this photo shows.  Then the completed crocheted double thickness potholder on the right is my one little Ta-Dah!

This Oxalis (Shamrock) plant I purchased last Spring nearly expired.  I noted when reading my friend Teresa's posts that when her Oxalis plant was doing poorly she put it out on her patio to recover and it did! I tried similar treatment for my plant by putting my plant out on my patio in the summer. Can you see the plant's two little white flowers in this photo I took recently?  I like how this view highlights the pretty pink in the underside of the leaves as well.

How are you in the season of life you are in? 

I happened upon these promising words it is recorded Jesus spoke before his death and resurrection.  They encourage me, and I hope will encourage you.

““I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.”

‭‭John‬ ‭14:27‬ ‭NLT‬‬

https://www.bible.com/116/jhn.14.27.nlt

Gracie xx