A Slice of Heaven

As I mentioned in my previous post, we went to the mountains last weekend and had a fabulous time doing mountain stuff like hiking, visiting friends, eating delicious food, and relaxing! Something about being there always makes me feel like I've come home. Perhaps it's because my family's roots are in the Allegheny mountains and some of my best childhood memories are from there, or maybe it's just the incredible beauty that seems to be around every bend in the road. Whatever the reason, I love to go and cherish the hope that one day we'll be able to make the mountains our home in reality.

Who wouldn't love a vista like this?

But I promised to tell you about a fabric lovers' paradise....
Located in the lovely, artsy, and tiny town of Floyd, VA is the most amazing fabric shop. It's called Schoolhouse Fabrics and is 3 floors and two buildings of an old schoolhouse, hence the name, that have been transformed into an incredible fabric heaven. It's almost overwhelming for a fiber addict like myself, but at the same time ...nirvana! This is a picture of the outside of the building so you can see just how huge it is.



And here is just one side of one of the rooms....

Amazing! You can see why I'd be excited...well at least pretend that you can! I know that not everyone is as much of a nut case about fabric as yours truly. As a matter of fact, my husband and sons don't get it at all, but they are very sweet and find other things to do in Floyd while I get my "fix." Of course eating homemade pie down at Oddfella's Cantina isn't really too much of a hardship...
Here's a picture of my haul from this trip.

I was very good and only made a few impulse buys...that dark green silk duponi was a remnant I couldn't refuse and is so much more gorgeous than the picture...and can you see a fall harvest fairy in those fabrics on the left? Nothing like a stash of new supplies to make you want to get right to work, so perhaps I should go do just that!

Another tag...

Izile of Izile's Oddities has tagged me with the "5 Things that someone might not know about me". Now I did a similar tag last year but I think I can probably come up with 5 more... Hmmm...

1. I absolutely refuse to pass on chain mail, I don't care how much you threaten me with bad luck and immediate punishment I will NOT do it!
2. In the winter I usually wear men's shoes...they just feel more comfortable, what can I say.
3. I love gardening. By August my garden is usually in a very sad state because this area is horribly rough on plants, but I still do it every year. The joy is in the process...
4. I can sometimes taste color. It's a weird on again off again thing.
5. I hate math and barely managed to pass it in school but have somehow ended up in charge of all my family finances, and doing a damn fine job of them too...who'd have thought it?!

Now unfortunately the absolute expressed in #1 extends to tagging other people with these...I just can't do it. But feel free to tag yourselves if you have the desire and let us know in my comments:)

I just returned from a wonderful trip to the mountains and I hope to have some fun photos up soon of a fabric-aholic's paradise...stay tuned!

Spring!!!

Okay, maybe it's not really Spring yet and in reality we have another two weeks and probably a frost or two to go, but come on...it feels like it's here! And looks like it too...

See what I mean?

So I've been on kind of a Spring binge with my doll making as well. Meet Keelie, a Spring fairy and harbinger of change and growth. I had so much fun doing all the details on her!

Keelie

I've got several others on the sewing table right now in various stages of completion; a Spring witch, a garden witch, and a couple of the bigger flower fairies, so if I actually get a few days without interuptions I might get a lot of work done!...and I haven't forgotten the promised fairy tale dolls...they're still in what I call the "percolation" stage. I did promise my best friend I'd go see the "Other Boleyn Girl" movie with her tomorrow so I only have myself to blame for that interuption...but I am a total sucker for a movie with good costumes!!

One last little fairy for your viewing pleasure...a tiny daffodil pixie...

isn't she cute?!

March Hares and Alice

I've been working on a colony of rabbits; or a warren, down, trove, leash, trace...insert collective noun of choice...yea, I'm pretty much of a word geek. But I digress. Since it is March and I am a well known Alice fanatic, I thought I'd share a few of the hares I've created this week.




































And for other lovers of all things "Alice", check out this 1903 Alice in Wonderland movie at Darkling Woods Studio blog. It's kinda rough, but pretty amazing if you consider the limitations of the time period.

This morning while thinking about writing this post I was trying to figure out just why I have always been so drawn to these books...and it's definitely plural, books, because I actually love "Alice Through the Looking Glass" even more than its predecessor. As a child, I was attracted to the story of a young girl entering a world of fantasy, but even then I'm sure I felt that this was not a world that was all sweetness and light. Alice meets some quite disagreeable characters along the way. But I think the fact that Lewis Carroll never writes down to his readers was appealing to me even at a young age. I was forced by a sadistic first grade teacher to read Dick and Jane books at school while the fantastic world beyond the mirror or down the rabbit hole were my nightly companions. Who wouldn't love that by contrast?! And as I became older I fell in love with the way Carroll made language such FUN! Just think about Humpty Dumpty explaining how he can make words mean whatever he likes. He explains, "They've a temper, some of them -- particularly verbs: they're the proudest -- adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs -- however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That's what I say!" And then there's all the wonderful absurd poetry that gets recited throughout both books. I personally adored "The Jabberwocky" so much that I was able to recite the entire thing from a ridiculously early age...thus adding to my weird kid status, I'm sure. ( The fact that I also knew most of the witches' chant from Macbeth didn't help much either!) And of course the books are sprinkled with so many great lines like the Red Queen saying, " it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place!" ( a feeling I have often!) Or the White Queen on using your imagination,"I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. `When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast," excellent advice for today's plugged in generation. And, of course, many more! And let's not forget the wonderful illustrations by Tenniel, although I have to admit loving the ones done by Milo Winter as well. So if you haven't read those two wonderful books lately, give yourself a treat and pull them out to reread as an adult or to share with your kids. Some books never grow old.