La Sirena

Shades of Vermillion

Spring is ablaze in the garden

   

   In the fields

Snail shells cling to bare rushes

against a lush landscape, crowned with flowers, a new dance is born.

Another member of the Aurantia clan has joined us.  She set up her web in reverse, giving me this clearer view of the "writerly" portion of the web.

In knitting news I've joined black purl's dishcloth swap, and no sooner had I produced my first dishcloth (on the right) when my daughter proclaimed it a perfect doll blanket and claimed it as her own. 

Unfazed, I moved on to the garterlac dishcloth. (on the left).  I love this pattern.  The way the patterns and colors magically come together.  This may be my "ball band dishrag", the pattern that can be worked over and over just for the joy of seeing what all you can do with color, to marvel at the cleverness of it all.   It looks much harder than it is, all those diagonals!  All those color changes! While the reality is garter stitch and one continuous strand of variegated cotton. 

The Aurantia Sisters

We've got some new neigbhors.  They're weavers, and they look a bit intimidating to me. Ms. Argiope Aurantia, or Yellow Garden Spider and her sister have camped out on our window frames (you can tell they are females because of their size).  They are orb-weavers and set up pretty impressive  3-4 ft webs fairly quickly. The heavy zig-zag line along the sill is actually a woven part of the web, the stabilimentum, which may be there to add stability to the web, to help camouflage the spider, or draw prey in.  I don't know about the camouflage, but Ms. Aurantia was just having lunch when we dropped by.

We deftly slipped inside and quietly called the landlord about the possibility of relocating the Aurantia sisters.  Though I do appreciate having weavers in the neighborhood, and the spiders are also known as writer spiders which is also a pastime I admire... perhaps I'm more territorial than I let on and I'd prefer to keep at least 10 ft distance between their webs and my front door, even if they aren't venomous.

Safely inside, with one eye on the crack between the door, not that I think either of the Aurantia sisters could fit mind you, they're rather, shall I say, well endowed...? I knit the final stitches of my baby eyelet cardigan courtesy of the folks at lionbrand, though as usual I didn't manage to quite follow the pattern.  This is what happens when you don't pay attention to matching dye lots in the store but catch it in time to incorporate it into the design and pretend it was the plan all along.  Now to find the perfect button.  Or Ribbon?      

Found Beads

Found some glass lampwork beads  we originally picked up at a flea market in Tucson and decided to put them to use. I thought they would make a lovely addition to the garden, which thus far has been adorned with plastic beads (below left and center) left over from last year's bird feader.

Frida thought they would make a lovely addition to her mermaid costume.  You may recall the knit mermaid tail from a past post; the crochet shell top was a recent quick-o addition which still needs some tweaking.   

 

Floral Inspirations

Freshly gathered flower petals grace this school easter project.

Spring flower fairies frolick in the garden.  Perhaps some will play hide and seek with our eggs this weekend.

And last but not least... the Spring issue of black purl is up!!!

An elongated picture of Frida's embroidered pillow graces the front page (the pattern and some of my own nostalgic ruminations are in there too)

http://www.black-purl-magazine.com/  Enjoy!

Icicles

You would think I hadn't spent four years in college in the Northeast, spent the Christmas before last in Washington D.C.  You'd think I'd never had to defrost an old freezer, because I am fascinated with the masses of ice outside.  Not just the novelty of it, the unexpectedness. (Frida this morning: "Mom, we don't have to go to Russia after all! You said it wouldn't snow here, but it is snowing! It is!"). 

I'm fascinated with the way the ice takes shape, the massive build-up of tiny droplets frozen en route to... or is this where they were hoping to stop all along?   Some look menacing, like the icy talons hanging from the trees.  They create mazes of icy brambles.  My laundry line looks like a tiny light-rail tunnel, my Christmas light bulbs have grown five times their size.  It looks like someone came and squirted thin lines of icing along the tops of our fence.  The once wafer-like lantana leaves are now delectable strawberry shaped ice cubes, brilliantly green defying the wintry landscape around them.  Inviting thoughts of summer drinks.