Makers and Making

The Joy of Making by Hand. Weaving, spinning, knitting, quilt making, rug hooking and more.

Begin Again

Leave a Comment / Birds, handwork, Inspiration, Makers and Making, Nature

Begin Again Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and afraid. Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument. Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground. Rumi “I can’t do this!”It’s early morning, …

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ADHD and the Pursuit of Smallness

Leave a Comment / Healing, Inspiration, Makers and Making, Reading, Simple Living, Uncategorized

ADHD and the Pursuit of Smallness Before I share more stories about the many passions which brighten my days, I want to explain how lifechanging it has been for me to understand the new thinking on ADHD. (I’m writing this in hopes that it might resonate for you, or for some of those you love.) …

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Rug Hooking

Leave a Comment / handwork, Inspiration, Makers and Making

Late in Life Pleasures I want to tell you about a surprising new pleasure. It wasn’t as if I didn’t have a wealth of fiber interests to pursue in my off moments. Weaving, Knitting, Spinning, Embroidery, Quilting, to name some. Much as I love learning, the thought of taking up a new craft (in this …

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Ken in the Wilderness
Ken in the Wilderness This week, I spent a morning revisiting my artist father, Ken Phillips’, Ruined Orchard series of oil sketches. As I looked, I could see how it was for him then. When he set out that September morning to the dying orchard, my father would have been heading deep into his own […]
A Season of Miracles
A SEASON OF MIRACLES By the standards of an eastern Ontario spring it’s early yet. But even still my land is full of promise. This morning, there is the bliss of rain. Not snow, but a cleansing rain. When I push open my front door, I hear a first robin singing. (In these uncertain times […]
Bolton
Camp Bolton Sometimes the most powerful learning experiences come in the most unexpected ways. More than fifty years ago, I was accepted as a junior volunteer counsellor at what was then called Bolton Camp for Underprivileged Kids. In late June I went for an afternoon’s interview in a downtown Toronto office, where a supervisor sat […]
Walking Blind
Walking Blind On this, my eightieth year, there are no maps for me. I’m walking blind. How long will I be able to continue living at Singing Meadow, my soul place? Where will I go when I no longer can stay here? How would I ever live without the sound of the wind in the […]
Gathering Moss
Gathering Moss This year we are celebrating the publication of a new book by distinguished author Robin Wall Kimmerer, Potawatomi botanist, mother, plant ecologist, and the director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Kimmerer is already honored for her […]