November 12, 2008 @ 8:20 am | Filed under: Books, Handcrafts
Have you ever pre-ordered a book and then forgotten you’ve done so? And then months later you get the shipping notice, and it’s like a little piece of Christmas in your in-box? That’s what happened to me the other day when a certain online book retailer notified me that my copy of Alicia Paulson’s long-awaited Stitched in Time: Memory Keeping Projects to Sew and Share was on its way. It’ll be here today. (You may know Alicia from her delightful blog, Posie Gets Cozy, which was the very first handcrafts blog I ever subscribed to.)
Hurry on over, Mr. UPS Man; we can’t wait to get cozy with this book! (Good thing I got all caught up on my Cybils reading yesterday. I can’t peruse any more nominees until the next batch of library holds comes in, or until another nice fat packet arrives from a publisher. Which may well be today. We’ve been keeping Mr. UPS Man hopping lately. And may I just say he is one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet? One day he brought us a bag of clementines from his neighbor’s tree—he said he’d been given so many he couldn’t eat them all and he thought maybe my kids would enjoy them. Don’t think I’m unaware this is all Rilla’s doing: she charms him daily with her warm reception as he jogs up our driveway with packages stacked high. “Hi dere! You ’liver dat for me?”)
I’m looking out the window right now – come on mailman! And I stupidly kept checking the mailbox yesterday forgetting it was a holiday. Cannot wait for this book.
How lovely. Posie was one of my very first craft blog links too. But I must admit to being surprised by there being a question mark, not an exclamation mark, at the end of Rilla’s comment to the UPS man
The ultimate handcrafting blog is whip up. net. All sorts of tutorials from different handcrafters, right now they have a tutorial telling you how to make a toddlers skirt out of an old sweater too cute.
I love Posie Gets Cozy. I am going to have to pick up a copy of Stitched in Time.
Great blog! Kid lit and crafts, two of my favorite things. I ventured over from the Comment Challenge, and I’ll definitely be back.
[...] resources for my darling children. Yeah, that’s the ticket (she says, hastily shoving her hot-off-the-presses copy of Stitched in Time behind her [...]
(A roundup post with links to my notes and reviews)
Hey, what happened to all those booklists you used to have in your sidebars at the old blog?
They're still accessible at melissawiley.typepad.com, where this blog lived from January 2005-March 2008. You can also find all my Lilting House posts there, or try the search bar here. All my previous Bonny Glen and Lilting House posts have been imported to this site.
Every day is complicated, messy, and full of friction. And every day has glorious or cozy moments worth celebrating. I seldom bother to chronicle the friction and the mess because writing time is fleeting and precious—and childhood even more so. I’d rather capture the small joys that I might forget—or take for granted—if I don’t take time to set them down in words.
(Excerpt from this post about Real Life, quoted here because I don't want anyone to be under the impression that things are always perfect around here! Heaven knows we are anything but. Perfect, frictionless, orderly? Nope. Happy? Most of the time!)
Be like the bird
Who, pausing in flight
On limb too slight,
Feels it give way beneath her,
Yet sings,
Knowing she has wings.
—Victor Hugo
Twitter Updates
“Exploration,” says John Stilgoe, author of Outside Lies Magic, “is a liberal art, because it is an art that liberates, that frees, that opens away from narrowness. And it is fun.”
Yes: it is so, so much fun, and that is why I write these posts all chattery with excitement over this or that connection the kids made today. (Or that I made myself!) I know I get carried away, but that’s the point, isn’t it, that way leading on to way has carried me away?
And yet—and yet—I think we are at once ‘carried away’ and made more fully present in the now, more rooted, by these relationships between ideas about things past and future. The joy of connection makes me want to celebrate this moment, this brief encounter with wild-haired child and broad-trunked tree, bus going by, sign on church wall, Scottish warlord creeping over the tower wall and startling the English soldier’s wife who has just put her babe in arms to sleep by crooning that the Black Douglas won’t get him. Child, laughing, shouting “Dinna ye be sae sure aboot that!” across the courtyard outside the library. How can I not celebrate this freedom?
Have you ever pre-ordered a book and then forgotten you’ve done so? And then months later you get the shipping notice, and it’s like a little piece of Christmas in your in-box? That’s what happened to me the other day when a certain online book retailer notified me that my copy of Alicia Paulson’s long-awaited Stitched in Time: Memory Keeping Projects to Sew and Share was on its way. It’ll be here today. (You may know Alicia from her delightful blog, Posie Gets Cozy, which was the very first handcrafts blog I ever subscribed to.)
I’m looking out the window right now – come on mailman! And I stupidly kept checking the mailbox yesterday forgetting it was a holiday. Cannot wait for this book.
Posted on November 12th, 2008 at 8:25 amLOL, Jenn. You are my sister in craft-book-junkiedom, for sure!
Posted on November 12th, 2008 at 8:26 amooh, that is like a little piece of Christmas! Enjoy it!
Posted on November 12th, 2008 at 9:21 amHow lovely. Posie was one of my very first craft blog links too. But I must admit to being surprised by there being a question mark, not an exclamation mark, at the end of Rilla’s comment to the UPS man
Posted on November 12th, 2008 at 12:31 pmSweet girl. She makes you want to send her something – just so it can get ‘livered!
Posted on November 12th, 2008 at 12:32 pmThe ultimate handcrafting blog is whip up. net. All sorts of tutorials from different handcrafters, right now they have a tutorial telling you how to make a toddlers skirt out of an old sweater too cute.
Posted on November 12th, 2008 at 6:34 pmI love Posie Gets Cozy. I am going to have to pick up a copy of Stitched in Time.
Posted on November 13th, 2008 at 1:50 pmGreat blog! Kid lit and crafts, two of my favorite things. I ventured over from the Comment Challenge, and I’ll definitely be back.
From the Drafts File — Here in the Bonny Glen says:
[...] resources for my darling children. Yeah, that’s the ticket (she says, hastily shoving her hot-off-the-presses copy of Stitched in Time behind her [...]
Posted on December 3rd, 2008 at 8:13 am