Wanderings

In my previous post I wrote about Sue Bender's exercise in "clear intention and genuine effort." Just so you know, my life isn't usually like that. This week, as my kids enjoy their spring break, I've been practicing the opposite: some aimless wandering and a little bit of laziness. We're sleeping in (a little, anyway). We're letting the weather decide on our outings. The dishes are going mostly undone, clean linens unfolded, leftovers reheated.

Monday we slept in and had a movie day. (Go see Rio if you can--we all enjoyed every minute of it. Fantastic animation, great message, and wonderful shots of Rio de Janeiro.)

Tuesday I vowed to get an earlier start to our day and visit the aquarium. But in the morning I had a moment of very un-clear intention and indecision. I had a little wardrobe crisis (it's not winter any more with its sweaters and layers to hide the bulges), and all I wanted to do was crawl right back into pajamas and into bed. I did not want to face the Spring Break crowds at the aquarium.

But I also didn't want to disappoint my kids. So I dug out some comfy capris and got over my grouchiness, and I'm glad I did. At the aquarium we watched the jellyfish floating in their cylinders of glass, puffing out their gossamer bells and trailing threads in their slow ascent. We saw a diver feeding lettuce to a rescued sea turtle, whose missing left front flipper didn't seem to affect its graceful glide through the water. We enjoyed the puffins, who look cute and oblivious and clumsy on land, diving into the water and swimming faster than we expected them to.

Yes, the crowds were awful, and we were all on sensory overload after a couple of hours. So we took a break and walked along the waterfront, across several bridges, and over to Little Italy. At Vaccaro's Italian Pastry Shop ("The Place for Desserts!"), we ogled dozens of kinds of Italian cookies and pastries in the display case. I let my kids have Belgian waffles for lunch (one had his waffle topped with a melting mountain of ice cream). And I had the best sandwich I have EVER had--a veggie mufalato grilled panini-style. It was stuffed with grilled eggplant, artichokes, tomatoes, olive tapenade, and thick slices of mozarella.

We ended the day quietly, the kids building their own Lego Bionicles while I finished reading the epistolary novel Sorcery and Cecilia (another recommendation, if you like Jane Austen and J.K. Rowling). Then, as I read aloud Sharon Creech's Unfinished Angel (yet another recommendation; thank you, Zee, for both of these books!) and we giggled over the language, my youngest fell asleep, exhausted after a full day.

It was a day of small delights in unexpected places, like these fallen plum blossoms floating in a glass jar that I found when I was cleaning house on Saturday.

I'd love to hear what you have worried over and then delighted in this week.

A Cuddle Bunny Family

Last month my neighbor loaned me a copy of Everyday Sacred; A Woman's Journey Home, by Sue Bender. It was a delightful read, a series of vignettes about Bender's search to see and appreciate the gifts that each day brings. "Like the monk going out with his empty bowl, I set out to see what each day offered," Bender explains. In the process, she learns to quiet the harsh, critical voice inside her and accept her unique talents as an artist.

In one section that I particularly enjoyed, Bender describes an art project she set for herself: to draw and paint a pear every day for a whole month. She hopes to master shape and shadow in the process. While she doesn't achieve the skill mastery that she had expected, Bender learns to tap into the joy of the creative process:

"Waking up each day knowing I was going to draw a pear changed the quality of my day. Total devotion to one task, even for a brief period of time--to stop the world--was enormously satisfying. I was carried along by clear intention and genuine effort." (p. 101)

Drawing a pear may seem like a pointless task. Making bunnies might seem even sillier. But there is something very powerful in the practice of completing such simple projects. It is freeing to take a simple form, such as a rabbit, and explore color and pattern through it. Knowing the simple steps I need to take to make a bunny emerge from wool and thread clears everything else from my mind, and the world does indeed seem to stop, as Bender suggests, when I am immersed in stitching. I am also learning to set aside my self-criticism and doubts and just let the joy singing through my heart flow out in the embroidery and hand sewing.

I'm sure that this approach--the "total devotion to one task"--could be applied to anything we do in a day. Writing. Cleaning. Caring for a child. Tending a garden. Crunching numbers or managing people or directing traffic.

Each Cuddle Bunny I make is an expression of love and care. Each one also feels like an improvisation. I gather together my jumble of felted wool, threads, and buttons. As I sort through them and match colors that I like, I take a leap of faith that my skills will bring a pleasing shape together. The personality of each bunny emerges as I embroider a pattern of flowers on its side, sew on the long ears, choose a pair of buttons for the eyes, and finally add a fluffy tail. And I end up with a stuffed animal that can be loved by little hands, or just admired for its sweetness. How satisfying is that?

If you have sewn a Cuddle Bunny of your own from my pattern, please feel free to post a photo in the Flickr Cuddle Bunny group. It will be fun to see a brightness of Cuddle Bunnies collected in one place.

Boxed Bunnies

Isn't it funny that no matter how much you lose track of time, it doesn't lose track of you? I have been so absorbed in bunny making lately that I will look up at the clock after I've finished the last stitch on a bunny, and it will be five minutes past the time to pick up my son from school or well past midnight.

So, time has flown by while I have been happily stitching away, and, as my son reminded me this morning, it's only 12 days until Easter (his favorite holiday). My vision of filling the Easter baskets of the world with felted wool sweater bunnies will not come to pass. I guess there's always next year?

But I'm happy to report that all of the Crafting for Courage bunnies have been sewn up, with the last bunny hopping out the door this morning.

A boxful of bunnies is also on the way to Japan for Operation Bunny Drop. I hope they will bring a little comfort to children whose lives are still so unsettled by the recent crises. The lovely commenters on yesterday's post remind me that well-loved toys are rich vessels for childhood imaginings. They also continue to offer solace well after childhood has ended.

Joanie's (Nini Makes) hand-me-down giraffe has now been loved to tatters by two generations of children (see her comment on yesterday's post), so she understands the power of a plushie. Did you see the sweet "Bunny Droppings" she crafted for Operation Bunny Drop?

Joanie's free bunny patterns continue to inspire my sewing. I made another Sunny Bunny for a special little boy who is about to become a big brother. I haven't met him, but, knowing his beautiful aunt and grandmother and sweet father and uncle, I am sure he has a very big heart.

Tweed Bunny is made from a thrifted Jantzen wool skirt, and his scarf was rescued from my growing mountain of felted wool sweater bits. It's serendipity that the felted sweater has the same tweedy pattern running through it as the bunny.

This little lavender-filled bunny sachet was inspired by Joanie's Naughty Felt Bunny pattern. I fell in love the sweet, simple shape of the bunny, and the stories Joanie shared about Camille and Issy.

I hope you can see how Sonia's (Cozy Homemaking) pincushions and sachets also inspired me as well. Check out Sonia's Etsy shop and Spring Cleaning sale. Her hand-sewn items are beautifully and finely crafted and would make lovely spring gifts.

The sachet is going out as a thank you to a Crafting for Courage supporter and friend who generously added a little extra to her donation. Thank you, Monica!

I'll be taking a little break from blogging to tackle taxes and fall school registrations and to try to get over a case of bronchitis. (I love flowering season, but my body does not.)

I am seeing signs from my recent rambles through blog land that spring has begun to pop up even farther north now. Enjoy!

A Sunny Bunny for Japan

 When I was little, the talking Mrs. Beasley was the doll to have. Buffy, one of the twins on the TV show "Family Affair," carried the spectacled old-lady doll around with her wherever she went. The doll had a hard plastic head but a huggable soft body, and her bright blue dress had rickrack trim. I remember pulling a big white plastic ring in back of the doll repeatedly to cycle through all of her sentences. She said several old-fashioned phrases, including "Gracious me, you're getting to be such a big girl."

A few years later, in the mid-1970s, the soft Holly Hobbie doll was my sister's favorite. I envied Holly's gingham patch dress and blue sunbonnet. She didn't talk, but she didn't need to. You carried her tucked under your arm while wearing your peasant-style dress and watching "Little House on the Prairie" or making a dried-flower arrangement with your mom.

I'm sure there are plenty of must-have dolls today with TV or commercial tie-ins like we had when I was a kid. But I'm happy that the handmade plushie craze has returned to offer lots of alternatives to mass-marketed dolls.

I love it when my son makes up a story about the adventures of a stuffed animal I've made for him, rather than repeating a story that is already "programmed" into the doll. Last week we learned about Hercules, a bunny whose parents had to give him up to live under a thicket, where he was befriended by Frederick the Mouse who brought him cheese.

I sewed the plushie pictured here using Nini Makes' Sunny Bunny pattern. The pattern was a real pleasure to stitch--no gusset to wrestle with! The felted cashmere is so soft and cuddlable, and my son immediately requested one of his own. He understands that we're sending this Sunny Bunny to Japan for a child whose toys were lost to the earthquake and tsunami. Crafters have already pledged more than 430 bunnies as part of Operation Bunny Drop, which runs until May 13.

**Please check out Makiko, Sonia's (cozy homemaking) sweet offering, and Margie's (Resurrection fern) rainbow herd of bunnies, which will bring comfort to children in Japan in much need of it. The Crafts With Purpose, Because Love Heals Facebook page has many pictures of handmade bunnies ready for donation. Thank you, Liz Minnick Valentin, for the inspired idea. I'm sure you will be inundated with a flood of cute bunnies.

I'd love to hear what favorite toy(s) you played with as a child (or still!).

Hope you have a playful, creative week.

Operation Bunny Drop

Perhaps, after a few weeks of bunny posts, you've gotten the impression that I'm a little rabbit-obsessed? You might be right.

The Crafting for Courage bunnies have also seeped into my family's consciousness. At the dinner table last week, we were discussing the air strikes in Libya. My son, who is five-and-a-half, formulated his own peace plan. He wants us to sneak into bombers and swap out the bombs and put bunnies in their places. That way on their next bombing runs, the planes will drop bunnies to cuddle instead of bombs that destroy.

I think rabbits are fitting ambassadors of peace. Artist Shannah Burton (daskaninchen), who captures the essence of the rabbit form in felt, writes: "Because the rabbit burrows underground and is most active during twilight hours it has been given a shaman like role... a metaphor for a traveling spirit from this world to the next." Rabbits as symbols travel between worlds; they heal.

When I have seen pictures of Japanese children in shelters over the last few weeks, some laughing and playing and others in shock over the loss of family and home, I've wanted to reach out in some way to offer comfort. Operation Bunny Drop, sponsored by Marie Spaulding's Crafts With Courage--Because Love Heals, hopes to do just that. Inspired by felter Liz Minnick, who is working with a circus group in Japan, the project is recruiting crafters to make soft bunny plushies to give to children in Japan affected by the earthquake and tsunami. The group's Facebook page includes links to free bunny patterns to felt or sew. (Joanie's (Nini Makes) adorable bunny pattern is here.) The effort runs through May 13. Register here.

Thank you, Fiona (TizDuster), for spreading the news about Operation Bunny Drop. I think the children of Japan need a lot of comforting right now, even (especially?) if it's in the form of a little bunny.

Bunny Delivery

This past weekend of off-and-on again spring, I drove north from Plant Hardiness Zone 5 to Zone 7. The difference in the trees was dramatic.

Here in Maryland the trees are heavy with blossoms. Last week the buds were still dots of color on the trees, each one its separate beauty. This week the trees are puffy masses of color, the individual buds indistinguishable particles of the cloud.

By contrast, in upstate New York this weekend, the trees were mostly bare, their trunks dun but pleasing shades of gray and tan, some electric green with moss.

My son and I enjoyed the full gamut of wild early spring weather. The cold, sharp wind blew up the hill and into our light coats while we played on the playground. The next day, my son fed the spring chicks at the hardware store and ran with a pack of boys on a gloriously sunny Sunday. Monday we walked downtown under a big black umbrella through a heavy downpour that made a pond out of our driveway. On Tuesday, the rain turned to snow as we sat at the breakfast table. It kept snowing as we drove south again. It dusted the very tops of the low mountains we drove past like a light, sweet coating of powdered sugar.      

It was a weekend free of bunny making (I missed stitching!), though we did collect a few more wool sweaters for future bunnies. I did a little felting experiment and found that using the steam option on my washing machine yields a very tightly felted cashmere that is still so soft and pleasing to the touch.

I had the pleasure of delivering Crafting for Courage bunnies to friends old and new. One bunny made its home with a brilliant and delightful college student. At a new friend's house, another bunny found a hiding place in a wooden curiosity cabinet next to a pair of embroidered felt shoes from a foreign land. At a gathering of a circle of writing friends, the bunnies nestled on the fireplace mantle and were cuddled and admired under a dragonfly birthday bunting made by a multitalented friend. Two bunnies, waiting for Easter, helped us share a happy breakfast with a lovely friend. And then two of the bunnies came to see us off on our last day. They were christened Sakura-chan and Saiki (Psycho?)-Sake-chan.

These bunnies--the most improbable of vessels--showed me what a wealth of sparkly and talented and loving and generous friends I have the honor to know.

Signs of Spring