Yarn Bowls...

Everyone seems to love yarn bowls!

I make mine in two varieties: bowls and baskets. Both the bowls and the baskets have a relatively wide foot and thick bottom to make sure that they are very stable. The baskets evolved at the suggestion of some of the grandmas in Etsy's WWWG Team. The carved handle makes them easy to carry from room to room and provides a place to put the needles.

I like to the look of carved pieces and I enjoy carving through leather-hard clay, so I generally carve a more intricate design on the bowls and baskets than what is strictly necessary to serve the function of a yarn bowl.  I think that this design element opens the bowls and baskets up to many more uses, making them an item of decoration for the home if used, for example, with pebbles or sea glass on the bottom to hold a candle. They can also be used as candy dishes or to hold jewelry or keys.

Love and Sweetness

This past weekend was my brother's wedding. The ceremony was held at Overlook Farms in Clarksville, Missouri, overlooking the Mississippi River. The site--with its view of Old Man River, hills, pecan and walnut trees--was a romantic's dreamscape. The ceremony included readings of several poems, including e.e. cumming's I Carry Your Heart. But the most inspiring poem (which elicited a loud laugh from my 8-year old grandson) was Li-Young Lee's From Blossoms.

From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy, to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

My contribution to this lovely day was a "wishing pot." It was a humble pot that was filled with everyone's best wishes for my brother and his bride. What a wonderful idea!