A Slipper Slope and a True Vacation
Happy New Year. Tomorrow is back to school day for the boy and back to reality day for the mom. Fortunately, my reality is pretty fantasy.
In past years, I have gone from intense hat making for orders straight into intense pajama making for my boys and, not too surprisingly, I never quite got that I had a break feeling. So, this year for Christmas I gave the boys a happy mother/wife and made them absolutely zilch. I pretended I was a normal person that didn’t always have a voice in my head saying, I can make that.
Instead, I was completely selfish and felted myself a pair of slippers. O.K, two pairs of slippers because I had to get it out of my system. Which I haven’t, but that’s another story.
I can’t even begin to tell you how much fun I had. As I mentioned before, my day to day reality is pretty darn idealic, but there is a slight grown up component to it where I need to make the hats that my customers order and despite my head constantly being filled with new ideas, I can’t always make the time to get to them. The night before I made these slippers, I lay in bed with my ipad and watched endless slipper making tutorials on youtube.. Most of them were in Russian, no I don’t speak Russian, but the slavic drone in the background somehow made the experience all the more enjoyable. You see, in my real life, I work…. all the time, and am forced to make these annoying connections between creating and eating, so wasting endless hours learning to do something with very little practical value other than to keep my feet warm and make me happy was sheer joy for me.
This is what they look like half way through. Pretty crazy, huh? Being my first pair, I hadn’t realized how much that opening would stretch by the time the felting was done. They still worked, but that’s why I felt the need to tackle a second pair.
So, these ones were born. I love them both, but being rather frugal when it comes to heat, I am living in these ones for the coldest months.
I had a fabulous week off and then the day after Christmas went back to filling orders for a few days, so that we could head to Tony’s sister’s beautiful home in Winterport, Maine for New Year’s. This is one of my many favourite places. This is the view from the kitchen window. Being there is wonderfully relaxing. Getting there is not. It always seems to take us 11 hours and we are fine until the last 3, which are complete torture. Fortunately, the reward at the end of the tunnel is great.
A girl’s day out with my sister in law, Amy, is my idea of heaven on earth. We went to Belfast, Maine. It’s an adorable town, filled with old brick buildings, great stores, coffee shops and……
the fabric store to end all fabric stores. Walking into fiddle head artisan supply is like a religious experience for me. Every display is like a shrine. It’s just beautiful. I walked out with lots of fabrics for upcoming summer hats and a pattern for a beautiful coat which I will probably just stare at and never get around to making. Maybe on my next forced vacation.
We arrived back in Lunenburg yesterday just before this arrived. It’s a beautiful mess out there. I took this photo just before the whole thing turned to rain and slush.
Getting away is wonderful and there are so many places I love, but coming home to Lunenburg never gets old. I get to live in a fairy tale. It’s back to work for me, but it’s still not real work.
Anna, what wonderful slippers!
Happy New Year!