The vibes this week are “wow it’s hard to wake up” and “huh, I slept for 9 hours and could keep sleeping” and “ooh yes I do need an extra blanket on the bed”–that is, they are hibernation vibes (hibes?). Here’s a handful of pictures and accounts for your own sleepy times:
From a series by artist Sophie Lucido Johnson: 
From a wonderful account that just posts art all day, Le Jardin RoBo:
From pretty much the opposite of a refined art account, but a good time (Da Share Zone):
Legalize it!
Doc got me a Lego set for Christmas and it might have been the most inspired gift ever: It gives you the mental break of a puzzle, but it’s structured, which means nothing is open-ended and you never have to search for a solution. If you have my brain (anxious, needs order) then this is the best possible thing you can imagine.
I built the pirate ship from my Christmas set and will disassemble it soon to turn it into a pirate tavern (it’s a 3-in-1!) but in the meantime I found the Legos marketed specifically for adults and bought one for myself:
I remember doing a few sets back in the 90s but I was still young enough that the process wasn’t important, the main thing was getting to the finished product as soon as possible so you could play Lego Pirates. But building sets an an adult? Yes, give me more instructions to follow precisely. I can’t get enough.
Nearly a year ago (to the very day!) I posted about maybe sewing a carry-on bag and traveling. That, of course, was before Toby got sick and now that he needs insulin twice a day, we’ve kind of shelved the idea of travel for the time being. But did I buy fabric for the damn bag a year ago, plus all the hardware and notions? Of course. Has everything been sitting in a pile on the end of my ironing board for a year now? You know it!
I ended up going with a stripe to copy the Kate Spade Saturday look to the max, in waterproof Ottertex ordered from Fabric Wholesale Direct:
And of course I planned on doing the contrast lining (but in orange ripstop) and yes, the lining fabric has been sitting on the ironing board for a year, too:
Okay, I’ve answered my question; I’d better just sew this thing up after I finish the latest quilt coat. Maybe we won’t be traveling but it would be nice to have the end of the ironing board back.
Some toe beans:
A magnolia bud (!):
Enjoy some softness to start the week. Only one more Monday in January!
Today’s the fourth anniversary of Mom’s death. I don’t have much to say today; the longer it is, the more grief and memory are just a daily thing versus a “before this date, everything was okay” comparison. I wish she was still here. I wish I could show her my quilts and my cakes. I’m glad she’s not sick anymore.
1. This onion definitely made me cry:
2. That’s okay, though, because this kid knows what to say to someone who’s crying:
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3. This was my dad’s theme song for the first few months after mom’s death. It’s just what you have to do: keep on keepin’ on.
PS–First Aid Kit is coming to town in May! Maybe Dad and I should go.
This starts with birds (great! we love birds) and then veers into Monet (cool, ok) and ends with maybe the best depiction of grief over time I’ve ever read (oh my god that took a turn). But that’s what art is for, right? Giving you an expression for something you didn’t have before. “All the same but for the light.”
Everything Is a Sign Today
by Amanda Moore
Feather in the grass, stippled and striped:
hawk, I think. And then a man
blocking the sidewalk, child on his back,
both of them pointing binoculars toward the treetop
where I know a great horned owl nests, though I’ve never seen it.
All these birds: creatures I might never have known
had I not spent my childhood filling her feeders, naming
each genus from our perch at her kitchen table.
A falcon swoops down beside me on the path
gripping some rodent in its talons, twisting the body to kill.
Like the time a heron a few feet from our picnic blanket
plucked a whole mouse from its burrow and swept away. She had been
delighted, said we, too, should grab something special
of our own that day. Turning toward home,
I bend to collect a wrinkled postcard at the curb:
an advertisement for the Monet exhibit. How I loved
those paintings when I was younger, all of them nearly the same:
haystack, haystack, haystack. The only difference
the season and time of day, which is to say
they are like this grief these months later:
all the same but for the light.
Well the mid-Januaries have hit: learning a new job is tricky, I’m wondering why I went back to working full-time, it’s the anniversary of my mom’s death at the end of the week, and where is the sun? Here are some vibes:
(by Crazy Head Comics)
(from Sarah Andersen Comics)
(from Best of Math Class)
There’s always knitting, though:
And Godzilla:
Stay strong, friends. We are Godzilla, deep down.
I thought I’d take a break from quilts and sew up a jacket I’ve had in mind since the fall–The Assembly Line Cap Sleeve Vest. I could see it as a good Zoom layer that kept me warm but also let whatever print I was wearing underneath get highlighted. And it is!
I sewed this up entirely in stash fabrics–a Kaufman light twill that I bought in the great Pants Fever of 2017 and a Fabric Godmother viscose lawn that I had shipped from England and then didn’t love. But do I love it as a lining? Yes! And do I love THESE NEW CUSTOM LABELS? You know it:
Oh yeah I finally made these happen. I’ve been wanting custom labels for a couple of years now, inspired by Martha Moore of Buried Diamond, but I thought I needed a designer. Turns out I just needed to pay for a trial of Canva and find a template to alter (and a cool font). Then I sent the file to Dutch Label Shop and boom! Custom labels of my dreams.
They’re about $2 each, so they’re not cheap, but they add more than $2 worth of flair. Get ready to see a lot more of these on every jacket-like project I make.
It took me 30 years to learn that Dr. King was a radical and I didn’t learn about the Poor People’s Campaign he organized before his assassination until this year. (It involved 3,000 people camping on the Washington Mall for 6 weeks! You’d think someone would have mentioned it!)
Anyway, here’s a quote from the man himself:
And one day we must ask the question, “Why are there forty million poor people in America?” And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And I’m simply saying that more and more, we’ve got to begin to ask questions about the whole society.
1. The NY Times has a “happiness project” going on for January and apparently an 8-minute phone call with someone you care about can life your mood?
“A study of 240 adults in 2021 found that when participants received brief phone calls a few times a week, their levels of depression, loneliness and anxiety were ‘rapidly reduced’ compared with people who didn’t receive a call.”
2. Of course, if we all are anthropomorphic woodland creatures we probably aren’t depressed or lonely in the first place:
3. I wish this were the case and it wasn’t just rich people getting richer with all this price gouging, but I’m going to think of this every time I buy eggs:
