Thanks for this Kim

Dyed and Spun Shetland

A Note About Nairobi

Thanks Paul, I know your thoughts come from your experience.
I certainly don't have any special quality to offer. But I'm willing.
Our plans have changed to travel in November. I hope to teach and/or encourage some possibly forgotten and abandoned fiber crafts. There is an active group who manage and oversee micro-business financing applications. I hope for a long term benefit for them, but also know that to make something useful and beautiful has meant everything to me. I know there are people who long to do the same. It is a luxury for many.

I hate that communities are stripped of their imagination and co-creation with God. Poverty is cruel and may even be death to the craftsman who can't work his craft. I have an abundance that is waiting to be received. They, in turn, have an abundance.

Karin's trip was full of joy. The faithful surrounded them and those who longed for community were free to join them. Hope Center is growing because of the need. And it's growing because people are acting out of love. I cannot stop and mourn the millions who need more. Or rather I mourn it as we meet together and do what we can. We gotta do what we can. ;)

What I've Spun

Nairobi's Hope

Have a look at what our friend Tim is doing in Nairobi:

www.timbuskey.blogspot.com

Karin will be leaving on the 20th for 2 weeks to The Hope Center. The video page tells of 120+ children that are being helped. The number in the past year has risen to over 2000.
I hope that you'll sponsor a child too.

www.hopemissionsintl.org

Tim and I are planning to go in September.

A Month of Spinning

I've begun.

What kind of seeds are bones?
that lay down in the earth to become earth
Then the texture of springs and things
unseen before-

The worst came to them
and they fell-
unthinkable to reverse their purpose
an insult to their creation

We are not in the time of knowing
it is not to be said
what comes of calcium and withered marrow
But if bones are seeds once hatched from
creations painful roots
We will see its planting
and after its fullness
rest ourselves beneath its shade.

Couldn't Everyone Use One of These?

He is continuing,

my friend is extended.
The cries in mystery lay idle.
But revealed when he touched them.

He is transforming-

my friend is overturned
by grace which lies
amongst soiled creation, given eternity in time.

He is dying.

My friend is prophetic.
The passing can't be flesh
as bones do; dry and whitened.

He is living-

my friend is writing courage.
The law of justice pressing
light from darkness; words to action.

Again

My friend Joel is writing again. You should read him.

Guild

This Saturday I'll be teaching Sweater Finishing at the Knotty Knitters Guild.
Ten techniques makes Teddy's sweater loaded with tags.
Say that five times fast!

Life is going well. April is always a good month for me. Matt will be doing Driver's Ed and Karin will be done with school in a few short weeks. Me too for that matter.
I'll soon have all of my garments made and a few patterns drafted as well.
Coachella in a couple weeks.
Back yard almost done.

Good month.

Clothing 201

Mark, stitch, cut carefully.
Yeah, I've got the welt pocket down... and thankfully I've learned to make the jacket fit! I'm using woolen that belonged to my Aunt Mary Alice. She would be proud of me and eager to see this new technique.

I'm off to Sante Fe, New Mexico for a week. I'll be learning from Ann Budd and taking pictures of the missions.
La Lana Wools and Georgia O'Keefe...

Sometimes I Win

Good bye 2007.

It took waiting to the last days of the year to win big. It's all going okay now and this game of Rummicube was a highway sign.
Yahoo! Two points to add a little humility, to remind me it shouldn't be all perfect.

Peace for 2008.

Choir Comedy

I'm loving "Clash of the Choirs" during the writer's strike. Let's hear it for Team LaBelle!! Here's some more good choir TV-worth the download time, really!
Merry Christmas!

Advent

I came home today from school with no academic projects barkin' in my basement. What a complete joy! I'm done except for a multiple choice final a week from Wednesday. Mark is coming in two days and will be here for Christmas. He'll be able to see Joel's show on the 19th. His room's all ready upstairs.

I broke down and turned on the heat today, just long enough to take the edge off. Why do you think I have all these sweaters? There has to be some occasion to wear them! I lay awake for an hour last night before I piled on another quilt and slipped on some socks. Growing up in Seattle meant the COLDEST icy sheets this time of year. It will never be that bad again!

So I loved the classes I took this past fall and I'm really looking forward to new ones come January. But yeah for now! I am celebrating this Advent season being at home and enjoying attentiveness to The Wait.
Go get yourself a hot beverage.

It's difficult to rest after being on the move. I really need to rest. I need to rest from worry. I am better at trusting, but that means I can't think about it too much, or else, guess what? I'm worrying!

Karin is home; joy! and I am finishing up projects at school and wondering aloud, "Why am I going to college?" But the routine is very good for me and I feel like I do "know" stuff now. I have learned to avoid the sharp corners in my life for the moment and am simply enjoying the wonderous people around me.

We went to Joel's show at the Knitting Factory last night. So good. The night before was a fun show as he played with The Fling in Long Beach.... ("Holding on to what I think I'm feeling...")
I'm praying for my friends; watching some hearts go through some treacherous moments and thinking about what the new year might bring me in way of travels and projects.

But now I need to go sit down.

Spinning

100% Merino Heavy Worsted

Spinning

I blended handpainted kid mohair and merino from Laurie Lawson and merino top.
My first full skein!

approx. 418 yds.

Something new to write is only
tracing the markings once made.
Made in me deeply
where memories pool.

It flared up again that reignment
of finery that cloaks over
love and slow breathing
and waiting for a cool mist to
finally settle.

I copy your pose of resolution
and set my ear to hear music
that has begun from
ages far away.

I still can feel despite this pill
and I can still hear the rhythm
set by senses
cast like dye that
never cleanses.

I pray that prayer that now is
mere memory of faith
and trace your outline with the
faded grey
freeze framed
a chemical.

The Basics

It is easier to belong to a faction that simply tells what Jesus Christ has done for me, and easier to become a devotee of divine healing, or of a special type of sanctification, or of the baptism of the Holy Spirit

It's one of those days. I am letting some peace come into my spirit by just allowing my thoughts to rest on Jesus Christ. I look for him everywhere. It has been a dense fog of late. But my only imagination can be this: That I can know that I am at peace with God.
This is His reason. And when nothing else adds up, then I meditate on one thing that is a conclusion. God is at peace with me. The gospel tells me this. It is the only thing I am listening to now.

But as Chambers goes on to say, the Apostle Paul preached the gospel. I need something to settle on. I may not have the job of telling it like Paul felt he did, but I am needing it like water. Peace like water.