Hello February

Hello Gentle Readers. February's cold gray days come with the promise of increasing hours of daylight. Yesterday I tested negative for Covid so that is a positive. How is that for paradox? We both feel better although the cough lingers. Thank you for all your well wishes. When I walked on Monday, I saw a Cooper's Hawk perched on a fence. I stayed still and watched as he held his own in the blustery winds. I was reminded that remaining upright and steadfast in the wind is an accomplishment. 

Wednesday is the day to link with Kat and the Unravelers. Today I'm writing about my Stitch Journal. If you remember, I began by hand quilting a piece of fabric for the cover. Loosely following videos from k3N Cloth Tales, I made the journal, leaving space between paper signatures to accommodate stitch pieces. Last year while when I discovered this channel, I stitched on a blush colored piece of fabric. Right now, it lays inside the back cover as an endpaper of sorts. It isn't permanently attached. In 2024, Kathryn posted a series of weekly prompts for stitched pieces. I am stitching pieces at my own pace, not weekly. I plan to follow some of her prompts but also create my own. 

I won't drive you nuts posting all of the pages but I'm celebrating getting started and completing three pieces. These little pages have been good company this winter. For me, hand stitching is peaceful. Underneath each piece, I write something. The first page is a piece of cloth weaving with a poem I jotted down over a week or so. *

The second page is the night sky accompanied by the poem "Mrs. Moon"  that I have always liked.

I have no idea where I first saw it but it reminds me of the classic picture book, "Goodnight Moon." 

The third page is my version of Kathryn's prompt on Light and Dark. Her emphasis was on the balance of light and dark. Lately I've been thinking about what we gain by being in darkness. Regardless of clouds, smoke, precipitation in the night sky, the light of the moon empties and fills. The stars shine even when they are not visible to the human eye. 

I finished reading Becoming Willa Cather: Creation and Career by Daryl W. Palmer. I have written of this nonfiction previously because I picked it up and put it down several times. In this book, Palmer looked thoughtfully at the changes in Cather's work, from early stories, her one volume of poetry, and through the three novels (O Pioneers!, My Antonia, The Song of the Lark) that made her reputation. Interesting to me was the influence of territory making and how maps were continually redrawn, the railroad, and how growing up in that time and place both constricted and allowed her to explore gender in her writing. Palmer doesn't ignore the fact that Cather didn't attend to the genocide of Native Americans. Nor does he dwell on Cather's sexual orientation. The writing is a little dry in places and probably isn't for everyone but it expand my thinking about Cather's work. 

Thank you for sticking with this long post. Here's to a new month, February and a breath of fresh air. 

* The poem and all creative work is copyrighted by Jane A. Wolfe