This summer is turning out weird. There was a foot of rain in June; four times the average. Crops are soggy and there are warnings about late blight. Needless to say that between the deluge and jewelry production there has been very little activity in the raised garden. But there has been some and I give you a picture of progress – soil in four beds.

I’m finding that heavy shoveling is a good balancing activity to teeny tiny beadwork.

In the last couple of days potatoes and calypso beans have started poking their heads above ground. I want to go out and pet them and do a little “I’m so happy you’re here” dance. It seems crazy-magical that I poked some dry beans and wrinkled potatoes into the dirt and now there are leaves sprouting. I can’t imagine that miracle ever gets boring.

The Buyers Market of American Craft is in Phili again this weekend and I’m getting ready. I’ve been making new designs to show, and stocking up on samples. Here’s a glimpse:

I feel positively magpie-ish when I see lots of pieces laid out like this. A good feeling of abundance. Making the new designs has given me more ideas, spiraling out in some kind of fractal pattern of inspiration, too many to chase down. But I want to try.

There are red circles everywhere. In the tomato bowl,

the painting of apples by Chris Linder,

the plums I ended up cutting up and freezing for a winter tart,

and the peaches, unbelievably good peaches, sitting on the sill.

I’ve adopted Lucy‘s surviving babies. Inevitably. I mean how could I resist?

Wolfie is being surprisingly great with them, seeing the potential for playmates once they move beyond this erratic stage of “I’m wild and crazy and everything is a toy!”

Annabelle is not a happy girl. She’s keeping guard and hissing at them, but it’s been a couple of days and the hiss frequency is getting less intense so I suspect they’re wearing her down.

Circles, still more circles…

Some new pieces and some experiments not yet sorted through to satisfaction. Pieces to have hanging around to play with in case a solution pops into my head.

I’ve never been one of those people who work x-number of hours in the studio every day. I’d like to be but I’m not. With envy I imagine those regular-studio-hours people as having impeccable exercise regimes, and eating healthy meals at the same time each day. Laundry-is-done-on-Saturday type of people.

Not me. I’m more prone to activity binges. All studio for several weeks, followed by 2 days of website updating, followed by a stretch of solid gardening is more my style; it balances out over time.

I’ve been in a phase of house projects, house guests, a trip up to Canada for a family reunion… so it feels like ages since I’ve had concentrated time in the studio.

Before leaving for Canada I reorganized the studio, moved furniture around, tidied up. Now I’m excited to get in there and to make some new pieces. I have a little pile of envelope backs with doodles of earrings and pendants and I need to make them to find out if the designs work.

I’ll let you know.