Don’t mistake me for an isolationist. This is not a political statement. BUT, we all have to do what we can to create more American jobs. It’s my personal mission to help in a small way by promoting craftsmen/women and artists. There are SO MANY talented people in this country willing to live simple lives for the privilege of spending their days doing what they love.

Do I think it will be difficult to furnish this sample house with American made goods? No, I don’t.

Do I think the products will be low in quality? No, way!

For example, look at a cabinet making business in Clairemont, New Hampshire, Crown Point Industries. Crown Point makes quality custom cabinetry in a small New England town, employing local residents. The designs are sophisticated enough for Park Avenue, simple enough for a mid-western craftsman style home. The price is more than you’d find in Home Depot, but less than hiring your own cabinet maker. And these cabinets will last decades.

We have to get away from the old American mind set of purchasing a mass of low quality items (the Walmart syndrome of consumption), and then replacing them every few years (because they never last). Over the long term, one quality item will serve you longer and better than many cheaply made imported items.

Just think about it. Do what you can. I can’t afford to have custom made cabinets made right now. But what I can afford is to purchase  a few well-chosen accessories for my home from artists on Etsy.com or local art shows or friends… or make them myself. I can’t afford right now to decorate my livingroom with quality American products. But I can do this over time. I’d rather buy one beautiful chair and wait a couple years for another instead of buying a cheap imported wrap around couch that will need to be trashed in 5 years.

How about your kitchen? King Arthur Flour is sold across the country as the highest quality milled grains (I standardly use the White Whole Wheat), and they employee people in the rural Connecticut River Valley in Vermont. The take care of their employees, and sell only quality products. Honestly, their USA made baking pans are THE BEST. There must be thousands of businesses out there across our great country, making quality products. Take the time to search for them! Share the contact information for these businesses on this or your own blog. Help to employ even one more qualified person out there by supporting a good American business. We can each make a difference in our unemployment rate.

It’s a lifestyle issue. And it makes sense. Buy fewer items from American craftsmen/women instead of shopping carts full of Chinese knock-offs (no disrespect intended to the Chinese people–just chose this as an example). Buy one painting by an American artist. Buy a few accessories by local artisans. And then WAIT (gasp!!) until you can afford to buy another.

And I’m not ruling out beautiful, classic antiques and vintage items, either. A Homer Laughlin tea pot or a piece of Haeger pottery to add to my collection is so much more precious to me than a cheap imported knock-off. I’m waiting patiently to find a 1940′s vintage Waterfall bureau–they just don’t make warehouse furniture like that anymore.

How about rugs. Instead of a chemical-filled carpet warehouse, I long for a hand-braided or hand-hooked rug. Not only do these rugs last longer, but they don’t irritate allergy-prone people. This will take me awhile to save for. Maybe I can make one!

Take a look around your home. How many items are American made? What products are you in the market for? Can you find these items from American producers? America needs to put people to work again! Take up the challenge!

And please share your results!!

On Facebook’s Cold Antler Farm page, I found a recipe that I’m going to try: Honey Lemon Whole Wheat Bread. You’ll have fun reading the posts on Cold Antler Farm’s page. These people are living my impossible dream. They claimed a little bit of land, and they’re making their own living.

Family farms are GOLD to our society. Besides preserving green space in our communities, the products from the homesteaders are usually pure and allow us to shop locally. They provide Made-in-America products, and this is something we have to support ESPECIALLY NOW:  vegetables, wine, pure meat and fish, honey, wool, furniture, house pets, rugs, PIES (my personal favorite), dairy… all the best things in life!

ABC Evening News is hosting a Made-in-America challenge. Check it out!

So, this weekend I’m going to set a bright and sunny tea party FOR MYSELF, bake some lemony goodness to munch with my tea, decorate my table to look like Spring, and research American made items on the Internet. Sounds like fun for a rainy weekend.

Join me!

How about a tea and lemonade party? Create a summer feeling with a table setting of lemon yellow, modern browns, and a hint of aqua. Or freshen your kitchen with these trendy accents.

Yellow Lemonade Handpai… ChristineSherr… $47.38	Chalkboard signs set of… Rusticblend $15.00	mocha and olive green t… giardino $22.00
6 Vintage Lemon Tea Par… AnaWho $15.00	Naturally Dried Full Le… EcoLecticEvent… $12.50	Framed Print of Sweet S… ArtByTemple $22.00
Vintage-Inspired Desser… BurlapAndBlue $30.00	Fresh Squeezed Lemonade… tweetheartwall… $24.00	5 Mod Keyhole Drinking … MollysCloset $18.00
4 vintage 1940 Meadow … Vivianstreasur… $11.75	3 dozen Lemon Cookie Ni… Craftedcookies… $15.95	Stig Lindberg Spisa Rib… handz $85.00
Mini Wall Hanging Clock… decoylab $18.00	Make Lemonade – Memory … cherryblossoms… $40.00	French Kitchen print Li… CuteOne $6.49
vintage homer laughlin … valeriesvintag… $72.00

Treasury tool is sponsored by Lazzia.com A/B image testing.

Under the snow we find grays and greens. Moss and stones. Just a hint of life waiting for a breath of warm Spring wind.

Made to Order-Felted Na… moonflowercrea… $17.00	Large Lichen Bowl Wall … dbabcock $125.00	Moss Bowl with Reindeer… benjrs $20.00
Moss Rocks Cracks – Nev… WolfyPhotograp… $9.99	Winter Withered Grass 8… thebqe $35.00	Unique PAPERWEIGHT of S… EclectiblePart… $56.00
Hand Forged Salamander … VermontBlacksm… $30.00	Choose your own color p… cindycolumbia1… $30.00	Cedar and Sacred White … aromacandles $7.50
Hand Stitched Embroide… TwigsAndLace $50.00	Dandelion -Mini Acrylic… Blakeswork $17.00	Chic Wheatgrass Soil-le… plantology $59.00
Tumbled Marble Coaster … littleshopofph… $10.00	RUSTIC Tree Bark Green … vintagegreenli… $23.00	Woodland Tracks Ornamen… TwigsandBlosso… $15.00
Cast Stone Garden Green… springhillstud… $24.95

Treasury tool is sponsored by Lazzia.com A/B image testing.

No surprise to this daily make-it-myself-er. It’s a rare day that I don’t make something. It’s true… busy hands are happy hands. If there’s something I want, I make it!

My parents modeled this way of life with their string of hobbies. It was expected that we’d all have our own hobbies. Each summer we spent time at a cottage on a lake. Nothing fancy. No television. Just a lake and our hobbies for evenings and rainy days. We all went shopping and picked out our vacation projects. We made candles one year by digging forms in wet sand and pouring hot wax into the carved out molds. Many years we made sequined ornaments, pinning the adornments onto styrofoam shapes. On Nantucket one summer, we painted shells with clear finger nail polish, bringing out the color as if each shell were still wet. I remember learning decoupage, crocheting, painting, and wood crafts.

During my teenage years I was part of a sewing circle, sending our homemade blankets to third world nations. That was a self-esteem building experience! I was making my own clothes. I taught myself how to needlepoint while recuperating from mononucleosis. I crocheted my own afghan. I quilted pillows to sell, making $200 one Christmas (which was a generous amount back then). I took quilting and basket making classes. Even then, craft and fabric stores were magnets to me.

The joy of those summer evenings with each of us quietly involved in our own project were the best times shared by our family. As I raised my sons, I tried to teach them the same pleasure and pride in making things. For a week before Valentine’s Day, I covered the kitchen table with craft materials for my kids and the neighborhood kids to make their own valentines. They’d play outside for awhile and then come in with friends in tow to cut and glue ribbons and paper doilies to construction paper for their moms or brothers. So sweet!

My boys learned how to make friendship bracelets with brightly colored floss. I have a clear picture in my memory of my couch filled with little shirtless boys with pillows on their laps, floss pinned to those pillows, braiding their bracelets while cooling down during the heat of the afternoon. They’d make bracelets for themselves, and gift me with them.

My kids loved to wood burn pictures traced from coloring books. They enjoyed the scent of the burning wood just as I had as a child. I still have their plaques with burned outlines of birds and Native American designs. On the day that my son Daniel came home from his hockey game with his first stitches in his chin, he wood burned a picture frame with the date and a picture of his stitches. In the frame is the picture of his bandaged little face. What a treasure.

And now that my little ones are grown, I busy my hands with quilting, crocheting, knitting, sewing, embroidery, painting, beading…. anything I think of. I create during the day, I create in the evenings. I can’t stop creating!

Call it hobbies, crafts, or art. Making things makes me happier than anything I could ever buy. Sunset is right!

Let me know if you want craft ideas to teach your children.

A golden heart is more precious than diamonds, and solid like a rock.

Love… solid like a rock.

I know all the arguments about Valentine’s Day as a promotional tool for greeting card companies… and a day to set unreasonably high expectations of our lovers. I’ve heard more men than I can count grumble through my years, “I show her every day that I love her. She doesn’t need flowers for me to prove that.” Reasonable points, all of them.

Valentine’s Day imprints from youth as a day ripe with opportunities for rejection for elementary school children with fewer valentines at the classroom party. It continues into adulthood for those without romantic love in their lives on the day devoted to public displays of affection. I validate the feelings of each one of you who hate Valentines Day.

But I love it.

I think I look at the day differently than the women in the diamond commercials. I think it’s amazing that in our society we set aside a day to share our feelings of affection with those we love. It’s just that simple… and that special. Of course I love Valentine’s Day.

Along with the affection I share with my husband and sons, this is the time to remind the women in my life how dear they are to me.

My girl friends… my diamonds.

Thanks to each woman who has modeled confidence, reminded me to hope without ceasing, kept me laughing, gifted me with respect, and poured out compassion without judgement. I LOVE YOU ALL!

Mail a card or note to a friend today, and tell her what she means to you.

Pantone’s color of the year is Honeysuckle, a flamingo-y, coral-y tone of pinkish red. You just have to see it for yourself! Maybe I’d call it a gray-ed red. I think that’s how I’d mix my paints to get this color. Red, white, gray.

Pantone, the world’s go-to source for color, describes red as “A Color for All Seasons. Courageous. Confident. Vital. A brave new color, for a brave new world.“

We’re in a brave new world? Hmm.

I love following color trends. There really is a psychology to color. Marketing experts describe red as “the color of energy.” Is society ready to leave the sluggish past few years behind, and mount up with new goals and determination?

As I study trends, I always come back to my love of art and craft to apply what I’ve learned. I just created a new Treasury List (a curated list of items on sale at www.etsy.com) of chic red apparel and accessories. See what you think of my collection.

I’m attracted to fabric and fiber, most of all. eQuilter has some modern, Japanese inspired red prints that I love. Purl Soho carries a line of cashmere in warm, rich shades of red (oh lust, lust).

Jade Sapphire, Zageo, 6 ply Cashmere

Viviana, Harmonious Garden Blocks, Strawberry, 24"x44" panel

You feel it too, don’t you? Drawn to red?

Is it the unusually snowy, long winter? That can’t be the only thing because I live in San Diego (not to brag).

There’s something empowering about red. And we’re all seeking some personal power right about now. Just watch the people of Egypt. Will this societal trend continue? A movement toward new beginnings, passionate and true?

This won’t end after Valentines Day.

Keep your eye open. Bet you’ll be wearing some shade of red as Spring approaches. Coral? Brick red? Honeysuckle?

Bring red accents into your home. A little goes a long way. A rug. A lamp. A quilt. Red hooks on the wall. A red lacquered box. A pile of vintage red books. A print of a bright red apple.

May I be self-serving (sorry) and lead you to my photograph of a dewy red poppy, for sale in my online Etsy store? Doesn’t that just make you happy?

Photograph by Holly Barry. All rights reserved. Copies are on sale at www.thekingfisher.etsy.com. Do not copy, please.

The Avalanche

Just last month
the avalanches like good women
were headed for a downfall. I saw one
throw back her head
and let go of the world.

No more free soup bones for that one.
No more faces of friends at the door
with doilies and lace,
with ivory charms
carved of the elephant’s great collapse.

Once an avalanche makes up her mind
not to cling,
there’s no more covering up the cliff face
and hiding the truth,
and in her breakdown
she knows everything
and knows what she knows
about the turning wheel of earth,
love, markets, and even the spring
coming soon with its wildflowers.

A frilly knitted scarf pattern by Lucy Neatby.

I’ve been eyeing twisty, ruffly knitted scarves for some time. When I found the Sea Lettuce Scarf pattern, by knit designer Lucy Neatby, I knew I had to make one of these for myself (and one to sell).

I found the pattern on NobleKnits, my favorite knitting website, for only $5.95. The yarn used for the NobleKnits model was exactly what I wanted, so I ordered 4 skeins (2 red for a scarf to sell, and 2 blue for MY scarf) of South West Trading Company’s Yin Yarn. The yarn feels lighter than the worsted weight it’s described as. It’s incredibly soft, worth the cost. The pattern calls for a #2 needle, but I’m using a 16″ #3 circular needle and I’m very happy with the results.

I have to admit that I struggled for awhile to understand the directions. I’m making the wider 32 stitch version of the scarf. There were a few new skills that I had to learn to get going on this pattern. Lucy Neatby kindly included terrific directions in her 7 page packet. Don’t be intimidated when you receive these lengthy instructions (most scarf patterns are only a couple pages long). The designer included full explanations, some with illustrations, for:

a provisional crochet cast-on (easier than I’d thought it would be),
picot edgings (this one took about an hour to figure out),
short row knitting (she made it easy in her directions),
and the row-by-row steps to create wedges of knitting.

I get it now… it’s these wedges one-after-another that create the twisting ruffles. Who first came up with this idea? Genius!

I’m anxious to see how this scarf works up. You know what I’ll be doing today during the Super Bowl!