Spring’s Eternal Hope

The saying goes, Hope springs eternal, but I prefer Spring’s eternal hope.

For the past week I have begun each morning in the garden, moving raspberry bushes, weeding the strawberries, contemplating the deer fence that the wind took down, conversing with the birds and dreaming….

…dreaming of a yard full of flowers and vegetables and herbs, dreaming of self sufficiency, dreaming of shelves filled with homemade pickles and preserves, dreaming of dyeing all my fabrics from the colours nature provides. This dream is truly Spring’s eternal hope because the truth is, my garden is always something of a mess. I begin every Spring with gusto and by August the weeds have shown me who is growing who and the birds have eaten all the blueberries. And yet, every April I experience a sort of past garden amnesia. I plunge that shovel into the ground fully believing that this is the year my garden will match the vision in my mind. Maybe it is. This is spring’s eternal hope.

Whether or not Martha Stewart comes calling, my garden is truly my happy place and even if I have to search under a tangle of weeds I know I will find plenty to celebrate.

Spring also seems to bring out my need to dive into the scrap pile. I think there’s a spring cleaning association here. I can only hand dye around 2 yards of my cotton canvas fabrics at a time and one dye lot takes several hours. This makes the fabric scraps very hard to throw away. Between my questionable perception of these scraps being priceless and the environmental cost of throwing away fabric, my studio is being taken over by tiny fabric remnants. However, this tension does seem to fuel my creativity. I am at peace when turning fabric scraps into pretty hats. You can find this Scrappy Betty Bucket hat HERE.

The inside of the hat (it is now covered with a lining) will give you a sense of how long these hats take to sew. Not sure why I find this so fun, but I do.

Here’s another simpler version made with linen fabric scraps. Both of these hats will fit a medium head size, but I would be delighted to custom make one in any size.

A strange photo, but also kind of interesting, I think. This is my new Alice hat. She will soon have a whole blog post of her own, but I was too excited to not share. The inspiration for this hat is Alice Austen, the model (and secret lover of the author) in the 1896 guide book, Bicycling for Ladies by Maria Ward. The author had quite a lot to say about clothing and this new sport for women. The bicycle was truly revolutionary for women and dress reform. It was strongly advised to wear a sensible hat while cycling. Although my Alice hat comes down lower than a traditional late Victorian hat, its shape and simple trim are very late Victorian and the hat is most definitely sensible.

The bow can be worn to the front, back, or to the side. If you are looking for me I’ll be curled up knitting 101 colour variations of this hat.

In other news, Devi is completely recovered. Thank you all so much for your support. It helped enormously. This is Devi, this morning, intently looking up the stairs in hope that his boy will magically appear. The boy, WHO JUST TURNED 21, came to visit for a few days and then was gone with the wind. Devi was soooo happy to have his family together and was not adjusting well to the boy’s sudden disappearance. (I feel your pain, Devi.)

Thank you for tuning in. Love to you all. Anna….p.s., incase you missed it, there’s a new hat and a walk video up on YouTube. I sent a link last time, but I don’t think it worked. You can watch that HERE.