November, 2025
I’ve sewn almost all my life, but I’ve never dipped my toe into the designing merch waters until now. “Cooler by the Lake” is a phrase you hear often in my Chicago neighborhood, but most of the shirts with the slogan either don’t have the neckline I like, or reference the Michigan side.
This is one of those projects I’ve had in mind to try for quite a while, but since a lot of people have had a lot to say about Chicago lately, the time seemed right.
It will be a couple of weeks before I see how it turned out, and we’ll see where it goes from there. If I like it, this could be the start of something fun.
November, 2025
Thanks once again to Nancy Akerly of Liberty Grove Paper Arts I was able to start AND finish another clever handmade box. It was fun to finally work with her in person at the Handmade Book Club retreat in the Berkshires known as Books in the Woods.
One of the few benefits of the pandemic era was that so many great teachers made themselves available to a wider online audience, and so many great art affinity communities were born. It has enriched my life and I’m grateful for the effort these teachers put into sharing their work, their expertise, and their joy in creating.
November, 2025
It’s been a while since I’ve had a real fall colors experience. It feels like the weather (climate, really) is changing so much that you can’t count on the seasons behaving the way they used to. At the end of October, I drove from Chicago to the Berkshires, and it was 80 degrees along the way, so my expectations were low, but I was happily surprised.
This is the view from one of the art studio windows at Snow Farm in Massachusetts where I attended the Handmad Book Club retreat. (My private name for it is Girls, Glitter, and Glue)
The drive from Chicago across upstate New York was beautiful, and you can see the vibrant surroundings we had when the sun was out.
November, 2025
My favorite new trick isn’t exactly meditation, but it feels meditation adjacent. After getting out of bed feeling way less, shall we say, loose than I’d like to lately, I’ve started to literally shake it off. Maybe you’ve seen it in your social feeds too. Soft knees, and just bounce up and down letting everything jiggle, for about a minute.
Yes, the jiggling is jarring, and a minute is longer than you would think, but it’s one of those things that creates singular focus, and that’s hard to come by these days. And I feel better afterwards, I really do.
I’m told I could feel even better if I started the day with some cold water wild swimming or a cold plunge, or an icy shower but for now I’ll just shake instead of shiver.
