You Can Call Me Gwen

Scavenged Beauty, Take Three

 

My wonderful Beeg Seester volunteered to do some sewing for her church this Christmas season, thinking she'd be stitching up a few shepherd costumes or some such thing.

No.

They asked her to make a tree skirt for their biggest Christmas tree.

An eleven foot diameter tree skirt, to be exact, from a diamond-puckered taffeta with two bands of  velvet and a beaded trim.

She said she had to use pi when she was figuring out her patterns and fabric needs.

I said the only pi I understood was of the eating variety.

I was SEW impressed.

Making patterns, laying out all that fabric, cutting it and then getting it through the machine without creating miles of unsightly puckers?

That was an impressive feat.

Take a gander at this incredible finished product, folded in half here because...well...do you have a big enough space to open an eleven foot tree skirt?

 

 

(No. That is not my Beeg Seester.)

As I stood back in amazement and cheered her on, I was quietly lusting after the scraps that necessarily ensue when cutting straight runs of fabric into circles.

I finally just put in a bid for them.

She brought me a lovely, big pile.

I stitched some into a decoration for our front door and pulled, once again, a bunch of greens from the ice storm rescues, and some pine cones, cording and bulbs from the stores in my studio and Christmas boxes.

 

 

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

After a lovely day full of creative pursuits, I went to bed last night with ice packs on the hurty places and distracted myself from the pain by thanking God for the treasures from the street.

And Beeg Seesters, and pinecones, and felt, and needles and thread, and hands that work, and the talents He wired into me, and friends to play with, and paint, and color, and berries, and twinkle lights, and...and...and...

Listing every little thing that I have been enjoying was a pretty wonderful way to fall asleep.

Try it tonight and let me know what you think.

Beauty from Ashes, Part Two

 

The streets here are still (sadly) lined with the debris from the ice storm of Thanksgiving weekend.

My garage still has these buckets of greens I picked from the curbs of our neighbors...

 

 

 

 

...though they are not as full as they once were.

Yesterday, I made the centerpiece for our table.

 

 

I might need some new candles.

 

 

(I certainly need to straighten the candles I do have.)

I built the box from a 1" x 4" last year, and the sweet little birds were purchased at a clearance sale some time back, but...

 

 

...the greens, berries, and pine cones are all rescued beauty.

Thank you, God. 

Beauty From Ashes

 

It's been difficult to see - lining the streets in every neighborhood of our city - the carnage from the Thanksgiving weekend ice storms.

It's painful to know my sisters lost beloved oaks and profusely-productive pecan trees and to hear of friends whose wonderful old shade trees are now only insurance liabilities with neighbors' fences crushed beneath them.

We hear talk about "nature's way of pruning", but it is often sad, sometimes dangerous, and frequently costly.

Our yard boasts no significant trees - a crepe myrtle with a few snapped limbs is all we personally suffered - and perhaps that is what leaves me in a position to see the beauty in the ashes.

I've been scavenging.

A bucket full of holly branches, quite loaded with berries, from a curbside up the street.

A big armload of magnolia limbs from a nearby neighbor's yard.

A trunkful of evergreens, with pinecones still attached, laying in the easement near the exit of our subdivision.

Limbs from a birch too big to fit in the trunk.

A branch from my sister's pecan, another from a friend's fallen Chinese pistache.

And lots of bare, straight twigs.

I am hoping to give them back to the people who suffered their loss.

Perhaps in the shape of a wreath, maybe in the form of a centerpiece, some in the form of decoration for porch or pillar.

Right now, most of the greens are in water in my garage.

 

 

 

A few sprigs made it into my Fiestaware pitcher and are sitting on the kitchen table.

 

 

I cut the limbs from my Beeg Seester's pecan and my friend's Chinese pistache into discs and have been using my woodburning tool (for the first time!) to make ornaments for their Christmas trees.

 

 

And many, many twigs are being made into new trees. 

 

Beauty from ashes.

I love a good redemption story, and I love this one most of all:

^"But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,  to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons."

Thank God for Christmas.