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I thought you should know about this post at Craftsanity right away! Go forth and be nosey!!! Now if my bolts of Drawing Room would just clear customs we'd be all set. I had a fancier post in mind for this fabric giveaway announcement, but my bolts are not here for their closeups. Shouldn't be long now, but I didn't want to wait on letting you know how to enter this one! xoxox, AM

Have I said yet that finishing the book is really just the beginning of the book? It's true. It is. You are not yet free from reading about the process, and mostly because I'm fortunate enough to be playing several roles in this adventure story. So the projects are drafted and made, the instructions and techniques have all their illustrations, the text is written, the cover photos are taken, but I am now working on the majority of the interior photography. I have never considered myself a photographer. (I hope my publisher isn't reading this.) I think I get lucky every now and then, and sorta know what I'm doing. I do think that when something good happens in my photographs its a little of both, luck and knowing only a little. I think above all else, I am an image maker and photography, just another medium. My favorite scheduled photo day so far has been the day spent with a fun project and that precious little Cece up there. I had to stop and nibble her to...

So we went to the woods. All seven of us left the house with various degrees of excitement. Yet upon entering this forest everyone of us leveled out to the same fullness of joy. No one said so. I just knew it. I felt it. Eleni's steps were quick. Juliana chatted more than normal and not about shopping. Nicolas, Joseph and Isabela just took off. Jeff didn't stop me from hovering behind the pack to take some pictures here and there. He just let me be knowing how happy it made me. We were all incredibly content to be . Even if this particular togetherness was stretched across several yards of leafy forest ground only connected sometimes by a family "caw-caw" location sound. That was fun. And it worked. So looking for less typical shapes and colors of course, I found a few scenes that jumped out at me. I am otherwise overwhelmed by the endless brown and gray of winter which is soothing and lovely. Still, I'm always looking for something that stands out a...

Good Morning! Well what took you so long to get up? I'm just working away here at the laundry just like I do (very diligently) every other morning. What? Oh that? It's just part of the laundry, so I'm a-workin' on it. I need to pick up that little orange thing on the floor over there too. Goodness knows when something needs doing, I do it, by gosh. Whadya say? Looking for matching socks almost made the kids miss the bus this morning? Well, as soon as I fold this little thingy here, I am on those socks! An' right after that I'm gonna crochet, errhh-uh, wash those dishes. Man nothing like waking up early and getting everything done. Hope your day is just as productive. xo,AM

I had the pleasure of hosting a team of folks here at the house on Friday to work on some photos for the book. The very talented and gracious Becky Stayner was on hand for the shoot. She is wonderful in every way. The biggest chore of the day was the cover shot, which after two months of persuading my publishers' marketing team finally convinced me to be part of. Notice I called it a chore. I was not especially excited at this prospect and insisted on some hard core convincing for several weeks. Short story is I had to go and name the book Seams To ME and, therefore it was agreed all the way around that the cover should feel as friendly to look at as it hopefully is to read. And for some reason they think I'm friendly. Hmm. I tried to start acting mean, make ugly faces and stuff so they would think I wasn't friendly but no one bought it for a second. It took weeks of back and forth phone calls and emails with attachments like the one above to nail down just the ...

If you live in a part of the country where you're ready to bid farewell to snow, I apologize for the following flaky excitement. Here in Nashville, winters can be either sunny and 55 or gray and below 0. We have waited and waited and I am so happy you are really here Winter! I do love the first snow. Sometimes the first can be the last so it is to be savored for certain. The rooms in the house are slowly growing to glow brighter as the dusting on the grass becomes a thin cotton batting. While we're nested indoors anyway it reminds me to make some movie recommendations. If you want to curl up on the couch and laugh and cry on Valentines day, please do so with these movies: Eagle vs. Shark and After the Wedding . They are equally amazing films but totally different. Both about love though. One awkward, one complex. And we've all been talking like New Zealanders (or trying to) for more than week now after watching Eagle vs. Shark twice. We rented the dvd the fi...

Remember Sun-In for your hair? Man I wanted to use that stuff but my mom would never let me. I was thinking of that as I was painting a wall in the living room this weekend (in a color called Sparkler, which I think is a Glidden color but I had it made with a Behr paint, cause I don't like Glidden paint, but sometimes I choose a random color that's not Behr, but anyway). The color reminds me of sunlight. And very, very light for a girl like me who likes deeper colors, but I dunno, you know, I can do something different. On one wall, anyway. Oh and I'm getting a vintage sofa covered in that swatch thats hanging on the ladder up there. As we do about every month, we hosted an uninvited and very terrified bird for a while yesterday (wasn't I just rambling about birds ? Is the inspiration more clear to you now?) These little wrens get into the house a lot, I never know how. We had a mother on the patio last spring who the kids affectionately called Tweety. We w...

( Reposting note ! I fiddled with this original post to make the images smaller, and I think you can see the overall palettes better from here, you can click on the images to see the prints a bit larger...thank you SO much for all the kind words....really means a lot! You people are lovely.) Welcome to the DRAWING ROOM. How romantic, the notion of a room in the house that is mostly used just for guests and entertaining. This is where one withdraws to ...which is how the term drawing room developed. What's in there? What is talked about? I imagine there to be books about faraway places and exotic lands. I picture maybe a stuffed pheasant on the mantle and also a pesky bird tweetering outside the window early every morning. I think there are flowers pressed between glass hanging on the wall. I think that there are relics of travels that are accompanied by stories about foods eaten and sights seen. I think the conversations are light and colorful. I think that there is a ...

Dear Lord, Thank You for all four corners of this home intact and for allowing us to be just shy of the storm's path. Thank You for Juliana's wise mind and nurturing heart that nested all the little ones in the basement until we rushed home from our dinner. Be with those who have lost and comfort them. And most of all thank You for Hope in times of sadness.

Well! That was fun. I tidied the fabric shelves today. Again. I started this over the weekend, but some of the little pumpkins were watching and the folding and stacking quickly turned to sewing and crafting and painting. I had a lot of energy after 7 slices of toast and cocoa . This place has been an honest-to-goodness mess for weeks and weeks, but I found myself nearly everyday with a no-sense-in-stopping-to-clean-now attitude. But after today I think I may actually have a little room in those shelves. What to do?! I do have some guests to prepare for....can you guess who'll be BOLTING into the studio this week??? Yup! My Drawing Room fabrics are coming this week! Make way people! Make way scraps! Move over Chocolate Lollipop ! Tuck your self in tighter Bohemian ! Meet me here on Friday (barring all comical catastrophes, which would be just as fun to share, provided they really are, in fact, comical) to see the latest and greatest! I have been close to busting with...