mosaic monday

1. a wish come true, 2. button hole stich books, 3. the 25 stones of christmas, 4. Winterlandscape, 5. Pebbles shells and candles, 6. Amelia (detail), 7. Christmas 09, 8. bob bob bobbin' along, 9. Hiver Hibiscus, 10. Untitled, 11. green winter, 12. mitts, 13. love what is real, 14. let it snow 4, 15. Embroidery Brooch, 16. presépio, 17. Night forest, 18. post struggle, 19. Untitled, 20. Christmas Angel - detail, 21. "A Serious Matter", 22. Señor, 23. Untitled, 24. river II, 25. SDC11328, 26. cirkels, 27. millicent, 28. perched in the soul, 29. Untitled, 30. Circle and circle, 31. Brooch, 32. 6, 33. Untitled, 34. Oh, 35. Untitled, 36. eco print with oak leaves

Created with fd's Flickr Toys

A very good Monday to you......The snow fell and lingers on, icy snow outside, I can hear the birds singing in the hedges by my window but it's not quite light..... Many thanks to the artists and photographers featured here for sharing their Wintry inspired and wonderful work!

This week I shall be attempting to take it easy, which is not what will happen with a busy small household and plenty to do.... (yes I still have gifts to wrap, no I am not cooking for ten thousand....)..... I shall continue to make small steps of progress on existing projects. The chairs are slowly getting their layers of paper. I'm thinking of ideas, jotting notes, writing lines...

Today is Winter Solstice, the 'shortest day of the year'. So, no surprise that it is as I type 8am and still no sun. It will rise in its own good time, as I consider good times ahead and good times past....

I'll be quiet here this week, with festivities happening and children busy. On Christmas Eve I'll be sharing the final, third part, of 'Winter Magi' - a poem sequence over at Nevering.

This week's colour is green, the most hopeful colour to enjoy. I sleep under a green duvet with the hope that it might give me dreams of a bright green world :) I wear green and love to eat it too.....

I have some fun 'gifts' to look forward to this week.... Natural dye jars have been slowly fermenting in our airing cupboard and all will be revealed later this week. If you have read my natural dye posts this year, and indeed if you have experimented with solar jar dyes, you may know how much fun it is to wait and see the results.... It's something you either 'get' or you just don't! I have a range of experiments slowly cooking..... Walnut with onion. Walnut with blackberry. Madder. Logwood with onion. Logwood with copper pennies. Ivy leaves. (I think my family are pleased these are dye and not cooking experiments.) I will share the results with you next week some time.

Listening to such a wide range of music. Loved listening to the Christmas around Europe performances on BBC Radio 3 yesterday. If you missed it then you can listen again (not sure if you can if outside UK??) It's become part of my holidays tradition to listen to a wide variety of world music, especially Christmas music. I especially like eastern European music with tingling bells and unusual organ and percussion, evoking fairytale dances and images....

Watching not a lot of TV, as frankly I find much of the repetitive Christmas fare depressing. I am not into Santa and never will be... and If I see a Santa movie I click off. We don't watch much at this time. I love old black and white movies, so if a good one comes on - well that's different:)

Next week's mosaic will be a little different, as I'll be sharing here a selection of my favourite images - my own work - from the past year.

But the year's not done just yet. The sun's up now, it's suddenly a lot whiter and brighter out there..... enjoy your shortest day! Love and light and peace xxx