I bought these long hand-crafted strings from my friend Akemi at the market yesterday. They were made in Japan from a long piece of yarn knotted intermittently with little wooden beads, onto which little fabric 'charms' have been sewn all the way along. The above string has fish, bears, and what looks like apples. And the other has tiny owls with sequin eyes and pears (of course!) I thought these might be nice to hang over a new baby's cot or in a window nearby.
I'm sorry I've been neglecting this blog lately. Several things that have happened this week have made me re-assess why and what I post here, and how it affects my everyday life. Sometimes I struggle to think of topics to post about here- feeling that what is on my mind might be too serious or otherwise inappropriate for the genre of 'craft blog' which is what I suppose Tiny Happy fits into most of the time. And the idea of showing a picture of what I baked that day, or some old fabric I found just doesn't feel like an honest reflection of myself some days. I'm conscious of wanting this site to reflect who I really am- at least, as much as I'm capable of doing. And last week I was kindly nominated by Kirsten and Mark for a 'Thinking Blogger Award' (thank you both!) I felt guilty, because even though I am always considering different topics to write about, too often I am in a rush/lazy, and skim over what I really want to say with a quick picture and little blurb. Even though I've been writing on here for over a year, I know I have room to improve my blogging. But thank you for continuing to drop in here! I feel very fortunate to have discovered blogging and it has changed my life in many ways.
My nominees- five blogs (one new to me, some long-time favourites) that give me much to think about:
greenjewls, heavenly days, muppinstuff, high up in the trees, true nature.
Last week's Virginia Tech tragedy in the US and the way it's coverage was handled by the media and the internet has been weighing heavily on my mind, as I'm sure it has yours, too. Even though we live on the other side of the world, American news and politics still have a massive effect on us as part of the 'Westernised' world and I feel despair whenever I read or hear anything about the tragedy and the media mess that has followed it. And I was sickened to read of one rifle lobbyist's declaration that more of the students and teachers at the University should have been carrying weapons, in order to defend themselves. And then there are such shockwaves throughout the nation when an event like this takes place. I dearly hope that following this week's tragedy, some changes will be made to existing gun laws in the US.
The news coverage last week was completely consumed with the story, so much so that the 160 people killed in bomb blasts around Baghdad on Wednesday last week received only a brief mention at the end of each news update. A sad reminder that the constant violence taking place in Iraq over the last three years is becoming too familiar to us.
These felted birds were also made by my friend Akemi, and today Tom, the children and I packaged them up and drove out of town to a small birthing centre surrounded in orange and red-leafed trees. There we saw my sister and her beautiful new baby, Fern Zita, born at breakfast-time this morning. My fourth niece! I am so lucky.
