Love Makers

We are so grateful for the gifts of this open hearted and supportive community! Thank you Makers for coming out and sharing your beautiful handmade wares! Thank you Friends for showing your love for our local creatives! Our recent market on December 11th was so joyous and abundant and included dance between the trees, felting and lantern making on site, as well as Christmas caroling and a lantern walk. We are still swooning in the day’s afterglow.

Indeed, what would the world be without the uplifting and locally made inspiration of artisans?

Guest UserDecember 24, 2021artisans, craft, craftingComment

Voices Shaking Free

This past Saturday, on the potent date of 9/11, twenty families and many friends gathered at Kingston Point Beach to celebrate community and the healing wrought by shared wisdom and the unique expression of our own two hands and hearts. The medium was shekere— gourd instruments, and (in this case) decorated with cotton cord and simple wooden beads—and although we each had access to the same small and large monochromatic beads, every finished piece pulsed with its very own character and range.

Guest UserSeptember 13, 2021craft, crafting, Kingston, Hudson Valley, Family Events

A Piece of the Sky

The sun was bright through the trees, white clouds a patchwork across a hopeful field of blue, and down on earth, a group of adults were buzzing with kid-like excitement. Seated like outer petals surrounding an inner bloom of color, ten women were getting introduced or reacquainted to each other, and then to three generous plants that secretly hold the capacity to offer up exquisite colors, both eco and miraculous. “Meet Indigo, Madder, and Marigold…”

blogGuest UserMay 18, 2021natural dyeing, craft, crafting, Hudson Valley Comment

Soul Speak

“What is my soul’s yearning?” It’s a powerful question that, believe it or not, can be found by simple means: scissors, a glue stick, some old magazine, and intentions.

That’s what 8 women found out yesterday when we gathered in Circle to explore SoulCollage® for three luscious hours of creative and heart opening exploration. Who knew that collage could help unleash our authentic inner voice, dreams & unconsciousness?! Well, think collage meets...spontaneous expression, authentic truth, and deep sharing. This process is that healing and connecting, while being SO fun!.

blogGuest UserMarch 1, 2021collage, craft, crafting, Hudson Valley Comment

In Defense of Stillness…

An important internal journey is reflected all around us in nature each winter. Here in the Hudson Valley and Northeast, the trees may seem nearly lifeless, the landscape sullen, but within all that, quiet and important movements are indeed happening. Those majestic branched beings have dropped their green canopy, blooms and fruit have long withered, yet as they stand naked in their seemingly ancient skin, they have merely stripped down to the essential. What if, as the journey turns inward, they are embracing the gifts of stillness and internal creativity that will help bolt the spring into wild cacophony and color?

blogGuest UserDecember 31, 2020craft, crafting, creativity, winter, healing, women, circlesComment

Weaving Goodness (Part 1)

“Touching the wools seemed to awaken her a bit, like her fingers remembered something comforting she was trying not to. I soon wondered about a quiet, rising sense that, by releasing her spinning wheel to us, she might come to regret it, this dear old friend she “just wasn’t using anymore,” that had offered her deep solace…” I simply said, “Thank you,” though, collecting the bags and setting them next to the others in the dining room where the spinning wheel sat in parts, leaning up against itself and a wall. She was deciding whether a last bag was meant for us or a friend, and while she did, I scanned the room to look distracted, hoping she might keep some for herself instead.

Guest UserNovember 9, 2020weaving, spinning, craft, crafting, Hudson ValleyComment

Those Stitches

“I’ve witnessed extraordinary resourcefulness and a global movement of mostly women to respond and help through mask making, coming together through sewing...all those stitches making a blanket of love across the earth, one mask at a time. Thanks to the internet, women have been sharing innovations, new designs and materials, and helping to build an efficient effort to gather materials of distribution that was akin to the effort during World War 2.

blogGuest UserJune 15, 2020sewing, crafting, quilting, women, healing, stories, covidComment