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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Tell Me Something Good

Tell Me Something Good

by | 104 Comments

This post is in: 

So yesterday in the afternoon open thread, donnah was trying to get a link to her project to work. I was on my way out the door, but said I’d post if for her later. It’s the coolest hook rug with a great story.

I wanted to celebrate Christopher Robin and his love for Pooh bear and found that photo of them.The project is a hooked rug portrait of [them]. I wanted to include the images of the other real stuffed animals who were portrayed in the Milne Winnie the Pooh books. I found photos of the animals at the New York City Public Library website and paid $50 royalty fee for permission to use them.

The process is rug hooking, an old art form that uses a linen foundation on which I draw the design, and then I dyed white wool in honey colors and cut that into strips which are pulled up through the linen in loops to form the image. I dyed the wool to match the colors of honey, so it will essentially be monochromatic. It’s a rug, but not for floors!.

When it’s completed, I plan to donate the finished rug to our local Metro library’s children’s area in my dad’s name. He took me to that library when I was little and got me started on a lifelong love of books. He would have been pleased.

This entire story made my day and it gave me an idea. My schedule is going to be relatively light between now and New Year’s Day and I’d love nothing more than to share something that is special in your life in a post. If you have something fun you’re doing, a story that touched you or any other good news, send it to me and I’ll try and do a “something good” post several times between now and the new year.

Until then, use this post to tell us something good – something you’re doing, something that’s given you hope during these trying times, or you know, pet pictures. Because we are all suckers for a good pet picture. Maybe in holiday garb.

Speaking of:

Greenwood Wildlife (our local rescue/rehabilitation center) returned this little stowaway back to the wild. She’s a Ringtail Cat (raccoon family, not cat) who hid in someone’s camper and traveled all the way down the mountain, then they found her while unpacking. Rare to see.

Oh, you thought it was going to be a puppy picture? Well, maybe next time…and I might throw some duck photos/video in for good measure.

Good news open thread.

Reader Interactions

104Comments

  1. 1.

    debbie

    Donnah, that is absolutely beautiful! I used to hook rugs in my younger days. I hope you’ll send in a photo when it’s completed.

  2. 2.

    Miss Bianca

    Love it, TaMara! I wanted to see some front-pager highlight “new and cool projects BJers are doing”, and I was thinking of this one in particular! Thank you!

  5. 5.

    Corner Stone

    Well, not sure it’s a good thing but my Healthcare premium for 2018 went up about 50%. From $357 per month to $523.
    So, I guess that’s better than good.

  7. 7.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Amazing rug! Beautiful!

    My sister’s gift packages arrived today. She included some home-grown Oregon catnip. The cats were going crazy before I even opened the package.

  9. 9.

    Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)

    That rug is wonderful.

    I blogged today. Wrote about the difference between chronology and plot. If the book’s events can be connected by “and then,” “and then,” that’s chronology. To have plot, events need to be connected by “because,” “therefore,” “and so.” Connie Willis talked about this at a workshop I attended. She ripped apart a scene I’d written, showing how it needed those cause and effect connections even on a micro level.

  12. 12.

    Tim C.

    I recently returned to the bland and what I used to think was inconsequential Lutheran church after about 20 years away. Only to discover since the 2016 election that it’s basically decided to radicalize (in a peaceful way) for the good guys. I know that there’s very good reason people leave the church, and I’m not a believer myself anymore, but It was nice to see something I used to be a part of going from a theology of “This casserole sure tastes good with potato chips on top” to “Oh…. we are the good guys, we should act like it.”

  13. 13.

    TaMara (HFG)

    @Tim C.: My Godmother is a Lutheran minister and I noticed over the last two years her FB posts were becoming decidedly more liberal and a bit radical. I’ll take it, anything to counter the evangelical taliban.

  15. 15.

    WaterGirl

    TaMara, thanks for doing this!

    Could you also post the other 3 pics from yesterday’s thread? They show the work as it was progressing, which is really cool. I think they were at the link chris posted in that thread.

  22. 22.

    Nicole

    Oh my goodness; that rug idea is so cool! I remember seeing an exhibit at… either the Met or the MOMA; I can’t remember, but it pointed out that rug hooking, needlework, etc., is every bit as much art as painting and sculpture, but because it was primarily “women’s” it was reduced to being “crafts” or “folk art.”

    I got talked into being co-classroom parent this year, and, because I tend to overreach when it comes to gift time, I asked all the parents to video their kid saying something they liked about their school year so far and then I cut the video together into a virtual holiday card for the teachers (our school, because the kids range from very working class to very well-off, does not allow individual gifts from students to teachers unless they are handmade by the kid). It was a lot of work, and required me recording 3 of the kids myself after school (with parental permission), but the finished product came out well and one of the teachers told me it was the nicest gift they’d ever been given. I was really proud of the kids, who were all so sincere and sweet and funny. The teachers created a really kind, inclusive energy in their classroom and I can see it reflected in the students, for sure.

  24. 24.

    Schlemazel

    @Tim C.: That can be really good news!
    There is a pretty big swing in Lutheran sub-denominations, the ones I know go from pretty liberal to very conservative. Hopefully the one you saw in action was not one of the already progressive groups.

    The wingnuts have stolen a lot from the country and religion is the greatest and most important theft. In the 60s it was churchs at the heart of the civil and human rights efforts. The minister that confirmed me (in a ‘prairie Methodist’ church) was arrested marching in Selma. That all went South in the 70’s and, like patriotism wingnuts stole them and deny them to others. Any movement back is good news

  25. 25.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    just another hysterical wild-eyed hippie ex-lieutenant general

    CNN‏Verified account @ CNN
    Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper: Vladimir Putin “knows how to handle an asset and that’s what he’s doing with the President”

  27. 27.

    ruemara

    It was really cool to find out that some notable podcasters 1. listened to the podcast I do & 2. liked it. Plus some of the podcasters I follow and interact with on the Twitters actually recalled me. Plus more folks I have encouraged to listen, like it. The kittens are excellent at kittening. I have half the gifts shipped out and will be delivering parts of the other half this week. I have some serious decisions to make about what my next year is looking like, since I have to figure out if I want to stay here at my job & in this area or if I can stomach taking another damned risk to pursue more writing and producing. It would be great if I had resources, but when has that completely stopped me?

    Also, this years ginger white chocolate cookies were excellent.

  37. 37.

    Roger Moore

    @Tim C.:
    I think this kind of backlash will turn out to be one of the things most people weren’t expecting from the Trump era. Conservatives are used to thinking of liberals as being wimpy pushovers that they never think anything they do will get us riled up and wanting to get back at them. Discovering they’ve managed to piss us off will turn out to be a real shock.

  38. 38.

    Ohio Mom

    @Schlemazel: Several years ago there was a front page article in the New York Times about the under-the-radar but very well- organized and strategic right-wing effort to undermine Mainline Protestant Churches precisely because they were a leadership force in liberal causes.

    I wish I wasn’t so exhausted tonight, else I would try goggling for it. At any rate, your memory is correct.

  40. 40.

    lamh36

    It’s a gawd-dog-shame…to be broke at Christmas when you DON’T have no damn kids, but ya got like 2 nieces, 2 nephews and 2 god-kids…damn kids.

    Time to start my end of the year budget review.

    I review all my spending for the year, and try to see where and when I can save money for the next year.

    It’s been a busy December and it’s gonna continue to be long until the end of the year.

    So this budget review will likely take me until the end of the month, but I’m starting now trying to get together all my paperwork.

    I’ve ALSO got to do some end of the year house cleaning.

    My gran (may she RIP) always says you should start the year how you want the entire year to go…so she (and we) always clean house (and for me budger) before the end of the year, so we enter the year with bills paid, money in the bank, and a clean house

    Ugh…Adulting is hard!

  41. 41.

    Fair Economist

    @WaterGirl:

    Someone posted this at Bj last week, and I have kept it open in a tab because watching it calms me down and makes me happy.

    Flamingos Dancing

    I love that! Planet Earth 2 had an even better video of them (I was almost cheering with delight) but I can’t find it online.

  43. 43.

    TenguPhule

    A federal judge in Philadelphia today ordered the Trump administration not to enforce new rules that could significantly reduce women’s access to free birth control.

    Judge Wendy Beetlestone issued the injunction, temporarily stopping the government from enforcing the policy change to former President Barack Obama’s health care law.

    The law required most companies to cover birth control at no additional cost, though it included exemptions for religious organizations and some private companies.

    Trump blocked on birth control.

  46. 46.

    Mnemosyne

    @ruemara:

    If you do decide to relocate, don’t forget to email me. I have friends (married couple) who would love you as a housesitter.

  47. 47.

    p.a.

    @Roger Moore: The age demographics should be causing them to soil their adult-ies. We have to get the young uns to vote their ideology: one or two cycles tends to lock them in for life.

  49. 49.

    Mike J

    @Schlemazel:

    In the 60s it was churchs at the heart of the civil and human rights efforts. The minister that confirmed me (in a ‘prairie Methodist’ church) was arrested marching in Selma. That all went South in the 70’s and, like patriotism wingnuts stole them and deny them to others. Any movement back is good news

    Judging from the Moral Mondays in NC, churches are still at the heart of the fight for civil rights.

  51. 51.

    ruemara

    @lamh36: Matt needs to sit down and stuff a ball gag in his mouth. He’s rapidly turning into someone whose art I cannot separate from his person. Or, sarandoning.

    @Mnemosyne: accused.

    @Mnemosyne: Ha! Writing at someone’s house is up my alley.

  52. 52.

    lamh36

    Oh, my goodness! Who is this kid and WHAT is this song!!!

    @MartinaezJ
    Follow Follow @MartinaezJ
    More
    BLACK. BOY. JOY!!!!!!!!!!
    ????????????????????????

    https://twitter.com/MartinaezJ/status/940709442299092992

    It’s a real song…geez i feel old
    It’s a real song called BOSS by Fifth Harmony!!

    Da chorus:

    Boss Michelle Obama
    Purse so heavy gettin’ Oprah dollas
    Boss Michelle Obama
    Purse so heavy gettin’ Oprah dollas
    Boss Michelle Obama
    Purse so heavy gettin’ Oprah dollas
    Boss Michelle Obama
    Purse so heavy gettin’ Oprah dollas

  54. 54.

    TheMightyTrowel

    I have written my first op-ed and it will be published in a national newspaper tomorrow – apparently the editor liked it so much they decided to commission the editorial cartoon based on it. For the first time in my life Bronze Age Europe is relevant to contemporary australian politics. It’s pretty fiery and anti-racist, it’s actually being printed in a right wing (Murdoch) newspaper and I’m mildly terrified

  61. 61.

    raven

    Late again but I thought it was interesting that the preacher at my brother-in-law’s funeral in Palos Verdes this summer was Chris Robbins. I picked up his accent as he spoke and chatted with him after the service , it turns out that he was also a stuntman and double for Keanu Reeves.

  63. 63.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Red Clapper is such a radical. He used to run a free love commune and made ends meet by selling Mao’s book of quotations to hippies in the Haight/Ashbury. And gawd, did he love to get stoned. Everyone used to call him Captain Toke. He also loves tattoos. Has Lenin inked on his chest with the inscription, “capitalism is freedom for slave owners”

  66. 66.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Donnah, it is just gorgeous. I love that you created the dyes based on honey* colors for your palette. I hope you’ll consider letting us know where the library location is so those of us who travel may be able to see the installation one of these times.

    It’s very, very funny,
    ‘Cos I know I had some honey,
    And it had a label on
    Saying H-U-N-N-Y.

    A galuptious full-up pot, too,
    And I don’t know where it’s got to,
    No, I don’t know where it’s gone,
    Well, it’s F-U-N-N-Y.

  68. 68.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @WaterGirl:

    Might have been me. I know I put up a dancing flamingos video but not sure if it was that one or another. Good stuff, regardless!

  71. 71.

    SectionH

    @TheMightyTrowel: Good on you! Please post the link to it as soon a second you can.

    The Christopher Robin rug is delightful, donnah., and I loved it that it’s going to be seen by all the people visiting your local library.

  72. 72.

    donnah

    Oh, many thanks to all who helped get the links up for the rug! TaMara took the rug photos and turned them into a positive, hopeful thread. It doesn’t get better than that!

    I have been an artist all my life, and making hooked wool rugs for thirteen years. Now I travel across the country and into Canada as a professional teacher. I love sharing what I know with others who want to express themselves artistically, too. I’ve hooked portraits and also rugs with messages, including an Alzheimer’s rug and one to save the elephants. It really is like painting with wool.

    When this rug is finished, I’ll donate it to the Dayton Metro Public Library for the children’s section. The library was recently rebuilt and it’s beautiful. It would be an honor to have this rug be accepted there.

    Thanks again to the fellow Juicers who kindly helped me share my work. It’s so nice!

  73. 73.

    stinger

    donnah, that is beautiful. I wish my mother had lived to see it (if even just online). The colors (hunny!) and technique perfectly embody the spirit of the stories. And what a great overall design. Thanks for sharing with BJ, as well as with children who visit your library.

    Something good, indeed.

  80. 80.

    Shana

    @Nicole: What a fabulous idea! I’m so glad to hear you did that. When my younger daughter was in 3rd grade her school decided to let the teacher teach the first half of 4th grade too since she loved the kids so much and would be leaving after the first half of the year to have her first baby. The kids loved her as much as she loved them. As a sewer, but not a quilter, I had the idea to have each kid in the class do a drawing for a baby quilt that I would then sew together and do minimal quilting on. I sent home a letter to all the kids a few weeks ahead of time with instructions that the kids should come up with their own ideas about what to include in their picture which they would then draw using fabric markers on pieces of cream colored fabric using a limited number of colors, that I told them would be available at my house. Each kid came over during a couple of afternoons, drew their pictures and signed their names. I then pieced them together using primary colored fabric strips between each picture and made it into a quilt. We presented it to her one afternoon shortly before the end of the first semester. She was so appreciative, and I think, really touched. It felt so good to have done that for her since she was the most amazing teacher.

  81. 81.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @TheMightyTrowel:

    WOW!! That is cool beyond belief!! Please provide a link to your op-ed, and one to the associated cartoon. Maybe also send the links to a reliable* front-pager so we can be assured of seeing them.

    *(You see what I did there?)

  83. 83.

    MomSense

    @Duane:

    Congratulations!

    Donnah, your work is beautiful. My grandmother used to take a lot of pleasure in telling people she was a hooker. I really wish I had learned from her before she died.

    I finished a sweater yesterday and tonight I’m sitting by the fire making mittens. I’m also watching slow tv, the knitting episode from Norway, on Netflix. My kid is rolli this eyes at how boring this is but sometimes boring is good.

  85. 85.

    Tata

    (deep breath)

    My grandson, who is so brilliant two different schools have made earnest efforts to kick him out, is very gifted in math and coding, but socially inept. He needs to go to Space Camp. I’m going to spend the next six months of my life finding the money to send him.

    How? I don’t know. Yet. The reason I include this in this thread is that sending him to space camp is the happiest idea my family has had in ages.

  86. 86.

    Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ

    I’m making a wooden bowl embossed with copper for my daughter. On the bottom inside I have an owl in bas relief and around the inside vines with grapes and leaves. Then around the outside I have symbols of water, air, fire and earth. And on the lid I have a sun. I’ve been working on it off and on for weeks. I’m near the end, ready to put poly on it and a small bit of resin on the external symbols. I can provides pics if anyone is interested in seeing it.

  87. 87.

    J R in WV

    @donnah:

    My uncle was big into theatric art, and fabric art. He did needlepoint, rug hooking, etc, and was active in the local theater group. His piece de resistance as far as rug art was to have a canvas of Picasso’s Girl before a Mirror made, and yarns died to match the original, and then he spent a couple of years making his very own Picasso.

    My cousin has it beside her bed, where she can see it when she goes to bed, and when she gets up in the early morning. It’s very nice.

  92. 92.

    donnah

    @J R in WV:

    Very cool! Creative spirit!

    My husband still thinks it’s hilarious (it isn’t) to introduce me as a hooker. And because I also strip wool, he loves to add that I’m a stripper, too. (also not funny)

  93. 93.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @donnah:

    Those jokes may be old and tedious and NOT FUNNY to you (I expect you’ve heard them a millionty-eleven times so far), but assuming he is otherwise a good guy, your husband sounds rather sweet.

  95. 95.

    NotMax

    @donnah

    Turnabout is fair play.

    As he made a deliberate choice to canoodle with a hooker/stripper, what does that make him?

    (Not in any way asking what his name is but if it happens to be John, even better.)

    ;)

  98. 98.

    NotMax

    @SiubhanDuinne

    Was hoping to find you online.

    While it ought not to matter in the slightest, the red trumpet in some shots of this orchestra really, really bothers the holy heck out of me.

    Guess I’m just a bad person. ;)

    Have you ever seen anything similar?

  99. 99.

    donnah

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    He’s absolutely the best, always supportive, tolerant of the time I spend away from home teaching, and a good sport. He knows how important my work is to me and he’s always proud of me. We are high school sweethearts, so we’ve spent most of our lives together.

    And he’s not a “John”, but a Dan. ;-)

  102. 102.

    Jackie

    @MomSense: Your post made me LOL! Along the same line, my Dad loved to tell people he and Mom were married on June 7. Then he’d pause and say I was born June 14. My Mom would get so pizzed off and quickly say “two years later!!!” Yes, this was in the ‘50s and ‘60s and even the 70s – when “full- term preemies” was gossip ?

  104. 104.

    Gretchen

    I don’t have anything from my life but love the Christopher Robin hooked rug project. I loved sharing Winnie the Pooh with my kids. I’m retiring to take care of my 4 year old grandson, and am looking forward to sharing it with him.

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