Eventually, everything connects. --Charles Eames

David and I put together this chair, and I think it turned out pretty cool.  It's sort of like something you'd see at Anthropologie, except two people spent about a month making it.  Originally it came from my sister Kathy, and it was pretty beat up with no upholstery.  Just a shell.  I think it was my mom's before that.  David cut wood for the seat and back, and I covered it with foam and the needlepoint and old Mexican blankets. 

We're working on several other chairs.  The hard part is finding the right fabric, which is CRUCIAL.  Bad fabric means bad chair. I am on the hunt for some 50s fun stuff right now.

I'm also working on dying a couple more rugs.  This one belongs to a friend of a friend.  She didn't like the color, and she like the other rug I dyed, so I am doing this one for her.  It's huge.  It's also wool instead of silk, so that could change things a lot.  We decided to go with indigo blue and emerald green, so it should be interesting.   Notice how the lawn is dead in the back yard...that's the only way this kind of thing can be done.

Finally, in this last paragraph I am going to do some philosophising.  For the last last 4 months we have had a gift shop.  Much of what is in the shop we have either made, found, fixed, or a combination of the above, and it's been a lot of fun.  Some things have worked out really well, like the chairs and the dyed carpet and the boho jewelry, and some haven't worked out well, like the big, colorful 40s-looking jewelry.  I definitely want to make more of the things that are popular, so I am adapting.  What has really been fun has been learning that all these random skills that I have acquired over this lifetime have all come together to do these things.  I learned how to dye and sew and staple and glue from making costumes over the years.  And it has all come together to make this stuff that we are selling at Twig.  I have even become somewhat of a lamp person--with a lot of help.  I have learned a lot from Mickey, our "lamp guy" and from David, who successfully fixed an old switch on a very cool lamp. 

I watched a movie about Charles Eames on Netflix, which is where I got the quote, "Eventually, everything connects."  That's exactly what I have been realizing lately.  You just keep trying things, learning things, making things, and after about 50 or so years it ALL CONNECTS.  Too bad it has to take so long, and maybe for other people they will get there quicker.

I was also going to write about how you have to persevere when it seems like a lot of things are dragging you down, but meh, maybe another day.