Book Mouse

Oh how I could relate to this little creature.  Snuggled up on the shelf, reading his 'mouse' books - what more could anyone want?   Well he did ask for a cup of tea but I told him that my tea cups were too big for him and he might drown.

"Oh well" he said. "I might just have to figure out how to get it myself.  After all Stuart Little and Johnny Town Mouse seem to do quite well for themselves.  Yes, I know they get into mischief, but what would life be like without a scare or two to push us ahead?".

Hmmm, a learned little critter isn't he?!

"Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest counselors, and the most patient of teachers." - Charles William Eliot

"Quite" Unlikely

What should I find atop the book shelf but another Unlikely.  I’m a book lover and it seemed that she might be a kindred soul.

  

Sure enough I soon found out that “Quite” Unlikely had decided to read her way through all the books on the shelves.   However, she was worried because some of them might not be of any interest to her at all – or she might not understand them due to their esoteric subject matter.  I didn't want to admit to her that I myself had that same thought when I was in high school – to start at the “a's” and work my way through the stacks.  Of course it was a short lived dream, as I recall ending somewhere still on the first shelf.

However, I did have an idea for “Quite”.  I took out my large dictionary (especially large to her) and sat her down atop it. "If you read this one book, all the way through, its quite likely that you will learn all you need to know". 

I left her  studying the pages – I do so hope she gets further along than I did in the library.

"The more you read, the more things you will know,

The more you learn, the more places you'll go." 

Dr. Seuss

"A Ten O'Clock Scholar"

" a diller, a dollar, a ten o'clock scholar!

What make you come so soon?

You used to come at ten o'clock;

Now you come at noon."

    old nursery rhyme
 



Here's my 'Ten O'clock Scholar' - all decked out in flannel and corduroy for the cold days ahead.

He is reading so much better these days, since he got his glasses.

 

Just so he doesn't forget his ABC's!

"There are perhaps no days of our childhood we lived so fully as those we spent with a favorite book." - Marcel Proust

"Tell Me A Story"

I've been wanting to incorporate some words into my work these days.  Thinking about it brought up all sorts of memories of being read to, learning to read, reading to others -- as I think about it I realize how much books and reading have been an integral part of my life.  

I was read to as a child and reading became my main pastime growing up.  My adult reading involved reading to my own son, grandchildren and other children through work at schools and daycare centers and to volunteering and working with an adult literacy program. 

At one point I spent several years reading books onto tape for the blind and also read the newspaper for a radio broadcast for the visually impaired. 

This stitchery is my ode to reading.  I think I shall continue to try to tell stories - but these days I'll try to pass the words through my stitching work.  [A special note of thanks to my friend Phyllis - who sent me a piece of this wonderful fabric filled with handwriting and a drawing of a hand holding a pen - thanks Phyllis].

"As a child, what captivated me was reading the poems myself and realizing that there was a world without material substance which was nevertheless as alive as any other." - Mary Oliver

Abundance

As I young child I regularly visited my local library.  This library was in an old building located near the pier in a small town along the coast in California.  Walking into this building I could smell books, paper, old wood and the salty air combined.  This was a building of 'possibility' for me.  To see all of those books lined up neatly on the shelves just waiting for me was almost overwhelming.  I still get that same feeling as I walk into my far more modern library here in North Carolina.  Each visit is a thrill - there is so much there for me, too much for me to ever read in my lifetime but still it waits. 

These days I get the very same joyous feelings of 'possibility' as I walk into a fabric store, a bead shop, a needlework shop and as seen above a fiber show.  Oh my -- the wonders of color, texture... the softness, the flow, the patterns, the ideas.  Oh yes, the ideas! 

Ideas are what possibility is all about.  Whether its a sharing of knowledge through a book or a sense inside me that with this yarn I might be able to do this, with that stitch I might be able to do that.

Isn't this world, this life I'm living beautiful?!

"An intense anticipation itself transforms possibility into reality; our desires being often but precursors of the things which we are capable of performing." - Samuel Smiles

Read Me A Story...

A long time ago, my husband and I had the odious task of painting what seemed like hundreds of slats on our front porch.  It was a job that neither of us wanted to do -- but it had to be done.  So, we decided that while one of us painted the other would read aloud and then we'd take turns painting and reading.  We chose an author we both liked and got busy.  It was perfectly lovely painting and listening to each other read.

As I have become more and more involved with punchneedle I've found that once I have the design created and drawn it is just a matter of punching in and out, in and out.  Unlike beadwork or book art or even doll art this is a quiet, routine art form. 

On my last visit to the library I picked up a couple of audio books.  I wasn't sure whether or not I would like having a book read that way but once I tried it, I was hooked.  I've found that I get quite involved with the story -- more so maybe than when I'm reading to myself.  The voice reads the words and I'm listening as I punch and the voice has my complete attention. 

As a lover of the written word, I'm now becoming a lover of the spoken word!

"There is creative reading as well as creative writing". - Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Book Keeper

She is the keeper of books.  The one who preserves rare old print.  The one who loves to turn the printed page with her well worn hands.  To see the words laid out on a piece of paper. 

She loves to be read to out loud. To listen to a loved one's voice reading pages from a much worn book.  To read out loud a book to a child, even if it means rereading it so many times that the words have been memorized.

She is the one who asks for quiet in the library (not because she doesn't enjoy a good conversation, but because each book is a sacred text to her).

She is the one who curls up in a chair facing the sun and reads for hours, never once thinking that she might be 'wasting' time.

"He that loves reading has everything within his reach". - William Godwin