And so it begins...

I live for the morning latte...

And so it begins... For nearly a decade now I have been doing the Dragonfly Cottage website. It has been quite a journey for me, a joy and a blessing, a lot of hard work, and it has become my life's mission. To spread compassion and loving-kindness in whatever way I can, from my little cottage, to the world. To offer an encouraging word, to share my thoughts, stories about my many animal companions, the garden, my fiber art, to spread magic, wonder, and whimsy with a heart the size of the full moon, if lopsided and cattywompus. Dragonfly Cottage is a wabi sabi world as have been my life, work and writing since I was but an egg somewhere in time. I have done many blogs but now I am simply going to do this one journal from the cottage to consolidate because I am at work on a book about the cottage, as well as several small books that will be self-published. It will be easier to simply keep one journal online here, to share my life with you. Some of you have enjoyed other blogs I've done and they are still up and listed on this site, but I won't be updating them anymore, and bits of all will be in my big book I am hard at work on now. The interesting thing that has developed over the years is that my funny little life has been written about so much that people wonder, "What IS Dragonfly Cottage, and is that woman nuts living with all of those animals, and what was she DOING making a huge garden that wrapped around the side of the little old cottagey townhouse where she wasn't supposed to plant ANYTHING?" The answers to the above: #1. The first cottage was a tiny little white one with a white picket fence where I lived just after leaving my decades long marriage in 1999. I gardened and there were dragonflies everywhere, even where they weren't supposed to be. The Dragonfly is my totem animal, my spiritual guide, and so Dragonfly Cottage is the name of my home, my website, all of my work, and more, it is a state of mind. I have moved several times, always into cottagey type dwellings, and wherever I am, it is Dragonfly Cottage . The contents of my little dwelling make it so. My furnishings are simple, old, odd, vintagey, there are books everywhere, overflowing the shelves, piles on the floors around me where I work and write at my computer and by my big easy chair that looks very much like the graphic at the top of this page. When I moved in here a dear friend gave me a couch and chair. They are oversized, and the chair and ottoman are just HUGE. So there I sit with my glasses on and my eyeballs rolling round and round, watching the 10 birds, 5 beta fish and the dogs. One sweet old lab-doby mix named Moe, a 12 year old black pug, deaf as a door and my little sweetheart, Babs, and on next Saturday I am taking in another rescue pug, Sampson.#2. I have been an animal lover, into animal rescue, all my life. With my children grown and gone my animals are my family and I have a number of rescues here. They are my little loves and constant companions. You can see a number of pictures of my animal family in my Flickr album. Just click on the link. #3. I planted "The Garden That Wasn't Supposed To Be," first off because it never occurred to me that I wasn't supposed to plant here. How ludicrous. Also, because I'm a rebel and I'll never be any good. I am a wabi sabi misfit and I like it that way. Around the room the walls are completely full with looms hanging everywhere, art filling the walls and my magical tools made by the Crone-Findlays, Noreen and her husband Jim. They are my dear friends, like family, and their tools have changed my life. Here is a cabinet full of their treasures plus some vintage buttons and beads, and many more tools, dolls and their works are all over the cottage. You can click the link above to go to their magical website (I look at it every day just to cheer myself up a bit) or you can go to Noreen's wonderful blog, Hankering For Yarn. She has amazing tutorials, You-Tube videos, and many enchanting stories of her work and from her life. I will be writing much more about their work here because it is so much a part of my work. I daily use their tools from spoolknitters, to cordmakers, to hand-carved and painted magical crochet hooks. It takes magical tools to make magical art. You will find it at the websites above. I believe in magic. I am faithful to apples. I am also faithful to magic.

Magical Tools by Noreen and Jim Crone Findlay
in antique cabinet with vintage buttons and beads...

So yes, I am a writer and a fiber artist and the two balance each other well. I live so much of my life in my head reading, writing, researching, making notes, and everything involved with a writer's life that I can get lost in my labyrinthine grey matter. Moving from my head to my hands, doing the fiber art, sketching dreams in my head and sketchbook with fibers all around me, yarns of many types as well as quite a bit of yarn I dye and hand-spin myself, that I am transported into a saner more grounded place working with materials of the earth. The sheep's wool, handmade spindles, the Crone-Findlay's amazing tools (you can feel the living energy, the life in the wood...), I so prefer working with natural materials to working with plastic, metal and other man-made materials. I have been collecting tall sunflower stalks and bamboo stalks and other found material to tie together to weave on. I am also a great lover of dumpster diving and found art. The world around us is filled with free art materials. Stones, branches, wildflowers, dried herbs, so much more. I recently found a wonderful pine 3 foot frame in the dumpster, clean and smooth and lovely, that I will weave on, including found art, freeform knitting and crochet, and more. I weave, knit, embroider, felt, make art dolls and almost everything you can think of. I am now involved with designing and making Haute Couture Pugwear both to raise money for Mid-Atlantic Pug Rescue (You can see their page on the cottage site.), where my beloved pugs are from and also will be making some to sell to support my own household of rescues once I get some things made and off to MAPR. I am an animal rescuer at heart, an animal lover, I live with them, they are my family.





So for now I will leave you, but I will be back nearly daily to organize my thoughts and my life and share a little of it with you. You will see animals and art, read quotes and hear about books, meander along with my metaphoric mind down winding paths, and much, much more. Until then, I shall finish my latte, and make you one if you like, and I've got to get back to the spoolknitter. I'm working on a new piece of Pugwear just now, and sending out prayers and love, compassion and grace, to all that come to visit our little cottage in the clouds.

Blessings and love to one and all...

Namaste,

Maitri