Blessed Spring 2019 Fae Friends!
I hope you’re all very well this April!
Spring… just the word is so full of life! Growth and renewal. Of course, here on the Island during the second week of April we wake to a blanket of snow. By mid afternoon, I’m sure it will have melted away into the saturated earth, just like yesterday. We can expect the fickleness until May. Despite the snow and chill, the days are much longer, the birds are singing in the trees and squirrels chirping away. I planted some Liatris bulbs for the butterflies. The earth around our front door is the only spot that isn’t frozen, so I might be overcrowding the earth with my dreams of life. Sedum and tulips are just emerging and that is enough to make me happy 🙂
I am very much over due for an update. The month of March, I will be totally honest, was extremely difficult for me. In short, I was very sick – we actually found the culprit and I’m now doing so much better. It turns out that I’ve been getting so sick on and off for around 6 months because of this so I’m so happy to finally be looking towards health and happiness! I chose to just take a social media detox while I was dealing with this. If you have been following along, I’ll sound like a broken record for going into my social media detoxes. I essentially log off and don’t log back on… for what can sometimes be weeks (I think it was like a month and a half or so). Once I disconnect, I just start to realize that I’m a lot happier not being distracted by my smartphone. Not thinking about numbers and likes and 2D representations of my life, but actually connecting and being kin with my environment. I find that as soon as you become absorbed in your smartphone, it’s almost like being sucked away from what is actually real. I no longer feel grounded or relaxed but distracted and anxious. Someday, I’ll switch this smartphone in for a flip phone and deal with the social consequences of being a technological outcast. I already feel better friends with trees and rocks anyway, so I can deal ; ).
If March was a void, April has been so full of hope and happiness already! I started to fully recover and Jamie and I have been taking advantage of the longer days and going hiking. We also spent some time with my family in Halifax and got to go on many beautiful walks. To Duncan’s Cove where we sat on the rocks watching dozens of seals, curiously pop their heads out to see what we were up to. Jamie and I also stopped in Truro to go to Victoria Park on our drive back to the island. It is a beautiful, magical, fairy tale of a park and I highly suggest it to everyone passing by! Thousands of acres of old growth forest, situated along a fault line. Seriously magical!
I felt so good after leaving the woods, so just blissfully happy.
And then of course, making and creativity. In a way, it has been on the back burner since I was dealing with being so sick. I decided to work on a series of Maritime Folk Mittens so I can knit without thinking about what I’m doing. Just get caught up in the trance like rhythm of knitting, working with colours. I also completed a lopi sweater for the shop. I actually have a chest full of knits for the shop. Every weekend, I’ll just slowly start posting them up there 🙂
And then there is news… news about a book. A real book. I’ll share more about this at a later date!
April is when I start feeling excited and happy! March and February were really difficult for me. This has been a long winter which started in the beginning of November. So welcome spring and hiking!
April Happiness:
new growth, smell of damp earth, tea sitting in the sun, putting winter coats away, opening windows, chives and rhubarb, singing birds, bobbing seals, stretched coastline free of snow, the sound of rain, fingerless mitts, stacking wood, early mornings ❤
I hope you’re all well and finding happiness in the smallest new growth!
Julia xo
Ways of Wood Folk 
Dear Julia.
I’m so very sad to hear that you have been so ill. It sounds serious and I really hope it isn’t.
I am fairly new to your blog, having only just stumbled upon it less than a year ago, yet in that time I have fallen in love with your blog and your IG posts. I think I may be repeating myself from back in the fall, but I believe you bring a certain beauty, magick and grace to Social Media.. which means I really, really miss you when you go off grid. I don’t want to make you feel guilty, I salute you for doing exactly what you feel in your gut is right for you. If that means that you will someday leave your blog, then so be it.
I too find it difficult to get the balance of real life vs. social media just right. Some times I have needed the detox too. These days I focus on only posting what makes me happy ( basically just posting for me) and to not feel guilty for spending time on a daily basis on IG. Instead, I note how little I get done when I am too active and take a decision each day as to what I want to spend my day doing. I try to go for a little IG and lots of knitting / writing in the evenings and busting my butt in the garden and fields ( flower farming/self sufficiency) withvthe kids and animals through the day. Bottomline: I believe the most important thing is to only do what you love and take joy in.
I hope I will still get to “see” you in the future and am so excited to hear about your book.
Thank you for posting this update and take good care!
Ps: The Pink Moon is only one week away – yay!!
Elisabeth – panogflora on IG. 😘
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Elisabeth,
Thank you so much for your message. I feel like these words are my main encouragement for continuing to share! Even though, I go offline and disconnect, I really do love sharing from my world. As you said, it’s all about finding that balance. I do find that if I post on IG, I need to just put it away and not go on (a far cry from my old obsessive habits). So, I fear I may seem uninterested and absent to everyone online but it’s the only way I can kind of still share on social media and not be a zombie to my partner, friends, family, animals and just be my regular old self who I began to miss immensely.
I love that others are reaching out too about feeling this about social media!! I love that you are absorbing yourself yourself in other things, important life things like children, animals and growing things! Honestly, I think the key is just kind of being aware of how entranced we can become. Awareness is pivotal to just making more positive changes in our lives!
I was very sick but we actually found out exactly what was wrong and I was treated so I am feeling well on the road to being completely better.
The Pink Moon!!!! This makes me so happy! we all need to listen to Nick Drake ❤ ❤
Julia xo
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I am SO happy that you have discovered the reason for illness and are “on the mend”. I don’t need to remind you that nature and the outdoors are the very best healers too! 😉 So, I am glad you focused on self-care (proper treatment, family time, nature time, and time away from technology and all that prevents healing, etc.). You know I agree with you wholeheartedly about social media, as we have had many conversations about this before. I, too, took a hiatus during the long winter months to help clear my soul. Not sure if and when I will return, and if so, how often.
I love seeing all your lettlopi tumbled out onto the floor – like a bed of colorful wildflowers! Reminds me of the baskets of lopi and lettlopi that I have scattered on my studio floor. I haven’t started the fingerless mitts yet, as I still have a large project going (a wool tunic) and would like to complete it before embarking on something new, but it is a very slow knit and my fingers are itching for a smaller project. I have selected the colors for the mitts though. Acorn, oatmeal, and indigo blue. 🐿💙 🐏 (There is no emoji for an acorn, but I did find this little squirrel holding one).
Spring has arrived here – along with lingering doses of winter – in my corner of the world. Our crocuses have bloomed and the first daffodil has just bloomed. The “peepers” (frogs) have been peeping us to sleep every night. Birds are building their nests. The colors of the male birds are brightening again to attract attention away from the nests. The maple trees are beginning to bud. Life is abundant and beautiful, if we but only turn our attention to it.
Birthing a book is such an exciting (and sometimes scary) journey. I look forward to hearing more about your book. Hope you will share with us here on the blog. 😘
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Hey Bonnie!
Hope you have been well! And I’m so glad to hear that spring has sprung in your part of the world! We are still waiting… for that burst of spring but, I feel like it’s here in her slow but steady way!
I’m glad to hear that you too took a hiatus from SM. It’s just… it’s honestly just not real life and I find as soon as we spend too much attention on our SM, we lose sight of what is real and meaningful in our lives. I also find that it kind of encourages a homogeneous culture. So, Props to you!
Oohh.. you have the peepers. I LOVE peepers. We were talking about them yesterday at work. I have not heard them yet (there is still ice in the water) but I can not wait to hear their song again. it’s funny how winter almost erases so many of the lively joys of our seasons. You hear the peepers again or the bird sing and it’s like hearing it for the very first time.
Don’t feel rushed to make the mittens! You’ll make them when the time is right for you! Maybe it will be a couple years away, it does not matter! I do love your colour choices though, very excited to see 😀
Spring Blessings!!
Julia xo
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Well, after typing my comment to you I just couldn’t get the fingerless mitts out of my mind, so last night I cast on with the acorn. I have to do some car travel tomorrow and Monday, so i know I will get some more knitting done on them. Though spring has sprung here the temps are still in range that requires fingerless mitts to keep my hands warm (which are always cold it seems). Color A=acorn, Color B=Oatmeal, Color C=indigo. I do have a question on the pattern: Your gauge states “about 9 stitches in cm”. Did you mean to put a number before the ‘cm’? It can’t be 9 sts in 1 cm, for that would be nearly impossible given the weight of yarn and the size needle. I’m using a 3.5mm (US size 4) needle. Please advise.
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Ooohh yes, you got the pattern before I changed that little part! I am so sorry >.< Completely ignore it, it's roughly 2 st a cm! I hope that helps!!
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Whew! That sounds better and is about the gauge I am knitting at. Thanks for the update!
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Hi Julia!
I’m sorry to hear that you have been so sick. It feels awful to be sick and not really know why, or to be on and off and “never” fully recover. I have been sick too, as you know, from the beginning of December. I hope and think I will be better now, and I really hope you do too!
I follow you on the social media thing, of course! Right now I have deactivated one of the accounts, because I feel a social responsibility to keeping up with what happens there, and I don’t like that. Being responsible to an app. heh.. I’m not sure what I’ll do later on, but I have been to the store and looked at old types of phones. The downside is that the society has made it so difficult to be without a smartphone. For instance we have to pay more for riding with the bus if we don’t have a smart phone… Oh well…
I am so excited that you are writing a book! Do you know if it will get published yet? I am sure that whatever you are writing will be magical and mysterious and really, really good! 🙂 I am writing a book too! What is yours about. Mine is for children, about three boys that go out on a journey or a quest in the woods to save the land they live in. A bit ambitious I guess, but I really love writing and just letting my imagination flow.
I hope April treats you well, and that you will write more soon. ❤
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Oh Julia, I’m sorry to hear but also happy you now know how to take care. You are doing what I should be but I’m not. Social media is inspiring and poisoning at the same time. I do love your posts though! I’m knitting on the fingerless mittens with the description you sell on etsy. It’s such a fun and inspiring pattern so I have to make up all sorts of excuses to give presents to everyone I know, because I can’t keep them all (or can I ;)?).
I wish you a great spring and hope you get better and better.
Warm wishes from Sweden💕✨
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I am so glad you are feeling better!
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Thank you so much Kristen!!!
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