Turn, Turn, Turn...

It's been much too long since I played along with Michelle Ward's street team.  I often meant to participate, but things kept getting in the way, and the month would pass and I would have not posted to meet the challenge.  This month, though, I can't miss it.  Michelle has asked her crusaders whether we notice a change in our palette or style with the changing seasons.  Well, my dear, the answer is YES.  That phrase from Ecclesiastes that the Byrds made so famous might as well have been written about me.  I am such a seasonal person that even my taste in music and food change.  I'm almost a different person in the spring than I am in the winter.  Jeans remain a wardrobe staple, but instead of dark sweaters and boots, I'm wearing them with bright colors, especially green and white, and with mary janes until it's warm enough for sandals.  I start listening to lighter, happier music.  I eat more veggies and drink green tea instead of black (though I do still like a good cuppa black tea to get me going in the morning).  The advent of cherry blossoms makes me gravitate towards Japanese art and motifs - this is when I re-watch Rurouni Kenshin and dig out my scraps of kimono silk that I've bought at quilt shows, thinking maybe this year I'll decide what to do with them.  And my art definitely looks different.  In my paper and mixed media art, red moves aside for green, compositions get more open and less cluttered, I use less hardware, I move from crosses and gears and hardware to flowers and birds and the occasional butterfly.  Last year I showed this tag, which I think is one of my favorites of every tag I've ever made:

Very simple, two background colors and two stamps.  But it just says spring to me.  When yarn crafting in spring, I spin lighter colors into thinner yarns, I gravitate towards lace patterns in both knit and crochet, and I generally only work with light or bright colors.  I wound off one of those skeins of yarn I got at the Homespun Yarn Party this year.  Guess which one?

The color's a little washed out in this picture, but it's Downy Oshun, Hon!  Baltimorean beachy glory.  I've started a crochet project with it, but I don't like how it's coming out so I might frog it and start over.  It just needs to be a light, lacy triangle scarf or shawlette.  The only trouble is that it's wool.  That's my other spring thing.  I'd love to be working with cotton or silk.  Unfortunately, all my favorite yarns in my favorite weights and colors turn out to be wool or some other warm fiber.  Oh well.  Air conditioning generally requires a warmer layer, so it'll do.

I wish I had more to show you.  This spring has been a little busy:

(Okay, I know, I'm a showoff. But isn't he cute?)

Plus, having moved, my ability to do paper and mixed media art has declined.  See, Mom and I share supplies, or at least we always did when I lived at home.  Now that Mr. Pocket and I are on our own, I haven't built up enough supplies in my new home to really feel like I can do much yet.  As I acquire more, I'll be able to put things together, but now pickings are still slim.  On top of that, I haven't felt the knit or crochet mojo as much, so that's not happening.  I definitely feel the need to create, though, so hopefully I'll build up more supplies or be able to spend some time at my parents' house enough to do some work.  I did house-sit for my parents one night last week, and this is what I came home with:

It's a bit of a transition piece, spring into summer.  Maybe later this week, I'll post about summer, because that's a bolder, brighter style for me than spring...