Really great post today on Katy Elliott about her favorite old books on New England scenic views, architecture and design.  Definitely stop by and check it out!  Love her photos of the book spreads as well (great old tabletop).

{image shown belongs to Katy Elliott}

A gorgeous and sumptuous paper window display for Pia Jane Bijkerk’s new book, Amsterdam: Made by Hand.  I still have to request her previous book from my local library, but I will surely be reading her second as well!

{image shown belongs to Pia Jane Bijkerk}

I am so excited for this fall’s release of Creative, Inc. by Meg Mateo Ilasco and Joy Deangdeelert Cho.  I have read and re-read my copy of Craft, Inc. several times and find it such an inspiration and wealth of great start-up knowledge.  Click here to pre-order your copy today!

{image shown belongs to Oh Joy!}

I’m a bit behind on purchasing Martha’s latest books (I still want to pick up a copy of Cooking School and The Encyclopedia of Crafts), but this is one I’m definitely adding to my list: Encyclopedia of Sewing and Fabric Crafts (found via WREN handmade).  The bird quilt especially looks like something I’d love to make and have on my bed!  I’ve got to make more time in my life for sewing (and take that sewing class that I’ve always wanted to take!).

{images shown via WREN handmade, but originally belong to Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia}

Le sigh… big time.  Check out these beautiful shots of the small writing cabin that Michael Pollan has in Vermont.  According to his book, A Place of My Own, he built it himself over a period of 2 1/2 years.  I am forever dreaming of my own small cabin (I even have a folder saved on my laptop of small cabin & cottage images for the “one day” where I’ll build one), and this one is so simple and perfect.

{images shown via Michael Pollan’s site, taken by John Peden}

I’ve been anxiously awaiting the arrival of the new book, The New Terrarium, for weeks and it finally arrived today.  I have no experience in creating terrariums but have found myself pining for one for months.  Terrariums seem like the perfect fit for me; I love to garden, I wish I could have indoor plants but my cats eat anything with leaves, and I have a fondness for small and detailed things.  Some of my favorite plants in my garden are the tiniest ones, sedums and succulents, and I often find myself drawn to mosses and lichen when I hike in the woods.  When several different blogs recommended this book, I realized I had to own a copy and learn how to make a terrarium of my own.  I’ve only just flipped through the book today, but it seems to cover the basics:  which plants do best in a terrarium, how to care for your plants, and designs for different little environments.  The photographs are beautiful; this is a book that is enjoyable to look through and as well as being full of information.

I’ll be keeping my eyes open for vintage glass jars and containers, as well as checking out stores like Crate and Barrel and Ikea for simple canisters.  I’m thrilled this book finally arrived and am excited to create my own little habitat.

{The New Terrarium is published & copyrighted by Clarkson Potter}

It’s always hard to jump back into the swing of things on Mondays, but especially hard after a holiday weekend.  I had a lovely, peaceful Easter weekend with family and am finding it hard to shake that relaxed vibe.  It may sound like I’m just procrastinating, but many times the way I refocus and get into a work mode is to write a list.  I’ll write out my goals for that day or that week, figuring out and prioritizing which things need to happen first.  It’s almost like having a little meeting with myself to go over all my to-do’s and have a game plan to move forward.  Plus, one of my favorite things about to-do lists is the part when you finish something… it just feels so good to cross things off!

I know that I’m not alone in my admiration of list making.  I’ve discussed this with several other lovers of organization who say it’s true, making lists really helps with work, school, or sometimes is just plain enjoyable.  Lists for food shopping or for trip packing, sure; but there are lots of people who just simply love to make lists and some take it to another level.  Lists can be a way of discovering things about yourself and remembering experiences that left an impression on you.  I bought the book Listography: Your Life in Lists for a fellow list fan, best friend and cousin this past Christmas and she said it’s been extremely enjoyable to fill out.  The book is a companion to the website and the writers have other books: My Listography: My Amazing Life in Lists and Love Listography: Your Love Life in Lists.  There’s also other listing books out there: To-Do List: From Buying Milk to Finding a Soul Mate, What Our Lists Reveal About Us and The New Book of Lists: The Original Compendium of Curious Information, among others.

The only problem if you love list making as much as me… you have to remember to get your work done at some point, and stop making so many lists!

{book covers shown belong to Chronicle Books}

Living in New England, I’ve become accustomed to the sight of old stone walls.  It’s rare to walk through wooded areas and open meadows and not come across these formations.  They are so much a part of the New England landscape, that they’re frequently overlooked and unnoticed.  But more recently, I’ve been taking note of stone walls on my walks, seeing the formations that they make, where some walls meet at an angle, where some walls form the edges of a path.  I cannot help but wonder how and when these walls were created.  I know that most were used to mark the edge of farmland or property, but I wish I could see what the area used to look like, when the forests I walk through were farmland.  And how were these areas taken over by forests again?  I decided this past weekend to find some answers to my questions.

My search lead me to my library, which has become a recent place of rediscovery.  With cutting back on spending (goodbye Netflix, goodbye Barnes & Nobles) I’ve been taking advantage of the free benefits of libraries a lot more often.  I rounded up a plethora of books and skimmed through many of them.  I learned about the different cycles of New England’s farming history, where in the mid 1700’s much of New England’s forests were cleared for farming, but just about a hundred years later many farms were abandoned when a mass migration occurred to venture west to the Ohio River Valley.  This is when the forests began taking back the land (going through different periods of forest growth – first White Pines, then Hardwoods).  I read about different types of stone walls: dumped/tossed, disposal, lace, bedrock, retaining… the list goes on and on.

Many walls were built for fencing in farm animals, while others acted as property line markers for early surveyors.  I read about a wall acting as a walking path when the dirt road alongside was frequently washed out and was too muddy to cross (this wall was a hard cap wall, which apparently is hard to come across).  I even read about a “pound” which was a sort of stone walled animal jail, a place to hold livestock that escaped their pasture until the owner “bailed” them out.  Many stone walls were built with features such as cattle ways (two paralleled stone walls built to lead cows to pasture), cow slips (a narrow slit in a wall allowing people to pass through but not a cow), and step stiles (sort of a stone staircase, allowing for climbing over walls).  What was interesting to me was to learn how well many of these walls were built, and how long they have lasted, throughout time and through much change in the landscape.  I’m still reading through much of the material and have only read a basic overview, but it feels satisfying to know next time I’m out walking through a forest path and come across an old stone wall, I’ll have more of an understanding and appreciation for why they exist.

(The books I am currently reading are Good Fences by William Hubbell, Stone by Stone by Robert M. Thorson, New England Forests Through Time by David R. Foster & John F. O’Keefe, Reading the Forested Landscape by Tom Wessels, Exploring Stone Walls, by Robert M. Thorson, Changes in the Land by William Cronon, and Sermons in Stone by Susan Allport.)