Sharing

 These days, I am sharing the stitching chair with Sophie. I'm afraid she is going to grow faster than my hips will shrink. We may have to work out a schedule.

Saving the best for last

 

A fine spaghetti dinner, a few rounds of poker, and two weeks' worth of catching up.  He's loving the trumpet and taking band, and getting A's in math. 

We will try to institute the ancient technology of letting writing. I left him with stamps and envelopes. The ball is in his court.

And a warm welcome when I got home. 

I never even watched Jimmy Kimmel, and I cancelled Disney+, Hulu, and HBO as soon as the servers let me in.  This fucking country can eat itself alive for all I care right now. People seem to be waking up to the Shitweasel's game and hitting back. I have plans for 10/18, but for the moment, I want to wrap myself in a cloak of invisibility and take a break from screaming.

The ignorant Jesus jumpers think this is their moment. Jesus spat in Charlie Kirk's eye, and god threw him down the elevator shaft. That smell? His burning bullshit. 

A person to person week

Good friends. Good food. Good times. It shouldn't feel so unique, but that's on me.

The week began with lunch at a local eatery with an old friend. Em is the person who gave me the idea that writing was a worthy pursuit. She was the first editor to terrorize me with her blue pen and is a published author herself. 

The next day, a spur-of-the-moment gathering for a Braves game on the radio, poolside, started out with a freak thunderstorm. A downpour out of the blue so heavy that we sat outside the gate in our respective cars, hoping a storm this belligerent would blow itself out quickly.  It did.

We ate our picnic lunch in the gazebo to the drizzle and just in time for "Play ball!' I was in the water for pretty much the whole nine innings, drifting and gabbing with another of my oldest friends from here.

Despite the nighttime chills here, this water gets full sun all day. Have you ever swum in a saltwater pool?  The water has a magic that feels like a living thing.  My only regret is that I didn't take a flying leap face-first. The old bones said, "Use the steps, dummy."

Jan told me that despite this splendor, very few people use the pool. What could they be doing?

 That wonderful blue light. 

 Today, another long-overdue lunch with my oldest friend here in the south. Like me, she and her family were shanghaied here by AT&T lo these many years ago and made our lives here, like it or not. We chose another local, not a chain place, and had the best shrimp po'boys ever and hashed over the wretchedness of the state of things. 

It was wonderful to see everyone. 

Wrap-up

The cloth from the Under the Influence dyefest has been a rousing success because I remembered and stuck to the rule of No Machine washing. Everything had to be hand-washed. Small batches of like colors. 

Most of this has been cut up into hand-sized pieces and blended into the scrap basket. 

I may have to rethink pricing or get out the old postal scale. A bundle that went out yesterday weighed 6.2 ounces and cost $7.45 for first-class postage. 

I'll see how this feels with just keys, cell, ID, and some cash today. Not sure that I can travel that light.

 

My actual triumph? Recreating her Baby. 

A bit of fluff, felt, and feathers that came in a bag of cheap cat toys. One that she singled out and has been carrying around in her teeth. Fetching it back when thrown. Coveting it when one of the other cats comes near. And misplacing the original somewhere upstairs.  She's a toddler after all. 

Now there are three of them, and she's good with them all. 

Kinky rayon

 

Ah, that weird rayon thread.

I wish I'd given it the attention that I gave the cotton when it comes to the range of colors. Each change was an afterthought.

My attempt at black and white didn't work out as planned because the thread had an affinity for Dragonblood. I don't want to call it contamination. It blushed💗.

When wet with soda ash solution the skeins are as slimy as pieces of raw chicken in olive oil. With gloves, it felt like they were trying to escape.

Washout was a little better this time because I double-tied each skein.

And the way a double strand works up into a nice bold line has grown on me. I'll be keeping a few for myself. 

Let me know if you would like to try it.

Harvest

 
Under the Influence 

Getting all the cloth washed out is going to be a challenge. No more marathons - of anything manual. 

But it's mostly about the threads. The light is beautiful this morning, so I started making sets and posting them. The names are hard coming. 

Mostly with the objective of getting away from the house. 

Just being anywhere with the internet available feels claustophobic, threatening. Sick making. 

This is one of my favorites. A huck tea towel, good sized. At first I thought that monogram was a D. Now, I'm not so sure. 

I laid out all the cotton thread - the rayon skeins were still damp. For all the richness of this towel, the threads in blue came up short. Lots of mutts. 

I remind myself that something that does nothing for me may make someone else gasp. 

 

Season's end

The stuff that I walked away from to go to the sea. The time away did us good.

I spent most of yesterday handwashing skeins of thread and pieces of cloth. Washing and rinsing skeins of DMC is like petting tiny mermaids or handling cooked lasagna noodles.

Small batches of like colors, mostly because I'm superstitious. At this stage, the dye is dead, but if any Demon Fuschcia snuck into the mix, there could be contamination. It happened to some of the rayon hanks. Live and keep learning.

Put on the music!

Soak for a while. 15, 20 minutes. Soap (Synthrapol or Dawn) in cold water. Rinse in hot. Repeat as needed. Don't let any of the skeins go down the drain. 

(I work directly in the bathroom sink. Between steps, I stretch my back and walk around. Do chores.)

Underwater, the tie-off presents itself. I grasp it gently and swish slowly. Imagine how long hair behaves under water. This action reorders any loops that may have twisted or tangled. Preens them. 

I really should take a video of this step.

 

This is about a tenth of the skeins. It's going to be a while before I start building sets and posting them for sale. I won't rule out overdyeing if the weather permits. The cloth is spectacular.

For now, I'm taking the steps slowly and keeping notes. 

The blessing

Oak Island, North Carolina

the pre-dawn view from the front porch. I spent a lot of time out there. The Intracoastal Waterway is just beyond those lights. You can see the tops of boats go by. 

I forgot my bathing suit because I never had any intention of swimming. 

Something skittered away from my steps. Lots of them. And what was I going to do with it if I caught it? I'm like a witless kitten on the shoreline chasing whatever moves. We sat just about the highwater mark and watched ghost crabs watching us from a few feet away. 

It was hot, humid, and mercifully overcast, but for a few minutes of blazing blue sky sun here and there while we were on the beach. 

I was glad to have a good book to read and an idea or two about a new writing project. 

Even though we went to the grocery store, my sisters wanted to eat out for every meal. For a seaside resort area, most of the food was just okay. I imagine most of the first-line kitchen staff take a vacation after Labor Day. 

Leaving my car with a friend who then drove me from her place to the airport was a great stress reliever. Still, I landed at 3:40 and didn't get home until 6:30pm with traffic. 

Every single person I encountered during travel was delightful. Two infants on the flight, and we didn't even know until they were carried off the plane. Kindness was abundant. On the homebound landing, the pilot brought us in HOT with one big bounce and a swooping curve that did not feel intentional.  When I got off the plane, I thanked him for the entertainment.

Under the Spell

 

...of knowing this is the last dyefest of the year. The need to go big and make it count. Thread, cloth, overdyes, anything that didn't run away when I grabbed at it.

On Tuesday, I went to the store for something and thought to ask at the pharmacy for flu/covid shot since I'm flying on Sunday. Sorry, no current Covid, but sit right here. She was just about to give me the flu shot, touched my neck and checked my temperature. No shot for you, wretch. Go home with your mild fever. Okay. 

Within a half hour of being home, I came down with a 5 alarm headcold, sore throat, violent sneezing and a headache. Fuck me! Again? Covid crashed my trip last year. I had to know. 

The next morning, I had my first experience with urgent care. After two hours of idiocy at the front end, the techs and doctor behind the doors were wonderful. He gave me Rx2 and said I could go home and wait for the test results. Negative for everything. Flu, Covid, Strep...but he gave me one of those 6-day rocket fuel prednisone courses to help with the symptoms.

I had forgotten how high-test this shit is! By 9 this morning, coffee was over, the kitchen was clean, and chicken cutlets were frying in the pan.

Only then did I turn my mind to color, starting with this hopeful stab at teal. I was heavy-handed with the dyes. No point in letting everything get a year older, unused.

Yes, that's a lot to process, and I also need to do laundry and pack for my trip tomorrow. Change the bedding, vacuum. 

Compromises will be made. 

I may just bring it all in and leave it in the bathtub until I get back from the beach. Load all the threads on a tray and lock it in my closet.

I feel better about it already. The hard part is over. 

It was hot out there, and I had some notion that I needed to cover up from the sun on those meds. Who needs a sunburn on top of the dregs of a shitty cold?

(Which Jake and I traced to our favorite little booger farmer, Charlie) 

I don't know what that golden glow is coming from. But I hope it sticks with that linen tablemopper holding every up today. The cloths I just tossed down on the boards. That red crocheted bag on the right is going to be spectacular.

Old rules were broken today. I don't usually mix green but this acid green looked promising. We'll see.

A pretty even mix of hots and cools. There were twenty or so overdyes from the last run. It's been a long while since trying that. 

I hope it was hot enough to keep King Turquoise happy. 

Making ready

 Dreaming in color. What colors do you dream of? I'm still chasing that Teal. Let me know.

Update: 90 degrees tomorrow. It's a go. 

Scandal