What Happened to My Weekend?

Here's me and Voodoo luxuriating in turkey poisoning. I've spent most of the day ironing pieces of hand dyed fabric to post for sale on the web. Can't buy or make any new stuff until the old stuff is cleared out and as fast as I was posting pictures, people were buying them! Whoopee! Last night I made pizzas from (almost) scratch. The dough comes in plastic baggies at the Publix bakery. I actually got it spinning in the air with nary a flop to the floor. The guys at Redendo's Pizza would be proud. Next weekend we'll have video - I'm teaching eveyone how to make pizza for themselves now that I've found out how much cheaper it is to make your own pies. All in all they were pretty good but the sauce needs tinkering with.

More company for Dinner

Look who heard there was a turkey carcass heading for the trashcan. He just couldn't wait another minute and came tapping on the back door. I have no idea where the Kat Krew is at the moment - probably at the neighbors house playing poker with Angel and Orangelo.

Feast Day

I can't remember when I spent hours and hours embroidering this linen tablecloth. It was supposed to be cutwork done in ecru. Can you imagine how boring? Here's the detail that makes it an heirloom. Jake invited a few friends so we had to have a KIDS table. Fortunately it was balmy enough for them to eat out on the deck. Believe that from a 26 pound turkey there are almost no leftovers. I was most thankful that Jimmy got home at all. Snafu's on the job almost pre-empted his trip home (he and Colin have already gone back down to Macon) and I was about to have a meltdown when he told me on the phone. Things worked out after all and the kitty girls were both mad to lavish love on him. And even though there are (still) dishes to be washed, I am going to sit down, read a book and take a shot a learning a new addiction, I mean technique

Buy Now Button Fixed

PayPal finally got back to me about fixing the BUY NOW button on my Hotcakes site. I still have a dozen of these scrap bags left and the price includes first class postage inside the US.

Food Frenzy

So I'm in Publix doing the last minute holiday provisioning. It's the baking stuff aisle and for a full two minutes I am looking for the paper thingies that get baked around cupcakes. A young woman stocking shelves on the opposite side of the aisle senses my need for assistance and asks what I am searching for. I opened my mouth and for an instant realize that I don't know what they are called. It's not Alzheimer's - I never knew what they were called in the first place. Without any other thought process I blurted out "cupcake panties". The look on both our faces must have been the proverbial priceless. In a heartbeat, she got my drift and plucked a small container from an obscure corner of the display. Made both our days I suspect.

Webwork

This is not a sane way to spend a sunny day off! I started the morning fifth in line the newest of the Gwinnett County tag offices finding out what became of the renewal sticker for our pickup and getting new plates for Colin's car. Oh the joys of being the family CFO. Compared to my near-arrest at the New York DMV, which is all the bad, evil New Yorker jokes rolled into one, this was a piece of cake for breakfast. Then I made the unsound decision to spend three hours pushing pixels and html code around to update my website for the first time in nearly two years. NO - I have not finished the gallery and I probably won't today. My brain is fried so I am going to the park to walk and then spend the rest of the day in the studio. All criticisms welcome.

Loose Ends

Cleaning the studio goes forward with the occasional diversion to finishing a UFO. Imagine, making time to sew on sleeves! This is a dye print with painted accents stitched with gold metallic thread. It's stiff as hell and miserable to sew. Finished I'd say.

the Best Gesture

Rummaging through all the scraps has worked it's magic. I'm improvising at the machine again. When I was in NY I promised my Mom some recent photos of the family and realized that with our busy lives, getting everyone together for a picture will have to wait for Thanksgiving. I could throw large hunks of turkey on the floor and not hope for such a pose of domestic bliss but here it is, warm in my imagination, the Lacativa family. This one is for you, Jimmy.

Sale!

I should be flogged for spending the entire day folding and sorting the jungle that is my studio and have only put a minor dent in things. I'm putting these (and 20 more like them!) quart-sized bags of scraps up for sale on my HOTCAKES site. Treatchaself niiice and spice up your stash.

waterworld

Yesterday, Jan Thompson and I went to see the biggest and best tourist attraction in Atlanta, the new Georgia Aquarium. There's a commercial for the GA on local TV with a woman standing in a darkened room looking up at something with her eyes and mouth opened wide in amazement. You could see that expression almost everywhere you turned. My jaw is still aching. I'm almost glad that, after a dozen bad shots, my camera called for new batteries so I gave up on trying to capture images and concentrated on taking things in directly. This turtle was flirting with everyone she made eye-contact with. Below is a cuttlefish. The acrylic tank and water was so clear that I am certain that the creatures inside could see us at least as well as we could see them. The cuttlefish seemed to be intrigued with our hands which vaguely resembled them. It made me want to paint eyespots on my knuckles so I could communicate with them better

A Witches Work is Never Done

or "Why I Carve Really Scary Pumpkins". Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays. Now I realize that it's because it was chock full of tradition when I was a child way before Hallmark and Walmart got their hooks into it. My mother made our costumes and the one I remember best was a cat costume. The details are sketchy but I think she converted one piece stretchy pajamas with RIT and a fat, stuffed, black velvet tail that I'm sure I remember hitting my sisters with. She made candied apples that kids came from miles around to snag and there were always a couple of houses in the neighborhood that we just NEVER went to. Too spooky, too much in the spirit of the holiday, all year round. Frankly, that's how my house appears to me, dark and forbidding, and only the brave kids come creeping across the lawn for treats. The stuffed ghosts hanging in the trees may have festive, lunatic grins but if I were a kid, I'd pass on this one, thanks anyway.

Disconnected

I just spent a very interesting weekend fully disconnected from live input - no cable TV, no internet and (because I switched to Vonage - that's Effing Vonage according to my husband) no telephone. Last week the power company decided to prune some trees and did something to the wire that brings all our technology down the hill. At least they made sure we still had electricity, the sports. We live in a HOLLER - that's southern for "I don't care who your carrier is, your cell phone won't work down down here"- and continue to communicate at the whim of Comcast. I got the "Big Muddy" sewn together according to an actual paper mockup that I spent hours fooling with but now that it's up on the wall, I see that using that strong brown to bring some of the blocks up to size has caused design issues that will have be dealt with as one deals with cockroaches. Swift and deadly. Please don't ask how I know. So we talked, listened to music, cooked & ate a practice Thanksgiving dinner and watched a whole clutch of movies and some TV downloaded long ago. Did you know that at a certain age good sex will give you new wrinkles? What the hell is up with that? All and all, a lovely weekend. And this, from the back of the closet where a battered old portfolio mocks me. I made this up when I did some freelance work for a company that built endcap displays for music distribution stores. I have since confirmed that "freelance" means "unpaid".

Oh NO!! Another Postcard Procrastination Period

Just this one, I promise. There is too much else to do before I am seduced into sitting in front of the sewing machine cranking little wonders out one after another. There's lots of machine quilting to do and I finally got all the brown fabric I need to finish off the blocks for Big Muddy, trouble is, I am 99% certain that once finished, it's never going to leave my own personal bed.

Loot from MaryJo's in Gastonia

It would have been un-fibrous of me to bypass MaryJo's on my drive back from New York. It was a convenient pit stop for me and the car. Fiber addicts will admire my restraint. I only bought a few yards of some specific colors to complete a project, a few yards of an astounding fabric telling myself I'll use it for backing (sure I will) and then there was a box of remnants - 1 yard cuts of black cotton for .99 each. Did someone tell them I was coming?? Here is part of one of them discharged. I may never wash dishes with the stuff again.

Playland

I've been up to NY to visit family and haven't lifted a needle in a week. There was a new addition in the backyard. Yep, it's a pirate ship alright. Complete with gangplank, rigging and yardarms although my brother took down the jolly roger because a neighbor complained. Just wait until he puts the Christmas lights all over the mast! They are having the time of their lives with this. That's Rob, Emma, (one of the neighbors who is really happy about the USS Braine being docked at Port Useted) and Rob's boys Reno & Ryder...um, I think that's Reno in the choke hold. Even Debo joins in...

Whole Cloth Mania & Post Season Funk

This whopper has been lighting up the night on my design wall and will be for a while. I don't think I have any batting or backing large enough and I really don't want to cut it up - there's a lot of drama to play with here. Jimmy was home all too briefly but he lifted my mopery over baseball withdrawal and the QN rejection. We always find something to have a good laugh over. Quack-quack-quack, my Darlin' and thanks.

House in Need of Love

I wish I had taken better care of these garden boxes this summer. This and one or two other buds may be the only blooms I get this year. Time for fresh dirt. My whole house needs a serious facelift. Remember the earthquake that was centered in the gulf of Mexico a few weeks ago? Well, I was one of those sensitive souls who felt it in this suburb of Atlanta. I was in the pool when it happened and didn't know it for what it was. I was hanging on to the railing, drifting and listening to a ballgame when it suddenly felt like someone had jumped or fallen into the pool, but no splash, just movement of the water around me. I didn't think a thing about it until it made the evening news. Now, weeks later, I have discovered that we had some minor damage to the house. Up near a peak around the back, a few boards of siding have fallen away and all the nails on one exterior wall have popped out almost an inch! As our house is built directly on a rock ledge it's no surprise.

It was one of the ten best days so far this year, clear and sunny, breezes just wishing they smelled of burning leaves. Friday night was cold enough to have to turn the heat on for the first time of the season. Just love that smell of roasting dust. I had to cook up another batch of hummingbird sauce last night - they are still here and feeding voraciously. Got out early to assure a copy of the NY Sunday Times and was surprised to find that Borders had 2007 calendars on display. I took a long time choosing this one: The Braves played their last game of this season at one today knocking the Astros out of the playoffs as the Astros did to the Braves last year. I almost went to the game alone but would have spent nine innings feeling weird and sorry for myself.

As the UFOs get finished......

....new stuff goes up on the design wall. I spent most of last evening blind-stitching the layers together. I just didn't want to fool with the sewing machine for this one, big as it is 45 x 50 something - there was a game on. What can I say, the season is almost over, then the fur will start flying in the studio. update - I have cut & pinned up dozens of trial colors. It's just not speaking to me,yet.

Influences (Fling & Splat)

"Secret Message" is getting there. This wholecloth dyepainted & discharged piece turned out to be great fun. The original painting was an automatic pilot gesture but I trust my hand, at least I should more often. I wanted to counterbalance the grossness of the large markings when it came to the discharging but I wussed out. I may go back and do some heavier stitching to rectify that lack of unity. During the 60's I spent countless hours in art museums in NYC staring, slack-jawed as an ape, at contemporary paintings and marveling that these guys were getting huge bucks for flinging paint around just to hear it splat and then more hours listening to my stoned professors Explain It All, Abstract Expressionism, that is. No matter what they had to say,I don't think I ever got over the notion that these artists were putting a big one over on critics, museums, collectors and J.Q Public. I imagined them lounging about their lofts, garrets and studios totally fatigued from bouts of hysterical laughter as they "SOLD ANOTHER ONE" nyuk, nyuk, nyuk. Don't get me wrong, I think it's totally smooth operating and marvel that it happens as often as it does and don't mind admitting that I'd love to hold my own sides in pain even as I realize that it takes a little more than fling...splat. Robert Motherwell