Thursday, September 14, 2017

tooling up for color

Look at these huge crystals! Rock salt for ice cream with facets like big, smiling faces just waiting to get to work with the dyes. No more of that spendy pink Himalayan salad stuff. Used it all.

Packages and letters are away! Mollymook, Camperdown and Polvadera, heads up! A week to ten days, give or take.

My friends live in places with names as interesting as the new colors who arrived yesterday: Raven, Robins Egg, Avocado, BlueViolet, Daffodil and Golden Brown.

I have to figure out a whole new way to dye indoors. There will be a technicolor bathtub and sink. For fun, I'm going to make a smock, a large rug and a set of towels, all cotton, only for dye fests.

Wednesday, September 13, 2017

the fire this time


I was rummaging through the closet for something fall-ish to wear rather than kick the furnace up a notch or two. My go-to yoga pants from last year were crumpled in a corner, dusty but clean enough.

In one of the pockets, this scrap of a damask napkin dipped in fire. I took a dozen pictures of this scrap and got a dozen variations of red. This one comes closest, but it's still off. It's as if my eyes can look, but they can't really see.

Sometimes, all it takes is a scrap - this is hand size. Irregular.- to get a fire going.

I've had too many brands in the fire lately and it was easy to let a little brush with a hurricane dampen all of them. Time to get back to work.


If you've ordered something from me in the past few days, thanks for your patience. Although we suffered little real damage, we are still putting life back on track.

Tuesday, September 12, 2017

post storm


We are wet and bedraggled. Nothing blew away or fell down. So far. But we have power (now) heat and a roof over our heads that is in one piece, so no complaints.


I did get to spend half a day with Charlie before his folks got home early ahead of the worst of it.




No Publix, no park but a bunch of fun.



Sunday, September 10, 2017

pre-storm still

It's too early in the day for selfies, but it's so beautiful outside. Chilly enough for the Magic Invisibility cloak. It is heavy with layering so I save it for sweater weather. It needs some work.

Yesterday, nature was holding her breath. Today the pulse has quickened. My wind chimes are tuning up.

The sky is clear, but the trees are anxious. Milling around gently now, opening their arms and faces to the warmth of the sun like they know they aren't going to see it for a while. For some of them, maybe never again. I wonder how much they know.

At some point in the day, I have to clear off the dye deck. stow stuff, invert small containers.
I also want to get some pieces out with dye so they can be rinsed by whatever remnant of the hurricane makes it way here.

Wednesday, September 06, 2017

Elements became story

(I was plotting even back then. This post from February 2012)


"Grand RĂªver"  2012

It's been pinned up to the design wall where I can see it while nothing much is in my head.

It provokes stories.
How words become sentences and sentences take on life when they gather to become story.


turns out this is my 1400th post. Sheesh, what wind.  I could have had that bloody novel in the can by now!)


Tuesday, September 05, 2017

consumerism Tuesday




I'm off to the post office with Fat Baggie orders picked from this wildly bunch. I dug a big tote from deep in the back of the closet and uncovered some wild and dangerous characters.  There are three bags available and a whole new batch of screamin' dirty threads getting ready to post.

Monday, September 04, 2017

in the works

Despite a heavy round of what's now called "adulting" I prepped and dyed a new batch of dirty threads and while I was slinging crystals, I put this sleeveless linen blouse down on the deck boards to catch the overspray and scatter.  They have all been batching a while now.

I'm thinking through how I want to handle dyeing shirts. This is a test.


These are two views of the table cover that I've been using all season. It's a flannel fitted shit that probably has a high percentage of synthetic in it. I don't expect it to hold on to these colors. Sad that.



a double header



I had a Charlie Sunday and Monday this week. Just enough hours both days for us to have all the fun and none of the "gotta" stuff. A Nana's delight. Early, early on Sunday got my day in gear instead of languishing and today, a lunch & park date.  I'm a lucky gal.

He was not amused about my choice in music in his Dad's car but driving it was work enough for me to be fooling with the radio so I shut it off and we just talked. Conversation with a three-year-old is an adventure unto itself.

Sunday, September 03, 2017

Being useful

I love reading about artists using and enjoying my raw materials. Thanks, Grace, Joanne, Hazel and Liz for loving my Dirty Thread.

Saturday, September 02, 2017

the big gift

a big box filled with wonder turned up the other day. shirts and pants in the size and style that I like best, in cloth I've rarely worn. certainly never appreciated. linen and cotton/linen and every piece a blank canvas waiting for....

plum, daffodil, robins egg blue, golden brown, gun metal, raven

in addition to all the others

and the vintage flatwork...amazing. Many thanks, JS. Now all I need is for summer to hang on just a little longer.

.



I'll leave just this one white.