coddling

Between the news of our fucked up world and my changing role in life, for days I've been ready to bawl or brawl, moment by moment. The gray morning dictated action would be a good remedy. The laundry folding, fresh sheets, general cleanup called for some mindless TV.

Years ago, network television could be counted on to deliver up a constant roster of appropriate "background" fare. The Godfather (1 or 2, never 3!), Jaws, Star Wars, Indiana Jones doing whatever...you get the idea. Something you know so well, it's like your doddering auntie rocking away in the corner, knitting and talking to herself. Company, sort of, while you do stuff like clear of the bathroom vanity and scrub it down.

Strangely, internet cable makes this a little more difficult. There are better things to watch, engaging things that aren't a complete waste of time. Today I decided to run one that I've been hoarding and will now have to purchase 'cause Netflix won't keep it forever.

Springsteen on Broadway was not a good choice because the moment he started speaking, I was once again mesmerized by his storytelling, only getting up to take care of business when he was singing, and even then stopping to listen, watch and be taken away.

I've been having problems with a scene in the book, a critical reunion between the main characters. A very intimate scene. Torn it down completely three times.

After listening to Bruce speak about meeting Patti and what their relationship means to him. Then hearing them perform "Brilliant Disguise" together, I think I've got it.

"I hold you in my arms
As the band plays
What are those words whispered baby
Just as you turn away
I saw you last night
Out on the edge of town
I want to read your mind
To know just what I've got in this new thing I've found
So tell me what I see
When I look in your eyes
Is that you, baby
Or just a brilliant disguise"

Gray day

It's so overcast there really isn't enough light at the stitching chair to keep working. Hard enough to get a good picture.

Colin continues to capture sky majesty at the beginning or end of his shift at the airport.

They fly away

.

Yesterday was his big day. An outing with his Mom and Dad and best friends to Legoland. They had a grand time.


Kindergarten starts on Monday. I'll be there in a ceremonial fashion, his Mom will be getting him ready and putting him on the bus. I'll take some pictures, grin and make light. Then I'll sit in my car and cry ugly for a while.

Today we proceeded like it was any other Friday. I got up before dawn, drove to their house to hang with him a while. Dress, have breakfast, watch a little Spongebob and then on to the wonderful sitter who watches him when I can't.

What shirt to wear? What toy to take? What music to listen to while we roll, tell stories and jokes? All the while I'm struggling to not cry because summer is over. I did not burden him with my cares. That would have been cruel.

My watch is over

He's five

People say, "When did that happen? How did that happen?"

Day by day, sometimes minute by minute. They aren't all sweet and holy, but if you pay close attention, and try hard to not let it be about you, you get see them discovering themselves, digging through the layers and finding their way out of the chrysalis of babyhood.

It's so different than it was with my own boys.  A completely different kind of adventure and I am so privileged and grateful to have been a part of his life, to be Nana.

color of line

I doubt the monitors can bring the truth of these colors to your eyes, the way mine see them, here, live.

I still need a few greens, but these are the players for Night Gardener, among others.

My personal stash of dirty thread is getting out of hand.

lines and traces

I need to put this out of sight for a while before I do it an injury. The bits of cloth closest to the surface (in some places, five layers) are fragile and won't stand up to a lot of picking out of errant stitching.

Also, these colors are anything but true.
Something else to futz with another time.


I'm going to take some time and study marks from past pieces. See if they speak to my intentions at the time, or were they scribbled in haste.

messages

double-six, some hefty lines

thoughts and conditions for the moon (which needs help)

A reminder that every edge does not need nailing.

Night Gardener

the beds are planted.

the printed vegetables and the fish removed for some other iteration.

Anything else will be embroidered including the moths and fireflies and maybe a comet.

An eternity of stitching ahead. 36"x 24", this should hold me through winter.

Delightful exhaustion

I really wanted, intended to stitch

last night, but by the time we fell into bed, all I could do was pick up the cloth and look.

Having a child in my care requires every speck of my attention and energy.

raised beds

many things to think through.
to reconsider.
none of this is carved in stone.
cloth is never stone.

that fish is out of water.
so too, that patch of green that I've loved for so long.

tomorrow was planned for a sun and water day but looks like the weather wants a stitch and words day instead.
time will tell.

obsession

Without a map or destination, I'm becoming obsessed with this one.

The story it belongs with is still largely untold.

What I was hearing as I stitched were totally unrelated conversations between the main characters of the book that I have already finished, the one that's being edited. What more do they need to say? Why?

Meanwhile, I'm kerning* thread. Crazy.

*kerning - the process of adjusting the spacing between characters in a proportional font, usually to achieve a visually pleasing result. 

textures

The newest batch of cloth from the dye deck
are a riot of textures.

Pieces of linen so strong and thick that I hurt m'self trying to rip a big one in half. A tiny, delicate blouse..dismembered.

That cotton, embroidered window panel so rich with blue it's going back into service. I guess even second-story bathrooms should have curtains.

There will be further transformations for some of these. Discharging and overdyeing.

groping

Whew - thanks for the run on Dirty Threads. I've packed up the orders and will get them to the post office in a while.


This lot here is fresh. I'm struggling to get the range of greens I want for Night Gardener. Working outside in full sun and high humidity has a way of stupefying me. If I put up the umbrella (now dead) or pitch a new tent, I can't get the truth of the colors to my brain, so there's a lot more serendipity than color science. Still not happy, although some interesting things have hatched. These will go into inventory soon.

Time out of time

Wednesday mornings time stops the moment he pats my arm always awakening from the kind of dreams I have when I can go back to sleep after getting up too early.

He has a lot on his mind. A worrier. I hurt my back and alarmed him with some pain noise. He asks if I'm going to die. I really hate burdening him with 'someday'. Small friends distract and soothe.

Fish too.

There are fish in the clouds over the garden.

I'm going down to the dye deck to make more of what I'll need here. Cloth too.

I've a headful of dreams to study, and record. Some incredible music to work to.  Must only guard against the heat/humidity today. Kinda hellish out there.

Fuckery

Mercury, his head up his ass, doing his thing.
The other day, I threatened my printer with death and dismemberment. After a night's reprieve, it got its act together.

 I'm going to have to dye some more thread.

Back to the Night Gardener

 This has been on the design wall watching me work on other things.
 It holds no overt judgment, but smug up there in its dark patience, knowing I'll be back. That I'm already in thrall to it.

In some places, it's four layers thick including the fleece base. I won't stress my grandma's small embroidery hoops that way. The big, FA Edmunds holds it snug.
Some test stitching went through it all like a hot knife through butter. Or, I'm just a brute.

Harvest

All I need now is a good, firm pillow. I got a beaut from IKEA a while back. Feathers. That's what this one needs. Something with some weight.







Less than an hour ago I was drifting in the pool under a blue sky, editing a scene, listening to music. Summer noticed.

and here are the missed moments from earlier in the week. We were kinda busy. I was a bad nana and allowed Charlie to get a bit poached while we were at a friend's pool. He was so entirely freaked out when I split open an aloe leaf and slimed him. I don't know that this will become tan. His skin is like his mother's fair on fair, the whitest little white boy. My bad for his night of mild discomfort.

Thursday night I ventured across town to a bookstore where Chuck Wendig, (a pen monkey, I think he calls himself), was giving a yak about his latest book, "The Wanderers". Aside from the gorgeous cover, I was quietly excited to see a publisher take a chance on a big one, 800+ pages. In time, you'll understand.

I got there a few minutes late to find the place was packed with fans, CW just stepping up to the podium. I couldn't hear him so rather than stand there like a dummy for however long, I bought a copy and scuttled off. Now to soak it up and hope it's a good one.

That's the library's copy of "Where the Crawdads Sing" under it. I found a typo - a wrong word actually - in the first thirty pages. Reading as a writer can be a pain in the ass.

In the greenworld

My sprawling suburb calls itself  "the Crepe Myrtle City".  They are everywhere.
 I am going to have to go back  and get a better picture  this red one .  You don't see too many  of this color- astonishingly  rich  and bloody .  White,  lavender, and the ubiquitous  fuchsia are common and sums up  the struggling gang of four in my front yard. Struggling because we pruned them late and badly.


The sampler is almost finished and I'm still thinking about how stitched secret messages will figure in to the next book.

tasties

The survivors of the do-over have been renamed The Golden Delicious.

Do overs

 While I wait for the sun to come to the stitching chair, a few volunteers take a dip for stronger, overall color.

No clue if this will work.

.

business as usual

A large bag of scraps from the studio. I sat in the car and made up fat baggies to ship before noon so I could get in the pool with a good conscience. 

I need to find some old damasks. The pickings are getting slim.

Swimmer

I spent the afternoon observing the pure joy of a child soaking up the pleasure of being 'of' the water. His phrase.

He willingly shed the floats for a while. No fear in finding his own buoyancy, the power in his arms and legs. True child of my clan.

Another roadside rescue

He won't need much...

Found on the side of Buford Highway at the entrance of the Car Wash From Hell. (It's a fun place but post-wash, the exterior of my car smells distinctly like dogshit soup, per my co-pirate, but I agree with him.)

Anyway, this guy has not seen any real weather, but he's been rolled around on the highway a mile or two. Dingy as if he's lived with smokers, but not smelly.

I'm going to open a few seams, take out those frigging plastic pellets and hope it's not a package of crack. Take out his old fluff and give him a good soak.

shortages

It's a good thing I'm not a purist. I don't have enough of any one color for this project, so I'll be sneaking back into the inventory.


When I take my first dibs from a dye fest, I only take one of a particular colorway. Next time around, I'm going to be a little more greedy.

Planning on some purple-gold-brown, gray-gold-blue and other threeway sets soon.

Anyone have any suggestions or requests?

ps..I named this image for the cursing I was doing as I came to the end of a thread and had one more letter to do with that color.