bathtub gin

 

This is the trial run of  Bathtub Gin Dirty Threads. Another learning experience underway.

Turns out that this herb drying rack did not go to waste after all, but the poor little things may freeze before they dry! 

I'm seeing a weakness in the colors that I'm sure has to do with the (indoor) temps. I may have to set that gin on fire to get the hot colors I like. There's always overdyeing.

I've had this river grass basket since 2008 and none of the cats have ever expressed any interest in it. I always assumed it had some kind of odor that put them off. This morning Sweetie climbed in, dug around a little, then nested. I couldn't bear to chase her off the scraps and just left her in the weak sunshine. True mixed media. 

She turned eleven sometime in April. We both get around with the same "old lady with arthritis" moves. Sometimes I think she's mocking me. 

I spent too much time (and money) online this weekend getting Christmas shopping done. One of my nephews is a budding artist and I want to support that. The trouble was I kept seeing stuff I wanted for myself. Jerry's Artarama has my number. 

I started hunting around for things and opened this drawer for the first time in a decade. Tomorrow, I'll sit with it all and see what's still good and what goes in the trash.

This one called itself done this morning and will get mounted on canvas soon. Still waiting for a name to be revealed.

Thanksgiving 2020

 

While waiting for an apple pie to bake, I soaked up some fine music and experimented with new ways to cover ground with the dirty threads. Finishing it just now while listening to Charlie talk himself to sleep was the perfect bookend to my day. 

A fine traditional meal with our small family circle. Plates packed and dropped off for those working double shifts or living alone. 

Then sharing a first look at an older movie with Charlie who gave it 10 stars. "Chicken Run" has my thumbs up too.

It was dark by the time we brought Colin his dinner. An idling freight train was blocking a gated crossing. Police vehicles strobing silently on both sides. We circled around for a better view of the airfield, tiny blue lights stretched into the distance. Then we made our way through town. Every other crape myrtle swathed in Christmas lights. Charlie had a good view from his booster seat in the rear of my coupe, the seat he's about to outgrow. He went quiet.

"I feel like I could cry."

I checked him in the rearview. "What's making you sad?"

"Nothing. The night is just so beautiful."

I'm so humbled and grateful to spend time with this child.

a working studio. finally.

 There is a real possibility that I will be joining the ranks of the unemployed in the near future. Having more time for family, writing and art make that idea more appealing as the days pass. 

This will be the next piece I mount to a canvas.  Last night I shopped online for canvases and other supplies I'll need. Powers, Stay My Hand! I almost bought a set of acrylic paints! 

All these not-quite-finished pieces are finally going to get going to market and I don't have time to dick around with paint just yet.

The next chance I get, I'm going to Goodwill to see what kind of couch art they have on hand. I can gesso over anything if the structure and surface are worthy.

I'm running out of a few thread colors so Necessity remains the Mother of Invention. I've come up with a scheme for the Winter Indoor edition of Dirty Threads. 

You've heard of bathtub gin, right? 

The batches will be a lot smaller, but I won't be at the whim of the weather. I still have to figure out how to ship greywater outside to a dry well rather than run it all through my septic tank. This should be interesting.

cat door flap

The rubber flap on the cat door is old and leaks cold air. For years there was a piece of an old quilted experiment stapled over the outside. It was crusty and ragged so I pulled it down and tossed it out back in the spring. A replacement was necessary.

On a high shelf in the closet I found a large unfinshed quilt. Large. Lots of cloth wasted.  I cut a two-foot square from the least obnoxious corner, hemmed the raw edge on the machine and called it done. 

Then I spent the rest of the morning taking what was left apart. Keeping the best of it.

This floating under more than over the others, cloth so soft, it feels like skin.

This a piece of the softest damask. It was part of a small tablecloth. To be whisked out of the Maitre'd's jacket pocket to freshen a cocktail table with a flick of his wrist. The yellow freckly places stayed under soywax during a ill-advised overdye. 

There were also places where I used softscrub to discharge some of the color. Much of this after the design was stitched down to the backing. The very bad design could not offset the colors that I must have been besotted with. It was ugly and I had no qualms about chopping it up.

Three types of cloth so incongruent. The base, a griege cloth. Some mongrel cotton/poly blend by the way it refused the dye. The teal? An IKEA dishtowel. 

 

Memorial memory

 Jim's been gone seven years now. We used to sit together and watch TV. He watched. I stitched.

As I'm studying this one now, I remembered him asking, "What are these evil little fuckers up to?" 

There was something sinister going on but I didn't know it. Just a tone that came through. A mood.

I almost chucked this one because I didn't like the way the random seed stitches looked, but I was too lazy to pick them all away. 

Then I sacrificed it to the Fiber Mummy experiment. Given that ten years have passed and it's still pristine, I'd say the experiment was a success.

The plan is to mount some of the ever-growing pile of small, stitched pieces on canvas using the same technique. 

The intention, of course, to take them from bits of fancy work to Art, more consumable by the masses.

Jim would be out looking for canvases for me or building the odd sizes I needed.

He always knew my moods even when I didn't. I will always miss him.

The Red

 

What did I know of this Red thread? Nothing. All I knew was that when I got him off the bus yesterday it was so warm we left without any kind of jacket. This morning for the ride home, I dug this shirt out of my closet. How old? The badges are from Jake's cub scout days. I was a den mom for a season. Jim did the overnight camping thing. I was happy when he quit.

It's a really cozy fleecy stuff. I might have worn it once. If I chop off half the sleeves, it will make him a nice bathrobe.

I don't wear red. Some hot pinks and rust once in a great while, but red? Nope.

I use it very sparingly in my work.

I think I OD'ed on hot colors in 2007. Every time I take this one out and unroll it, I'm shocked.

                                                                            "Limbo"   38" x 68"     2007  

diversions

words can wait.

Since I made this post, Georgia has gone blue and there has been a recount, by hand.

Now to get Warnock and Ossoff elected to those senate seats.

While I sat in the sewing chair, Baily jumped up on the window sill that faces the driveway. The screen popped out and he fell two stories. 

By the time I got down the front door, he was strolling up the path, unharmed. He allowed himself to be examined and then went about his business. My heart rate took a lot longer to come down than he did.

 Worked while I waited for Charlie's bus.

fresh starts

Still taking it all in. 

There is a poisonous snake in Our House, the Whitehouse.

I have a high level of concern about the fact that the Shitweasel refuses to concede. He continues to infect his base with his delusions. Caravans of trucks with loser/traitor banners roam the Georgia highways. His enablers in the GOP seem to be out to lunch. Even members of his family have tried to get him to see reason.

Is he stealing the silverware? Salting the lawn? Trailing slime over the furnishings? 

I want that fence taken down as soon as possible.

On balance (I am a Libra) Biden's team is already attending to the most important concerns of the nation. All will benefit. There was no gunfire in my neighborhood. No celebrations.

Stacy Abrams' Fair Fight is working to make sure our two senates seats are blue, representing the true will of the people.

Another Monday is well under way.

Fuckin' A!

 

Blue Wave 2020. I put the stitched nameplate in the mail on Thursday without even taking a picture of it.  Have fun with it, Liz.

the one

 

me and Nelly, 1951 

I'm trying to put my writing boots on the ground, but circumstances swirl and conspire against it.

I have to "go to" the time and place I'm writing about and it takes full focus. Prolonged concentration. 

Has anyone got a couple gallons of that to spare? Didn't think so.

At this moment, 99% of the ballots in GA have been counted. 49.2% for Biden and 49.6% for the incumbent. It probably won't be Georgia that decides the outcome of the election. But to think it might, by such a slim margin.

I requested an absentee ballot partly due to COVID concerns, but mostly because I wanted to hurry up and have my say. Vote as early as I could. I filled it out and took it to voter registration way back in the middle of October. Dropped it into the formidable-looking hopper outside while people cued up outside on the first days of early voting. My county did the blue team proud. 58%.

Thinking about it now, my ballot could have been one of the last ones counted, buried at the bottom of the dropbox the way it was. 

My thoughts are about how to broach the "Why..." conversations with people that matter to me. 

How do we move forward because there is no going back, the way back being guarded by that miserable 800 lb. gorilla who must surely be sick of that job by now. Aching to retire. Like me.

take comfort where you can

The perks of being the creator? You get first dibs!  I got mine. These are two views of the same scarf. They are like kaleidoscopes that warm to your touch when you wrap one around your neck.

 There are only a few left. I am still trying to figure out how to make these indoors. 

We chill

 And wait. I'm rooting for America.

Halloween +1, 2020

 

The October Rains

 

 

These two were the only ones I held back for myself.

Mad restraint, you say? 

No. Just no more room in the lunch box and I really need to step away from the stitching chair for a while.

Dirty Threads and Fat Baggies are restocked and ready for commerce.  This is it until Spring, 2021.

I'll get to the scarves tomorrow. Need to get out and gather my thoughts with my steps.

Very old school.

 

We had little damage but no power still after 16 hours. Looks like I may actually have clean out that fridge for real. A little old school for me is fine. 

The day (and tomorrow) was blessed with his incessant energy.

I love this table. The perfect play place. Jim made several from scraps from solid wood doors. Some kind of composite that weighs a ton. 

 I brought this along. Silly me. Maybe tomorrow after another day of homeschooling.

Seriously

 

October Rain

 

I slept all of four hours last night. That dinner time coffee was a mistake. 

After my shift was over at 1:30am,  I let myself fall into this book. Nothing like reading magic to really put a struggling writer's dick in the dirt, so to speak. But what glory! Charles Frazier is in my top ten.

"Being on the wrong side of history carries consequences. If you've done terrible things, lived a terrible way, profited from pain in the face of history's power to judge, then guilt and loss accrue."

                                                        ~O~

The scarves are waiting to be named and posted.

100% Viscose. Made in India. A generous 31x72, more shawl than a mere scarf. 

There are only ten and that may drop to nine after I spend time getting decent pictures. There's one that keeps getting my attention. Thanks, Dee, for being a fine crash test dummy.

I've been wearing mine whenever there's a chill. Worn it to bed. The cats have nested in it. Slammed it in the car door. Washed it in the sink by hand with my favorite smelly soap, then left it over the shower rod to dry. The label says 'dry clean'. I say, 'feh'. I have no idea what might become of the colors if you do dry clean it.

The rain was good for everything, except drying time when all was said and done.

But what bossy, vibrant colors settled into the thread!  Most of these will be posted to go in sets of six over the next few days.

I'll sleep tonight, no matter what.

All told

 

There's nothing left untouched. These are outside drying. I wish I'd discovered them sooner, but who wants a warm wrap in June? There are ten. 

A storm is coming. I'll get these inside but the threads will just rinse in the rain.

The last round of threads - fifty or sixty?- I lost count. All the dye is used up. 

What next?

ps. I went out and grabbed up a few from the work table fearing they were going to a muddy blur. Not this time. ❤

Summer lingers

 Words later.