Eye surgery success

Not me, the great spotted cat.

It's been requested that a change be made. Seems like he's a little too creepy . The red color and the wonky shapes were hasty choices anyway so, no worries....something in blue maybe. And some cat whiskers.





.....Meh...

12.26.14

We waited a day so we could gather without one of us having to rush off to work. It seems like my entire working life I've had the kind of job that runs 24/7,


It never failed that for one or more holidays each year I would have to excuse myself from family gatherings to go to work - ten years as a telephone operator and another ten as a network communications technician. As of next year I will be done with that. One way or another I am finished working for the man,


Here we are gathered round. There were prezzies and feasting. Merry Christmas from the Lacativas of Lawrenceville.

Tribe Lacativa. Christmas 2014

Christmas closing in

I know that this time last year we all pretty much put our heads in the sand and wished the holidays away.

There was no tree, no decorations and no gifts that I recall except for this special one.

Charlie's quilt is nearly done - I have a day of grace for a little more stitching in the ditch - they won't be here for dinner until Friday so I get an extra day to clean, shop and cook!

Colin sparked the spirit in the house with a perfect little tree - nothing to excite the cats but, I think the baby will be impressed.

wheels

Leave it to me to get emotional about the sound of an engine running.

Jake got Jim's truck going today. It's been sitting for over a year and we need it now. Jimmy was so adamant about not selling it once he was no longer able to drive. People were constantly asking if it was for sale. The answer was always, no.

Jim used be hard on vehicles. He was one of those folks who turned the radio up louder if there was a funny noise.  Things changed when he got this truck.

Jake was coming into his own as a mechanic and Jim would ask his opinion and take advice from him, probably the only mechanic he ever trusted. And so, the truck is in pretty good mechanical shape and should serve our family a few more years, with a little smart TLC. Thanks babe.

little quilts

I brought this top with me today to make sure it was the size that's needed...something to tuck up around him when he's in the baby bucket as the other ones I  made are much too large. I got carried away.

Missy proclaimed it perfect and Charlie couldn't wait to hurk on it and cuddle it. The boy has my appreciation for raucous colors. Now to get it away from him when I leave so I can finish it off.

~

Some days my heart just wants to fly away-

Vigil Cloth 2013

working with working cloth

Guess I better get on that present, eh?
These were all shot cotton shirts that I got from various second hand places. I over dyed all of them in one of the last dye days this past summer.

there are sixteen beefy blocks that will be sashed in with a cream colored solid and then backed with that black and white check. Pretty and practical.

I'm hoping to get all the piecing done tonight so I can do the hand quilting during the week. I know, wishful thinking.

every day is baby day

  You would think that an hour of so like this would free up the brain for things like reading or writing at the very least.  Not.

On the contrary, holding a sleeping baby in your lap is some kind of powerful sedative.  You can't fall asleep lest the little guy rolls away, but relaxation is total.

Charlie turned four months old on the first of the month and he has discovered the magic of vocal communication. He warbles, chuckles, chortles, laughs, and will scream himself purple for thirty seconds only to look into my face with wide eyes, grin like a fool as if to say "Psych Nana!" and then laugh himself to hiccups.

The cold that troubled him lightly for a day has kicked my ass for a full week.

Lost Weekend

I don't know how I though I'd duck the cold that Jake and Charlie had early last week, such hubris. It fell on me like a starving lion late friday night. I was fine when I went to bed, but Saturday was a total loss given over to drugs and alcohol, the medicinal kind. I give the cold 24 hours.

Things started looking up with the mail delivery late Saturday. I snapped this up on Ebay cheap because I think others bidders were scared off.  No religious significance for me, but a key item for one of the protagonists in my book in progress.

This morning started with a blessing and reminder - Find beauty and take care of myself.  The full moon was setting in the west and the reflection in the pool was overlain with the reflection of the colored christmas lights in my office across the hall. I'll take the camera to bed with me tonight. I even worked in a wobbly mile at the park this afternoon. Healed, I am.

Screw the Critics

I loved it.

(Thank you Brendan. If it hadn't been for your incessant chatter on Facebook I would have missed this live presentation.  Somehow my brain trapped Sunday as viewing night and I'm so glad I only missed a few minutes)

 I think you had to be there live in 1960 to really appreciate this latest production. Live TV is such a novelty! At first,  I found myself thinking, and without being derisive, "this is SO GAY", but a few minutes in, I found the place in my heart and memory before that kind of judgement was possible and just let the thing take me where I needed to go, back in time....(more)

Ongoing

The river basket is stuffed with WIPS these days - gifts, practical matters and a little piece of needle dreaming.

I've been spending a lot of time writing (,,,nothing to see here,,, move along) and thinking about how things are going to be different here at House of Lacativa in the coming year. Changes upon changes.

I have never shopped Black Friday, just refuse to take part in practice. If I've lived without something all year, and managed quite nicely without it, why would I rush out to some rude fest to spend money on the thing?

What  I do have are LOTS of fat baggies of  hand dyed, vintage cloth  if you are in the mood to treat yourself or someone else. I can ship on Tuesdays or Saturdays right up until Dec. 16th ...I'll go again on the 20th but no guarantees this will make it in time for Christmas.

Thanksgiving

We traveled again this year. Colin and I went with Jake, Missy & Charlie up to Abbeville, SC to spend the day with Missy's mother Cookie and her husband Bob on their farm.

It was nice to do something new and different for Thanksgiving. This year, though, I had a turkey and all the fixings ready to go into the oven at home on Black Friday so we'd have the beloved leftovers.  Nothing sadder than coming home from a family feast to cranky cats and baloney sandwiches.

The farmhouse itself was built in 1775 and is steeped in history. There will be a lot more about this place in the future.

I got to meet their horses and neither of them took exception to me as I made it clear to them both that I was not there to ride either of them.  Just a little meet and greet and a good scratch and I have two new friends. There's only this one picture of Charlie riding in the back seat with his Mom and Colin.. I left my phone in my car and all but forgot I had a camera with me. Just wanted to take it all in for a change.

revisitation

Since nothing much new has come out of the studio lately, I thought I'd scroll back some and look for some inspiration.


As soon as I paint my office,
I'm going to start hanging these older pieces, one by one.

Here's the original post.


It's for sale, of course. Email me if you are interested,







"Los Dados Encantada" 

2012

56x34

A days worth of doing before noon

One of those days where getting up early paid off nicely. Made  my lists, hit all the stops and  had all the "gottas" out of the way by noon.

All but one...get a replacement zipper for my fleece jacket. This meant a trip to Ho-Anns and me with no coupons. Oh well, it's only a zipper, right?

The crack was there ready and waiting.
Calicoes and batiks for a smaller quilt for Charlie, big fat cushy skeins of Lion Homespun and a J hook, just in case I couldn't find one of the five or six I have somewhere in the studio.

Not much later I had a visitor for a little while, but I don't think he'll remember.

Later, I put in eight hours in the whine mine  and still had energy to burn, in fact, I was up writing until nearly four. That was the real cherry on top of my day.

The cat crew insisted on breakfast at eight, so another early start only today dawned gray, raining and thunder rolled from time to time.

 A real good day to sit and stitch. The new quilt is well under way.

a day taken out of time

 Yesterday was a strange day. I never got dressed or left the house. I cleared off the stitching chair in the studio and sat with the cloth for  a while, but it was absent-headed fiddling with no intent and the results showed. An hour of stitching equalled another fifteen minutes of picking out. No surprise. The film "Giant" was a colossal bore and complete waste of James Dean.

Some stitching, some boring TV, some napping, and for me,  some dreaming.

A breaker failed last week and I have not been able to figure out which one. There was no power to the bathroom, closet or bedroom TV, so, no great loss at all.  Jake came by, fiddled with everything and still no power. I will call a pro eventually.

Last night when I was done with work,  I went into the bathroom and, out of habit,  flipped the switch and the light came on. It took me a minute to realize that somehow the electricity had righted itself, as if it was sulking and now happy I needed it again.

I turned on the TV on the same circuit just to check and it worked. "Gladiator" was on - gift from my Goodman on a day when I needed it. I left it on and we dreamed together.

A year gone by

"Hollow Places"



How little I knew back then. 

Winter sets in.

My house may be cold, but this room is warm and we are cozy. The only problem with this scene is that they object when I put the wireless keyboard on their heads.

Tough titty, kitties.  I had a major writing breakthrough this morning. Notes are now down, paths and further questions ironed out. It was a great day, even before the coffee was ready.

Time for Art to Work

I've decided to take this one and few others  out of the gallery and put them to use.


What better use that a playground or a cuddle for my grandson?



All of my art quilts were built with the same materials and techniques that I use for utility quilts and bedding. Except for the latter ones that used vintage damask, they can all stand up to machine wash and dry. All I have to do is remove the sleeve.





I'm thinking this one needs at least one backup.

The light of our lives

I have always been a picture taking fool when it comes to the babies in my care. Really, I could just watch them for hours. They are so amorphous at this age, changing right before your eyes. Look at those hands!


Unfortunately, Charlie  is already expecting to see his own face when I point my cell phone at him. The "Selfie" mode works wonders when he fusses.

You can see by his expression below, that he is wondering where the damn baby went!

I get pretty much the same expression when I read aloud to him.

We are working our way through "Gone Girl" right now.

Repercussions? Who knows.

These are dark days if I dwell in the past. Charlie helps keep me in the here and now.

Badges flying

"True Love Ways" should be arriving at its new home tomorrow or the next day.

The proceeds took me for a much needed day away from the ranch. However prosy you might think squatting in IKEAs cafeteria from breakfast though lunch might be, it was just the ticket for me and my friend.

The food is just meh, but the time and space with no one hurrying you away from your table is a luxury. And then there's the store. I'm not much of a shopper, but this place does it for both of us and that in itself is amazing because our tastes are so divergent.

Janice pointed out that I have been squeezing this same pillow every time we got there since the place opened. I finally threw it in the basket.

And for the first time in forever, I was paying attention in the toy department and it's a wonderland.  Charlie likes faces.

Fall on us

Progress on this piece has been slow but hands free/brain free time is scarce. I take it when I can.


It's been an emotionally and physically exhausting week. The other day I took Jim's wheelchair and left it just inside the vestibule of the Catholic church that's so close we can hear the bell. The door was open, no one was around. I just wheeled it in and left it.


I submitted a short story to a literary journal and have since found out that I have a better chance of getting into Harvard! Hilarious.

And there's nothing like being greeted in the early morning hours by a smiling face who knows you and challenges you to bring your A game to his day.

This too will be changing. Jake has changed jobs and will soon get home in time to have some Charlie time all to himself. A good thing for both of them.

Thanks Kit!

A great package on the doorstep has been the buttercream frosting on a great day (so far).

My sister Kitty has a knack for knowing what manner of outrageous appeals to me. (She's the one who supplied me with the purple stuff for my hair)

I've been craving anything with this VeraBradly design forever - I even stalked a lady in the airport to ask about her bag once! This is the Grand Duffle in "Suzani"  and if I ever run away from home, everything I could possibly need would fit in this only I would not be able to lift and so there will be no running OFT.

 And don't send me any spoilers about the book. I might watch the movie if it comes to Netflix, maybe.  I've already heard that Ben's junk appearance is practically a magic trick. If that's the film's strongest draw I feel bad for his wife. I'll get my jollies from between the pages, thanks

Indian Summer

This is the upper deck that overlooks the pool. Looks like a party going on and me still in bed.  The park in Lilburn was glorious this morning. Someone put up a Little Free Library at the start of the main trail since Sunday. The trouble is there's a little bench right there and the temptation to pick a book, sit and read a while is strong and my point in being there is to get some exercise.

I have a bunch of books to put in it. Maybe seeding it with things from my library will encourage some other like minded folks (there were a lot of kids books and beach reads, but hey, they just put the thing in the ground!)

I brought a little stitching along for trail's end. Another walker stopped to see what I was working on and couldn't get over that there were no little printed blue lines on the cloth, that I was designing on the fly.  I told him it was like Paint by Numbers with no lines or numbers.

Collaboration

These are the wooden hoops my grandmother gave me when I was five.

There is no Try.

It was good light for stitching. The Winter Chair has been cleared of clean laundry so when I have time to sit there and stitch, I will. 

Thanks to everyone for the words of encouragement. There will be no more whining.  Nothing is impossible.  I gave the chaos of the studio fifteen minutes and put these four pieces back in storage, for now. Looking at them closely, handling them - I can say without a shred of embarrassment, they are fucking fabulous. Getting them exposure is on me.

 Top to bottom these are  Los Dados Encantada,  Consolation , Jazz Takes Over,  and Karma I . I am not going to let all this passion evaporate.

The first direction I got today, and I can't tell you where I heard it or read it, was "Do what you love". I must have repeated that ten times and decided I sounded senile.

It's a lovely sentiment when it's not set in a framework of  reality, like available hours. Still, there are minutes to be claimed and I'll claim them.

I love what I am doing except for the paying job. How hilarious is that? I found out the other day that my boss and my immediate supervisor have both "moved on". All I have to do is figure out how to replace about 1200.00 a month from some other source and I can catch the same train they did.

We are having a bit of Indian summer here in Georgia so I took the time to tend the temple this morning and got in  a mile in at the park, my knee feeling better for it rather than worse is a good sign. And while I was out there on the trail, a major rough patch in the writing resolved itself.  All of this bounty and tonight, the final game of the world series. Since I have no horse in this race, I'll be watching with one eye and doing something creative with the other.

And for those of you who stop by for the eye candy, here's a treat. Yoda stopped by. He said
                              "Do. Or do not. There is no try."

the saturday stitch

I'm going to be optimistic and take this with me today. There might be a little time for stitching and I'm loving my own hand dyed floss.

I gave half a thought to shutting this blog down last night, but, then I thought, just because the things that are going on in my life now won't interest people, and the last thing I have to do is write about tedium, this doesn't mean that there is no longer room in my life for beautiful things. No matter who made them.

So, from time to time, I'll make the time.  Seasons change, So will circumstances.


PS...there are still some damn fine people in this world. Thank you all.

the Creatives

Nothing yak or picture worthy from me here, but I know some talented folks.

I know a lot of my readers are into the Day of the Dead or they have grandchildren, either way,

 this design from Pug- Mother Bamboota is time sensitive and will sell like hotcakes!

(That price was only good for one day...still it's a nice design)

And now for your ears and your brain, the latest from #1 son Colin.

 "Starlight Abyss"  promises a different kind of meditation. There is another movie score in the works as well!

And one more maker for today - a smile maker! This little Hambone has been perfecting his charms.

Was he laughing at Nana's jokes? Nope. He was laughing at the baby in the phone!