sea changes

Before I turn into Jabba the Hutt, I've put my feet back on the turtle trail at the park. No turtles to read to these days, they've all gone into the mud for the winter, but I did pull up at this sunny station and get a bunch of handwritten pages done on a problem that I've been avoiding.



Now to boil down mad ravings into something useful. And lookee here, a whole 1188 steps yesterday, if the gadget on the phone is to be believed. By (typical) comparison today, it said 181 steps, but I don't carry the bloody thing around with me while I'm in the house so who knows.

 there was a little retail therapy that included replacement reading glasses and tired eyes eyedrops and, counterintuitively...the makings of homemade socks because I can't find any that I like.


Now I have to learn a new trick.

On the home front, a year ago I wrote that dialogue with Charlie was 95% geeba-geeba and 5% perfectly enunciated words including four-letter epithets. A year later and he asked me for a stand-up routine of jokes to consider whilst seated on his little plastic throne. He wanted to tell me a joke, but he couldn't quite pull the trigger. He will, and soon.  Then we had a lively game of I Spy and after a few rounds, he understood that the object was to not change his pick to suit my guess. Fun begins....

personal archaeology

Included with some things my sibs held aside for me when Mom passed. From back when making and sending fiber postcards was a thing. Feels near victorian.

giving thanks

I've been starting each day this month taking stock and being grateful for my life and the people in it. There is so much. Although I'm not traveling or entertaining this year, it's good to know that there are small gatherings and celebrations here and there where I and my family will be missed and thought of with love, as we do the same. Happy Thanksgiving!

pending

It's bigger than I thought it would be.





I don't want to get enamored of this snowfield, in fact, I may just take those linen pieces back. They can be strong on their own rather than be pushed into a background.







Especially when the players I'm auditioning are such a rowdy bunch. I can decide if I am in the mood for mindful tranquility or mindless raucousness.

I need to clear some space in the studio so I can work this one on the design wall. Take my time. Have the conversations.

homecoming

Picked up ten pieces home from the Fierce Fibers show. I need to take new pictures of all these and post them to the "Buy Art. It's good for you" page.

Pricing everything with the holidays in mind. 

Now all I have to do is hide it all out from Sweetie. She has a preference for nesting on things with price tags on them.

sweet saturday

Out of the blue, comes the need to stitch...these days it happens when a scene I'm working on stalls.

Nothing happens without something to build it on so I cobbled together a surface from dismembered linen blouse and shorts. Good stuff. LL Bean!

I'm also noticing that I need to either rest my eyes more often or invest in some 2.5 cheaters. The twos are not cutting it.


And I had a little help this morning. He learned pretty quickly which end was sharp and held a spool so I could pull off what I needed. I am so looking forward to introducing him to the craft.

Celebrate a life by living

Four years. Four days. It's all the same when you miss someone minute by minute.



We do our best to let Charlie know his Grampa Jimmy through pictures and stories. His guardian angel tends us all.

ps. I fired up Jumpin' Jack Flash and took the long way to get a few overdue errands done. Found the new Hotel California Sirius station and rolled loud, windows down, moonroof open. When I got home, I made a batch of Jim's Best chili and my prize-winning cornbread. For dessert, I took the harvest for a test drive. I know he would have approved of all of it.

fall downs

It's the time of year when I started using time rather mindlessly. I finally gave away that blasted acrylic yarn and the beautiful knitting needles to a friend who was serious about learning to knit.

So these containers came to pass.
I still have a basket with five cones of mystery yarn. One is cotton perle, one is bamboo and the others, no clue. The cones are unmarked. Alone, the strands are thin, unsubstantial. Together (and they have to be coaxed gently) they are soft and flexible. I might mix up a little brown dye and see if I can get that Boston bean pot effect.

historical dig

While looking for something else, these came to the surface. No surprise that they've languished. The colors are abominable. I'm going to tinker with that, see if I can get them to a place I like, colorwise.

These scraps are all that remains of a magnificent double damask tablecloth that I bought for a song on Ebay. The stitching is called Mountmellick.

I used a chunk of it in one of my most successful pieces. It didn't need any additional color.

"Lavanderia" went to ArtQuilts Elements at Philadelphia in 20l2 and didn't come home. SOLD!

 

bigger things take time

I continue to be grateful for my cloth and thread customers.

This is Charlie doing his best to ignore my suggestions that we both need a nap, badly.

I really should have packed him into the car and let him run wild at the park before the rain closed in, but I was too tired to drive. It was just a matter of timing.

I've kept the promise to myself to do the Nanowrimo thing and have been spending all my mornings writing. Too much time on one's ass has to be a health hazard.

Walking in the park continues to give me brain space for working on stories even though I can't seem to sustain consistency and momentum to reap any physical benefits so far. Given time, I know it will. I have to work out the balance, but any creative will tell you that when you are on a roll, you'd better slick up and go with it.

Fall FELL

 It was a marathon weekend. The bottom fell out of the thermometer on Saturday night. While New England was suffering a nor'easter, we got frostbit here in Georgia. I hauled all of my houseplants into the bedroom. Hitchhikers too. The spiders and stinkbugs in my house are running scared.

It was good to have the Warmth at the touch of a button.

All the orders for cloth and thread are on their way. If some of the packages look like they've been tampered with, that was just me improving the weight.

I don't have a postal scale, always just eyeballed the filling of the envelopes, but these news ones confounded me. Slippery devils. As I started processing them at the self-service kiosk in the post office, some came up too light so I brought them back home and operated.

I'm going through the receipts and will be sending out surprises to a handful that were sent before I started checking the weights. I know where you live. :)

Charlie did Halloween at school on Friday so on Monday we did candy. Lots of candy. There is a new schedule and I get there at 630 in the morning and when he wakes up 7ish, he wakes me with the question, "What are we up to today, Nana?"