the Dixie Mink

...is getting an upgrade. (In case you don't know, my Dixie Mink is an oversized, denim workshirt.)

Salem has taken to hiding in my cloth closet, nesting up in a small basket that held a few almost finished badges. I took them out, taped off the cat hair (she's a first-class shedder) and I'm in the process of stitching my own gang colors on each sleeve.

For the moment, I've abandoned the robe notion. All these weeks of isolation, I've been wearing a few long, sleeveless gowns that I cobbled together from scraps. That wonderful, soft Provence cotton.  The last thing I need is another "my eyes only" garment.

 If I'm to keep living I want to declare a few things in public.  Still contemplating what to put on the center back.

I live in a suburb of Atlanta, which I'm sure you know is in turmoil, along with other American cities, in response to the murders of  Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd.

Wearing " I Can't Breathe" is what I feel, but do I have the right?
The only thing that gives me any hope is VOTE.

We ventured out yesterday.  Charlie has a pretty good grasp of what's going on and was eager to be my masked Ninja. He's really too big to be riding in the cart, but for both of us, it's safest. Inside the front entrance of every Publix, there is a bench that he climbs to get in and out of the buggy because I can no longer lift him.

This reaction came when a man who was not wearing a mask, cut in front of us as we observed the Please Stand Here tapes on the floor. Charlie is still five and he gets it.
The woman waiting on us in the deli knows us well enough that she doesn't have to ask what we want. We all watched the man as he walked off. She shook her head. I said it for her, not quite loud enough for the man to hear because I was with Charlie.

"Asshole".

Saving this one for later. I start a new shift today.  5pm to 1:30am. The sweet spot of the night.  Most of my adult life, I've chosen to work lates. That's when interesting things and people are happening. I don't know how nine to fivers can stand the boredom.

BUT, at the moment, there has been an influx of calls from the most selfish, entitled and rude people I've had to interact with since I was a telephone operator for AT&T.  It's been a long time since anyone has opened a conversation with "Listen, bitch."  My easiest reply is no reply at all. A supervisor once called my silences "New York Deadly".  Sometimes I remind people that they are being recorded. That gets me a hasty hangup or both verbal barrels in a new volley of abuse. Either way, I win.

I'm always grateful that I don't have to go home to that person whose life is in the shitter because their gym is still closed and I can't tell them when it will reopen.

On balance, many people ask how I am faring. They are glad to hear that I work from home, and generally want to engage in any kind of conversation beyond the business at hand. We laugh to hear each other's cats or dogs demanding attention. We aren't supposed to, but I do. It's the night, after all.

and this!

broader strokes

I've decided to stop bitching about it and see how I can go about using fabric more like paint. There will be  a lot of false starts with stitch so I've basted this one loosely so the end wont have little blood stains all over it.

Most of yesterday was given over to finally getting my hearing tested and confirming what I suspected - that I am hearing less than half of what is said and have worked out a complex of methods to work around the loss. I really didn't realize how much I was depending on visual cues in face to face conversations.

The phone is another big issue. My job entails listening to incident reports over the phone and I depend a great deal on the fact that nothing much new and strange happens on a daily basis...repetition and anticipation, sort of human predicative spelling. I have reports typed out before people even finish dictating them. How many stupid ass ways can one slip and fall or burn oneself in a commercial kitchen anyway?

The doctor couldn't say if the tinnitus was a separate issue from the hearing loss but it certainly compounds the problem. I really miss stone cold silence. My range of hearing is narrow and odd and hearing aids are called for as soon as possible to prevent further loss/damage. They may or may not help the tinnitus. When it's at it's lowest level, I can pretend it's only cicadas partying hearty on midsummer's eve. At it's worst, a jet's engines revving up just before take off...only it never does. A new element cropped up the other day -- a mercifully short low toned hum, not unlike the reverberations of a really big bell ..it came creeping in my left ear like a fat fuzzy brown caterpillar, and then thankfully slunk away. Sometimes it's hard to hear my own thoughts.

back in the hoop

This one is just large enough for my middle sized hoop. I had pinned and basted this over a base of cotton batting but last night decided that the batting had to go. Picking it apart was a mess but also allowed for a few design changes.

This one has me in that same confused and uncommitted place that "Taken by the Night" had me in until it was nearly finished. This time I'll trust more about being in the dark as to where and how this one wants to go.

WIP languishing

Sometimes things just stall.

I found a little scrap of fire in the bottom of the sewing bag while I was looking aimlessly for something else - anything else, to move this piece along. I'm still shuffling things around.

The triangle is real and the smaller bits are digital. I realize that I could move these pieces around forever. Too many possibilities will keep me from making progress every time. I'm seeing the circle of things shaping up again and it pleases me.

replacement player

 

I found a tiny scrap of pale blue green  like the one that went into "Memories Feast" and carried it around in my pocket all day until about 10pm when I dismantled that false start and worked with what was at hand, all in support of this little piece of sky. 

Is this a color from nature? some ocean somewhere no doubt. I am possessed by this one. It's past midnight and I spent the afternoon hearing, among other entertaining tidbits,  how someone could crawl under a desk, ostensibly to check on some connections, and wind up sticking his tongue into an electric outlet. That should be fatal but it wasn't . I should be tired but I'm not.

Winter afternoon light

As if I needed another path to follow, a new piece has sprung into being. I'm still shuffling the spots around.

The afternoon light over my shoulder in this new chair has rekindled my flagging interest in this piece. Under the fluorescent lights of the office I was getting mighty bored with all that gray kantha stitching. New things have been revealed.  And here are two other pieces in progress, one barely thought through and the other one about to be let go. Catch & Release.

not just imagining threadpainting

Feeling much better today. Being recently under the weather gives me a good excuse to avoid big issues like pressure washing the pool. Instead, I spent most of the day working on making this come to life. Unlike Jude, I have no patience for silk's delicate sulkiness and am only too happy to pinch it, stab it into submission and then nail it into place with a million little thrills. Much related to my new job, I have a new appreciation for my Janome.

Laid Low

I have been knocked flat by some sort of domestic Montezuma's revenge. You don't want the details but there is no good way to lose ten pounds in two days. Now that I can sit up for fifteen minutes on a chair that is not porcelain and have the energy to thread a needle and pull a stitch, I've started work on what will be a very slow cloth. Something about the scope of my design mind has contracted but things that might have died on paper will get a second chance in cloth and thread.

what's on the burners

No, that's not a cat in a basket, it's a picture of a cat in a basket that I printed on muslin three or four years ago with Bubble Jet Set. Something about the whole process left me cold and the printed fabrics found their way into the scrap tub. I'm still sorting through things and found myself building a pile of playmate fabrics around this print of Karma. I've started a slow cloth for myself. Something to hold and work on during the morning chill. I'm going to try some embroidery on it down the line. This dyed scrap will be incorporated into it. It's from a long ago find on the public beach on Naragansett, Rhode Island. The weather here in GA holds perfect and I put a batch of fabric into the soda ash pot yesterday. Once it warms up this afternoon I'm going to be dyeing a small batch of fabrics for some new directions. Got to get that Carnegie entry rounded up too.

what's afoot

This is the third in the Environmental Apocalypse series. No titles yet but lots about forgotten highways. America's love affair with the open road is in for rude awakening. Finally, the Three Blind Owlets can see! This one is a companion piece to "Freida Brings Home the Bacon" I've been following this Barn Owl family on a web cam from CA , not quite obsessively this year. Still, last night I dreamed this crew was experimenting with cigar smoking.

Warm up pitches.

Once again, Jude at Spirit Cloth leads the way with something charming and thoughtful. I sat at the machine for the first time in weeks last night and then spent nine innings hand stitching this tidbit. Through Jude's post I tracked back to the latest at the Ragged Cloth Cafe which has given us much to think about - that which appeals to us visually is an evolutionary response to what's good for us. What I want to know is,what does this say about people like myself who have never had a single qualm about critters of any stripe. Did our ancestors survive because we ate better? Did our ancestors come from another planet?

Wrapping up the dyefest is this little piece that I pleated and machine stitched. Did I not recently swear that I would never do this again? How quickly we forget.