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.

A sea change

 the River basket and tools will be in the closet for a while. My left thumb is acting the fool and I'm right-handed. Keyboarding is slow, pens are no problem

I've been having trouble getting the next book out of the gate. It would be easy to blame it on circumstances, but that's bullshit. There's been quite enough of that around, so, no, I know the truth of it. 

It feels like I've been herding rabbits with rabies. Every time I turn around, there are more of them, all sweaty and wild-eyed. The real problem--I didn't know where I was leading them. 

The first book, a romance, never gave me this kind of trouble because every good romance must have a Happily Ever After. Readers demand it. Prophets Tango delivers.

This time, the story is not primarily a romance and I haven't been able to see from here to the imaginary there. The story didn't know what it was living for. Until yesterday. 

After spending hours with acres of notes, I stared at the spiral of scenes, then into the void. Who owns that little voice inside my head? I didn't recognize it. 

Came the voice, "How does it end?"

The question immediately reminded me of some lines from my favorite movie, "Shakespeare in Love". (Yes, Will could have had me for a scrap of paper with his ink on it.) 

Lord Wessex: "How is this to end?"

Queen Elizabeth: "As stories must when love's denied. With tears and a journey."

There will be tears and a journey, but I have no intention of denying love anything it wants.

A birthday

 Celebrated in a private, solitary way. At first, I thought I'd just ignore it, but then I thought about those who didn't get this little personal milestone, another year in this beautiful life.

 And so, I acknowledged it with something new and different and something old and strong. 

Went ahead with my decision to take the Firmament apart. 

As I looked for places to cut, I found this. A little digging in the archives  revealed when and why I stopped hanging stars in the sky.  I'll be happy to take them out of history and into another story.

Then I saddled up and drove south to inspect, approve, and buy a machine I'd never heard of before I saw it listed in the FB marketplace.

Truth it was the beautiful bentwood case that caught my attention. And why was it still listed after a week? 

The Singer 99k seems to be a very well-kept secret. Plainer then a fancy Featherweight. Heavier and twice the motor.  A warhorse!

It's been well maintained, but never allowed to languish. The owner was a smoker and loved her candy. I can see her bent over the machine, her head wreathed in smoke. A little bowl of jelly beans opposite a tin ashtray. There was old nicotine and stickiness at all touchpoints. 

A bit of time, some soft rags, mineral spirits and good machine oil and it's ready. 

Now, to go back into my clothes closet with the scissors and harvest some of that cloth hanging around doing nothing. I feel a Hectic quilt coming on. 

And from all the way around the globe, a package. A gift. More magic -in-waiting. Thank you! 

And most importantly, I voted.

Spangled

That broad expanse of teal with the pale whisps is "Bonnie Blue" a Prochem color that's been discontinued. I've tried mixing it on my own. All the failures have been beautiful, but never even close.

There is a lot of history in this piece. I'll dig around for the original posts. Without research, nothing much is going on. Until you get close. What I intended as stars have come to life.

For all their swarming, something else has to happen with this piece. There are scissors in the future.