Disconnect

 

If you've ordered anything in the past week, it's on the way. 

I'm going to do my best to disengage electronically this weekend. Put other things in my line of sight. Slip into other flows.

rest

 

The Churn

 

I love this basket. It's big. 18" high and wide. Heavy even when it's empty. 

A gift from a neighbor years ago when she grew tired of supervising her moving sale. I need to get some wheels for it. Right now it's chock full of fabulous. Below, four shots. I dig down to the bottom, grab a handful and slowly bring it to the surface, then stir.  I got mine, of course. The rest is up for grabs, one fat baggy at a time. There's lots of damask in there now.

glory squared

 

There are thirty-something of these vintage damask napkins waiting for me to sort and iron. Eventually, I'll be cutting most of them into ninths or more, mixing the pieces into the big basket that I pick Fat Baggies from. 

It's been a long time since I've had any damask to share. The Skin of the Gods!

I'll be keeping a handful of the biggest ones for my ongoing text project.  The blue background on the last one was too busy. Made it hard to read the letters. My bad. Lesson learned.

The rhythm of August

 

Work until midnight. Sleep until the cats say they'll eat my eyes if I don't get up and feed them. Sevenish.

Then a few hours of quiet stuff. Stitch, read, web.

It was sunny and hot today. Rather than let the dyes got to waste, I cut that tablecloth into nines. Rounded up some other colorless pilgrims in the studio and threw them down to the dye deck. 

Sweat and thunder rolled. No matter. I was still in my bathing suit.

This is a king-sized flat sheet. Loomed in Italy. Not too old. It may not be able to hang on to the colors. It happens.

We have a little algae.

damasks on the dyedeck

  

Remember those damask napkins I scored?

 

It was going to be hot and sunny today and the weekend weather was not very promising so I decided to sacrifice a pool day and mixed colors right after coffee. 

Got all of those napkins tucked into the sauce to soften and soak, then hit the deck just around lunchtime. I lost count, thirty? The largest ones are 20x20, the rest just a little smaller. 

It's been some time since I worked the jellyroll blues with cloth like this. 

At the last moment, I picked them all off the table and dropped them to the deck to poach in the sun for the rest of the day. 

You can bet I'll have them in the washing machine before my coffee is perked tomorrow. No wet cloth porn, I'll hang them to dry because the dryer is not good for this cloth. Lint from Hell seems to happen.

 There might be some late-day ironing just to show off.

new light in the studio

It's been a long time since I was comfortable scouting for cloth in person so I returned to ebay and got incredibly lucky. I bought the table cloth and a dozen matching monogrammed napkins. Kind seller tossed in another dozen because they had the same monogram! A few tiny rust marks here and there, but such Treasure!

Can someone explain why damask was never made into garments? What a fine winter robe this cloth would make. 

 With the Wild Island in front of the house gone, I'm getting  great late-day light in the studio even though the main window faces east; a perk of being in a hollow. Light bounces off everything higher than the house. I've ordered a long handled window cleaning thingy. So overdue!

Humble little scraps hop up and demand attention.

Home. Again.

 I've been missing this place for two weeks now. Not that I went anywhere. The house has. I miss its cozy wildness. But the truth was being hidden by all that overgrowth. At long last, I faced the truth and did what had to be done.

Built in 1971, we moved here in 1998 and never once painted or stained the exterior cedar planking. It was well past time to do the necessary.

The grove out front was drastically cut away, leaving two mature trees that are now festooned with dead and dying ivy. English and Poison.

Replacing the wood siding was beyond my budget by a mile so, vinyl is final.

The gutter guys were walking around on my roof at 7:30 this morning. It remains to be seen if the shrubbery has caused damage to the foundation. A good day of rain with the new gutters in place will reveal if that last step has to be taken.

It's a blank slate and I'm still reeling a bit. On the upside, I love a blank canvas. For the first time ever I will have a sunny growing space under the three kitchen windows and along the south face of the house. We plan on building some decking out on either side of the front landing. The stone face needs power washing and probably paint.

It's my book's birthday!

 

...and it's TRIPLETS!

Go here to see if  Prophets Tango is your cuppa. Thank all the gods & goddesses that there is something for everyone!

E-books are available here . 

After a little prodding, Amazon bundled the three together for one price!

I'm still fussing with them to do the same for the print version. Jeez, guys, it's a SERIAL.  I'll be selling signed copies as soon as I can get my hands on them.

                                  I woke up from a desperately needed nap for this:

I am here now

 Just uploaded the rest of the sets.

Just a quick and dirty shot of the business of Dirty Threads. This part is exceedingly tedious, but I do it while I'm doing other things. My hands have a life of their own.

Lefty is suffering a bit right now. While lifeguarding Charlie yesterday I took a sting to the pad of my thumb from some kind of wasp or hornet as it left no stinger, just a pint of poison.

Long ago I had an allergic reaction to a bee sting that took me to the hospital with breathing difficulties, but never since. The doctor advised me then that staying calm and not adding drama adrenaline to the situation is most effective in keeping sting issues localized if a true allergic reaction has not been previously diagnosed. 

Charlie tends to overreact to drama so I didn't tell him or make him get out of the fun. I sat still and focused on noticing how it all felt. Pain bloomed and subsided. My thumb got numb as it swelled and turned purplish but that was the extent of it. Today it's just sore and ugly. 

Meanwhile, devils (the siding people) continue banging on the walls. They must make sacrifices to the weather gods because five minutes after they left yesterday, the monsoons resumed. It's hot and sunnier today, with showers predicted for after sunset. They might just finish in three days. Pictures when it's over.

just a little madness

 





Forgive me for not responding to emails and such. 

The ongoing renovation is mind-sapping. 

 
Everything will fall into place in time. Just what time that might be I don't yet know. 

I'll get back to you.