Dirty Threads

 

With a post title like that, I will likely haul in any number of people stumbling around looking for the Twitter replacement. If that's you, sorry. I won't be going there either. It's bad enough that I am contemplating fooling around with AI to generate an image that keeps popping up in dreams.

 I'm talking about hand-dyed, six-strand, cotton embroidery thread. 

These are waiting for their groupings and glamor shots, but I created a new page to handle more postings. 

It's likely to be August before another dye fest. 

Pain

 

I caught her up on my bed wrestling with the stuffed octopus. After about five minutes (while I staggered around the perimeter to make sure she didn't fall or jump off) she just snuggled up to it and fell asleep. No complaining, no whining, just doing the best she could under the circumstances.

I am taking lessons in pain management from a cat. 

Camilla and I are deeply grateful to distant friends. 

Hearts & Wheels

 

This one took a little longer, but I've had idle time on my hands keeping an eye on Camilla. Whatever the drug they gave her on Saturday, she's still under the influence. Wiggling and rolling around on the floor, looking for contact, but happy to draw blood in her clumsy exuberance. She may be happy now, but I'll be happy when the drug wears off and she returns to her quiet, mostly gentle ways. 

I'll never get good pictures, but the youth of the bluebird gang have been splashing around in the big clay dish I keep up in the grove. Yesterday it was a muddy mess and they were having a ball. I felt bad about the state of it, so I cleaned and refilled it. To spite me, they are keeping their distance so far. 

Hearts I have. Wheels, not. On the way home from the store yesterday Jumping Jack Flash spiked a sudden fever, but not so bad that I had to call AAA. Home safe. Jake and Missy arrived to pick up his truck and Jake diagnosed a cracked thermostat housing. Parts will be here on Wednesday. Till then, we chill.

Big little lives

 

She'll be just fine, in time, according to the vet. 

Colin couldn't find her when he got home from work.  The little girl wasn't missing at all but locked out on the high deck because I didn't look twice and was hurrying to get out of Dodge. I feel terrible.

No one saw it happen but she had a compression fracture of her right wrist due to a fall and lousy landing. Bad landings are the only kind Camilla has, even from a chair to the floor, due to her rough start in life. I have never seen a clumsier cat.

The X-rays were straightforward. The same cluster of bones we break when we put out a hand to catch a fall was pretty jumbled up. He said with rest and inactivity they would mostly sort themselves out. To help the healing they administered a high-powered painkiller that will last up to a week. The little girl is stoned out of her gourd and getting a Masters degree in chilling out.

She's eating, drinking and using her sandbox - all good signs. 

Her buddies are concerned...

...but not so concerned about eating her food.

(The underneath of my new bed is cool, clean, dark, and clutter-free. I'd nap under there if I could fit.)

Every day is Sunday

 

When the fireworks go off every night for a week.

Four in the afternoon yesterday. This was the third thunderstorm of the day. It got so dark that the solar Christmas lights wrapped around the mailbox garden came on. Within the hour, the sun was back out and everything was steaming.

The girls love hanging out on the high deck in the sun. They know I'm not likely to come out there after them. In case I forget, they have a big pan of rain water.

 See my sunflowers on the dye deck? 

The fireflies and bats come out at night.

Inside, I've cleaned and replenished my stash. Now I have to wait for my right arm to rest and recover.

I'm adding new sets of threads to the store.

 

Time stands still

All and all, a very good save.

I'll be putting most of these up for sale in the store in the coming weeks.

I wish there was some way to show them one by one, but I really hate the shopkeeping that goes along with that.

Will she ever get over harping about those bloody blues?  Not any time soon.

Meanwhile, I'm staring at the color charts again.

 

We had an overnight and half a day that was a delight. There were no electronics and I discovered that he's never seen Harry and the Hendersons.

We drew up an impromptu family tree so he could understand the great-great thing.

He likes nothing better than making stories up on the fly. 

Three weeks before we meet again.

Camilla is going room to room looking for him.

Summer thunder rolls on.

My boys of Summer

 

Do overs

 

As tasty as things looked yesterday, about half of the skeins were insipid at best. It was kind of disheartening sorting through them. That blue I'd been searching for fizzled badly. 

The Lesson: Don't buy more dyes than you can use in a season. They lose their potency, some colors more than others. I realized that most of my inventory is three years old, or more.

I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but I keep seeing this color as a theme in movies and TV.  First it was "A Little Chaos" with Alan Rickman and Kate Winslet. Dashes of it everywhere in the costumes drew my eye.

Then the remake of Perry Mason and most recently,  the Bear. 

It's a teal blue, on the dark side, that vibrates on the line between warm and cool the way some people's eyes will. 

I got close. 

(Somewhere between East and West below.)

Overdyeing is risky business especially when all you have to work with are other old colors. I resisted the "more is better" approach and made my choices. It has gone badly in the past. I have thrown away many skeins of pure mud. Today, I'm celebrating. I'm also off to ProChem to look at some new stock.

The Junes take wing

 

Wrapped, rolled, and ready to rock.

I had maybe half a cone of DMC left and decided the time was ripe. Hot, humid, and no inspiration pouring from my own stash.

Right out of the gate, the fates conspired to mess with me. I messed with them instead. The little tub marked RAVEN was empty. Lesson: is the container empty? Throw it out!

Using what I had, I cooked up my own black, as neutral as my internal color wheel could make it.

When it came time to mix three primary colors, I made a point of taking a left at each turn, NASCAR style instead of my predictable course. Once I made enough of each, I used those to set up three complementary colors  - the weird cousins got to sit in.

They look really good at this stage. Crispy. I ran out of salt and had to add sugar. Remember, the crystals are just a means of carrying the dye to the thread. I've read that a little salt goes a long way in pushing the dye molecules into the thread molecules, but you can't prove it by me one way or the other. Not like I'm standing there with an electron microscope and a stopwatch as sweat drips into my eyes.

They are washed, rinsed, and rinsed again. Now hanging in the herb dryer on the high deck. 

I have to keep an eye on the weather because there's no cover anymore. 

It's still hot and humid, but now overcast and I think we are starting to experience some of the smoke from the Canadian wildfires.

I'll be spending the rest of the morning getting the rest of them out to dry. So, good folks who were expecting me to get to the post office today, I'm sorry. But, you will be reaping the benefits of a fresh lot of dyed cloth and thread in your order if you left the choices to me.

And when all was wet and resting, I took my roasted carcass into the pool to dig even deeper into this terrific novel. 

I finished it this morning and I feel like I've stepped out of an old-time cinema where I watched an extended version of "Casablanca" and now I'm blinking in the hot sunshine wondering what year it is. 

A while back, one of my readers commented that Prophets Tango made her feel like she had just discovered the work of author Amy Harmon for the first time. I made a mental note and promptly lost it. 

Last week I was in the library and this was propped up with the librarian's summer picks and I took a chance. Looking forward to reading more of her work.

If anyone has read my book and reads this one, let me know what you think. Colin called it a "Cosmic Coincidence"

A cycle

 

When you can look it right in the face and not call it by its name, it will own you.

So, depression...fuck you. 

Workarounds work. Although I did finish up the last quarter of this right-handed. What is the proper tool or treatment for the backside of something like this? Some kind of iron-on shit? If I decide to sell it, the back will need to be properly finished off, and protected. Then again, I might just save it for my Dixie mink come the cooler weather. 

There will be more in time. Making them is like eating potato chips.

Sunday I met with one of my oldest friends. 

Once a season, we invade a favorite Mexican restaurant and take up a booth for two or three hours. It's a big place. Management doesn't seem to mind.

 It's good to have common ground to chew over with a smart, pragmatic woman. She said (something like) all the world leaders need to drop dead and their wives or daughters take up the jobs. Shit will get fixed properly, quickly, and equitably. We are team Jack Smith.

She reminded me of Gratitude and how it is the best antidote for any brand or level of self-pity. 

This bit of linen got into the writer's bag as a towel for drying my fingers before I handle the phone or paper. It seems to have a story, but for now, it's just going to serve. 

I feel a little bad mocking Salem when she is in the throes of catnip intoxication. Dignity to the wind! Also jealous. When I'm this stoned, I need to be on the carpet and stay there for the duration. 

Another fabulous sunset by my firstborn who is about to turn 43.  My first, and biggest gratitude is for both of my sons.