just plain fun

I really need to record some of the conversations. He is so funny sometimes.

That's his Dad sneaking up behind us in the park today.

I'll be off to visit the sibs in NY for a short week. Change of scenery at this time of year? Bonus!

running

The week has been consumed by preparing to go.

I have this small clutch of scrap bundles ready to go. Three of them heavily blue as requested by another customer. If you order today, I will get them to the post office tomorrow! Then it will be a week before I'm back to shopkeeping as I'll be in NY for a short visit with the family.

a soft day

Warm and soft, windows and doors open this morning while I talk with family in NY about their half a foot of fresh snow.

I finally got a chance to use some of my own dirty thread. It does make me edgy to think that I only have one skein like this. Planning on making a big batch when I'm at FOF18 at the ACA in New Smryna Beach, FL in April.

I stitched while I waited for my lunch date. He's getting to be quite a conversationalist.

He's fond of large plastic eggs. Filling them with whatever small treasures. Hiding them, discovering and opening them as if they appeared spontaneously.

I asked him, "What's in this one?" ( the same one he's been playing with for an hour)

He replied, "It's a mystery!"

spring?

After days and days of cold and drear, the sun stopped by for tea. I opened all the doors and windows and turned off the furnace.

This was about 4pm in my living room. I hated to go.

Intention of line

Lines that define space, lead the eye, or both. Cloth and words.

it's a go for launch

blue Valentine

because someone asked, I made up a handful of fat baggies that are mostly blue.

as of this post, there are four left and one full-color campfire.

on the mend

And while I stitched, Charlie worked at catching up on the sleep he lost last night as he battled the flu.

A mild case of type A, he was fever free for this day.

Commitment

Reassing lines and transitions.

stalls, stops & starts

Somewhere on the web today someone spread around a bunch of Kandinsky and my brain lost any organization as I wallowed in the colors and shapes.

This called to me from the UFO shelf in the closet. Time for finishing. 

A lot of things need finishing - resolution. 

resolve

re-solve

salve

crass commercialism Friday

Ordered a Fat Baggy yesterday? It will be on it's way to you in a couple of hours! Good excuse to drag my ass out of the house.

I pulled four different tubs to pick this lot. Stuff I haven't laid eyes on in years.

I put on some good music (I've been on an Alan Parsons Project, Steely Dan, Grateful Dead tear lately, with a healthy dash of Motown) pick up a piece and chop it into nine pieces, not hard logistically, whether by ripping or cutting. Then I sort them out into nine piles. Eight for sale and, you guessed it, one for me. One of these days I'll just bust out my own hoard and let those go too.

(T. I made up two very different ones for your double order. There should be little to no duplication.)

bounty

Beautiful fruit from Chile has started turning up in the grocery stores.

I will have to hide this from her because she will knock it off the table, fang it a bit and leave it.

Like Jude said, Words have worn thin. So I'll have to keep my eyes open for pictures.

I love seeing what other people are doing with my Dirty Threads.

Tomorrow, I'll be making up a bunch of orders for scraps...pictures of that will happen.

rainy day mending

A good place to start when creative needlework is out of reach. Fix, repair, replace. In this case, one of my Dixie minks has a hole over the pocket. Not sure I like that purple. To be continued.

Dirty threads

I kept the best for myself, but it's time to plan for more.      April seems a long way off.

What have you done with your dirty threads?

moon set

fishing

Just seeing if the fingers remember. I have a few spools of metallic thread that I could never get the Janome to like. Not the best for handwork, but they slow me down, which is good.

I'm a bit burned out right now, writing-wise. They say that happens when you are coming up to the end and realize that you have to start from the beginning with a new set of eyes, a different mindset, and really sharp knife.

home

So amazed at his skills.

The old steps at the front entrance were beyond decrepit. Nerve-wracking and treacherous. While I spent the day with Charlie, Colin made this happen. I love the smell of fresh-cut wood but I guess this will have to be stained or painted.

The little extra width on each step will be home to my shade loving houseplants when the weather comes to its senses.

Now what to do with the trashed out gardens on either side of the walkway. We sawed the evil holly bushes off at the root.  One project at a time...

the habit wanes

because, this...(from last May)

It's very easy to let this habit of reporting slip away when nothing creatively shareable is going on. Writing is like that. Raw first drafts are hard enough to share with other writers in small groups. You are lucky if you can find crit partners who will be both straight with you

I've bored the cat.

and instructive. I've recently been that lucky and have been giving most of my free time over to the first draft, which is morphing into its first major revision.

Stitchers, imagine, if you will, a piece you've labored on, mostly in secret (shades of Quilt National!) - an epic piece, say 8 feet by 22 feet - that's right, I said FEET, not inches.  And so the powers that be have let you know that No Way will it ever see the light of day in that form and you have to make a triptych out of it. Somehow hacking it into hangable pieces.

At first, the rebel in me said, "Fuck you and your pony!" but after looking at this steaming pile of  222+k of words for a while, I think I've found a way to serve both the muse and the commercial masters, namely, publishers. Only time and a whole lot more writing and rewriting will tell.

Update. Nope. Can't chop it up. Last word count, 229,745.  I'm looking for beta readers.
 If you think you might be interested send an email.      deborah*at*lacativa.com

Studio

It was a happy world he made for just me.

a vanished week

That was the week that was, but it's Charlie Monday still. No going out in this crappy cold and I don't want to be too far from any facilities. He's working hard at this toilet training thing.

He's also completely fed up with having his picture taken. 

Nothing fibrous going on other than yesterday I packed some cloth up to travel. None of what I was handling spoke to me much.

The weekend was spent at a micro-retreat for a local writers group. We wrote, we ate, we kvetched. Like that.

I bumped up against the idea that the scene I've been having trouble with has only been giving me trouble because it's done and it's close enough to the end to warrant some fireworks, but they are coming up very soon.