Words & weeds

 

As in the past, when the words on paper get stuck, stitching some seem to grease the wheels. Even in the face of some heavy-duty adulting, (so appropriate at my age) scenes are starting to fill out. Characters are having conversations that need recording. It feels good, but it's still a precarious state of mind. Like walking on a very narrow cliff edge with no handholds. 

The severe shortage of thread is hampering me, too.  We had frog-strangling rain all day yesterday. Today, the sun is blazing but it's only in the 40s. It's going to be a challenging dye season.

Just before the rain set in, I walked around the Wood Chip Heap and scattered several pounds of flower seeds that I have been collecting all winter. Native perennials. Butterfly and Hummingbird garden seeds.  "Ooooo, that's pretty" Seeds. I got suckered by the seedmen weekly. The seeds fall down into the top chips hidden away from birds and squirrels into the decomposed stuff that will hopefully nurture some of these seeds to blossom. If a quarter of them make it, it's going to be amazing. I have a mix of vinegar and soap to spray on the emerging poison ivy, brambles, and pokeweed to give the flowers some breathing room. Beyond that, the rest is up to nature.

This is right outside my kitchen windows.

Silk & cotton spaghetti (updated)

 The opening day of baseball was usually the opening day for my dye season, but the weather conspires against me.

Warm enough today but no direct sunlight and showers on and off enough to be pesty.

Charlie was here overnight and I would have put him to work, too but...rain and gross humidity. 

Instead, we put down grass seed in some bald patches leftover from the septic work and I broadcast another round of flowering perennials over the wood chip lot, The rain knocks the seeds into the crevices hiding them from squirrels and birds. Hopefully. I'd settle for 25% of them making it to maturity.

Colin planted a third blueberry bush, 'cause plant sex or something requires another type if I want blueberries. I don't try to understand. I just shell out and hope.

I'm going to experiment with a B&W thread. This hank of cotton/silk two-ply has been hanging on the back of the studio door for years. It's already a mess of tangles. IF it takes the dye and IF I like the way it turns out and handles, it's going to get put up on the cardboard spindles like so much long spaghetti. When I'm winding it off the hank (no chair, no swift, no extra pair of hands) when I run into a knot or tangle....SNIP. You were going to cut it anyway, right?

There's a thought. Cut the whole hank in one place! The pieces will be about a yard long. Little speckled balls of thread that you have to tease out to use. It could work. Right?

ON SECOND THOUGHT...I do that a lot. What was I thinking? No way I could dye spaghetti directly on the cardboard bobbins. They'd mold before they would dry. I went ahead and cut the hang leaving me a lot of 30+ inches pieces which I divided in three and tied off like sails. One will be spattered in Raven, another speckled with dirt colors, and the last one is tutti-frutti rainbow cutie. All to be wound onto bobbins when the spirit moves me.

Saturday Blessings

 

How to be grateful and not gloat? I have two wonderful, capable sons with valuable skills and generous hearts. 

Colin is rebuilding the deck that overhangs the pool. The one where I hang all the cloth and thread to dry. For a long time, it's been treacherous. The floor itself is solid but the railings and roof were rotted. The demolition is done, and the new railings will be up soon. I might even get a chair for out there when all is done.

Jake and Charlie came and set all the mechanical beasts to rights quickly and (luckily) inexpensively. The truck will start and run reliably. A lawnmower only needed an air filter and the AC in my car is once again frosty. 

Next week is Spring Break and Charlie and I will have more time together. Poker, Lego, the Park, and car washing. Pray for good weather.