Vigil continues

The line at the post office was ridiculous today. I gave up and went to the park.

My timing for everything has been off lately. As in the "What's today?" kind of off.  Comes from working weekends and late nights at the change of seasons, I think.

Writing has come to a full stop. A necessary one, although stories still spin in my head. After a day with Charlie yesterday I needed A. a serious nap, ill-advised at 6pm, but it was that or just go to bed for the night, and B., to do something different that did not involve writing, editing, reading or second-guessing my existence.

I chose stitch, and this piece has been hanging on the design wall, dusty and bothering me in its unfinished state. It was started back when Jimmy was first diagnosed and I clung to it like a life raft some days. It was also connected with "Band of Brothers" on Netflix which we were watching together at the time so I put that on TV last night because I recalled that I liked the music.

The first episode was about soldiers training to become paratroopers and I remember Jim chuckling and saying how little had changed about that aspect of the service. When he was awarded his jump wings, they were pounded to his chest, the prongs deliberately drawing blood.

Jim was proud of his army service and I think he would be pretty pissed off over the state of our leadership. Like many, he would mist up at the national anthem, but I believe he would also be okay with taking a knee. That it's not about a damn song or a piece of cloth, but human decency. He was nobody's fool and would call bullshit out loud no matter who was leaking it. He was a good and decent person before all else. Shit, I miss him.

space out of time

taking some time this evening to bring the dirty threads to some unfinished work.

.

writing about it

"All the colors of the waking world were sucked into the tiny campfire and thrown up to the stars in a gush."

excerpt from "The Monkeytown Murders"

Dirty Threads ready to rock

..the Cassinis
and Those Who Stand and Wait
are up and ready to go here

Cost me a pint of blood to the friggin' mosquitos!!




And this happened today.

Basis

The groundcloth for the Cassini threads. Project potential limitless.

do-overs

Now, this is what I had in mind!

It took two passes, but it was worth the trouble. This is the Cassini group.

I'll label and post them tomorrow in the store.

Sunday doings

There was a late-night chemical miscalculation and the hair went from Brass Monkey Blond to Mouse's Ass Brown. I worked until after midnight but was awakened before daybreak by drunken Mariachi Karaoke from the crack farm one block over.

Still in mourning for Cassini, I decided honest work would be good, so I went back into Revision Hell with the current WIP. After a couple of aimless hours, I've concluded that it is a steaming pile of shit! Many tasty little turds, nonetheless, shit.

Since I have to be back on the day-job clock at four, combinations of excess alcohol, illegal drugs, or reckless sex with trolls are off the self-pity menu. The solution? Jumped in the Flash and motored to Publix for Red Velvet Cake and Coffee ice cream. I'll drape the mirrors in black, take a nap, and start fresh tomorrow.

Around all that mess, these:

Wearable..

                  Only time will tell. A couple hours, give or take. (JS. That's you on the right)

We'll take another look tomorrow when they are dry. The one on the left, mine, is a lot greener than I like, but a yellow base what else could I expect. I have a remedy in mind. The other is just Carnival Time!

tooling up for color

Look at these huge crystals! Rock salt for ice cream with facets like big, smiling faces just waiting to get to work with the dyes. No more of that spendy pink Himalayan salad stuff. Used it all.

Packages and letters are away! Mollymook, Camperdown and Polvadera, heads up! A week to ten days, give or take.

My friends live in places with names as interesting as the new colors who arrived yesterday: Raven, Robins Egg, Avocado, BlueViolet, Daffodil and Golden Brown.

I have to figure out a whole new way to dye indoors. There will be a technicolor bathtub and sink. For fun, I'm going to make a smock, a large rug and a set of towels, all cotton, only for dye fests.

the fire this time

I was rummaging through the closet for something fall-ish to wear rather than kick the furnace up a notch or two. My go-to yoga pants from last year were crumpled in a corner, dusty but clean enough.

In one of the pockets, this scrap of a damask napkin dipped in fire. I took a dozen pictures of this scrap and got a dozen variations of red. This one comes closest, but it's still off. It's as if my eyes can look, but they can't really see.

Sometimes, all it takes is a scrap - this is hand size. Irregular.- to get a fire going.

I've had too many brands in the fire lately and it was easy to let a little brush with a hurricane dampen all of them. Time to get back to work.


If you've ordered something from me in the past few days, thanks for your patience. Although we suffered little real damage, we are still putting life back on track.

post storm

We are wet and bedraggled. Nothing blew away or fell down. So far. But we have power (now) heat and a roof over our heads that is in one piece, so no complaints.


I did get to spend half a day with Charlie before his folks got home early ahead of the worst of it.




No Publix, no park but a bunch of fun.

pre-storm still

It's too early in the day for selfies, but it's so beautiful outside. Chilly enough for the Magic Invisibility cloak. It is heavy with layering so I save it for sweater weather. It needs some work.

Yesterday, nature was holding her breath. Today the pulse has quickened. My wind chimes are tuning up.

The sky is clear, but the trees are anxious. Milling around gently now, opening their arms and faces to the warmth of the sun like they know they aren't going to see it for a while. For some of them, maybe never again. I wonder how much they know.

At some point in the day, I have to clear off the dye deck. stow stuff, invert small containers.
I also want to get some pieces out with dye so they can be rinsed by whatever remnant of the hurricane makes it way here.

preview

Elements became story

(I was plotting even back then. This post from February 2012)


"Grand Rêver"  2012

It's been pinned up to the design wall where I can see it while nothing much is in my head.

It provokes stories.
How words become sentences and sentences take on life when they gather to become story.

( turns out this is my 1400th post. Sheesh, what wind.  I could have had that bloody novel in the can by now!)

consumerism Tuesday

I'm off to the post office with Fat Baggie orders picked from this wildly bunch. I dug a big tote from deep in the back of the closet and uncovered some wild and dangerous characters.  There are three bags available and a whole new batch of screamin' dirty threads getting ready to post.

in the works

Despite a heavy round of what's now called "adulting" I prepped and dyed a new batch of dirty threads and while I was slinging crystals, I put this sleeveless linen blouse down on the deck boards to catch the overspray and scatter.  They have all been batching a while now.

I'm thinking through how I want to handle dyeing shirts. This is a test.


These are two views of the table cover that I've been using all season. It's a flannel fitted shit that probably has a high percentage of synthetic in it. I don't expect it to hold on to these colors. Sad that.

a double header

I had a Charlie Sunday and Monday this week. Just enough hours both days for us to have all the fun and none of the "gotta" stuff. A Nana's delight. Early, early on Sunday got my day in gear instead of languishing and today, a lunch & park date.  I'm a lucky gal.

He was not amused about my choice in music in his Dad's car but driving it was work enough for me to be fooling with the radio so I shut it off and we just talked. Conversation with a three-year-old is an adventure unto itself.

Being useful

I love reading about artists using and enjoying my raw materials. Thanks, Grace, Joanne, Hazel and Liz for loving my Dirty Thread.

the big gift

a big box filled with wonder turned up the other day. shirts and pants in the size and style that I like best, in cloth I've rarely worn. certainly never appreciated. linen and cotton/linen and every piece a blank canvas waiting for....

plum, daffodil, robins egg blue, golden brown, gun metal, raven

in addition to all the others

and the vintage flatwork...amazing. Many thanks, JS. Now all I need is for summer to hang on just a little longer.

.

I'll leave just this one white.

almost showtime

Getting these and seven others ready for a gallery show ..delivery Sunday.

Under the gun much?

I forgot how pesky the detail of backing small hand-stitched pieced can be..thanks Joanne, for a trove of the perfect sized napkins to close the deal.


And thanks, Colin, for the orientation advice. I never know which end is up.

False Fall (I hope)

I call him "Git 'Er Done"...by Jude Hill and I have to take that direction.


It's dark, rainy and cool here. Snoozing in weather. Reading weather. The pool is finally recovered from a bout of "vacation neglect" algae, but by the time the sun finds time for us again, I fear the water is going to be pretty chilly.

I'm finding I'm not as Atlantic Ocean hardy as I used to be. Numb is okay, but not when it persists for an hour after you get out. I blame air conditioning.


I'm in the fiber studio today making a bunch of pieces ready for a small gallery show coming up in September.



There's always the one thing that you can't put your hands on and, not finding it will drive you to distraction (a short hop for me) until you find it.
Nonetheless, I'll git 'er done.

The Wheel

It's been a fraught, lost weekend. Last post I was crowing about having salvaged a batch of rags from a bad dye-job. Hah! Such Hubris! Today it's back to the business of making a living, caring for family and self and worrying about things that I don't have a lot of influence over. (Note to self, I used the word "influence" rather than "control").

I have family and friends in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. All of us are in the wake of the subhuman at the helm of our country. We all do what we can.



Yesterday with Charlie was a great respite from all these cares and concerns, even if I am paying the price today. Getting him and two other stray toddlers in and out of those bucket swings and keeping them going has me longing to be just flat on my back studying the ceiling, but I know that ceiling too well and there is shit that has to get done.

Charlie and his Hero!

Down demon pink!

Curry, bronze, daffodil, and peacock got the job done. Fuschia rescue a success.

a day outside of time

It's been a long difficult week for a lot of people close to me. They said the eclipse was going to rock boats. No shit.

Friday is my one day off from the paying job with no outside obligations. I spent most of at a much-needed writers day with part of my crit group. The bitch-kitty scene that's been defying me for a month (as I putz about around it) fell in flames and rose from the ashes reborn in glory even as T. and I solved the problems of the world. From the writing blog a month ago:

Revision

Is like shaving off prison tattoos a square inch at a time.

So far it works like this. I'll read the last scene that WORKED and then the new victim,
the next one and the one that follows it. If it fails on enough fronts - and I've had more than
half do just that, I brood over the truth of it. The five 'whys'.

Then I start the autopsy. Print and then redact - just like in the movies- with the broad,
 black marker anything that's crap. Anything that's not a jewel.

Then I brood on it some more and find a different way to set some, not all of those jewels.
A setting that not only makes the scene worthwhile but nods to the one before it
sets up the next. Dominos dipped in nitro.

fool the eye

I was in the grocery store today grumbling at the proliferation of "flavors" of bleach. Not wanting to have any of it in the house anyway. Then I spied a tiny little bottle of Mrs. Stewart's Bluing. Why not. My favorite throw and the king sized duvet were looking dingy. Stuff works, even if it is an illusion.

Demon Fuchsia

There has been a dreaded PINK incident and I'll be dipped in shit if I don't salvage this mess. There. Temper tantrum over. When will I learn that Raspberry, Watermelon and the other silly pinks all contain that damn contaminate, fuchsia?

I GOT this...

not your usual tuesday

took some time in the AC to recover from a dye frenzy out in the blazin'.  The 'feels like' index said 101. Every bit of it.

Kept this one for myself, I'm sure there will be more when I get them in the morning light.





Later, there was a quick visit from someone with a big surprise for me.

Eclipse

We went to the park early to be sure that Charlie would expend enough energy making nap time easier. The heat and humidity almost did me in and I was mostly just watching. There was no one else at the park which made leaving early a little more agreeable.

The lunch menu discussion has turned into a ritual of hilarity:
me: Shall we have chicken livers?
C: NOOOO!! the giggling begins,
me: clam eyeballs?
C: Nooooo! more giggling.
me:  Pony toenails?

by this time he can hardly answer for giggling.  We picked up the standard chicken fingers, sun chips, lemonade and one petit four, and made it back to the house in time for a TV picnic with Curious George. He was sound asleep by 1:30.



I waited until the sun and moon were really getting it on before stepping outside to see what I shouldn't see. Used my camera to sneak an inept peek.
More interesting was the change of light over everything else. Even at only 97%, it was eerie. disorienting. I felt short of breath or that the air didn't have enough oxygen in it.

Went back inside to a very dark apartment and slept for a few minutes until Charlie climbed up onto the couch with me to continue our adventure together.