Some fresh air and sunshine

running low

Nope...these are mine. Don' touch.

I've run out of some colors and it's making me edgy.


Here's the updated inventory on the Dirty Threads, on sale until they are gone.

Sunny Jim

I put this up on a FB textile group on Thursday in appreciation for the sunny warm weather we were having.

It's cheerful, yes, but 77-degree weather in the first week of February?

To me, these weather anomalies carry a foreboding that is hard to ignore.

I dragged all the big houseplants out onto the deck. Last night it got cold again and had to bring them all back inside.

Sorry kids.

Charlie Tuesday

My apprentice.

I was about this age when my grandmother put me to the needle and thread.

It was 70 at the park this afternoon.

cave dreams

"cave dreams"    44"x30"

I'm not fully satisfied with this orientation. That may change as time and progress is made.

as yet untitled

All that picking and sorting. I auditioned dozens of pieces of cloth, but nothing grabbed me.

I hadn't quite finished putting everything in the basket when I got a call that Charlie needed to be picked up from school. He was having a Bad Day. I abandoned the basket of wishful thinking. Probably a good thing.

Nana to the rescue and glad to do it. The weather emergency fizzled and I was home by dinner time.


The next morning I set the basket aside and rummaged in the closet where the UFOs lurk. Came up with this as-yet-unnamed piece. Not having named it makes it hard for me to search for it in the archives. Probably from 2012 or early '13.

I'll try to get a decent overall shot of it tomorrow. It reminds me of cave paintings.

 It's kind of a big, sprawly, unfocused panorama. I'm counting on these lines to make some sense of it in the long run.

storm prep

They say we may get some winterish weather on Tuesday. Chances are, school will be canceled which means I'll be spending a day or two with Charlie so I'm prepping the river basket.

 I have something in mind so I pulled a bunch of cloth this morning and actually ironed it just to see what I really had. My grandma would have had a fit - I ironed sitting down!

I don't know how to capture the iridescence of damask that's been ironed. This picture almost gets it.

Now, for the patience to take my time composing - not threading a needle until the design works.

Lately, the rush to stitch has only lead to misery.


Right now stitch needs to take me to the place where the words grow.

Bomenrij  by  Jan Mankes   1915

The Stars Out of Place

The eclipse the other night reminded me of this piece. The sky was so clear - a rare break here in Georgia - I was sorry it was so cold and I was supposed to be working, so I was running up and down the stairs to monitor the progress.

19x17     250.00

"The Stars out of Place" was finished in the spring of 2010.  It was inspired by a nightmare, the kind that is so real that you wake up in a cold sweat gasping for air.

I was almost nine when Sputnik was launched and we had a neighbor who let us lie on the roof of their screen porch at night and watch that tin star crawl across the night sky while we bounced back and forth between AM radio bands listening to Murry the K or Scott Muni.

It all seemed pretty benign to me and I didn't understand how some adults perceived this to be some kind of threat from the Russians. That all became clear to me after I read "Hiroshima" later that year. That damn book sure took all the fun out of Godzilla.

Still I became a night sky watcher for the beauty of it and became intimately familiar with the locations of the heavenly bodies and the names of all the constellations. Total immersion in the Zodiac soon followed.

In my nightmare, I went outside on a crisp winter evening and looked up to find the stars all jumbled and the moon full and leering, too close, in the wrong quarter of the sky  and shedding wisps of pink poisonous looking gases.  The air was too thin and tasted metallic. I closed my eyes so hard they hurt, woke up in sudden disorientation and willed myself awake for the rest of a long night. Despite my best efforts to forget, it was a keeper.

detail 1

detail 3

angels

           
   Found while looking for something else. I can't remember taking it or seeing this picture. Warms me. Jimmy & Karma were an item.

mending this day

It got so dreary today, temps in the mid-thirties before sunrise and not much more after, then it started to rain. All my bones are suddenly on the warpath. There was nothing for it but tea, drugs, and mending.

The damasks I used in this quilt were old when I found and dyed them. It's interesting how this some of this cloth seems to evaporate with time and use. Sometimes, the look works - shabby chic - some call it.


Not in the case of this quilt. It has some personal provenance and  I'd like it to stay around awhile, not be perceived as something tattered or disposable.

When I'm satisfied it's whole and strong enough, it will be a gift signed "Nana".

other eyes

Every time I fill an order for someone I'm struck by how well they get along. Perhaps chosen for a project or just a matter of taste, they almost always hang together well.


So far, I haven't cribbed any back to my own stash. So far.

crass commercialism episode

Thanks to everyone who pounced on some Dirty Threads to brighten their winter days.

DM, JC, LA, DC - You orders will go out Monday morning.

If you missed the post, I've done away with the Random Acts of Dyeness blog, but still offer scraps and threads right here

(I will add the date to the page each time I process an order so you are seeing the latest available. Just remember to hit "refresh")

I wish I could come up with a better way of managing inventory and the web page. What I do now is so inefficient, but there it is. As singular as the product itself.

the Random Acts

See the link right up there on the pages bar?  I still got stuff to peddle. 

The"random acts" thing has been bugging me for a while. A long time ago, before the expression became meme fodder, it was a spur of the moment decision, title wise. That was the only random part of it. So, the blog is gone. The fun remains. One less web thing that I have to fiddle with.

I'm still going to dye thread and cloth for a while. Looking forward to being outside in warm weather by the pool.

~choke~

No pictures. It got ugly up in here for awhile. Still ain't pretty.

I'm ok now, but jeez Louise, technology will throw you under the bus the first chance it gets as if it were a living breathing enemy and not a mere tool.

I was minding my business, chipping away at the mountain that is Prophets Tango (my book in progress) congratulating myself that I had only EIGHTEEN scenes to run a fine comb through. Something I laughingly called, the Last Pass before I let others have at it.

Colin was scheduled to shut down the power to the whole house to replace an outlet in the kitchen. We were both nervous, but I was underfoot and so left him to it. Deciding to take a break, I closed the laptop. It powered off instead of going to sleep.

When I went back to it I realized that sometime in the not so distant past week to ten days, I decided that *spacebar* was not a great password and changed it. But to what? There was a hint "lunar". Nothing I tried worked. I was locked out. The fan was still failing, causing the machine to overheat. 

All of this to say, I threw in the towel of home-baked remedies and hacking and took it the repair place. After two days, neither problem could be cured and they handed me the contents of my hard drive copied onto a nice external drive and the original drive removed from the dead machine, now living in its own nice little box like a hermit crab.  140$ thank you.

So I sighed, brought drives home and thought I'd be back in business on my old faithful Acer here, just plucking the needed info from the backup. Think again.

After an hour of keyboard gyrations, I was no closer to getting back to work than I was when the lights went out. Scrivener, the app I use with all its wonderful complexity, had failed me on top of everything else.

 I still had a recent copy of the MS and an online place where recent edits still lived so, nothing was really lost except, cash, momentum, and of course, the travel laptop, which had been a gift from my sister.

Since August, for reasons seasonal and hormonal - I have lost about half of my hair. I should shut up about that because I still have more than most people ever will, but it's been depressing. My car interior looks like I own a collie. Now I'm afraid to look close in the mirror because I'm pretty sure the roots are going to be white.

Worse things have happened to writers.

All of this feels frivolous in the face of what hardworking Americans are facing with the ongoing temper tantrum of the Shitweasel squatting in the Oval Office.

off my soapbox

what happens when you clean stuff

This bedspread was my maternal grandmother's, or so the story went. It could be, it's woven rayon which has been around since the 20's. Heavy.

 It was on my mother's bed for all eternity but when the big box stores started selling faux down spreads, she was all over them. This went into a drawer and eventually, to me.

Rarely used, but recently spent some months in a den of iniquity and so I decided a gentle wash was in order.

I didn't notice the damage when it came out of the washer, but after it tumbled in the dryer, I found it had four, large tears. Like the cloth just gave up under its own weight and split. The fringes were hella tangled too.

I'm debating if and whether to repair it. I shall consult the den of iniquity.

mending or dismemberment

I put on the magic invisibility cloak this morning.

Several of the vintage damasks patches are evaporating. No other way to describe it.

I don't know if I'll be correcting this shabby chic-ness. I never wear it out of the house. It draws too much attention and I have no explanation for the time this took. Like maybe I was in prison, or the nuthouse or something??

I repeat

the new year

I'm up in there just to the right of the window, working. Will be at the stroke of midnight. Hopefully, it will be a quiet night. I have opted to work on New Year's Eve for many years. No extra pay, since it's not a federal holiday, but it keeps me busy. Keeps me from brooding.

Jimmy and I almost never went out on the Eve. I'd never been to Times Square for New Year's Eve and he warned me that unless I was up to peeing in an alley in sub-zero weather with ten strangers cheering me on, I wouldn't like it.
The last time we went out on New Years was a toga party in the late 70's before the kids were born. Who gives a party in New York, in January that calls for wearing bedsheets? The company was strange, the drugs too copious, and the next day, we were both just grateful to have arrived in the new year alive.
After that, our celebrations were cozy and private.

My broodiness around the New Year stems from my parent's ongoing war. They always called a truce a week or so before Christmas, but I could be sure that the hostilities would resume on New Year's day or soon thereafter.

Back when they still entertained guests, I could tell the next morning what the day would bring. If the ashtrays were all emptied, glasses collected and washed, kitchen window left open to air the place out, I knew that my mother had been grinding her teeth and seething over the work alone rather than retire. It often seemed that the old man would appear mid-morning, having been elsewhere overnight. 

So, through the years, I busy myself with this pass of hours knowing that the new day will bring business, as usual. 

But these days, changes - new attitudes, new directions, progress of any kind - are entirely up to me.

No text after all.

"It's the heart that makes the heat"

Except for something to protect the back and a maker's mark, it's finished.  20"x13".


The title is taken from my novel in progress. Jack is infatuated with a married woman. He thinks he's giving himself a good talking to, but he's actually listening to a ghost.

Jack took a deep breath and submerged himself, water slopping over the sides of the sink. The music distant, his heartbeat close. Cooze is cooze...but you know she’s different from all the rest. You know how, but you won’t know why unless she tells you. It’s not up to you anymore because it’s the heart that makes the heat. He lifted his head back out of the water, wet hair plastered down over his face, coughed for breath and said,

“Awright, Jiminy Cricket. Awright. I fuckin’ heard ya.”  

year's end

I'm still working on this little thing. It hasn't yet called for help even though I spent about two hours yesterday stitching text to it only to spend another chunk of time picking those words out.

I won't be happy with the text until I can get it to look like Heather's...so it looks like I'm going to be cranky for a while.

Our Christmas was small and sweet and I, for one, am glad the holidays are over.

misdirection

.

I started early this morning before the coffee even came down. Working on this while I also work on a writing problem.

The solution(s) have come, one grudging word at a time, so I'm not sure this brain trick is as good as putting on the boots and covering some ground. That used to work so well.

The old boots are coming apart. They are a trip and fall waiting to happen. Time to break down and replace them. I'd given up shopping brick & mortar for new ones, then I remembered to look at the tongues of the old ones. Size, model, all there. Zappos? Check. Order placed.

No more excuses.

the Solstice Moon

Colin took this a little while ago.

solstice

 I suppose if I had a tribal elder telling me, "Today is the shortest day of the year.

We must do X, Y, and Z!" I'd be the apostate whining "Why? It's cold, dark, and it's been raining all day!" Now I have everyone in the ether going on about it for me, so no worries here.  Solstice? I've been hard put to catch any kind of holiday cheer up until today - too late to trust anything to the post office. So I'm declaring a new holiday - "You'll be surprised when it arrives!".

It's been a week of the blues and slackology for House Lacativa. Our traditions unraveled in the past few years. It's just the way it is, except for the little bright spot in our lives. Getting just the right things for Charlie, not going overboard, has been fun.

In all her years, Sweetie never did anything dastardly to the tree. It was likely too much trouble.

There are no pictures of the highpoint of my day. I left my phone in the car and I'm kind of glad. 

I took Charlie to his new favorite place, 2nd & Charles. Among many other delights, they have an area with cushy seating and six-foot TV screens where you can play video games. The store holds your driver's license and gives you the game controller. I got one, Charlie and I were all by ourselves, everyone else in the store hell-bent on shopping. 

He had never played a video game before but was familiar with the Lego character on the screen. It was both harrowing and delightful to watch him try all the buttons and switches to make something happen on the screen. He was really Ready Player One!  After about 30 minutes, I called time and he willingly gave up the controller, but the kid had been to Wonderland and I was the instigator and witness.

And this truly set the tone for my day, before I even got out of bed. It feels like a Christmas carol to me. 

Tuesdays with Charlie

Due to everyone's work schedule, each morning I get Charlie up, fed, dressed and drive him to school. Our routine is tight, a comfort to him and a blessing for me. On Tuesdays, I go back and pick him up in the afternoon.

He's learning that having a great day at school is happy business.  It was in the mid 50's this afternoon and we pretended it was summer with a picnic and stitching in the park. A gem of a day.

Hedonism

 I was supposed to be doing Christmas cards and getting packages ready to go. Things got out of hand. Once Bruce hit the stage I was done.

This show was so excellent. I had closed captions on out of habit. The lyrics to some songs came as a great treat. Revelations!

some eye candy

The mood at the moment. I know where I am. The way is only slightly impeded. I just don't feel like struggling at the moment. Resting. Waiting. The Tarot card would be the Hanged Man.

I was rummaging in old image files for inspiration. Instead, I got this clear, strong message. No stitching for the sake of doing it. 

Intent, purpose, is necessary for the form, the results, to matter. There needs to be a course to get out of the harbor, only then can a sailor wander.

More images from a lost archive. Date approximate 1930. My aunts Phyllis, Vera and my father, Charlie. The horse is either Tom or Jerry. My grandfather plowed snow from the streets of North Castle, NY with his team. Cut the grass along the roadsides by hand with a scythe. He taught me how to sharpen it before I was big enough to hold it properly. 

.

I'm no interior decorator, but this piece - it's colors and vagueness - has captivated me.

People have decorated their whole houses around less, I'll bet.

Come spring, these will be the colors for my house.

another

this is another one. cloths popped up that wanted to play but the other one was already busy.

I'm still thinking about what words I want to use. that happens with another part of my brain that needs some rest right now.