embarrassment of riches

This is a deep basket!

I'm going to be putting these up in sets of four and six. Curating is the fun part. I'll post them to the Dirty Threads page as time permits.

If you have any colorway requests, email me.

Now all I have to do is keep my hand out of the candy jar.

building the moon

 A very old piece of damask that had been dyed, discharged and coveted for years convinced me that, no, the moon doesn't have to be a perfect circle.


How it looks is all in where you are standing the moment you look up. I have some silver and gold metallic threads, but I'm going to hold off on those until the very last minute.

Being mindful that the moon casts no light of its own. It can only reflect.

Night garden at sunrise

The better to actually see what I'm doing.
There's going to be a lot going on in this sky. A lot of handling, moving the hoops around.

To protect the central gardens, I've rolled the bottom two-thirds of the piece up and stitched the roll in place for a while. Hope I don't lose sight while I work in the clouds.

It's easy enough to do, no matter what medium you work in.

While I'm stitching,  I'm thinking through issues my incredible beta reader has pointed out. Places in my writing where I've obsessed over the right word, forgetting the purpose of the passage.

I've done that with stitching too many times to think about.

When it gets down to agonizing over spearing the warp or the weft, I need to put the work down and take a break. It's Friday after all.

Satisfaction

There it is, J. Those greens I've been casting for.

I've always been a sucker for jewel tones. Who isn't.

This lot was outside drying on the picnic table while I was a half-hour away heading into this. A second rinse wouldn't have been terrible, but now I can get back to the Garden.

Not fail away

I finally took about one hundred skeins out onto the dye deck. What a messy disappointment. All I can claim is madness in the midday heat.

I saved maybe a dozen. The rest of the motley crew will get a second chance, but they may have to wait. It was one hundred degrees outside today. 

The green in the foreground below is eluding me.

.

The rest of today was spent at the wet office with friends. Then, I got to pick up my buddy from aftercare. We chilled with popsicles, cartoons, and tales of kindergarten adventure.

Stillness

A little too much time stitching and listening to music.



I need to flip melancholy the bird and get up to no good for a few hours. This house is so quiet. Empty.

the view

My view from the stitching chair.

One of these days, I'm going to yank out that screen and clean the glass.











As for bad pictures, I had one job on Monday and I botched it.

Thank goodness his Mom was on the ball.

On Wednesday, he told me the best thing about kindergarten was No Naps!

"What do you do instead?"
"Right after lunch, we go back to teaching."

I'm so jealous.

not quite shopkeeping

Working my way up to a dye day, but somehow, pool time keeps taking precedence. It is the wet office, after all. This one at JK's condo rarely seems to have anyone in it but us. I'm pretty sure the water has crack dissolved in it, instead of chlorine.

I'm still adjusting to my new schedule. Sleeping until I wake up, instead of to a 5:15 alarm feels slothful, but I get a lot done before first light. Then, I'm in the stitching chair for an hour or so.

Yesterday, after half the day in the water,  I updated the Dirty Threads and the Fat Baggies pages with the latest inventory and new pictures of the cloth churn.

late SUNday

The skies cleared and the sun broke through. As I stepped out onto the high deck for these pictures, I almost caught a whiff of fall, like a ghost who runs out of the room the minute you step in.

coddling

Between the news of our fucked up world and my changing role in life, for days I've been ready to bawl or brawl, moment by moment. The gray morning dictated action would be a good remedy. The laundry folding, fresh sheets, general cleanup called for some mindless TV.

Years ago, network television could be counted on to deliver up a constant roster of appropriate "background" fare. The Godfather (1 or 2, never 3!), Jaws, Star Wars, Indiana Jones doing whatever...you get the idea. Something you know so well, it's like your doddering auntie rocking away in the corner, knitting and talking to herself. Company, sort of, while you do stuff like clear of the bathroom vanity and scrub it down.

Strangely, internet cable makes this a little more difficult. There are better things to watch, engaging things that aren't a complete waste of time. Today I decided to run one that I've been hoarding and will now have to purchase 'cause Netflix won't keep it forever.

Springsteen on Broadway was not a good choice because the moment he started speaking, I was once again mesmerized by his storytelling, only getting up to take care of business when he was singing, and even then stopping to listen, watch and be taken away.

I've been having problems with a scene in the book, a critical reunion between the main characters. A very intimate scene. Torn it down completely three times.

After listening to Bruce speak about meeting Patti and what their relationship means to him. Then hearing them perform "Brilliant Disguise" together, I think I've got it.

"I hold you in my arms
As the band plays
What are those words whispered baby
Just as you turn away
I saw you last night
Out on the edge of town
I want to read your mind
To know just what I've got in this new thing I've found
So tell me what I see
When I look in your eyes
Is that you, baby
Or just a brilliant disguise"

Gray day

It's so overcast there really isn't enough light at the stitching chair to keep working. Hard enough to get a good picture.

Colin continues to capture sky majesty at the beginning or end of his shift at the airport.

They fly away

.

Yesterday was his big day. An outing with his Mom and Dad and best friends to Legoland. They had a grand time.


Kindergarten starts on Monday. I'll be there in a ceremonial fashion, his Mom will be getting him ready and putting him on the bus. I'll take some pictures, grin and make light. Then I'll sit in my car and cry ugly for a while.

Today we proceeded like it was any other Friday. I got up before dawn, drove to their house to hang with him a while. Dress, have breakfast, watch a little Spongebob and then on to the wonderful sitter who watches him when I can't.

What shirt to wear? What toy to take? What music to listen to while we roll, tell stories and jokes? All the while I'm struggling to not cry because summer is over. I did not burden him with my cares. That would have been cruel.

My watch is over

He's five

People say, "When did that happen? How did that happen?"

Day by day, sometimes minute by minute. They aren't all sweet and holy, but if you pay close attention, and try hard to not let it be about you, you get see them discovering themselves, digging through the layers and finding their way out of the chrysalis of babyhood.

It's so different than it was with my own boys.  A completely different kind of adventure and I am so privileged and grateful to have been a part of his life, to be Nana.

color of line

I doubt the monitors can bring the truth of these colors to your eyes, the way mine see them, here, live.

I still need a few greens, but these are the players for Night Gardener, among others.

My personal stash of dirty thread is getting out of hand.

lines and traces

I need to put this out of sight for a while before I do it an injury. The bits of cloth closest to the surface (in some places, five layers) are fragile and won't stand up to a lot of picking out of errant stitching.

Also, these colors are anything but true.
Something else to futz with another time.


I'm going to take some time and study marks from past pieces. See if they speak to my intentions at the time, or were they scribbled in haste.

messages

double-six, some hefty lines

thoughts and conditions for the moon (which needs help)

A reminder that every edge does not need nailing.

Night Gardener

the beds are planted.

the printed vegetables and the fish removed for some other iteration.

Anything else will be embroidered including the moths and fireflies and maybe a comet.

An eternity of stitching ahead. 36"x 24", this should hold me through winter.

Delightful exhaustion

I really wanted, intended to stitch

last night, but by the time we fell into bed, all I could do was pick up the cloth and look.

Having a child in my care requires every speck of my attention and energy.

raised beds

many things to think through.
to reconsider.
none of this is carved in stone.
cloth is never stone.

that fish is out of water.
so too, that patch of green that I've loved for so long.

tomorrow was planned for a sun and water day but looks like the weather wants a stitch and words day instead.
time will tell.

obsession

Without a map or destination, I'm becoming obsessed with this one.

The story it belongs with is still largely untold.

What I was hearing as I stitched were totally unrelated conversations between the main characters of the book that I have already finished, the one that's being edited. What more do they need to say? Why?

Meanwhile, I'm kerning* thread. Crazy.

*kerning - the process of adjusting the spacing between characters in a proportional font, usually to achieve a visually pleasing result. 

textures

The newest batch of cloth from the dye deck
are a riot of textures.

Pieces of linen so strong and thick that I hurt m'self trying to rip a big one in half. A tiny, delicate blouse..dismembered.

That cotton, embroidered window panel so rich with blue it's going back into service. I guess even second-story bathrooms should have curtains.

There will be further transformations for some of these. Discharging and overdyeing.

groping

Whew - thanks for the run on Dirty Threads. I've packed up the orders and will get them to the post office in a while.


This lot here is fresh. I'm struggling to get the range of greens I want for Night Gardener. Working outside in full sun and high humidity has a way of stupefying me. If I put up the umbrella (now dead) or pitch a new tent, I can't get the truth of the colors to my brain, so there's a lot more serendipity than color science. Still not happy, although some interesting things have hatched. These will go into inventory soon.

Time out of time

Wednesday mornings time stops the moment he pats my arm always awakening from the kind of dreams I have when I can go back to sleep after getting up too early.

He has a lot on his mind. A worrier. I hurt my back and alarmed him with some pain noise. He asks if I'm going to die. I really hate burdening him with 'someday'. Small friends distract and soothe.

Fish too.

There are fish in the clouds over the garden.

I'm going down to the dye deck to make more of what I'll need here. Cloth too.

I've a headful of dreams to study, and record. Some incredible music to work to.  Must only guard against the heat/humidity today. Kinda hellish out there.

Fuckery

Mercury, his head up his ass, doing his thing.
The other day, I threatened my printer with death and dismemberment. After a night's reprieve, it got its act together.

 I'm going to have to dye some more thread.