dyefest prelims

It's been a long time coming! I snatched off little pieces from the box of goodies that arrived yesterday, let them soak in the soda ash solution all morning and plunged in the colors by lunch. They will poach outside on the deck in this heat for the rest of the day. Tomorrow morning we will see what is what....

truing up

My sense of balance gets disturbed when I try to leave a piece "as is"-  whacked, as it was, out of the whole cloth in the first place. Like an animal skin.

 I was in Autozone the other day and actually pulled two hideously expensive genuine chamois out of their packaging to find the outlines of the critters they came from. Not satisfying shapes at all and the thought of needling them had me cramming them both back into their tiny plastic capsules.

So the edges of this one have been determined but
I'm still undecided about mummifying (or not) but that beige has got to go and will most likely be painted, or maybe paved over if I can find some more loosely woven linen.

 the answer to my quest just arrived from Texas! Thank you Barb!

summers day off

I spent a few hours at the Honda dealership this morning. Seems like something in the airbag will kill you rather than save your life. Supposedly they fixed it while I stitched in the waiting room. A little girl about seven came to observe and, after a minute, asked me what I was doing as if she had never seen someone embroidering before. Sensing that she was asking just to be polite, I gave her the one word answer. She sniffed and sat down to poke at her device but kept an eye on the proceedings with no further questions. Maybe she looked it up.

 After a while, I ran out of white thread, packed up and wandered around the lot marveling at how most of the current models are so much bigger than my 01 Civic...and I still get better mileage than all but the hybrids.
From the opulent Crosstour, a fancy box of air, to the snappy little CRXsi which would surely land me in the pokey, they were all beautiful. I told the salesman that rather than choose between them, I would take them both when the first lottery check cleared. A man of faith, he gave me his card with a smile. 

And when I got home I spent the rest of the best part of the day drifting and dreaming here.

still on the wall

 


I'm kind of glad I didn't snatch this off the wall the instant it wasn't working. The blue part has something I want to pursue but don't know if I want it tussling with that gold piece.

"Consolation" is still in the hoops and I'm starting to be on guard for the stop signs.

It's brilliantly hot and bright outside, this late afternoon light bounces off the steep lawn and trees in the front yard...so different for the direct light in the morning.

I'm expecting some gift  cloth for dyeing sometime soon and am really looking forward to a dye day.

L’Heure Bleue

  The sun is gone, the stars are holding their breath and one can reach back in time at will but I am hollow-eyed with introspection and melancholy. Blue? Why not. I'm told it's my best color.

I have been listening to Will Patton reading "Nightwoods" by Charles Frazier and it never ceases to amaze me how the emotions and revelations of good storytelling affect me.

A question about how we first came to stitchery was posed on the QuiltArt list and, in response, I dug back into a story of my own invention  and shared it  remarking that all fiction has it's roots in someone's history.

Writing with intent is emotionally exhausting and it's no surprise how many authors were seen as crazy to start with or wound up that way eventually.

A glass of Lazy Girl, cool sheets, and the pine needle sachet balanced over my third eye..all will be well in the morning.