Libra at work

What I know Jimmy would want most for all of us is to find our feet. For me, that would be getting back into the studio in a significant way. I'm looking to find a balance between the warm draw of living in the past and stepping into the future mindfully.

Although I've been stitching here and there on little fripperies,  nothing comes to mind when I look at the design walls. Not even the desire to see. The studio is in total chaos - this one linear foot of wall space remains an inspiration complete with a fiber blessing by Grace of the West.

Once it warms up a bit, I'll work at restoring order and give the raw materials a chance to inspire.

My finances are in as much chaos as the studio so a lot of those raw materials will soon be available in the store.

There are really only so many hours in any day and I think I have other things on the horizon that are not wrapped in cloth and making.

trees

Yesterday was a particularly difficult day . Acknowledging condolences, piles of paperwork, digging through personal archaeology were all contributing factors to the extra melancholy. Thanks to both my sons for rescuing the day. Jake came by midmorning and they needed feeding so I made a hearty soup and biscuits and when Colin returned from the laundromat they took the dead clothes dryer up to the street (where it was grabbed up by scrappers in minutes!) and hooked up a used but working one that Jake had in storage under the house. Needful, useful things to deal with, pass the time and remember.  I'm better today.

When Jimmy and I were first married, like many newlyweds we were p-o-o-r. A week with swiss to go on the baloney sandwiches was a really good one. That first year together we waited until 7 or 8 on Christmas eve to go the tree lot and see what was left. (We both came from family traditions of not putting up or decorating a tree until Christmas eve.) You knew you were grown up when Mom let you help decorate.

The lot was closed and line of scraggly, forlorn looking leftover trees leaned up against the front of the hardware store where a hand lettered sign said "FREE".  We had been ready to pay a whole five dollars!  (This picture was taken many years later when I always had to restrain him from getting a tree that was taller than I could reach to the top since decorating was my assignment.)

We stuffed the Charlie Brown Christmas tree through one passenger window on the Dart and pulled it out through the opposite door when it got back to our first apartment together at Skyview cottages in Mohegan Lake, NY. The place was so small we had to set the tree up in a corner of the kitchen and block it off with the two chairs to keep Shag from knocking it over (again). The next morning I found a diamond ring in the bottom of my stocking and Jimmy asked me to marry him.
Here we are at my family's house later that day showing off my ring and making our intentions known.

contented confinement

It's just too cold to get the studio up to warm enough and I'm coming down with a cold myself. For now I'll continue hanging stars in this firmament. I've given up on the notion of somehow darkening the sky but I keep thinking about the song lyric "the stars in your sky are the stars in mine" and keep finding places in the sky that need more stars.
  

And this little holiday looking trinket continues and it has me thinking about what I need to put together a "learn to embroider" kit for a five year old little girl that I've not yet met.

Gates of Grace

And speaking of mummies, I pulled this one off the too-large canvas that I had nailed it to because I've never been happy with it's value weaknesses.

It's been sealed under matte acrylic so I'm going to have to concoct some kind of acrylic wash to make the changes I want.

Time to drag the heater back into the studio.

missed summer

"Missed Summer" 11x14
 

Just warming up to my old mummification technique.

Here's the tutorial.

The first piece shown there went on to Art Quilt Elements and never came home. Not lost but sold. Turns out it's a pretty effective way of presenting smaller, hand stitched fiber art.

This one is now available on the store page.