sunday stitch

Sunday is improving. Over the past two years, it's been a difficult day to be alone if I didn't have visiting planned.

I went to my first meeting with a new writing group yesterday and it was just what I've been looking for.

Now a chunk of Sunday will have to be given over to Saturday housework, the stuff I let languish all the rest of the week. A day for projects, catching up and finishing. I need to get back to having books on CD while I work.

I cleared the dancing table in the studio enough to fire up the Janome and do some long promised mending. From there it was a short hop to the river basket to see what was waiting for my hands.
What am I going to do when Downton Abbey is over?

meditation

I came into the studio this morning to fill a fabric order.

No music, no TV. Just the sound of the cold wind through the hollies under the big window, the sun blazing through.

With an empty mind, my hand kept finding the most amazing bits, shreds and pieces.

Grace reminded me how the smallest bits of cloth have a magic and integrity all of their own. As if to say, "I'm the one and only piece in all  existence just like this. What will you make of me?'

I've been busy working on a short story since Christmas and finding that fiddling with words can be every bit as compulsive as working with cloth. You move a piece from here to there and there is a whole different tale. The unintended consequences never end. Stopping and taking a stand can be difficult. Pleasing the masses? Impossible.

Pleasing myself? Who better.

Other thoughts today are with Grace and little old Cinche,  now winding down her journey on this plane.

the blur

I'm sure someone has coined a name for it somewhere - the span of days between Christmas Day and New Year's Day. One day does tend to blur into the next.

I spent a chunk of it coddling Charlie who needed a little extra attention. My cell phone camera is on its way out, but I love this shot with nothing but the swirling exuberance of color and those grays!

Judy Martin knows about grays. For all the magically tender color of this piece, I've figured out that it's the grays that give it bones. At least to my eye.

I've not  made any resolutions but cleared two goals. The completion of my first short story in time for a 1/2/16 deadline (which was extended to 1/9 when I wasn't looking) and a true resolution to get back outside and resume the walking cure.

Today it was a mere quarter mile around the dirty duck pond at  Bethesda Park. I'd like to put that little tracker app back on my phone but it will probably burst into flames and I'm not quite ready for a new one yet. Sometimes, the camera works.

Happy New Year

There was cloth this morning! Fabric orders, picked packed and shipped and I'm still taking pieces and stuffing them into the river basket for some oneday tomorrow.

Thinking of family and many distant friends, women of the cloth, who are still at it beyond all boundaries of trend and times. So inspirational.

There has been (good) writing all day. Chinese food is on the way.  Fireworks and gunfire echo outside and the sun just set. The new furnace just kicked on. Later, there will be movies and a bottle of champagne that's been languishing in a high cupboard in the kitchen since '99 (I think). If I can get it open and it's drinkable....

Christmas 2015

For all my friends (and the list is growing) who do not look at FB.

I'm Batman!

Charlie is on the mend so we all brought Christmas to him instead of making him travel. He charmed everyone in the room, but then we are a bit biased.