Gone

Just  Going!

Goddess Speed, Grace! 

Don't think. Jump.

There he is, making me crazy. When I first went out, the clouds were ranging all over. I took the cards out with me. As I fanned the deck out of the box, a big round gap opened up and the clouds froze as if the moon didn't want to be interfered with while it was smiling at me.

After each card was exposed to its light, I turned the deck over and touched them blindly, trying to find the one that mattered in this moment. Once, twice, five times, I chose a card, but let it one slip back into the deck. Finally, I took courage, pulled one, and held it up for the moon to see first. All my questions were answered. It was the beloved Fool.

"The Fool almost always stands for new beginnings, new experiences and new choices; the first steps along a new path and the first words written onto a blank page. Like the Aces of the Minor Arcana, such beginnings are like the Fool himself - neither positive nor negative, but with the potential to turn into either, depending on the choices you make and the path you follow. But this must not be your concern, because when a journey begins no one can know (or should know) what will happen on the way to the destination. Never let another person control your life. Live in the present and trust in your own abilities - this is the way of the Fool.
Such journeys always imply a degree of risk, and hence the Fool is pictured walking toward the edge of a high cliff. With any new experience, there is always the risk of failure and the certainty of change; it is the degree of change, and how that change will appear, that is undeterminable. But the Fool has no qualms about taking chances, so why should you? It is through the first steps that we learn how to walk, and it is through changes that we learn how to live our lives in harmony and peace. So jump head first into the abyss of the unknown, and know that even if you eventually fall to the ground, for a while you will soar. -James Rioux

the work

Perfect weather/light for shooting textiles outdoors yesterday. I've always preferred natural light, but overcast is better than strong sunlight, which causes hard shadows.

I took the batch that came home from the Fierce Fibers show to the park with the intention of laying them on the sloping concrete features of the new skate park. Silly me. It was swarming with skateboarders, so I just flung the pieces between my feet and fired away.

Later tonight, I'll do the drudgery of finding links to the provenance of each piece and posting dimensions and prices. They are all available.

to the Work

sea changes

Before I turn into Jabba the Hutt, I've put my feet back on the turtle trail at the park. No turtles to read to these days, they've all gone into the mud for the winter, but I did pull up at this sunny station and get a bunch of handwritten pages done on a problem that I've been avoiding.



Now to boil down mad ravings into something useful. And lookee here, a whole 1188 steps yesterday, if the gadget on the phone is to be believed. By (typical) comparison today, it said 181 steps, but I don't carry the bloody thing around with me while I'm in the house so who knows.

 there was a little retail therapy that included replacement reading glasses and tired eyes eyedrops and, counterintuitively...the makings of homemade socks because I can't find any that I like.


Now I have to learn a new trick.

On the home front, a year ago I wrote that dialogue with Charlie was 95% geeba-geeba and 5% perfectly enunciated words including four-letter epithets. A year later and he asked me for a stand-up routine of jokes to consider whilst seated on his little plastic throne. He wanted to tell me a joke, but he couldn't quite pull the trigger. He will, and soon.  Then we had a lively game of I Spy and after a few rounds, he understood that the object was to not change his pick to suit my guess. Fun begins....

personal archaeology

Included with some things my sibs held aside for me when Mom passed. From back when making and sending fiber postcards was a thing. Feels near victorian.

giving thanks

I've been starting each day this month taking stock and being grateful for my life and the people in it. There is so much. Although I'm not traveling or entertaining this year, it's good to know that there are small gatherings and celebrations here and there where I and my family will be missed and thought of with love, as we do the same. Happy Thanksgiving!

pending

It's bigger than I thought it would be.





I don't want to get enamored of this snowfield, in fact, I may just take those linen pieces back. They can be strong on their own rather than be pushed into a background.







Especially when the players I'm auditioning are such a rowdy bunch. I can decide if I am in the mood for mindful tranquility or mindless raucousness.

I need to clear some space in the studio so I can work this one on the design wall. Take my time. Have the conversations.

homecoming

Picked up ten pieces home from the Fierce Fibers show. I need to take new pictures of all these and post them to the "Buy Art. It's good for you" page.

Pricing everything with the holidays in mind. 

Now all I have to do is hide it all out from Sweetie. She has a preference for nesting on things with price tags on them.

sweet saturday

Out of the blue, comes the need to stitch...these days it happens when a scene I'm working on stalls.

Nothing happens without something to build it on so I cobbled together a surface from dismembered linen blouse and shorts. Good stuff. LL Bean!

I'm also noticing that I need to either rest my eyes more often or invest in some 2.5 cheaters. The twos are not cutting it.


And I had a little help this morning. He learned pretty quickly which end was sharp and held a spool so I could pull off what I needed. I am so looking forward to introducing him to the craft.

Celebrate a life by living

Four years. Four days. It's all the same when you miss someone minute by minute.



We do our best to let Charlie know his Grampa Jimmy through pictures and stories. His guardian angel tends us all.

ps. I fired up Jumpin' Jack Flash and took the long way to get a few overdue errands done. Found the new Hotel California Sirius station and rolled loud, windows down, moonroof open. When I got home, I made a batch of Jim's Best chili and my prize-winning cornbread. For dessert, I took the harvest for a test drive. I know he would have approved of all of it.

fall downs

It's the time of year when I started using time rather mindlessly. I finally gave away that blasted acrylic yarn and the beautiful knitting needles to a friend who was serious about learning to knit.

So these containers came to pass.
I still have a basket with five cones of mystery yarn. One is cotton perle, one is bamboo and the others, no clue. The cones are unmarked. Alone, the strands are thin, unsubstantial. Together (and they have to be coaxed gently) they are soft and flexible. I might mix up a little brown dye and see if I can get that Boston bean pot effect.

historical dig

While looking for something else, these came to the surface. No surprise that they've languished. The colors are abominable. I'm going to tinker with that, see if I can get them to a place I like, colorwise.

These scraps are all that remains of a magnificent double damask tablecloth that I bought for a song on Ebay. The stitching is called Mountmellick.

I used a chunk of it in one of my most successful pieces. It didn't need any additional color.

"Lavanderia" went to ArtQuilts Elements at Philadelphia in 20l2 and didn't come home. SOLD!

 

bigger things take time

I continue to be grateful for my cloth and thread customers.

This is Charlie doing his best to ignore my suggestions that we both need a nap, badly.

I really should have packed him into the car and let him run wild at the park before the rain closed in, but I was too tired to drive. It was just a matter of timing.

I've kept the promise to myself to do the Nanowrimo thing and have been spending all my mornings writing. Too much time on one's ass has to be a health hazard.

Walking in the park continues to give me brain space for working on stories even though I can't seem to sustain consistency and momentum to reap any physical benefits so far. Given time, I know it will. I have to work out the balance, but any creative will tell you that when you are on a roll, you'd better slick up and go with it.

Fall FELL

 It was a marathon weekend. The bottom fell out of the thermometer on Saturday night. While New England was suffering a nor'easter, we got frostbit here in Georgia. I hauled all of my houseplants into the bedroom. Hitchhikers too. The spiders and stinkbugs in my house are running scared.

It was good to have the Warmth at the touch of a button.

All the orders for cloth and thread are on their way. If some of the packages look like they've been tampered with, that was just me improving the weight.

I don't have a postal scale, always just eyeballed the filling of the envelopes, but these news ones confounded me. Slippery devils. As I started processing them at the self-service kiosk in the post office, some came up too light so I brought them back home and operated.

I'm going through the receipts and will be sending out surprises to a handful that were sent before I started checking the weights. I know where you live. :)

Charlie did Halloween at school on Friday so on Monday we did candy. Lots of candy. There is a new schedule and I get there at 630 in the morning and when he wakes up 7ish, he wakes me with the question, "What are we up to today, Nana?"

in the river basket

The sun was strong, breezes light. I took the river basket to the park to see just what I'd been squirreling away there all this time.

Could I dredge the urge to thread a needle? Only for the purpose of embroidering smart-ass, lewd remarks. I didn't but the story wheels were burning rubber.

Some of this stuff will probably pop up for sale in time. 

get your shop on

Thanks to everyone for the amazing response, I will be filling orders as they were received, first come, first served. There is MORE than enough cloth and thread to go around.

 It's not a living, but it helps.

From now, until they run out, I'll be including a random Dirty Thread in each Fat Baggie.

Giving away a skein of my hand dyed DMC embroidery floss is just like drug dealers giving away a "taste". We know you'll be back.

I found a new kind of shipping envelope. Not much more than a skin of very tough plastic with no lining, so it holds more cloth. I fill them until I can safely close them so, bonus to my customers!


Downside? More content equals more weight and postage. Add to that a recent rate hike and it comes out to a small bump in the cost. now 28$ includes first class shipping inside the US. Elsewhere? email me

I'm picking the baggies mostly from this past summer's dye sessions,  with choice gleanings from previous years added in. If you have questions, email me.  

If you are ready, there's this 

stilling

With the fall chill comes the need to fiddle string into something useful. I've thrown in the towel on that damn yarn. I can't count how many years I've started a project with those four skeins of blue, purple and brown Lion Homespun, then unraveled it all back into balls. I think I'll put them in a bag and leave them at the Little Library in the park.

I don't even know what these all are, the cones are unmarked. The ball is Perle cotton. One of them is bamboo. A rayon maybe? All five together make a satisfying, if a little pesky,  weight to work.

Nanowrimo starts next month. There is no way I have the time to commit to a new novel, not under the gun, so to speak. But I make take the time to frame up the next one to get out from under the bog of revising the current one for a while.

Fresh eyes. fresh perspective.

and the winner is

the contest is closed. I have twenty entries scribbled on the backside of some junk mail. All cuddled up here in my sari silk yarn skull cap.

Now to convince Sweetie to make a choice.

sightings

I took a day off from the grind and drove up to NC to visit a friend who is furnishing and decorating her home. I knew about the white couch and thought these just might work. Some of the "Alien Innards" go back to 2006. These are the ones that I couldn't bear to part with, one by one. I'm happy that they've been adopted en masse. They get along well with the other kids.

.

scraps surge

You should see the ones I put in the river basket. One might think I was thinking about stitching something.

(my glasses are for scale)

There are two more clutches just like this one and the fourth is winging it's way to Ukiah, CA at this moment.

I have a small problem. Although they are 6"x9", the new postal bags are unlined and hold more cloth! Yay for you, but the post office is hurting me.
Jumping the rate up to 27$ to cover the postage hike.

Cherry picking time

They say a Lady shouldn't go out without a hanky, or two.

in the days to come

The cloth and threads will take care of themselves for a while.

 I've come too far to let this spin away into vapors. So I will be in

revision

Is like shaving off prison tattoos a square inch at a time. 
The hardest damn work I've done since labor and death.

So far, it works like this. I'll read the last scene that WORKED and then the new victim,

 the next one, and the one that follows it. If the new one fails on enough fronts - and I've had more than

half do just that, I brood over the truth of it. The five 'whys'.

Then I start the autopsy.
Print, then redact - just like in the movies- with the broad, black marker, anything that's 

crap. Anything that's not a jewel.

Then I brood on it some more and find a different way to set some, not all, of those gems. 

A setting that not only makes the scene worthwhile but nods to the one before it and sets up

the next. 

Dominos dipped in nitro.


(don't forget to jump on this)

a contest, you say?

I'm waiting on a shipment of packing envelopes for
the Fat Baggies, but until they land, I thought I'd have a day late giveaway for my birthday. I'll be making up a bundle that includes scraps from the last dye fest and other treasures from my stash, plus a couple hanks of Dirty Threads thrown in for magic.

Open to anyone in this whole wide world. Just leave one comment here and Friday night I'll see if I can't get sweetie to help me pick a winner.

Took an opportunity for a little getaway...I'll make Sweetie do the thing on Sunday afternoon...there will be video.