Starting out

I canned these last night. The yellows are some find Kona (thanks Linda C.) and some 99 cent muslin from OHCO. The pink is a piece of that vintage feed sack cloth. Errands to attend to now while they are in the dryer. Wax when I get back. Maybe before midnight. Consumerizing ate up the day and when I got back, Farmer Jim was ready to start planting. We have a veggie plot now, ringed by marigolds which were all gotten into the freshly tilled and vastly improved, miserable Georgia clay between thunderstorms. Pictures tomorrow, maybe. Meanwhile the pool is nearly filled, the tree frogs are disapproving of the clean cold water and with any luck, tonight they will relocate back down to the creek.

taking time

Thinking things through is an art that I have gotten out of touch with, if I ever had a grasp on it at all. Instead of more whining about needing a new, better digital camera, I am taking the time to sit with my A95 and, one by one, go through all it's functions, features and adjustments to find out what I've been missing. Lots, it seems. Of course the first thing I did when I got the camera was pitch the instruction manual in the "read someday" pile. Every gadget comes with a Quick Start one sheet that was enough to get me going. All these years later, it's like having a new camera! I started making templates for my batik experiment using sheets of craft foam. It's flexible, waterproof, cuts like butter but I wonder how it's going to like hot soy wax? Maybe I should test a piece before I waste any more time cutting out paper weirdies.

gen-U-wine batik

Thinking about what it's going to take to bring digital imaginings to the cloth, wax and dye. How many yards can I stand...and will I be satisfied when the vagaries and imperfections of the process manifest? Can I cultivate some discipline for a day and be glad with the results? Only one way to find out.

progress

I've been spending about an hour each morning stitching on the latest of the big flags. I'm still not happy that for all the trouble stitching like this takes, the overall effect not what I hoped for. What that is remains to be seen. Tomorrow I'll start working this one over with the transparent Setacolor. Now that the lines are all in place, it will be like coloring in a big coloring book. All I have to do is get the crayons right. ...all.

Doodle Wednesday

I guess if doodling starts with line, then this little mandala qualifies. These two pieces of hand dye have been following me around in the studio for a while now and the other day at work I cut them into 3/4 inch ribbons and crocheted them into harmony. Look closer, be mesmerized. I had it hanging on the wall at eye level in my office cube and find myself staring at it and stepping onto a jungle's edge beach in my mind. My doctor has started me on some medication to even out mildly elevated blood pressure. She and the office lady warned me not to take it at night because I would not get any rest for trips to the bathroom but the label also warned of drowsiness. The label won out - I sleep deeply, restfully and untroubled. I dream about the ocean and have not yet peed the bed.

inspiration

Thanks to Red Thread Studio I have a new image to obsess about. I was captivated by this image and then the name "Conquistador" - a Jack Lenor Larsen fabric at the Minneapolis Institute for the Arts from 1966. So much of his work feels fresh and wonderful. The shapes, the lines the colors (even the description of the colorways!) all made me want to drop everything and heat up the wax.I am already mentally mixing a batch of my secret "Monkeys Blood" dye. Until I have the time to devote a whole weekend to dyeing and waxing, here's a new fish under way for while I am at the office and limited to hand stitching.

Catching up

This one is going to take some time. As I'm drawing on the fabric with stitching, and going back to double the lines for emphasis, I can see that I'm going to have to go back in with paint to make the design sit up and holler the way I want it to. The way it needs to be on a piece this size. There's no room for insipid on these banners

Here's what I did with that fabric spaghetti that I won from Diane's blog. Jinx has claimed it for her own personal cat doily. I had to move her (again) just to get this shot.

back to work

It's good to get back to work on the big flags but it turns out that I'll have to take this one to the outdoor space to lay it out and sandwich the back and batting. As yet untitled, this one is as wide as my wingspan, that is 65" wide and 82" long. I had to wait to find batting big enough but it's altogether now and waiting for the fun to begin. Which stitch goes where and why.

Reasons for Being

We were always having a pretty good time. That's Jake on the left, and Colin. August, 1985. And here's my Dad and our newest cousin, Dallas. And heeeeerrres Dallas, and his big brothers Reno and Ryder (did I get that order right boys?)

Happy Mother's Day all you Mothers out there and you know who you are.

we host the hordes

We had to let the swimming pool "go green" early last year when Jim was in the hospital and then we let it become a biosphere over the winter months. I hate putting the cover on the pool. With all the rain, we are about two weeks behind in cleaning and refilling it but the local tree frogs were right on schedule. The racket at night has been deafening. They put up the "Froggy Club Med" sign and have been doing what comes naturally in the spring and now we have about a million tadpoles in 4 inches of green water. I couldn't stand the notion of running the entire population through the sump pump so I got down in the slime with a net and bucket and rounded up about half of them and drove down the block to empty then into the stream. Hope the neighbors downstream enjoy the racket.

Winnings!

I was so tickled when this bundle of wonder arrived in my mailbox yesterday. Imagine winning something you really liked just for showing up and shouting! A long time ago I entered a drawing at the grand opening of a hardware store. I won a fake chandelier, retail value $49.95 but I was living at home at the time and my family's home was a ranch with 8 foot ceilings. I asked the manager if I could choose an alternate prize. He was quick to agree when I asked for a very untrendy bicycle that had probably been hanging on the back wall for ten years. That was so cool. This is just as cool and all the way from Hawaii. Thank you Diane.

Moon over Georgia

I used to spend time making animated gifs but gave it up mostly because they were unwieldy large for the dialup connections most people had to put up with. These days of highspeed internet have cheered me. This image started out over at Frank Ze's Scribbler . From there dropped into my antique (5.0) version of Jasc's Paint Shop Pro which has a built in Animation tool that has a great customizable "fade" tool. The little self movie and mood graphic in my sidebar were made with the same program.No magic, merely technology however archaic.