Wednesday, August 31, 2011

relief

 
Greatly relieved to talk to Pop this morning. We usually talk every day and I can tell by the sound of his voice just how he is doing.

Their power came back on yesterday afternoon and Nextel in his neighborhood was not working since the hurricane. The house phone worked until a tree took the lines down. 

Everyone is OK and there was no damage and only minor flooding. Blessings on the family and neighbors who kept tabs on him for the duration. I know a lot of family, friends and readers in the NE are still sitting in the dark waiting.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

vibrance

I know that a lot of artists who dye their own cloth are experimenting with the natural dyeing process these days but my magpie brain still craves to be gobsmacked by color when I go to the trouble of cooking up my own.

This recent batch delights me on so many levels. Aside from wonderful, rich color there's an array of glorious texture here too.





This is a piece of a woven tablecloth that I picked up for a smile at a yardsale. There was a burned hole on the corner. You can't see it in this photo but the raised cords were colored thread that bled during the dye process.  It shows better in the paler pieces but this cloth loves the dye.
A quick Google  yields a tantalizing clue as to the origin of the owners of these hand towels. There are also several damask napkins with VE embroidered on the corner. 


Do you think they ever imagined what could become of such prosy things?




Even the 79 cent towels I picked up at IKEA the other day didn't disappoint. I wasn't even sure they were cotton.


it's Dutch for "towel" ..it too has the trixie little hanging loop like the one above.

No small wonder that the majority of these treasures came from grace.

Monday, August 29, 2011

monday morning washout



It was a blue Sunday...due in part to a mason jar disaster with a half quart of turquoise (see below). No pictures of my blue ankles, for once I had on shoes. I was just stirring the dye with a spoon when a hole popped out of the glass! Do jars get old?

This piece of woven, gridded cotton picnic cloth is getting discharged right now. Those dots are about 3/8 of an inch and I think I have that out of my system for the day!

Sunday, August 28, 2011

making the day count

Family and friends in the NE are still struggling under the lash of Irene so I could not let this hot, clear and beautiful day go to waste.

I've been feeling the need for some vibrant color so I had a mini-dye day and put all the recently collected treasures in for a long soak. 


Today I am besotted with color but yesterday it was furnishing  at IKEA and later, a pitcher of Sangria at On the Border in Buckhead. After tramping all over design heaven nothing ever tasted so good.

It's a good think I don't drive a pickup truck or these would have been coming home with me.  The chair put me in a coma every time I sat in one (they are strategically all over the store) . Did you know that IKEA has a Scratch and Dent room!?  It's destined to be my new office chair and ergonomics be damned.


Saturday, August 27, 2011

excursion & giveaway


I'm off to IKEA to see what there is to see. It's been some time since I was there.
 
Don't miss out on a chance to win two of these Magic Cloth Burritos...dive in and leave a smart remark over there and you could get lucky!! I'll post the winner on Monday morning and get it off in the mail that very day!


PS...As most of my family and who knows how many friends and readers are still reeling (without electricity) from hurricane Irene so I've decided to extend the deadline of the drawing to Sunday, 9/4.






Friday, August 26, 2011

happy if anxious Friday

My stitching is taking on a nervous, time passing feeling. I know so many people who are in the path of Hurricane Irene now making it's way up the east coast I feel guilty being under hot blue skies here six hours inland.

Yesterday, the computer track of the storm put the eye of the hurricane passing directly over the Lower Hudson Valley region where my family is and the beach camp at Point Judith, RI. I can only hope the weather pundits are over reacting to cover their collective asses as they seem to be doing regularly.

This is the center back of the shirt I'm working on..no one will be sneaking up on me when I'm wearing it.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

and let's not forget about the giveaway~!




morning stitch

Work continues in the shirt. this morning at least, Voodoo was not insisting on sitting on my lap as I worked. Do cats get senile as they get older?

I took the distant treasures out of the soda ash and hung them up to dry because I want the whites to stay strong under the wax this time. We don't anticipate feeling any affects of the hurricane here so I hope to do some more work with soy wax and dye over the next few days.

Is anyone else feeling a seasonal ennui?  Just when it cools off to the point when you don't sweat from breathing  I'm feeling a mental and physical lethargy  that seems to go to the bone. It's too boring to contemplate for long.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

cool mornings..

...not created by artificial means are delicious but make falling back to sleep all too easy.




My upstairs deck garden has fallen into weedy mayhem but still produces magic like this when I'm not looking.
I like taking advantage of the morning cool to work on my MCD project. (I've awarded myself a feather for participation)  I'll be wearing this before it's finished, no doubt.

The morning light comes through the open front door just so for just long enough. But it's errand running day so I have to put the stitching aside and get on with the day. Too much of my computer times has been taken over by mulling the pros and cons (are there any?) of taking social security with this next birthday. I guess I will have to bite that nasty bullet and go there...the web site raises more questions than it answers.


Sunday, August 21, 2011

gifts from afar

 The mailman snuck up and left a box of beautiful cloth on the front doorstep sometime yesterday. I will have to reconsider taking off my wet bathing suit on the back deck and and strolling through the living room bare assed even though I do shut the front door when I'm out back swimming.

Exquisite cloth - and the best part is I now have a scout in distant lands who knows exactly what I am on the lookout for !

"Rêver 3" is finished. Stronger colors than the first two, more complex shapes.

Stepping back and looking at how this one turned out I recognize that although none of the units touch, they all relate in some fashion to the ones closest to it, something I don't think about consciously when I working on it clutched up so closely.

I'm sure there will be more.

Big Night at Turner Field

Jimmy and I went to Turner Field on friday night and watched the Braves beat the Diamondbacks. They have fireworks every friday night but I can tell you they look much more spectacular when the home team triumphs.
Jim agreed they were Grucci  lite which is pretty good for ATL.


That's Jan K., my usual partner in baseball crime (her neighbor gives away season tickets!) my husband Jim and self. It was hot and smarmy but that's baseball in the South - always worth it.