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I had to put on the long pants against the chill today for the first time and was happy to be able to zip up AND be able to breathe! Jim made a practice run of my cornbread recipe last night and I think I ate a pan almost by myself. 

It's rainy and drear and I'd like nothing better than to go back to bed right now but I promised some OT in a few minutes....so stitching and dreaming will have to wait. My little B&W feather break was refreshing - I am back in technicolor mode.

Another great box of white wonder thumped up onto the porch late yesterday afternoon. More about that tomorrow.

feathers flying

this time I remembered to take a picture before sending them off.

Jim is getting ready for the Stone Mountain Chili Cookoff this coming weekend - my dye deck has become an fresh air kitchen for a few days but I'll be jarring up a few experiments later this morning in hopes of a few more 80 degree days coming up. If anyone gets any cloth that has a whiff of a distant campfire, garlic or cumin, you know the reason why.

freepiecing denim

The turn of seasons has me washing all blanket-like objects and this old denim throw turned up with a multitude of failed seams. Time to be useful again. That orange broadcloth turned out to have a bit of poly in it and so it will go two work pulling this blanket together..a nice back of couch piece although I may hang it up and pretend I'm in a museum somewhere.

We were real hard on our denim back in the day. This was built in 1977, one of the first things I sewed on the Kenmore Jimmy bought me as an engagement gift. It was one of the first free-arm portables, indispensable for mending blue jeans. The man knew what he was doing. I did not but, Gees Bend, it's held up pretty well.

september morn

I've been slightly derailed (was I ever railed?) by the sudden change of season - even if it's only temporary,  a flexing day job schedule and overdosed with color.

I was surprised to read that Jude only has 282 feathers to date. I would have thought she's be over feathered by now but I was wrong so I am taking a little black and white eyeball palette cleansing break here before I set to the task of going through the new cloth, taking first picks and then putting things up for adoption and sale.

These pieces dried to be a lot less vibrant than this shot. I've given up being disappointed or surprised when the cloth does what it will. instead, I do what I know to bring the things around to my liking.

A couple of them have been painted with transparent textile paint and I'll post the results later in the day when they are fully dry.

grace moons

this whole group spent the night basking in the full moon. I'll know more after they've been through a machine wash and dry.

These are the Grace Moons, each different but all from the same mother cloth, a section of heavy drapery cotton. Strong, soft and full of weave. These may become part of a larger whole.

avoidance & remembrance

It started with this commercial, the crying, and I knew I would be doing it on and off all day. So I made myself a list of all the things that needed doing this fine sunny day. In between the items, I would pass by the TV, watch a bit and cry a bit more. I had forgotten some things and never knew so many others.

It was almost hot today and I had readied some sample sized chunks of the newly gifted fabrics..three of my favorites got the treatment early.

Serena, you sent two of these simple sqares, hemmed all round with a tiny tag that says "Cotton, EGYPT". Could these have been diapers? Wonderful stuff.
I know she won't be seeing this post for a while because she broke her only pair of glasses. And next, a square of that wonderful, fragile muslin..I left the lavender ties in place and used this piece to wipe up.in fact, decided to dedicate that entire piece, one chunk at a time, to cleaning up...the best pieces emerge this way.

Once these things were in the pot, I took a huge pile of winter blankets and quilts to the washateria and while they were tumbling, cleaned my poor car interior, long neglected.. gross to the max.


Shopped for dinner, staggered home and forced myself into the pool in time for the first pitch. It was chilly but the sun was hot and there was a game on..


then baked ziti into the oven for my hardworking husband and one more  crack at the dyeworx..

This is a multi-layered log of some of that heavy drapery cotton, Grace.
Inside it, a  piece of that fabulous damask tablecloth (yes, I cut into it) layered with rice, orzo, oatmeal and grits...all of them buggy  -and an array of dye color.


tomorrow, we go on.

aggravation

The girls get together and discuss whether Mother needs to be committed. 

I have just returned from the local tire joint where it took them THREE EFFING HOURS to mount and balance two tires on the car. The middle hour was taken up by the hunt for the key to the car which they lost after I handed it over.

I brought this along to work on but thinking, like a fool, that an hour would be most time it could take, I only brought along two little patches to add on and no extra thread at all. Grrrrr... I was supposed to brave the pool today once more but the warm time has passed. Grrrrr...can you hear me grinding my teeth?  A woman in the waiting room politely asked what I was working on and I listened to myself spin the most extraordinary tale of bullshit about a commissioned funerary piece for the president of the International Clown College who had been recently kidnapped and was not expected to be returned because of budget cuts. Was that mean?

time better spent

Bag sitting inside on a day like this!

After several days of cold and damp Madam Karma reminded me of what you are supposed to do on a sunny day ..roll in the driveway, give a cold stare to the animal control officer as he drives by and then get up and gas with the two neighbors across the street for a spell.

Now dinner is cooked, Karma and 'Doo got their fair share of the chicken and I am off to the mines. Please people...don't spoil my day calling in those reports today. Go on, slack off as usual and bombard me tomorrow. There's a Braves vs. Mets double header starting at 4:10. Boys, my stomach can't stand another loss.

sleepin' in

It was a blanket night and the chill caused me to sleep until almost 9!  The morning light has established the priority for the morning...stitching.

For the first time in ages (there was dust on the box) I pulled a new card from my Tarot deck - see the sidebar. It was a welcome sign.

Ever since eligibility for social security snuck up me a few months ago I've been in a mental muddle. It's time to take up a serious course of study and bring my brain back around to useful sharpness.

Fall Fell

I have been working rather exclusively on this project and letting too many other things get away.  Things are in flux around the household  and my mind has been in other places. Just yesterday I finally sorted and folded a pile of clean laundry that was the size of a Volkswagen parked on the floor in my bedroom. I was waiting for a rainy day!
Did it ever! Fall fell yesterday and right this moment it feels like I'll be lucky to have a few days with temps right for dyeing..silly for sure, this is Georgia we will be sweating again before fall sets in for real.

I was thinking that I had kinda-on-purpose let several deadlines slip away but, no, the calendar mocks me and there is still paperwork to do.

the giveaway winner

After frittering the day away stitching and enjoying a ballgame and the smell of someone else cooking dinner, I remembered today was the day for picking the Magic Burrito giveaway winner. So, ably assisted by my Goodman Jim, here it is...
And the Winner is...

something new and wonderful

My friend Arlee Barr is taking the teaching plunge and sharing her knowledge and experience though the web in an online class "FrankenStitch" . If you are looking for a different perspective on textiles and stitching, I say JUMP RIGHT IN the water is fine....She has been so generous sharing the ups, downs and sideways of her art process and her life and it's been amazing to see how her art has come together over time, post by post and now she's getting down to the nuts and bolts of it all.

and this image, grisly and amazing!....chica, you should make this picture your FB profile shot RIGHT NOW! 

If you are in NYC

I got an email from Clara Fialho announcing a show she'll be having soon along with artist Kuzana Ogg.  The opening is next Thursday at Tria Gallery from 6 to 8 pm through 10/15.  Clara and I have traded art in the past. When I went to Kuzana's site I thought right away about "Limbo" and it made me grin about the many ways that joy can be expressed.

today the Giftie gie us...

Thanks for the share Diane!
the creeping mailman left me another package late yesterday. in it, two wonderful, ancient damask tablecloths all fat and fluffy from a good hard wash and dry. I'm going to heat the soy wax good and hot for these pieces..the openess of the fibers makes for some striking, clear marking come dye time. 

The blue piece is a fine light-weight linen that has been dyed with indigo. It's already been hacked into!


If any of you out there are simply plagued with drifts of old, humble tablecloths made of any natural fiber, etc., before you toss them out or leave them on a church doorstep please email me. Stains? Pshaw..Holes? Who cares! I'll not only give them a good home but I return some of them back to you in glorious color!

paving

 
I'm working out ways to fill in the spaces around the separately stitched elements on my MCD project shirt.
Raw edged "paving" with tiny scraps seems to be the way to go. You can see  more new elements here.

A few days ago I discovered what's been causing the malaise I've been experiencing. Instead of tripping over the bathroom scale, I actually got on it and recognized that there has been waaay too much carbo-indulgence going on around here. Sleepless nights and logy days, aching feet and general crankiness begone! the cure is at hand and I am determined to buy a new pair of sneakers this weekend.

Someone asked to see these three together. At first I was a little unhappy that the third was not the same size as the first two but they were created on a pair of hemmed armrest covers and the third deliberately cut square from a larger cloth. Going forward in the series I will stay with the square...there's another on the cutting table right now.

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.

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 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!

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.