a working 4th

My July 4th is probably a bit different than most folks. As a veteran of the phone company and the current employee of another round the clock operation, I'm accustomed to working on most of the major holidays. So it will be today. I will hear the local fireworks and give thanks for the drenching rain we had yesterday but keep my fingers crossed that some yahoo won't set fire to the neighborhood with illegal fireworks.

Knowing that the shank of the day would be taken up listening to people lie, complain, and whine, I officially set down the burden of judgement and started my day with a little creativity by rebooting my dye palette. I did a few direct dye painted pieces and left them in sun to bake.

They are all sparkly and intense while wet but don't get too excited. Experience has taught me that this method of applying dye results in weak, washed out colors. It's OK though cause I have a PLAN. It's all about the lines and shapes much more than the colors or lack thereof. Look, even the Table-moppers are having a good time.

July's crown

Thanks to number one son for capturing this for me. I took the cards outside for a blessing last night but didn't bother with the camera. I'm glad he was paying attention.  While I was grilling dinner this morning I broke my own vow and put a few more pieces into the dyes. Some rank scraps that needed over-dyeing, a piece of some stripey weirdness that Jake got for me at yard sale while we were in NY and a quarter of a spectacular damask tablecloth that arrived yesterday - the kind I love with the tiny dots all woven through.
 They shall stew under tonight's full moon. And now to swim until I prune.

dye day wrap up

When I took the new pieces out of the dryer this morning they seemed to be infested with LINT, as if I washed a tissue or two along with them only I know that's not the case. So I took everything out onto the upper deck to give it all a good snapping shake creating a snowstorm of fuzz. Happily they gave up the fuzz to a little vigor. Then I spent a quick half hour ironing this unruly lot.

 Compared to the shimmering delicacy of damask, this varying weights of linens are very masculine by comparison. Tough cloths, every one of them. A fiber gang. I'm glad the colors stayed as strong as I wanted for this first round.

I'm going to suspend further attempts on the dyedeck until this brutal weather backs off. I find myself skipping steps and forgetting what comes next. The pleasure in the doing is just not there under these extreme conditions.

For a few minutes the trees tossed and moaned last night and I hoped for a thunderstorm but nothing materialized.

I'm going to hunker down in the AC of the studio, think about what is next, work with what is already at hand and attend to a few administrative tasks I have been putting off, like ordering new business cards and redoing the website.

Little stuff, you know, like the Augean stables....

I've also decide to extend the sale in the store and will be adding some of these Tough Guys into the mix.

poached linen and birthday festivities

Not the best picture but I like the way it lights up the room. One of my favorites from yesterday's foray into hot folly - trying to conduct a dyefest out on the deck like it was any other day off. Even though it is covered by a canopy, ( I call it the Burn Dyedeck for a good reason) yesterday (and today) was ridiculous at 104 degrees by noon. I really should have anticipated that soy wax would not behave in it's normal, docile and predictable fashion and that some colors would strike harder and faster while other would purely wilt as did yours truly. Even after a spell in the pool I was wiped out from heat. poached and not fit for much the rest of the day.

So no more day-long frenzys, going forward. I'll set up a few pieces in the early morning cool, leave them out to stew for the day and start all over again the next morning. I've converted a large cooler to a soda ash holding pot and there's plenty of white goods now with more coming in daily. Have to learn to pace myself.

And even further proof of my poached brains, I neglected to post in celebration of Colin's birthday. Jim went to great lengths to find a Carvel Cookiepuss ice-cream cake, and we gobbled it before it could melt. Mmmm... Ice cream cake for dinner.  Here's the birthday boy, my artistic accomplice.

past time to stop

I don't even want to know how hot it is. You just know it's time to stop when you start making messy mistakes. Oh, I know the red-headed devils always turn out to be my favorites but who needs a whole stable full of them?

Lots of mad scientist notions in play this morning - using up a bag of played out epsom salts  to carry dye powder. Mixing up pearl-ex gold and silver into binding solutions for some Pollock style homage. Several levels of bloody mud colorwise and a batch of silk prepped with wine vinegar because I had no white.

Some new approaches to finishing the fabrics too including decanting them from the mason jars and just letting them bake dry in the sun before any rinsing or washing.  Lazy labor saving devices for the most parts but dye batchers will call it wisdom. Time will tell and I am in no rush.

I found what might have been someone's hippy wedding dress in a bag back in the closet. A dimly recalled Goodwill purchase. Hastily deconstructed with scissors, now well represented in the jars. Lawn at it's best.

and now tea, plums and pooltime.

too hot to dye?

Not too hot for the dye or the cloth but too hot for humans. It's supposed to be 103 degrees out by midday so I spent the early morning just making preparations for tomorrows earliest hours (more triple digits are forecast) .

These are the wet samples that I hastily crammed into mason jars yesterday. The heavy markings are due to the lack of manipulation and a nice variable.

       All these are varying weights of linen and this cloth is FIERCE. My arms are tired from ripping. Most of the larger pieces have been put into the sauce and a few are in a soywax experiment. I'm trying to take advantage of the severe heat by settting a few pieces (with soywax chunks and crumbs folded in) out in the full sun in a black plastic garbage bag. Think it will get hot enough out there? Where are my crayons, now that I think about it....

dyefest prelims

It's been a long time coming! I snatched off little pieces from the box of goodies that arrived yesterday, let them soak in the soda ash solution all morning and plunged in the colors by lunch. They will poach outside on the deck in this heat for the rest of the day. Tomorrow morning we will see what is what....

truing up

My sense of balance gets disturbed when I try to leave a piece "as is"-  whacked, as it was, out of the whole cloth in the first place. Like an animal skin.

 I was in Autozone the other day and actually pulled two hideously expensive genuine chamois out of their packaging to find the outlines of the critters they came from. Not satisfying shapes at all and the thought of needling them had me cramming them both back into their tiny plastic capsules.

So the edges of this one have been determined but
I'm still undecided about mummifying (or not) but that beige has got to go and will most likely be painted, or maybe paved over if I can find some more loosely woven linen.

 the answer to my quest just arrived from Texas! Thank you Barb!

summers day off

I spent a few hours at the Honda dealership this morning. Seems like something in the airbag will kill you rather than save your life. Supposedly they fixed it while I stitched in the waiting room. A little girl about seven came to observe and, after a minute, asked me what I was doing as if she had never seen someone embroidering before. Sensing that she was asking just to be polite, I gave her the one word answer. She sniffed and sat down to poke at her device but kept an eye on the proceedings with no further questions. Maybe she looked it up.

 After a while, I ran out of white thread, packed up and wandered around the lot marveling at how most of the current models are so much bigger than my 01 Civic...and I still get better mileage than all but the hybrids.
From the opulent Crosstour, a fancy box of air, to the snappy little CRXsi which would surely land me in the pokey, they were all beautiful. I told the salesman that rather than choose between them, I would take them both when the first lottery check cleared. A man of faith, he gave me his card with a smile. 

And when I got home I spent the rest of the best part of the day drifting and dreaming here.

still on the wall

 


I'm kind of glad I didn't snatch this off the wall the instant it wasn't working. The blue part has something I want to pursue but don't know if I want it tussling with that gold piece.

"Consolation" is still in the hoops and I'm starting to be on guard for the stop signs.

It's brilliantly hot and bright outside, this late afternoon light bounces off the steep lawn and trees in the front yard...so different for the direct light in the morning.

I'm expecting some gift  cloth for dyeing sometime soon and am really looking forward to a dye day.

L’Heure Bleue

  The sun is gone, the stars are holding their breath and one can reach back in time at will but I am hollow-eyed with introspection and melancholy. Blue? Why not. I'm told it's my best color.

I have been listening to Will Patton reading "Nightwoods" by Charles Frazier and it never ceases to amaze me how the emotions and revelations of good storytelling affect me.

A question about how we first came to stitchery was posed on the QuiltArt list and, in response, I dug back into a story of my own invention  and shared it  remarking that all fiction has it's roots in someone's history.

Writing with intent is emotionally exhausting and it's no surprise how many authors were seen as crazy to start with or wound up that way eventually.

A glass of Lazy Girl, cool sheets, and the pine needle sachet balanced over my third eye..all will be well in the morning.

trying not doing

Nope..not happening. And I knew it wasn't happening when I first stuck that reconfigured chambray shirt up there when what I really want is another linen jacket to hack up. Wishful thinking won't get it done.
 I have recognized the difference between the work that  springs from a spontaneous confluence of mood, intent and materials, and the work that just tries too hard.

Looking back over stuff, I found perfect examples.
"Frida Brings Home the Bacon" literally fell out of the scrap jar when Jinx gave my glass fish bowl scrap jar a nudge and it smashed on the floor. I remember picking up the pieces one by one, shaking them over the trash basket for shards and laying them out on the table. 

I was really hooked on watching Frida and Diego on the Owl cam at the time, despite the tragedies,  I quickly wanted to follow up with another piece showing the chicks.  Contrived and studied is all I can see in the results, as cute as the little buggers are.

So the lesson for me today?  Fuhgeddaboudit trying to get from A directly to Z. Side trips, getting lost and stops along the way are mandatory.

first day of summer

Really? It's seemed like summer here for a long time. A pool day for sure, I brought "Ocean Homes" outside to check the color of the water  and it's perfect. This one is going to be for sale as soon as I can get some good detail shots. If you want it for the wall, I'll make a sleeve for it. Right now, it's bedware.




Colin captured one of the first recruits at my dragonfly training camp. The Braves are busy loving the heat and humidity at Yankee Stadium and I am going to be missing my nap.
Oh well, there's always coffee.

I miss my lifeguard.