My Dixie Mink ~updated

 

A tender heart will model one on someone else's sleeve. 

I despise those pictures people take - usually in a bathroom - holding the phone up so you can't see their faces. Why hide your face? We aren't looking at your ham tattoo or your hemline. We're looking at that scuzzy bathroom.

Enough of my grumpiness. Here's my traveling jacket all decked out for cooler weather. When it finally gets here.

Until then, we are warm and parched. I've been carrying water in gallon juice jugs out to the deck plants and the bird bath up in the grove. It's been several weeks since we've had any kind of rainfall. 

There was real writing, too. Writing a reading for a Tarot spread that I invented for the story is hard. 

"...snowflakes dying all around him." Dee, some of those same lines worked on my head the moment I put them down. They make it hard to make the next move. 

These two books (I've accepted that there are two happening at the same time.) have struggled, and continue to be struggling to be born. The least I can do is show up consistently.

I tuned in to see what further nonsense the House would perpetrate after voting McCarthy out. Gave half a moment worrying that they would try to get the Shitweasel to lead them after the sickening spectacle of him bloviating after court yesterday. 

And McCarthy's sub's first act?  Having Nancy Pelosi's office re-keyed while she was attending Diane Feinstein's memorial? 

That is some small-minded,  petty shit. What we have come to expect of Republicans. 

 

sunset stitch

 

        If the day has gone well, I indulge myself with a little stitching while the sun slips down through the trees. Today I listened to the last Braves game of the regular season. It was a nail-biter. They lost but if I was playing for a team who just clinched a playoff spot, I'd be hard-pressed to be going all out. Still, it was an exciting game. Listening to a baseball game on AM radio. Imagine that. How many people do you know still do that? I do. It's like a portal to the past. 

This, from a birthday card I sent. He won't mind.

~~But sometimes I fear the challenges we faced when we were growing up are so different from what today's young people are dealing with, that we can't step into each others' worlds, unless we, who have been there and done it,  pass off our experience as something magical, even when we know better.  

The choices remain the same: Be hopeful. Build a ladder and reach down. Stay in touch with those closest. Do right by others. Believe in Love.

So those of us who make stuff from almost nothing but sweat and blood - writers, musicians, artists - get to spread our reach a little bit farther than those who don't. 

It's important work we'll all do until they touch a match to our pyre. 

Play the music that tells the tale of who we are and why. 

Happy Birthday, halfway between yours and mine,

Deb

Stuffed cusspot

I spent this glorious morning updating the dirty threads inventory, here and here. 

Then this little devil crossed my radar.

Before one of the demon cat posse decides that this is a new toy, I've decided to let it out into the world of usefulness. $65 includes postage anywhere in the US.

There are four full skeins of Dirty Threads in the bottom. I have topped it off with hand-dyed scraps until it feels like a ripe avocado. You know the kind- use it today or tomorrow at the latest. I chose the scraps with an eye toward variety.

The cusspot itself is crocheted from Lily Sugar & Cream cotton thread and then hand-dyed with my mix of Procion MS dyes. Once you empty it out, it can be a great thread and scrap catcher.

You can put loose change in them. All manner of little things that shouldn't be left wandering around.

I have dipped them in a water and acrylic medium sauce, shaped them, and then allowed to dry hard.  Hung one up to be a birdnest but had no tenants. 

 

The original is now stuffed with cotton and catnip leaves and sewn shut. I think I want it back. And I still have a half cone of that thread just waiting for a frosty day.

Commiting

 

I cut this one roughly in half. There was too much going on to use it whole. Still not sure what direction the story will be taking. 

Hating some of it and being wonderstruck by other parts reminded me of the earliest stages of one of my favorite, most successful pieces, Blue Wave.

Created in a time of turmoil, I remember so many times when I'd pick it up to work on it and say "What the fuck?" as if elves came in at night and messed with it. I was ambivalent to the very end, and then I fell in love.  

I've been studying the process pictures and remembering how much depended on being open to changing directions, staying in the moment, and not settling for anything less than Wow with every session.  

Most importantly not allowing whole cloth to dictate the story. Others must come into play. 

I was in the stitching chair from 10 to noon waiting for the Xfinity guy to come and make a miracle or two and I've already messed up by spending too much time stitching on it when I haven't spent a minute on composition. 

Tiny Gingher storks to the rescue. 

Time to clear the design wall and dump over the River basket.

Shop keeping

Here and there. 

I've also done some over-dyeing today and will be adding new sets in a day or so.