Casting about

 I met a writer/editor friend for lunch at a new-to-me Mexican joint. Em was one of the first people to offer some tough constructive criticism of my writing. We could do that for each other when needed. So, we talked about her upcoming publications. I had long-hand notes scribbled on junk mail while I waited in the parking lot for her.

 Freshly cooked (by anyone but me) food is such a novelty, I'm ashamed to say. Lately making a few baked potatoes to decorate is a big kitchen adventure. I ruined a batch of brownies by not checking to see if the oil had expired until after I used it. Very.   

In the afternoon, I discovered a new and delightful way to fritter away time. Casting your novel. Never a good idea, but I'm in the mood for running bad ones.  

I put the rest of this post where it belongs. Here

Dirty thread in the sun

 Filling an order this morning required a hard inventory. Instead of coming up short, I found a set that had never been named or photographed. It happens.

Which will become its name, "It Happens" and if someone doesn't snap it up in the next few days, my stash is seriously low on greens and blues. And that mystery color on the right might have a future in a stitch spell sooner than later.

This is the glorious view from the Birthday Sewing chair. It's no wonder the cats gather here. I need plants to increase the oxygen for all of us. 

All that clutter on the table will be finding other places over the next few days. That dresser on the left is mostly empty, so sorting, trashing, and stowing.

The first project at the machine will be a couple of summer schmattas if I can find enough garment-appropriate cloth in the closet. I'm not building acres of cloth from scraps for dressmaking this time. 

I treated myself to a new bag. Been hauling the Black Hole of Calcutta around forever and was getting tired of the deflated motorcycle jacket look. It held up, so I'm retiring it to the closet for a well-earned vacation. I'm thinking the latest heart patch will go perfectly on the rather blank backside of this new one. Give it some pizzazz. 

A visitor

Change up! 

Jake had things to do down this way so he dropped Charlie off to spend the day with me and some old friends.

When my boys were in school, I think they were the only kids I knew who got sick on a Friday afternoon.

They would spend the weekend languishing under my care (non-stop cartoons, Tylenol, and chicken noodle soup) to perk up in time to get to school come Monday. Charlie came home from school on Friday with a mild fever and feeling punk. His father's son.

The plan was for a low-key day. Fine by me in this shitty weather. He helped me swing the work table up against the wall clearing space for floor play.  After an hour or so of conversation, we decided to watch a Studio Ghibli film together.  

He is the perfect age to get lost in these sweet, charming animated films, most from the early 2000s. So different from the frenetic games and cartoons he usually watches, he settles in and is spellbound, and with good reason. With themes of myth, magic, family, honor, and the need to respect nature, the artwork, tender-hearted stories, and glimpses of Japanese culture make for that "been to another world" feeling - thanks to the genius of director Hayao Miyazaki.

The first one we saw was "Spirited Away" which won the award for Best Animated Feature in 2001. Brand new to the family, Camilla was still not quite walking from whatever trauma she sustained when she was abandoned. She lay content in Charlie's arms for the whole two hours of the film. Her little nose was still bruised in this shot from Jan 2022.

After the movie was over today, Charlie declared he'd like to try having tea. Camilla assisted while we waited for the kettle to boil.

Intent

 

The lettering practice went badly last night. But I spent a lot of time just looking at letterforms. Drawing while reclining in bed is not going to give good results. 

I was tired from a late-in-the-day trip to the grocery store. The girl cats are in their beds by dark. Mr. B comes in and jumps on the bed at about 930-10. No sign of him before I fell asleep.

This morning, he didn't report for breakfast. The cat door was open but no one had seen him. This is a creature of dependable habits. He knows when and where breakfast comes from. 

The day devolved into calling for him, worrying, and looking out the streetside windows. My unspoken fear is that cats get taken by coyotes especially when there are pups to feed in the spring. Overnight our near-freezing temps jumped to sixty with overnight thunderstorms.

 I started this one for distraction, but I kept the curves and lines of the letterforms in mind. 

Just before dark, I went outside to drive around the neighborhood looking for corpses. Unlocked my car to have this devil pop up from behind the driver's seat where he spent the whole night.  He loves to hop into the car before I can get out. Last night I stopped at the top of the driveway to scatter birdseed and didn't see him sneak aboard. 

How these hairy people will run your life.

He's mad because I won't let him out now to be a cat.

Something old reimagined

I tried replicating the Santa's Sleigh font. It sure doesn't come naturally, pen on paper, that is. I was test-driving my text stitch here using a crewel needle and the full six strands of DMC, doubled. To be fair, the project will have larger size letters. Twice this. Still, it fell clunky and a colossal waste of thread. 

I'll be happier if I lay the text out with my own font (the top photo) - a bastardized slab serif instead of trying to be letter true to Santa's Sleigh. 

Back in the day, I was a font whore.  Snapping up freebies from sketchy warez websites at every opportunity. Probably caught computer cooties more than once that way. 

Then I fell in love with one that had to be purchased. With MONEY. It's called Decoracha. You can see the charm. I think at the time it was only available commercially and for Mac users. I got over it but will refer to certain characteristics of it in my own font whenever spacing calls for flexibility.  I need to sit with a sketch pad and just draw letters for a while before I even think of stitching anything.

Grubbing around in the cloth closet, I found the perfect piece for the project. It's lightweight contemporary linen so I know it is young and strong, still, I'm going to back it with another layer because it's a big project that's going to take a lot of handling. 

This linen was most likely a table mopper. I like the light linen for that because it is as absorbent as paper towels. Then there was some Soft Scrub discharging. I can tell by the blue halos. 

The whole piece of cloth has a mystery touch that suits my purpose of the spell.  

I'm going to do all of this the hard way, starting with ironing a grid into the cloth. 

Letters to words, to sentences. 

All of it's the driving wheel of the writing train. 

You never know what

minutes are going to matter.