handstories

polar bears in the cold blue light

    Carla's class had us drawing polar bear shapes.  I chose this roaring mama.

    Which led to cloth (the background piece is another of Blandina's creations).

    Cut freehand from silk, she seems a distant relation to one of Jude's beasts that I love so much.  She fits perfectly into the cold weather we're having around here.

    We were back to school today, and while happy to see the children, thoughts of getting back to stitching her filled in the gaps of the day.  Thankfully, there are still some stars to stitch, because I'm a little in love.  

    And she reminds me of years ago, nine-months pregnant, working with first and second graders.  We were studying the Arctics and getting ready for a show.  One Friday I was teaching the kids the dance moves to "Go Greased Penguins" (sung to the tune of "Go Greased Lightning" from Grease), Janie wandered by and saw my Big belly bouncing around and shouted at me.  I told her I was going to dance that baby out! 

    Later that day a group of children and I rewrote "Goodnight, Irene."  Connie called me on Sunday night asking for the words to the song, just in case. . .  "He's never coming out!" I told her.  She was right, he came the next day, and I took baby Blue to the show a week later.  

    Janie and Connie are both gone now, but these memories keep me warm.

    "Arctics Goodnight" (sung to the tune of "Goodnight, Irene")

        Reindeer dream by the trees, snowy owls in their nests,

        Arctic foxes doze in their dens, and hares think burrows are best.

        Seals sleep next to the ocean, polar bears snooze in their caves,

        Walruses rest on the ice cold ice, and puffins dream on the waves.

           Arctics goodnight, Arctics goodnight

           Goodnight Arctics, Goodnight Arctics

           I’ll see you in my dreams…

tonight's plan for tomorrow

    A blue square was appliquéd over one of the spots, after taking off any "salvageable" scraps of the old one. They've been basted down and will be filled in with other scraps. 

    Today a student reluctantly and successfully let me teach him division, and then later, because he doesn't want anyone to get too close, set about to disrupt our group's science discussion and to piss me off, he was successful at both. Another student and I have connected. She's usually late, or absent, her life is chaotic, crowded, and full of need. The school has done everything it knows how to do, and then some, trying to help the children in this family, but they are being lost, one by one. It breaks my heart that things can't be fixed.

    Tomorrow I will try to build a moon and a sun-they were common themes in the units Janie and I taught- Raven bringing the light, the galaxy at Solstice time, fairies dancing by moonlight in the Spring . . . Janie loved the Sun, and me the moon.

    And tomorrow I will see if that boy will let me do division with him again, and tomorrow I will try not to yell, and tomorrow I will hold that girl's hand whenever possible, and tomorrow I will try not to feel hopeless.

mendings

    Jude put out an invitation to join her in a Mending Bee.  There's plenty here that could do with a stitch or two, but I keep thinking of this quilt.  It was made for and with Janie's class the year before I started teaching with her.  I remember watching them dye the fabrics from across the playground.  It lived in the classroom- her's, then our's, then her's again.  Used for warmth, hideouts, picnics, costumes, etc.  When she died I scooped it up and brought it home, for mending and keeping.   That was almost eighteen years ago.

    The twelve muslin squares are all in shreds.  

    Janie's story is very big, most of it good and brilliant, but her last year was complicated and hard, for her and for those around her, not because she was dying, because she wasn't.  It was a brain aneurysm that took her suddenly, actually a few of them, over a couple of weeks.  I've always wondered if she imploded from the craziness of those last pieces of time?  Something had to give.

    So, yesterday, I sat with some of the story, as much as I could bear.  Some things are not mendable.

    But this is.  I started a list of memories to mend it with- ravens, wolves, spiders, Harriet Tubman, Jake & Honeybunch, Baba Yaga, peach orange marmalade, the ranch trip, solstices, poems, beads, books, sashaying, loud laughing, singing, stars, stitching, and more- all the things I want to hold on to.

Art (London three)

    "Making Traces" by  G. Richter, Tate Modern

      The boys kept saying, "Enough art!"  I kept saying, "Just a little more…," dragging them along to the next room.

    "Proserpine" by D. G. Rossetti, Tate Britain

    I have long loved the blue of this dress.  I do have a thing for the Pre-Raphaelite paintings. 

    "The Lady of Shalott" by J. W. Waterhouse, Tate Britain

    The details in the blanket tell their own story.

    I tried to keep the boys entertained by making up captions for some of the art works . . .

   

    "Where did my clothes go?  I left them right here!"

    "Alleluia" by T.C. Gotch, Tate Britain

    This one made me smile, kind of Norman Rockwellish from 1886.

    "The Forest" by P. Webb, Victoria & Albert Museum  (sorry for the small photo-it was dimly lit, high and long)

    I was so happy to walk into the tapestry room and discover this piece.  Long ago, Janie and I admired it in a book.  I was in the middle of a needlepointing a pillow of the raven for her, when she died.  It's been sitting in a bag in the closet for the last 17 years.  Maybe I'll finish it, now that there are new memories to stitch into it. 

    Thimbles at the Victoria & Albert.

    One of the things I love about the museums is how beautiful the buildings are all on their own.  The photo above was in the cafe of the Victoria & Albert . . . quite the setting for my egg salad sandwich!

    The walls and ceilings-so rich with color and design.

    Victoria & Albert Museum

    Chihuly, wherever I go.

    "Sunflowers" by V. van Gogh, National Gallery

    More thoughts of Janie here.  Van Gogh's sunflowers were a favorite of hers.  She loved sunflowers, planted them every year-agreeing with his idea that they are a symbol of hope and friendship.

    I wish that she could have seen them up close.

    During this trip, I was struck with the realization of how many others travel along with you-in memories and associations.

the symmetry of time

    Working on the last strip for "Iowa".  

    It was over twenty-five years ago when Janie introduced me to the friend that "Iowa" is for.  I was in my late twenties, my friend was around fifty.  She was the director/founder of the school that Janie worked at, and where I would work for the next 23 years.  I found her to be smart, intimidating, and too authoritative, but I liked her.  She thought I was smart, down to earth, and had problems with authority, but she liked me.  We're both Irish, we both liked that.  Over the years we had our ups and downs, me saying no to her, her saying I was stirring things up and maybe I should go, but there was always mutual respect.  After Janie died, we found a new piece in our relationship, friendship.  It has grown over the many seasons, especially after she stepped down from heading the school.

    Yesterday we talked about old times, as we often do.  She reminisced about my being down to earth, smart, and how great it was when I would stand up to authority.  I shared my admiration for her brilliance, and appreciation for how she always took charge of situations and remained in control of things.

    It's swell how time balances things out.

monday memories: janie

(Quilts by Janie Hart 1956-1999)

    Thoughts of Janie filled the feverish night before last.  (I wrote about her here, there's also a "janie" category to click on below if you wonder more).   A pounding headache above my left ear woke me at 3am, drumming out a heartbeat rhythm.  I thought of her, how her death began with a horrible headache.  "I felt like someone had hit me in the head with a cast iron skillet."  It was a brain aneurysm.   She died two weeks later.  

    So, on the couch, head hammering, remembering Janie.  In the morning I realized it was the day before her birthday, and pulled out these two quilts by her.

    This was her gift to K and I, Christmas 1996.  It came wrapped around a sweet baby doll.   It was for us to "practice" with, since I was a few months pregnant.  A few months later, when that pregnancy ended, she drove right over, took away all of the baby things I didn't want to look at, and brought over ice cream and quilting books from the library.

    Here is the back.  She loved spiders- Anansi the trickster, Raven and Coyote, too.  

    This was the baby quilt Janie made for baby Blue in 1998.  Looking at the fabrics . . . She loved sunflowers, all flowers, would spend months planning her garden each year.  The small flower print is leftovers from a dress she made for her baby girl, and the star & moon printed pieces are scraps from a dress I made, and wore a lot when we were teaching together.  It was one of the many slow stitchings done in her sewing room (her slow was twice as fast as mine).

    Janie was so very right-brained.  Her "logic" followed whatever feeling she was having at the moment, and things were very light and dark for her.  It made for some crazy conversations, of trying to understand where she was heading, but I think it is what allowed her creative brilliance to shine through.   

    The last thought, as I waited for the aspirin to ease the thumping, was, "Well, if part of my brain is breaking, at least it's on the left side."

    Happy birthday, Janie.  I know you're somewhere basking in sunshine.

stitches in & out & in . . . & cake!

    That lone heart has been bugging me.  I took out the blanket stitched border, replaced it with a quieter running stitch, and am now covering it in criss-crosses.  I don't know . . .  I used to tell Janie, when she wasn't happy with how a quilt was going, "Just keep stitching, just stitch it out."  We'll see . . .

    Meanwhile . . . I am making a cake!              

    The frosting was sliding a little, so I'm taking a break to let it cool some more.  Moon's birthday is tomorrow.  I make pies.  I order cakes.  You can have whichever you like for your birthday, but that's how it is.   Until we went to a neighbor's birthday last week, and Moon tasted that cake.  "Please?!"  She promised it was fool-proof.  So far so good, but again . . . we'll see. 

remembering iowa

    I have no memories of Iowa.  I'm not even sure if I ever drove through it during the years of cross-countrying.   But, one of my closest friends has plenty of memories to share.  She grew up on a farm in Iowa in the late 1930-50's.  

    Yesterday we walked to a little gallery, to see a couple of quilts.  I felt like she was looking for something in them.    Later, I remembered that during the 90's, a time when she had gone back to Iowa for an auction at her mother's uncle's farm.  

    One of the many things she returned with was this old suitcase, full of scraps of old dresses from the 1940's, some quilt piecings, part of a blouse with a pocket and button holes.

    And this funny little cloth printed with a windmill and it's countryside, with the tiniest neatest embroidery stitches. 

    She had given this suitcase of scraps to Janie, I watched it happen, and sighed a little with longing.  A few years later, sorting through Janie's things, after she died, I found the case, and took it home.  It was put in a closet for some other day.

    And yesterday, fourteen years later, I remembered it, went digging, and found it in the deepest darkest corner.  

    I hope I can create some of the something that she was searching for, maybe it will be a memory holder.  Memories of Iowa, and Janie (who introduced us), and of our own dear friendship.

a bit better

    Look at all of that clear space!  I'd almost forgotten that the table top was blue.  Yes, there's still all of those little bowls to go through and that stack of papers.  Maybe tomorrow.    

    Here's a mini tour of some of the treasures:  Starting on the left, just to the right of that jar full of left over bits for spinning- A Baba Yaga doll made by my long gone friend, a little doll by Cathy Cullis named "Story", feathers from dru, a postcard from Beverly Cleary and a Mr. Rogers card from my sister (when you open it you hear him singing).  Up above is jude's moon faced rabbit and Renee de Montaigne's encaustic painting of "Spring in Granada".

    An exchange with deanna, in which we wondered if her missing scissors went through her portal, reminded me of a story my Grandma Blanche told me.

    When she was first married, they lived in a cabin in the woods, with a wooden crate nailed to the wall for a shelf.  Things would disappear- a spoon, a knife, a tool, etc...  Where could they have gone in this tiny shack of a place?  One day, unable to stand the sight of the same four walls for another minute, she shouted to her husband, "I need a change!  Pull that crate off the wall and nail it to that one!"  And so he pried the crate off, surprising a rat.  A pack rat, that lived in a hole in the wall behind the crate, surrounded by all of its treasures- a spoon, a knife, a tool, etc...

 

post script

    Firstly, thank you to all of the "sewing sisters" for the very sweet comments on the "janie" post.  

    And one more thing about this "Tree Spirits" quilt by Janie.  I have been looking for it for several years.  I had taken a few quilts to school to show a class, brought them back home, and "poof" they disappeared.  Over the years I have dug through the closets, basement, under the bed...couldn't find them.  After writing the post about her, I said out loud, "I need a photo of the tree quilt.  Where is it?".   And suddenly, after years, I knew.  Went directly to the basement, to the first pile of boxes, and there they were, in a big white box labeled "QUILTS".  Janie was always very organized.  I should have known to ask her.

Dancing leaves...

   

and her totem, Raven...