handstories

Breathing room

    Still playing with the shiny new fabric.  Paired here with Deb and Tina's colors.

    These days the noisy jay fights for territory with these two.

    They sit outside my window yelling at the world, too.

    Twinkle also wrestles for space.

    Dentist appointment yesterday.  All kinds of too much.  (I talked about some of my teeth issues here.)  First the driving, something I rarely do these days.  Half an hour there, forty-five minutes back- some traffic lights were out from the wind, stop and go freeways, a few "PEOPLE!" exclamations were flung (and maybe a couple of other words).

    Approaching the dentist office, which is just off of a strip kind of a road, there were a couple of women crossing the street.  Women who make their livings walking the strip.  One was wearing a mask.  A new meaning for the term "safe sex".  The other woman made me do a double take.  She had no pants on.  A top, a jacket, and a thong.  She must have been cold in the wind.

    At the dentist- they all are very nice, but too many interactions, too many questions, "Do you want x-rays this time?"  "Fluoride?"  "Polishing?"...  I heard myself saying no to everything.  I just wanted out.  She did talk me into the x-rays, but I drew a line and refused to get the full panel one.  The regular x-ray led to discovering an issue, something needs replaced.  "Do I have to think about it today?"  No.  They didn't push.  They realized I had reached my limit.

    I was so glad to get home and stitch...breathe.  This piece, with its Threadcrumb moon, helped to center things again.

"Elsewhere"

Here

    Deb and Tina's cloths melting together with one of the indigo moons from last summer's vat.  A new thing with the rings, instead of just stitching.  Trying to make them more of the story, their own stories, too.  A bit fiddly, but still enjoyable, especially playing with bias possibilities and limits.

    These rings of color and light make me think of a rainbow. Dismantled and reconstructed at the same time.

    There was rain yesterday, all day, the kind that makes you think "monsoon season".  We didn't mind.  We worked quietly at our own things.  Quiet except for the Stellar Jay that yelled outside the window most of the afternoon.  Complaining about the rain, I think.

    Two of the rings are from new cloths.  It's been a long time since I was in a fabric store.  It was kind of like a visit to a candy shop- beautiful and overwhelming.  I bought a few fat quarters, which may have been chosen partly for their selvedge messages.  I used to be excited by the color dots on the edges, but now there are whole thoughts!

"Here We Are"

Considerations

"Moon Life"

    There were some days with family in Oregon this week.  So much storytelling happens when we're together.  My brother is great at the "gotcha" ones, just like Dad was.  There was a comforting happy comment from K, who said that if something ever happens to me, he'll need to spend more time with my sister, "I love watching the two of you, you're so much alike, and so funny together!"  We are a funny group.  At least we think so.

 

    I stitched myself into a starry corner with this piece, it seemed there were never going to be enough stars to fill the space I wanted covered.  I was seeing stars in the end.

 

"Sky Spells"

    There is no memory of where the textured cloth at the top came from.  It's silk, I think.  Is it considered seersucker?  I think the indigo was my doing.  So much is lost in (or out of) my head anymore.   

    I want to learn how to talk about making more, and need to, as I've just committed to doing it for a zoom hour next March.  My reaction to the request was the usual:  Flattered, sure that I didn't have anything worth sharing and couldn't possibly, panic, wondering how to graciously say "No, thank you", wishing that I could pull myself together to do such things... and on and on.  All of the usual well-practiced and repeated, fear-based things.

    The only thing that I did differently was to recognize that there is a middle place between yes and no, besides fear...  Maybe.  Possibly.

    My reply held questions, concerns, and a confession to never having done this before and not being sure how.  The response was warm and reassuring.  Realizing that I am tired of saying no out of fear, I wrote right back with a shaky "Yes."

    There is a notebook, once used for Moon's "Spanish 1, Ms. Perez, P-3" class, abandoned a few pages in, that now also has the word "Zoom" written on it.  It's where things that might be of interest to other stitchers are being written down as I work.  "Jude" and "The Circle Community" are a few of the first words.  

    Friends and therapist have reassured, "Just tell your stories..."

"In Her Dreams"

Something is more than Nothing

    After finishing the piece in my last post (Which I loved making, but it did require a lot of focus as bigger more involved things do.), I relaxed with these three tree tokens yesterday.  I really was thinking of birds but didn't have the wherewithal to figure out how to stitch them, so I gave them bird meaning names- Byrd, Quetzal, and Mavis.

    Mavis was the name of a woman in my hometown.  She wore baggy dresses, a big, long coat with drooping pockets, and bright lipstick.  We would see her out walking her little dog while we waited at the bus stop.  She was somewhere else in her mind.  Often talking to herself or yelling something we didn't understand.   I wonder what her story was?  

Yellowstone Falls via Blue, who facetimed me from a gas station where he had cell service finally.  Tonight they're in a yurt in Bryce Canyon.

    So, I guess tea painting became a thing for me.  Light brown from chamomile and yellow lime-green tea were added.  More flavors may be needed.

    Today has been a slow lazy one.  I did clean a bit of the bathroom.  K and I realize that we've become quite lax in doing what used to be the boys' chores.  Now that they're gone, all of those half-assed jobs that they did at cleaning every week are missed!

    Today a moon start.  Tomorrow, maybe more.  Happy weekend!

Bubbling

        This piece- I loved working on it.  It felt full and rich before any of the stitching began, Deb's magic.  Three different cloths dyed by her- loose cotton, linen, and I'm guessing a former sheet.  Love how they flow together, and with an indigo moon from last summer.

    Today is Blue's 24th birthday.  He's somewhere between The Badlands and Yellowstone.  Photos come now and then when there is reception.  Holding my breath that he'll be able to call sometime today.

 

    When I stopped stitching, it felt like it was floating. 

 

    The morning tea made the circle (Super Irish Breakfast).  The green spots were from the afternoon's pomegranate.  It splashed pink, but dried green.  The thread was in the same tea and stayed pink.  I wonder about the alchemy of this.  

    Ate the last two Christmas cookies from the freezer in lieu of a cake with Blue.  Felt a little sad-mama-sorry for myself and happy that he's on an adventure, just as he should be.  That's him in the photo, one week old on my first Mother's Day.  I remember thinking, "What have I done?"  And being surprised that he was still there every time I caught a glimpse of him.  "There's a baby here." I said over and over.

    Gosh, I miss him.

"The Sparkling Symphony of it All"

Giddyup

"Songs of Everything"

    The other day, there was a phone call with Mom.  The best calls are when we share stories, especially when she shares old ones.  Most of my family are good tellers, we all have a good sense of humor, mostly sarcastic.  Not everyone's cup of tea.  It took K. a while to get us, and to learn how to give it back.

    I told her about Blue's upcoming camping/road trip with buddies.  They'll be traveling between Michigan and Yellowstone.

    "Do you remember when we went?" she asked.

    All I remember are the photos, I was two, my brother was six months.  It was a trek from Oregon to Montana to visit my great grandparents on their ranch.  Nick and Marion Monte.  There is a formal photo of them in the album, a stern looking couple, him in a bow tie and white cowboy hat.

 

(An experiment in tiny living.)

    I'm not sure how our conversation took a turn to hitchhiking stories.  Remembering how Dad would pick up most anyone he saw on the roadside, and how distressed I was when he would tell the person to get in the back with us kids.  Worrying that I would be the first to go if the guy was a wandering murderer.

    I confessed my two hitching stories to Mom.  During college summers, K and I would take innertubes down the Deschutes River.  Dropping the tubes off at a starting point, we would drive the car five or so miles up the river and park it, and then walk back to the tubes, looking for and often getting a ride from a kind stranger.

    The other was in Colorado.  A summer high school church camp.  With the afternoon off, four of us girls walked several miles down into town.  The return trip was not so pleasant.  It was hot and uphill.  Convincing four conservative church girls to hitchhike wasn't easy, but I did it with some fast talking, "If a man stops, there are four of us.  Together we can take him!  We just have to make sure that there are handles inside the doors, and I'll sit behind the driver.  If he tries anything, I'll grab him around the neck."  A very nice guy stopped. No strangling on my part was required.

"Moon Kept Their Stories"

    And then Mom shared a couple of her stories... "And here's the best one...," she said, "It was on the Yellowstone/Montana trip.  We picked up a guy somewhere along the way.  He rode in the back with you kids.  We stopped at a bar that was famous for its long bar and saddles for barstools.  Dad and I really wanted to check it out and the hitchhiker said that he wanted to nap, so he stayed with you kids while we went in and saddled up for a drink!"

    Can you imagine?

    I think that I'm glad that I don't remember that trip!

    Sometimes everything looks the same but feels quite different.

Week in Review ***

(*** Friends of ours eat all of their leftovers on the weekends, they call it "Week in Review".)

"Circles Held Her"

    Unexpectedly, the houses are still coming.  I want to learn some photo collage skills, to create a village of these stories of home for myself.

    The evening birds seem much more contented than the morning ones.  More songlike, rather than desperate "Let's get going!" tweets.  Remembering the mornings of hungry little ones and the rush to get everyone everything and out the door on time.

    LOTS of Jude's thread beads happening.

    Sometimes I end up feeling dotty from them.  Deb's thread and cloth must have had the same dye recipe, and Tina's yellow framing cloth is the icing on the cake.

    I've been listening to books from the library while I stitch these days.  Finished a lovely middle reader Caribbean fairy-sea-tale yesterday, A Comb of Wishes, and am now partway into Cloud Cuckoo Land.  What a change in required concentration level!

    A boat stitched while thinking of dearest friend who is out at sea for the next couple of weeks.  She leads a life of adventure with new experiences and people at every turn- a glittering existence.  In my quiet lamp lit corner, I sometimes wonder how we found and held onto each other over the last twenty plus years?

    Walking through Seattle in springtime, it's hard to remember to watch where you're going.  I'm often tripping over the sidewalk cracks or getting dizzy from craning my neck to the sky and tree tops.

    On Earth Day, someone on Instagram posted their visit to Walden's Pond.  I was there 24 years ago last January with K., visiting my sister, and six months pregnant with Blue.  The pond was frozen over.  I stepped out onto the ice so that I could say that I was on Walden's Pond.  K and my sister's guy stood on shore shouting at me to, "Bring the baby back on land!"

"Itzel" Mayan for "rainbow".

    Wishing you all a colorful week of glittery things.

Returning to rhythm

    Just when I thought that I was finding a rhythm in keeping up here and there, life took a busy turn for some days.

    One tiny tree was squeezed in.

    Some moon gazing with a friend.

    After not picking up a needle for a few days, it felt a bit awkward, had to find the rhythm of that again, too.

 

 

    Ok, back to it...

Contentment

    That tiny Deb scrap on the bottom left was the dangling bit left over from the house in the last post, it perfectly.  Sometimes it's all about making the bases- putting cloth together, those seams with Jude's glue stitches.  It got this far and then wandered away...

    Not a lot of focus this week, distracted, tired from the crazy dreams/nightmares.  Trying to keep a menagerie of creatures in a basket while trying to find my way home, but ending up lost in a mall...

    Sometimes making Jude's thread beads with Deb's threads can happily fill a day.

    I wake up not being sure of anything and ok with that. 

    Last night's... Taking a nap with groceries while Moon had a Harry Potter party in the next room and a neighbor was trying to wake me up so that he could read me a poem that he'd written.

    After going to the grocery store this morning and forgetting the very first thing on the list, I called the neighbors to see if they had the missing chickpeas?  They did!  (When I went over to get them, I shared the dream and offered to listen to any poems he might write.  He had a good laugh over the idea.

    There was a different house and roof here, and other stars, too.  After a couple of hours of stitching, it just wasn't right.  So, it was all pulled out and replaced with some of Tina's deep purple and topped with Deb's dream cloth.  The top left corner was sun-printed with seed beads. Stars, dots and sparkles are still going...

    Sometimes I have no idea what's going on or where things are going.  It's really nice to be at ease with that...most of the time.

Stories with a Stranger

    With an eyelet from Deb's dyeing under a blue moon by Tina, I started a new home cloth.

    I had a fun phone conversation yesterday.  There is a credit card that I never use, that K. wants us to start using.  The problem is that because I never use it, I had never changed the incorrect name on it.  I told K. that I would need to go to the store it was issued through.  A store that we rarely go to now. 

    "No you don't, just call the 800 number on the back of it."

So, yesterday I finally called.  After a couple of tries to choose the right number, to get to the right department, a pleasant southern woman answered, "Hello, my name is S.  How are you doing today?"

    "Good.  How are you?"

    "Fine.  Thank you for asking!  Let me verify some information...  What is the name as it appears on the card?"

    Answered.

    "Here's a security question... What is your favorite pet?"

    "My favorite pet?  I've only had cats..."

    No.

    A specific cat?  "Twinkle? Jenny?  Jake?  Mittens?  Midnight?..."

    No.  No.  No.  No.  "It starts with a B..."

    "A 'B'?!?"  Bird?  Bat?  Buffalo???

 

    "Oh, wait a minute!  I clicked on the wrong name..."

    "Was it my husband's?  K....?"

    "Yes, sorry about that..."

    "Did he say Buffy?!?"

    "Yes."

    "Oh, Buffy...poor old thing!  She's dead."

    "Oh, I'm sorry!"

    "No, she's long gone and was a crazy dog that he had back in high school.  A few weeks after K. left for college, his mother called me up in hysterics, saying that K's dad had accidently backed the car up over Buffy.  When he went to try to help her, she bit him and died.  His mom called me because she was afraid that she would start laughing if she called K.  She couldn't stand Buffy.  That was fall of 1980..."

    "Oh, my!" said S. and then had a revelation of her own, "1980, that was the year that my dad came out..."

    "We have some stories to share!" I said.  She agreed.  We went on for a minute, and then she remembered she had a job to do... 

    Clearly, I had verified who both K and I were, so she moved on to another kind of question, but still one that I wasn't sure of the answer to.  "Is it ______?"  Clearly it wasn't.  "Maybe I should just tell you what my question is?  Maybe none of this matters?  How do I change the name on my card?"

    "You need to go to the store where it was issued."

    "I knew it!  I was right!  K. said I needed to call you, but I was right!"

    "Of course, you were!"

    The whole conversation was very fast, only a few minutes, but we were both laughing hard by the end. 

    This piece was fun, too.

"She Remembered Her Song"