handstories

janie

    Janie is on my mind, this is her birthday month.  She was my first sewing "sister".  Over twenty years ago, her husband frequented the bookstore I worked at.   I would hold their baby while he shopped, eventually he introduced us.  She offered me a job at the school where she worked.  We became co-teachers, friends, sisters.   We gardened (well, she gardened, I watched), shared books, canned, and walked together.  We shared Solstice, Christmas, New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Day dinners (she was a wonderful cook).  We would drink too much, laugh too loud and shout stories that made our husbands' eyes roll.  She taught me to love orange, was working on yellow, and she brought me back to the joy of stitching by hand.    

    We stitched Harriet Tubman, garden, baby, autumn leaf and pumpkin quilts, and many more, including the "Tree Spirits" quilt that she made for K and I.  In the middle of making it, K and I were having problems, so she began to fashion an axe to place into his tree, fortunately, for us and the tree, we worked things out. 

    She hated most machines- answering, bank, and sewing machines (though she was glad I owned one now and then), stitched everything by hand, including clothes.  She bought a pair of rose colored glasses, to try and make the world how she wanted it to be.  She was passionate, a great storyteller, and one of the most creative people I'll ever know.   It's been almost thirteen years since she died,  she was 42.   She would have loved this community (although she would have had to learn to use a computer "machine").

    Above are a few things I have of hers- a pincushion, thimble, and her sewing table.  The dents and pricks on the edge of the table are where she would stick all of her needles, threaded with the colors in her imaginings, readying themselves for her cloths.

    

    A part of her "Tree Spirits" quilt, 1995.  If you enlarge the photo you might be able to see tiny faces on some of the dancing leaves.

a free-form balancing act

    Well, I've "frankenstitched" two areas, where I sliced a bump in the cloth.  The camouflaging seems to be working.  Also, I've continued continuing the appliqued pieces, adding stitch to reach past the edge of each piece...green and yellow lines, ripples, red branching and eye like shapes.  

    While enjoying all of this free-forming, I feel the end is near, and am hoping it all comes together as one piece, not just a bunch of stitched areas.  

    We're trying to find this balance in our family, too.  How to come together as one unit, while allowing room for the free-form dancing.  More often, we resemble a bunch of those cartoon tasmanian devils whirling about careening into each other, rather than waltzing. 

      It doesn't need to feel like a ballroom, with graceful sliding and gliding, but more bouncing would be nice.

discombobulated

[dis-kuhm-bob-yuh-leyt]   to confuse or disconcert 

    For example. . . writing an email to an artist you admire and have purchased from, asking to be put on her mailing list, telling her how much you love her work, enjoy the pieces you have of hers...only to realize a day later that you had the wrong artist in mind.  YES, you love this person's work too, BUT she did not make the work you described and went on about.  FORTUNATELY, this artist is a gracious lovely person, who replied kindly to your apology and corrected compliments.

    Or...trying to get a child, who is stuck in a bush, out, but ending up with your own hair and hat tangled in the branches with your back contorted and your rear-end sticking out, making others...stop, stare and wonder.

    Or...reading grace's blog, where she tells of stitching grasses that are hard to see, so you quickly enlarge it and search, go find your glasses, and search and search.  Only to discover, when you read ALL of the words, this is not the grass stitched piece.

    Or...decide to spin a simple single thick yarn, realizing that you are over-twisting it, and for some crazy reason, decide to keep it consistent, and continue on over-spinning the whole thing, rather than stopping and creating a yarn that is reasonable.

    This is how this week has been, so far.  

    I think I need to stop and read ALL of the directions before proceeding any further.

frankenspots

    Not many words today, just a few stitches from the FrankenStitch class.  I feel like a spider who can't spin fast enough.  Wishing for a wider web to capture all of the ideas and inspirations that arlee is sharing.

                    

heart gifts

     I posted this about six months ago.   It was a gift for a clothmate in the SEW community.  Many of us sent hearts to her, hearts carrying love and wishes for wellness.   Yesterday she passed away.

    And it's still true that I didn't meet her, have no idea what she looked like, whether she had children, or a cat.....I just know that she always had sweet kind words for the rest of us, liked purple and red fabrics, and wove a wonderful jacket with two cranes on the back- touching wing tips and beaks.

    And I know that she and this community are a gift in my life... and that this is a loss for all of us that she touched.

    Heart whispers for Herm.

finagling flatness

     fi·na·gle (f-n g l) v. fi·na·gled, fi·na·gling, fi·na·gles Informal. v.tr.1.  to obtain by trickery.

 

 

the sound of knitting

     The rain kept me awake last night, and the relaxing sound of it during the day is making me drowsy.  Pulled this out to work on today.  Something easy and endless.  Started about a year ago, it slowly grows.  There is no pattern or plan.  Mostly linen stitch knitting, and changing colors whenever the mood strikes.   One potential problem, the yarn spun for it is running low.  I knew that would happen, and I have a few more batts that can be spun for it.  The problem is that my spinning has improved, and it may be difficult to recreate the soft looseness.  How to un-train yourself?

    This possibly-a-shawl was begun on a trip to Rhode Island, visiting my sister.  We went to a beautiful inn on the coast.  Lovely room, amazing food, and a great couch.  While sitting on that couch, I pulled this out and started to knit.  From across the room, with her back to me, she said, "You're knitting, aren't you?".  

    "How did you know?"

            "Your breathing changed."

toddling along

    This has been a week of creating curriculum ideas for "flight", "cowgirls/cowboys", and putting together a  play about bats.   With little time and light (does anyone else find it very difficult to stitch in the evening?), there have only been baby steps in handwork. 

    Above, practicing the latest stitch from the Frankenstitch class.  

    Rigging up a way to take the spun yarn off of the spindle and on to the niddy-noddy.  Good use of that hole in the end of the box, I thought.

    And a little continuing on "They're welcome.". 

   

    And a little frustration at the wobbliness of this.  I think my tension was too tight in stitching the words...

    I can't figure out how to fix it, but I can tell you 35 uses for a cowgirl's bandana and that if it weren't for bats, we'd have no bananas.

 

weight & light

    A paperweight from a trip to Italy with my sister a couple of years ago.

   Memories of Venice, wandering and winding through streets.  

    Knowing we couldn't get too lost, it is an island after all.

     It is one of my favorite things.  When things seem too much, too dark, too black and white and sharp.  

    I hold it up to the window...and look at things differently.

freshly picked veggies

  "Summer Squash"

     "Golden Cider"  

                             "Honeycrisp" 

    In the same order... 

    All from Laigrai's beautiful autumn offerings of "Vegetable Carded Batts", inspired by a trip to the farmers market.  Just the thing to spin as the days darken and a crispness creeps into the air.

    I find myself slowing down, in body and in mind...just need a cave to crawl into for a long deep sleep.