handstories

but i knocked on wood . . .

    A couple of days ago,  I commented (while knocking on wood) on how many people have been sick lately.  Two hours later I was in bed- aching and head pounding.

    Yesterday was spent on the couch with Twinkle (the cat) and going to bed five hours early.

    Today the fever has broken and the pounding has stopped.  I was even able to finish up the "Language Land" play for fifth grade (adding in the missing mayhem that they felt was lacking from the first draft).  A difficult task, not because of the fever, but because of my own personal struggle with grammar and punctuation.  Yes, I was an English and Theater major- for all the good it did.

    A conversation with K, thirty years ago, who was proof-reading one of my college papers...

"Why did you put a comma here?"

                      "I don’t know, I hadn’t used one in a while?"

"Punctuation is not an art form!  You don’t use it to make things pretty!"

    Maybe I'll create my own forms of punctuation on this cloth? 

in the laboratory

    Experimenting with more of that luscious hands+notions fiber.  

    In the last post you can see that the colors were put through the carder mixed willy-nilly.  This time I separated the colors and carded each pile alone.

    There was one more run through the carder, layering each color, one at a time.

    I'm not sure what I thought the result would be?  

    After spinning them up, I can't see that there is much of a difference.  The newest carding/spin is on top.  It does seem a little brighter, the colors not as muddied.  In this gray wet weather it's hard to be sure.  

    Anyhow, it was fun to extend the process/play.  

more process

    Santa was very generous this year- there was a drum carder under the tree !  (Thank you K.)  

    It combs the fibers into batts for spinning.

    The boys and I love cranking the handle & seeing what comes out.

     I feel that I've worked backwards through the process- first learning to knit, then to spin, now carding.  The family joked that a sheep may be in my future . . . I don't think so.  

    There are some things to learn, but being able to hang out with the fibers more, in a new and different way is just great.  While spinning this up, I said outloud to the room, "I love fiber."  There really aren't words for what all kinds of fiber do for me.

 

 

wording

    I do love words . . . how they sound, the shape of them, the feel of swirling them onto paper, what they do- the stories they hold and share.

    The story goes . . . that I desperately wanted to read . . . That my mom told me I would, as soon as I went to school . . . That I came home from the first day of kindergarten crying, because I had not learned to read that day.  I had thought that just walking through the doorway of a classroom would magically make it happen.

    I don't remember that day, but I do remember that we did not learn to read in kindergarten, and that it was often boring and frustrating . . . Wondering how many more groups of pumpkins I was going to have to circle on the math worksheets?   Having to use green paint for snow, because there wasn't any white.  Watching classmates, wondering what they were thinking about, especially the mysterious Perry who sat across from me.  And some day I will rant about the graduation ceremony, which I am still bitter about.

    So, here are more words.  Unlike the daily squares, there are no rules for this cloth.  Just adding a word or more each day.  

    Continuing on in my love fest with words.

2013

    Oh, I have been all over the place and nowhere.  Vacationing in my mind and actions.  

    On New Year's Eve, thinking about . . . how I've missed the daily squares, Hypatia . . . how others seem to be able to choose a focus, a concept, a word . . . how I seem unable to settle on one, unable to commit to anything.  

    Midnight struck, and I grabbed a pen, scribbling what came to mind and stitched.

    New Year's Day we went for a long walk in the neighborhood.  In my path was the branch of a money plant and the "merry" tag.  They were added to the cloth.

    I don't know if it was the late hour, the wine, or what, but I meant to write "home" for the first word.  "hone" is what appeared.  I adjusted it with thread, but later looked it up.

    "hone- to make more acute or effective; improve; perfect: to hone one's skills."

    So, maybe I have something after all.