handstories

practicing polar bears

    Polar bears have been in my thoughts for a few years now, and seem to be growing stronger.  I'm not sure what it's all about.

    The other day, leaving an appointment, there was a sudden urge to walk to a nearby used bookstore that I haven't been to for at least a year.  Walking in the door, past the woman at the register, turning right . . . all of about seven steps . . . there, above a man and cat on the bench, was a polar bear on the cover of a photography book about the Arctic.  Saying an, "Excuse me," to the man and cat, I reached over his head, took it the three steps back to the register, paid the ten dollars for it, and walked out the door two minutes later.

    Yesterday there was some sketching, it's been a while.

    And then some trying with cloth . . . 

    It didn't go as planned, there are all kinds of things to work on, but she's ok for a first go around. 

blue for blues

    Slept wrong last night, bad dreams.  Woke up late, achey and out of sorts.  The usual half hour stitching before leaving for school turned into fifteen.  I was going to just skip it, didn't feel like doing anything, but then saw two little scraps.  It's kind of wonderful how blue cloth and thirty-seven stitches can turn things around.

a touch of red

    I surprised myself with a craving for a touch of red in a couple of this week's stitchings.  Maybe it's the red socks that are in the works?  Maybe it's the dark gray rainy days we've been having?  Maybe I've finally recovered from seeing my mom wearing that red polyester jumpsuit in the 70's?  (No, that vision will be with me for all of time...)

    Whatever the cause, these little marks feel like a bit of a cheery secret.

    These new pieces, with their indigo truffles, sailing trees & waves of dreams, have traveled into the shop today.

going and growing

    After a month at home, Blue flew back to college last night, amongst some very mixed emotions.  It was too short, it was too long...  Last week someone asked if I was going to miss him?  I already do, I miss four, and twelve, and all the years between, before and most of after.  All of the years when he wasn't working so hard at showing that he doesn't need me.  I know he's doing just what he's supposed to be doing, but...sigh...this parenting gig, it's not for the feint of heart.  This week I was really bad at it. 

    Blue and Moon bickered during the last minutes, I tried cajoling, and then bossing the both of them.  As K. drove him off to the airport, I sat down for a cry, and then felt Moon's silence in another room.  I found him in the kitchen, and we cried together, and talked about how hard it is to let someone know how much you care, to be vulnerable.  When Moon wasn't looking, I texted Blue, who then sent Moon some kindness, and it was so welcomed and reciprocated.  (ending my "really bad" streak)

    Late into the night, for comfort and ease, I made more of Jude's paperless pieces.

    This morning, unlike myself, I didn't go to painting class.  Instead I stitched the squares together, snipped them apart, and stitched them again.  I thought about the possibilities of these little pieces.  Wondered about them...about maybe making one a day and then connecting them in a log-cabin sort of way to mark time, with turns now and then.  And I wondered about having calendars made in a log cabin shape...

    And while wandering with thread and thought, went over to Jude's, where she was talking about things...Ideas about grids, how they offer pattern and ease, and how she "sees creative acts as a kind of interruption, or a disturbance, in a regular pattern of what we do."  As I listened over and over, I thought some more about vulnerability and love, and was reminded of a note received long ago from children's author, Beverly Cleary.  Ms. Cleary wrote, "...I agree that painful experiences are not limiting.  Without them, how would we grow?"

    All of this is muddled up in my head and heart today.

red socks (& holes)***

   

    

 

    (The guys would be thrilled with this title, until they discovered it has nothing to do with baseball.)

    Knitting up socks for a birthday gift.  They will be late (as always).  The color- "ruby red," is something very different from my usual blue and gray wheel house.  

    They went to Moon's concert the other night.  Not ideal for knitting in the dark, but I made it work (did I mention they are late?).  The tricky part is that "slip, knit, yarn over, pass over, purl, repeat..." bit that happens over and over, every other row.  Going slow helped to manage the various stitches, but if I stopped (which did happen now and then during the great jazz performances), it was hard to remember which of the two rows I was on.  

    Ever resourceful (really, if you ever get stranded on that desert island , you do want me there), I used my earring to keep track.  

    Much to my mother's dismay, I have three holes between my two ears.  Rarely is there anything in the third one these days, so I moved one earring back and forth between two of the holes at the end of each row- letting me know where I was.  It worked great.  

    While stitching away, shifting jewelry and enjoying the jazz, my mind wandered around that third hole...

    My college roommate and I went to get them together.  It was a small conservative town, in the early 1980's.  The piercer at the pharmacy didn't understand what we wanted.  Explaining to us that there was no price for only one hole,  just two.  We explained to her that there still were going to be two holes, in two different ears, and that we would each pay half.  She disapprovingly proceeded.  

    And then, Mom's exasperation, "What will people think?!"  (Have any people ever thought about my ears?)  Later that year, afraid of the spectacle three earrings might cause at my wedding, she let me borrow her good pearls, with the condition they would be alone on my lobes.

    Remembering the wedding, and being in the roommate's wedding a week later (did we wear three for hers?), and backing up in time recalling when we both got engaged in that small conservative town at that small conservative college.  But there we were, both getting married, much to the shock of those who knew both of us.  (We loved our guys, but not the whole wedding scene or the magazines that others were so enthralled with.)  Someone made and posted an "Engaged" poster on our dorm room.  We crossed it out and scrawled "Encaged," "En-gagged" and "Enraged" over it.  (We are both still happily married, really.)

    So many memories tangled up in a little red yarn . . .

an easy day in blue

    So enjoyed today.  Absolutely no plans for anyone.  We were all glad to find our own corners in this little house, and spend the day doing whatever we liked.  Things were very quiet and still for the most part.  There was sunlight the first half of the day, so I stitched and stitched.  This one started with finding the blue square with a feint soap circle drawn on it.  Wondering what it was first going to be? 

    Collaged with scraps in the thread basket (also known as the thread mess/monster).  These cloths are little worlds, imagined, wished for, or abstracted, and they can hold many real places, too.  There are fabrics and threads from Washington, Georgia, Idaho, Japan, and Brazil in this one.

    It's blustering out there and growing dark.  There is dinner to find, and then Moon's jazz concert at the high school this evening.  The rest of this one will have to wait for another day, but gosh, we had a swell time together today.  

away with the waves

    This morning the word "release" showed up.  So, there was thinking about letting go, what that might look like . . . 

   If things could be tossed into the deep blue of the sea, and washed over by her ice-cold saltiness.

    And maybe moon and sparkling starlight might fill the space that remained.

calorie-free patchwork snacking

 

    Bits of the indigo-ed cloth, Deb's rainbow-ed thread, Jude's invisible basting and paperless piecing were just what the therapist ordered following a wild day at school.  (More than balancing out the peaceful day before.)  It was a day where both the art teacher and I were very glad to have someone to roll our eyes and laugh with about it all.  

    There were a couple of sobbing children (and I mean sobbing, one boy left a puddle on his placemat) over not finishing by the end of class (even with reassurances that they could finish next week).  A few hoarders of colored pencils, kept tightly in their fists, for fear that the pink/silver/purple pencil might never be found again.  Sharpie incidents, the need for fast talking redirections, group yarn tangles . . . you get the idea.  One of those days.

    The lowlight, or highlight (depending on how you tell the story), was a very unhappy student who did not want to sit in a new seat this week, a seat that would hopefully keep others in the class safe from his flying paint brushes, supply caddies, doorstops, etc.  He was escorted out after shouting words that I won't repeat here, at one of us.  They were quite colorful.  We were never quite clear as to which of us they were directed at, but both laid claim to the title.  

    All to say, it was very swell to come home and stitch little bite-sized squares (I'm thinking of them as blue chocolates . . . indigo truffles, perhaps?" *

    Tomorrow is a home alone day!  I'm looking forward to seeing what the morning light brings in way of inspiration for what's next on this piece.

 

*confession- there just may have also been some real chocolate and wine involved in this recovery.

all the blues

    Thank you everyone, for your comments on the last post...

    The second day was just as swell, and equally exhausting (in a great kind of way).  I came home and slept for 10 1/2 hours... but, oh, we had such a good time in the vat!

    There was lots of love for the transition colors.

    And for the blueing of the chickpeas' textures. 

    It was just great to play in a big sun-lit space for hours.  Even when some pieces didn't go as planned, they were still beautiful blues.

    A stone with a twisted stick of cloth.

    A few samples- clockwise from the moons at left (canning jar lid and ring), rows of running stitches, rubber-bands, clothes pins, more bands, cross-stitching, little bits gathered and knotted, pleated and stitched, beans & corn kernels, and wrapped "antlers" in the center, with old plastic curlers below.

    Some silky shades and very soft moons at the right(I was often too impatient to see the results before dipping again for a deeper blue).  I see an ocean of seas coming from these...

stitches, ties, half-hitches & more...

    Today was spent at a wonderful workshop taught by an old friend, "Shibori + Indigo: Bound Resist and Vat Dye."  We prepped our samples to dip in the vat tomorrow.  Focussing for eight hours was intense, tiring and terrific.  I came home, ate the delicious dinner that Moon and K. made, took a nap, and have been prepping more.  Excited to see the results tomorrow...