handstories

roaming

    Funny how things go.   Some weeks ago, there were thoughts that I might be done making these small cloths, but then things changed.  Things are still changing.  Ideas came, flowing and not.  These pieces were begun, set-aside, and circled round to.  Then I wondered if I wanted to keep them, to hold on to this piece of time and process.  And then, thinking about how these cloths are about finding connections- with my own story, and then, hopefully, with others', I realized that what mattered had already happened in the making, and what matters now will stay if it needs to.  This is all a ramble to say...these pieces are finally finished and will be in the shop tomorrow morning.  

    Wishing us all a peaceful week...

quietly

    Yesterday morning, Moon left on a school trip- a survival training camp.  The boy that refuses to go camping with us anymore is out there building fires and a shelter to sleep in.  It's pretty cold, too, I wonder how he's doing?

    K. and I, on the other hand, are enjoying a very quiet weekend.  

    Yesterday I had the entire day alone, with no where to go.  I stitched all day on these starlit roots, wintery stones and a conversation with the moon. They had been put aside for Christmas making, it was nice to get lost in their stories again.  

    They're almost done, but I really should get back to the boys' blankets.  That binding made it around one and a half of them, so I need to pull the machine out again, sigh.  Maybe one more day of story stitching instead?

    P.S.  I found one of the needles!  It was stuck in the center of the blanket.

and pages

         Working through technical difficulties today. This has been a different kind of a making for me. One that flowed almost instantly and by accident. Cloths that might somehow work together were put into a stack, to pack up for taking to jury duty, and suddenly there was a book-like thing. Pages to flip through. A scrap added, a surprise layer. Unexpected over-lappings. It felt like a meditation/prayer before it was recognized it as such.

    The other night, while visiting a friend, I was stitching the pages together and saw that it wasn’t going to work, some of the stitching was too high and being covered by the binding stitches. Took it apart and sat it next to me, looking at it now and then.

    The answer was too easy and took too long to realize.  

    Finally, “I know what to do.”

    She wondered about my process. “Just looking at it sitting there, you know?”

    "Yep.”        Sometimes I get so stuck in what I thought was going to happen.   

    Same friend, same evening, describing a friend changing plans on her, and how she flowed with the winds of it all…

    He had said, “Wow. You’re really ok with things just suddenly changing?”

    “What else am I going to do?” she replied.

    “Come join us in our crazy clinging panicking places,” I said.

pages of the same story

    Almost done, with this booklet, and with the trial.  Today will be the last day, hopefully.

    I wish I knew more about cloth.  The patched square is actually the same as the base, just the backside, how the weave creates two different stories is fascinating.  

    Now to put it all together, and then to think and feel about it all.

gaps

    Yesterday, I completely messed up the indigo vat.  There are still some cloths in the bottom of the bucket, also some down in the washer, needing a second rinse.  Disappointed and discouraged, I've decided to ignore it all today.  Wandering around this morning, wondering what to do instead (besides housework that I'm also ignoring), the missing cloth was found!  

    Someday I'll figure out how to take good photos of it, maybe.  It's so big, and all of those woven white muslin strips with single thread stitchings, they just fade away in photos.  There was one square stitched each day for a year, an August to August (2011-12).  Most were just expressions of a mood, others reflected something from the day. 

    I have no idea about most of them, gone, like memories.

    Today I'll continue working on stitching the backing on.  There is no plan or order here, just vertical or horizontal lines, not even straight ones.  There are places where they cross, miss each other, or just stop mid-stream.  Maybe the thread ran out, distractions came along, or who knows?

    I think I'll look for the small empty lost places today, and try to fill them.

filled & finished

    Seven boats.  Seven stories with moons, seas and a few trees.  Started with a wish for balance, distraction and floating.  Stitched out of cotton, silk, damask, tulle, thread, beads, one little button, and a whole bunch of daydreamings.  (Some of the makings are from last summer's indigo vat or the walnut and iron filled cast iron pot.  Many others came from the gifts of others- Jude, Deb, Tina, and Heike.)

    Balancing seven stories was a little like being tossed at sea.

    I'm attached to the smallest of spots...  Droplets of moonlight,

    Bits of Borealis-like light,

    A lace of craters,

    A tangle of roots and jeweled seeds.

      It was a different kind of a challenge for myself, giving focus and helping to keep things afloat.  I wonder what the next cloths will hold?

    These stories are sailing into the shop tomorrow morning. 

a moment of Friday & Wednesday afternoon

    It's been this kind of a week.  As the last stitches of the Moon Cabin cloth were being worked, this happened.  It was such a good needle, too.  Hope I can figure out what kind it was and replace it.

    Of course, that's not likely to happen soon, because it would mean driving across town.

    Here's the spot where it broke, patching up the make-shift corners, where all my binding and mitering knowledge flew out of the window.  

    On Wednesday, Moon needed driven to the other end of the city for an appointment, about eight miles.  It took an hour each way in the city's rush hour.  We sat through one light six times.

         Because of lack of planning, some adjustments had to be made to make room for a moon.

    Somewhere on the freeway a near-miss happened, and a word flew out of my mouth, "Sorry!" I said to Moon.  He informed me that he hears much worse every day at school.  "I know, but still..."  (I don't swear around my kids, or other people's.) 

    There are 139 stars in this cloth, none of them are easy to see.

    The drive was so stressful, we were half an hour late to the appointment, I was near tears, and muttering at motorists.  Moon hurt himself somehow and said a word.  "Don't sound like your mother."

    "I said 'shoot'."

    "Oh, sorry."

    "But if I had said a swear word, is that all you would've said?"

    "Today?  Yes.  It was your window of opportunity, but it's closed now."

    "Darn."

    We laughed.

    There are nine moons on the front, and a few unplanned for ones on the back.  I can make out four here, that makes thirteen total.  That makes me happy.

    After the appointment adventure we were supposed to head downtown to attend a performance.  I informed K., who works downtown, that he would have to come get me, because there was no way on any planet, or underworld, that I would be driving one more minute.

    The Moon Cabin cloth.

relaxing with the waves

    I've struggled along with stitching in the last couple of weeks.  Well, not the stitching so much, as the completing. 

    "There is a difference between something being finished, and something being complete," someone said to me recently.  

    Wanting each little piece to have a feeling of fullness and possibilities, I kept running into cloth walls.  Round and round, picking up a piece, adding a couple stitches, setting it aside, then another.  I think there were seventeen unfinished squares in the basket on Friday.  Something loosened on Sunday (or perhaps, most likely, it was at the gathering on Saturday).  

    Things are flowing again . . . a few of them into the shop.

buttons & brains

    Working on the finishing details of the "wonders" booklet- adding a few words, binding edges, figuring out what in the world to do with the fabric that extends off the end of one page . . . (which gave me a happy excuse to search through play in the button jar.  Looking for two of the tiniest that could hold the folded flap closed.)

    I have no idea what my original idea for it was . . . a pocket?  a secret message?  Oh, well . . . that plan has drifted away.  

    Which reminds me of a memory I do have, of wonderful Great Aunt Peggy, who had alzheimer's in her last years.  At the gathering for Grandma Rosee's (her sister) memorial, she was greeting someone that she had known for forty years,

    "They tell me I know you.  I'm sure you were a lovely person, but it's all gone now!", she laughed and floated on through the crowd.

december 2013

    It is a dark gray New Year's Eve afternoon.  The year of 2013 is done, as is the working words onto this cloth.  In a few days I will start spending some time pulling together the loose spots, figuring out how to finish the edges, and deciding whether or not to correct some misspellings ("narwahl" being one of them..."arrrgh" to late night stitching!).  But for now, I'm going to tack it to the wall and just look at it all, all of this year's stories . . . and wonder about the next's.

     Rather than starting a new daily cloth piece in this new year, I'm thinking I'd like this to be The Year of Finishing.  There are so many "not quite there" pieces and places in my life right now.  It's time to stitch down the loose threads, and tidy up the edges of a lot of things, or at least a few more of them.

    I hope that 2014 holds peace and enough for all.