handstories

Again and again

    Once again, I am all over the place.  Or is it "still"?

    Even in the now and then daily paintings.  Some days with eyes closed.

    Others while looking at an image.  This one is of an observatory that Blue visited in Chile.

    Cathy Cullis held an online sketchbook weekend. I tried some collage and different painting printing ideas.

    It’s a busy season. Last weekend up to Bellingham for Moon’s concert and dinner with Deb. Tomorrow is his graduation, but he will be staying for another couple of years for his Masters. (More opportunities for time with Deb!)

    Some of the busy has been in helping dear friends.  Because you can’t make this stuff up, here’s the story of their life over the last couple of months….

    After a year of intense treatments, his cancer managed, they traveled across the world for a vacation.  While there, he developed a hernia. Returning early, with surgery scheduled four weeks out, she began a new job, and they decided to get a puppy.  A week before surgery, the dog was suddenly sick, appearing to pass out, and rushed to the vet. She was stoned. She must have found a discarded joint in the grass while out on a walk.  A few days later, a few days before his scheduled surgery, he was not ok, an ambulance was called.  A burst appendix.  After a few weeks, he was finally able to have the hernia surgery last week.

    There’s been more applesauce made and casseroles cooked... taxiing... assisting with editing and envelope stuffing and stepping out of my comfort zone to be a door greeter for an event for the new job... and brief puppy sitting (which neither of us was very sure about)... and lots of just hanging out in the evenings with her, talking, commiserating, and laughing when we can.


    I am grateful for my uneventful life.

In the pink all around

    I was happy just looking at these cloths together for a while.  Jude's moon and Deb's pinks.  I have often wondered about curator or artist in my making.  Thinking about it more, there is an artistry in gathering, and I love putting cloths together, combining their stories into one.

    Blue's autumn views from his new apartment in Santiago, that he shares with his new roommate from the UK, near the apartment of his new girlfriend from South Africa (Now we really wonder when we'll see him again!).

    It's great to hear him sound so happy and much more settled and self-assured as he begins his second year in Chile.  We've both grown up so much.

    Dearest friend is on an adventure in France and sending fun photos of flowers, cafes, the countryside, and sewing pins in a castle gift shop.

    Another spring evening.

    We only had cloudy skies for the eclipse.  I watched the news instead.  They shared beautiful footage as it happened across the continent- Mexico, Texas, Indiana, Cleveland, Niagara Falls, and finally, Maine.  Watching the excitement of the people and the beauty of the diamonds, beads, and pink flares had me in tears.  What it must have been like to be there!  Three of our neighbors went to watch in Texas and Indiana.  It will be great to hear their sun and moon stories when they get back.

First gifts

    The season is off to a beautiful start... 

    On Thursday, we traveled up to Bellingham for Moon's acapella concert.  First, there was dinner with Deb!  She brought the most beautiful gathering of her wonderful creations- pigments, dots, star, boat, and more!  A perfect first gift of the season, and it was (as always) a lovely and too short of a time together.

    Deb's colors with a bit of hot pink thrown in.

    Saturday was spent with a friend at a fundraiser dinner for Islandwood, the outdoor school I went to some years ago (I wrote about it here.)  It was fun to visit this amazing place again as an adult with no responsibilities!  We toured, wined and dined, and met such interesting people.  

    I was especially happy to see the cedar baskets gifted to the school by Vi Hilbert again.  She was a tribal elder of the Upper Skagit.  The figure above is "Grandmother Vi".  She welcomes everyone into the Great Hall.

    On Sunday, there was dinner out the neighbors across the street.  Time with these guys is always easy and comfortable.  We are really lucky to have good neighbors all around us.  There was also a little stitching- a new square for the moon cabin quilt.  This one is kind of a weird combination of prints, but that's ok!

    Marti sent a sweet photo of her tree that she described in the comments of the last post.  I thought we should all enjoy it!

    She wrote, "The tree is decorated very simply as I am not a glitz and sparkle kind of gal. A long red and cream striped ribbon, from many years ago, dances around the tree. Tiny pine cones are affixed to the branches by red yarn. Many dried orange slices cover the tree, to signify the coming of the light of Winter Solstice. A couple pieces of worded ribbon are also on the tree, the word JOY printed on the ribbon. At the top of the tree, 2 red cardinals and a colorful patchwork tree ornament, a gift from a dear friend."

    Thank you for sharing, Marti!

    So far, I've done next to nothing on the to-do list, and it's been swell.  Maybe tomorrow...

Coming around to

    A while ago, a dearest friend said that she wanted to make a quilt.

    Things have been very busy, so I sighed inside.

    This friend is very good at starting projects that I end up finishing for her... the knitted scarf for her dad, the baby blanket for a friend's daughter, a hooked pillow for an old boyfriend, the list goes on.

    "I don't have time to make a quilt right now," I said, discouraging her plans.

    But for her birthday a couple of months ago, I filled a box with squares of fabric, stitching template, soap sliver for marking, needle, thread, and a note agreeing to our next project.  

    A few weeks later, she and her man invited us to their sailboat christening.  I was happily surprised to see she'd been stitching pairs together and putting them to use already.

    (A silly aside, the bottle of bubbles we brought.  Relabeled with a photo of Moon.)

 

    Last weekend we spent a couple of lovely hours stitching together.  I shared stories of some of the cloths, we discussed favorites, reminiscing projects with students when we taught together, etc.  And the straight running stitched lines were so satisfying to make.  She commented on my two finished seams for each of hers.  I reminded her that I do practice with a needle now and then.

    I'm looking forward to the quilting to come, and very glad that I came around.

Second bite.

    The pin bowl has been filling up with things that float across the table- including flower petals, beads and crystals.  After finishing this piece ("Connections in Light"), they were strung together and played with in the sunshine.  I see now that this photo isn't focused.  Letting that go...

    Another beautiful sunset from Blue in Santiago.  

    Two posts in a row... I think three will make it an official roll.

    Another pretty sunset with friends on a dock in Seattle.

    We dined on Steph's tofu (really squish the water out of the tofu, and cook it until it's really brown (much longer than the recipe in my old stove), Emerald salad, olives, bread, Beecher's cheese, blueberries, spicy sesame capellini, rose, and cookies.

 

Weekend

    There is too much that I want to hold onto here, for remembering.  To put it all in one post is just too much.  So, I do nothing.  Time slips, but still, I want to try.  I don't know why.  Anyhow, I'm going to try.  Smaller bites. 

    Starting at the beginning of this week, but in reverse...

    The cloth beginning above was stitched on Sunday, on the way home from a fun weekend in Bellingham.  Stuck in traffic (thank you, Taylor Swift), I pulled out the handful of scraps that had been grabbed off the table on the way out of the house Saturday morning and puzzled them together.  (Not too shabby for not wearing reading glasses, because it was too bright not to wear sunglasses.)  Having to find a way to make random fabrics work together is a fun exercise now and then.  Haven't touched it since.

    Before the freeway crawl, there was a wonderful relaxing morning on Deb's porch (after petting two of the friendliest cats in the world).  There was talking and talking, looking at all of her explorations with pigments, and giving her eggshells a crush.  That porch is the best science lab that I've ever been to!

    The day before was spent with Moon and his girlfriend (I.), in honor of his twenty-first birthday!  (They are still in Bellingham, taking summer classes, and Moon is working on an internship researching space ethics.)  He had asked us to come a while ago, to join him in a round of bar hopping.  I couldn't believe he wanted to spend this particular birthday with his parents.  "That's wonderful and weird!"  I told him.

    "I know!" he said.

    We lunched, book shopped, walked along the waterfront, took a nap, strolled through campus, dined, and then decided to miniature golf at the college hangout across the street from his apartment.  The plan was to golf before saying goodbye to I. (who won't be legal for a few months).

    After the game (I got the only hole-in-one and won!), he decided to have his first drink there, so I. could be there.  He ordered a sampler flight of local beers and experienced his first carding.  We talked, took photos, and Moon went over to the game shelf and found Sorry, a family favorite.  We all sipped, played (he won), and had a swell time.  At which point he announced that it had been a good birthday, he was tired, and he was calling it a day.

    Such a reasonable boy man!

    Back to the present...  Propped up on the watering can, to support the heavy drooping branch, with the blue potted plant placed to protect it from folks walking by and badly flung newspapers... I had just about given up hope, but today...

    Hooray!

Time & times

    Started with a sienna sun print, with a bit of blue cyanotype, too.  (Terrible at keeping track of processes, would make a terrible scientist.) 

    Blue's photos from Chile are wonderful to see.

    These were taken on a day hike to Laguna Caren.  He has become part of a group of young people from all over the world, who are also tutoring.  They get together a few times a week- Sunday picnics, pancake party, Christmas dinner in June, bus trips to the beach and mountains...  They find ways to have fun on next to nothing budgets, scrimping by together on adventure after adventure.  All of this a far cry from the last couple of years that he spent mostly alone in Michigan during the pandemic.  He sends photos of the gatherings and group shots with the words, "Friends!" underneath.  So happy to see and hear how good he's doing.

    This one is about home and memories.

    Boats are back in the daily paintings.

    A couple of evenings ago on a friend's sailboat, just sitting at the dock watching the sunset.  There was an otter and herons, too.

    Last night, with the same friend at Urgent Care (Or judging from the speed of service...semi-urgent care.  We left at 9 and were home in bed at 2).  Fortunately, antibiotics were the solution, nothing more serious.  We passed the hours chatting, looking up corny jokes, I repeated past behavior by stitching an "x" onto her sheet again, and taking selfies because, "These are the times of our lives!"

    Almost.

    She keeps reaching, almost as long as my arm.

    Things swirl along.

Time

    This was begun last month with beautiful blues from Jude.  It was a good place to rest.

    On Tuesday eve, while scrolling through photos on my phone, a photo of my Iowa friend popped up.  It was her senior high school portrait, taken over sixty years ago.  "Why is this here?" I wondered, and then created a new album of "Favorites" to put it in so that I wouldn't lose track of it.  K. and I talked about her for a few minutes. 

    A friend and I had gone to visit her a couple of weeks ago.  Time has been taking her piece by piece over the last few years, but still her delight and joy in spending time with us shined through.  It was a lovely sad visit.  Yesterday I received word that she had died on Tuesday night.  I will miss her dearly.  I loved it when she called me "Honeybun".  The "Iowa" category will tell you more about her, but this post sums our friendship up best.

    Twinkle has taken a turn, new meds, more "waiting and seeing" for a couple of weeks.

    More nightmares... at first I thought that they were frogs, but no.  The spiders were beautiful and terrifying.

    I keep saying (and feeling) that things are really fine, and they are.  I'm just out of words right now. Life slips by sometimes.

    "Everything Became Home"

(Golden pink moon cloth dyed by Tina.)

Braiding Connections

    "And Still... the Moon"

    The flying dream was a great one.  It was actually more like swimming in the sky.  Keeping my arms close to my body and wiggling like a fish, a mermaid, the movements lifting me towards the stars...

    A morning at my friends' hanging out with him while she took the cat to the vet (the cat is having health issues too).  Again, parking is an issue in their neighborhood, so I pulled up to the building, she and the cat left in my car, and I headed into the condo.  Neither he nor I are morning people, nor had we ever really spent any length of time alone together, so the plan was for us to have our coffee and tea quietly in separate rooms. 

    When I brought him his coffee, he was sitting in a comfortable chair in their bedroom listening to music.  "Here you go.  I'll just be stitching in the living room.  Just let me know if you need anything- more coffee, company, whatever."

    "Yeah, there's a book that I'm listening to that I want to get back to...  My sister told me about it, Braiding..."

    "...Sweetgrass?"

    "You know it?"

    "Yes, I've been hearing about it for years.  I've checked it out of the library several times but haven't actually opened it.  Are you liking it?"

    "Have a seat!"

    "Let me get my tea..."

    He shared about the book, and we wove in and out of topics- connection, and community, how the last weeks have been for him, them, what might come...  Two hours later, she returned, the time had flown by.

    "Robin"

    Coming home, I sat down to stitch, after going to the library website, checking out, and opening the audiobook of Braiding Sweetgrass.  What an amazing, beautiful, spirit filling book, and listening to the author, Robin Wall Kimmerer read it with her soothing rich voice is an added gift.  I'm halfway through.  It's the perfect thing to listen to while stitching.  I can't believe it took me this long to get to this book, but then again, sometimes things happen at just the right time in our lives.  I imagine that I will listen to it again and again, each time remembering a lovely morning conversation with coffee, tea, and connection.

Never a Dull Moment

    Deb's cloth made for an earthy hill on blackberry-ish purples by Tina, with a small scrap of the starry cloth K. gifted me for Christmas twenty-five years ago in anticipation of baby Blue.

    There was a bit more boat mending in the wind and the cold under a daylight moon.

    In an effort to maybe, just maybe, get this quilt done in time, I keep it on my lap while stitching for the shop.  Whenever there is a bit of thread left in the needle, it goes into the quilt.  Sometimes it's only a few stitches, but that keeps things interesting.

    Speaking of interesting... There was an evening at my friend's condo this weekend.  They live near a hospital and a couple of nursing homes, so sirens are common.  But suddenly there was siren after siren...

    We looked out the window to see that the street was full the length of two blocks and around the corner of her building.

    Across the street an old, abandoned house.

    We spent the next hours watching out their windows.  The hours were also spent with fond and fearful memories of my dad's decades as a fire fighter. 

    The house is still standing, without some of the roof and floors.

    "It's never a dull moment around here!" I commented.  We laughed at the crazy their world seems to be full of these days.  Over there again last night, we talked about how pretty the fire actually was, especially at one point when snow was falling.  We thought it could be their Christmas card... "Our world is on fire, and still beautiful... Merry Christmas!"  We laughed some more.  Laughter is such good medicine.

    And so is stitching! (More of Deb and Tina's dyeworks.)