handstories

    Not a lot of stitching over the last days.  A little mending and plenty of wondering about all kinds of things, with some anxieties added into the mix.

    I started digging through the studio shelves.  Filled three bags- garbage, recycling and donations.  A small dent.

    Found a few piles of quilt starts, including some that I have no memory of.  Wondering if I can just close my eyes and stitch the odds and ends together?  Make them into blankets of some sort?  Useful, if nothing else.

    One very long night with a mosquito circling around my head.  Even under the quilt I could hear its whining.  There wasn't much sleep the next night either.  In fact, I was having a really good dream, movie star included.  Just as it was about to get good, I told him I was too tired, that I couldn't keep my eyes open, and fell asleep in dreamland, only to wake up in real life even more exhausted.  Drat.

 

    Looking for something to do, that would require no thoughts, I pulled out the spinning wheel.  So much dust.  Honestly, why I forget how much I love to spin, I don't know.

    The glow of yellow skies from the wild fires came back for a couple of days.  We're lucky that the air quality has stayed good.

    Last night there were two brief rain showers.  I ran outside to stand in it.  Hoping for real rain on Friday.

    Today- wave work.  Not how I usually go about starting a piece.  Rarely plan so much out at the beginning.  It's also a little bigger (9x6") than the usual 4" squares.  Not sure where it's going from here...

tear drops & trees

   Blue turned 22 yesterday.  We haven't been with him on his birthday since he went off to college four years ago, but this year found me a little sadder than usual about it.  Moon and K. tip-toed around a bit.  K. sent capital lettered texts to Blue saying his mama REALLY needed a photo of his WHOLE face (she did), Moon decided to JUST DO the schoolwork his mama asked him to, rather than argue that she hadn't asked him to (she did).  I cried a little while singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" during the zoom practice with our group last night (fortunately there are sixty of us and our images are too small to notice dripping faces).
   On a cheerier note, last week I cracked about social distancing, texting, screen time, missing time with women, etc.  A good friend heard my meltdown via texting, cursing and silence (this is not the cheery part), and had the brilliant idea of a picnic.  With our own food, wine bottles, blankets, and six feet between our lawn chairs, we spent the evening in the front yard under the Japanese maple tree.  We're hoping the weather holds for a repeat tonight.  It's great to have something to look forward to.

    The pages are going even slower than last week, just like me, but I'm so glad that most of them resemble the things they're meant to represent.  This photograph was a gift from K. years ago.  It still makes me take a deep breath with it's fairytale magic when I look at it, I'm sorry I don't know who took it.

    There are fifty-eight squares of quilting left.  This is a photo of the other side.  I don't remember dyeing this piece of indigo, or how those little flower shapes came to be (beneath the big blob of white), but I like them and used pale blue threads here to keep them as visible as possible.
        And a bobbin of spinning was finished up, and I surprised myself by still being able to spin a balanced yarn (not too much or too little twist in it).  If I stop and think about it, there's lots to be glad about.  I hope you're finding spaces of happy, too.

still Tuesday (I think)

    The pen was found, so pages are being labeled.  Now I'm wondering if I should mess with it more by adding bits of the stories of each thing?

    The start of today's page, Deb's thread.

    Another book, the first one I made, is open next to me as a place to test paints, practice writing, doodle (this one was one of Carla Sonheim's one-liner exercises).

    This morning I stood looking at the mailbox, trying to remember, "Did anyone get the mail yesterday?  Or was yesterday Sunday?  What day IS it?"  While trying to answer my own questions, it finally occurred to me to just open the mailbox and see. 

    The studio table is overflowing.  Things are precariously balanced atop each other- paints, books with painting that needs to dry, thread, cloth, to-do lists, pens, brushes, snacks...  

    This is how things go in our corner of the world.  (FYI- no one had emptied the mailbox yesterday.)

    Two-hundred-eighty squares (69%) finished, 128 to go.

    There was some spinning this week.  A little each day.  It's been SO long, so long that there were spider webs all over it.  It feels good to be at it again.

    And a piece was almost finished.  It's about all of this- how things might be, and maybe, just hopefully maybe, how things really are at the root of it all.

Rosee part 5:

    "I forgot to tell you about moving Tablespoon to the Dude Ranch in the pine hills. I got lonesome for him and his daily bath.

    Back in the summer of '34 when everything burned up in the drought, all the other horses had sore backs so Bill Hatch asked if he could use Tablespoon to ride circle. When they got back he was all a foam of sweat and they were afraid I’d give them hell for overriding him, so they sneaked him down to the pond and scrubbed him down clean before they turned him out where I might see him.

    Every time they turned him out in that pasture after that he’d go to the pond and climb in and give himself a bath.  Also he’d round up all the other horses and drive them into the corral till they finally had to put him in another pasture all by himself.  Anyway I drove to the ranch and rode him 13 miles to Ostendorfs and put him in their barn.  Emmett (her brother) came after me and took me home for the night. 

    Next morning, I came and got him and rode him about half way to the Dude Ranch.  I was standing by the road looking at him and he was looking at me as though he thought I was crazy, wondering how I could possibly get back on with my sore bottom and sore legs, when Empty came driving gaily along in the car. He leered out of the window at me, “I thought I’d find you just about here walking. How would you like to drive the car and I’ll ride him the rest of the way.“  I dearly loved him that minute."

hat check . . . 7, 8 & 9

    There are a rainbow of reasons why I'm loving knitting up these hats.

    These three have me on the lookout for my old kaleidoscope.  The top topper is knit in this pattern from tin can knits.  Although it doesn't show up well in these stripes, it was a fun and fast knit that I will make again.

hat check . . . 4, 5, & 6

    The evening knitting continues.  I'm surprised at the thickness of some of this old yarn.  I wonder if I could spin wool this fat again?  My hands sometimes ache wrapping themselves around it and the big needles, but it knits up so fast.  It seems there are pros and cons to most everything these days.  Maybe that means life is balancing itself out?

    This next one, it's a wild one . . . can't stop thinking it looks like clown barf.