handstories

Gatherings

    Moon’s graduation weekend was very swell- time with Moon and girlfriend, an unplanned visit with Deb, and a day in Vancouver, BC.

    This one made a while, looking at a fancy box of matches.

    When does the group of something become a collection?  I tried finding the collective noun for matchboxes.  Nothing.  Matches are a book or a box.  Boxes are a stack.  So maybe a stack of books?  A book of stacks?  A stack of boxes?

    Tried flowers.

    Went back to boats.

    And this was interesting to do. Using Jude's stacked stitches I filled in a mosaic printed cloth from Maiwa’s with shades of green, Deb’s threads, and a few tiny scraps. Tension is an issue for me. It was good to practice, practice, practice.

    “Magic Mountain”

    And then to relax, a small simple peace wish made with of more of Jude’s techniques- Seemingly Seams and Glue stitch. Both feel like magic tricks.

    It was left in a neighborhood Free Little Art Gallery while out for a walk this morning. I wonder where it will go next?

Our people

    Hills were in my dreams two nights in a row this week.  In both, they were beautiful, rolling, green hills with a scattering of big old trees full of pink blossoms.  

    In the first one, in a ballgown, on my way to a party with a high school boyfriend, I noticed a wayward sheep.  Getting ahold of its collar, I wrestled and wrangled it on the hillside, trying to get it where it belonged.  Not easy in a ballgown.  The second dream was much calmer, just admired the scenery.  I enjoyed both of them.

Pixie's finished painting.  

And mushrooms.

    This weeks' time in the studio had a few moments...

    Near me, a woman who I hadn't connected with yet, began to fret.

    "Oh no, Oh No, OH, NO!" over and over.  It took a minute, but it became clear that she needed the tops taken off of her paints.  The person who usually did this wasn't there.

    "Could I take them off for you?" I asked.

    "CAN you?"

    "I can!"  What a relief for both of us.

Brette finished the top of her nine-patch pillow.

    One of the artists was worrying about her taxi ride being late.  She went out to look for it a few times.  As things began to escalate with worry, I offered to go out and look with her.  The taxi was there, but across the street and a quarter of the way down the block.

    "There it is," I told her.

    "It's supposed to be right here!"

    It quickly became clear that she would not go to the taxi, it needed to come to her.  Where it belonged.

    I scurried to the car, "You need to turn around and come to the front doors..."

    He informed me that he had called her cell twice, and that she hadn't come out, and that he now had another call to get to.

    "You NEED to get her, AT the front door."

    We went round and round a couple of times, and then he began to drive off.

    "This is NOT OK!" I yelled after him as he drove around the corner (his window was down, so he heard me).  When I got back to her, wondering what to do next, I caught sight of that yellow taxi coming back around that corner, and pulling up to the door.  Where it belonged.

    There were a few more moments of flurry and frustration on all of our parts, but she got in that taxi.

    Elizabeth choosing one of her recent paintings for a friend.

    Back in the studio, one of the artists was taking a photo of a painting with a phone. 

    "Is this your painting?" I asked him. 

    No, but he wanted a photo of it, but the phone wouldn't open.  Looking over his shoulder, I saw a message pop up on the screen.

    "Is this your phone?"  Nope.  "Where did it come from?"  He pointed at the table.  "It would probably be a good idea to put it back."  Nope.  He wanted a photo.  "Here, let's do it with my phone."  First phone went back to the table, we took the photo, he gave a thumbs up, and walked away happy.  He didn't want the photo, just to take it.

The photo.

    Later, sharing about the day with someone, they seemed baffled by my wanting to do this every week.

    "These are my people!" I told her.  "It's great finding ways to make connections with them.  I really enjoy it.  Well, maybe not the obnoxious taxi driver, although I did enjoy yelling at him!"

    She responded, "Of course you did."

Coming up for air

    Quilting these woven hillsides... all I want to be doing.

    One little moon was started, but I am so distracted by those hills.  (This one might take a while, but there are a few other pieces in the shop).

    Thanks to Dee for her gift of scraps, including these golden moon bits, Tina for the deep purple night, and for Deb's golden threads that add to the glow.

    I wish I had one to share...  These days are filled with day-to-day-ness and/or the scurrying and worrying of getting Moon ready to head off to college (one week!).  There's actually not too much worrying, with him being the second send-off, and so much closer than Blue was, anything needed can be delivered in a daytrip.  There may still be a few anxieties going on (his and mine), but we are all excited and ready for this next step to happen.

    He insists on taking this old blanket, so some mending has been done to hold it together.  It's so threadbare, a synthetic purchase from a department store in the late 80's (probably the only bought blanket in the house).  Covered with silly sheep.  He loves it.  He says he'll take the quilt I made him, too.  At least there's that.

    We have packing piles all throughout the house... his for school, and two for me.  I'm delighted to be assisting Christine Mauersberger during her workshops next week (this one and this one).  It's going to be a busy good week!

    In the meantime, there are hills to stitch....

    And, yes, I am going about this project in every direction at once, trusting that it will all work out in the end.

At home with myself

   "Moon Marks"  Stitching this one was very comforting, soothing colors, simple stitches. 

    p-a-l-E-t-t-e a word I will always struggle to spell.  Rhythm and restaurant are two more.  There are lots of others.

    For the first time since mid-March 2020, Moon went back to school.  They have divided those who wanted to come back into two groups (based on whether the last digit of their address is odd or even).  Each group goes for two afternoons a week.  They will still continue on-line for most of their school hours.  It's a bit of a scramble to finish the last morning class, eat lunch and get to the school in time, so I made his lunch for him the first day.  I made it into a face like I did when the boys were little.  He was so anxious and flustered that he didn't even notice.  Fortunately, he came home saying it was great!  I'm so glad he'll have a smidge of his senior year with friends.

    This one.  I don't even know what to say.  A party on, in and around a hill?  Or some folks on Instagram saw a Duomo, or a campsite.  I'm calling it "Her Happy Place".

    We've had a beautiful week of weather.  Clouds coming in tonight.

    Tree stitching across the water at my friend M's sweet house yesterday.  Her ranunculus (hey, I spelled that right!) were just opening.  The one on Tina's pretty pink cloth is "Clementine."

    Today, a home.  It's about now, and then.

One hill leads to another...

    Saturday afternoon I just needed something bigger to stitch on.  These cloths were at hand.  A comforting hill.

    With Jude's beasts in mind (I love them so).  Thinking about most of my self-portraits either have no mouth at all, or are wide open, screaming things from the deep.

    Hills.  Folks see portals.  Maybe they are the same thing?  A way through.  Or over.  Or a place to rest and make daisy chains.

 

    We are waiting to hear some news.  Which way it will go, we don't know.  Which answer will be good or hard, we don't know.  So, just hoping for how it might be.

    Layers are cut away, making new shapes to work with.  They are shifted and rearranged as they accumulate.  There are no rules, just going.

    In the middle of it all, I wonder what we want?  What we need?  How to want what we will have?  Mostly I do.

    Hills, portals, places of in-between...brinks of stories.

More flowers

    Hill as home.  Stitch as song.

    Isn't this cloth dyed by Tina a glorious color?  Fuchsia, magenta, cerise?  And Deb's thread pulling all of the colors together?

    The last two mornings drawings have been of something on my table, still not looking at the paper.   I haven't forgotten that I said I would share more about this painting practice, but I'm still gathering/finding words about it. 

    Actually, I've been very frustrated about words this week, that I can't seem to pull them into the shape of what I want to say.   It takes so much work to get to the root of things, at least about myself. 

    "They Returned in Song & Starlight"

    There was a moment of seeing something clearly the other day.  Two friends asked about finding a way/time to celebrate my birthday.  I did my usual, "Oh, that's nice, I don't know, we'll see...."  Later, after seeing my horoscope for the week, "Your desire to make sure no one is left out or lonely...." , and I thought to myself, isn't that the truth that I do that, and then thought, isn't it the truth that I don't do that for myself, and how hard I work to not take up space or want, to not be seen as all of those words that I sometimes still believe about myself.

    I've probably circled around this topic here before, but this time I reached back out to my friends and said, "Yes."

    Sometimes, after stretching and trying something new, it's really comforting to sail back home in, and to, a comfortable spot.

Biding

    "Their stories were as old as the stars"  These hills seem like very good friends to me.

    Odds and ends days...

    After days and days, taxes are done.  K does them.  I tiptoe around in denial and guilt and try to answer occasional questions.  Until he hands me my part to do (for the shop), and then I whine and tell myself that I'll do a better job of tracking things this year (again).

    Moon busies himself with school and music.  He's taught himself the guitar, ukulele and is currently making sweet (sometimes quite high-pitched) sounds with the tin whistle.  He's also often practicing and/or recording songs for the high school spring musical that will be online.  I love hearing him sing.  His gifts are definitely not from my side. 

    A moody ninth block for the moon cabin stack.  Spiraling out counter-clockwise...  A moon from Jude, Deb's dyeing, friend's scrap, starry gift from K when I was pregnant with Blue, unknown, Maiwa polka-dots (I miss the annual visit to their $5.00 a bag scrap bin), two dyed by a woman somewhere in Washington- bought at quilt show market years ago (wish I could remember her name), and a leftover print from my William Morris phase in the 90's.

    As for me, it's cloth and thread, with a little painting, with a little housekeeping and dinner cooking thrown in.  

    A gathering.  I wonder if they're six feet apart?

Cakes

    Another hill.

    While falling asleep on the first night of March, I thought about cake.  Maybe it was because it's my birthday month?  Anyhow, a cake memory came, and then one cake led to another... layers of them, odd slices of stories, some delicious to recall, others heavy with the wrong ingredients.

    Yesterday, still thinking about cakes, I painted a blue one, with pink sprinkles.

    And then remembered that Maira Kalman, who I greatly admire, once wrote a book about the cakes in her life.  It was ordered up from the library, and then the rest of the day was spent listening to all of the recordings I could find of her.  Gosh, she's swell.

      While listening, stars were stitched.  The last one just before dinner.  My shoulders and eyes ached from hunching over and focusing on trying to get straight edges on those points.  Going along star to star, every so often I'd count to see which star I was on, and then try to imagine Cameron at that age...four, nine, twelve, seventeen, and twenty-six, his last year.  Three years older than Blue.  At 26 I was working my way out of a dark time... just starting to find myself, a place in the world, beginning to imagine a future.  26.

    Another cake this morning.  Cakes are like hills.  Hills are like cakes.

    "Dread and delight at the same time.  That is the truth about being alive."  Maira Kalman

Far & Near

    (Apologies for yet another marathon post.  Someday I'll get back to posting regularly and briefly.)

    Thinking about hills, again.  A lifetime of thoughts and memories of them.  Using Deb's threads to wind a story through... The front hill is from her dye pot, too.  The sky is from a class a long while back.

    This week I've been missing people, groups of people, faces.  I try to smile at people with my eyes, hoping that they know that it's an effort towards connection.

    Continuing on Cameron's block using Susan Fletcher Conway's tutorial here for stars.  They're not easy for me, requiring really good light and focus, but I wanted larger filled-in stars.  They're kind of wonky, but hopefully, with a few steps back, they will shine together.  There will be 26 of them, one for each year of his life.  

    Hands representing his, holding the names of his three young boys.  Grateful for Tina's gift of a rainbow of cloth to choose from for the hearts, and wishing that I had Liz's writing-with-thread skills.

    Another day trip with and to my friend's sweet house.  She's received both of her vaccinations, which added even more ease to our time together.

    The views from the ferry were amazing that morning.  The mountains seemed so big and close.  About fifteen minutes after this photo was taken, we were crossing this bridge.

    I gave her my most recently knitted socks and she put them on straight away.  Happily they fit.

    It was a beautiful day, including a stop at a nursery.  She studied various plants, knowing exactly what she wanted to look at (and the scientific names of everything).  I pointed out the fritillaria, "You had some in your yard when you lived across the street."  She was surprised that I remembered the name.  The word fritillaria is a fun one, making it easy to recall, not to mention that the checkerboard flowers are unforgettable and magical.

    It's a marvel how a four inch container can hold a whole complex beautiful world.  This is just the feeling I want to stitch into my little story squares.

    Sitting in the sunlight stitching moonlight and starlight was delightful.

    It was approaching dusk, so the lights were lit this time.  Still want to come back at night to see them really glow.

noticing stories

    The last squares were quilted yesterday, with stars filling more of those gaps created by my wandering lines of stitching.  I am both glad and sad about that.  Today I started the binding.  I've come up with a different idea of how to do it.  I can see it in my mind.  I hope it works, I hope it wears ok.  We'll see.

    Some starts were made...

    The book goes slower and slower, but still, it's going.

    This page has two things I love- the windows that led to us buying this house, and the blue walls I waited thirty years for.

    The other day I said that I felt story-less.  I know that I'm not, but they're sure hard to grab ahold of these days.  

    But then, I was noticing the few irises that grow under the cherry tree next to the sidewalk.  I remembered how much Grandma loved them and gladiolas, and fuchsias and sweet peas... she just loved all flowers.  Once her birthday was celebrated with cakes baked into flowerpots, each decorated with different frosting flowers, all displayed in a plant stand.

    And irises grew wild on the hill behind the first college I went to.  The hill K. and I climbed after he started to propose to me in the basement of my dorm, next to the pool table.  I could see where he was heading, and said, "You are NOT going to ask me anything important in front of a pool table are you?"

    So we walked up the hill, to a tree, which I made him climb.  Up in its branches, looking down the hill, at the school, town and the Columbia River below, we made our plans.  It was February, long before the irises bloomed, but they were there.