handstories

Watching

    The ninth moon cabin block.  The green cloth was bought on the day Moon was born, with pauses to lean on fabric bolts during contractions.  (They had been going on for days, so I wasn't worried, but my friend was!)

     Working with bigger pieces of cloth has a soothing calming effect.  Last night there was a really long seam to fix on one side of a sheet.  I went to bed relaxed.

    I lost my wallet.  Again.  Second time in two years.  I don't know how or where.  Between home, ferry rides and M's house.  I'm almost positive it was in my bag, didn't use it, but it's gone.  Maybe it's here in the house still.  I don't know.  I've cleaned, called, retraced, even looked in gutters and grass where K dropped me off for the ferry.  Just gone.  I loved that wallet.  Glittery.  $10.00 at the Goodwill.  Perfect.  Sigh.

    Pinks and corals have moved into my work lately.  

    There was a conversation this week.  The other person didn't get it.  I didn't get that they didn't get it.  They felt exactly the same way about me.  It was like a deeply scratched record, sliding back and repeating, over and over.  Finally, I just had to let go, skip over the injury, and move forward, and appreciate what music I could hear, but I feel scraped and worn thin.

    This piece helped.  Chaos and rhythm together. "In Cacophony & Love, They Flew On".  It's just how things feel.  All of the stitches had to do with connecting, one piece of cloth to another or a continuing of one into another- birds bodies completed (it's interesting how a few stitches suggest a bird shape to the eye), flight patterns combined with moon rings, polka-dots scattering beyond, Deb's dyed speckles floating further.  Except the stars, those are for me. 

    (Many threads and that bottom strip from Deb with a ThreadCrumbs moon.  It will be in the shop with a few other pieces and a handful of tokens on Friday, 9am.)

    Thankfully, Twinkle keeps watch.

Snow, Sister & Stitch

    A surprise for Seattle this morning!  We woke to ten inches, and it's still falling...

 

    It's also my sister's birthday today, and her gift arrived on time!

    Often I bring along mending supplies when I visit her in Rhode Island, stitching up a jacket elbow, shirt sleeve, whatever...

    Not knowing when I might be able to tend her mending again, I made this little mending kit for her based on a sweet pattern by Ann Wood (find it here).

    Stocked with possible patches and thread in her colors, pins, needles, etc.

    She doesn't enjoy mending like I do, but at least she'll be able to... or there will be supplies ready for my next visit.

Change of pace

    It has been a good, and unusually social week with lovely interesting people, and this introvert is on overload.  

    Stitching was even a struggle.  I managed to patch my jeans, badly.   

    A green sock was finished.  

    Sunday was wedding dress shopping with best woman friend (which proves how much I love her, because I didn't even do this for my own wedding).  Her criteria is- Not white, not slutty, and a little funky (she's hoping to make certain folks roll their eyes).  

    On the third trip out, I laid my hands on the two latest possibilities, saying, "One of these will be IT," because definitely none of the others had been.  Hallelujah, she looks good in both of them.  She just needs to choose, and then we'll start shopping for mine...sigh.

    A purple sock was started, because the green was just not doing it for me.  

    On Tuesday, K. very nicely offered to drive the five hours, to and from, to meet up with the women I'm having the art show/sale with in December.  Stressed about catching the ferry, and all of the unknowns of hosting a show, and tired out from teenager issues, and, and,...  When he made a wrong turn, I shouted at him, in near tears, "I am coming unglued!"

    He offered to bus home from the ferry and let me drive myself.  I apologized, and regrouped.  Eventually.

    Yesterday there was a little watercoloring.  Making these jewels is meditative and calming.

    There was also a haircut, long overdue inches and inches were cut off, in hopes of feeling a bit more presentable in the world.  We'll see.    

    Today, I so enjoyed Jude's latest entry in her Patchwork in Perspective class.  Her "skatchwork" technique was just the ticket to get things percolating again.  A very good brain and needle stretch.

    I also tried to figure out the best public transportation route to get to the airport on time tomorrow with the same friend.  After much thinking and rethinking, and sending her the plan, it became clear we should just meet there.  As I like to have plenty of time to spare, to avoid the stress from fear of missing a flight, and she will most likely come dashing in during the boarding.

    "Where will you be?" she asked.

        "Sitting at the gate, reading a book."

    "And stressing that I'm going to be late."

        "Probably."

    And, because this week hasn't been busy and odd enough for my hermit lifestyle...  

    Tomorrow morning I'm taking a bus to the light rail, to the airport, and then we're flying to Las Vegas for 24 hours.  The star is packed and coming along.  Things are wild and weird over here.

pink echoes

    Following Jude's advice for rinsing her gifts of red, these scraps were pinned to what's left of an old walnut/tea dyed silk shirt, and then put through the wash.  (She shares more thoughts about this process in her series).  The resulting pinks are pretty. 

    There was a time when I didn't think residual rosiness was quite so swell...  

    We had just moved into our first apartment, married two weeks.  A funky old 1920's office building with two apartments upstairs.  Other than here, it's my favorite place we've ever lived...  Anyhow, downstairs there was a washer and dryer (one quarter for a wash, and a dime for thirty minutes in the dryer!).  K. went to do the laundry.  There weren't that many whites, so he threw in his old red striped bathrobe.  You can guess what happened.  Pink underwear and t-shirts for a year.

    We've pretty much been doing our own laundry since.

obsession

         For the last couple of days, this.  Squares into pairs.
        Pairs into quartets- square and rectangular.

    Late into last night, and up before the light this morning.  Wanting it to be together.  Using the scraps of leftover thread in the tangled basket.  Knowing the stitching isn't very tidy or careful, but just needing it to hold together, that will be enough.  Life is like that sometimes.

    While working this morning, there was a thirty-year-old memory of  a young adult novel about a girl named Nell...

    Pressured to marry by her family, reluctantly she began a wedding quilt.  At first it was beautiful.  A crazy-quilt?  She began embroidering it, flowers gave way for beetles and spiders, dark lurking things, as she stopped eating and sank into depression.  After the last stitches, she took the whole thing and dropped it into a vat of black dye.  At the end, Nell was in bed, under the heavy shadow of a blanket, fading into nothingness, and on the last page, she made a decision to get up and go on...

    It's long, because I am, and I want to be able to wrap my feet up in it.  Narrow, because I wanted to make 3-inch squares, and have it be thirteen wide.  Hmmm...  There are some things to figure out- widening it with borders, the binding... I'm not quite sure what's next?  But it won't be a black dye pot.

piecing things together

    This week there has been a long to-do list.  I've done my best to ignore most of it, and stitched on this instead. The scraps were in the bottom of the basket, under and in the tangle of threads.  Snippets that I can't throw out, but are too small to keep in piles.  One by one, I pulled them out and puzzled them onto this 9 x 9 inch base.  I have no idea what might happen next.  We'll see where it goes . . .

heart work

    The dark blue scrap was leftover from a boat making.  There must be a lot of these in the basket.  Never noticed the hint of a heart before.

    And remembering the "boy hearts" piece started years ago . . . it's in a stack, unfinished, somewhere.   Started in the middle of a time when I was so unsure of myself as a mama, wondering if I had passed on too much of myself, or if I had enough to give?

    K. has been in NYC and New Jersey all week.  Just Moon and I here.  Years later, I'm still wondering the same things.