handstories

New toys and thoughts

    There have been a lot of comings and goings, but finally back home.

    The workshop was good.  Christine is wonderful and generous with sharing her wealth of know-how, inspiration, materials, and ideas.  There was lots of playing, especially with trying out printing ideas.  Aiming for a new layer on the cloth, I experimented with this clever little press, gelli plate printing, indigo, and cyanotype.

    I really enjoyed exploring this liquid cyanotype process.  An area is painted with the mixture and then exposed to sunlight.

    There were experiments with overlapping layers, wet and dry fabric, and using various objects to create shapes.

    And then collaging things together...

    There are still some questions and ideas to try, and I'm looking forward to diving further.

Blackberries & Sunlight

"Blackberry Moon" 

    "Purple Rain" was hummed quite a few times while making this one.  (Substituting the word "moon", of course.)  I haven't considered myself a purple person for a long while now, but I do love blackberry, to eat or eye.  More and more lavender tones have moseyed into recent stitching.  Much of the credit goes to the allure of Deb's and Tina's dyeing.  

    A recent car knitting moment, when I looked down and realized I was blackberry and plum from top to bottom.  Grandma Blanche loved purple.  Trimmed her trailer in it, chose a purple nightgown to be buried in, and then there's the lavender marble headstone at her grave...

    It was a beautiful sunny weekend.  Shiny things were pulled closer and closer to play with the light and catch their reflections.  I must have mesmerized myself, because I dozed off mid-stitch at one point. 

"Convergence of Home & Sky"

Many moons

    Appointments, family in Oregon, and stitching have occupied the last couple of weeks.  Things are good for the most part, but definitely lacking a rhythm.

   The long overdue appointments (due to the changes in insurance over the last year and a half) were surprisingly uneventful.  My eye prescription hasn't changed in eleven years (I still can't see the small E's or the big one).  Even the dentist gave no news (which is good news!), in spite of my diet of black tea and red wine over the last chunk of time.

    The morning paintings hit a wall.  Rhythm had become Rules because of my inner control issues.  Being bossed around (even by myself), tends to lead to fighting back or stopping.

    Pushing through, there were a few stutters.  Not knowing what or where to go.

    I think I'm just going to paint and play with color for a while... see how that goes.

    The therapist has often said to just "sit with it."  Recently, I was saying that I just don't know what to do next?  Or if there even is a next? 

    "Just keep doing the work," she said.  Another version of sitting with it.  Not my comfort zone, but she's probably right.

    So, I'm trying to find small ways to challenge myself.  Layering old ideas into something new, hopefully.

    There was a long phone call with Blue this afternoon.  He's 23 now, still in Michigan, and such a good guy.  I miss him.  I told him about a tricky situation/relationship, and then asked him what he thought I should do?  He had great insights, advice and a sense of humor about it all (I can take some credit for that last trait).  It was a gift of a conversation, not just the nitty-gritty of the topic, but knowing that we can be adults together, trusting each other.  A new layer to our story.

Week before last

    Monday and Tuesday I drove to Whidbey Island to attend and assist Christine Mauersberger's "Meditative Stitching" workshop.  

    Two peaceful quiet stitching days listening to Christine's insights with lovely women.

    Tuesday's sunrise seen on the ferry. 

    I probably drove more last week than I have in the last year put together.  I have such anxiety about driving, especially now that I do it so infrequently, but it was good to rediscover that I'm capable-ish.

    One day at home, spent packing myself and Moon.  Thursday we drove him up to Bellingham.  Because of COVID restrictions and his being SO READY to start this new chapter, the three of us made three trips with his boxes to the third floor dorm room, and I barely had time to even get misty-eyed during the quick goodbye hugs, in the rush to get us out of there in his thirty allowed slotted minutes.  (Deb, I did wave across town to you!)

    And then I drove back to the island, returning home on Monday night.

    My work table during the four days of Christine's "Binding Time" workshop.  More lovely women, and much more active.  Indigo pots, cyanotype, stitching, gelli plate printing, collaging, and more!  (Including dyeing some thread in my tea (above).)

    There's not much call for sequins in my life, but I do love them.  It was great to have time to play, to work and share with other makers, and to spend time hanging out with Christine during prep, clean up, etc.

    There was a crazy wind storm one day.  The kind of wind that tries to move your car off of the road.  Power was out for some of the island that evening, including the place where I stayed.  Leftovers were wrapped in foil and heated up on the barbeque, and I was in bed at 7:45 due to the dark and cold.

    The clouds were incredible.

    The workshops were held in this spacious building.

    Each day was a new story in the sky.

    There's more to say, but this is a start... hope you are all well.

Day to Day

    Friday afternoon...  I did not see this one coming at all.  Was really loving the colors of the base patchwork (including a Threadcrumbs moon), and went looking for hill cloth.  The flower was the right color, and the curve of the framing border suggested a hill shape, and those hot pink dots... There was a "What if?" moment, and then a going.

    Saturday morning... A hard morning- a household weariness over everything and all of the unknowns, and nothing really that can be done.  Definitely was not feeling the red flower.  Said to myself, "You should work on something that's going to work," but kept on.

    Starting with saving the inside of the hill, the patchwork that I liked so much, using Jude's "managing layers" technique.  

    A moment of debating stars, dots or crosses for the sky, and then a yes to it all.

    "What a Difference a Day Makes"

    It could have been named lots of things- Believing, It Was There All Along, Holding Hope, or Almost.  

    Next...

Being home

    This happened after a little reading about the Hundertwasserhaus.  It's weird and I want to keep going with it.  Wherever that might be.  No idea yet.  It's about home- a place to be in, and the home that is within.  I suppose much of what I make is.

    There has been a lot of self questioning in the last weeks... What I make and why?  Wondering if there's a next to step into?  And what it might be?

    Can comfortable become uncomfortable?  (The "do not repeat" painting actually has nothing at all to do with what I'm talking about...probably.)

    In the meantime, there are moon cabin squares slowly being made.  Another place to live...inside and out.

 

stars & stuff

    Looking through a pile of starts, I found this, and couldn't remember much about it.

    Old blog posts reminded me that it was going to be a star blanket, with stars stitched daily onto it, started sometime in 2017.  Oh, well.

      A couple of collages, not my usual thing to do, but it was fun to play.

    There was an urge to make a face, something I usually shy away from.

    She's only got one eye so far, I may be afraid to go on.

    Still working on the things I love book.  It's been fifty days, there are 38 things so far.

    How it feels a lot these days.

    Things are quite unfocused.  Today a few small skies came into being, that helped.

another Tuesday

    Eighty-nine squares to go.  I paused on this one for a while.  Indigo, walnut and tea, I think.

    A couple of squares begun.  This one with one of Jude's stars, it had floated to the top of the basket.

    This strange thing happened yesterday in response to Jude's post about wrinkles.  Not quite sure what's happening.  It felt like birthing something, maybe myself, but looks like a rock garden, too.  Maybe my mind is a rock garden?  Now I'm remembering childhood stops at a rock garden and museum- an attraction the family would stop at on the way to visit cousins.

    The book of loved things continues, but at a slower pace.  Some pages take longer, like this one of a retired favorite mug.  It was the perfect mug- size, image, handle...sadly, the glaze has worn off on the inside making it unsafe to drink from.

    Just a bit of Rosee...

    "Every night after work, Stew and all the girls in the beauty shop and I went riding before bed time.  It got so hot that summer that the whole bunch of us took a blanket and went out and slept in the pines.  It was a lot of fun.  The summer of 36 came along..."

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."

playdate for new old friends

    After years of "knowing" each other on-line, Deb and I have finally met!  How great it's been to spend time getting to know each other in real-life.

    We're spending time in Coupeville, WA, as students in Christine Mauersberger's workshop.  She has brought us a world of techniques to explore.  

    Here are just a few from the first two days...

    Cyanotype prints- this one had seed beads and buttons on it.

    Geli plate prints.

    Strike-out poem.

    A happy accident with a piece of Velma's beautiful handmade paper.  After dipping the edge into the indigo, it caught on itself, folding up into a wave... more to come with this page.

    The indigo drying tree.

    There's a lot more, too... Christine is filling our minds and time and with creative play, with two more days to go!