handstories

Arcs

    Recent stitching- a series in rainbows.  (Inspired by and created with the dyeing talents of Deb and Tina.)

 

 

    New ideas- abstracted rainbows, black thread.  These pieces felt like drawing more than usual.

    On Instagram, someone asked if I would ever be able to go back to my usual palette after working with in such vivid colors?  I really enjoyed playing with these brights, being braver with bold, and there was already a piece in dark blues going by the time I saw the comment.  I am going to do more with these ideas.  They feel like an expansion rather than a shift.

    I don't have a lot of words for here or in regular life.  Things are ok, swell mostly.  Life felt really good for weeks, and then there was a head-first dive into a downward spiral last week.  Sometimes I do myself in.  It's an old habit, but at least I recognize it now.  This is progress.  Onward...

Here

    Deb and Tina's cloths melting together with one of the indigo moons from last summer's vat.  A new thing with the rings, instead of just stitching.  Trying to make them more of the story, their own stories, too.  A bit fiddly, but still enjoyable, especially playing with bias possibilities and limits.

    These rings of color and light make me think of a rainbow. Dismantled and reconstructed at the same time.

    There was rain yesterday, all day, the kind that makes you think "monsoon season".  We didn't mind.  We worked quietly at our own things.  Quiet except for the Stellar Jay that yelled outside the window most of the afternoon.  Complaining about the rain, I think.

    Two of the rings are from new cloths.  It's been a long time since I was in a fabric store.  It was kind of like a visit to a candy shop- beautiful and overwhelming.  I bought a few fat quarters, which may have been chosen partly for their selvedge messages.  I used to be excited by the color dots on the edges, but now there are whole thoughts!

"Here We Are"

Week in Review ***

(*** Friends of ours eat all of their leftovers on the weekends, they call it "Week in Review".)

"Circles Held Her"

    Unexpectedly, the houses are still coming.  I want to learn some photo collage skills, to create a village of these stories of home for myself.

    The evening birds seem much more contented than the morning ones.  More songlike, rather than desperate "Let's get going!" tweets.  Remembering the mornings of hungry little ones and the rush to get everyone everything and out the door on time.

    LOTS of Jude's thread beads happening.

    Sometimes I end up feeling dotty from them.  Deb's thread and cloth must have had the same dye recipe, and Tina's yellow framing cloth is the icing on the cake.

    I've been listening to books from the library while I stitch these days.  Finished a lovely middle reader Caribbean fairy-sea-tale yesterday, A Comb of Wishes, and am now partway into Cloud Cuckoo Land.  What a change in required concentration level!

    A boat stitched while thinking of dearest friend who is out at sea for the next couple of weeks.  She leads a life of adventure with new experiences and people at every turn- a glittering existence.  In my quiet lamp lit corner, I sometimes wonder how we found and held onto each other over the last twenty plus years?

    Walking through Seattle in springtime, it's hard to remember to watch where you're going.  I'm often tripping over the sidewalk cracks or getting dizzy from craning my neck to the sky and tree tops.

    On Earth Day, someone on Instagram posted their visit to Walden's Pond.  I was there 24 years ago last January with K., visiting my sister, and six months pregnant with Blue.  The pond was frozen over.  I stepped out onto the ice so that I could say that I was on Walden's Pond.  K and my sister's guy stood on shore shouting at me to, "Bring the baby back on land!"

"Itzel" Mayan for "rainbow".

    Wishing you all a colorful week of glittery things.

pink skies and silver rain

    Out our window, a week ago at sunset.

    At the same time, across town, K. saw a double rainbow.

    It was a very nice Christmas day.  One of our (my) traditions, is that I go into the living room first, and take a photo of Blue and Moon as they come into the room and see the tree with the filled stockings and gifts below.  Not to be undone by distance, with Blue zooming on the computer, Moon carried Blue on screen in, and I got my photo.  For the next hour, he "sat" next to the tree and we opened gifts, made jokes, and took a group selfie with one of us holding the computer facing the camera.  Technology was the very best gift this year.

    These are the Wise Guys, my favorite childhood ornaments (except for the beautiful glittery glass balls that my brother has).  If you look closely, there is a single silvery strand draped above and over the top right guy.  I took it off of Mom's tree one year.  She called it "rain" and our childhood trees were dripping with it.

    You see what I mean.  My brother and me, 1967. 

    K. was quite concerned when he first saw my family's tree style.  Lucky for him, this single strand of tinsel is enough for me.

    Mom doesn't do a tree anymore, and passed the angel topper on to me.  I remember shopping for it with Mom and Aunt J.  Mom pointed it out on the top shelf, Aunt J., being taller, reached for it and I held it in front of me as I sat in the shopping cart, asking if I thought it was pretty?  I did.  Mom doesn't believe I remember this, because I was only two, but I do.

    This is Christmas Night, after the photo above.  I'm four.  I remember what led to this, too. 

    I had brought my new doll, dollhouse and their boxes into my bedroom.  Crawling into bed with the new doll and the old one (so that she wouldn't feel replaced), I looked at the dollhouse on the floor...  (Here's where I'm going to tell you one of the strange things about me... I have always personified things.  I don't know what this means or says about me, but there it is.)  So, on that night, looking at the dollhouse on the floor, I worried that I was hurting its feelings by not bringing it to bed with me, too.  So, I got up and brought it into the bed, and then returned for the boxes, because how sad for them to be empty and alone on the floor...

on turning 57 during precarious times...

    A quiet birthday at home, not that different than what would have been asked for.  Some of these works are still in progress, including me.

moody blues

    It's interesting that the moods of both this piece and myself completely switched places by the time it was finished.  I suppose it has very little to do with the cloth and thread.  Rather, it was what was happening when time wasn't being spent in stitch.  Maybe I should never put the needle down?  Or use it to stitch my mouth shut?  And eyes and ears closed...

seeing through

    A rainbow path . . . traveling from the child's spirit . . .

    through heart . . . 

    to circle the moon, and back again.

    It's something about hoping and dreaming, and seeing and knowing a way through, and there's the holding of it all wrapped around the moon.

    Stitched first in seven solid threads in rainbow colors, then filled in with Deb's rainbowed threads.  A vibration of Self.

    It's been a quiet few days, for the most part.  Still slowly going through things, discovering the walls and floor in our bedroom that have been covered in boxes and piles for years.  Transition and lightening.

story cloth

    The weather dropped more than ten degrees today.  Hallelujah.  In celebration there was the putting on of layers (I don't generally love clothes, but I do love the feeling of being wrapped in them).  There was also some slowing down to finish the stitching of this cloth.   

    The sea is from the cloth K. gave me for Christmas when we were expecting Blue, to make a quilt for him.  I still love it twenty years later.  I love those birds, too.  I think their cloth may be even older.  They've flown on so many things- the turning 40-42 quilt, baby blankets, many of these little squares, and more.  The beads are leftover from teaching Pre-K with Janie, and a few classrooms after that.  The children would string them, along with tiny shrinky-dinks of their drawings, onto curled and twisted silver wire to wrap around small jars as candle holders- Solstice gifts for their families.

        Before these cloths even begin, they are already full of story. "Where everything meets"

hodgepodge . . .

    The start of something new.  Something to clear the mind, slow straight-ish stitches on a happy rainbow of squares.  

    Blue is happily settled back at school, K. and Moon had a fun time away, and I thoroughly enjoyed the two days alone.  The only time I talked out loud, aside from a few murmurings with the cat, was one phone call with my sister.  Stayed up too late as always, followed by too much tea to make up for it, but slept so soundly last night,finally . . . not a single nightmare.  Maybe it's because the coolness of Fall is drifting through the window at night?  I love autumn, always have.

    The first thing Moon talked about upon arriving back home was of a spider encounter that I wasn't there to deal with.  Some of you might remember my boys' attitudes about bugs here.  Well, nothing has changed over the last two years.  On Friday he refused to help me with a spider I was trying to catch and put outside (it was big, the size of a drinking glass opening!).  

    "What are you going to do when you don't live with me anymore?!" I asked him.  

    "Get myself a tough girlfriend, pronto!" he replied.

rainbowing

    A friend sent me her rainbow photos.  She took them just on the other side of the hill last week.  

    She says it was much more amazing than the photos show.

    I wonder where in our brain is the spot that holds a place for the joy of seeing the whole spectrum shining together?

    The guys will be home any time now, it will be very good to see them all, but it was a great few days of no responsibilities, not needing to take care of anyone else, and being able to toss and turn in bed without bothering anyone.  (Poor K., I wonder how he sleeps?  The last three mornings the blankets look as if I had wrestled for my life all night long.)