handstories

Stitching in & on time

    Many thoughts, and admirations, for Liz while stitching script!

    Serious dents were made in the want-to-do list this week, including finishing a few gifts.  I'm particularly pleased with one of them, because it is done before her birthday, which rarely happens.  So rarely that I can't remember a time that I was on time.  My usual goal is to get it to her before she sends mine in March (she is always on time).  I suppose I shouldn't  be counting the chickens just yet, not before it's in her hands.

    Sleeping awfully, but there was a wonderful dream moment of seeing a favorite student in a musical, something like "Hamilton".  He was so happy in the dream. 

    I just adored him, and got him.  He was a beautiful boy who loved gardening and birthdates, and is on the autism spectrum.  "Hi, So-and-so, when is your birthday?" were the first words out of his mouth whenever he met someone.  He would still know when it was the next time he saw you, whether it was a day or a year later.   In the early years, I would often sit next to him during school sing alongs, because the large group could be overwhelming.  Sometimes he would put his hands over his ears to block out the loud songs and lean into me.  But he loved "Down By the Bay", requested it every week, and was so happy calling out rhymes for the verses.  Gosh, I loved that boy.

    I was thrilled to see him a few years ago, and even more so when he said that I could hug him (not a favorite thing of his).  He's working at a farm now, seemed happy, and was still beautiful.

    I am not a tidy maker.

    Sock knitting is so swell.  Surprisingly and unusually, I could only find one mistake in my execution of the pattern.  Maybe these are lucky socks?

works-in-progress & a story that has nothing (or everything) to do with them

    The nitty-gritty things for the show were stressing me out (again), so I gave myself permission to not worry about them this week.  Instead, a few more story squares were worked on, and I'm calm again (for now).

    This morning I had planned to go to the grocery store at ten.  After the morning rush, before the lunch crowd, and knowing the library would be open by the time I headed home.  At nine I suddenly had the feeling that I should go Now.  Five minutes later, a few blocks from home, I came upon an accident involving a scooter and a car that had happened moments before.    

    The young man was stumbling and trying to move his bike out of the road.  Being the daughter/sister/aunt of fire fighter and EMT folks, I pulled over and got out to help.  While convincing him to sit down, he looked at me and said, "Were you my teacher?"  Looking him in the face, I recognized E. right away.  He was the sweetest boy, who struggled to get his poetic thoughts down on paper.  We had spent many hours working one-on-one together on his writing more than ten years ago. 

    The accident happened right in front of the house of the woman who hit him.  We settled him on the porch, moved his bike, she brought him a blanket, and us tea, while we waited for his dad to come.  His dad arrived, and the two of us got the bike into his pickup.  As they were leaving to get him checked out at the ER, I gave E. my phone number, asking him to let me know if he was ok, and then I headed to the store (at ten o'clock).

    He texted later saying he has a torn ligament in his knee, and also how scared he was when it happened, and how it helped to suddenly see a familiar face.  He is still a sweetheart.  

    Some of the "just the right" cloths and threads are from the makings of Jude, Tina, and Deb.

rainbows & rascals

    Last evening, there was the sweetest spring rain...and then I stepped out of the door.

    There was even a faint double rainbow, but it had faded by the time I ran back for the camera.

  The last two days were completely loopy at school, not bad, just cuckoo's nest.  One boy was unable to manage sitting still, so I asked him to come help to deliver some art to classrooms.  Handing him a pile to carry, he licked it.  

    Later, in the hall, there was a girl wandering slowly.  You get a sense about these things.  I asked her where she was headed?  Nowhere.  Where she was supposed to be going?  Upstairs.  "How about you show me where?  Let's go..."  Turned out she'd been wandering quite a while.  

    Another boy, who's been growing more and more defiant each week, seemed to be ok this week.  He was writing and illustrating a thank you note to the art museum along with the rest of the class, but upon closer inspection it was discovered that he'd drawn a naked boy, and I don't think they saw any nudes at on the field trip.

    Both days were like this, all day long.  Both days the adults in the room laughed a lot. Both days I came home and took a nap.  I'm going to miss these kind of days.

    And none of this has anything to do with the tree that was stitched on today... or maybe it all has everything to do with it?

(Moon from Threadcrumbs, rainbowed thread by Deb.

one thing at a time

    Chicago seems like a month ago, it was good- a nonstop whirlwind of activities.

    This week there has been button sewing with fifth graders.

    This guy tried to sew two buttons on at once, the first of many tangles.

    I'm grateful for the opportunity to have been with, and learned from, this community over the last six years.   I'll be leaving at the end of the school year.  It's the right thing to do, and it's not easy.  That's all I want to say about that for now.  I'll miss the kids.

    Last night, after more than a week of not sewing, I pulled out big pieces of cloth to stitch together.

    I don't know what's next.

tree & troubles

    This morning, peacefully taking a few stitches on this new tree before heading off to school, I made a plan to pay attention, to watch for some lovely student/teacher moment to share here.  Ha.

    What a day... I couldn't even tell you what all happened... Inking, printing, spray bottles of water, clay glazing, markers, sharpies, etc., and lots and lots of washing tools, tables and children.

    Somewhere in there was a first grade boy who was NOT happy.  He rarely is.  He came with a support person, but still, he was under the table, out the door, in, out, in, roaming the room...  The teacher reached for the phone to call for office help, and then he really lost it.  I scrambled down the hall and stairs to find more reinforcements, returning to find him sitting still at a table.  Whew.

    The other two teachers were helping others, I sat down across the table, trying not to laugh at his scrunched up mouth and eyes, glaring and scowling as hard as possible.

    "How are you doing?"

        "Not good."  

    "Yep, you seem pretty unhappy.  The project is about drawing a happy place.  Where are you happy?"

        "Nowhere.  I'm never happy."

    "Hmm.  Where can you imagine being happy?  On vacation, in the park, by the ocean?"

        "The ocean is NOT a happy place!"  And then he proceeded to tell me a wild tale about being on a boat when he was three, being bitten by a shark and having a dolphin scold him.  It went on and on...  And then things digressed into hating art, pointing out all of the "ugly" art on the walls, telling me I was a jerk, and that if I didn't move away from him, he would stand on the table and pull the lights down...   Finally, class was over.

    "I hope you find some ways to turn things around for you," I told him as he grumbled at the end of the line heading out of the door.

        "I won't."

    During my ten minutes with him, he stayed at the table, did not climb on or under it, and wasn't yelling or disruptive.  This jerk is calling it a win.

alone

    There was no school the last two days, which allowed for checking many things off the to-do list, working my way through a head-cold in peace (and two boxes of tissues), and some solid quiet hours of stitching.

    Thinking about how alone can be wonderfully enough.

    And then sometimes it absolutely isn't ok at all...

    The other day in the hall at school, I saw one of the students I often sit with, when he's together enough to come to art (the one I drew trees with last month).  The last time we sat together he had shared about a wonderful vacation he went on during winter break.  I later learned that the vacation probably never existed and that his life has been scattered to the wind and into uncertainty, without anyone to count on.  

    We greeted each other with "Hi" and I asked him how things were going?  He gave a so-so sign and an "Eh."  

    "Me, too," I said, squeezing his hand, "Hope I'll see you in art today."  

    "Me, too," he said.

    He didn't make it to art that day.  I'll hope for next week.

doodling the days away

    Last week, the students were creating gems, and I was itching to join in, but there were other things that needed done.

    This weekend the dark gray weather got to me, so I scattered some swashes of watercolor, including some shimmering supernova colors from here  (not surprisingly, my favorite is "starlight"), and then doodled my own cache of jewels.

    Meditative and fun, a very swell way to spend some time.

    (And, no, there isn't a Christmas cookie in the house, a gift wrapped, or any ornaments up, but there are lights on the tree and the afghan is almost done...)

    "There's still plenty of time," she told herself (almost convincingly).

blues & trees

    On a very gray day, in a blue chair, they are done...two extra long, not so pretty, but very practical blankets for Blue and Moon.  Pieced out of cloth from the tubs under the bed, dipped in fading indigo, left-over flannel for batting, and stitched with threads from that messy basket full (shrinking the tangle of it quite a bit, thankfully).

    The weather is dark these days, and wet.  Between that and the holidays, it can be hard on the students (and the teachers).  

    While working in the back of the room today, a boy was sent to sit by me.  In a bit of a mood myself, I sighed inside, because it meant making room for him, physically and mentally.  I shoved things over, and asked him, "So, other than right now, how's your day going?"

    "Bad."

        "How come?"

    "Everything's boring."

       "Lucky for you, you're in art class now."

    He rolled his eyes.  

    Working side-by-side, he we relaxed into Ms. T.'s drawing assignment of mountains and evergreens (one of those well thought out ones with simple steps to follow that lead everyone to success).  We experimented with ways to make the trees.  He admired and laughed at the scribbly ones that my 7th grade art teacher taught me, and decided he like his very straight lined sweet ones (I loved that).  The class ended with him letting us lean into each other, shoulder to shoulder, and my telling him, "I know this isn't where you wanted to be today, back here with me, but I'm sure glad you came."  

    He gave me a big smile, reminding me that I was lucky to be in art class, too.

    Back to the blankets, while they're nothing to write home about, I'm pleased that they are done, warm, and made completely from what I already had, including fabrics that hold fond memories of maps, castles and cows jumping over moons during the boys' younger years.

slow self start

    The bottom two were gifts from Jude.  Top right came from a piece of Liberty cloth from our trip to London a few years ago.  The blue...just a beautiful blue.  Last week I was told, "make yourself a quilt."  I think my eyes rolled at the idea.  So many things that need doing, should be done.

    Yesterday, a second grader came into the art room as mad as could be.  He wasn't going to sit, do, or even look at what he should.  He was having none of it.  I sat down next to him.  He was sitting on his stool backwards, facing away from the table with arms crossed, "I'm not going to tell you why I'm so angry!"

    Of course, he really wanted someone to know why he was so mad.  A few slow questions later, I heard about the tiff that had happened on the playground right before class.  Once he told his side of things, he was able to turn around, and relax into his art.  I love how kids let go and move on.

    That was yesterday.  Today I was tired, dropped the ball left and right (pencils and scissors, too), and, at best, was mediocre.  At one point a child screamed.  Ms. T. and I looked at each other across the room.  "I might try that, too," I muttered.  

    "Don't you dare."

    Yesterday, stitching these four squares, and then putting them together, was very satisfying.  There is much to love about blue squares.  

    And that red dotted cloth is so lovely.  (Jude talked about it here.)  It was stitched to a plain muslin square for support.   A corner was snipped off and flipped over, because I didn't want to lose the view of the other side of those sweet clipped dots.  It didn't quite go as planned, but I let it go and moved on.  And in the process there were some new ideas for another day.

    Today I'm too tired to stitch, and am just sitting here with these soft blue squares.  

    Maybe a very slow quilt, a square here and there, of cloths that are gifts, memories, and loved.  A way to hold them, and eventually they might hold me back.  We'll see.

apricots & moons

    "This is apricot!"

        "Yes, it is.  Do you like to eat apricots?"

    "You can't eat crayons!"

        "That's right, but you can eat the fruit named apricot."

    "Apricot is a crayon, not a fruit!"

        "This crayon is named apricot, because it's the color of a fruit that's called apricot.  Have you ever seen an apricot fruit?  It's like a small peach."

    "This is not a peachy crayon, it's an apricot crayon!  You can't eat crayons!"

    And so the conversation with this first grader went, as he colored layer after layer on only a few spots of his owl.  He is usually a happy boy, and he is on the spectrum.  He loves art, and we always discuss the rainbows on the wall (there are three!), and he always falls apart when it's time to stop.  I don't blame him.  Today there was extra frustration when the crayon he chose turned out to be pink not red, and even more when it happened again.  And then I realized he was throwing the unwanted pink crayons into the recycle can behind him.  He couldn't have pink crayons at his table because boys don't use pink... well, that was another conversation.

    We talk and talk, along with the other cheery boy at the table, who wants to manage everything and everyone, except himself.  Try as he might, he couldn't convince me to trade my owl for his.  Coloring and chatting (along with a little wrangling) with these characters is very good stuff.

    Today I filled my pocket with moon gifts from Jude.  Sweet glowing touchstones.

    Later, the apricot one came to the sea with me.