handstories

She…

    The booklet that I mentioned last week. I suppose most of the things that I make our self talk. Everything is everything.
    Here is a link to the video. 

 

Happy to Me

    "Happy to Me" on my (just like Great Aunt Peggy's) blue walls (much bluer than it looks here).  The day was spent finishing the birthday cloth (for now).  With one of Jude's moons up top in the middle of new glittering cloth that my sister sent.  The silver thread was found and used here and there, including sparkly stars scattered on the pretty pink framing strips dyed by Deb. 

    It has been the busiest week, with something every day... 

    There was cake,

 and a pomegranate margarita.

    A really glittery, sequined week.

Claiming the elephant in my room

    A few days ago, thinking about the love/hate relationship with my birthday, feeling pleased that it was in a few days and there was only a little of the usual pre-birthday gloom going on, and then realized that it was actually a couple of weeks away, and that there was still plenty of time to go into the dark side.

    And then I found this childhood drawing.  Five years old?  A circus theme- there is a trapeze artist and a clown on a unicycle on the other side.  I remember drawing it at Great Aunt Peggy's house.  We all loved her and her tiny house, and I'm sure that the blue walls of her living room are where my desire for blue began.

    Anyhow...

    The drawing triggered and fed a whole lot of old things.  And then it became a "pet pebble," an assignment for the Creativity Lab class.  The goal was to use tape and paper and get in touch with making in a childlike way.  It worked.  There was a need to do more with this elephant, some memories, and birthdays...

      Channeling my inner five-year-old, I'm going without a plan.  No rules, other than not undoing anything.  If something doesn't fit, I'm making it work with scissors, more fabric, or stitches.  I stitched on it all day Friday with a lot of joy and some tears.

        Still going... I don't know where.  Maybe more sequins and beads, and, if I can find it, silver thread.  It's a celebration.  I'm loving it.  It's still growing.  Me too.

Will she or won't she?

    Yesterday things got done.  Packages were packaged and sent, including a six-month overdue one.  Emails and texts were sent, a letter was written, things were found, and I stopped at the Y to see what it would take to get this chubby older woman back into the pool.  The nicest young man at the counter said to call our insurance and they might pay for it!

    A phone call was made.  Twenty minutes later, the nicest woman across the state said that I wasn't old enough but encouraged me to still go back to the pool.

    Another phone call to the Y.  Another nice man, who was kind and helpful, sent the scholarship application.

    I spent the rest of the day getting carried away with this one.

    This morning forms were filled out.  Suit and cap have been found.  I'm going to eat my oatmeal now, and then we shall see...

Trying to get somewhere

    Ideas are coming, words are not.  There is something about my stories.  There is something about everyone's stories.  And something about wished for stories.  They take hours that seem like minutes.

   

    In between, I'm stitching moons.  Resting places.

    Worked and worked on this one, until there wasn't anywhere left to go.  I appreciated the time and idea, but it wasn't how I thought it would go.  Folks on Instagram really liked it.  Sometimes I think that I don't know anything and can't see what's true at all.

Trying to see & hold all of it

    (First of all, I don't know what's going on with the comments.  I'm going back and forth with Typepad.  They don't see a problem, but while I can read them within the host site, I can't see or respond to them on the blog.  Also, photos still come and go on whims.  I really don't know what to do other than keep going until I can't.

    Update:  At the moment, I can see and reply to this post's comments, but not older ones...sigh, and onward...)

    The piece above- "There is So Much" was made with some cloths that I dyed in a couple of workshops over the years.  Don't remember all of the how's.  Cyanotype, potato paste resist, other things?  One thing that I've really been enjoying is finding marks in the fabrics and finding ways to continue them.  You can see it in the light blue vertical stack stitched lines and the squiggling line around the moon.  I like pushing myself to find a way to make connections.

        Most of my cloths are unplanned, just goings, but then the other day, doodling..

 

    I've been drawing things coming out of heads, moons, trees since college (The margins of my Western Civ notes were jammed with similar sketches).  What was new was a wondering if I could create it in cloth?  I think it was the weekend mending's influence.

    It didn't go quite how I wanted, but the basic idea was there.

    The next morning's attempt with eyes closed.

    And it made it past the moment of "never mind".

    Still going... and wondering what all I'm trying to say to myself.  Something good, I think, about there being so much, who we can be, and the choices we might make.

Reshaping

(There are all kinds of wonky things going on with photos, comments, and spacing right now.  Crossing my fingers that I found a workaround with this post...)

    

    "Holding Memories"

    Yesterday I was thinking about how my stitching is about creating possibilities.  That stories can come together to make new places.  

    Recently, when asked if they liked me, I was told that I'm "a mixed bag".  My first reaction was sad and hurt.  Then came the thoughts, "Who says that?!" and finally, "Well, who isn't?"  Realizing that every experience is a learning adventure, I decided to be grateful to know more... about others and myself.

    "Mystique" Tree Token

    I think my stitching is about believing in the possibilities of and for stories.

    "Time, love, and work.  That's all you have.  And, hopefully, a few trips to Italy."- Maira Kalman

    Maira Kalman is a favorite soul of mine.  There were hours of listening to (gobbling up) old podcast interviews with her this week (again).  She's funny, charming, wise, and so talented.  I found out that someone I know knows someone who knows her.  Even though I will most likely never meet her, just the idea that she's only a few degrees of separation away makes me giddy.

    Nights have taken on a strange pattern.  Waking around 4 am from intense dreams (a sky full of pink moons, starlit gardens, terrifying shadowy corners...), and then drifting off again around 5 am for an hour or two more of dead to the world sleep.  The morning paintings have become reflections.

    Also, I've started playing in this "seeded notebook" made a while back.

    Really, life can be rearranged and reconnected in so many ways.

Working at Playing

    One of the things that I noticed at the workshop is how hard it can be for me to do things in a different way.  Sometimes it's because I can't think of a new way.  I want to practice playing.

    Nancy's fortune teller is helping.  Repeating the back-and-forth movements takes me back to fourth grade recesses, seeing how fast we could whip through the ritual, how tiny we could make them, trying to force friends to choose certain colors, numbers, fortunes...  (I keep picking #4 because I love seeing her searching bird.)

    Other toys on the table- Jude's beast who wanders through rearranging hills, the Venetian paperweight for peering out of the window, and the smokey quartz that likes to catch the light, or just be held.

    Recently, there was a spontaneous trip to the water.  I wanted to tell the driver, "But wait!  I need to stop at the house for stitching, book, knitting, pencil... anything to keep my hands and head busy, to not "waste" time just sitting!" 

    There was no detour to the house.  I told myself it would be ok, and that I wouldn't crawl out of my skin.  And it was.  And I didn't.  A few lovely hours were spent watching the waves, my mind drifting and floating along with them.

 

    Yesterday I loved putting these cloths from Deb L. and Maiwa's together.  Soft, thin, blue and brown.  This morning, wishing for the arcs to show up better in the lower half, I started adding echoes in white stitches.  The dark day was making it hard to follow the lines.

    Seeing that the lines were clear as day (not this day) on the backside, I flipped it over and stitched from the back, noticing that I had to give myself a short pep talk, "It's just thread.  If it doesn't work you can pull it out."  It was weird, such a simple thing, and I pull out plenty of stitches all of the time.  There wasn't even anything complicated about it, just a plain running stitch.  Once I let go of whatever my crazy is, it was fun to let go of knowing what was happening on the other side.

    Loosening.  I'm going to ponder and practice the idea of it. 

"Thoughts of Light"

Crux

    Walnut ink painted onto cloths dyed with fresh indigo and in that turquoise wash.

 

 

    A moment from yesterday. Rainbow in my blue room (on a wall that could use repainting, just like the rest of the house), Story quilt, and the bedpost of the childhood bed. I should say childhoods...Moon’s, Blue’s, nephews, brother’s, mine, and Dad‘s in the foster home that he grew up in. 

    I’ve been thinking about the soul this week, what it is, how to stay in the space of it.  I was told that it’s a place of who we are, all we are, all we might be.  That all the things that we think and believe about ourselves are just thoughts, reactions, responses, and often judgements. So, I’m spending moments trying to step outside of thinking, and observe the What and Why.

    During the first attempt, I remembered watching Dad at his mom's wake as he struggled to grasp timelines and his past.  Suddenly, I could see the small boy of who he had been, who didn't know what had happened to his world or where his parents had gone.  It was the first true understanding of the why he was the way he was, and the beginning of feeling some compassion and forgiveness for him.

 

 

    I’m also trying to understand walnut ink.  It was dried, ironed, wetted, and then smooshed with a couple of indigo leaves and salt.

 

    What a beautiful green it was.

 

    After drying and rinsing, the rings were barely visible.

 

    And begin again.  I don't know anything about this ink.  It is from a workshop a few years ago.  Maybe I need to make my own?  Either I will figure this out or just keep the ink away from water.

    A Table Story...  Years ago, at a craft fair, M., a friend, bought the bear necklace.  I loved it too, but there was only one.  Recently, M. gave it to me.  She lives on my worktable.  Her occasional adventures are photographed and texted to M.  Yesterday she and the "Story" doll (made by Cathy Cullis years ago) celebrated the finishing of this piece under a sunny scrap of Deb's cloth with party favors of a jay feather and a piece of a tumbleweed from a road trip with M.

    It's funny how elements of stories that have been looked at over and over can suddenly take on new meanings.  That memory of Dad, after all of these years, seems to have opened a door to some understanding and compassion for me too.

"Soul Work"

    I'm keeping this one.

Considerations

"Moon Life"

    There were some days with family in Oregon this week.  So much storytelling happens when we're together.  My brother is great at the "gotcha" ones, just like Dad was.  There was a comforting happy comment from K, who said that if something ever happens to me, he'll need to spend more time with my sister, "I love watching the two of you, you're so much alike, and so funny together!"  We are a funny group.  At least we think so.

 

    I stitched myself into a starry corner with this piece, it seemed there were never going to be enough stars to fill the space I wanted covered.  I was seeing stars in the end.

 

"Sky Spells"

    There is no memory of where the textured cloth at the top came from.  It's silk, I think.  Is it considered seersucker?  I think the indigo was my doing.  So much is lost in (or out of) my head anymore.   

    I want to learn how to talk about making more, and need to, as I've just committed to doing it for a zoom hour next March.  My reaction to the request was the usual:  Flattered, sure that I didn't have anything worth sharing and couldn't possibly, panic, wondering how to graciously say "No, thank you", wishing that I could pull myself together to do such things... and on and on.  All of the usual well-practiced and repeated, fear-based things.

    The only thing that I did differently was to recognize that there is a middle place between yes and no, besides fear...  Maybe.  Possibly.

    My reply held questions, concerns, and a confession to never having done this before and not being sure how.  The response was warm and reassuring.  Realizing that I am tired of saying no out of fear, I wrote right back with a shaky "Yes."

    There is a notebook, once used for Moon's "Spanish 1, Ms. Perez, P-3" class, abandoned a few pages in, that now also has the word "Zoom" written on it.  It's where things that might be of interest to other stitchers are being written down as I work.  "Jude" and "The Circle Community" are a few of the first words.  

    Friends and therapist have reassured, "Just tell your stories..."

"In Her Dreams"