handstories

On the brink with pink

    Recently, I wrote a friend about feeling on the brink, and that I didn’t know why, but making a boat always seems to help. And it did.

Actually, I made two boats.

    Another “I don’t know why…“ is the reason that there is so much pink in recent pieces?  This one was actually started a month or so ago and put aside when I got stuck. There was a lot of heavy stitching in it. I finally got out of my own way, took out the stitches, and replaced them with so many tiny ones- to hold it together and echo the beautiful dyeing by Jude (moon) and Deb (pink fabrics). 

    Another of Jude‘s moons and Deb’s threads- a kind of remembering of how much small spaces can hold.

    July 1st, a third boat... without words. 


    Today’s.  I wanted a pink house from the get-go, and one thing led to another. There were a lot of thoughts about process.  Wondering if it was a kind of doodling- adding something here, there… But I think it’s more connected to writing for me. Starting with a “Once upon a time…” followed by the “and's…”

    Whatever it is, it feels good today.

Blue & yellow and a Blue story

    One morning, I woke up wanting to weave, remembering the fun of being in Jude's Cloth 2 Cloth workshop, everyone weaving together... 

    One of the reasons that I find myself blogging less, is feeling like I have nothing to say.  My life is so quiet now.  There are no interesting stories like there were in my teaching days.  

    Getting lost in the details is a happy place.

    “She Wove Her Sky in Starlight”

    The sun was still coming up when I went for a walk one morning.  Sometimes I stop for the views for a long while and have to remind myself that the goal is to be moving.

    The top yellow fabric led to the rest of this golden cloth.  With pieces from Deb, Jude, and Blandina.  It's still in the works...

    Yesterday, a two-hour phone call with Blue.  It was so swell.  He has grown so much during his adventure in Chile.  Gaining self-awareness, confidence, friends from all over the world, and stories galore. 

    So, I will borrow and share a Blue story...  Recently, his old sneakers finally gave out.  A Chilean friend took him shopping.  When he told the salesman his size, he shook his head with doubt.  Blue is tall and has BIG feet, size 13-14, much bigger the average Chilean shopper.  They went to the stockroom, and they all searched together, looking for anything close.  Just as they were about to give up, they found one pair of sneakers in size 12.5.  They were comfortable enough.  Blue was so happy to have them, and said it felt like a miracle.

    Fast forward to last week:  A group of them went south of Santiago to a friend of a friend's family cabin.  Surrounded by mountains, forests, and lakes, they had a wonderful week of hiking, kayaking, etc...  On their last day, thanks to a friend of a friend, etc... they were taken on a tour bus around the area.  One stop was at a fancy hotel/restaurant where they were treated to a delicious meal.  "You would have loved it, Mom!  It was like a fairy tale... something Snow White would have found in the woods.  You felt like you were inside of a magical tree."

    The next morning, packing up to leave, he couldn't find his new shoes.  He remembered switching them out for his flipflops on the bus the day before.  They were still on that bus.  One friend said he looked like someone had died.

    He flipflopped to the bus stop, mourning his precious shoes.  As they boarded the bus for the ten-hour ride back, the driver asked, "Does anyone here have big feet?"  Blue called out, "Yes!"  The driver pulled out a bag with his shoes!  They had been found on the other bus.  Folks wondered if a basketball player had left them?  Somehow, they had found their way to this driver, Tio Rico (who everyone called "Uncle").  Blue gushed his thanks and shared his shoe search story with him.  Tio Rico laughed and laughed, and at each stop along the way, he would call for Blue to tell the story of "The Miracles of the Giant Shoes"!

    Blue and Tio Rico, and the Giant Shoes!

Forty-plus

    “There is Light in the Waves”

    Our story started in July 1979.  Sixteen. A first conversation on someone's deck stairs.  Talking and talking... I'm sure I've told it over and over here... Writing in my diary that night, "I'm never getting married, but if I do, it will be to someone like K.F."  (I was dating someone else at the time!)

    Spring 1982.  Freshman year of college.  In front of the blue house I grew up in.  Please admire my Gunny Sax dress!  Purchased for high school graduation.  I begged Mom to split the $80 cost with me.  (Do not admire the gardenia corsage- it made my nose run all evening.)  I loved that dress and wore it over and over.  K's wearing his old high school singing tux.  Both are in the closet upstairs.

    Wedding 1983.  I'm sorry that Mom's beautiful smocking work on my dress doesn't show up very well.  She worked hard on the making of it.  It was worn a few times, too.  To an anniversary dinner at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, Michigan and one Halloween as Emily Dickinson.  It's upstairs too, in her old cedar chest.

   2023  So many stories... 

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.

Many kinds of stories

"Maybe a Lot of Things"

    I'm liking these longer cloths lately.  Space for more layers of the story, but not overwhelming.

    We went to Oregon for the weekend.  To visit family.  I spent most of the days with my mom.  Her days are so different now, without her husband, or the need to care for him.  There is so much time in a day when life suddenly empties of all you know. 

    We spent some time driving through my hometown (she lives in the city next-door now).  We stopped by to visit her best friend, who still lives next door to the house that I grew up in from age five until 18, when I left home.  The photo above is how it looks now.  It feels too wide open and lifeless to me.  My bedroom was there at the top.  I used to crawl out onto the roof on summer evenings.

    This is how it was... (photo taken as it was being sold when I was 24).  Blue (Mom's choice), the split log fence Mom built to keep us and the neighbor kids from riding our bikes over the corner, and the two big trees on either side of the corner.  A lot happened in that house.  Seeing it makes me want to weep from many kinds of sadness.

    When all of the leaves were picked off, the indigo stems were put into water.  Look at all of the new leaves!  They continue to grow above the stitching table among small stories- the ship in a bottle (it appeared when I was cleaning off my shelves to leave my teaching job), a bluebird from Blue, a clay "piece of mind" made by Moon when I told him I wish I had "peace of mind". 

    In the works, with a moon from Jude.  What goes under the arch, I'm not sure yet? It feels like a place where stories might meet.

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"

New chapters

    I really like looking at all of these together like this... touching and a part of each other's stories.

    (They have all been added to the shop.)

More cake, rope & a boat

    This year's birthday season came to a close last night with German chocolate cake made by Moon and a family visit with virtual Blue.

    A new boat, sailing into, or with, springtime.

    I had forgotten some of the rope story...  It all started with this photo and a text from my brother to my sisters and me last April.  What you need to know:  My dad's name was Pat, both of them were in the volunteer fire department of our hometown, my brother's son (D) is now in one in his town, and that my family likes to tell stories.  Here's my brother's in his somewhat edited words...

    "Ok, good morning, prepare for some rambling, or delete now...  Couldn't sleep so have been cleaning shop since 5am and drinking COFFEE.  Weather has been 68-74 the last 10 days and thank goodness it's raining today- makes this quarantine more bearable?  At least it feels ok to sit in/at home.  Shop's clean, drawers organized, and drill bits all sharpened.

    "I said rambling right?  When I resigned from the fire department in February, after 35 years, I cleaned out my turnout pockets, came home and tossed it all in box."  ("turnouts" are what fire fighters call their uniform pants tucked into boots, partially turned inside out, with suspenders dangling on the sides, all standing ready to be stepped into and pulled on quickly.)

    "This morning in my puttering, I mean cleaning, I found I needed a section of rope to hang my gnomes on.  The ones I kept from Pat's (Dad's), as the original rope had rotted away (see photo).  I recalled my "turnout rope" (see photo).  Now you ask what is a turnout rope? 

    "Always carry a piece of rope in your turnouts, that way you'll have it when you need it," Pat-ism (Dad had A LOT of sayings).  To tie off a ladder, a hose or whatever.  On one call Pat borrowed my rope (guess who didn't have his), tied open a door, and let it get burned up when we were pulled out of the structure.

    So I proceeded to give him crap about my rope... And where was his rope?  We know who lost mine, etc.... 

    One drill night in a classroom, he sat and end braided a new section of rope.  Not quite half the class watched him- fascinated as they had never seen end braiding and they still weren't sure why or what he was doing?  Near the end of class Pat came over to me, in front of everyone, and handed it to me.

    "Your f---ing rope, don't lose it again!"  A good laugh.  It's still with me.

    It seems funny, I carried that simple piece of rope and used it Many times for 33 years.  I'll never need it for turnouts again.... Can't decide whether to hang the gnomes with it or....  D. can't use it as now everyone carries synthetic webbing....whatever.

    See rambling....simple things that somehow make us tick."

    Love this rope more and more.
 

Waterside gifts

    Dad's birthday was/is (?) the day before mine.  Something that I both loved and hated growing up.  Things were often tangled for me because of it.  The feelings about it all continued into adulthood, making the days leading up to my birthday hard (especially for those around me).  This year was the second one without him, it turns out that my pre-birthday angst doesn't require his physical presence.

    Those who know me best are used to it.  At least this year I saw it coming, headed most of it off at the pass by saying "Yes!" and "No." as needed and wanted, and in the end it was much shorter and less of everything than usual.  

    And yesterday began beautifully... 

    Sunrise.  For all kinds of reasons, the family celebration will be on Sunday, so at sunrise I headed to the ferry.

    Stepping onto the boat, stopping to snap this photo of the city, a ferry worker shouted at me to not stop there, to move to the other side.  I wanted to shout back at her, "Why are you yelling at me?!  It's 7:30 in the morning and it's my birthday!"  I just apologized and moved on.  She was just doing her job.

    The day was spent stitching and talking with my friend in her sweet little house again,

    Beside the bluebird figurine and watching the sparrows, chickadees and crows outside,  

    In a red velvet chair.

    Returning home last night there were surprises waiting in the mailbox.  Nancy kindly and thoughtfully sent a book who's title has often called to me, and now I'll finally be able to read.  The rope is from my brother.  Take note of the two ends, they were done by Dad.  

    A kind of knotting-weaving that secures the ends from fraying, and can create a strong loop.  I didn't know about this until my brother mentioned it in a conversation after Dad died.  I was fascinated, by the skill and the way it wove into Dad's story...  How in In the early years of Mom and Dad's marriage, with a new baby (me) and struggling to make ends meet... Dad would go down to the docks on the weekends to fish, and offer his knot making skills to other fishermen.  I can imagine him sitting there with his line in the river, while turning ropes into new tools and a few dollars.

    So things shifted this year.  Some anger and sadness set-aside, a few holes filled in with a little more forgiveness, understanding and story.  

    I'm so glad to have this, to be able to hold it and think of Dad making useful and beautiful things with his hands.

Binding Story

    Not wanting to cover up the edges of the squares on the "Story" blanket with binding, I quilted up to about an inch or so all around it.  When that was done, the three layers (squares, flannel and backing) were trimmed even with each other.

    Four inch wide strips were folded in half and slid between the squares and flannel layer.

    A row of stitching through all the layers.

    Followed by more rows, filling in that unquilted inch or so.

    With the quilting finished on the squares side, it was flipped over.

    The binding folded over and whip stitched into place.

    A finial whip stitched row on the front (just to be secure, or because it meant being able to keep going on it for longer).

    This shows the finished edges from both sides.  Three sides are done.  Probably another day or two for the last one, or maybe I'll stitch another few rows into the binding on the back to keep it going?

    No stories today, but I have been working on writing down a long ago travel misadventure, told a friend on the phone the other night.  We had such a good laugh from it, she made me promise to write it down.  It's so much longer on paper, and I'm not sure it's as funny without my dramatic presentation.  We'll see.

    I'm noticing that more stories are being shared these days.  There's not a lot to share with nothing much going on in most of our lives, the same people, activities, walls... day after day... so the past is coming out to entertain us more and more.  Moon has been shocked to find out how many times teenage K. and I broke up before finally settling down, a friend wanted to hear all about my Camp Fire girl days, and my mom shared (for the first time!) Dad's strange proposal.

    I've always said stories can carry us through...