handstories

Fortuitous

    K. asked if I get tired of making these little trees.  Nope.  Each one is a surprise with its own tiny story, and I love choosing names for them.  When one is finished, I hold it and wait for a word to come to mind- night, wind, song, light, whisper, etc., and then look up names with that meaning to choose from.  So many wonderful names out there...

    Also, each one reminds me of my wonderful middle school art teacher, Mrs. Trytko, who taught us to draw trees this way.  Tall, wearing caftans and huge framed glasses, she swirled through the room giving praise and constructive critiques.  She offered complicated lessons and projects, treating us with generosity and respect, making us feel like real Artists.  How lucky we were.

    Speaking of lucky... Juliann's name was drawn for the copy of Stitch*illo!  Thanks everyone for sharing your lovely stitching words and thoughts.💙 (Juliann, I've sent you an email.)

Contented in Through

"Through"

    While naming pieces for today's update, "through" kept coming up.  So many things feel like "getting through" right now, not in a bad way, just things going on, and remembering my mother-in-law's idea that "through is a place".  I guess we are always in through.  (This through started with a dreamy piece of Deb's cloth and was framed in Tina's twilight purple.)

    In anticipation of K's surgery on Monday (the biggest through), and of his being home for weeks, I wove and pinned the next section of the quilt.  Did it have a name?  If so, it's gone now.  

    I'm guessing that there will be less time and focus for making pieces for the shop.  Quilting will be a comforting no-thinking required thing to do.

    Not the best photo, but a sense of where it's at now.

    And a blurry hot pink photo of the current socks on the needles in the bright sunlight.  I often knit a few rows after breakfast to wake up my hands and head.  These are eye-openers!  Someone I know has been wearing a lot of hot pink and fuchsia lately.

    Bear close-up for Barbara.

    "Razia" meaning "contented".  Wishing the same for us all.

Dream Days

"Sip of Dreams"

    Many swell happenings over the last few days...  Friday- to Bellingham for Moon's a cappella concert.  It was great to hear him sing, watch him have a great time, be so happy.  And then the treat of meeting up with Deb for dinner.

    After that, a night in Vancouver, B.C. in a room with a city view (across the street from the Coliseum-ish library), strolling Granville Island (Maiwa's!), a delicious Italian dinner...  It's been so long since we've gone somewhere, just the two of us.  It was a very nice time.

    On the way home, there was an extra dose of Deb time!  Tea in her cozy sweet house with two of the friendliest cats you'll ever meet (Widget wasn't interested in socializing).  

    Her GOOD Enough quilt is even more wonderful in person (as is she!).

    Today I potted up her gift of indigo plants, with hopes for their survival under my blue thumb.

    Sunday night I dreamt in cloth.  The memory became the morning painting.  By afternoon, the image was fading, but not the incredible feeling.  A cloth began...
 
    I didn't refer back to the painting at all and was surprised this afternoon to see the differences.  The tree had completely slipped away.  Dream to paper, paper to cloth, maybe I'll complete the circle and keep going, back and forth, forward and back, in and out of the dream.

Hoping

"Holding Hope"

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"

Bubbling

        This piece- I loved working on it.  It felt full and rich before any of the stitching began, Deb's magic.  Three different cloths dyed by her- loose cotton, linen, and I'm guessing a former sheet.  Love how they flow together, and with an indigo moon from last summer.

    Today is Blue's 24th birthday.  He's somewhere between The Badlands and Yellowstone.  Photos come now and then when there is reception.  Holding my breath that he'll be able to call sometime today.

 

    When I stopped stitching, it felt like it was floating. 

 

    The morning tea made the circle (Super Irish Breakfast).  The green spots were from the afternoon's pomegranate.  It splashed pink, but dried green.  The thread was in the same tea and stayed pink.  I wonder about the alchemy of this.  

    Ate the last two Christmas cookies from the freezer in lieu of a cake with Blue.  Felt a little sad-mama-sorry for myself and happy that he's on an adventure, just as he should be.  That's him in the photo, one week old on my first Mother's Day.  I remember thinking, "What have I done?"  And being surprised that he was still there every time I caught a glimpse of him.  "There's a baby here." I said over and over.

    Gosh, I miss him.

"The Sparkling Symphony of it All"

Giddyup

"Songs of Everything"

    The other day, there was a phone call with Mom.  The best calls are when we share stories, especially when she shares old ones.  Most of my family are good tellers, we all have a good sense of humor, mostly sarcastic.  Not everyone's cup of tea.  It took K. a while to get us, and to learn how to give it back.

    I told her about Blue's upcoming camping/road trip with buddies.  They'll be traveling between Michigan and Yellowstone.

    "Do you remember when we went?" she asked.

    All I remember are the photos, I was two, my brother was six months.  It was a trek from Oregon to Montana to visit my great grandparents on their ranch.  Nick and Marion Monte.  There is a formal photo of them in the album, a stern looking couple, him in a bow tie and white cowboy hat.

 

(An experiment in tiny living.)

    I'm not sure how our conversation took a turn to hitchhiking stories.  Remembering how Dad would pick up most anyone he saw on the roadside, and how distressed I was when he would tell the person to get in the back with us kids.  Worrying that I would be the first to go if the guy was a wandering murderer.

    I confessed my two hitching stories to Mom.  During college summers, K and I would take innertubes down the Deschutes River.  Dropping the tubes off at a starting point, we would drive the car five or so miles up the river and park it, and then walk back to the tubes, looking for and often getting a ride from a kind stranger.

    The other was in Colorado.  A summer high school church camp.  With the afternoon off, four of us girls walked several miles down into town.  The return trip was not so pleasant.  It was hot and uphill.  Convincing four conservative church girls to hitchhike wasn't easy, but I did it with some fast talking, "If a man stops, there are four of us.  Together we can take him!  We just have to make sure that there are handles inside the doors, and I'll sit behind the driver.  If he tries anything, I'll grab him around the neck."  A very nice guy stopped. No strangling on my part was required.

"Moon Kept Their Stories"

    And then Mom shared a couple of her stories... "And here's the best one...," she said, "It was on the Yellowstone/Montana trip.  We picked up a guy somewhere along the way.  He rode in the back with you kids.  We stopped at a bar that was famous for its long bar and saddles for barstools.  Dad and I really wanted to check it out and the hitchhiker said that he wanted to nap, so he stayed with you kids while we went in and saddled up for a drink!"

    Can you imagine?

    I think that I'm glad that I don't remember that trip!

    Sometimes everything looks the same but feels quite different.

Stories with a Stranger

    With an eyelet from Deb's dyeing under a blue moon by Tina, I started a new home cloth.

    I had a fun phone conversation yesterday.  There is a credit card that I never use, that K. wants us to start using.  The problem is that because I never use it, I had never changed the incorrect name on it.  I told K. that I would need to go to the store it was issued through.  A store that we rarely go to now. 

    "No you don't, just call the 800 number on the back of it."

So, yesterday I finally called.  After a couple of tries to choose the right number, to get to the right department, a pleasant southern woman answered, "Hello, my name is S.  How are you doing today?"

    "Good.  How are you?"

    "Fine.  Thank you for asking!  Let me verify some information...  What is the name as it appears on the card?"

    Answered.

    "Here's a security question... What is your favorite pet?"

    "My favorite pet?  I've only had cats..."

    No.

    A specific cat?  "Twinkle? Jenny?  Jake?  Mittens?  Midnight?..."

    No.  No.  No.  No.  "It starts with a B..."

    "A 'B'?!?"  Bird?  Bat?  Buffalo???

 

    "Oh, wait a minute!  I clicked on the wrong name..."

    "Was it my husband's?  K....?"

    "Yes, sorry about that..."

    "Did he say Buffy?!?"

    "Yes."

    "Oh, Buffy...poor old thing!  She's dead."

    "Oh, I'm sorry!"

    "No, she's long gone and was a crazy dog that he had back in high school.  A few weeks after K. left for college, his mother called me up in hysterics, saying that K's dad had accidently backed the car up over Buffy.  When he went to try to help her, she bit him and died.  His mom called me because she was afraid that she would start laughing if she called K.  She couldn't stand Buffy.  That was fall of 1980..."

    "Oh, my!" said S. and then had a revelation of her own, "1980, that was the year that my dad came out..."

    "We have some stories to share!" I said.  She agreed.  We went on for a minute, and then she remembered she had a job to do... 

    Clearly, I had verified who both K and I were, so she moved on to another kind of question, but still one that I wasn't sure of the answer to.  "Is it ______?"  Clearly it wasn't.  "Maybe I should just tell you what my question is?  Maybe none of this matters?  How do I change the name on my card?"

    "You need to go to the store where it was issued."

    "I knew it!  I was right!  K. said I needed to call you, but I was right!"

    "Of course, you were!"

    The whole conversation was very fast, only a few minutes, but we were both laughing hard by the end. 

    This piece was fun, too.

"She Remembered Her Song"

Choices

"Rooted in Magic"

    I mean to be here more, really, I do.  The days are spent making, by evening my eyes are too tired for screens, and/or K. is using the computer.  I love these days of stitching.  So lucky to be able to do work that I love.

    The morning paintings are happening again.  I think that I lost my way with routines in the last weeks.  They help.

    The singing group has started meeting in person again, masked, spread out some.  One of our songs is "Storm Comin'," a favorite of mine.

    

"Glittering"

    When I was new to the group (15 years ago?), at some point the woman next to me turned to me and said, "You're not singing the right notes."

    I shrugged my shoulders and said, "It's not a choice."

    At our first gathering a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that she was sitting in front of me.  At the next sessions, I noticed that she moved up a few rows.  Ha!

    I love it when Deb Lacativa's cloths have seams to pick apart.  They feel like bonus surprises- secret extra places of color.  This was probably a sheet.  I put stitches into the holes left behind as a way of holding the story of before.

"Showered in Light"

    Tina dyes up beautiful soft rainbows of cloth.  They are often just the right setting for a story.

    Spring has sprung.

    And THIS took my breath away (be sure to click on the right arrow to get to the video and make sure that you have the sound on (bottom right corner).  Can you imagine being in the presence of such an ocean of amazing?!?

Choosing

    Putting one piece with another, more proof that everything is all part of the same story.

    Last summer a friend, an old neighbor, who I miss having across the street almost every day, dropped off this blue garden sphere.  I love it.  It shimmers in the moonlight and glows in the sunshine.

    Generally, I'm the first one to point out all of the possible problems that might happen in a situation, making me seem gloom and doom-ish to some.  (I like to think of it as being prepared.)  But really, deep down, I do think that things generally can work out with enough thought and care. 

    K's new job was a financial adjustment.  Absolutely manageable, but not the more carefree comfort that his corporate position had provided.  (Have I said what his job is?  Just in case- it's at a foodbank warehouse.  Where truckloads of donations are sent, sorted, repacked, and then local foodbanks come to gather goods to take back to their communities.  He coordinates volunteers, organizes, etc., and drives a forklift (I can't tell you how much he enjoyed learning to do this!))  Not long after he started working there, in an effort to reduce waste, they opened up an area stocked with expiring and excess goods for employees to take home.  It's been great!  Eggs, milk, organic produce, things that we've never tried (the red curry soup above for one).  You never know what might be there... anything from ricotta to the occasional bunch of roses...  

    There have been so many unexpected gifts from this life shift.

    The Christmas cactus has a bud of hope.

"She Chose Starlight"