handstories

Gathering light

"How it Would Be"

    A thin moon layer of Heike's dyed silk allows Deb's wonder cloth to shine through.

"Unexpected Rainbows"

    Bigger than usual, 9" x 7".  More of Deb's cloth sailing in the breeze.

    My favorite spot.

    Life is in a tunnel right now, but there are a couple of lights twinkling at the end of it. 

    Spectrums.

    I have the hardest time photographing paintings.  The light is rarely right.

    Two friends, by two favorite artists.  "Story" made by Cathy Cullis many years ago (resting in a bluebird tea cup that matches one belonging to a dear friend.  She gave it to me so that we could imagine having tea together anytime), and a painting by Amanda Blake, "She Kept Herself Safe".  It was a rare spontaneous instantaneous purchase a few years ago.  I named her "Lucinda," and just looked up the meaning- light, of course.  They are across the table directly in front of me as I stitch.  Keeping company and an eye on things.  There are a few more friends here, but these two are giving me meaningful looks today

    The teacup friend texted today, "Are you ok?" 

        "Nope.  But trying to be."

"Gathering Light"

   Or "Audrey the Third" if you're Dee (ha, inside joke).  A Threadcrumb moon, deep purple wave by Tina and the sky, and reverse-side patch in the bottom corner, are a Maiwa cloth.

In Seattle & thereabouts

    There are days when you just need soothing.  Stitching this silky moon from Jude was just that.  Like stitching water.  It grew into the tenth moon cabin block.

    Favorite fabrics, some took a while to find.  Somebody really needs to get some ducks in a row over here.  That pink cloth looks like it might be too much, but I'm hoping it will be balanced out once it's surrounded by other blocks.  Or it can come out later.

    A visit to the Bainbridge Art Museum...

    Upstairs, in the Sherry Grover Artists' Books room, there is an exhibit going on... "Every Day & Special Days".

    What a happy honor to be a part of it!

    And to share a space with so many wonderful works, including dear Velma.

    There has been some searching for my best Self .  She seems to be M.I.A. a lot lately.  It seems Moon and I are working hard to create many memories that we will hopefully laugh about some day.

    Also on Bainbridge Island is the beautiful Bloedel Reserve.

    Most of the photos I took were of water.

    I just love this willow.  It holds the memory of another willow, that held a memory of another willow for my mom.  All of the willows held/hold happy moments.

    The day ended with a beautiful ferry ride.

    Wishing you the bluest skies.

Haze

    Even colors seemed too hot to look at for the last few days.  I appreciated the coolness of this Threadcrumb moon.

    Saturday 102°, Sunday 104°, Monday 108°

    Sunday and Monday set record highs for Seattle.  Since 1896, there have only been three other days that have been 100° or over in Seattle.  Last week, when I first saw the forecast, I may have cried.  Today is blessedly only 84° (3:00 pm), so far.  Perspective changes things.

    It's an old house without air conditioning.  We did the open/close/cover dance with the windows and doors.  Scattering and moving fans as needed.  On Sunday I pulled out the old wading pool (congratulating myself on being a packrat).  Lunch was IN the pool.

    Family down in Oregon had it worse.  Mom said it was 117° at one point yesterday.  My brother lives in the next town.  Neither of them have air conditioning either.

    A spray bottle of cold water and mint leaves became my new best friend, traveling everywhere in the house with me.

    Only a few stitches happened during the weekend.  Early.  Before my fingers were too sweaty.

    There was salad after salad.  We had washed, chopped, made of all of the ingredients before the wave- lettuce, tomatoes, mint, nuts, corn cut from the cob, shredded chicken, dressing, etc... putting them in containers to pull out for meals, everyone serving themselves buffet style.  Anything to lessen movements and heat.

    By Monday it was too hot to even go outside (except to hand our poor mail woman a cup of ice water, with appreciation and an apology for our hill), so I filled the tub instead.  I probably stood in it at least once every thirty minutes.  K. laughed when he passed by and saw me brushing my teeth while wading.  Happily the toilet is positioned right next to it, so I was able to sit for a spell with a book now and then.

    Moon and I had a short tub party.

    "Moonfall"

    Today I am grateful for 84 and being able to hold a needle again.

Time & space

    "In the Wonder" holds some special cloths and thoughts.  The speckled square and the moon from Jude, the watery edge of a napkin and threads by Deb, combined with a galaxy of stitching made for a good exploration and expression of how things are right now. 

    It has been wonderful having Blue here.  My heart is full just seeing him across the room.  He's such an easy going guy.  "I don't care," is his usual response (I actually worry about this some).  So I was thrilled when he really liked a new-to-him recipe that I made the other night.  "You can make this again on my last night."  You bet I will!

    The edge of summer is in the air this morning.

    In the process of finishing up "In the Space of Joy" it was flipped the other way, and made so much more sense to me.  I need to keep remembering to look at things from different perspectives.

    An old memory of Mom and my siblings was the first thought on Mother's Day.  A memory that holds happiness and wistfulness.

    Many thanks to Tina for her cloth gifts, her scrap strips are often the perfect frames for the tree tokens. 

        On Mother's Day, there was a last minute decision to drive up to Bellingham for my favorite lunch of African peanut soup and a walk around campus at the college Moon will attend next fall.  (Deb, I waved and called "Hello!")  There are many reasons to be happy that he chose this school- proximity to us, the soup and Deb are a few of mine.  It was fun to watch Moon's excitement as he pointed out different buildings and what will be "My favorite climbing tree."

    Deb's threads create connection in "Moon in Bloom." 

    There are many many things going on in my head and work right now, and I'm not sure how to share about it all.  Mostly, I'm just trusting- in cloth, time and myself.

    P.S.  There will be a shop update with these pieces and others tomorrow morning- Friday, May 14th, 9am PST.

Blue thoughts

    Yesterday was another good stitching day, two pieces were started.  Moons and blues on my mind.

    Until a headache and carsick feeling kicked in late afternoon.  A delayed reaction that grew and grew until I went to bed.  A small price to pay to feel safer in this world, and one step closer to normal.

    Today I feel just fine, possibly because tonight, after fifteen plus months, Blue is coming home for two weeks!  For the last year I've been lamenting not seeing him be twenty-two, but tonight I will look into and hold his face on the last eve of it, as tomorrow he turns twenty-three.  I've been afraid to believe it would really happen, but he's in the air right now...

        This morning I went a bit wild with Deb's thread around Jude's moon, but I've lost focus for the last few hours.  There is so much I should/could be doing right now- stitching, cleaning, writing a promised article, baking a birthday pie, but all I can do is stare at the clock and hold my breath.

    (And just to say, K, Moon and Blue have all finished up their vaccinations.)

Waves...smooth & not

    Yesterday was such a quiet focused day.  This piece was made from beginning to end, flowing out like a gentle wave.  I especially loved working with cloths from so many wonderful folks- a ThreadCrumb moon, the sea by Deb, cloth gifts from Jude and Tina, the wave with it's faded rose print and the silk sail came from the remnants of an antique ball gown purchased from an Ann Wood studio sale years ago.  It fills my spirit to bring so many stories together.  It was a really good day of work and thought.

    And then... today happened.  There was a shop update.  That was fine, I was organized, had ticked off all of the items of the to-do list, opened the shop at 9am sharp, and began getting ready to leave for my first vaccine appointment.

    9:08- A message from a customer- a shop glitch.  While writing to her and trying to figure it out quickly because I needed to leave, Moon walked into the room.  "I think I need to go to the hospital!"

    "What?!  Why?!"  His tonsil was swollen and hurt.  Ok, probably not a hospital needing crisis.  I figured out a stop-gap plan for the customer while shining the phone light down his throat.  One tonsil was huge.  "Call the nurse line and tell them what's going on, make an appointment for after twelve, because I need the car to go to my vaccine.  The number is...." (This is one of those phone numbers that I will probably know until my dying day.)

    I left for the appointment expecting the efficiency and comfortable waiting areas everyone has described.  It turned out that I didn't sign up for one of those appointments.  Approaching the hospital campus, there were multiple buildings and multiple parking garages.  I chose one, parked, took a photo of the space, and what level.  Entering the lobby, the guard informed me that it was the wrong building and wrong parking lot.  She began telling me how to get to the right garage.  "Can't I just leave my car and walk?"  She thought it was strange, but gave directions through the building to the security guards on the other side.  "Ask them where to go next."  Ok.

    As I wander through the maze of hospital halls, I thought of Dee's vaccine journey, and wondered how hard it was going to be to find my car again from the outside, because I wouldn't be allowed back in this building?  I walked on and found a guard.  "Excuse me, can you please tell me where to go for vaccines?"  He informed me that this wasn't the right building for vaccines.  Having confirmed my ignorance, he directed me out the door, across the street, down the block, through an alley to the middle of the next block.  Ok.  I set out, hoping that it would be quick, or that there would be a bathroom in the waiting area.

    The waiting area was a line on the sidewalk, in the wind and sprinkling rain.  Did I mention that I didn't wear a coat?  Half an hour later I was inside and being asked for ID.  Fortunately, because of the missing wallet, I had thought to bring my passport.  Ten minutes later, vaccinated and sitting in the recovery area for the required fifteen minutes, and still needing a restroom, I see that there is one.  Just one, and it's for and being used by everyone.  I decide that I can wait.  Ten minutes later, I decide that I can't.  I decide to leave, and that if I have a reaction, I'm next to a hospital.  After retracing my steps for four blocks, I find the garage, head down two flights of stairs to the right level, and then notice the sign telling me to go back to the lobby to pay for parking at the kiosk. Ok.

    The kiosk rejected my credit card (the one that wasn't in my wallet because it's one that I never use, and apparently never will).  A line was forming behind me as I dug into my crazy bag of life supplies (book, notebook, knitting, etc...), a ten dollar bill was found, used, and I was out of there (REALLY needing a restroom at this point.)  I bee-lined it for the car, maneuvered out of the garage, around a giant vehicle that was stuck between cars and posts like a beetle on its back trying to get out, and headed home... After turning the wrong direction and putting five more minutes between me and my bathroom.

    "Everything is manageable," I told myself, as I wondered what it would take to make a car seat feel really clean if I didn't make it home in time.

    And it was all manageable, even ok.  I made it home, and to the bathroom.  Moon made it to his appointment that he scheduled for before noon (We await the strep test results.  How does one get strep while masked and distancing?), and a workable solution was figured out for the very patient customer.

    And now it's after five o'clock and I'm going to open a bottle of something!

    Happy, peaceful weekend everyone!

Watching

    The ninth moon cabin block.  The green cloth was bought on the day Moon was born, with pauses to lean on fabric bolts during contractions.  (They had been going on for days, so I wasn't worried, but my friend was!)

     Working with bigger pieces of cloth has a soothing calming effect.  Last night there was a really long seam to fix on one side of a sheet.  I went to bed relaxed.

    I lost my wallet.  Again.  Second time in two years.  I don't know how or where.  Between home, ferry rides and M's house.  I'm almost positive it was in my bag, didn't use it, but it's gone.  Maybe it's here in the house still.  I don't know.  I've cleaned, called, retraced, even looked in gutters and grass where K dropped me off for the ferry.  Just gone.  I loved that wallet.  Glittery.  $10.00 at the Goodwill.  Perfect.  Sigh.

    Pinks and corals have moved into my work lately.  

    There was a conversation this week.  The other person didn't get it.  I didn't get that they didn't get it.  They felt exactly the same way about me.  It was like a deeply scratched record, sliding back and repeating, over and over.  Finally, I just had to let go, skip over the injury, and move forward, and appreciate what music I could hear, but I feel scraped and worn thin.

    This piece helped.  Chaos and rhythm together. "In Cacophony & Love, They Flew On".  It's just how things feel.  All of the stitches had to do with connecting, one piece of cloth to another or a continuing of one into another- birds bodies completed (it's interesting how a few stitches suggest a bird shape to the eye), flight patterns combined with moon rings, polka-dots scattering beyond, Deb's dyed speckles floating further.  Except the stars, those are for me. 

    (Many threads and that bottom strip from Deb with a ThreadCrumbs moon.  It will be in the shop with a few other pieces and a handful of tokens on Friday, 9am.)

    Thankfully, Twinkle keeps watch.

Day to Day

    Friday afternoon...  I did not see this one coming at all.  Was really loving the colors of the base patchwork (including a Threadcrumbs moon), and went looking for hill cloth.  The flower was the right color, and the curve of the framing border suggested a hill shape, and those hot pink dots... There was a "What if?" moment, and then a going.

    Saturday morning... A hard morning- a household weariness over everything and all of the unknowns, and nothing really that can be done.  Definitely was not feeling the red flower.  Said to myself, "You should work on something that's going to work," but kept on.

    Starting with saving the inside of the hill, the patchwork that I liked so much, using Jude's "managing layers" technique.  

    A moment of debating stars, dots or crosses for the sky, and then a yes to it all.

    "What a Difference a Day Makes"

    It could have been named lots of things- Believing, It Was There All Along, Holding Hope, or Almost.  

    Next...

Biding

    "Their stories were as old as the stars"  These hills seem like very good friends to me.

    Odds and ends days...

    After days and days, taxes are done.  K does them.  I tiptoe around in denial and guilt and try to answer occasional questions.  Until he hands me my part to do (for the shop), and then I whine and tell myself that I'll do a better job of tracking things this year (again).

    Moon busies himself with school and music.  He's taught himself the guitar, ukulele and is currently making sweet (sometimes quite high-pitched) sounds with the tin whistle.  He's also often practicing and/or recording songs for the high school spring musical that will be online.  I love hearing him sing.  His gifts are definitely not from my side. 

    A moody ninth block for the moon cabin stack.  Spiraling out counter-clockwise...  A moon from Jude, Deb's dyeing, friend's scrap, starry gift from K when I was pregnant with Blue, unknown, Maiwa polka-dots (I miss the annual visit to their $5.00 a bag scrap bin), two dyed by a woman somewhere in Washington- bought at quilt show market years ago (wish I could remember her name), and a leftover print from my William Morris phase in the 90's.

    As for me, it's cloth and thread, with a little painting, with a little housekeeping and dinner cooking thrown in.  

    A gathering.  I wonder if they're six feet apart?

Tools for Light

    The table today...  One of Jude's moons, with some of Deb's indigo silk, a rainbow of threads from Tina, works in progress, and all of my scissors.  They are each good at different things.  The black forged pair are able to rip through cloth with a tug, creating rough edges.  Long straight sharp cutting is done by the big heavy shears.  Only a blue speckled ring show of the small embroidery scissors, probably the most used because of their size, comfort and ability to cleanly cut small shapes.  Finally, the snips that are poking out on the right that are good for quick thread cutting and travel.  Good tools make me really happy.

    The dreams have calmed down some, still busy, but without much anxiety.

    Wasn't this morning great?  To not have that holding breath feeling that has especially hung over the last weeks.  To see and hear hope and joy- on faces, in words, songs, and the amazing beautiful poet and poem...

"...For there is always light, if only we're brave enough to see it.

    If only we're brave enough to be it."

-from "The Hill We Climb" by Amanda Gorman, National Youth Poet Laureate