handstories

Coming up for air

    Quilting these woven hillsides... all I want to be doing.

    One little moon was started, but I am so distracted by those hills.  (This one might take a while, but there are a few other pieces in the shop).

    Thanks to Dee for her gift of scraps, including these golden moon bits, Tina for the deep purple night, and for Deb's golden threads that add to the glow.

    I wish I had one to share...  These days are filled with day-to-day-ness and/or the scurrying and worrying of getting Moon ready to head off to college (one week!).  There's actually not too much worrying, with him being the second send-off, and so much closer than Blue was, anything needed can be delivered in a daytrip.  There may still be a few anxieties going on (his and mine), but we are all excited and ready for this next step to happen.

    He insists on taking this old blanket, so some mending has been done to hold it together.  It's so threadbare, a synthetic purchase from a department store in the late 80's (probably the only bought blanket in the house).  Covered with silly sheep.  He loves it.  He says he'll take the quilt I made him, too.  At least there's that.

    We have packing piles all throughout the house... his for school, and two for me.  I'm delighted to be assisting Christine Mauersberger during her workshops next week (this one and this one).  It's going to be a busy good week!

    In the meantime, there are hills to stitch....

    And, yes, I am going about this project in every direction at once, trusting that it will all work out in the end.

Signs

    Yesterday in search of a path.  Using a moon, silky red and magic thread gifts from Jude, I tried to make my own. 

    It’s hard when the best way forward isn't clearly marked.  It's been a rough week, a decision had to be made.  Is it an opportunity, a step backwards, or a leap into quicksand?  We aren't sure.  Instead of making things lighter, it was more complicated than imagined.

    K. wondered why nothing felt right or easy.

    "Because nothing is right now.  Because it's been a f@#$ing hard year for us, and lots of people.  It's not personal."  (I don't usually swear, really.)

 

    The pro/con lists tipped in both directions.  We looked hard for which way to lean..."ONE WAY," "NO U-TURNS," "DO NOT ENTER"... anything would have been welcomed.

    I looked for things I could do.  I could make a call with hope that it would have helpful information at the other end.  I dialed, redialed, and punched in the needed numbers nonstop for over half an hour.  Finally, I got through to a place in the on-hold line (with really awful music), only having to hang up forty-five minutes later because there was an appointment to get to.      

    After days of debate, a leap of faith/decision was made, with hope and trust that the shape of a hill is also that of a doorway- an archway to goodness and going.  (Thanks to Liz for this reminder.)

    I said to K, “We'll do this, and if there are pieces to pick up later... We will." 

    We remind each other of who we are... and that we can.

    Today bases for tree tokens were made.  I don’t usually work like this, in a group.  Sometimes two or three together, but not rows of them.  Without planning there were thirteen.  My lucky number.

    I just wanted to see what it might be like.  Would it would it be an assembly line?  Or would there be connections and relationships?  How might they inform each other?  I wonder if they will have their own individual tales, while still being pieces of a whole?

 

    No answers yet, but it’s interesting to hold so many stories at once… like a wander through a deep forest with much to see in every direction at once.

    Yesterday there was a walk in the arboretum.  A raven cawed and cawed while flying overhead- soaring and swerving as crows harassed it.  It was so big.  And beautiful. 

    The Cherry trees are in blossom, and the magnolias.  This one had blooms the size of dinner plates.  I wanted to gobble them, to be filled with them.

September!

    I was BUSY all day yesterday.  Checking things off of the to-do list, adding to it, and checking those things off, too.  There was preparation for a shop update today- photos, listings, retaking photos (because the light is SO bright these days), etc.  Things got DONE.

    Laundry, birthday card into the mail, a dinner made out of the hardly anything that was left in the fridge, and I finished this little piece (about 2 1/2 inches square).  "A Piece of Peace" made from lovely scraps that Tracy sent- the leftover bits from her beautiful robes. (Do go see them and her wonderful thoughtful place over here.). I'm looking forward to seeing her robes, and her again, if and when this pandemic is over.

    The last thing on my list was to make a new book using these tutorials again.  Isn't the cover paper gorgeous?  It was eco-printed by Catherine Alice- the moon came from an avocado slice and hollyhocks made the blues.  She was one of the curators and exhibitors of the "All Stitched Up" show that I was in last fall.  (Was that only a year ago?) and has since become a good friend (with a little matchmaking by Velma, I think, and possibly a bit of stalking by me.)

    The book is a mix of good papers, scraps, old watercolors, magazines pages... anything that called out from the collage box.  The very first book that I made with the tutorial was similar to this and became one of my favorite things over the last months.  (I'll share it in another post.)

    The last stitch in the binding was made at the stroke of midnight.  It seemed important to have a fresh new place for this new season.  I Love Fall.  It's going to be a strange one.  At this moment Moon is upstairs rearranging his bedroom so that we can make space for a desk for his virtual schooling.  In spite of this, in spite of everything, I'm so very glad that this time of year is still working its magic.

leaning towards autumn

    A few new pieces are in the shop for the last update of summer.

    With Blue gone, Moon's work schedule changed, and K. vacationing at home this week, these last days of summer feel loose and a little lost.  Transitions and I have not always been good playmates in the past, but I'm really looking forward to pieces of this fall.  Creating rhythm and routines for myself is one of them.  With no school commitments for the first time in thirty years, the days are wide open.  

    Maybe I'll start this new journey with a few boats...they have a way of grounding me.

day one

    Yesterday was my last day at school.  Transitions always find me kind of lost, wandering through rooms wondering what to do with myself.  

    There was a little stitching with these squares (Five of them are scraps from Jude, including the sweet purple moon, and Deb's thread is holding them together.)

    There is a "Want To-Do" list that has been growing over the last months, with things such as being more active in this community again, organizing my studio, reread some Willa Cather, learn more about cyanometers, and how to make apple strudel... 

    There was putzing and haphazard painting.

    And this little pile of tiny scraps was found together.  I think they have a story to tell...

    Moon came home from school and asked the nicest thing, "How was the first day of your future?"  

the stories of Story

    These last 169 squares should be enough to finish up the "Story" blanket top.  It'll be small, nap size.  It's been great digging through these fabrics, some quite old and forgotten.  They're full of memories of moments, travels, imagining, and thoughts of friends- including some long gone, and some I've never met.  There are childhood rememberings of mermaid pretends, willow trees, and wrapping paper, of little boys and their robots and rocket ships, along with wishes for the sea and sky, and a scattering of moons shining over it all.

    In seven weeks, school with be out, and my this job will end.  I've been thinking a lot about how to organize my life for this next phase.  I do love routines.  Maybe this could turn into a personal writing assignment?  Each square could be a day's writing prompt.

    Hmmm...  Yep, this is feeling good.

seeing through

    A rainbow path . . . traveling from the child's spirit . . .

    through heart . . . 

    to circle the moon, and back again.

    It's something about hoping and dreaming, and seeing and knowing a way through, and there's the holding of it all wrapped around the moon.

    Stitched first in seven solid threads in rainbow colors, then filled in with Deb's rainbowed threads.  A vibration of Self.

    It's been a quiet few days, for the most part.  Still slowly going through things, discovering the walls and floor in our bedroom that have been covered in boxes and piles for years.  Transition and lightening.

bittersweet

    Yesterday came with the news that our dentist's receptionist (who has been there longer than the thirty years we've been going) is leaving.  Right now our next-door neighbors (who we love and will dearly miss) are loading up a moving van to travel far away.  (The man just knocked on the door, I answered pleading, "Don't go!")  

    Blue leaves at midnight tonight . . . until Christmas.

    I have been knitting, stitching, painting as fast as I can this week.  Trying to distract myself.

     Blue carved his first initial into the tree (Blue is his middle name).  It's right outside the kitchen window.

    I have not been helping myself by staring at this old photo from when he was six months-ish.  Looking here I see the words "September," "hold" and family".  (I also see "stuck" and "end," but I'm trying to ignore them.)

    He was such a happy baby.  

    It's been a good, hard, relaxing, and exasperating summer.  I thought it would be easier to say goodbye this year, but I am often at a loss when it comes to parenting teenagers, mostly the letting go part.  

    Someone told me to practice being sweet today, something I am not by nature.  I am managing semi-sweet this afternoon.

    There is something very pretty and magical about knitted stitches.

twirling in twilight thoughts

    Today I quietly rocked myself in cloth.  

    The moon is from a dip in indigo a couple of weeks ago.  I've lost track of where the silky green sea came from?  (Things get jumbled, I'm sorry.)  A barn in Idaho once housed that old purple gingham.  The rose fabric is an old favorite, and the tulle sail twirled in a ball room more than a hundred years ago.  I hope it holds happy memories of floating across the dance floor.
"Gently Twilighting"

moon & bad haiku

    Not a lot of words, here or at home.  The writing homework did not get done, instead I stared out the window for an hour, because there is nothing to say.  Blue leaves on Friday to return for his sophomore year far away in Ohio.  Moon starts high school in two weeks.  Time is passing.

    Here are some old words:

    Once in a college poetry class, told to write a haiku, I wrote:

        In a spider's eye

        the big of man and moon

        is not so pretty

    Ten years earlier, in sixth grade, the first time I was made to write a haiku (which at the time I thought was crazy, because I had been writing page-long, wordy, pre-teen angst filled ballads, and could not possibly limit myself to seventeen words), I wrote:

        Five in the first line

        Seven in the second, please

        Five in the last line

    Mrs. Young was not pleased, but I made a fuss until she put it on the wall next to those more acceptable creations written by the rest of the class.        "Moondala"