handstories

Never a Dull Moment

    Deb's cloth made for an earthy hill on blackberry-ish purples by Tina, with a small scrap of the starry cloth K. gifted me for Christmas twenty-five years ago in anticipation of baby Blue.

    There was a bit more boat mending in the wind and the cold under a daylight moon.

    In an effort to maybe, just maybe, get this quilt done in time, I keep it on my lap while stitching for the shop.  Whenever there is a bit of thread left in the needle, it goes into the quilt.  Sometimes it's only a few stitches, but that keeps things interesting.

    Speaking of interesting... There was an evening at my friend's condo this weekend.  They live near a hospital and a couple of nursing homes, so sirens are common.  But suddenly there was siren after siren...

    We looked out the window to see that the street was full the length of two blocks and around the corner of her building.

    Across the street an old, abandoned house.

    We spent the next hours watching out their windows.  The hours were also spent with fond and fearful memories of my dad's decades as a fire fighter. 

    The house is still standing, without some of the roof and floors.

    "It's never a dull moment around here!" I commented.  We laughed at the crazy their world seems to be full of these days.  Over there again last night, we talked about how pretty the fire actually was, especially at one point when snow was falling.  We thought it could be their Christmas card... "Our world is on fire, and still beautiful... Merry Christmas!"  We laughed some more.  Laughter is such good medicine.

    And so is stitching! (More of Deb and Tina's dyeworks.)

What we can do

    Many thank yous for all of your love and kind thoughts on the last post.  You folks fill my spirit.

    I was alone the last few days.  The guys were all scattered to the wind with fun plans, and I was looking forward to really concentrating on stitching for the shop...  and then the last week happened.  Letting things go.  I did spend hours watching really stupid TV and quilting on the woven quilt.  Some really bad stitching in places.  Letting that go, too.

    There will be more definitive news this week, hopefully with a plan, hopefully with some kind of hope.

    Whenever I don't know what to do, I think about feeding them.  Especially her.  On Thanksgiving I spent two hours making stroganoff.  Not the kind of thing I normally do, but no one in the house likes mushrooms as much as I do. It was a good distraction, delicious, and I was so glad to be able to hand her a warm bowlful when she picked me up today.

    "Turn off the car for a minute and eat this."

    We went to batten down the hatches on their sailboat before the rains come.  While we worked, I kept hearing my dad's voice... all the things he used to say when we were out fishing, hunting, etc.  "Pay attention, you might learn something," was a favorite saying of his.

    While driving home, I fed her grapes.

    "Eir" for healing.

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.)

So many feelings

 

"Moon Memories"

    Sunday's smokey sunset.  Glad the air is clear again.

    K. is getting about unaided, feeling pretty good, off all the meds except Tylenol, sleep is improving, and can put on his own cursed compression socks!

    Detail of "So Many Things," a piece that was started almost two years ago.  I've thrown myself back into stitching this week.  It feels good to be stitching for hours again.

    Moon is packing up for his sophomore year of college.  A tutoring job in the math department is waiting for him.  As is an apartment with friends. The plan is to stay until their degrees are done, including summers.  He says he's probably never going to live here again, and so he's putting his life into boxes that will move to the basement or go with him.

    I'm having a whole variety of mom feelings, all over the spectrum.  The last few days have been challenging.  Two more to go.  Neither of us is great with change.  I've seen growth on both of our parts.  I really am trying to trust that it's all good, or at least good enough.  If nothing else, the room will get a long overdue cleaning.

    The "Samar" tree token, the name means 'evening conversations'.

    Detail of "Magic Sky".

    I'm craving the ocean again.  Time to stitch some sea.

Something is more than Nothing

    "Coraline" on a hill made from a gift of beautiful silk.  A friend shared some scraps (from Nepal, I think?) a few years ago, and I was "saving" them, actually afraid of messing them up.  Trying to get myself to just move, do something in a few areas of life.  Every step is movement.

    Through got a little longer this week, as K's surgery has moved from Monday to Thursday.  It's also at a later time in the day than expected, so he will probably be spending the night.

    I tried new recipes a zucchini pasta, rice bowls, and Steph's Tofu.  If you like tofu, do try it.  It's a creation of our local co-op.  Something I've bought there often.  The first round was good, but not quite right.  I went and bought a little from their deli to compare.  The second time I chose a dryer tofu and cooked it longer and it was great.  The recipe calls for an hour of cooking.  Our old oven took an extra half hour.  You want it brown.

    A trunk full of donations were gathered and sent off with Moon to drop off.

    One compost bin of blackberries was cut down out back.  Something K has always done, and I didn't fully appreciate until now.

    Vacuuming happened UNDER the couch, along with some other weird usually neglected cleaning.

    I am trying to have some constructive anxiety to balance out the mindless tv and tree watching.

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.

Sweltry

    "Mirabel"- meaning "wonderous."  The vibrant colors in Tina's dyed cloths and Deb's threads are wondrous.

    Results of the second harvest from Deb's plants.  Most of the cloth was originally off-white to pale brown from walnuts, making the results lean to the greenish blues.

    Seattle has joined the heatwave happening for almost everyone.  This tub made all the difference while stitching this afternoon.  (Please excuse the dirty feet.)  There are larger containers of water freezing for tomorrow, so it will last longer.  I am a big baby about heat.  Yep, yep, I am. 

    Last night I melted fell asleep on the couch right after dinner, 7 pm.  Woke up two hours later and went straight to bed after spraying myself and the sheets with a water bottle.  Waking at 3 am when the screen fell out of the window and jumping out of bed at 6 to open all of the doors and windows that will open in this old house.

    There I've whined.  I will try to make it the only time this season.  No promises.

    A couple of other things that are not quite finished or named yet.

    There was something else I wanted to think and write about, but it has dripped out of my brain.

Breathing room

    Still playing with the shiny new fabric.  Paired here with Deb and Tina's colors.

    These days the noisy jay fights for territory with these two.

    They sit outside my window yelling at the world, too.

    Twinkle also wrestles for space.

    Dentist appointment yesterday.  All kinds of too much.  (I talked about some of my teeth issues here.)  First the driving, something I rarely do these days.  Half an hour there, forty-five minutes back- some traffic lights were out from the wind, stop and go freeways, a few "PEOPLE!" exclamations were flung (and maybe a couple of other words).

    Approaching the dentist office, which is just off of a strip kind of a road, there were a couple of women crossing the street.  Women who make their livings walking the strip.  One was wearing a mask.  A new meaning for the term "safe sex".  The other woman made me do a double take.  She had no pants on.  A top, a jacket, and a thong.  She must have been cold in the wind.

    At the dentist- they all are very nice, but too many interactions, too many questions, "Do you want x-rays this time?"  "Fluoride?"  "Polishing?"...  I heard myself saying no to everything.  I just wanted out.  She did talk me into the x-rays, but I drew a line and refused to get the full panel one.  The regular x-ray led to discovering an issue, something needs replaced.  "Do I have to think about it today?"  No.  They didn't push.  They realized I had reached my limit.

    I was so glad to get home and stitch...breathe.  This piece, with its Threadcrumb moon, helped to center things again.

"Elsewhere"

Something is more than Nothing

    After finishing the piece in my last post (Which I loved making, but it did require a lot of focus as bigger more involved things do.), I relaxed with these three tree tokens yesterday.  I really was thinking of birds but didn't have the wherewithal to figure out how to stitch them, so I gave them bird meaning names- Byrd, Quetzal, and Mavis.

    Mavis was the name of a woman in my hometown.  She wore baggy dresses, a big, long coat with drooping pockets, and bright lipstick.  We would see her out walking her little dog while we waited at the bus stop.  She was somewhere else in her mind.  Often talking to herself or yelling something we didn't understand.   I wonder what her story was?  

Yellowstone Falls via Blue, who facetimed me from a gas station where he had cell service finally.  Tonight they're in a yurt in Bryce Canyon.

    So, I guess tea painting became a thing for me.  Light brown from chamomile and yellow lime-green tea were added.  More flavors may be needed.

    Today has been a slow lazy one.  I did clean a bit of the bathroom.  K and I realize that we've become quite lax in doing what used to be the boys' chores.  Now that they're gone, all of those half-assed jobs that they did at cleaning every week are missed!

    Today a moon start.  Tomorrow, maybe more.  Happy weekend!

Returning to rhythm

    Just when I thought that I was finding a rhythm in keeping up here and there, life took a busy turn for some days.

    One tiny tree was squeezed in.

    Some moon gazing with a friend.

    After not picking up a needle for a few days, it felt a bit awkward, had to find the rhythm of that again, too.

 

 

    Ok, back to it...