Thanksgiving

Our family has two Thanksgivings.  On Thursday, Julie works at the hospital so she can be off at Christmas with the Adorables.  This gives everyone a chance to have Thanksgiving dinner with the other side of their various families.  This year my sister and her friend are coming for a non-Thanksgiving dinner of roast beef, fresh creamed corn, butternut squash soup, and asparagus.  Jordan may drop by with the children after he has visited his dad's family dinner (but I doubt they will sample the asparagus!).

Our second Thanksgiving is on Saturday, when we will all go to my sister's house and enjoy the larger family there.  There is a tractor show and auction nearby, and while the men are cavorting there, the women play catch-up at my sister's house and get the table ready for mid-day dining.  This year, Billy is not able to prepare the huge meal he normally slaves over, and we are all bringing a dish or two.  I look forward to seeing what shows up!

How nice it is to be twice reminded of the blessings of family and food.  Life is good.

Wednesday's Child Grows Older

Mondays child is fair of face,

Tuesdays child is full of grace,

Wednesdays child is full of woe,

Thursdays child has far to go,

Fridays child is loving and giving,

Saturdays child works hard for his living,

And the child that is born on the Sabbath day

Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.

Yes, I did a bit of sleuthing and found out that I was born on Wednesday.  Up until now, I was never sure.  But with evidence in hand, I am blaming my Wednesday birth date for the computer failing, the heat going out in the studio, and a miscellany of little things that annoy me.

Alas!  Alack!  Woe is me!!!

Enough.

Demise of the I-mac

RIP faithful friend.  The I-mac is down.  Jordan will try to resuscitate it tomorrow evening, but Charles reported in such vivid detail the death throes that I have dim hopes of a recovery.  The new wrinkle is how to get things hooked into this little notebook, such as the camera download, so life can continue along.

I thought it would be enough to simply recover from surgery.  How silly— women are supposed to be the consummate multi-taskers, and "simple recovery" doesn't qualify in its present stand-alone form.

*Sigh*

Third Week Begins

What a day yesterday was— the jewel in the crown being a care package that arrived from Anne.  In it was a selection of dyed cottons, wool, cotton velveteen, a skein of thread, and some vintage French sequins.  They are all in my bright spring-like palette of blues, greens, and pinks.  After the past week of stitching with autumn colors, this is a breath of fresh air.

Thank you, Anne!  Even if the rain continues today, it will be brightly spring-ish here in my corner!

A Woman With A Plan

This might all be the result of something as simple as sleep, that I have slept well for three nights now, and I can think clearly—or, what passes for "clear" with me.  Or, maybe I'm not really very good at being sick and my crabby genes have gotten out of hand.  But for whatever reason, I got up this morning with a plan.  And a woman with a plan is hard to defeat.

First, in an effort to find the perfect place to sit peacefully and recover from surgery, I have sat on every chair in this house except one low one, and none are even vaguely comfortable after five minutes.  So there will be little sitting today. Yesterday my sister came and switched out the front legs of the walker for wheels, and of course you know how empowered anyone is with a set of wheels.

Re-establishing the kitchen is a slow bit of work because the glasses and dishes and cookware that were in the upper cabinets must all be pulled down and washed and the bits of sawdust cleaned from the shelves.  Charles has been kind enough to take that on.  Which leads to Part Two of the plan: Studio Time.

Of course, it is as cold as a Warlock's Wookie out there and my blood count is so low I wear two pairs of pajamas and wooly socks and a long robe and wrap in blankets and still shiver in what Charles thinks of as an overheated house . . . but once I make it across the courtyard and down the little bit of walkway, I should be at the studio door and hoping to negotiate that single step without mishap.  [Addendum to plan: wear heavy outdoor clothing, in case you need to call 911 for assistance.]

Third part is the studio itself— the creative spots, the boxes and drawers and stacks of materials on tables, the sketchbooks on their shelves . . . and those wonderful, energy-saving rolling chairs!  I will fill a tote with things to do that are not messy.  Well, maybe a little mess is allowed.  Instead of staying there and working, though, I will bring my work with me into the house.  Jill was right when she said that she can plan best when she's away from her studio.  I think there are too many interesting things in a studio that can distract from process and method . . .

Fourth part is the trip back, maybe with a tote-bearing husband in tow, and finally settling down somewhere in the house with hot tea and my playthings.  If I am absorbed in something interesting, these chairs might not be so uncomfortable.

Now, how's THAT for a plan?

Home Again

When you have been away from home, your perspective of that place changes.  I have had complete hip replacement that has altered my life.  I can walk without pain for the first time in seven years.  My yard and garden will not be off limits to me much longer.  I look forward to walking up and down stairs again.  In the next week I will begin re-assembling my kitchen as well as setting up a play and craft area for my grandchildren in the room where I will spend a lot of my rehabilitation.

And I have had some empowering experiences.  I had lost 1/2" of height through the progression of the disease in my hip over the years.  My surgeon restored that balance between the length of my legs, which means I should walk upright again, without listing to one side or the other and causing further damage to my lumbar.  How intricately intertwined our body parts are!  And the home is just as intricately involved with its own parts.

Home was much more beautiful this morning, my husband more dear.  My son and daughter-in-law and their two children came for a visit that brightened my spirits, and I realized as they were leaving that there is no way to separate any of these deep relationships without everything suffering, impossible to repair.  How marvelous interdependency is!

F as in . . .

Flowers.  Flower Doodles.  Lovely, deeply textured flowers and foliage were the inspiration for this experimental Doodle Cloth:

I was trying out different threads and yarns to get different effects as I stitched, and the effects were so richly textured that I sort of forgot to go back to my original idea and just played with the threads and stitches for a couple of days (my idea of heaven!).

A silk flower:  A chrysanthemum:

Foliage.  The piece following is done entirely in straight stitch, in Walsh wool.  Blending the larger areas, like the pink wall and the table top, was so absorbing that I sat working on this for hours at a time, going through piles of wool to get the right color to transition from one place to another.  The work is so densely stitched that it lies high above the surface of the linen ground.

The pot of flowers is part of a series of blue vases I did to expiate my guilt over breaking a blue vase of my mother's.  There are more than two dozen works on this subject (over a period of about 15 years; who could withstand Mother Guilt?).  What an interesting single-theme exhibition they would make!

Fantasy Flowers.  This collection of flowers is the charming outcome of a Freestyle Round Robin Project in 2008 where the participants each chose a subject, prepared guidelines for one another to follow, and each month we received a different box with notes about the piece we were to create.  My subject was the Fantasy Flowers  From A Far Planet.  I asked that the Freestylers simply let their imaginations run wild and create outlandish flowers.  I also asked if they would write a small guide to the flowers on a 3" x 5" card.  These are the truly outlandish and utterly fabulous fantasy flowers I received from my friends:

Above, by Sandra Beck.  Below, by Anne Stevenson (and I'm sorry about the color, Anne, but the dark would not adjust without changing the other color).

By Peggy Huffine (the color is not completely true, but lightening it allowed the little seed pods in the background to show up better):

And by Cynthia Patrick:

An odd thing happened in the uploading process.  Jill's flower contained an image of Elvis Presley, and the server would not allow it to be posted.  Up until this moment, I sorta liked the guy.  Sorry, Jill.  I'll work on this and try to find out more . . .

Kitchen Magic: Slow Slide to Home Plate

Our builder did not quite believe all this white was going to work.  His own kitchen reflects great effort to disguise the sticky finger prints of three sons.  I have only one sticky-fingered individual to worry over, so the white is manageable here.  I think the brown kitchen that was here when we bought the house reflects a man's horror of anything too clean-looking.

When the quartz counter tops came in and the double enamel sink was replaced with this huge stainless one, I began to have visions of using the big pots again— the ones that are difficult to clean because they don't lie flat in a double sink or they bump against the sides of most sinks.  Family spaghetti dinners, stir frys, maybe a great chilli night!

And the great new doors on the wall cabinets, a mixture of white panel and glass-panel, are like a neat series of frames around the walls.

Pix come at the end, after surgery.  Imagine what a nice thing it will be to come home to a completed kitchen!  I have threatened Charles with bodily harm if he puts one tiny item in a drawer before I come home!

I am, however, sensible enough to thank him for his semi-patience through all of this.

Garden Weekend

Saturday's report: The worst-looking mulched area adjoining a home I have ever seen was in our back yard until this morning.  The work of morphing this area into two wings of extended patio began today.  Workers trucked loads of ugly mulch, rock and Georgia red clay to the back of our lot where a drop-off was just waiting to be filled.  Warren, our yard man, and three helpers, worked non-stop.

The materials for the flagstone extensions arrived yesterday afternoon.  Along with the stone, the bags of dirt, gravel, and sand were left in front of the studio near the gate to the back yard.  Charles had to investigate everything as the fork lift brought it up the hill.  Men ARE just over-sized little boys, aren't they?

Sunday's Report:  Wow!  This is a case of the reality being much more beautiful than the imagined product!  Warren has brought a master craftsman to lay this patio, and I am too intimidated by the precision of his work to even think about walking on it when it is done!  I see myself standing on the old patio staring in admiration at the flagstones . . .

There is a narrow border around most of the two parts of the patio where I can plant low bloomers next spring.  And a few bulbs, a mossy patch or two. The wide spaces between the stones are for planting Irish or Scottish moss, probably next spring.  The planting season is just about gone for 2010.

 This is the new patio on the studio side of the terrace:

What a nice walk this will be next spring, with the dogwood in bloom and the borders planted!  And below is the sun room side of the terrace:

A little patch of grass and stepping stones separates them.  Tomorrow morning quite early, Eric Hill from Autumn Hill Nurseries will set up the new fountain on this side (to enjoy the fountain from the sun room next spring!).  What fun!  Except for the being wide-awake and capable of making decisions at 8:00 am, this is good.

Tuesday's report:  Here it is!  My little fountain, up and gurgling just outside the sun room!

Whee!!!  Three very large men brought it in.  "Permanent" gets a new definition in the OED.

E as in . . .

Elephant.  Shakespeare writes: "He is as valiant as the lion, churlish as the bear, slow as the elephant."  Which is how I move about these days.  Very elephant-ish.

Eggplant.  Euonymus.  Eggs Benedict.  End Zone.  None of which show up in my embroidery.

More Neighbors: The Gardener

I think this is the house next door to mine in my imaginary neighborhood: The Gardener.  Here lives someone who has such a passion or fetish or deep and abiding respect for gardening that it has taken over everything.  Absolutely everything!

This one was "built" a number of years ago, another "find" in the studio boxes.  It was made by laying pieces of wool fabric  on a base of wool and heavy linen, then sewing the blocks down to form a rough patchwork of wool over wool.  Next, the pieces were cut apart and re-assembled.  This new, re-assembled piece became the fabric the house shape was cut from before decorating with cotton prints, embroidery, beads, buttons-- anything bright and flowery, including a little pewter watering can!

Above Boone, NC, there is a terribly winding road that connects it to Banner Elk, Cranberry, Spruce Pine, Little Switzerland-- small, beautiful Western North Carolina towns.  In one of the curves of this road is the smallest cabin imaginable.  In the late spring, summer, and early autumn, it is so suffused with flowers it can take your breath way.  The cabin is not so much a house as a frame for the hanging pots, planters, flowers and vines that are climbing and draping every small space!  It is an excess of beauty and a testament to the love of growing and nurturing plants.  I have never seen anyone stirring in the yard or on the porch, but I have often thought I would be able to sit down and have a long and deep conversation with this gardener-- like the gardener who must live in my little embroidered house.

D as in . . .

Doodle Cloths!  The funnest of all embroidery, Doodle Cloths are places to explore the effect of a new thread on a stitch, of pulling the edges of a stitch to re-shape it, or trying out an idea before you invest hours of labor in something that doesn't quite fit your mental image-- a sort of embroidery where you kick off your shoes and thread a needle and just see what happens with a line.  Paul Klee called this type of un-pre-meditated drawing "taking a line for a walk."

The doodle cloth below is one I carried with me for more than a year and embroidered in the tiny minutes between things-- waiting in doctors' and dentists' offices, stuck in the traffic in Buckhead, holding for some recorded message on the telly . . .  I kept it in the corner of my purse, with a handful of threads, needles, and small stork embroidery scissors tucked inside.  It will always remain my favorite because it was the one I lived with for so long:

Here I discovered silk ribbon and began to look for the most textured stitches and threads to use with it:

This Doodle cloth was done at a Freestyle meeting when we were studying chain stitches.  Beth had a lot of cotton fabric in varying colors, and I took a load of it home and cut it into 10 inch (roughly) squares and painted or used discharge paste and re-painted the squares several times . . .  It was a colorful room of Doodle Cloths that day!

This one is from a Campbell class, random and exploring layering with appliqué as well as plain stitching.  It is a bright, happy bit of needle rambling.

I have a box of these experimental cloths, and they are some of my favorite rainy day contemplations.  I mine them for new ideas-- they are a bit like having a stack of embroidery notebooks always at hand.  I learned this habit from reading Jacqueline Enthoven, in the 1960s, and I began to keep a Doodle Cloth in my embroidery bag at all times, ready for the next trial stitch or two.  Then the embroidery bag grew too bulky, and I began to store things in boxes, but the Doodle Cloth never fell by the wayside.

When I taught at Campbell, I always brought the box of Doodle Cloths from the past.  Seeing all the possibilities was a way to generate enthusiasm for the coming week of projects.  As the class worked, I began new Doodle Cloths to demonstrate the basic stitches, to explore the contrasting effects of heavy or light threads, and to see how much distortion we might try with a stitch before we had to call it something else entirely. Sampling stitches and threads is fascinating.

Sampling stitches . . . this sounds as if we're talking about Embroidered Samplers, doesn't it?  Doodling is free-association sampling, and sampling is a form of structured doodling.  However, there is quite a difference between the appearance of a Sampler and a Doodle Cloth.  A Sampler is more organized, and has some element that pulls it together-- color, line or shape, theme, stitch, etc.  The orientation is always a single direction in a Sampler, where the Doodle Cloth can be turned in any direction to find some interesting stitch variation.  I will confess to being less capable of stitching a Sampler than a Doodle Cloth, because I often lose interest in the organization process, and what started out to be formal (think: stitches dressed in Sunday best, sipping tea with hands still and gloved) ends up in a riot of color and stitch placement (think: children on a playground, out of earshot of anxious nannies).

The name/pigeonhole really doesn't matter-- except for the fact that this was to be a "D" day in the alphabet series.  The stitched ideas are saved there for some future day when I may want to investigate them on a larger scale.  Making Samplers or Doodle Cloths is a lovely way to spend a quiet afternoon!

Kitchen Magic: Continuing Saga

Oh, my gosh!!!  What a mess.  A naked kitchen!  And we were going to have only this tiny little bit of change made so we wouldn't have to crawl around on the floor to use the base cabinet area . . .

This morning, Charles was not to be done out of his coffee and bagel.  He is not a man to let a little thing like no available kitchen stand between him and his breakfast.  Ever the clever one, he brought the electric kettle and toaster into the hall bath and set up his make-shift kitchen on the vanity there.  When I stumbled down the hallway and saw it, I couldn't stop laughing.  In fact, we both laughed until we had tears on our faces.  I took my seat at the oak table and was presently served my morning cup of tea and bagel.  To the more important point:  CHARLES had his morning cup of coffee and bagel.  As we have suffered a number of hesitations, hiccups and a major pause in the forward motion of the kitchen, his only comment was, "Those suckers better show up today!"  That was a reference to our 10:30 appointment to have the countertops installed.

Our builder, Dennis, was here, Johnny-on-the-spot, with his help, and they immediately set to ripping out the last of the trim on the old cabinet bases, full of assurances that the cabinet people would be here shortly.  A very skeptical Charles watched with a slight rise of one eyebrow.

I decided to be far, far away if there should be fireworks, so I went to the downstairs office and burrowed in to download photos from the camera.  A little ahead of schedule, I heard voices, the signal that the countertop had arrived!  From there, it was a series of bumps and groans and tramping feet overhead that let me know the progress was unimpeded.  I waited downstairs in an excess of patience while the work went on.  An hour into it, I couldn't wait any longer, and I crept upstairs (I don't even want to tell you how long THAT took!).  My first impression was to be stunned at how clean everything looked!  My kitchen had moved from cream and dark brown to white and bright, and life suddenly kicked up a notch.  In my pleased amazement I happened to glance down.  Oh, dear, but the floor, in a lovely pale beige tile, looks in need of replacing. . . God, cut out my tongue, please.  Don't let me even MENTION that to Charles!  Especially since the drawers and doors haven't arrived yet!

Earlier this morning I was feeling sorry for myself because I couldn't make the trip to Knoxville for the Freestyle Meeting today (at Carol's house, and all dressed up for Halloween!).  I think the excitement here was a gift, to help me through what might otherwise have been a really long-faced grumpy span of hours.

C as (also) in . . .

Chair.  Inspired by Van Gogh's yellow chair, and set in a corner, the chair is visible from several points at once.  Worked in varying weights of cotton on linen, with ultrasuede in background.

Another Little House For The Neighborhood!

This little house was "built" several years ago, and I only re-discovered it yesterday in a box in the studio (I will ever be sorting and discovering, I have come to believe).  The house was created separately of layers of wool and cotton prints and later  appliquéd to pieces of linen and silk that were laid over a thin cotton batt.  The patio and garden around it are stitched in silk, a softly variegated floss.  I imagine the family living here to be fun-loving, on-the-go folks who are not as concerned with housework as enjoying travel, the sort who maintain a beautiful garden while the house goes a bit seedy . . .

It's really starting to be an interesting neighborhood, isn't it?  Imagine a tea party with all these assorted neighbors walking over to visit!

Book In A Hurry

When you have two grandchildren, it is difficult to do something for one without providing something of equal emotional value for the other as well.  I think that falls under the old "Even Stephen" rule of my childhood.

So when Charles bought Hot Wheels for Ethan, we needed something that Bethany would also love to play with.  As she cannot resist stickers and tattoos, I am always on the look-out for these.  I had a little book of stickers I'd bought last year, putting it up to wait for the Perfect Moment to give it to her.  But the "Lucky Lady Bug" stickers didn't hold its own against seven new Hot Wheels, so I went into the studio last evening and made her a book where she could draw and add the lady bugs to the pages.   Today, the Perfect Moment seems to have arrived.

The book cover is made from a cotton print and a strip of very sweet pink and white swan-themed ribbon (thank you, Jill!).  The inside cover is pink and white polka-dots.  Light weight buckram and some soft acrylic fabric line and stiffen the cover, and zig-zagging finishes off the edges.  Our combined efforts:

Note:  Hmmm . . . I see that Photo Booth isn't awake yet, that he needs to flip the photo so things read properly, left to right.  One of us, the Ap or myself, has a flat learning curve.

These wait for the Adorables when Charles picks the up from nursery school today-- along with oat cakes and fruit juice.  Now, isn't that a nice way to start a visit with grandparents?

Sew Much To Do!

My little scrap bowl is the measure of how busy things have been in the studio.  With all the kitchen work going on, and the boxes of kitchen gear sitting everywhere, it seems so much nicer to go to the studio and play.  Not that the studio is a model of neatness, but there is such a difference between a cluttered house and a creatively cluttered studio.  Besides, in a week or two, I won't have an excuse to avoid de-cluttering the house, and I'll spend several agonizing days without the comfort of my needle and thread (think: Linus without his blue blanket, and you'll have a perfect portrait of my mental state).

Charles moved some things in the studio for me yesterday afternoon so that my coming and going will be less an Event than a simple Occurrence.  When I move into left-brain mode, I am a marvel!  I have often wished I had a business where I could come into a home, office, or studio and bring my crew of smiling and eager workers and be given carte blanche to organize everything.  This is a woman's dream job-- people who actually do as they are told and move things until they are in exactly the right spot, and they don't argue, whine, or talk back when they're told to do something!!!  Now, that said, I can leave my dream world and come back to reality, where I have devised all sorts of ways to slide furniture into place by using old cotton throw rugs, and place boxes on office-type wheeled chairs to ferry them from place to place.  Where are those smiling and eager workers?

Birthday Party

My sister so kindly sent me photos she took at her grandson's third birthday party on Saturday.  Alex turned three.  The next generation sits on the back porch swing at Jessica and Adam's house: Bethany, Alex, and Ethan.

And later on, my Adorables are having cake and ice cream, still on the back porch:

Aren't birthday parties wonderful-- except that we have to count them as we get older!

Studio Notes: Clutter vs. Accessibility

Most Recent Dilemma:  It is difficult to maintain a gently untidy studio and negotiate my way through it on a walker.  My style of creativity doesn't thrive in pristine settings, yet the clutter that I find so inspiring doesn't allow me to get around very easily.  We are now at a point of impasse.

I have been combining things that were separately housed, and this took some real thought.  I was one of those children who never let the carrots touch the green beans on her plate, and if the gravy from the meat ran into the peas, I was physically unable to look at it until my plate was sorted out for me by my impatient mother.  Eventually I learned to eat mixes of things, and that is the type of thing I'm trying to do in the studio (hyperbolically speaking).  Perhaps all those carefully-sorted buttons (by color, and tones of color) in a divided box could be moved into an attractive glass or ceramic jar and sat with the mother-of-perles.  Picking through all those cheery colors for just the right button could be a nice experience one day.  And there is always my little studio helpers to be considered:  Ethan loves to arrange the spools of threads in the acrylic thread drawers; Bethy is my button girl.  A fun task for her as well as a way to use an old kitchen canister.

But there are boxes and boxes of knit/crochet yarn that need to be moved from near the entrance.  And despite my serious and continuing search, I cannot find the right place for them.  The answer might be to simply sit down and crochet the whole lot, but I would be crocheting for a long, long time.  Really.

The twelve boxes of picture frames were moved to the basement storage in the house.  My husband has not been the same since then.  The studio is much improved, though.

I made a solemn promise to myself to sort through all the woolens and keep only what will fit in a 50s-style cupboard at the front of the studio.  This decision involves an overflowing box of men's wear suiting samples that I do not use very often.  This extra box will go to the Freestyle November Embellishing Day, and we can play and sample ideas without feeling too guilty about the waste of wool.  I discovered them embedded in a large lot of quilting scraps my sister shared with me last year (over-sized bins filling the entire bed of a pick-up truck went for $20!).  And I  have a good bit of white wool for Kool-Aid dyeing . . .

My worst clutter-ful habit is that I defer returning bobbins of thread to their proper drawers after a project is done, and they stare up at me from little piles that range up and down the embroidery table.  I solved this by devoting a large wooden salad bowl to that clean-up process, and on a day when the muse has excused herself, I pull out the bowl and put all these things back in place.  The muse, suddenly aware that I am quite content without her, will return almost immediately.  The truth is that handling the threads and opening drawers to all the blues or greens or yellows stored there sets the juices to flowing, and I'm back to searching for linen and starting up the next round of projects.

One day I will have a wholesome and organized studio.  At least, that is what I tell myself when I see something that needs to be somewhere else.  I am a firm believer in telling yourself things over and over until you believe them enough to eventually make them happen!

A Little Pink House

One of the nicest things about make-believe is that anything goes, anything at all.  I have a soft spot for painted houses, and that shows in this little pink house.  It is built on layers of felted wool, the top layer being the result of heavy needle-felting (the embellishing machine) and embroidery.  I used scrim in little tiny bits and roving and some scraps of colored wool to get the basic texture, then turned the fabric over and stitched the tiniest french knots (a single strand of floss, one wrap around the beading needle) to give a suggestion of orange to the mix of colors.  The door is a piece of vintage fabric, outlined with pink floss.  The windows are scattered across the front of the house.  I think this is to accommodate furniture placement (how many times have you wanted to move a window just five inches to the right or left?).  And if the furniture inside the house is moved around, the windows can be moved, too, by swishing across them with two fingers, the way we do those magic telephones.  Simplicity itself!

Now, the best part is imagining who lives here.  A room under the eaves would be my favorite spot, a quiet place away from the noise and jumble of family life below.  Maybe a little girl has her room here?  Bookcases everywhere, the shelves groaning with books . . . . 

This house would be located in a neighborhood of quite colorful homes.  I'll consult my muse to see who lives next door, and post that picture another time.