One month later

Hello everyone.  Well, I never thought it would take me so long to get back here!  But I've made some progress.  I did do some shop updating and more is to come.  I've been trying to clean up and reorganize whenever possible, and with that in mind I bought a New Broom:

In the gardening department (as you can see there are lots of apples)...I bought my very first lemon tree.  It's in a big half-barrel that my neighbor who passed away left behind.  This little tree has produced its first sign of what's to come...a wee flower bud!

Darling Gilly chewed a hole in the sofa cushion, so I found a new slip cover...it has purple in it!  It didn't look purple in the photos on the web, but now I find that I rather like it, and so does Gilly, plus it goes with the mohair throw!  So far so good with the chewing on it behavior...that is, the not chewing on it behavior. 

Here is a stitchery horse I've been working on.  While I've never owned a horse, the idea of them brings me great joy and when I'm feeling rather lost, it helps me to make images of them.  The little cows are from a pair of old worn out socks, and the things in the sky are fireflies, meaning to express gratitude for the little things that light my way. The indigo linen is from Glennis.

When I was in Vermont my friends introduced me to this wonderful fabric store, Delectable Mountain Cloth, in Brattleboro.  Oh my!  I've been using some of the cloth to embroider flowers and devils:

That's an interpretation of a blue geranium, which seems to like growing here. What follows is a relaxing devil.

Above is a devil whose feet hurt.

This is an upside down devil on different cloth:

And now back to a different sort of reality, here is the August full moon peeping through the apple leaves:

So I hope this has been a good month for you.  There have been lots of ups and downs in my month, that's for sure, but overall I'd say the challenges have brought growth and maybe some discernment.  We'll see.  Love to you, s.

Good News!

Hello everyone!  I'm so happy to report that my embroidery piece that went missing (as reported in last post) has been found.  This is a BIG relief.

I've just recently returned from another train trip around the country!  Now I'm going to see if it's possible to add a photo from my ipad.  Here goes.

Ha! It seems to have worked; although I'm not crazy about the fuzziness, at least it appeared.  This is a stickwork sculpture by Patrick Dougherty.  In front of it is The Lorax by Dr. Seuss.  On my way to Vermont, I stayed in Springfield, MA at a wonderful airbnb that was right around the corner from a bunch of museums.  In the courtyard bordered by the museums was a delightful Dr. Seuss Sculpture Garden, as well as the stickwork piece.  There were rooms and pathways inside the magical stickwork house; the heat and humidity seemed unimportant in there.

I'm hoping to do some shop updating as well as creating a facebook page for the mostlythreads shop.  It is exasperating figuring out how to do it (the facebook part)!! So I'm going to let it be for now, walk Gilly, and be glad I was able to post this much! 

Well then...

hello everyone.  To begin, here's another Tree of Life from the Victoria and Albert Museum.  I am in admiration of the borders:

Here is part 2 of my story border experiments:

 From the top...an elderly dog being pulled in a wagon: the fans we use in our new tai chi form:  the new lamp I bought for close work which has an icky plasticky smell that I'm hoping will go away:  the ants parading after the last rain:  myself with a giant doggy treat: a skipper (sort of a cross between a butterfly and a moth):  me feeling quite gloomy about an embroidery piece that has gone missing:  O.P., the central character of the piece:  another t-cell (representing an army of healthy healing cells) for a very ill friend:  a day of happy music when an old friend came to town.

Other signs of activity on the home front: a healthy bee brooch:

A very very small tree of life brooch (with rabbit):

This is the embroidery piece that went missing from a juried show in town.  There was an apology and reimbursement, and admittedly some gloom on my part.  I am working on letting go...things happen...but should you see it anywhere, please let me know, because it is not really supposed to be there!

In good news, Grace's beautiful Jellyfish Bride came here to stay!

And here is Gilly, wondering WHEN we are going to go on that walk I told her about:

So I'm hoping this new season will shower blessings on your beautiful tree of life...xoxo, s.

A story of Story

Hello everyone.  This may be long and rambling but I want to continue with thoughts from last post.
It started at the exhibit "Girl with the Pearl Earring" (Vermeer).  There were many portraits.  In asking myself which to study in particular, I looked at them from the question of which artist portrayed someone I would feel comfortable talking to.  Guess who won?  Rembrandt!  Sorry, no pictures, but his faces have so much Story in them...so much life and realness and mystery.  I had forgotten. Then we visited the gift shop and of all seemingly incongruous things, I fell in love with a book, Chintz, Indian Textiles for the West, by Rosemary Crill.  It just popped out at me, so I bought it.  Here is one of my favorite pictures from it:

So much activity, so much Story!  As I've become so aware of in Jude's work and online classes.  Because I'm doing alot of piecing work for my grandson's quilt, I have been neglecting day to day Story, and so in asking how I could bring that back into my work, I was looking at Penny's blog, and at her wonderful stitchings of story.  Then I noticed the borders around the Indian textiles:

and I thought, why not create my own sort of border to record daily events, such as:

This includes a friends' medical emergency, Gilly's toenail clipping adventure, a T-cell for a friend who desperately needs lots of them, 10 Chesapeake Retrievers jumping into the water at the dog park, some bees, an Oystercatcher bird, a snake we saw, and so on.  That was week one.  Inside the borders will be another sort of story (maybe)...perhaps trees and a lifetime of pets...a Memorial Day Landscape of sorts.

Here is the Plant Report: the persimmon tree is amazingly full of flowers.  Either I have never noticed them before, which is not impossible, or this year is so dry that it is a bit survival-anxious:

And lastly, this wreath of maple leaves fell, in almost exactly this configuration, into my backyard last week:

So, incomplete as it is, that's the story for now...xoxo, s.

A Hodge-Podge

Hello everyone.  Back from my big circle around the country on the train.  Every day I think of things I want to say to you and then all sorts of things happen and another day has gone by.  So here is a smattering of it all.

It was a good trip...all kinds of weather!  Flooding on the Mississippi.  A blizzard in North Dakota.  Here are some woods in Virginia, on the way home. There was a hollow and every once in a while a dogwood tree or a redbud tree.  We looked down into the hollow from the train...it went on for miles and miles...

I went East across the continent on the California Zephyr and then came home on the Cardinal through Virginia and West Virginia to Chicago.  Then I took the Empire Builder on the northern route through North Dakota, Montana, along the Columbia River to Portland and then down the coast. This shot is approaching Glacier National Park from the East. First the mountains were tiny on the horizon, then bigger and bigger, then we were among them:

My goal on this trip was to fill out the foot square blocks for Liam's quilt...it's taking forever, but I love the way it's coming along and pretty soon I will have 9 of them ready to sew together.  I had to order more blue linen from Glennis and also am going to include some from Deb.  I'm "celebrating the seams", following techniques from Jude, and while I'm trying to keep things more or less square, I'm not worrying about absolute Right Angles.  I think Amtrak would look nice redecorated with hand-sewn quilts:

These pictures are from my camera, but most of the photos I took on the trip were taken on the ipad; however, I have not yet figured out how to post them.  Anyway, I was glad eventually to come home. The marmalade bush said, "Welcome"!

While there is no new picture of Gilly to include, for the animal portion of this report I offer this: just after Grace put up a posting about Buckwheat,  Liam and I stumbled upon one of his relatives in the Princeton Museum:

He has really been around:

That's it for today...I'm hoping to get back to more stories in the sewing...I miss them, and so next time will delve into thoughts about that, and possibly have some examples to show.  Meanwhile, eat well, stay calm, breathe, and get enough sleep. 

Wildlife

Suddenly there are two donkeys living in my house.  They're almost entirely hand-sewn...Some kind of pattern is in the making, maybe. I think their names are Bertha and Rosario...they are here, voila!

A couple of weeks ago, Gilly had a visit from her friend Rocket, whom she met in agility class.  They look like cousins, and they might be, for they are both from the same Rescue.  Rocket is very smart (like Gilly).  When they play, it is a big Blur, so here they are as a sort of Still Life.

The other day, I saw something that looked like the center of a daisy on the leaves of my little maple tree.

I touched it, and it moved...it spread out til it was about 2 inches wide.  When I looked closely, it turned out to be many tiny yellow spiders.

Never would I have have touched it had I known what it was, and now that it has returned to its cozy family state I am quite inclined to leave it in peace, but what a surprise!

I'm about to start piecing my grand-son's quilt...this is a partial plan...each square will be 12" square:

Speaking of whom, here is a link to news of his dad's latest project.  My son is the guy who draws the pictures, and you'll be able to tell which one is my grandson if you watch the video!!

So on that note, I will say adieu for now...sending love, especially especially to those impacted by recent events...

Spring!

Hello everyone and happy spring!  Perhaps I'm learning to be a better wisteria pruner, as it looks like there will be many more flowers this year...

It's been very dry here so I'm working on ways to save water, remembered and hopefully improved on from our last drought.  For starters I'm saving the water that usually goes down the drain while the cold water turns to hot, and being judicious about watering the garden.

I took a vacation day at the beach, staying at Asilomar and visiting the Monterey Aquarium and especially the jellies!  Here are some very small ones that light up...

the beach:

my room...note the beautiful curtains...

I walked around Carmel, but didn't enjoy the commercialism.  The best part was this bird who visited bread baskets after the diners departed.  

He even visited my table and graciously offered me this view of his intricately overlapping feather situation whilst scanning the horizon for more profitable perches:

I've been constructing a table runner for my daughter-in-law, using methods learned from Jude...here is a view of it today, but there is a long way to go!  I'm embroidering state birds and flowers from 3 relevant states, but I just realized I only have been showing the boy birds because they are more "colorful".  This is embarrassing, being a girl bird myself and I will make more for us. Lately I was reprimanded for using the word 'girl' instead of 'woman' to refer to myself.  Hmmm, well...it's partly because the idea of being a cowgirl has always appealed.  You wouldn't say cowwoman, or cowoman...I can't even spell it so it looks right. My girlhood continues in my mind.  Anyway! here's a fuzzy picture of the table runner:

This is our state bird, the California Valley Quail (male version), that is becoming a brooch:

And lastly, Sleeping Beauty herself, resting on one of the beautiful pillows we found as recycle:

For each of you dear readers, I'm hoping that Spring is filling up your cup of wonder...xoxo, s.