Sparkling Lotus-land

embroidery week two

Recall a fairly recent posting where I expressed an insight I had about my behavior choices. I had spent a few crucial months confusing sacrifice with compromise.  One of the confusions involves something that more financially blessed readers are not likely to grok; using one kinda money for some other kinda purpose.  It's happened a lot in my life and thus I have no outstanding problem with it: birthday cash as often as not tends to pay for extra groceries, and so forth.  This year my MIL's holiday check  filled a few different gas tanks and, that's right, bought some very well-timed groceries.

I do know people who authentically hold no clue of these type of trade-offs.  On the positive experiential side, this leaves financially unchallenged folks ignorant of certain types of very profound and deliciously sharp pleasure.  It's a very specific sort of delirious swoon that comes when there's just enough surplus money to do something foolish with it.  On the more obvious and problematically negative level, the type of person I'm referencing tends to say very rude and thoughtless things from the blind side of their limited experience.  So, please!  Let me not compound the same basic problem by now indulging in mirror-image thoughtlessness!

The point is sometimes you can recoup those kind of trade-offs at a point down the road.  Then again sometimes the true "gift" was an improved quality of life at the bottom line of such things.  I thought I was authentically fine about how I spent money that I was assigned as a gift for a holiday I don't actually celebrate.  But then all of a sudden last weekend, out of the blue I  talked myself into reclaiming the lion's share of the sacrificed MIL fund.  My decision came at the end of a financially abundant week.  I advised myself to just-do-it and consider this an early full-moon ritual of plentiful manifestation.  Thus I was able to indulge in some more amazing threads for my embroidery class and those incredible kimono scraps.  I also have a certain magical amount set aside for seed buying purposes.  I like to think my MIL would approve but I probably won't test the point in case the story prompts her to worry, instead. 



Now that we have my Dickensian preamble resolved, let's look at how things are going in the first stages of PLOS week two.  I wanted to work with a calming/piscean color scheme.  The fabric in the hoop has been painted with watered-down lumiere.  I used the center portion of an old (OLD!!!) pre-printed bureau scarf that I worked when I was in 4th grade.  I remember the experience clearly - particular chafing against the limitations of the threads available at the local 5 & 10.  My grandmother advised going with variegated threads as often as possible because they were the best bang for the buck.  Of course she didn't put it that way.  She just knew what she knew and - more and more - I see the basic point of her belief where this matter is concerned.

Most of what I remember about working this scarf relates to mother-daughter dynamics.  If I shut my eyes, I can easily picture my intense and very adamant determinaton to make red flowers despite my mother's ongoing advice to select the more visually neutral and 'lady like' blue!  Non-variegated blue.  With beautifully tasteful olive green branches and leaves.   Yawwwwwwwwn ...  You can see my grandmother prevailed where the multi-colored pink is concerned.  I insisted on getting two distinctly different greens.  They remain my two favorite types of green but they don't match well, do they, without a lot of blending from an interim green-range.  I selected lemon yellow centers - a choice that made both my matriarchal care-takers scoff whenever they saw me working with it.  My grandmother understood yellow needed to be deep and bright in order to hold its own with the bold choices I'd made, otherwise.  My mother understood yellow didn't really need to exist.  Because it's so bright and therefore inherently appalling.  Wouldn't a very tasteful muted golden-brown kind of thing serve just as well? 



Not sure what she'd make of my painted blue ground-cloth as she wasn't too big on anything shiny or bright. Or colorful, especially for color's sake.  Do you sense the taste/aesthetic management issues that punctuated my childhood and adolescence?  Last weekend I cut off the embroidered edges of the scarf and must now hem them for an  undetermined purpose.  I then painted the center portion of mottled white "cheap" linen from the early sixties.  There was enough to mark-off, gutter, and hem two 5 x 7 rectangles for the week's sampler work.  I made them slightly bigger than postcard size in order to remain comfortable without totally re-working the basic scale and finish-ability quadrant.



Yesterday, I read the lesson as carefully as larger distractions would allow.  I began work on a sampler that will explore circular design motifs.



I decided to work three versions of each circular motif.  This is the very first.  It was great fun.  After I filled in the center of the "flower", I planned where I'd make the other two circles of this kind.  Then I commenced learning the whipped long armed chain stitch.  I still don't have it down properly but here are the better pair of my efforts.  I had to bring out the paint for the circle on the upper left because the chain-ends were an incompatible blue.



I have a few odds & ends related to this project that I will hopefully be able to stitch/paint in various nooks & crannies of time that I have at my disposal. Last night I got out some embroidery floss that's in the right color range.  I'll need these to work the background portions of the sampler. 



From a range of four different threads, I separated the individual strands and re-combined them into more unique 2-strand sections.  People who may have been wondering why I need a tree branch by the edges of my work table are now enlightened:



"making" quasi-variegated floss is a painstaking process that I found satisfying.  Re-aligning the threads slowed my basic energy field so that it was easier to relax enough for sleep.  I knotted each pair of strands so they will stay more or less organized until I'm ready to use them.  This storage system should work well provided Celeste doesn't key-in and decide she'd like to wreak some kitty havoc with the plan.



I'm also working an A4 size sampler on hand dyed felt.  Sharon suggested I try a felt groundcloth after she read certain things I'd written.  I have some purple felt that wants to showcase the aqua/oceanic color scheme, so I was "waiting" to try felt until next week as I felt I had enough new things going on as experimentation.  Once I read her suggestions, I impulsively grabbed a piece of orange to work in purple threads because, seriously, why wait just because it's sensible and task-effective. 

The hand-dyed ribbon is something I whipped up myself as part of my weekend activity.   It's colored with watered-down lumiere burgundy.  Note the water separated the metallic stain from the purple color.  This didn't happen with the pearlized version of lumiere that I used on the old "bad" linen.  I discovered the metallic separation issue while dyeing lace for Cynthia's anthology page.  At that time I had a bit of the coloring water left so I grabbed a piece of white grosgrain that is probably as old as the pre-printed bureau scarf!  Coming from the same 5&10, no less.  It was nice to have a way to use it right away.  I like finding ways to personalize the color of things that don't feel too environmentally hazardous and/or allergy-inducing.



This is the other edge of the sampler, which I have placed with the long side at the top and bottom.  I hope the completed piece will showcase a few weeks of lesson material.  I am working to get a stronger feel for layered feather stitching because I think it will make a nice addition to my fire banner in progress.  I really enjoy thinking of practical application points for the class material.  Today I hope to add the beads to this border of the felt sampler.  My plan is to measure the placement of the beads on the other side so that the ones I now lay-down will be staggered from that original placement.  It's a subtle spatial differentiation that I enjoy implementing and studying in other peoples' work.  Threads are 3.0 mm topstitch,variegated sashiko thread, number 8 perle cotton and the equivalent twisted rayon. 

Then there was this vignette from yesterday's post:



Note the lovely triangular pattern of the groundcloth.  This week's lesson is, in part, about design points.  I intended to work each triangle as an individual "point" with an individual stitch.  My plan was to use the rayon threads and black perle cotton.  I intended the hand-dyed perle cotton to form some type of innocuous border.

The idea sucked so bad in its manifestation that there are no photographic images of the results.  It just didn't work the way it seemed like it would in my head.  I was swift to abandon the idea entirely.  I taught myself crown stitch in a free form way that resulted in the first "flowerhead" to the left.  I thought it looked a little like a hallucinogenic version of the flowering onion in my garden.  So I drew a few circles to fill-in for a few more allium like blooms.  I think I'll use this fabric as the basis for a stitched cover to fit the book where I'm keeping the PLOS class notes.



I like the crown stitch and look forward to working it in a greater variety of threads and colors.   Am slightly irked that the color of today's pictures wash-out the color highlights and subtleties of both the groundcloth and the threads.  Oh yeah.  This is the kind of thing I think about when I'm lost in my own ocean.  The class has been good for a variety of things that ailed me at the internalized level.

retrograde hash

Today has been one snafu after another and I am getting a little tired of backing up to punt in another direction.  Still ... everything that most needed to happen for today and yesterday has been accomplished with a few hours worth of work time to spare.  I plan to spend at least part of the afternoon doing some initial stitching exploration of the class materials for week two of  PLOS.  Sharon had gall bladder surgery today so we'll have a few days lull to get ourselves situated. There's a LOT of learning material in this lesson, plus some wonderful eye candy links. 



You can see I am going to explore a new colorway, as well as many other things!  Over the weekend, I combed my bead collection.  This resulted in a much smaller, practically portable tin full of embroidery-friendly baubles that I thought I might add some enjoyment and interest to this class.   The new threads have been woven on handmade bobbins.  Note the background fabric for this week's sampler.  It's painted with watered-down lumiere.  More on that when I'm somewhat more together.   There will be no creativi-tea for me this afternoon as the weather is knocking me out in a number of ways.  And the pictures of the fabric art journal pages were not acceptable.  I have to wait for better lighting from the outside world!

Wet snow prevails.  But I was so pleased retro merc didn't manage to impede the arrival of my new threads from Joggles!    And all the really glaring updates for my website have been made.  I'll spare you a laundry list of what's going wonky around the edges of my personal world and within the larger household...

hee

I had forbidden myself access to a computer unless it was the one in the basement, where I'm at liberty to update my website.  It's snowing today and far too dreary and damp in the basement.   So I've been in the workroom working on my alterna-sampler for week one of the embroidery class.  In the process, this piece is becoming the firm center of my first! official!  totally new!!! piece of artwork for 2007!  Clap and celebrate with me, won't you?  Expect much more info than most of you are likely to want to contemplate.  For now here is the rough low-down:

silk ribbon embroidery done on angelina sample made from lemon yellow and desert sunset fibers.  Angelina stitched to skydye groundcloth with two strands of caron watercolor thread and three strands of variegated floss of indeterminate origin.  I have spent several hours organizing ALL my sewing supplies and embellishments with embroidery in mind and this is proving to be very illuminating as well as energetically liberating.  My organization has included getting out my cotton floss.  It is a mixed grab bag of origin, memories, and great variety in color.   Jude has inspired me to work more with single strands of floss as an all purpose sewing/story telling vehicle.  Plus I know it will always be invaluable for banging-out the finer points of classwork/practice stitching.

Other learning details about the alterna-sampler pictured above:

I am layering stitches for the first time - unless you count accidental layering!  It's great fun and I'm working a variety of 12-15 stitches primarily with two strands of cotton floss.  I have used up the small caches of variegated red & pink and am now planning to work with three different values of violet and orchid-ish color.  I'm planing to mix strands of different skeins a la Jude and see what I think of the results.  It's a lot of fun to work with floss and I am lucky to have a plentitude for experimentation.  Can you sense my jubilation?  I was simply too tickled to refrain from breaking my own mandate so I could share the colorful bright image on this grey-skey Monday!

It's been great fun to bring a sense of cohesion to the way I'm able to incorporate bits from a variety of separate "stuff" hoards.  This feels wonderful on all sorts of levels - I think the feng shui in this room must be top-notch at the moment.  In terms of what I've been able to employ in this specific piece - I have a modest hoard of silk ribbons that I've collected over time if/when I happen to be in a craft store where they have fallen out of fashion, and are marked down to a dollar or less.  I get them in the colors that most appeal and then generally use them as emphasis lines that are couched or beaded.  I have also fallen prey to a few precious metres of hand-dyes.  I do love the way they look as a simple emphatic borderline and I have not asked more of myself or the ribbon for several years.  This piece is the first time I've actually worked the ribbon in embroidery stitches.  I had planned to make the fly stitch in fuchsia ribbon but the little card on which its wound went missing right at a point where I didn't want to break momentum to search for it.  so I used the organza orange and overlayed it with one of the currently popular Funky Fibers that came in an impulse purchase that I couldn't resist and refuse to regret!  So far I have used parts of it in lots of cool projects including this one and Jen's little quilt.

As I stitch I am interested to feel the angelina become more - mmmm, certainly not organic but - more like fiber as I define such things by their working hand.  Layering of any kind is always a very immersive and fascinating part of surface design.   

Aside from the "fun" and also adventurous factors of the experimentation process - this project will gradually make visual sense (I hope) as the overall make-up takes on a greater form.  I'm very pleased with what I'm visualizing.  Right now I am at the stage where it's all I want to do/think about and, although it won't get my site once and for all refurbished with some overdue changes ... it is making me so happy I have no incentive to deny myself flow until I'm actually ready for a change in focus later in the afternoon! Then I'll do the site stuff provided my bones and muscles find it tolerable down in the basement. 

If not, well then - I will go on declaring this a snow day and stitching just a bit more.   As I was working on what's pictured above I reflected that I have started bleating on the class message boards about how much straight lines intimidate me and how much I aspire to something more or less akin to a traditional band sampler.  I do not want to keep doing that!  I'm going to also begin working with my sample of natural linen with this particular goal in mind.  Wish me luck!  I'll need it!!!!

If you are one of the people who keeps worrying about the static quality of the website please rest assured I'm on the case.  Seeya back on this blog on Wednesday for a glimpse of recent incoming and outgoing fabric art journal pages.  I've begun actively working on Cynthia's while also taking care with stitches on Bente's page ...

Green Thumb Sunday

    Green Thumb Sunday    
   
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    Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

Fortunately, life isn't boundaried by astrological angst!  In the past week it's also been about a flush of life in the exotic grove that surrounds this machine.  I don't have a work desk any more so much as I have a bit of 'rented space' in the center of their glory!



The bougainvillea has been a building force throughout the week.  All the pictures in this post were taken during the last sunny bits (for this room's exposure) of Saturday afternoon.

See how merrily the next vibrant flush of buds seem to be laughing at the snow beyond the encased window!  It's hard to stay grumpy with these beauties serving as a backdrop for at least a few hours each day.   



Even the plants in this grove that aren't yet flowering have begun their first flush of fresh growth for a new season of life.

Strawberry Guava.  I got this at Logee's two winters ago because I liked the vibe of the much smaller plant.  The catalog info also informed me the tree is "quick to flower".   Ever since I've been wondering what that means in actual year-time.  A knowledgeable friend suggeted I might get a few blooms this summer.  I'm happy to watch it grow and help shape its burgeoning tree-form. 

And the flowers themselves are magnificent, one and all!

ETA - I would like to apologize to regular readers for my various petty and not-so-little travails getting the better of me in yesterday's post.  By yesterday evening I had been able to meditate and come to the insight that the biggest 'limitations' I've been experiencing so far are in my own mind.  This makes me inherently fortunate and I know it.   This new week is shaping up to hold a greater mix of responsibility and creative gratification.  And I ended the 'old' week, yesterday, with completion of Arlee's fabric art journal page.  I'm now focused on completing Bente's page; I received her contribution for my Peace Prayers journal in yesterday's mail.  So tomorrow's post will be of a FAJ nature.  Whew.  The logjam has a few chinks, after all!

 

kimono my house

Earlier this week I acquired three precious scraps from antique kimonos.  Pretty much immediately, I thought of this posting title.  It's kept me entertained for the past few days and now I feel like it's time to inflict unleash it upon the larger world.



I can't wait to make something from this particular scrap!  Speaking of which, both my body and my professional life are obliging me to scale-back on some of my creative endeavors.  I gave this careful thought for several days and have concluded I need to step back from the weekly collage challenges.  I enjoy them a little too much; I'm putting too much energy and time into thinking about them.  Every week, I also spend exponential amounts of time on their creation.  This is keeping me distracted from finishing the fabric art journal pages.  And we can't have that!  I'm already freaking out big-time that I'm going to need to embrace the extra month's grace period in order to get my exchanges pages done and in the mail.



I love the bright colors in this one.   It was fun to compare the design motifs with the contemporary Japanese fabrics in my collection.   I think I'll make myself a dream pillow.  And perhaps the remaining scraps will be perfect for a little talisman treasure bag for a certain Special Someone.



The third little fragment is shot with silver metallic thread.  I have an urge to surround this particular section with an embroidered border.  I'm keeping my ideas recorded in my design notebook.  Can't afford to start manifesting anything new until I finish at least a handful of projects in the works.  My creative energy will become much too diffused, otherwise, and that's another primary reason I'm scaling back on a variety of projects and potential opportunities.  Or else I'm going to find myelf back at the usual square one of being my own worst enemy where such things are concerened - the classic snake consuming its own tail.   And, with the age-appropriate wisdom I'm garnering one slow thimble-full at a time, I'm tending to think perhaps not vis a vis the usual messy energetic scenario.



This motif reminds me of my grandmother.  I've been contemplating making some kind of sewing/shrine tribute to her and, if I do it, I'm fairly sure I'll include this with whatever else I decide to use.  Originally I was going to haul out some tabi coats and a full length robe that I inherited from my mom so I could photograph some details to include in this post.  But that, too, would diffuse energy I'm far better served to place in other directions.   I guess that means somewhere along the line I'll be hauling out the silly pun again for a Part Two posting. 



I did manage to work on the sample for a while last night, and for a precious few moments this morning.  I'm posting these images mainly so I can determine if I've managed to suss-out how to post the pics to the class message board without asking for Tony's assistance.  Also to highlight the following:



Last night I created this wheel and REALLY HATED the final results.  I was going to pick stuff apart so only the inner buttonhole wheel remained, then make a bunch more.  It was the last thing I thought about before I went to sleep and the first thing I thought about this morning!  I even stopped writing in my journal in order to come down and grab the sampler.  But something stopped me from undoing the work.  About an hour later, I got the idea to paint the thread instead, so the plain colors didn't look as glaring and "wrong" to me.



This required my teeniest-ever sable brush, a really steady hand, and five different colors of lumiere, but I'm really happy with the final results.  The painting worked well on some stitching I did this morning, as well.  I set the goal of learning the portugese stem stitch.  I selected blue threads for the work because there is some sky blue in the spun silk and I felt the lone inclusion of a few stray blue feather stitches looked lonely.  But the plain blue was waaaaaaay too glaring.   So did this about that:



Above the portugese knot stitch, you can see some couching I attempted with a bit of treasured thread that came in a box of knitting leftovers I received as a special birthday gift.  For my thirty third birthday!   Sixteen and a half years later, I finally pulled out the cache with thoughts of using it rather than simply hoarding for periodic loving review.  Sharon b's original supply list suggested we dig-out such bits and pieces.  I still have plenty left to use in some other way in different sections of the remaining blank space.  I hope that will mean the couching won't continue to look so top heavy.

Picky, picky, picky...

the obsession grows ...

I woke up at quarter of two in the morning and couldn't get back to sleep.  Something about all manner of things that aren't in my direct control but very much rooted in my sphere of influence!   My impulse was to diffuse as much pointless wheel-spinning and emotional angst as possible.  With that in mind, I put on my robe and came down to this workroom.  I worked on my embroidery sampler and have since concluded that this kind of needlework endeavor is nearly as soothing as holding a purring cat.

Here's the fourth border for my first sampler.   

I used number 3 perle cotton for the running stitches - four in each stack - a vintage Noro yarn for the interlacing, dull orange oversized seed beads (I'm sure the size has some kind of name but I don't know it ...) for the french knot section, and two finishing rows.  The stem stitch is worked from Divine Threads rayon Beta.  The chain stitches that enclose them are worked in the same colorway of rayon Zeta.  Below is a comparison shot that illustrates a texture comparison between the two thread types.

Once I had the borders complete, I contemplated how to begin working the space within them.    My mind's eye kept seeing diagonal, slightly curved lines separating the sampler into asymmetrical sections.   This had been going on since mid-afternoon, yesterday, so I decided to follow the whim.

As I worked, I set the conscious challenge of dissolving some of the first impressions I had formed.  To that end I forced myself to take a breath, summon patience, banish I can't, and figure out how to separate the strands of the Watercolor threads.  Success was mine!  With the resulting single strands, I created an inner border of basque stitches along the bottom of the sampler. 

Before I worked the basque stitch, I created the diagonal lines - beginning with my new best friend, the Rachelette.   I followed that single bold shiny trail with another challenge:  Working the gorgeous spun silk until I felt more comfortable and had a better sense of how to handle the thread (very very gently!) so it wouldn't fray and catch on itself.  The spun silk feather stitches gave me a little bit of insight into what can happen with the stitch when you deliberately skew the needle angle, rather than focusing on making everything as even and similar as possible.

This process was certainly ten times more fulfilling than tossing and turning and agitating to no avail!  Today I have a full schedule which includes the need to streamline my [lack of] time management skills.  I'm not sure when I'll have a chance to work on the sampler.  I do, however, have a fabric-centric post planned for tomorrow.   Recent email flurries make it very clear I'm not the only one who is feeling like life is a bit of a compression chamber.   So I extend positive & hopeful wishes to those readers who may need such things.   And some kind of creative failsafe, like this little sampler.  I'm growing really fond of it!

playtime report

Stuff I've learned so far:   Apparently the temperamental sewing machine I inherited from my mother 21 years ago IS capable of making zigzag stitches without snarling itself so badly in the process that it needs open-heart surgery!  This has never worked before but yesterday I had a daring moment where I decided to just try one more time, in order to stay-stitch the linen I'm using to work my class samplers.   Apparently, I've been threading needles BACKWARDS for the past 40+ years!    Plus I learned a very cool trick for getting fussy specialty threads through the needle's eye.  And ... apparently ... I'm able to embrace a design/work space that's much tinier than anything I've comfortably attempted in previous efforts.  The samplers are postcard size and they feel roomier than I ever would have imagined.



I also learned how to work the guilloche stitch.  This is my very first try at it.  The standard stitch has french knots where the beads are placed.  I originally had dull orange knots in the spaces, but I hadn't stitched things with enough room for them to look in scale rather than poorly chosen.  So I picked them out despite Sharon's written encouragement that we all ditch the notion of "perfection" right from the get-go.  It just didn't look right.  I experimented with three different orange beads - something translucent and deeper in color, something very light, bright, and gemmy-clear, and the iridescent numbers pictured above.  I decided I liked their look the best of the three choices.  Ahead of time, I presumed I'd favor the gemmy-clear.  Below are the threads I used to work this row. If you click to enlarge the image, you may be able to see the difference between the three types of beads I employed.



I decided I'd work this first sampler in a very intense desert sunset colorway.  The thread close-ups provide a view of the results of my weekend project winding everything on homemade cardboard bobbins.  I hope I keep this practice going because I think I'm completely over the tangled mess, otherwise.  So far those tangles have been a major part of my embroidery life - perhaps it's why I haven't done nearly as much of it as I've actually wished ...

  This is the second row I worked using the threads pictured below.  The rows are being used as borders for the first sampler.   I thought it was happiness-inducing to sign up for the class and give myself this kind of abstract permission to play as I learn, but that was very small potatoes compared to how much enjoyment I got from actually diving-in.  Sharon provides tons of written info and I was thrilled to see that the first two pages are pretty much verbatim what I tell my students, albeit it in a very different venue.  Yet I also have new empathy for some of the people who have the most trouble taking off the brakes and trusting themselves.  I was nervous I'd "ruin everything" but by the end of the second row, I'd stopped thinking that way. 

Confession:  I worked the stitch as soon as I came upon it in the lesson rather than finishing my reading first.  So I still have more to look forward to relating to the overall class and the specific stitches we're exploring in this first week.  Below is the third row which is not yet complete.  I have to work the six inch sides in two portions or there isn't enough linen to catch in the hoop.  You can see I had extra perle cotton left and so I continued with the fourth step of the stitch to finish the thread, rather than stopping to complete the third step.  I plan to finish this section of the project pretty much as soon as I'm through with my email!  In this row, I'm using double knot stitch for the place normally held by french knots.  I'm also using twisted chain stitch for the outer borderlines, rather than stem stitch.  And I used silk ribbon for the interwoven lacing of the second step of the stitch.

I worked lines of five straight stitches rather than three so the ribbon and double knots wouldn't been too compressed to appreciate the differences they contribute to the overall look of things.

For the final row, I plan to work with number 3 perle cotton instead of number 5 for the straight stitches.  I hope I will be able to interlace these rows with a favorite yarn from my collection.  If it doesn't work, I'll be
going back to the drawing board to complete the final border.

One thing that's always very fasinating to me is the different responses we have to our materials at different stages of the process.  This usually breaks down for me as a sight response which very frequently doesn't match up with my application response.  In the case of shopping by mail (I had just enough extra money last week to indulge myself in a few new threads and this was VERY EXCITING.  Thread is, for me, pretty much what shoes are for many women that I know.   It's hard to control myself or think sensibly.  I just want "the pretty" surrounding me...) there is also the response to copywriting.   This specific response/selection method will be well known to any of my gardening friends who order seeds or plants based on written descriptions in their favorite catalogues.

Sharon's supply list mentioned some specialty threads that were unknown to me.  One of these is pictured above - it's called Rachelette.  It's fairly expensive when you factor in the yardage you receive for the price you pay but I thought I'd try it at least once based on the written description. When I got my package I looked at the little bundle and thought it would be impossible to work with so that would wind up being the GOOD news in terms of my wallet and self-restraint quotient.  But guess what?  It's a DREAM to stitch and I'm already trying to figure out how to re-work my budget so I can get more.  Maybe not MORE as in as much as I'd like to amass, but more as in two or three additional selections before I'm done with the class.

 

This is Caron Watercolor thread.  It's three ply which means in theory you can work it in different thicknesses.  I thought GREAT and barely restrained myself from ordering several colorways.  I'm glad I'm starting with just one since it's wound just like persian wool.  I have yet to successfully unwind the latter, and I'm a bit nervous to try doing as much with the watercolor.  It's even more expensive, for one thing, but I'll have to get over that if I'm going to learn how to work with it to full advantage.  This colorway is called Peach Melba, btw. And it is yummy, to be sure!

My favorite embroidery thread in the past has always been number 5 perle cotton.  I favor it so much that I don't have a lot on hand.  This justified purchasing two skeins of hand-dyed thread through Joggles.  What's pictured on the left is what I used for the twisted chain stitch in the third row and the interlacing in the first. 

On the left is some space dyed silk with flames.  I bought two skeins in colorways that looked like they'd blend well with my other purchases and what I have on hand.  I used it for the stem stitching on the first row.  I don't like how quickly and profusely it's fraying with the linen.  This is the first time I've worked with 25 count linen.  I'm not sure I'll want to embrace it past a certain point in the learning curve since I like the way the results look a lot more than I like its hand and the actual process of working stitches upon it.  But I'm open to changing my mind, for sure.  The point is, I liked the watercolor thread the best based on the written descriptions and available pictures on the Joggles site.  Once the things arrived I absolutely adored the silk.  When I actually sat down to employ these threads I fell head over heels in love with the rachelette.  Just another reason why you never really know until you DO know.

And there is even more discovery and comparison fun in store for me because I have yet to incorporate my favorite recent stitching allies - dyed rayons from Divine Threads.  Where they're concerned I like the Beta threads best on sight.  But the Zetas are THE BOMB in actual application.   Stay tuned for more details as I continue the journey.

happy surprises

When I first came to the desk this morning, I smelled the delicious telltale scent of a freshly opened jasmine flower.  Several other buds are probably going to pop by the end of the day.  Also, the first amaryllis flower has opened!



One thing I love most about these extravagant beauties is the gorgeous sheen on the petals.   I spent several happy moments welcoming this latest visitor in the deskside exotic grove.



Then it was time to water the plants.  As I worked I noticed another fabulous surprise.  One of the crystals I've had sitting in the mandevilla pot has developed a cluster of rainbows.



I love the way well-appreciated stones will often talk to us by manifesting these "sudden" and previously unexpected gifts of insight and healing illumination.  In this case, I put the crystal with the mandevilla because I felt the plant would like it.  Now, a few months after the fact, the crystal is expressing a similar benefit which I hadn't previously intuited.



All of this would have been more than enough to register as a  day that was starting out very well indeed.  But there was more!  When I signed on to collect email, I discovered that the class I thought was starting tomorrow has actually started today.  So my first order of business was downloading and printing the first week's material.  I'm sooooo psyched!  It's difficult to get on with my work-related tasks before losing myself in reading and stitching.  But I definitely know what I'll be doing in this evening!

No Day But Today

If you're familiar with the score of the musical/movie Rent, you should feel free to "hear" the title of this post blaring out in soul-galvanzing harmony.  The past six days have been so amazing and fulfilling in their healing and rejuvenation aspects that I'm now a full convert for taking this kind of Time Away.  I'm not just meeting my original intentions for the purpose of this time - I'm also discovering a wealth of more personally beneficial reasons for maintaining the practice.  As a result I've got a couple of things I'd like to share with the group but, mainly, I'd like to post some beautiful flower shots from this sunny winter morning.   



The house isn't filled with red roses but they're certainly in evidence on the universal altar and bedroom.   In synchronization with their powerfully rejuvenating properties, there's been a "sudden" onslaught of typical retro merc opportunities to Return to Source.  This is a part of the retrograde energy that doesn't tend to get as much airplay as the infamous Glitch Syndrome.  It's nonetheless something that I've often felt to be particularly potent during the retrogrades that come at this particular time of year.



A very talented healer whom I greatly admire and am thrilled as well as proud to call "friend" had an opportunity to visit and review my work of the past year in an up close and personal way.  This allowed me to, likewise, view the work through freshened eyes.  I saw how much I've managed to accomplish rather than focusing on all the things that remain undone and/or that which has turned out so differently from what I'd expected/surmised that it's been a bit up for grabs whether any of those things ought to "count" as achievement or not.



I wanted to say a special 'thank you' to those who wrote [such beautiful] emails or left comments in response to my "who cares what I experience & think" remark.   It wasn't actually directed towards this blog but, rather, my 'serious' writing.  All the same I appreciated the feedback about this blog and the fact that it apparently is a pleasant reading experience for those who responded.  As I've explained previously, I started blogging after the levee broke in New Orleans.  And although I'm likely to get opinionated email from my more apolitical and libertarian friends, I will go on record once again as saying I started blogging specifically because I was equally horrified and disgusted by the lack of response and general incompetency of the federal government.  I couldn't just sit here and read about it - I had to offer something of an opposing view of the whirled and our purpose(s) within it.  I've since gutted that original blog of much of its substance for reasons that I may or may not share in this kind of public venue sometime down the road.



Nearly everybody in my closest circles of friends and colleagues is a first-response type.  I'm immeasurably proud of, and inspired by, each and every one of them.  That said, I think for too much of the past few months I've allowed myself to be muzzled (or perhaps merely demoralized-by-implication) by those who are of an every man, woman and child for themselves type of mindset.  Their opinions have left me feeling battered and forlorn.  It's been amazing, in the past week, to re-connect with some folks who have had similar experiences.  What can we learn from this that  is galvanizing rather than depressing?  That's the question we're resolved to start asking ourselves and each other in place of an anguished endless why is this happening kind of plaintive wail.  Because maybe we don't really care why anymore - we'd just like it to stop.

For the past umpty-umpth weeks I've been overly focused, through multi-layered circumstance, on those who don't appear to value generosity unless it's purely self-centric.  Treating oneself well in the self-indulgence department seems borderline obscene to me at times - contingent upon larger issues - and I've definitely been attempting to over-compensate for what I see and hear around me.  And as much as I deplore strictly seasonal generosity, this particular holiday calvalcade seemed to leave me over-exposed to those who don't even go that far ... to go back to the Rent allusions and a paraphrased lyric - it's much more of a Today for Me, Tomorrow For Me kind of life/soul relationship.   When I say that kind of thing has left me feeling quite ill I mean that far more literally than is healthy for anybody - including those who have ignited my internalized distress and despair.

So I've been overcompensating - like a kid in a dysfunctional family who does everything as perfectly as possible in order to be viewed as "the good one" - in order to prove that no matter how effed-up the overall scenario may be, there is still the activated potential to transcend the entire stinking mess.  I've done this in a really weird way that stops just short of a hair shirt and metaphorical self-flagellation.  It's like I'm trying to somehow or other do the absolutely impossible - to atone for behavior and belief systems/philosophies that aren't even my own.  This has led to some related issues of skew in my closest circle of family:  I've gotten compromise and sacrifice quite tangled up and confused in my mind.  Frankly, it's been driving my near and dear a little batty, just as it's left me a lot more humorless and cranky than I'm comfortable being as a way of ungoing life.



When I first had the realization about my confusion vis a vis confusion and sacrifice, I was swift to share with husband and son.  They both hailed it as a pivotal insight on my part.  I think it also helped them understand my behavior and attitude a bit more clearly.    We've had a lot of a very healing and insightful conversations as a result.  There have been a lot of conversations, period.  Part of why the levee situation is on my mind right now is because we've been watching Spike Lee's documentary on the subject - both the film and then his over-dubbed commentary. 

Although I didn't talk about blogging during those conversations - I certainly did think about it because I remember clearly those first few weeks/months of coming to the machine every day and reading absolutely heart-wrenching email from those I know who became directly involved in rescue and recovery work.  I remember how much it eased my sense of helplessness where the overall crisis was concerned, to be repeatedly assured that those I know who Were There found some tiny piece of comfort and deliverance from reading my blog.

Yes ... In my old blog I used to be a lot more outspoken both politically and personally.  I also used to be a lot more forthcoming about my spiritual development, what I was "up to" in the writing and teaching sense, and what I value at the personal philosophical level.   Later this week I'll talk about those changes a bit more - for now I guess I'd like to leave everybody with the image of me, TOTALLY pissed-off all over again, furiously untangling my collection of perle cottons so they could be wound on home-made cardboard organizers.

Because I'm getting ready to take Sharon b's class on developing a personal library of embroidery stitches!  It begins on Wednesday and I am sooooooo excited to be anticipating something that is purely "fun" - something that's as inherently soothing as it is creative inciting.  But, you know, just as an enhancement feature for my so-important-to-me creative life rather than something that's designed to obliterate, obscure or outright nullify the other side of humanity's shopworn coin.

 

Small Things

This weekend was as slow moving as I thought it would be.   This feels "proper" to me as I prepare another Unplugged retreat for the darkening of one lunar cycle and the dawning of another.  One of my few tangible accomplishments was the creation of this little springtime earth angel.  I made her from scraps of things that have been lurking at the edges of my work table.   It was a roundly satisfying effort and I enjoyed seeing her "in charge" of this workroom when I first came into it this morning.  Also love her orange bed-head hair.  I have been saving the tail ends of perle cotton as I embroider, thinking it would make good hair.  The way it was piling up and creating yet more clutter and disarray is what motivated me to implement the intention to make such a companion "some day".



Of course she is not elaborate enough to be a proper art doll but she seems very happy hanging from the forked branch at my work table.  I was glad to make something that was quite simple; something that I was free to define on my own terms serving no greater or more complicated purpose than infusing me with happiness while I was creating and, now, viewing the completed results.

I also added some embroidery to the Italian landscape I prepared last week.  I like the way the coral stitching mimics the organic lines of vineyards.

 

I think I may have gone overboard with tete-de-beouf stitching.  I didn't realize how much I was going to enjoy making these little bud shapes.  I sense an entire tete-de-beouf project somewhere in my future.  I'll just have to add it to the scrolling list ... back in the world of this project, I began my embroidery efforts by adding some dimension to the ruins - something that made me think a little less of an out-of-scale burned-out school bus.   I used a pale apricot perle cotton that I painted for greater blendability.  but I like the way the pale color still shows through - the way cracked or broken terra cotta reveals paler coloration.  I worked a wonky double chain stitch that looks a lot like crumbing bricks.  It's also first rate for filling-in the intimation of the stone walls that are so omnipresent here in new england.



I'm now sitting on the collage while I decide if it's ready to be quilted and hung, or not quite yet. So far, I have not liked any of the embroidery I tried on the sea or sky and can't decide if it should be left as-is or if I need greater inspiration to strike.   I've considered adding a leaping dolphin or two, but that doesn't speak of memories from the trip I'm depicting.  It speaks of earlier memories from a summer visit to the same general area, when I was 18.

Small moves into a future tense - Today I spent the first hour of consciousness writing in my journal.  Yes, it's becoming more of a habit again.  Today I gave time and attention to some of the things I have made a point of not articulating beyond the running internalized stream of consciousness.   Much of this relates to motherhood, or how dramatically and thoroughly I've changed over the past 15 years.  Some of it also relates to my recurring sense that writing well is not a sufficient reason to "be" a writer.  The passion and conviction has to be firmly in place as well and, for me, it hasn't been for the last few months.  I sit down at an open Word file and instead of feeling the usual fire and desire to forge something of substance from the universal failure of words, I sit back and think things like Who cares about my experiences and what I've concluded as a result?

Maybe this means it's time to take another swing through fictionland in the writerly sense.  And maybe it simply means I'm asking very valid questions of myself.  I don't consider the who cares aspect in any kind of self-pitying or alienated human type of way ... I think it in what I perceive as a responsible spirit.    And that spirit is pretty strong-minded; it wants its day at the races and I presume I will be self-conversing on that subject as I journal during the retreat phase.

Another thing I wrote about this morning is the way I feel about the desecration of the hillside CSA gardens.  This happened shortly after mid-summer, so I've definitely taken my time getting to the personally reactive layer of things.  First I worked through the implications for the larger community and the seemingly endless ramification of how a single piece of land can be used, abused, exploited and dearly loved all at the same time.   I thought and felt a lot concerning the death of a dream - the specific dream of people other than myself who first set up the gardens and dared to plan, always, in the spirit of expansion and a very primal and direct form of medicine-making.

Whew.  By the time I was done writing, I felt a little empty.  There was a lot of sorrow stored in me and though I've attempted to be constructive and evolutionary in how I've dealt with the lion's share of the emotion, there was a great deal of brackish after-affect.   Feeling empty is rather appropriate when it comes to clearing away such things; I felt a need to nourish myself at the internalized level.



Last night I grabbed this book from the shelf and took it upstairs with me.  I ordered it some years ago, right before Jim and I separated.  It got lost in the chaotic emotional shuffle that followed and, once our live together had been re-established and dramatically changed-rearranged for the better, I found it made me sad and vaguely anxious to look at the book.  I didn't consider reading it, I simply shoved it in with a lot of other things on a similar subject.  There it's stayed until last night.

When I picked it up to begin reading this morning, I felt an automatic quasi-fear.  What if I didn't like this book?  Because .. what if it was as histrionic and over-the-top in its style as the writing of Clarissa Pinkola Estes?  I'm not sure my EXTREME distaste for that lady's work is even an unpopular opinion.  I think it's more of outright heresy for somebody with an interest in female nature and how it's transcribed in words.  But ... okay ... here we are.  I'm admitting how I really feel and doing it publicly to boot.  I can't read Estes with any degree of focus or enjoyment.  It's impossible for me because she's so busy reminding the reader every other paragraph or so about her extremely well developed and exceptional bardic gifts.  I can only get about twenty or thirty pages into Women Who Run With Wolves before the onslaught of so much free range self-exhaltation leaves me too uncomfortable and fussy to continue.  I can't even describe how many times I've attempted to be a "good" enough female that I read the book, once and for all - only to find myself back at the same place.  The place where I put the book back down again as gently as possible and address The Writer who unleashed it on a world that was [quite authentically - despite my cantankerous view on CPE, I fully realize how many people her work has illuminated and emboldened ...]crying for the variety of visions it evokes.  I put the book down and say the same thing every time: WOW.  Put the breaks on, willya?  Just from time to time??!!??

If my opinion about this bastion of femalecentricity is offensive to you, consider the larger truth of why I'm at liberty to have it.  WWRWW didn't "wake me up" to anything - except the ever-present danger of writerly Overkill from a uniquely female perspective.  I have never felt estranged from my inner Wild Woman in the slightest.  For me, a far more compelling and problematic issue of female re-assembly has been the very DEEP estrangement I have experienced from my inner Good Girl Who Sweeps The Floor and Organizes The Cupboard Then Fixes Her Hair and Makes Sure She's In a Stylish & Presentable Outfit Before She Goes Out A-Wandering in the Woods and Fields.  Hell.  I'm lucky if I remember to brush my hair and change out of pajamas before I feed the birds and wander among the garden beds.

Also it may help to recall that I was raised with very traditional and (probably far more to the point) Plain role models.  The whole concept of performance-art oriented "shamanism" and/or female empowerment is therefore at least a little embarassing/repulsive to me, no matter how much I work to get over that response.   Plus as a writer I'm no stranger to hyperbole.  I understand all too well the tendency to indulge in it as a way of illustrating writerly prowess.  But "brilliant writing" is as much in the eye of the beholder as Beauty is said to be.

That said, you can imagine (perhaps ...) the trepidation I felt upon opening a book called The Storyteller's Goddess. Fortunately, I experienced no inner blue-pencil wielder turning into an outright hierophant while I was reading this morning.   Edwards' writing is quite restrained.  She appears far more interested in conveying the gist of an archetype as it has become known to her than she is in ramming the point home about her wealth of Special Gifts.   She manages to confine her meditative insights to admirably short introductions which are long on clarity and mercifully short on the hectoring here-we-go-building-up-yet-again-to-another-story-telling-tour-de-force style that makes Estes' work so unattractive (and ultimately dead-boring...there.  I said it.) to me.

I was thus delighted.  The enjoyment factor was undoubtedly enhanced by the fact that the first two myths to be examined relate to two of my favorite goddess-aspects - Pele and Amaterasu.  You definitely don't have  to be super goddess-oriented or femalecentric in order to enjoy this book.  In fact, it might be a very good primer if you're not terribly interested in Goddess-ness but still wonder what all the fuss is about.  And of course it's good, indeed, for those who fit in the most obvious target audience.  I'm kind of glad I hung on to the book, unread, for quite as long as I did. Now does seem to be the authentically right time to read it at long last.