Sparkling Lotus-land

sunny morning snafus

Just completed a longer post that included a book review which I then carelessly keystroked into oblivioun.  Ack. Seems we've entered the pre-shadow phase for the coming retro merc cycle!

At the end of that post, this image made note of the fact that I am fully finished with the tumbler charm quilt.  On sunny days earlier in the week I sat in this alcove sewing the binding and tying off innumerable threads from the machine quilting.  Wasn't quite up for re-creating the book review but I did manage to take a few detail shots for this revised post.



Here are some pictures that show what I meant about the side edges following the angles of the tumbler.  Note I am already seeing a few places where the machine quilting is so unacceptable to me that I'm going to (at some point) rip it out and add glimmers of hand quilting, instead.



This quilt is single bed-sized.  Its early nineties coloration has been growing on me steadily.  At this point, I believe it makes a fine addition to this room.  It serves equally well as a yoga cool-down blanket and a kitty-cave hideout.  Have posted two different images on nichobella, along with some pictures of my late starting progress on this month's TIF venture.

little piece of follow-through

One of the stress-relieving goals I maintained throughout October related to to-do lists and how nutty they can make me.  I decided to give myself a month where I didn't make them and see what kind of difference that made to both my stress level and the rate of productivity I was able to maintain.  The practice evoked MUCH less stress and there was no discernible difference in my level of output.  What was very different, however, was the quality of enjoyment I experienced - probably because I was more thoroughly engaged in whatever I was doing rather than constantly thinking ahead to the list and what still remained undone.

Recall that I replaced the to-do list habit with [relatively] prompt follow-through on thoughts that began with the phrase I should really. This worked especially well with domestic chores and matters here in this workroom.  I've decided to keep going without a to-do list and further decided to devote special attention to the string of I should really's that didn't get manifested during October.



One such item relates to my preferred beading trays.  Many years ago, I took a beading class through the Brookline adult education center.  The teacher recommended that we avoided spending lots of unnecessary money on fancy beading accessories.  She felt the most effective beading tray was an upturned lid from a recycled ricotta cheese container.  It had a lip but no extra grooves in which the beads could get stuck.  Over time I discovered that certain other recycled lids held similar properties e.g. the old sherbet lid pictured above.



A few weeks ago one of my local stitching buddies gifted me with a special beading mat.  I quickly learned two things.  Predictably enough, Celeste thought it was meant to be hers.  And, even when the cat wasn't lounging on it, I felt awkward beading on the mat.  I really liked the way it held the beads so they clung to the mat but I didn't like the rectangular shape of the mat and how big it was.  I had a tendency to place it very carefully to one side (and away from the cat ...) and then commence working on whatever I was beading.   All the while I'd be thinking I should really cut the mat into circles that fit inside these plastic lids.

As you can see above, I finally stopped beading long enough to get the job done.  That's a recycled ricotta lid.  While the glue was drying, I put the beads it had contained on the inside lid of a tin I use for my extra special beads.  I briefly contemplated covered the inside of a tin or two instead of the plastic lids.  But that would mean I'd have to forsake my fondness for decorating the inside of the tins with stickers and favorite postcards.  Why was I so resistant to upgrading the recycled plastic lids?  I have no idea.  Because I'm already converted to that upgrade and thinking of making a few for some of my friends who do a lot of portable handwork.   The smaller lids would tuck easily into any sort of sewing pouch or basket.  On a table top, they stack well so that maximum workspace can be maintained.



Once I had the beading mat cut and glued into place, I thought about how slippery the little trays can be when they're balanced on the edge of a couch or chair arm.  I decided to change that a bit by covering the undersides with quilter's cotton.  It wasn't hard to find a scrap for that purpose.  All I had to do was reach down and pluck something from the bin.   I used all-purpose craft glue for both the front and back of the lids. 



This was a quick and easy project.  The only time consuming part was waiting for the glue to dry.  By the early evening, I was able to re-unite the trays with the beads they had formerly contained.  Now the beads don't have the same tendency to go flying every which way if I don't get them speared just-right with the needle.  The trays' undersides aren't nearly as slippery, either.  Plus I had the chance to bask in the warm glow that always comes from a simple crafting project that yields a big result.



P.S.  I was impatient to get these pictures taken, so I didn't wait for the glue to dry on the sherbet lid.  Now that it has, the distracting white lines from the glue are no longer visible.  If I hadn't had the "official" beading mat to work with, I think a scrap of cotton batting would work just as well, although I'm not sure it would be nearly as durable.  What I used is some kinda space-aged stuff that has probably been to the moon and who knows where else. 
 

laying the (improved) groove

I developed a "completion rocks" category for posts that relate to my creative projects.   But it's also the best category for this post about a little road trip I took with my husband.  He needed new strings for his upright.  Yesterday we drove down to Mystic Seaport because careful research suggested Upton Bass was the best place to get the precise strings he wanted at the best price.   We've been discussing the errand for a couple of weeks.   Hence the completion rocks angle of the post.  It felt like a real achievement to reach the mission accomplished stage of things.   



We also visited a nearby bead store.  More accurately, I visited the store while Jim sat outside and looked at the jazz bowing book he bought himself.   Then we walked around town until we found a vegan friendly lunch option.  From there we drove to Rhode Island and had a lovely late afternoon walk at the Trustom Pond Wildlife Preserve.  The scent of milkweed flowers blooming in the fields was downright intoxicating. I took scads of pictures.  We talked about environmental landscaping and birds and what an absolutely perfect day it had become.  This was sorely needed by both of us and I'm very grateful.  Coming as it did, on the direct heels of our equally perfect visit to the Peace Pagoda, I'd venture to say the impact will prove exponential in the rejuvenation sense.

 

short/sweet intermission

It's hard to resist these glistening white jasmine flowers.  Their star-like beauty and enticing scent are an important detail in Jim's music room right now.  After contemplating my to-do list and this week's combined social & business calendar, I've decided to take a couple days away from the computer.  There's always so much to do at this time, but I like to do it in a mindful and relatively relaxed way that allows me to enjoy what I'm doing not just move mechanically through one item after the next to get it done.

 

When I cropped the jasmine pic, I realized I hadn't posted an image of the completed angel that I wrote about here.   I joined the pieces with buttonhole stitching and then added a small amount of stuffing.   Also note that I added some of the fire polished beads from Greg and some miracle beads.   The back has various seed beads on the wings and a few other embellishments from a very special friend who likes to stay anonymous.  Everyone who has seen this really loves it.  Can't wait to gift it to its intended human keeper!

surfin USA

                       

ETA:  While I have been online long enough to decline opportunities to be a self-apologist where "other" reader perceptions are concerned, I felt like I had to make a public note of an email I just received.  Apparently (and reading through the text I can actually see how this would occur ... I guess you'd have to know me or be at least partially familiar with my work to inherently grasp that what follows is the last thing I would ever intentionally imply or directly articulate) my words read as if I don't think our planet is in a real state of crisis - that "arrogance" and "figments of imagination" can be seen as somewhat interchangeable states of being because of the specific ways I did and did NOT express myself.  Sorry for that, especially if it gets anyone else's feathers ruffled as they're reading.  Maybe at a later point some time I'll talk more about the arrogance factor and what I call Henny Penny activism.  It really doesn't help to JUST raise the alarm, and in many cases I do continue to support my own perception of that tendency as masturbatory as well as toxic. 

Oof.  Mid-December has been a personal rough patch for many years now.  There are just a few too many anniversaries that fall in the first two weeks of the month - shocking and unexpected deaths (including my mom), brutal physical assault that illuminated an utterly terrifying portal of deeply repressed early life memories, and 'what have you'.  I work very mindfully with the timeframe in a way that is ever-hopeful of lessening the impact of any emotional fallout I experience.  December used to be a really bad month from start to finish; now things have refined themselves to the point where I could set my watch (if I had one ...) by way of a handful of particularly difficult and raw days.  Last December right around this time I wrote a post called "and sometimes the b'ar eats you".  It covered the fact that I was sincerely Down In It to the point where I'd had to cancel a long-anticipated visit with a dear friend.   

Actually, I'm not sure if I mentioned that part of it or not but I do remember that the dear friend in question learned why I'd canceled, precisely, from reading about it in that entry.  Today?  The point of mentioning this is that yesterday was my authentically Down In It day.  I felt it coming on, knew I couldn't outright circumvent it, and so I got up extra early to create a happy gardening post before I'd descended to the point where I'd be a shoe-in for any of the current antidepressant commercials (I'm deliberately not mentioning the brand ...) WHERE does depression hurt??  EVERYWHERE.  WHO does depression hurt?  EVERYONE.

So it was a long, drawn-out endless kind of day in which tears occasionally fell freely and sometimes dropped one heartbreaking, unfreezing millennium at a time, very very slowly.  It was a hot and ashen agony that's all too well known to any depressives who are reading along.   At one point, a few years back, one of my most beloved colleagues introduced me as "the sunniest depressive you'll ever meet."  It's taken me all this time to stop being amused by his precise choice of words - to realize how freakin' accurate they are.

                   

I'm the only depressive personality I know (aside from my son) who doesn't define by and through such personality.  That's not to say that either they don't exist or I believe myself to be incredibly special - it's to say I feel freakish and without true kindreds where depression is concerned.  I just don't know how to make it work as a 24/7 kind of thing and therefore hold the deepest artistic and creative/healing admiration for those who can and do.  For me, it boils down to the fact that we are what we feed ourselves.  Where nourishment is concerned, it generally makes sense to keep depression at an elephant in the room level as much as possible.  Perhaps the dark corners of the thing are still too inherently frightening to me.  And perhaps the choices I make are a living example of familiarity breeding contempt.  I'll be goddamned and go to hell (to quote my uncle Harold - yet another Sagittarian of note in my life's history) if I'm going to permit depression to define me - nature and nurture can both take a long walk off a short peer where this kind of thing is concerned.

                        

So it has been an ongoing lesson in graceful living; to-be depressive and concurrently NOT-be living in the terminal shadow of that fact.  Two words that are often chosen by others to describe me are resourceful and resilient.   How can we ever totally lose sight of the fact that the most sacred and illuminating matter of all - personified so eloquently by the lotus plant and its incredible flower - gives birth to itself amid muck and mire.   Yesterday, I gave birth to my own sadness.   I let it BE the day which, believe me, is quite a [personally] heroic accomplishment even if it reads a lot more like navel-gazing self-indulgence.

          

When I realized partway through Saturday that this was the organic direction in which I was headed, I made a point of finishing the wallhanging that's pictured in this post.  I have posted about it before, while it was more at the in-progress stages and I was still viewing it as an unplanned project that was going to have to wait its patient turn in the cue.  I've been making a point of working on it when I feel most overwhelmed by the toxic/masturbatory tendencies of our species to go on and on (and on ... and ON ...) about the plight of the earth.  How our species has effectively killed it, and so forth.

Here's what bugs me most about that - the total arrogance in supposition that our species would hold any sort of ultimate trump card where the greater universe is concerned.   Any time I felt myself getting angry about that arrogance (and how little it actually accomplishes where Helping Out is concerned ...), I would do enough yoga and breathing work to get my emotional field in balance and then I would address my own thoughts/emotions/beliefs where this topic is concerned through working very mindfully on this wall hanging.

I stopped showing it to people when I got sick and tired of hearing about how I should sell it.   To effectively squash any further talk of selling that might emerge now that it's actually hanging in the house, I made the wonky light/healing/lightning SO wonky that nobody in their right mind would want to buy it.  It looks so "wrong".  Surely, it's a mistake that ought to be corrected?

But no, heh.  It was just me sliding slowly but sure into my personal abyss in which most bets are automatically off.  After months of studying this piece and knowing/thinking that I should, indeed, sell it, I became abundantly clear that I wanted to keep it, instead.   I made a point of finishing the piece on Saturday because I knew that, by the same time on Sunday, I was likely to be seeing shades of grey and black velvet void.  My skew would be so extreme that I would need something (a) tangible and (b) gorgeous to show myself which represented something I'd accomplished in this same time frame.

Of course, by the time I was experiencing Sunday rather than preparing for it, I quite reluctantly saw the larger metaphor of me applying the same principles to myself as what I had visualized where our planet is concerned.  This morning I stood for awhile, very close to the piece, while I traced some of the separate elements with my fingertips.  Among other things, this project was my exploration of the Frayed and Tattered aesthetic that's become so overwhelmingly popular in my years of absence from the fiber arts scene.  That makes the piece exceptionally tactile and so I stood for quite awhile; revelling in the personal rebellion that deemed me worthy of keeping this art for myself rather than being somehow obliged and mandated to sell it.

                        

It may or may not go without saying that I feel "being" depressive is at quite large odds with my spiritual belief system and the ways I'm most impelled to both pay it foward and live in the quiet, ordinary mundane senses of the word. 

Today I am hoping to regain enough of myself that I can work on more art.  I do not want to put this kind of whacked energy into any of the anthology pages (which is a larger part of why I'd planned/hoped to be completely through with them by now but we will have to panic about that burned bridge sometime next week when I have regained a lot more of what got lost in the seasonal/etheric sandblasting...) so I will just move down in the completion queue.  I'm sure whatever I choose will bring me greater sense of peace and satisfaction.  From there I can nurture and amplify my resiliency quotient.

Oh, and I picked the post title because this kind of experience always feels like extreme sport surfing to me.  And so much of what I'm moving through is culturally and socially based in addition to all the unhappy anniversaries and their attendant memories.  Surely the deep waters of the waning scorpio moon were as much as boon as a bane.  And my family was amazingly present for me as well.   I was able to allow that and, as any depressive will know, that is no small feat by any means.   And this weeks' tarot reading?  Nearly all free will, baby.  The tower fell and now it's re-invention time.  And still with the final Sun outcome.  So I feel determined and well-prepared, if equally clueless and reconfigured.  For all I know, it may prove to be a very wonderful week and just the perfect moment of a lifetime, after all ...

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.

This week's green thumb post is a tribute to long summer mornings playing in the dirt.  Plus I've included a look at my FIRST EVER quilt-in-a-day project, which has a garden theme.  And it's completely machine pieced and quilted!  Yay!  I'm re-introducing technology into my sewing efforts.  The piece I made yesterday is crib-quilt sized and VERY IMPORTANT to a member of my household.

                      

Long time blog readers may remember my silk staining project from last spring.  I had a fat quarter of plain raw silk that I was patiently coloring with layers of plant roots, leaves, and pollen.  At one point, the silk was so wet from the rainy season that I brought it to the screen porch to dry.  I spread it out on the picnic table and, by the next morning, my cat had firmly adopted the cloth.

Every day for the rest of the summer, she made a point of spending some time with the silk.  Finally, I announced my intent to make a little quilt for her with this particular piece of cloth in the center.  People shot me looks over it, but I'd made up my mind.  The problem (as usual) was fitting-in the project.  In the meantime, Celeste herself brought the silk inside once the weather grew colder.  She remembered my promise and her affection for the fabric held me to it!  Yesterday, I finally got my act together and selected all the other materials I needed: pretty floral fabrics, and thick squishy flannel for the batting

                             

Here's the front of the quilt.  I had fun choosing fabrics that suggest the parts of the garden where Celeste spends much of her time in the warmer months.  Things went together quickly since I used the machine.  For about a week now, I've been able to work with it for about a half an hour a day without kicking-off additional neurological disturbance.  I can't express how happy that makes me on general principle.  Plus it's GREAT to get more accomplished in such tiny blocks of time!

                        

The back of the quilt has a center fabric that's covered with hundreds of miniature cats.  I'm not showing a close-up because that would also display how wobbly I am in relation to free motion quilting. It's definitely snicker-worthy but I'm chortling for a different reason.  The project was complete in less than hour's time including a binding of back-over-front treatment!  And Celeste is very pleased with the results.

                

She claimed the quilt when I placed it on the floor in the area where she usually brings the silk to rest with her on sunny mornings here in this workroom.  I was trying to judge if I'd made it the right size, and her participation made it clear that this was as just-right as anything Goldilocks ever encountered.  I still haven't tidied-up the loose threads as a result...

Emmy's Completed Anthology Page

This morning I completed Emmy's anthology page.  Once I get the pictures posted in the FAJ blog and Flickr, I'm going to take it on a little show and tell journey IRL.

This is the front of the page.  It has a few leaf printings and a fair amount of additional embellishment including two dove feathers and a tiny piece of bark from my favorite tree.  I added the red satin roses because they bloom from mid-spring until the killing frost .   The big heart shaped leaf is morning glory.  The smaller leaves are evening primrose.

   

The back of the page has a large pocket so I can include some pictures from the garden, Snow Pond, etc.  And maybe a surprise or two, as well ;)

This completion has really whet my apetite to move on with manifestation of a few more pages.  I actually dreamed about it last night!

P.S.  a whole lotta love to Arlee for her wonderfully jubliant and encouraging comment on the previous post. 

forward motion

Last night I completed the binding on Tony's quilt, and sent it through the washer and dryer.  It's fluffy and bright and ready for its "second life" during a whole different decade of my son's existence.  Working on this project was powerful because I feel that, as a mother, I have spent the summer 'covering' Tony's previous experiences, and his ongoing comfort level.  They are adult experiences and more complicated needs for comfort; teaching New Grown Ups about pro-active homeostasis is an invigorating challenge.

Usually, by the time I'm finished with a full-sized bed quilt, I'm ready for the release process rather than a post mortem via photographic documentation.  This time was no different.  I'd have to wait several hours for the kind of energy it takes to haul this baby outside and then run upstairs to get pictures, front and back, from the bedroom window.  No thanks.  As you'll see below, I really need to spend available energy on the garden and general yardwork.  Thus, we're all left with a more muted/arty shot of the finished comforter-quilt. 

This piece would never win any awards except the only place where such things matter:  within my son's heart.  He's thrilled with the completed results and it does remind me, touchingly, of how excited he was by the first green quilt - an oversized log cabin that gave me anxiety attacks because I didn't feel I understood the color green well enough to work with it in monochrome.  At least this time I felt confident about the colorplay ... Now we seque to the garden beds.

Yesterday afternoon, the sun emerged.  By then I was ready to "go outside" for something beyond errands or purposeful yard tasks.  This is the way the outside world looks when first emerging from our shady front porch.  It was still damp enough that I wanted flipflops rather than bare feet.

  Together the cat and I explored our Little World, taking note of changes brought by the storms.  Some changes are more prosaic alterations brought by the turning of the seasonal wheel.  Familiar objects are cast in a new light and fresh points of contemplation and good humor emerge from the transmutation.

Years back I bought this gigantic metal ant as a loving tweak at my husband, who does not like ants in the house - especially big black ones.  Recently, we had a year where the big black ants swarmed unmercifully.  When I went outside, I happened to notice that the ant was pointing towards the house.  I told Jim half in jest and half seriously that we should turn the ant around to point away from a place we didn't want them to feel welcome.  I did turn the metal ant and the real ants may or may not have noticed.  We haven't had another season where they swarmed quite that overwhelmingly...yet.

Western light bathed the rhododendrons on the far side of the house.  It was such an emotional relief and energy boost to see the sunlight!  Earlier in the day I'd been focused on what I was doing in the outside world and didn't bring my camera.  That made it extra nice to unwind and explore here at home.   As always, there were a few extra beautiful flower vignettes.  Both contain the prolific and dependable, long-lasting phystogeia, planted in two very different parts of the garden beds.

At the southernmost corner of the garden beds, allamanda is blooming!  I've had this plant for 12 years and this is the first time she's flowered so far ahead of a killing frost.  I hope that doesn't mean the KF is coming extra-early this year!!

Here is a lovely moody shot of the phystogeia in the northernmost bed, growing happily with a modest second blooming from the beloved verbascum.  Don't mind my hyperbolic tendencies when I talk about these beauties, or any others!  It just kind of overtakes me like some kind of weird car jacking of the sensibilities.

I spent a long time studying this eastern sequoia and the shaggy forsythia bush beneath it.  The picture doesn't illustrate the wealth of birds perched in a variety of branches.  Their songs are changing and a few new ones have been added to the mix.  This weekend, Jim is gig-free and I hope I can encourage him to do a little tidying with the forsythia.  It is getting difficult to navigate the bird feeders that are hidden in this quiet grove, far from anyone's interested eye, in the human sense.  The cats also love this grove and once a coyote left a partial kill there as a sobering offering of Things Larger than my personal designs for this space.

People write sometimes to ask me about my composting method.  It couldn't be more low impact and old school - if you enlarge this pic, you'll notice a metal compost bin nestled between the mock orange and the "extra" forsythia.  This area needs a good pruning-back, too - which means I need to find the pruning shears I misplaced less than 72 hours after finding them.  That was some kind of record.  I may have to buy a new pair in order to do chores that can't be managed with the fiskar shears ...

There are three kinds of roses blooming in the beds right now - Tropicanas, Double Delights and the real old red floribundas.  I've had roses on my desk and altar spaces throughout the past week.  Somehow, I've found total peace with the Japanese Beetles this year.  I have not destroyed a single one and they have only obliterated two roses. I've rescued other buds that they were just starting to chomp and brought them in for contemplation here at the desk.   All have bloomed full and beautifully.

Usually, every aggressive nerve and cell of my body is focused on eradicating these tiny creatures - to the point where people in my family remark on it as something that shocks them whenever they see it explode in their line of vision.  So this summer's learning experience is a MAJOR change of viewpoint and behavior for me.  I brought no death and, in return, I have harvested freely from a flush of blooms which "they" usually consume the moment petals begin to appear on the bud.

The walkway back to the front porch is lush as well as thrice-overgrown!  I have a lot to do in this tiny corner where carrion vine has run a bit rampant ... again.  Most of the pathways are more like game trails at this time of year.  I'm hoping to fill at least one wheelbarrow with out-takes once the sky is just a bit higher in the sky.  For now I'm pleased to sit in a sunny corner inside. We've entered the mini-season of pleasantly chilly mornings; soon enough new england will be just plain chilly, and then flat-out cold.   I don't particularly like to think about that ... yet.

Did you ever noticed how attentive cats become at this time of year?  "attentive" in the sense of their own telepathic abilities; spaced-out to the max in linear terms.  When I came inside for the evening, Celeste remained outside for another few hours, silently doing her work ...

two new things on the wall(s)

This morning I got an email from somebody who believes they have the perfect coyote addition for this project, so I'm holding the space for it.  Everything else is done.  Yay!  I also got the milkweed leaves hung in Jim's music room.   I'm hoping to build some momentum so I can finish another few things in the next week or so...

success with goals!

I'm pleased with how this turned out.  I was going to try to get the 'shakey hand' feel by embroidering wonky cretan stitching over the painted signature.  Then I thought about how I always look for the best way to do something and that the best is nearly always the most labor intensive as well.  Sometimes it really makes a difference but other times, not so much.  This is not a piece that I consider a masteripiece, it's a work/study process item that carried enough weight for enough people to lead me to the conclusion it deserved to hang on a wall somewhere.

With all that in mind, I looked at what my mind's eye wanted and asked what is the most efficient way to get the affect I seek?  It occured to me I could probably achieve what I wanted by using a paintbrush that was a bit too big, and perhaps the 'incorrect' shape as well.  I employed this technique for the white paint and then got the perfect little round brush to make the inner grape lumiere tracing of my signature's shape.  I also put the date but just in grape.

Yes - I also met my goals in the garden!  I haven't been out yet this morning, even to feed the birds.    I've gazed at the newly planted items from my bedroom window, though, so I know they're faring well despite my disregard for a traditionally incompatible moon and phase.  Moon in Virgo, especially near the start of a lunar cycle, is a GREAT time to get rid of the one or two loose threads that may stand between you and a project being fully 'complete' or more authentically raised to its next level of need and skill.

Things I learned-by-doing:  (a)  Rayon, at least of a pre-vintage variety, is kind of a PITA to use as binding.  The edges fray so much it's more like shredding.  (b) A warm color in a binding can help to add a definitive-yet-floating edge to a piece that is otherwise swallowing itself with a moody and subtle color range.  (c)  The floating quality may help convince the brain and eye to view the finished project as a plan rather than a series of what-ifs that never thought of The Whole Picture until it stood completed.  This is going to hang in Jim's music room.  I know he will dig it a lot over time as it starts to grow on his mind as well as the room.  I may or may not get around to printing one more white leaf for the very center of this image.  It feels like it really wants to be there design-wise and I'm afraid it will bug my eye every time I walk past it (approximately 20-30 times a day ...) so I may have to go back and insert it - quilt and proper-order-of-things police be damned.

After I finished binding the milkweed wallhanging, I tackled a task that should have been simple and straight-forward and yet I have been procrastinating for a few weeks just in case it wasn't simple (or successful) once I put my ideas into motion.

Recall that the Sunchild's Treasure Map initially defined itself in a dream with the painted images of a large X, a human figure, a coyote companion, and an oversized butterfly.   A few weeks back I found this faux faille scrap of metallic giraffe skin.  I knew if I could pleat it, stitch down the center, and then expand and stiffen the pleats on either side, I would have the perfect oversized butterfly.  It would also be the most three dimensional aspect of the map and I liked that idea a lot.

First I finger-pressed a series of pleats in the little scrap.  This showed me that the piece needed to be half the size in order to work with the map.  Once I cut it down, gah!  Talk about shredding!  I knew I should be okay if I saturated it with fabric stiffener and let it dry really well.  Maybe once or twice until it was the consistency of laquered origami.  But what if I was wrong! I had no more of the faux faille (I know because it seemed easier and wiser to look all around than to simply get on with the task at hand ...)

Such is my creative life, in a nut'shell.  That's why it's usually "easier" (though far more of a burn-out) to write.    I confess I have written (more than once) rather than getting on with things in the home-made butterfly department.  I've also gone shopping in order to bring home unsuitable butterfly-replacements.  I won't bother sharing because, take my word on this, these replacements ranged from bad to worse once I placed them on the treasure map as it stands so far.

Then yesterday's early evening brought me a rush of confidence.  Even if it didn't work, wouldn't it be better to know and move on with the project?  Practicality!  I can't help but love the times when its angels fall upon me and All Is Made Clear.  I found the fabric stiffener, which in all truth I have never used. I simply bought it on an artist's date with myself in which "we" had a long conversation over my lack of spontaneity; my long and tedious creative exile under the watchful eye of my inner Quilt Police Chief.

What would I never ever think to use as a creative ally?  I closed my eyes and spun in a dusty corner of a local craft barn.  When I opened it and reached foward, my hand automatically closed around this spray-on fabric stiffener.  Dubiously, I imagined silk flowers I've yet to create.  This was roughly a decade in the past tense and, in that time, I had not used the stuff.  Who knew if it was any good anymore?   (Who knew what it even was?!?)  You can see I had some basis for prolonging the moment of truth...I did get everything assembled last night and then sprayed the daylights out of the result.  I also finished the center stitches with little gold plated beads.   

Later I will spray the daylights out of it one more time, and then place it on altar space until I'm ready to attach it.  I needed to have the embellishment finished so that I could plan a good fusion with whatever kind of coyote I pick.  I might have to make a very tiny one, most likely from felt wrapped in foil.  For any number of perverse reasons, this doesn't feel nearly as daunting as making the butterfly...