It's Been a Turtle Week

Well it's Saturday evening and breeze is cool enough as long as I sit in front of the fan. Amazingly I feel like I have gone from one extreme (freezing cold) to the other (hot as hell). Either are just as disconcerting. Both leave me wanting to lie still either under a cover or in front of a fan.... too hot now to exert much energy .. sheesh. So I try to get up early while the weather is tolerable and do what ever needs doin outside. 

I have been struggling due to financial hardships from being unemployed. That is not a fun situation and finding work is harder when your mood is not so good. So inspite of the difficulties I have had some nice experiences lately. The first one was early in the week ... I was really feeling bad ... and went outside to get a change of scenery when I looked over at my dog Misty and saw her sitting in the flower bed in front of the porch .. she just seemed to have this look about her that made me say " what are you up to?" and as I approached I saw what I was sure was a toad .. and I questioned her .. "Did you get a toad?? " which usually means one thing .. that nasty poison in the mouth .. that leaves the dog frothing and wondering why the toad didnt want to play too? So I was getting ready to wipe her mouth out with a rag when I looked a bit closer at the toad and saw that it was a Turtle laying upside down .. I was surprised .. I hadn't looked that closely before and picked it up right away and started to inspect it to see if there were any puncture wounds or bleeding and I saw none of that.. just a muddy shell .. so .. i took it in and washed it off .. and as we were headed back out the door I saw it's eyes open .. i was so excited. After giving it some thought I decided perhaps he needed a rest so I would keep it in a bucket till I was sure he could walk and was ok .. in the mean time .. i had to get the camera.. cause he was a baby alligator turtle .. very interesting to look at and I wanted to get some pictures .. So here are a few of him ..

 His eyes were pretty spaced out. I can't imagine how

frightening it must have been being attacked by a dog and then this human is just staring at me .. after a while I realized that it wasn't injured and that it really just wanted to be back in some body of water. Where they usually live. So I walked it down to the creek and sat him on the shore and then .. after a few minutes of watching it there it took off into the water .. amazing and every few seconds it would poke his head out to get a breath of air. Amazing to watch. I really enjoyed the whole experience.   Then today I went off to run an errand and as my car was driving down the road I thought that what I'd seen was another turtle so I stopped and sure enough here was another turtle upside down in the middle of the road. This was a box turtle and who knows how it got turned upside down but there it was. I decided I needed to get pictures of it as well so he went along with me in the car. I left him in there while I ran a quick errand that didnt require me to leave the car. So .. after we got home I took some photos. Here he is .. it is interesting to notice the differences in the two turtles. The box turtles eyes .. were big and round .. with out the center detail in the alligator turtle. I guess they were both big one was just darker then the other .. fascinating though.

In the Wee Hours ...

I had planned on blogging about my experience outside today which involved the creek only to discover that all of the photos that I took and thought I'd saved in a folder ... didn't happen... i just kept saving every new photo as the same thing I guess ... either way it was an hour of work in edits that are lost .. atleast i still have the photos so I just have to take the time to re-edit them .. sheeeeeeshhhh.... I sure don't want to make that mistake again .. So I will post the bug that I photographed at the end of my creek experience. I found this piece of wood lying on the ground with all this wonderfully textural lichen/moss/fungus growing on it .. decomposing... with this kewl looking centiped and since it was the last photo that I edited it got saved on my desktop .. so I thought i'd share it with you .. and I have a few shots of my purse. But isnt he a kewl looking peachy beige shaded bug?? I love looking at all his legs!!!



And here is that hippiesh purse I mentioned. After taking photos of it it doesnt seem to hold the pizazz that I thought it did so .. it sorta looks like a mess ... I still have lots more stitching to do on this but I couldnt wait to carry it around with me. maybe just reliving my teen years... when i loved to carry funky purses .. Let me know what you think!!! all recycled fabrics here .. :)

Still Thursday after all this time

Well maybe by the end of the writing of this post it will be Friday. Ok I've tried an experiment. I know it's not much and not a great deal of effort however, I did paint a purse and I do love the paintings of trees on both sides. The experiment is that I have put it up for sale on Ebay... never done that before so .. it's just one thing but I thought I'd try it and see what happens.

If you would like to see what I'm talking about you can look here. ... so someone could get a good deal for art that goes with you haha... On the left is a photo of the same thing that I am trying to sell. If anyone has any experience with this .. feel free to give me some feedback about what your experience is. I'm new to this.

Also here are some more photos of the denim jacket that I have been inspired to do because of many things that I've been learning about stitching. I really like the idea of funtional art and that is what the stitching on clothes is to me.

Yesterday I was outside with my critters and saw this butterfly and fell in love with the pattern that was on it. So I ran inside and grabbed the camera hoping it would still be there when I got back. Yes it stayed .. there were two I thought would look good enough to post. The one I thought was just so interesting because it showed the wings moving so it was a wisp of a butterfly .. i love it.

The last thing that I have to share with those of you that are still here looking, is another jacket. My when I am old I will wear purple jacket, with my own personal embellishments. All repurposed fabric from something else. I love to do that!! I am totally in love with the idea of adding pieces of fabric that I can glue/stitch on by hand. It just seems to add so much to any fabric. I am always drawn to hand stitched items whenever I come acrossed them. 

 The back is where most of the interest is. The fabric on the bottom is fabric I picked up at a yard sale the rest of this is all from thrift store shirts or dresses. I tie dyed the tshirt. I'm still not sure if it's worthwhile to add fabric to a t-shirt yet as I don't know how well it will hold up. Guess I'll find out. I like to wear it. Well when it's cooler out .. not 90 like it's been the past few days. Ok .. hope I didn't wear anyone out  with all this. Hope you let me know your thoughts. :) Blessings to all...

Tuesday Persistent Payoffs!!!!! YAY!!

 Ok. so after staying with the blog following and reading and reading and more reading sometimes it's just time to do and do and do some more experimenting. FINALLY... i decided to try the silk.. and the metal and ... wait... ok I didnt wait as long as I could have perhaps on some but there is always the future. Somebody told me once to take bigger steps in attempts to get a different result because if you kept taking little tiny steps who knows how long it will take to get the result you were looking for. Hmmmm wonder if that applies to life too? I've been in a hard space..........there are lots of aches and pains. Sometimes I do feel alone even though I know there are people that love and care for me. These cloths really keep me excited about waking up. Now it feels like the whole world is a new media and I just found a big big big box of new crayons. Yes yes ... YES!!!!! Thanks for stopping by and please leave a note .. it keeps me going .. for real.
More to come......

Friday the 13th

This is Matty, she was born on Friday the 13th in another month but because she was born on that day she always thinks about it anytime there is another 13th on Friday. Growing up she always thought that it was strange that when she would tell people she was born on that day they would respond with words she didn't think were nice. "Oh..... that's whats wrong with you." Come to think of it, do most people tell you the day of the week they were born? I suspect that people must have remarked about the fact that her parents gave birth to her on a Friday the 13th. Might they have thought .. oh .. she will bring you bad luck? Maybe they thought it but didn't say it. I don't know. But she DID tell people that she was born that day so it must have been something she thought was significant. I wonder how it became so significant in her mind? Who told her that Friday the 13th was unlucky?  How could a birth of a girl on any day of the week be unlucky? Sometimes she would say proudly, "It's my LUCKY day!" Sometimes she could use this to cause people to fear her, maybe she had some power. Sometimes she would wonder if there really was something wrong with her... why she would struggle to make friends, why she seemed to struggle with thinking that she was "bad luck." Just for being born on a certain day? So Matty goes about picking flowers and hoping that others will find her lucky enough to be thought of or remembered just for being here.

I hope that you liked my story... I know it's short but it just seemed to need to be written on this day. I wish that I could post more often .. maybe one day will come when I can. I feel as though my thoughts are going in twenty directions lately... I have a lot of ideas for creating and each idea distracts me from the one I'm doing. So it seems like I'm going in circles. Here are some other things that take up my thoughts and direction. Below are two other friends of Matty's .. They're still waiting for names and stories. 

The fuzzy creature here is a caterpillar that I spotted after I heard a thud on the roof of my car. So, it must have fallen from a high branch of a tree over head. Or maybe he was about to be lunch and fell from the claws of a bird... don't know but I was totally intriqued by the pattern on his back. Just beautiful. and fuzzy furry looking legs and antennae to keep his awareness of what was around. And a perfect round head.

   Then there is an illustration inspired by my adorable grand daughters. There is a story that I'm wanting to write about these illustrations. For now it's just another idea .. ..one of way too many. 

Tuesday Tones of Textural Textiles

 Here is the progress on My Heart & Soul cloth. I was stumped on what to do and then learned about thread beads from Jude Hill's course called Heart Whispering. The class has ended but the experience will last me a long while. Hopefully I will be able to take another class soon. Currently I am unemployed and haven't found any job that I want to do. Soon I am hoping I will be motivated to put up a shop and sell some of the artwork that I've been creating. I've had a hard time getting myself out of my recent funk. So honestly I've been lying in bed stitching hearts. This is some of the evidence of that work. I have fallen hard for thread beads. I love love love them. I am thinking maybe this is much like the dots that I like to paint. White on white .. what I see that the beads do in the back ground of the biggest heart here are to sort of bring together the heart. It's still seen but the beads give it some cohesiveness. Maybe this truely is like healing my heart with the beads of light. I will continue to add more and more stitching and not worry about the time it will take.. certainly it can take a life time to heal a heart.

 This is the heart on a shirt that I did with the inspiration from Deanna's experiments with Shibori. I did this on a white tshirt. I love how it turned out. I plan on making a special shirt out of this by adding some stitching and other elements. I'll post those in the future.
The rest of the hearts here are a heart stitched for someone elses healing. Healing hearts with stitches. I don't know the person it will be going too but I wanted to send it out because she is a fellow stitcher from the class with Jude. I have learned many of the stitches here from her and hopefully my intention will offer some warmth whatever her situation is. :) It's nice to be a part of that.

More to come soon~