The day after it didn't feel like Monday

All day yesterday I kept having to think of what day it was. Not sure why but I kept thinking that I was missing something and I had this longing that just seemed to cloud my day even though the sun was scorching hot. I don't write much about my life in the past here but I will say that I am a survivor. I suppose there are a lot of survivors in the world. It could be from anything but it is from many things. I'm grateful to be here. However some days the past just seems to flood into my day .. it never has my permission and usually its not associated with reminiscing nostalgic memories. It is generally a subtle awareness like a creeping fog after a long rain. It clouds my vision with unpleasant feelings. Sometimes I want to escape from it, most times I just have to sit through it and these times it's a blessing to have some way to creatively process this STUFF. I have many ways that I can do that and sometimes that one creative outlet just seems to make itself known. Lately I have really enjoyed stitching and dyeing. I have also been drawn to the use of silks for dyeing. I've been outside in this heat creating some solar dye pots. I have three going.

The stitching here on my blog is a small piece that I am doing as part of the magic diaries series that I am happy to participate in. I have learned some really interesting methods of stitching. This piece is my first attempt at weaving fabric and I have tried to make it a sort of nine patch. The fabric is silk that has been dyed with eucalyptus ( a gift from the blueberry man) and I have to say I just love the softeness of silk fabric. And I can't tell you why but I had a scrap of a cashmere sweater that had been washed and felted some and I have used that as the backing. Its so soft to hold and it's just the right piece to work on for comfort .. for passing through some of the tough days. It soothes me. I have no idea yet what else I may do with it. But it may be a center piece to something larger. It will be one of my pieces to arrange with something else I think. I did invisible baste it but my stitches were close together so you can sort of see where they are by the indentations of the fabric I love how the whole thing feels. I learned the stitch on the circle and the thread beads from Jude. The dyeing from India Flints book. The other dyeing that I am doing I have picked up from blogs and other stitchers that I follow. Here are some photos of whats cooking outside.

 Ok in the blueberry pot I added a few cotton pieces and some silk. The top knotted piece in my blue glove hand is silk that I knotted before throwing in. To the right of that is the unknotted silk and below that is the same piece dried. I do love the purple shade when it's wet and it appears that the color just turns to more violet or grayish purple as it dries and I did one piece that I haven't photographed that just looks straight gray. That was after a vinegar bath. The lace looks pretty here but after being in the sun a day I didn't like how it looked so I dunked it in the walnut dye. Above the lace is a small embroidered napkin or towel. Again it looks really pretty wet but it has reverted to that more dingy purple upon drying. Just below here is a large photo of a pot that I have had brewing outside for about a month. I have had a lesson in this dye process and no doubt it is written about in dye books etc, but I tend to learn things the hard way and one of my walnut dye pots sprung a leak after I put a cup of vinegar along with a copper pot. Imagine your dye pot rusting ?? Duh .... oh well .. live and learn. SO I didnt want to throw out the really interesting liquer that seemed to be there in that pot of copper. So I went outside and put it in a crock pot that I had been using for some dying. I put the contents of the rusted pot in there and just left it with the lid on and forgot about it. Below is what it looked like with the lid just off after all that time.
 I'm sure there is some scientific name for whats happened here but I don't know what that is. But it had a fabulous texture and made for some pretty exciting photographs!!! This shows the inside of the pot and that great texture! Then .. I did a what if .. I have been experimenting all my life and thought hmmmmm wonder what it would do to a piece of silk??? I ran inside and found a piece big enough to cover the dish. The following photos show the progression. First one on the left is over the pot, next touching the liquid and then I put the lid on and the next photo is one day later. I got way excited about how it's picking up colors from whats brewing in there!!! Pretty neat .. I'm going to leave it for week if i can and see what develops!! Then the last photo is of me with my golashes on sitting on a chair trying to get cool!! Have a lovely day!!

Small Miracles

Earlier this week I had to finally do something about the front lawn. With all the heat and rain and sunshine the grass is growing pretty quickly. I'm grateful to have a large shade tree in the front and one day this past week, I think it was Monday the humidity dropped just a tad and the breeze was blowing and it was cooler to be outside then inside. I didnt have the energy to mow with the mower so I ended up weed eating the whole front yard. Haha.. And I am so glad that I did. When I first got started I was going along and at some point had to stop and when I looked down to where I had just cut the grass I have to laugh but I thought it was .. uhhh .. well dog waste is a nice way to put it. haha  I was in the area that they generally go when I haven't taken them on a walk. I looked again and thought maybe it was a stone but then I recognized those three little protrusions on it's back.. yep it was a baby box turtle. And I am so amazed yet again that I have a turtle come to me .. why? I find that I must discover this answer.. but in the mean time .. I quickly go to get my blue gloves and pick up the turtle and make sure all is ok ..

Here he is .. about the size of a silver dollar. I put my hand in the photo to show it's size. I was so delighted to see that the turtles are apparently flourishing in my neck of the woods.!! Isn't he just the cutest thing? So tiny. So alive .. thankfully unharmed!! I'm so grateful! And I have gone back now and reread a passage on Turtle Medicine from a book that a friend has shared with me. One thing that really popped out is this; " If you have chosen the Turtle symbol you are being asked the honor the creative source within you, to be grounded to the Earth, and to observe your situation with motherly compassion. Use the water and earth energies, which represent Turtle's two homes, to flow harmoniously with your situation and to place your feet firmly on the ground in a power stance. Turtle is a fine teacher of the art of grounding." and futher on it states, " The corn that is harvested before its time is not yet full. However if it is given the chance to develop at it's own rate, in its own season, its sweetness will be shared by all." There is so much more .. perhaps I will spend more of today rereading this and thinking about it. Either way I am honored to have these little beings showing up a lot in my day.

 His underbelly seems to have this semi peace symbol on it .. I'ts so small that the connections of the spaces are so big and as they grow those spaces which look to me like a road map, get smaller and smaller. I love this little guy. I took him to my back yard where I never use the weed eater or mower. I put him into the tall grass where he'd be sort of hidden. I hope he finds a safe place to be .. where he will thrive and live a long life. It will be interesting to see if I run into it later if I will be able to tell by the design on its belly. Might be kind of interesting. and it would mean i would have to be here a lot longer.

Now there is one more creature that showed up and one that I have also posted about before. I guess I have to say I never expected this to happen. But it was definitely a delight to experience!! I have photographed and even posted about life at a snails pace and oddly enough both the turtle and the snail move through the world slowly, plodding along and both have shells for protections. This one was inside of a coffee cup that I'd left outside and was taking in. I thought it was a grain of sand or a rock and thankfully I am learning to look closer and to actually see .. even the small things. As I looked I saw that it was a teeny tiny snail. So small probably less then 1/4 inch. more like 3/16ths haha. it was bigger than a 1/8th. Anyway .. I decided to take some photos while I had it sitting in my hand because I had the camera in my pocket. While I was photographing the tiny shell the little guy inside decided to come out and then .. i was ultra fascinated!!! so tiny and yet so perfect in every way .. you can even see the hairs and the texture of my skin that it crawled over .. so amazing!!! I also realize that there are alot of photos here but I just had to share all of them because they are so amazing to me. I know that somehow their influence will show up in the stitching. They already have. And it serves as a serious reminder that plodding along .. going slow .. is a very very good thing! You can click on the photos to see them larger. I realize that I had to share them because I simply love the beauty of its tiny delicate body and the way that the light glistens on it's body. It truely seems like a soulful creature to me. Thanks for stopping over!!

The Magic Begins!!!

Its been a while since I have posted but it just seems that I have had so much going on and yet not that much. Time is always strange to me. And given that the heat is just so intense I have to make sure my four legged friends have all their needs met and then I just have to leave to get a break from the heat. It's stiflingly hot!!!! I haven't seemed to be able to do too much stitching. But I have done some. My mood of gratefulness has transitioned into the rote actions of day to day life and yet every day something wonderful seems to show itself to me to keep me always thinking how wonderful life is .. inspite of some things that aren't so pleasant. One of the really wonderful experiences that I am having right now is participation in the Magic Diaries Workshop of Jude Hill. If you are interested in taking an online workshop that allows you to go at your own pace and you like slow stitching, try it!!! She's fantastically talented and you won't be disappointed!! If you already follow her then you know all this. I have been thinking about the stitching and what cloth I want to create over the time of the Workshop which will be six months and the first month is almost over. Where does the time go? I have several things going at the same time. Most of what I will post about here are things I will probably give away.

Above is something that will be a gift. I can't really talk about it now but I will tell you that it's on a green blanket which you can sort of tell. I purchased this at a thrift store because I loved the color and the satin trim just seemed to call to me. I have stitched tear drops on the edge in triangles I call it the edge of tears. And the center on this is a discharged tshirt that my son did. I found it somehow poignant that he found the tshirt on the road and decided to discharge it.( I taught him how and it's something we like to do together). I love the fact that it looks like an explosion. I had a sort of explosion in my life many years ago. I have started to stitch it from the center outward and will add more and more to this .. the edge of tears may be the only green that will remain when it's finished.  I love how easy it is to stitch on and I love the way that the stitches sink into the fabric and its so soft and comforting.

I have thought about the fact that I am making this with a tshirt that was discharged because I was thinking that this could and may fade over time. But one of the things that I hear Jude talking about in the workshop is what she calls Design Mending. If anything goes wrong or needs fixing she just incorporates it into the design however she decides to mend it. So I love this idea.. that maybe in the future someone or myself will repair or design mend this. I like that.  I have this feeling this post will be so long because I have so much to say .. I may just write another post. The next thing that I want to share about is the turtle memorial that I am working on. I still continue to have the turtles showing up atleast once a week or more. I see them in the road or in my yard. When I found the dead turtle while walking the dogs I was pretty upset and decided to do a stitched cloth for it's memory. The same day Jude found a dead bird and did a cloth for it.. it was gorgeous. It has taken me several weeks to get this far.. Here is what I have so far.

The top piece is an eco dyed piece of silk that reminds me of the shapes on the under belly of the turtle that died. and I wanted it to be at the top of this rectangle to signify its ascent to another world where ever that is. I added the leaves which are also eco-dyed, India Flint style, and I have stitched around all the leaves and will continue to stitch more. The leaves are here to remind me of the beauty of nature that the turtle lived in a short time. And the bottom reminds me of the grass or the ground where the turtle lives. I mentioned above the stitching on silk is so wonderful and I have stitched onto the same green blanket material and it leaves all the stitches with texture, which I love! Below are more details. I have to say that the darker green color was caused by the ribbon that I used to tie up the bundle. It was a minty green and some of the color transferred to the silk. I never thought about this possibility when I tied it up but I was pleased with the result. I am pleased to finally post something that is about my stitching. I think I'm going to go do more tonight while  lying on my bed in front of the fan .. it's the most comfortable space for me to be in. Thanks for stopping over .. !

 Oh and one last image is a quilt that I am making for a friends new grandson that was born about six weeks early so I thought I'd have more time to work on this but I don't. So... i may work on this more, I have just laid out a few things on this black blanket that will become an oversized baby quilt/wall decoration. The center image is a leopard that I did with bleach, it was an idea I had a while back and finally executed. I love the idea of it. The two side pieces are just animal print fabric. The baby room is a jungle theme and this may be too extreme for a baby room but .. its what I had planned. So hopefully they will like it. I think thats it for now! haha!

Thursday's Force of Life

 I know that I must spend more time outside when I discover things that are on the path where I walk or work or play outside. This leaf looks rather ordinary on the surface from the top from its most shown view. It even looks a tad scruffy with that hole in it and the ragged sort of edge where some little caterpillar has decided it was the days meal, no care that it was altering the whole leaf. But the real beauty is not this side .. I glimpsed this leaf because it's under side was showing. And what beauty it holds. I think maybe that is true about people sometimes. There are those that we think look a tad scruffy or maybe they are rough around the edges .. but maybe if you listen they have a story to tell .. or their underbelly .. their insides... their thoughts or words tell their beauty. I found this one to be quite striking. I found the color to be the one thing that grabbed my attention first and then examining this leaf more closely I loved the way that the purple were like visible veins of life flowing through this spectacular specimen. The patterns and the edges of the ridges were so compelling! And closer still the center leaf with all the hair protrusions and even the holes didn't distract from its underbelly beauty!! I love this leaf .. i am sure that is evident .. haha. I want to try to use this in dyeing although I do not know what kind of a leaf it is. It was attached to a vine that was dark in color and those hair protrusions feel rather prickly. But the colors of purple and green are just so wonderful .. a combination I will have to repeat .. I love it's display of life force ..

 I hope you've enjoyed these things in nature that move me .. and inspire me to emulate the beauty that I see.