What I've Been Up To Other Than Packing

This is an earlier shot of a rose planted. It's purple tiger, a long awaited find. I just this past weekend planted two others that sat on the porch for way too long, they are doing well, and one even has color on the bloom.

I find myself in a bread making phase? There is something about kneading. I really don't eat that much bread, although my husband does, but I have been making it, cooling, wrapping, and freezing. It so meditative and it transports me back in time. Plus I can use organic flours.

The packing is continuing, and one knows there are seriously going to move when the cookbooks are packed. I saved one new local one on the Skagit Valley, and I will work my way through the recipes in spare moments when I find my moving sickness approaching. Up until the last moment when it is time to go.

One puts so much care into creating a home. And then it is dismantled and wrapped, and almost like the bread, put into the freezer to open and enjoy some other time.

Ode To The Next Chapter

BLUE

You give your love and friendship unconditionally. You enjoy long, thoughtful conversations rich in philosophy and spirituality. You are very loyal and intuitive.

Find out your color at QuizMeme.com!

It's been a little time since I posted. Life has edged in and I feel that all the changes which surround me are good for the soul, and I breathe. Blue is definitely my favorite color, always has been. I like the colors of the sea's palette: blue, green, and all the soft shades in between that range to violet and grey and white.

Somehow moving brings up ideas of sufficiency, and my husband and I had a conversation about the idea of self-sufficiency and how perhaps it is a misnomer. I agree to an extent, but I am much more an advocate of people creating things with their own hands.

I think about the stuff in our lives, and I want to make sure I pack my boxes with only very important things.
~What are my favorites?
~What are the things I cannot live without?
~What are the things that wear me down and I need to quickly get rid of?
~What are the things that I don't want right now, but are important enough to keep?

These questions are spurred by the moving process yes. I am finding things that do not belong in my life anymore. Things that are space fillers that I do not love, but have acquired through chance and the freedom of passage for which free things boast. But they are not my favorites, and they surely will obscure the windows in the new place that I will live.

I am also finding objects which perhaps have not been given their "due" and I will arrange them in a more prominent place next time. There are things which I know will go to someone else whom will need them more or be able to re-purpose.

I have vision of simplicity, yes. I have visions of that palette of the sea, the type of home where the focus is out towards the horizon, and the objects which compose it aid the mind in reaching out for new things and accomplishments. So they must themselves speak of that.

We will be living by the sea for a year. It will be a change from the country, and the valiant mountain sunrises that I am use to now. I will miss the deer and the lengthy buttercups, and hanging the wash to flap in the hot sun.

The back of my mind had been filled with a picture, a picture which contains sunset and the movement of water. Had I been able to clear away the debris of life, I might have allowed this vision prominence, as it now seems strangely a flash of the future, although I never gave it it's "due" at the time.

So excuse my absence, anyone, if you are out there and you read such blatherings. I am filling the boxes right now, making my decisions, allowing my future in by the things I exclude. I want so much to not to let who I am and the choices I make be defined by my "stuff".

I have decided to pack much away, and spend a year living and writing overlooking the sea.

I am giving up a lot, namely space and my sewing studio, the china of course will go into storage the the collection of crystal will rest somewhere as well. I remain confident of being lead by an invisible hand. And there are places in life which call us forward, challenge us to find ourselves not in the echo, but in the sun as it rises anew.

Please check in, I might need support. The sewing machines will come, but no longer have a room of their own, and my fear is surely that they will come to rest in the corner during the very time which I deemed to create a portfolio. But book #2 needs to be completed also, and these character hang in my mind like a nagging wife raging with a teenager who doesn't want a curfew. And it has been too long since I could indulge them, enter a space, a calm frame, where I can give them life on the page, enter into their time and their space, and forge them onwards to deal with their own changes and passions.

Here I go, where I stop? Moving along is about being open to being moved along. To letting that inner self be a guide, and quieting that nagging devil on the shoulder that says, "You can't do that, but what about.....

Draw a new circle people, do it, or else all you will have is truly an echo.

Walk with me in a meadow clothed by God. Sense why your path is bathed in purple and flecks of little yellow droplets loaned to the grass by the sun. Wonder, just what is beyond this ridge, and further what becomes of one when they try to be carried by the sea?

It rained this morning, and the cows lumbered into the barn sogged through. They did not receive a nice warm mug of tea as myself while I watched them in their slow lugging motion, as I somehow thought of the power of a tug boat and farm animal at once.

Our world can make one into a pinwheel, and the breathe of our anxiety will whirl us around into places we have no wish to go, and far from the places we seek to discover. We still question the brad that marks our center and believe that the stem which supports us will never allow the contortion of the blades to unfurl.

I am saddened by the rush. The need for more and the demands for speed. There is a time for speed, but we forget that we need so little. Shoes and food and a few threads of clothes, and a chance to sit at our table and have a meal which hasn't touched a box, nor known a life on the shelf.

Feelings can be gentle in spirit, and they like to hid and be covered by the vices of the world, do they not? And what can we make of them, but that they are a big clue to our purpose, our work here on earth. And why can they become so dead on, if we wish to pull back the clutter?

The week is passing by, and I am longing for nothing. I see the richness contained in moments of trivial necessities. I see the care placed in unexpected places and often it's intent never revealed. I delight in the curiousness that makes each new day something to play with.





Week 2 quilt a long!

What's Happening in the Studio?

My first block for the Quilt a long 2 (unpressed)

For the quilt a long I have decided to pursue yellow and blue. I may come in a little shy on this neat yellow background, but I figure I might make it if I use another color for a border/do the square blocks in another similar background so I made the decision to just risk it and solve the problem if it is a problem later creatively.

As for the first quilt a long, I am awaiting the delivery of the fabric to use as the sashing. I cut up one, but the hubby didn't like it, and I agreed, and as my huge stash just didn't have anything (I can't believe it) I was justified in actually needing to order fabric!

For my sister in law I ordered some college fleece and coordinate and will do a fleece blanket pillow combo for her for graduation as she is off to Virginia.



On the docket right now

This has been providing challenge to me as an artist. I am slowly learning better technique. Tape is part of this improved skill, lots of tape. I ran out and had to by more. But it works great. I have taken to doing smaller sections at a time, using an X-acto knife, and building a section from the worktable, and then taping it up to the growing art piece on the wall. The quilting is going to really carry this piece, and I have to remind myself of that so often when I make color choices, and I start pondering what is really going to light up behind lots of thread work.

The completed dress! It is from an old Vogue I posted about before.

This was really more of a challenge for me to cut out than to sew. I did really well on the pleats in front. The bodice came out just a bit snug on me, but that is part of the pattern in a way. I need to wash it and remove all my sewing markings.


What a man!

I saw this guy and his dog when I was out hopping around town with my friend. She thought I was nuts, but the picture came out pretty good for through the windshield. Her thought was about the dog jumping out, but he looked like a pro rider to me.

Next of the agenda, I got some embroidery ideas up my sleeve which include a custom monogram, and a lot of unessecary beauty.