Five years ago

A trend has been afoot on the internet for quite some time,

something called  Throwback Thursday

and although I've never participated, I have on occasion enjoyed friend's postings.

Which is what happened today.  After having a good giggle over some ancient history 

I saw on Facebook [it does have its upside from time to time] I thought to myself

 what the heck, let's see what was going on say five years ago

in my own neck of the woods.

A hop over to my photo archives from January, 2011 & it appears

not much was happening different from now ...

I was out photographing a lot of frost,

was taking lots of chilly, storm-ridden walks with this one 

[that year we could have ice skated on our pond!]

and I was enjoying some extremely pleasant hours weaving cloth scraps

which coincidentally, I've returned to a bit of late because of my '52 week project' ... 

but I'll tell you more about that in my next post

 where I'll share my first 3-inch explorations for the month of January.

Stay tuned, I'm very excited about it!

Nope, aside from the aforementioned activities which pretty much echo present day,

the image that has led me to write my first  Throwback Thursday  post

is

the

following...

Our dear Quinn.

Five years ago, right after Christmas, my fella and I drove to Oregon

to pick up this special being.  Black dogs are notoriously difficult to adopt out

and this little girl was no exception.  Malnourished, unsocialized, scared of

everything & everyone, we spent that first January gently introducing her to our world

and showing her as best we could that life had a better side

than living in a chainlink enclosure

by yourself.

Quinn is so skinny in this picture!  Weighing in at 47 pounds she was only

five pounds heavier than my small collie back then.  But no longer - now she is 65 pounds 

and a powerhouse of solid swimming, ball chasing, long distance hiking muscle. 

Best of all, she's found her person to be devoted to

and he has the dog he's always wanted ...

 intelligent, curious, playful, steadfastly faithful & incredibly loyal.

It was a long road - is STILL a long road - training & helping this girl to be comfortable

 in a world she previously mistrusted.  None of that was her fault and we've had many a

discussion about what kind of dog she would have become if she'd had a better

start in life.

It is rarely ever too late to help a dog.

Please consider adoption for your next choice of fur friend.

You may actually inherit an angel in disguise. 

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Paying some attention to what I take for granted

Lie Down

Lie down with your belly to the ground,

like an old dog in the sun.  Smell

the greenness of the cloverleaf, feel the damp

earth through your clothes, let an ant

wander the uncharted territory

of your skin.  Lie down

with your belly to the ground.  Melt into

the earth's contours like a harmless snake.

All else is mere bravado.

Let your mind resolve itself

in a tangle of grass.

Lie down with your belly

to the ground, flat out, on ground level.

Prostrate yourself before the soil

you will someday enter.

Stop doing.

Stop judging, fearing, trying.

This is not dying, but the way to live

in a world of change and gravity.

Let go.  Let your burdens drop.

Let your grief-charge bleed off

into the ground.

Lie down with your belly to the ground

and then rise up

with the earth still in you.

~ by Nancy Paddock, from Trust the Wild Heart ~

: : :

I've put a pot on the boil today, some cloth filled with leaves & twigs

and handfuls of weeds.  As I yanked those weeds from the spots they didn't belong

[didn't belong only because I said so ... they were quite happy]

the intense smell of damp earth surrounded me;  that dark brown smell,

the one that comes after a long hibernation

and for me only belongs to spring.

I thought about belonging.

I thought about what it means to get up every time.

How I first have to lie down before I can get up.

And then

I rolled all those thoughts into the cloth

with the leaves

the twigs

and the weeds.

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Working in a series

You know how it is when you've been having thoughts, but

they're not living in the forefront of your mind ... just lurking,

tucked in the way-back and not getting much attention?

I realized after I made these photos on the ferry the other day

that this had been happening with my own ideas

about

working in a series ...

 working in a series with improvisational bead embroidery

on my hand dyed cloth.

How did these photos lead to that ?

The quirky photo app that created these ghost (mirrored) images was a

lens & film combination on Hipstamatic 

~ Salvador [for Dali] lens  and the just-released Robusta film to be exact ~

and as I sat in my jeep looking at the results of this same view

illustrated three distinctly different ways 

the idea came to me

to try it on some beadwork in process at home.

I couldn't wait to get back ...

I'm thinking there's something important to be said for having purposeful focus;

deliberate intent vs. just wandering [nothing against wandering, of course];

exploring aspects of a thing, in depth, until one knows it extremely well

and can express it with clarity, a sense of direction ...

These seem like sound reasons for working on a series.

There are six of these on my work table

and I'm going to think about them more deliberately - as a group, a series -

not only how they relate to one another, but what story they tell as a whole.

They are, after all, cut from the same cloth.

In the meantime, I'd love to read your comments about

what working on/within a series has done for you,

for your creative expression.

Has it changed how you focus?

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One bead leads to another ...

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Texture Tuesday ... mending heart

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... the making of 'Summer Rain'

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If it weren't for her love of beads ...

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Shekels and rubies

and pearls.

Beachcombing

with needle & thread ...

stitching the tides.

~ December Views ~

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Weaving a tideline

Today I constructed a makeshift loom

done the old way from things at  hand:

a basket ~ just the right size, long and narrow ~ and a warp of leftover jute

from the bean trellis.

I first wrote about this simple style of loom-making back HERE,

with gratitude for learning.

The next ingredient: castoffs from the scrap pile, stuffed in a holdall where every leftover bit 

from every project I've ever sewn resides in one big chaotic jumble.

Seams.  Refuse.  Hemlines.  Offcuts.  Selvage.  Lots and lots of fray.

Flotsam and jetsam of the textile variety.

I need to create a tideline for some completely ordinary stones

that are in the process of becoming

something else entirely.

You see, one thing led to another after my earlier  *choosing of the stones*  with dawg.

Stones came home with us.  They sat on the kitchen counter.  Then they sat on the bed.

And before you ask, no, they did not start to talk to me  ;>]

But something was brewing ...

an idea, another story on cloth,

carried by the weight of stones and the glint of thousands of tiny beads ...

somewhat autobiographical ... the only way I seem to be able to stitch a tale these days.

No matter how sidetracked I become (all the naturally dyed fabric I can't seem to stop churning out ... 

so beautiful in it's own right, but will it sit folded on a shelf for eternity?) I always come back to 

my one main truth ...

whether woven or boro-ed, appliqued, pieced or patched, 

textiles are the landscapes where my beadwork will live.

: : :

I'm inspired today by this video, sent by Barb from our merry band of dyers (thank you!)
It's for all us who haven't been satisfied with our creative work at one time or another ...
or now ...

Ira Glass on Storytelling from David Shiyang Liu on Vimeo.

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Going to the sea...

...it's time for a dunk.

Curious to see what enhancements our salty brink may contribute

after eight long months of rest.

These cloths were wrapped around some of last year's harvest

( I first wrote about them HERE)

but that was only the beginning of their journey.

Today they learn to swim.

And I learn that I can be more patient than I think I can...

see ya later.

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Hunters & gatherers...

While the light continues to wane, so does the harvest from the garden.

All that remains has been cooking up mighty fine...

my favorite soups, made from everything local.

If true confessions be known, these are my personal elixirs of life.

The nights are much colder now yet I don't even care...what a year for fall color!  

Such extraordinary veins on thus copper-toned ninebark...

Seed collecting is underway

for everybody who lives here.

And we are all greedy.

These chickadees are quite tame, almost TOO tame...

hard to get anything done in the garden because they will find you wherever you go.

They'll land on your shovel or the brim of your hat, your glove...and if they're not landing on you

they are scolding you incessantly, "WHERE ARE MY SEEDS???"

So I gave in and set up this impromptu feeding station on a fence post

right next to the veggie beds.

Cheeky devils.

I've resorted to some other rather drastic measures 

like covering seed heads with used dryer sheets.

Who knew that one of the beloved foods of chickadees would turn out to be my 

prized Angelica stricta 'Purpurea'?

I'm not alone in my ways...

if you want a good chuckle, go see what my blog friend, Kaite, gets up to

with little nylon sockettes in her garden Down Under.

We do what we must do.

Home is where your hair is.

(you've heard that old saying, haven't you?)

After many years of scattering my hair trimmings around the garden

finally,

I've discovered evidence that it's been put to good use.

It's the little things in life that make things homey, that can

make your day.

Doesn't take much to make her day...

best shotgun rider ever.

I wonder if she can pick up radio transmissions from Canada with those ears?

We went looking for these.

Well, I did anyway...she's not much for sticks.

Frisbees and wabbits, now that's a whole 'nuther story.

Hoping for good tannin in bundles...

...ingredients for more stories.  This time, written with

bracken, salal, red amaranth and wild blackberries.

More end-of-the-harvest cooking.

Before I forget...the dryer sheets prevailed

and I did claim my due share of that Angelica seed (quite the bounty!) 

so if you are stateside & would like to try this lovely specimen in your own garden

let me know via email.

I've plenty of seed to share.

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Summer rain...

...not a particularly extraordinary thing, but unusual for around here.
It hasn't rained in summer since I moved to these islands, far as I can remember.

And it  never  rained in summer where I came from (hot, inland area of northern California)...

so

although everyone has been complaining,

I am secretly delighted.

I have a story cloth project on the horizon,
one that needs parameters,
a set direction for stitching and beading,

so I had the idea today to use my phone camera as a sketching tool,
as a thought gatherer, of sorts.

I'd recently loaded a new app to play with called 'Grungetastic' and thought
why not use it to work through a few ideas...

...I'm probably more comfortable with a camera in my hand than a drawing
tool these days anyway...

so I caught some rain laden purple foliage

and some purple blooms so dark they are almost black...

...and dawg, overseer of all goings-on,
who isn't much concerned with petals and such, only concerned about where I happen to be.
A beautiful thing is that.

I see these "grunge" veils as veils of silk ~ can you see it?

There was this beauty too...who will bloom shortly and then be gone.
An ephemeral.

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One porch, two dogs and a lapful of scraps...

...perfect companions on most days,

especially good on a rainy morning in July.

Frayed edges are an important part of anyone's story.

This one continues on from here.

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Story ingredients

It's been said that telling a good story is like baking a cake.

This doesn't bode well for me...I am (utterly hopeless) a lousy baker.

There is one point that I think I understand though...

and that is,

every ingredient counts.

So, in no particular order...

one basket of tea dyed scraps,

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First Friday and some other firsts...

Every month in nearby Old Town Anacortes, they have what's called 'First Friday Art Walk.'

Galleries, shops & eateries stay open late and the main drag buzzes with activity.

Have you ever been to one of these?  Oh so much FUN.

But there's something extra special about the First Friday in December.

The holiday season seems to infuse it with such a festive spirit

and a festive spirit was just what I was after.  

A clear, cold night perfect for those with warm winter coats, like dawg,

who came along for a night on the town.

Although a rural woofer, she'll never pass up an opportunity to prowl for pats.

The Samish Gallery of Native Arts was filled with stardust!

Ok, window reflections from the street trees but that would make for a good story, wouldn't it?

Glass snowflakes...

woolies...

and little antique shops with scents of mulled wine & hot apple cider

wafting from the doorways, not to mention the baked goods heaped on trays.

Ok, we won't.  But that led to this...

Adrift

THE BEST restaurant in town.

For starters, a to-die-for Thai tomato bisque soup followed by

seared scallops in lime butter, sauteed organic kale with garlic

sided with a scrummy potato croquette,

all washed down with a local red.

Yup, the feelin' was quite festive indeed.

By morning,

the sun brought these...

long, glorious shadows after days & days of gray-upon-gray.

The first sun of December!

Upstairs on the worktable, there was a little weather happening.

Some rain was falling...

T's soft rain, all the way from Australia where they are having summer

and where I like to imagine their stories are being stitched into storycloths, too.

Sending heartfelt wishes of good cheer and festive spirits to all!

Note: all night photos were taken with the trusty phone (aka Batphone)

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