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From my mother's garden:
The song that's been stuck in my head for days now:
"Summertime and the living is easy...One of these mornings you're going to rise up singing, then you'll spread your wings and you'll take to the sky..." George Gershwin
I'm not the only one. One of my neighbors (who is a musician) just walked out his front door singing just those words.
Looking out the window right in front of the kitchen sink. I love how the hop creates a green filter.
I have some leaves soaking right now to see how they will act as a dye plant.
This metal shelf has been hiding in my shed, not being put to the best use. I hauled it out so that it could be used for my collection of containers that plants and material are soaking in. It will also be used for plant starts. Now I have my picnic table for meals again.
First squash (my parents) and tomatoes (farmer's market). I made a little bit of a dipping sauce with yogurt, mint (my garden), and lime juice. Perfect meal for a perfect summer day.
One of my project baskets that contains the sweater I've been working on for over a year, my current library book (The Culture of Make Believe by Derrick Jensen), and the bus project that I started last week.
A sample of the roving from my last post; carded, spun and woven. So soft! The red isn't yarn I spun, but is local hand spun yarn. I'm experimenting with stitching on top of the weaving a bit (over on the right side).
I'm considering the management tool of not starting new things until something is finished as a method of keeping control over projects. It doesn't work for me. For one thing, I often start a project as a way to remember that I want to do a project. I also often start projects to fulfill a need. (I need a new tank top! Guess what I'm doing this weekend.) And, to tell the truth, I get distracted and like to try new things.
What does work is to decide on a regular basis what it is that I want to finish. Tonight it was the last row on the hat I've been making:
Crocheted with a linen yarn.
When I was nine-or about that- someone gave me one of those potholder looms. I made a lot of potholders and gifted them to various family members.
That year my grandparents gave me a table loom for Christmas. It was a bit above my ability at that point and so it was tucked away until sometime in high school. I've never made much with this loom as the heddle frustrates me. But I've kept it for over 30 years.
If someone is thinking about buying a loom I'd recommend getting one a bit different than this.
I'm using the loom at the moment without the heddle (I just have it placed on top of the project for this photo)...works just fine, just a slower process.
This is a loom that I was given by a friend and that I need to learn how to use:
It's still set up with a project her mother-in-law was going to make.
And this is what I found while I was digging around looking for something else:
The purple is flax, the rest wool. I've had this in my stash for about fifteen years. Just waiting for me to be ready to learn how to use my drop spindle...
Cardinal directions are all relative to where you are at the moment...North, South, East and West. My direction for July is South and that oddly enough starts with North of where I live now. Remembering Southeastern Alaska...
I put this together this morning with Photoshop. One of my ongoing projects has been to gather together photos and stories of my childhood and put them together in a more accessible way than they are now. I'd like to put them together in some form of a book for family members. These photos and the pressed flowers are gathered from a school project I did a long time ago.
I've been thinking about stories and how they are held in our memories (at least for me). One of the passages from a book that I've held on to since I read it many years ago is from a book called Love is Forever by Margaret E. Bell. My parents found several books by this author when I was nine. They are coming of age/young adult stories set in Southeastern Alaska, several set in places that I lived as a child. As it happens, a friend of the family had a sister that was neighbors with either Ms. Bell or a relative of hers and so I have autographed copies of some of her books. " For Deborah-This is the real story of my mother's wedding-I hope you will enjoy it. Yours, Margaret E. Bell."
The passage I hold on to:
"Later, when the sunset light was gone, Florence gingerly lit the first Roman candle, trying not to be scared of the sizzling fuse. She handed it quickly to Beldon. Then she lit one for herself. They held them out, waving them gently in small circles as the colored balls of fire shot skyward and burst. Beldon fastened a rocket against the stays and it went hissing high above the mast and sent a shower of red light that seemed to hang in the darkness against a forested island before it faded....A rim of pale light still threw the mountains into rugged silhouettes against the sky, but overhead two planets glowed and in the deepening blue of the zenith a scattering of stars shone with a pale glimmer. The sloop sailed steadily on the westerly breeze, homeward bound. "It's like A Midsummer Night's Dream," Florence cried, as high above them the fireworks burst in colored flares that faded slowly astern."
Playing with Photoshop...thinking about far and near.
Experimenting with hand spun next to machine spun...(the right side and the warp are machine spun).