bee creative

One pair of pants + one skirt =

Won't be wearing this to work, it's wool (the skirt wool gauze) and I would cry if bleach got on it.  Well, maybe...it could always be mended and/or over-dyed.

Cost, about 15 dollars. I live close to a really fabulous thrift store which is a great resource for work jeans.  Sometimes other things can't be resisted!

The top part was cut using the facing pattern for my favorite tank top. For the skirt, I cut out the lining and the zipper, cut it in to 2 pieces and then put it all together.

Another photo with bad lighting that needed a little help.  Lola is very happy when I am home.  Especially if there are leftovers...

About 2 cups of risotto + 1 egg + 1/4 cup cheese + about 1/3 cup zucchini butter.

I keep forgetting things like this stay together better when the mix is chilled before baking/frying. 

Oh well, still tasty.

play a little, or a lot

Mama and baby were there right by the bus stop one day this week. I couldn't quite get the lighting right and didn't want to stay and make them too uncomfortable.  Made it a good photo to play with.

I have a long weekend and am doing a lot of sorting. One plan is to make lots of shirts like this one with any appropriate fabric I gather.

This is a blend of inspirations from Jude (Boro class; not available right now I think, but lots of ideas in the category) and India Flint (School of Nomad Arts). The sleeves and top of the bodice are rectangles. It was too short so a "skirt" was added.  I left a slit on one side which is perfect for being able to reach into a pants pocket easily.  The fabric is raw silk that was dyed in home-grown indigo.

So comfortable to wear. One issue is that the sleeves bunch up under a sweater. This might work better for a jacket (trying that soon) or when a sweater isn't needed. If it was looser a t-shirt might work under it for another layer.

Must play more!

 

Another Jude inspired idea. Found while sorting. I think I will make it into a bag.

I am planning on posting the next couple days as I spend some time sorting and making. A little bit of accountability...

 

layers again

Looking out the window. 

Thinking in layers.

Layered flavors.

Layered color.

Spinach, onions, a pinch of tumeric, a pinch of cumin, a sprinkle of salt, a quick pour of buttermilk (about 1/4 cup). Topped with fried paneer sprinkled with pepper.

Oatmeal, grated carrot, raisins, walnuts, a bit of cinnamon.

The bus project.  No counting just make an increase every other row one stitch from the side (cast on three stitches and will keep going until I run out of yarn). Originally I thought to dye it in fresh indigo but I am really liking it the way it is.

Layered thoughts.

I'm going to try dyeing with those rose petals.

Planning on sewing today...layered cloth.

pattern as layer

The feed I buy for the chickens is "layer" mix.

Yesterday I thought I could smell the sea,

Marine layer.

Say a word enough times at it always sounds funny.

make one, decrease one

Decrease: I've decided to start this sweater over. 

Increase: Just one more sleeve and the yoke on the solid green sweater.

Increase:  Making flowers as patches.

Decrease: the scrap pile is a little smaller. Working hard on this.

Make one:  more digital collage.

Decrease: less paper collage happening.  Need to get back to that. Working on decreasing the paper stash too...

becoming

1. I was out on the porch when  I heard a crow above me. It was sitting on the peak. It paused for a moment, long enough for me to take a few pictures and then flew off.

This is a combination of three layers and two filters.

2. Last weekend I found a post on NPR about how having a sense of purpose might extend life, protecting a person from cardiovascular diseases in particular.  I love the connection of purpose and heart.

3. Ready to stitch:

 

life happens

"You can tell a lot about a garden and about its gardeners by monitoring how weeds are attended to."

This week I have been revisiting a garden book I like...Gardening at the Dragon's Gate by Wendy Johnson.

Layers.

Inspiration gathered from many sources.

A myth in the making. Once there was a dragon that lived in a cold dark sea and dreamed of warmth...

Study. 

Absorb. 

Growing.

We have a garden party coming up next week where I work. Families are invited to come, plant something with their children and spend time with us.  We will grow all sorts of vegetables, herbs and flowers for cutting.  There is a little forest area we are trying to reclaim.  It is being planted with natives. 

Nourish.

Paneer + cauliflower + raisins + rhubarb + spices (cumin, chipotle, ginger, pepper)

pulling a green thread

From Teju Cole’s book, Known and Strange Things:

“There is another possible book that contains all that is not in this one.”

I put myself on the wait list for a few of Teju Cole's books after listening to his interview on On Being.

I've read a few of the essay's, enough to know I want to find a copy to keep, to take time with.

Counting stitches for a sleeve.

Stitching with plant dyed fabric, some printed silk that I've had for a long time.   

It's May and the first rose is blooming and I may be absorbed into the garden...

random moments

1. This is Lightning. He lives at the childcare where I work. On Friday one of my co-workers gave him a hair cut.  I combed some of the fur into some sheep's wool and then showed the preschoolers how it could be spun into yarn with my drop spindle. And then how that could be knit into fabric. 

2. Multiple photos and projects, layered. It's been windy and it's raining cherry blossoms.

3.  Salad made of fried potatoes, radishes, lettuce, walnuts, avocado, bread, cheese. Tonight's version was asparagus, toasted bread, cheese, lettuce, spring onions (cooked), lettuce. 

4.  Yesterday I was looking at some wooden spoons and pottery at the farmer's market. The vendor greeted me and then asked me a question I thought was a bit odd for starting a conversation...had I ever tried making pottery? (The answer is yes but not much.)

 

 

journaling, part two

I am still working on my field note blanket, not however, as a daily project. Two years are documented this way, the rest is more a documentation of a moment, an observation.  The blanket will be done when it is done.  It is a kind of journal.  A journal in that I have recorded an observation about a day, a moment, an experience.

I've gathered more thoughts about journal keeping, in particular a response to Grace who wondered about the difference between a journal and a field note:

• A journal or diary might document anything. A thought, an experience, an emotion, a reaction.  It may start from any experience.
• A field note starts with place specifically, with documentation of the environment.  Field notes haven't remained objective for me as a journal with a strictly scientific perspective would have because my emotions and responses are reflected. In this way they have become a field note about human emotion too.
• A field note is a type of journal entry.
• The perspective that humanity is separate from the environment and the environment is a resource for us to use doesn't feel true to me. I am part of the field note. I am part of the moment.
• There are so many ways to journal. We can write, record, photograph, stitch, draw.  A journal need not be paper, it's the act of recording and documenting in a continuous manner. A record of time passing.
• Journal keeping may fit some people's learning styles better than others. For myself, I need to gather thoughts and ideas and express them somehow as part of the process of integrating knowledge. In this way it is a tool.  There is research about this but I'm not looking for it right now.
• I have rarely looked back on my journals and yet when I do I am struck by how consistent I am in my thinking. There is something worth considering here.
• When I do look back at journal entries, it is usually to revisit important moments in my life that I have documented...my trip to Italy for example. Still thinking about why we keep the things we do.
• When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams.  Her mother's journals were blank, unwritten in...  Thinking about the subtitle, "Fifty-four Variations on Voice."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

journaling, part one

Journal page plus photo layered together to begin. And then more layers, a filter or two.

+

=

A long row of these primroses grew at one of the houses where my grandparents lived for awhile. I was a teenager about that time. I bought this at a garden sale a couple weeks ago thinking about that.

A few random thoughts, some perhaps more true than others?

• Journaling can be about remembering. I have kept a journal for a long time (since I was 10); in various forms.  This blog is one of my journals.  An interactive one, similar to ones I kept for classes in college that would be read and commented on.
• Any form of making, including the garden, becomes a place to hold memory. A way to journal.
• I've read that sometimes the childhood memories we hold on to are the moments of our lives that center around a lot of emotion. Other childhood memories that we have as adults are ones where a story is built by the child.
• A journal is a way to tell our story. 
• It's not the keeping of that is so important, but rather the act of documenting, of creating. I rarely look back at past journals. Haven't even kept them all and am now in the process of sorting and altering some of them.  I'm even thinking of tearing some up to make paper with.
• Journaling is mostly about the organizing of thoughts.