bee creative

don't get stuck in why

What I need to tell myself frequently.

Why is good when it encourages curiosity and wonder.

And why is limiting when it creates doubt.

 

recharge

An afternoon in the garden.

Cutting blackberry vines and playing with cyanotype.

Sunshine power.

Just what was needed.

a bit of stitching...

but not in color.

The lighting isn't what I would like for the thread and really, it is good to look at the texture of it too.

mark making on fabric

This morning: considering how ideas compost and ferment...and evaporate and then maybe condense?

One of Jude's recent experiments had me digging around in my archives and I found doodling I had done on a piece of fabric.

And this, made during the "Patchwork Beast" class. I used a pen to stipple all the little dots and then stitched among the marks.

And then this...

A couple summers ago the walnut vat evaporated to a sludge so I started painting with it on fabric. 

This morning paired with another fabric.

Here I go, another project...

After it's pieced together, maybe some dots in the center to start?

There are more ideas along this line to explore. In December or January I signed up for an ink making class at Maiwa (online). Due to life I am just getting started but so many ideas are bubbling away.

second draft

I wrote one post.

Sat with it for awhile and then got caught in hmm...where does influence start and stop? So this is a second try.

Some drawings from a class I am taking called Sketchbooking with Lewis Rossignol (Carla Sonheim).

My "15" for the last two days.

I had to remind myself to be not compare.

To just enjoy the doing.

And then I went and listened to an old favorite because it came to mind.

This video is a little quirky but it's what I've got at the moment.

 

 

not quite

Did I finish 10 things?

No, but I did finish this (more sides shown here) + 5 other things.

I am not counting cups of coffee.

One of the other things included a scrap of fabric sent to me by Nancy.

The print with flowers and birds on a white background.

Thank you! I love having pieces of community in this.

It's for us all in a way.

And yes there is snow.

I think 5 to 6 inches at the moment and still coming.

And there is a little trouble too... I blame not finishing on her.

finish is a strange thing

A late start today.

I am off work for the day and took an early morning nap.

And there are distractions.

Widget discovered a flock of birds outside the window.

Each time there is a gust of wind the flock flew up and then came back down.  This went on for about 30 minutes.

She would have been a good barn cat.

Finish is such a strange thing when considered.

It can mean being done with something in it's entirety (which I don't really believe in) or finishing a step, using something up.

Today I am setting myself a goal to finish 10 things. 

It could be as simple as finish this ball of yarn on the insomnia blanket.

(I work on this throughout the day, but it remains my go-to for early morning knitting.)

Or finish assembling this.

10 things because I don't want  it to be too easy to accomplish or impossible to well...

finish.

 

showing up

So much of making is just showing up and doing the work. There is beauty and peace in repetition.

The pink velvet was once white.  I dyed it years ago.  The fabric was given to me by a friend.  Her mother-in-law was a rock collector and liked to use velvet for display. 

I like knowing there is a little piece of that friendship here.

 

in the journal

It's cold this morning, 28 F.

The yarn I pulled out of the indigo vat last night and put outside formed icicles.

The yarn on the top is my "creek water" yarn.  The bottom, with bluish purple a good match for twilight right now.

This morning, looking at the winter stripe I spent some time with this section that holds more thin yarn than most.

I have never spent much time working on creating consistent yarn with my drop spindle.  Mostly because this is the way I like it, bumpy and lumpy and changing. The amount of twist often reflects my mood because of this.

When I don't pay attention, that's when the yarn becomes a consistent strand.

After visiting Jude this morning, there was the thought that it is a lot like handwriting.

The spinning of yarn.

In my current journal I have embraced my messiness. Spent some time letting go of legibility.

And the funny thing is that the handwriting is becoming more legible...

And yes...I need new glasses.

 

 

the mind wanders

Early in the morning...coffee, journal, an orange.

Adding blanket stitch to the bottom of a jacket and thinking about metaphors and things that are not.

"I have remembered when the winter came, high in my chamber in the frosty nights, when in the still light of the cheerful moon, on every twig and rail and jutting spout, the icy spears were adding to their length against the arrows of the coming sun..."

From "Within the Circuit of this Plodding Life," Henry Thoreau