bee creative

making is good medicine

More "m" words and thoughts...

Making, to bring something into being.

Today I worked on "Good Enough."

Thinking again about the reading I've recently been doing in Your Brain on Art, about how the arts (in a very general broad sense) are considered good for your health. 

One of the reasons I started Good Enough COVID 19 was to give myself a focus during a very stressful time. 

It became a lot more than that.

A kind of mending.

I need a few more blocks to finish up. 

Medicinal plants.

This is the first year I've had echinacea come back in the garden. I think it's because I put it in a raised bed with good drainage.  It's right next to the mint which is also thriving. 

Gardening is a kind of making too, but one done in partnership.

It's a new Moon today, a growing moon, the Harvest Moon.

Today I picked apples, pears, a zucchini, peppers, tomatoes, peaches, tomatillos and the first of the grapes. 

Also a handful of herbs.

Food is medicine too, especially herbs. 

And...

the indigo vat is working again so I experimented a bit with moon making. 

Walnut first, then marigold, and then a dip in the indigo vat.

  It's a kind of magic to me, the way that plants can make color and how indigo goes from green to blue.   

I am wondering what it will look like dry...

 

 

 

a collection of things I've been doing

Not the best light, but this made me smile so I had to share. 

I am still working on granny squares, sometimes there is just too much help.

I am close to done painting, just some trim and the eaves at the front and back of the house left.  It won't take long which is good because it feels like the end of summer.  No rain in the forecast but it's cooler and the days definitely seem shorter.

I am picking the peaches. They are tiny but they will be good as they ripen.  The peaches have to be picked on the green side or I won't get any.  The critters are fast.

Another batch of paper.

The gray is from the last batch.

At some point I am going to be more deliberate with layering paper to create patterns.

Some people travel, I seem to take classes. 

Along with the basket class I signed up for a doll making class with Johanna Flanagan (The Pale Rook).  It's been delightful. 

I really am just getting started exploring the lessons and am not sure that this doll is done (still need to tidy up the eyes), but as usual I have so many ideas...

 

good stuff

A lot of yesterday was spent in the garden and scraping paint off the house to prepare for painting.  I really like how this bed turned out...dahlias and bachelor buttons for dyeing, calendula for salve (and maybe some dyeing), mint (also a possible dye), borage for the bees and because I like their twinkly blue star flowers.  Borage is good for other things too. 

There are peas to pick...some of them I will freeze. Also blueberries, the earliest of them. 

I will be out in the garden soon.

 

It rained overnight so I started today with sewing. 

Some of the indigo fabric is being used to make a tunic. I didn't have enough fabric for even a short top with any of the fabric so I pieced fabric together so that there was enough.  My plan is to add some embroidery around the neckline and where I pieced the fabric together.  There is no pattern for this, just two squares with a neckline cut out. 

 

I fell in love with this fabric several years ago and made a top and a skirt.  Neither was worn much as the neckline on the top ended up being bigger than I liked and the skirt never felt right.  The fabric is a double gauze.  My thoughts are that while double gauze is recommended as a skirt fabric, it's not a good skirt fabric for me.  

This morning I cut everything apart and tried again.

This is the One Yarn Minimalist Top pattern. The skirt makes up the body of the top and the shoulder pieces are made with fabric from the top.  I also cut fabric for sleeves but decided that I like it better without sleeves. 

So much better!

And then there has been pound cake (made to use up the eggs), berries and cherries, and yogurt.  The raspberries are from the garden and the rest of the fruit from the farmer's market.  So good...

projects and more projects

Two in a box.

Timber likes someone to snuggle with.  First he tried me but I don't stay put enough.  Then he tried Widget.  Widget thinks he still smells funny from a trip to the vet (teeth cleaning) and wants nothing to do with him.  Luckily Gibson was in the mood for company and made room.

The paper boxes have dried well.  The one on the right needs a little trimming along the top or a layer of paper over the edge.

This morning Jude has me thinking about things we store in boxes.  About open boxes or boxes with lids.  Pandora's box...and stories.  The thing about a box is that there always is a way out, always the hope of a way out.  A cube...well that would be a different story. A cube would have to be carved or smashed. 

Another paper project.  I am mending a paper lantern rescued from the "go away" pile at work with pieces of the paper I've been making.  The plan is to cover the whole exterior with handmade paper. 

And another "waste not" project.  A shirt made from what was leftover after making a summer skirt.  The shoulder pieces are scraps from another project.  The pattern is the One Yard Minimalist Top.  I need to make the neckline just a smidge smaller on the next one.  This pattern has so much potential....

I have the next nine days off of work and am hoping to do so many things.  Someday it will include a new floor.

 

confession number one, I keep things too long.

I feel like I lost a week and am not sure quite where it went.  Maybe it's just that the grass pollen is high...the garden is amazing though. 

(cucumbers and celery...trying celery for the first time.)

It's been raining so a lot of time yesterday was spent cleaning and organizing.  I am not sure it looks much better than it did before but two big bags full of things left the house so something must have changed.

There was also a lovely surprise visit from Hazel (the second in two weeks!)...just when I needed a break.

I also made a new indigo vat with some dates that were way past "best by."  This is dip number one; the fabric (dipped today) will go back in for another dip tomorrow and/or the next day.

Today I used some shredded junk mail for paper pulp and added some of the pansy ink the water. 

Just for a moment it was purple and then it was blue. 

This is some of the pulp flipped out onto watercolor paper.  It doesn't matter if it sticks...I have an idea!

Some of the pansy ink was saved in some tiny bottles that I've had forever and found while sorting.  Maybe this is something I kept for just the right amount of time? But it's the "it will be useful someday" that gets me into trouble.  

There also has been some stitching; trying a technique that Jude shared in the Forever Zone.  The fabric is some that I dyed using a clay resist for the circles.  It will make a nice pillow once all the circles are stitched

Hmm...where did that clay go? 

 

 

 

 

 

time flies

Most of my my non-work time recently has been spent in the garden...pulling weeds, pruning, planting, dreaming and sneezing.

I was really worried that my fig hadn't made it through the cold snap last January, but there are baby figs!

Another happy discovery...strawberries at the farmer's market!

I am pretty sure these are from a hoop house but still, this is early.  The greens are lettuce and spinach from the garden. 

I've also finished hemming the first of the sewing projects that I started last week. 

This is essentially three squares.  The neckline was cut on the fold of the larger square and the sleeves added to the sides.  Elastic was added to the ends of the sleeves. 

It's made with rayon so it has a lot of drape.  Rayon is something I try to avoid but I just loved this print and gave in during a moment of weakness.

This a pattern/layout I've been playing with for many years now but I've also been recently inspired by Christi Johnson. 

And lastly:

They still haven't grown out of the need to snuggle together and there is no box too small...

everyday

Earth pigment, the soil from my garden.

A different perspective.

Foot level, just after sunrise. 

I am on staycation again this week and am planning on working on at least one project everyday. 

Today I finally got around to making clothing for a doll I've been working on for quite awhile.

I named her Primrose...last year or maybe the year before? 

Time gets away from me. 

The blue is indigo (ice dyed from the fresh plant) and the purple hollyhock; all fabrics silk.  The piece of fabric with the dots was originally dyed with onion skin and pennies as a resist and then dyed in the indigo.  It's one of my favorite pieces of fabric that I've ever dyed.

Still more work to do on Primrose, but first I need to find my felting needles...hopefully that won't take me another year. 

maybe we need a new word

There were a few things I hoped to find as I was sorting.

This was one of them.

It's a strip of squares pieced together.

It will eventually be a fabric basket, cube shaped.

One panel is a sleepy baby dragon made during one of Jude's classes.

I am hoping to work on it for about 10 minutes each day until I can call it done enough to assemble. 

I've been thinking about what it means to finish something since I wrote this as a comment on one of Jude's posts,

I think for me, when I think of unfinished…it’s the stage between started and useful for something other than the process of making (which is a useful thing for mental health!). Once it’s reached functional… I guess I think of it as in a process of change, and maybe just that? Maybe this is why I gravitate towards blankets/pillows/containers/clothing…. I’ve got to think about this more.

This continues to feel true to me.  Once something reaches a point of telling a story or being useful, it feels finished to me. 

But this doesn't mean that there might not be more to do.  There will be.

The story might change; the purpose might as well.  There may be mending to do. Everything is up for revision.  Everything is always transforming as it ages, always becoming.

The garden is always growing.

Perhaps it is only finished when it is consumed? I have finished the last of the peanut butter...it is consumed.

Can an idea be consumed? 

 

on the go

Woke up this morning to a dusting of wet snow.

By afternoon the sun was out and I had an early day to work in the garden some.

Also just a bit of stitching...

reflections

After all that cold weather and snow...I found this yesterday.  Our high temperature was 62 F.  The high today is supposed to be 64 F.

Strange, strange weather.

I thought I'd try sewing a cloud to another cloth and then turn it inside out before stitching it to the blanket.  This works better for me sometimes.  I need to remember to make these deeper angles for the clouds to be more puffy if that is what I want.

  Good weather clouds. 

Jude mentioned Klee so I went looking and found a collection of essays.  From page one of Creative Confession,  "Art does not replace the visible; rather it makes visible." 

From my journal (the digital one, mostly private): I thought about how I’ve been conditioned to share by my education. I wrote that process is a river for me, we just hold it for awhile. I thought about how living is process. About how my big question is “what is creativity?” How does it show up? I believe we need it so desperately. I believe it is part of the definition of what it means to be human."