Thread of Days into May

I started working on this post when the title would have been "...into April" and then lost my hold on that whole month.

Many bicycle related things going on: My husband and I have become more involved in our boys' bike team and really enjoying meeting new friends with a passion for being outdoors and nurturing a lifetime love of bike riding. We have spent some time nursing our 12 year old's broken collarbone, also bike related. In his new place on the sidelines, he has become a contributing member to many conversations and I have learned so much about him by just listening. But, one boy a bit broken and slowing down seems to have resulted in our other boy just going faster and faster. Oh. My. 

It's a very busy time, and my absolute favorite season. I can't get enough of all the green and being completely worn out from digging in dirt all day is really the best kind of tired. End of the year school activities are near, summer trips and visitors inching closer, and the garden growing faster than we can keep up with. These threads of days continue into green.Thanks so much to all who are still following along here, despite all my gaps in communication.

Thread of Days

January is gone! I started this in November right around Thanksgiving. A day spent in the creek at my parents' house started the fossils. Then a tangle of things after that.

I was inspired to work on a sort of journal kind of stitching after following the last few months of Lynn Harrigan's daily calendar project on Instagram. For one year, Lynn beautifully documented the weather and experiences of each day in thread.

This project of mine grows by week rather than by day. I really wanted to work on something about process. No pulling threads out or worrying too much about how it turns out, I will just keep drawing and stitching.

I wanted to put things I might put in a sketchbook directly onto the cloth and then stitch them into it. I have been using a bit of walnut ink saved from fall for the occasional shading.

My firstborn had his 12th birthday last week and on we go. I thought I would say a lot more about all the imagery, but I don't really need to now. January is gone and it's all I can do to keep up. It's all in the threads and that's the point.

Maybe just a bit about the most recent stitches...a memory of last weekend's walk by moonlight through the pasture and woods. An idea of my wonderful park ranger at heart husband. We had friends, kids, and dogs along with us and could see well enough with the moonlight reflected off the snow. 

The little drawing of the woven bits = just a fragment of some recent developments.

Solidago and the Pollinators

This is the most recent quilt I have made - finished and photographed about a month ago. Those green leaves in the background are long gone.

The fabrics are a mix of cottons, including repurposed clothing and some indigo bits. The denim above was from a pair of outgrown jeans once worn by both of my boys. I thought about making this quilt for awhile and then it rather quickly came together with a few late nights spent cutting and then machine piecing.

I drew and then hand stitched goldenrod plants with wasps, bees and beetles along the bottom edge. I used a piece of flannel as stabilizer for the hand stitches. When I attached the back panel the flannel also became the batting.

I machine stitched around and between all of the hand stitching for that crinkle that I love.

This quilt is for the buzzing little lives of our late summer garden. The warm, welcoming golds and yellows of the goldenrod would draw you in for a closer look. We put our faces so so close to the starry structure of the blooms. Each bloom head was crawling and buzzing with pollinators too busy with their task to even notice us. This quilt will be our winter buzz.

there will be green

I am working on something lighthearted and green. Faint light in the sky at 7 a.m. this morning carried me through a cold day. We hope to do a little bit of skiing first, but spring is coming.

sensitive edge

This is a little whole cloth quilt - leaves hand stitched and stars machine stitched - with a bit of flannel for batting. I made one very similar and then this one to work on a few things I learned from the first one and so I will go towards the next ones with what I have learned from this.

I am really so excited about this edge. A sensitive edge maybe?

But for today - my biggest sweetest boy is eleven.  We will be busy preparing and partying these next few days.

More stitching next week.

number one

The week was wobbly. Very cold with school delays and one day off. No glimpse of any sort of getting back to a routine yet. Maybe next week.

Sketchbook time needs to be scheduled I guess. I hold it up as such a special activity and I sort of wait for the perfect time to do it and so I don't. Maybe make it the first thing instead of the last thing. There's my start to the "new for the year" list.

a sketchy new year

I thrive on the optimism of a brand new year and I usually have quite the detailed list made out for what I hope to do. I am a little late to the party this year due to some crazy cold/flu thing that knocked me out for a week right after Christmas, but I am catching up. I did manage to stitch up a few oak leaves, which has stirred up a lot of leafy ideas again.

I am going to draw for a few weeks to get some ideas onto paper - more likely to make it onto a cloth if I can work a few things out in the book first. There are a lot of things swirling around and I hope to pin them down before they get away from me. I will also work on a bit of a list for a brand new year as I go.

Cheers! to 2015.

appliqué, line and luna

I started appliquéing this luna moth one month ago.  A smooth and lightly painted moth against a contrasting dark and textured fabric -  not painted dark, because the fabric can become too hard to hand stitch with too much paint. Appliqué seemed a likely choice although I typically avoid it because I rarely like my results. I tend to overwork the edge and get too fussy with it trying to get that outline that I like. This time I went with my favorite backstitch line following a drawn and then needle turned edge. It worked very well except for the resulting small halo of light fabric left outside the stitched line. I can actually imagine this being something to work with and utilize later - that halo - but for this I wanted the moth really seated in the dark fabric. This edge outside the line is noticeable above on the right side of the moth.

I decided to use a permanent pitt pen fine point marker to darken that little folded edge. I could only turn the edge so far on those tail wings and the pen brought it back to the fine detail in those thinnest areas. I think I could probably darken that edge outside my drawn line before I start stitching to appliqué but it may be harder to see what I am doing as I needle turn and stitch if the edge is already darkened? May try that next and see how it goes.

 Lots more stitching planned on this cloth and I feel like this appliqué method has opened up a lot of possibilities. I do plan to wash the whole cloth when the stitching is done and imagining those inked edges may need refining after the wash and crinkle.

and it looks like I had avoided appliqué so much it wasn't yet even a category on this blog - so now it is - starting with luna.

luna

A quick little post before the weekend to sort of keep notes for myself on these things:

Portability of cloth is good. Stealing a few moments to stitch while waiting for boy to finish cross country is good. It will be the only way.

Carry an idea out till the end (even if it doesn't go quite as planned) because it might work out and become something you didn't even expect.

I have more to say on this luna stitching soon. Have a wonderful weekend.

greens in the nighttime

I went ahead with the cutting out and appliqué to have that luna glow in the nighttime. The white threads woven into the black shirt fabric caught just enough of the mostly yellow paint wash to suggest the green of the leaves in the dark.

unpredictable

Fabric paint wash on wet cotton. I let it wander where it wanted because I had planned to cut out near the outside line and fold under for appliqué, but oh that "glow" of color. Outside the lines.

paint and a little predictability

I have been working with my fabric paints towards more predictable results. I am not completely against surprises but there's no going back with this once it's on there. I have been diluting the paints and applying much like watercolors with layer over layer of color. I have given up the iron and just let the paint do it's thing and air dry. I am starting to feel pretty confident in predicting how far the paint might wander and working around or with that. This is just my little test cloth but I kind of like it.

I am stitching on some of the paintings. I didn't stitch much at all over the summer and it feels good to get back to the rhythm of it. It's very calming - my meditation.

My boys are back to school. One on to middle school with different school and different schedule. We are still getting used to all the changes but all in all things are going smoothly. A look and listen outside at all the life buzzing around day and night it's easy to see and hear that summer really isn't over.

My goal is a once a week post here - until I have all the rhythm of our days worked out. Thanks to all who are still listening.

just a few more of the sugar maples :: love of leaves

I hope you won't get tired of me talking about leaves and trees, because here I go again with the sugar maples. We have large old sugar maple trees surrounding our house and I like the idea of honoring their many years of shade and protection by making things for our house with images of sugar maple leaves. The same trees have also given us sap for maple syrup. Our house would feel very exposed without these trees. I worry they won't always be here but they have been with this house much longer than we have.

I took down several insulating curtains this week and now this little entry room at the front of the house is letting the light in and there's this little curtain panel on the door. It's a piece of osnaburg with three raw edges and I like it fine but have been imagining adding something to it for awhile.

I might stitch over the black marker lines someday or maybe not. I might also paint the lower leaves and the other half of those green ones yellow in the fall, or I might not.

Over the next few weeks a few other folks and I will be drawing, painting and or stitching some leaves  together or whatever they might want to sew. I am excited about that. It's silly that it took me so long to just ask.

green outside the lines

I am still working on these pieces so far referred to as connections. Each of them a part of something(s) I have plans to bring together. I have been working with this one to hang on to some of that spontaneity of a sketch - with the color and the line. So between them all there will be a little bit of wandering back and forth. Everything feels a bit lighter with the arrival of spring. This is me lightening up a little.

The spirals in the tulip leaves get me every time.

and two weeks later - completely unfurled and reaching for the sky.

winter sketch

My boys are on day 4 of school days missed due to the gorgeous heavy snowfall on Sunday and the temperature drop that followed the next few days. A lot of snow that's not going anywhere. We played outside today and stayed oh so comfortably warm at 20˙F compared to the -15 of Monday and even colder with windchill. How fast our sense of "cold" has changed.

I love being snowed in. I am comfortable in the rhythm of outside to play and gather wood and move snow and then inside to warm up by the fire and eat (homemade bread and pie!). I love it as a separate thing from Spring, because I love that too, but this is nice. However, we did not lose power in the snowstorm as some of our friends did and that would be another story. Hoping everyone has made it home safe and warm.

Plans for stitching the seasons in progress. More soon.

72 blocks :: five & six + thankful

There's a new element to these blocks I am working on. Some bits on the edges that will connect with others along the way. This #six with the little bur oak leaf and the tangle running off the edge is the first one of many to come.

I am thankful to be spending the next five days on happy holiday with my boys and so thankful for dear family and friends we will see along the way. Highlights will surely be: good company, good food and good times. I wish the same for you and yours.

a few hexagons

Pale blue grandma's flower garden hexagons on the mostly white panel. They add a little organization to the mix. I am thinking there may be a few sunflower ones soon, maybe even begin a second panel to eventually live alongside this first one.

My boys are back in school and I am still getting my footing. I have been busy with freelance, which has been nice. Working on a rhythm of it all to allow for all that I want and need to get done.

all together

I am fortunate to be spending the summer with my boys and we are staying very busy having as much fun as we can. I have barely stitched or drawn at all. All that I would like to stitch or draw or paint is getting a bit muddled in my head as a bit of a traffic jam of things and I am stealing moments here and there to imagine if it all might be able to come together somehow.

sea

Sorting through some seashell memories from a wonderful trip and settling into being home again. Warm weather seems to have followed us back so for at least today - it will be an easy transition.

radiate