Well occupied

Much of what I'm doing these days is gift-related and therefore un-showable. But I did do a little bit of decorating by making a new handtowel for the guest bath ...

and then indulged in some pure and simple stitch therapy with the remaining scraps ...

I have no plan for this, but it was fun.

Likewise, Don's decorating has no purpose beyond the sheer pleasure of gazing ...

with something to see wherever you look, whether up ...

or down ...

My assigned duties are decking the mirror with bells ...

the dry sink with crèches (two sets worth) ...  

and then we trim the tree together by turns ...

Now all we need do is await the arrival of kids and grandkids to make it all the more worthwhile.

Still pinching myself

We were supposed to go to the opening on Friday night ...

but since the forecast called for 5" of rain we chickened out. So Don and I went today instead ...  

And while you can't necessarily tell from my expression (I'm not fond of having my picture taken) ...

I was really happy to be there, to witness my first-ever piece accepted into an art exhibit ...

The exhibit label text was spare, but there were more details in the artist statements and bios ...

And just in case it doesn't zoom in sufficiently, I wanted to be sure this got seen ...

I'll post more later ...

hopefully with links to some of the artists. It really was quite a wonderful show, with over 80 works created by artists across Texas plus another dozen or so from out of state.

I was honored to be counted among them.

Haptic

The colors aren't true ...

but that's not surprising as it's a gray day, which almost always makes for challenging photography. And really, that's not the point because this piece is intended to be felt as much as seen.

It began with this image of the labyrinth at Adobe and Pines in Taos ...

which I never actually walked. Regretting, that lapse, I thought making a stitched version would be a good thing. Then I could "walk" the labyrinth over and over.

But as you can see, the photo was taken at an angle, so when I pricked the path with a needle (behind which you can see a much truer picture of the madder cloth) ...

I realized the stitches would be too close together at the back of the path. So I tried drawing a crow's eye view of the path freehand ...

Good enough. I drew it again on cloth, letting my water erasable marker "walk" the path.

And then "walked" it yet again in tiny backstitches, worked in #8 perle cotton. But when I washed out the marker, a shadow remained ...

It was the logwood linen backing discharging into the madder ...

particularly along the seam...

and I'm absolutely okay with that. In fact, I may continue to wet and dry the piece in hopes of encouraging more discharge, after first detaching it from the Metta  stitching ...

And here I pause to give belated thanks to Connie Akers, my down-the-street neighbor with whom I recently reconnected. It was Connie who gifted me with the madder and logwood dyed pieces of linen. She is one of a trio of natural dyers who work under the name Eco & Indigo Fiber Arts ...

They are currently working some wonderful magic and videotaping their results, which you can see for yourself if you have Facebook

https://m.facebook.com/EcoIndigoFiberArts/

P.S. Trial copies of Moon Myth are headed my way from Shutterfly and Blurb ... fingers crossed that one or both are worthy.

All but done ...

The Moon Myth covers, front ...

and back (stitched as a full moon memory of seeing Mars, Saturn, Jupiter and Venus strung across the evening sky) ...

Plus the endpapers, front ...

and back ...

are done at last. Now all that remains is putting it all into Blurb which involves rescanning and reformatting all 18 pages ... piece of cake, right?

So, while you're waiting to see the final end product, here's a bit I wrote to amuse myself last month. Feel free to add your own bullet points in the comments if you feel so inclined.

What if? A modern day fairy tale

What if Bill Clinton had done the right thing and resigned from the Presidency? Imagine a world where …

• Al Gore takes over the presidency in 1998
• Climate change is given priority attention and the process of reversing global warming begins
• The Republican-led Congress, without Bill Clinton as a whipping horse, has no one to blame but themselves when things go wrong
• The country, satisfied overall with the progress of the new administration, elects Al Gore in 2000 and returns control of Congress to the Democrats
• Hillary Rodham (after divorcing Bill Clinton in 1999) wins a NY Senate seat in 2000
• With no contested election to call, the Supreme Court continues to be trusted and respected
• President Gore reads a daily briefing warning of a potential attack by Al Queda and takes action, preventing 9/11
• There is no war in Afghanistan or Iraq
• Trillions of dollars are invested in infrastructure … unemployment decreases, GDP increases
• Al Gore declines to run in 2004, and endorses Hillary Rodham for president
• Barack Obama gives an impassioned speech on the floor of the Democratic convention and ends up as Hillary’s running mate
• Rodham and Obama win in 2004 and proceed to serve two terms; Al Gore become Sec. of Energy
• Universal health care becomes law
• Wind and solar energy begin to dominate the marketplace
• There is no recession in 2008 and record low unemployment leads to tax cuts for all
• Evidence mounts that ten years of climate control is making a positive difference in reducing the frequency and severity of weather events
• With no major crises abroad, attention turns to addressing issues of gender bias and sexual assault, as well as prejudices against minorities and LGBQT communities
• Obama runs for president in 2012 and serves one term with Joe Biden, and wins a second term in 2016 with (fill in the blank with your favorite Democrat)
• Former reality TV star Donald Trump is a contestant on Dancing with the Stars shortly after his divorce from Melania
• Social media is closely regulated and becomes a strong advocate for progressive causes
• Several moderate justices are nominated to the Supreme Court and Merrick Garland becomes Chief Justice in 2016
• The “issue” of immigration becomes the “opportunity” of immigration as illegal aliens are encouraged to become contributing citizens
• The US is a leader in successfully mediating global conflicts, which reduce in number
• US security agencies pick up on cyber-hacking in the UK and work with their allies to defuse threats in a series of European elections
• The slogan “Brexit” disappears after the initiative is soundly defeated at the polls
• In a brief article on page 6 of the NYT it is noted that failed real estate developer and former dance contestant Donald Trump was found guilty of fraud and tax evasion and sentenced to 10 years in prison along with his many co-conspirators
• We all live happily ever after …

Braille for the sky

With a nod to Mo for inspiring the title of this post, here's where I am with the first of two "endpapers" for Moon Myth ...

The moon phases, not yet attached, were made by piercing handmade paper

http://imgoingtotexas.blogspot.com/2009/10/mother-of-invention.html

with a needle and then gently pushing the resulting shapes out ... 

creating softly feathered edges ...

The night sky was made from a thrift store linen dress which had bias-cut strips seamed together ...

I folded the cloth over and visibly basted two layers together with Jude's glue stitch worked in size 8 perle cotton, creating a wonderfully textured front ...

and (as always) a wild and crazy looking back ...

Don just walked in and said, "that's cool."

Yeah, I'm thinkin' it is, too.

Time to move on

The cloud on the cover is not quite what I had imagined ...

but time is running short. And I do love the lettering ...

worked with Deb Lacativa threads, as so much of this book is ...

If only the camera could reproduce what my eye is actually seeing.

It can't. Oh well. 

At least there's the Hazel Monte-inspired  moon to soothe me ...

I need to finish ... this and three more cloths (for end "papers" and a back cover). Finish in time to make books for Christmas.

On deadline ... no pressure (ha!)

Addendum:

So, this byline shot is a bit closer to the actual color ...

Speaking out

I don't write letters to the editor very often, but when I do I get published about one-third of the time (including one happy day when I actually made it into the New York Times).

So, Monday there was a Politifact article in the Austin American Statesman about how Project Veritas (a conservative organization known for selectively editing videos to make liberal causes look bad), had accused Beto O'Rourke's campaign of using funds to support the migrant caravan.

You can read the full article here:

https://www.statesman.com/news/20181111/fact-check-did-orourkes-campaign-assist-migrant-caravan

And the letter I fired off prompted this response ...

Sadly, I didn't make the cut and it did not get published yesterday. 

But good things come to those who wait. Today's Letters to the Editor began thusly:

I really need to do this more often.

P.S. Don noted that the letter following mine was an interesting counter-point. It is best read with this righteous Arlo Guthrie rendition of Which side are you on? playing in the background
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krYyyD-zux4

 

Last, but not least. Here's where you can get the new Indivisible Guide ...

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PpG87rpuh6eUCEKp3eQsjESnFvO6OfWzCe-Ha3C-PJo

Metta

This just wanted to be ...

I needed to take small stitches ...

And when I wondered what to do with the spaces between the words, I found inspiration at Penny Berens' blog 

http://tanglewoodthreads.blogspot.com/2018/11/stitched-in-faded-greens-of-fall.html

Drew carefree lines ...

and let myself go ...

even reaching back in time to Jude's Considering Weave, a firm foundation ...

Then found this on the New York Times 

https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000006143052/while-i-yet-live.html

...

and took in the sheer beauty of it. 

May we all be happy ...

Reverie

When I stitch, I ponder. And wanting to be present to the fire dangers faced by those in California, I wanted to stitch metta ...

I learned about metta from Grace, but hadn't (yet?) made it a personal practice. So I looked online to learn more. And found variations, which freed me to put words together in different ways. 

Recently gifted with two hand-dyed linen cloths (more about that someday soon), I decided to use both. One a soft coral madder, the other a flinty logwood. They brought to mind sunrise and ash clouds. 

Deb Lacativa's threads evoked both sun-tinged clouds and fire-rimmed hills ... the browns and greens of tall trees ... the quenching gift of water ...

And as often happens, the back became as important to me as the front. 

I don't know where I'm headed with this. It may be just the making of it is all that it needs to be. So I will continue to stitch and hope for the safety of all on Grace's hill ... for the health and happiness of those who surround it ... and ease for us all on this day that commemorates peace.