Word matters (part 3)

Note: This opening was written last Thursday ...

I started my morning, as always, with words. Reading the news, checking my email, looking at and commenting on Kindred Spirit blogs.

Then I picked up the phone, calling each of my members of Congress to lament the recent developments on DACA and urge them to support legislation that will give a secure path to full citizenship for Dreamers. At the end of each call, the staffers who recorded my comments asked, "Is there anything else I can do for you?" And I responded, "Not today ... thank you for taking my comment" as one snarky rejoinder after another flashed through my mind. Because words matter.

After which I wrote this, put down the portable word generator (aka the iPhone) and stitched ...

Now it's Sunday and this is the state of my nest ...

I need to say how much I appreciate that Don is (outwardly at least) okay with this. He is an extremely orderly person and I'm sure my opposite tendency is consternating.

Anyway, the tub on the ottoman is full of hand-dyed cloth (my own and others, both gifted and purchased). I am now in the process of liberating it and will be posting the results for the foreseeable future, the end goal being enough patches to create a peace shawl (or cloak, as Grace aptly called it). 

Each patch is being stitched with a word or words from the Peace Pin Project, as with this one on a piece of Deb Lacativa magic ...

Don't you love how it echoes the view out my window?

Each patch (this one on another Lacativa) is then joined at the top and the right with 5" strips of a thrifted cotton/linen tablecloth that I like to think of as "dove gray" ...

I'm not measuring anything except the strips, but eventually all these patches will end up "framed" in dove gray in some "to be determined" arrangement ...

Anyway, there will be much more to come on this, including close-ups. Meantime, please join me in keeping Deb in your thoughts as Irma heads up the coast toward Georgia ...

http://morewgalo.blogspot.com/2017/09/pre-storm-still.html

May she be blessed with gentle rain for her land and spared the devastation of wind as we were during Harvey.

Word matters (part 2)

So, I've never been a big fan of my own handwriting. Somehow the letters always end up different sizes and there's no consistency in their formation. A calligrapher I will never be.

But I did pick up one very useful tip in my middle school library teaching days: don't even try to align letters on a bulletin board ... stagger them instead.

Both these truths are realized here ...

Heck, even when I draw a guideline (here done in water-erasable pen), I can't manage to follow it. But at least the lettering is uniquely mine. And I'm very happy with my new set of permanent markers, purchased on sale from Dick Blick. They are 0.05 mm (half the width of an XS Pitt pen) which is fine enough to hide behind the single-strand split backstitching I favor (aka "splitting hairs" in Jude Hill's lexicon) ...

Speaking of Jude, I have to credit her "Flower Power" post 

http://spiritcloth.typepad.com/spirit_cloth/2017/09/flower-power.html

with pulling this peace patch out of my brain (where it's been germinating for a while) and onto a piece of indigo shibori ... not exactly tie-dye, but close enough. 

A couple of seams later, I had the latest peace shawl patch ...

which I like even better on the b-side ...

P.S. I always wanted to be a hippie, but I missed the boat by a few years. Still, my kids and grandkids might argue otherwise, especially after receiving the books detailed here: 

http://imgoingtotexas.blogspot.com/2014/12/tis-season-continued.html

Seriously ...

adorable ...

Word matters (part 1 of several related posts)

Words matter, but actions speak volumes.

In the heat of the #Charlottesville moment, I forgot a very important principle: that each of us has a copyright to our words. And so, I offer a public apology to Marti for using her words before seeking her permission.

Since then, I have reached out to many of you who left words in the form of phrases for the Peace Pin Project. Thank you to those of you who graciously gave me permission to use them for my peace shawl project ... especially Marti!

As it turned out, my initial peace patches turned out to have insufficient margins ...

so they are currently winging their way to their authors.

In their place are the latest versions, back ...

and front ...

Eventually, these will be stitched together, along with many others, to form a two-sided peace shawl. The seams are variously known as Korean Pojagi or French seams, both of which conceal all raw edges ...

I'm particularly liking the idea of wearing the shawl inside out, creating an asemic statement of peace (with thanks to Mo for that concept). Therefore, I am taking care not to use any knots and to clip all loose ends ...

This cloth came from Mo, part of a wonderful package that arrived early this summer with cloth dyed by Ulrike (Nemo Ignorat) in Europe ...

and Geminid birthday greetings to Don and me (our birthdates being one day apart) ...

a wondrous gift from Mo's Honesty/Lunaria series ...

Which is to say, I continue to be amazed by the love and care that come from the community of stitchers and dyers, writers and readers, who visit this humble space. One can't help but be hopeful, and for that I am most thankful.

Ripples of peace

I have been inspired over and over again by the peace-spreading artistry of Fiona Dempster
https://paperponderings.blogspot.com/search/label/Peace?
and Barry Smith

http://rustnstuff.blogspot.com/search/label/Peace?

of Maleny, in Queensland Australia.

The Peace Pin Project was begun as a result of their example, as detailed here:

http://imgoingtotexas.blogspot.com/2017/02/echoes-of-peace-giveaway.html

And now I am privileged to be a part of their latest efforts in observance of The International Day of Peace this September 21st.

Last month Barry sent me ten peace leaves, here arrayed on some hand-dyed silks from a workshop I attended in 2015 ...

the making of which he wrote about in this post: 

http://rustnstuff.blogspot.com/2017/07/peace-stash.html

And Fiona sent a trove in June ...

including ten letterpress pieces ...

which I am now sending out to the stitchers who answered Dee Mallon's call two years ago to create the Hearts for Charleston quilt
https://deemallon.wordpress.com/2016/06/01/sent-hearts-for-charleston-quilt ...

The Hearts for Charleston stitchers are/were:

• Dee Mallon (Masachusetts)
• Mo Orkiszewski (Australia) 
• Hazel Monte (Washington) 
• Gillan Wang (Massachusetts) 
• Kathy Dorfer (California) 
• Nancy Erisman (California) 
• Dana Webb (Washington)
• Kristin Anne Freeman (Montana)
• Maggie Rose (New Jersey)
• and yours truly (Texas of course).

And if all this sounds a bit complicated, so be it. This paraphrase of Robert Frost's poem The Silken Tent says it best for me:

... [Peace] strictly held by none is loosely bound

by countless silken ties of love and thought

to everything on earth the compass round … 

Just saying

I read the horoscope most days ... and then move on.

But some days I go back. Because there's something there. Like today ...

GEMINI (May 21-June 21). Contraction is the natural reaction to the cold or hardness of either external or internal circumstances — a narrowing of focus and life. Now what will you do to counter it?

I have been focused in for the past four months. A combination of daily existential dread engendered by both national and state government malfeasance. But also the joy of being with our newest grandchild, watching her make her way into this wonderful, crazy world.

And so, stitching and blogging have flagged. What will I do to counter that?

It has taken months to get to this point. It will probably take months to get back out.

Thank you for your patience as I make my way ...

So far, so good

Monday morning update: 7.7" total ... and the rain has stopped for now. While that may sound like a fair bit, it fell so slowly and steadily that the ground was able to soak it all up. We even saw a bit of blue sky and the sun setting in the west last night ...

Sadly, the storm continues to pound our neighbors to the east with no end in sight. There will be much work to do.

Sunday morning update: 4.65" of rain yesterday, 1.8" overnight. No wind damage. We'll continue to keep our fingers crossed.

Saturday 
Hurricane Harvey has been kind to our corner of the Hill Country so far: a couple of inches of rain and some natural tree pruning courtesy of 20-30 mph winds ...

Wentzville 2017 - Eclipse

We head outside 

called by the changing light 
to seek a gauzy crescent funneling 
through a pin-pierced hole 

This is not the golden glow of dawn 
nor the rosy tinge of sunset 
not even the green fug betiding storm 

Rather it is a silvery light 
that throws grudging shadows 
but gives no warmth 

The silence is total 
street lights flickering to life 

A lone birdcall cuts through 
swallows darting in a twilit sky 

Quickening darkness 
overtakes long minutes of wondering 

Shadows finger out of western clouds 
as eastern cumuli glow a defiant white 

Cricketsong rises up 
to greet a single star shining in the gloam 

Something beyond twilight falls 
undeniably 
stirring deep-plumbed tears 

Until seconds become fleet 
and breath releases in a sigh 
with the return of the light 

as if 'twere a dream

Photo credit: Melissa Walker

#Charlottesville

If it wasn't personal before, it's personal now.

My first trip to Virginia took place in the fall of my junior year in high school. Visiting two campuses as part of a college-shopping tour, I ultimately chose William and Mary in Williamsburg. But it was a close call and I could have just as easily ended up at UVA in Charlottesville.

The 35 years I spent in Williamsburg, getting my degree, meeting and then marrying Don, forging a library career and raising two daughters, included many trips to Charlottesville. I well remember listening to Bonnie Raitt singing in the UVA arena, visiting Monticello with 3 year old Meg and tiny infant Melissa, eating "grillswith" (griddled Krispy Kreme donuts topped with ice cream) at the corner cafe and bagels from Bodo's. When we drove Meg home with two broken arms after her car accident at Smith Mountain Lake, we stopped in Charlottesville to pick up sandwiches. Wanting to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary in style, we went to the Boar's Head Inn. We cheered from the sidelines as our local high school football team won the state championship in Charlottesville.

You get the idea.

So this past weekend hit home, or close to it. Raised a radical liberal New Yorker, I went off to college and learned fast that many (not all) Virginians referred to the "War between the States" or "the recent unpleasantness" rather than the Civil War. The Commonwealth celebrated the birth of Jefferson Davis, but there was no observance of Lincoln's birthday. And when a professor waxed eloquent about the virtues of sorghum over maple syrup, I muttered under my breath "but we won the war," and then took a long drag on my cigarette and blew smoke. Tobacco. How ironic.

Virginia changed a lot 0ver the 35 years from 1974 to 2009, when we finally pulled up stakes and headed for Texas (I know, I know). It had moved from red to purple and was leaning blue. There was hope.

And the decision to remove the statue of Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville was yet another step in the correct direction (I won't say "right"). Though it ended in tragedy, I dare to hope it galvanizes other localities to see the insanity of memorializing hatred and slavery.

So today I stitched, taking words written by Marti in New Mexico, in response to the Peace Pin Project that began last February ...

"Hope is standing up not standing aside ...
to connect in a way that helps to make us all one ...

There will be other peace patches for a cloth I'm thinking will be named It's all connected. Eventually, I hope to have enough to make a two-sided peace shawl, stitched together Pojagi-style.

And there will be more posts after Don and I finish up our month-long joyride taking care of Parker (who enters daycare next week) and return from our birthday season visit to Jackson and Jace in St Louis ...

Getting ready to roll ...

Because life goes on and I have much more to say.

Happy birthday J!

From my daughter's Facebook post ...

J's birthday cake request was for Strawberry Shortcake from the book Cook-a-Doodle-Doo by Janet Stevens (a perennial read-aloud favorite when I was an elementary school librarian and now a go-to storybook with my grandkids) ...

in which the great grandson of the Little Red Hen bakes a cake with the help of his friends ...

and they all lived happily ever after ...