Raven and Sparrow

Goodbye to calico

One of the things that has disappeared this last year is my calico overdye project. I was taking high quality quilting cotton and overdyeing it with natural dyes. I thought quilters would be interested in buying it and learning to make it themselves. I packaged fat quarters of four different prints overdyed with the same color together. The original color and pattern of the calico influenced the outcome, but overdyeing made very different prints come together cohesively, and gave them the beauty of the natural dyes. I thought they would be very useful in quilting, and offer something different as well. Well. My first obstacle was the water here on the rock. We have a well, and the water is heavy with magnesium and iron. As I have mentioned, natural dyes are very sensitive to metals, and iron is especially dulling. Town water here comes from a massive river, and is beautifully clear, but I had to carry it in 2 1/2 gallon carriers and when you are dyeing yards of fabric that gets to be very hard work in a hurry. I talked it up at my local quilting guild and gave one class to its members, but it was clear that the response wouldn't be overwhelming. What was overwhelming was the effort of working full-time and trying to do this kind of heavy production dyeing when it wasn't what I really cared about in the first place. It took me a while to winnow this realization out of the larger cloud of depression that has been hanging over me, but when I did, I decided to let it go. It hurt, because I had already put a lot into it. I sold all of the remaining bolts of undyed fabric on Craig's List, and gave my overflowing overdyes to my sister-in-law. She is an avid quilter who belongs to a local group that makes quilts for people undergoing chemotherapy at the hospital. They make  beautiful small lap quilts by the dozens and give them all away. All my extra cloth, both pretty and ghastly (some of my early efforts were pretty bad) disappeared into their stash and that was that.

   This week Lynne, (my sister-in-law) dropped off a package. One of the quilters in her group (I don't know who, I'll have to find out) used my cloth to make this simple, but charming quilt and she wanted me to see it before it is given away. It was so thoughtful of her, and sort of a bittersweet experience to see my fabric come together so well.

  It reminded me that I have another quilt made by a highly accomplished artist named Patti Dever. She took some of my overdyes when I was just beginning and made a lovely little quilt which she showed with her other amazing work as the featured quilter in the local quilt show. After the show was over, she gave the quilt to me.  I wish I had a better picture of it, but when I decided to write this post I had to rush home and photograph it in the last rays of the setting sun. I'll try again when the weekend comes.

  So my ill-starred calico venture has ended, but not without some positive results. I am back at work on table linens now, trying to avoid all expectations and hopes, just making what I can. I re-mordanted my bird runners and painted them again, trying for a deeper color. I put two more of that pattern, plus some other old stuff into indigo this weekend and will show it all  when it has been rinsed out. 

Island Summer

This was such a wonderful summer here in the San Juan Islands. Day after day of clear sunshine and warm temperatures. After a freezing winter and a chilly spring the change was very welcome. As often happens, summer continued through September and into October, although the shortening days were an unmistakeable warning of approaching autumn. This week the switch was thrown and now it is definately fall. On Saturday we had a record rainfall. Over an inch in one day...it was pouring! You can tell by the brown grass that it was needed though. This little buck comes into the yard every day. We thought it was for the apples that fall off the old tree in front of the house, but it turns out that he prefers the bird seed in the feeder.  

Not prepared

It's been so long since I have done any dyeing that I found myself bumbling around like bee in a bottle today as I plunged back into color. I found two new fabrics (linen/silk combo at Thai Fabrics, and linen/rayon combo at Dharma Trading) that I just had to try. The linen silk feels kind of thin and shiny...more like silk than linen although it is mostly linen, and the linen rayon feels like linen, but softer. I wanted mostly linen blends because I am more experienced with cellulose than protein fibers and have more of the proper mordants etc. Pure linen is good, but often expensive. My old source for linen dried up and in my search for a replacement I came upon these two possibilities. I decided upon runners (15" X 70") rather than squares and designed a very simple bird pattern for each end, which I waxed on. 

 The linen rayon was much easier to wax than the linen silk. I did two of each and put them into mordant. Today finally I had time to deal with them, but as I set up to add color to these long, skinny things it felt like I had never done it before. All my logistics had to be re-thought, and I kept forgetting details, like soaking my brush before beginning, and what color I actually wanted to apply. I finally chose a combination of osage orange (yellow), madder (browny red) and cochineal (sharp pink) because I could reach them easily and they dissolve quickly. Actually, madder doesn't dissolve easily, as I remembered by doing, but I kept ploughing ahead. I just eyeballed everything, ignoring all the best practices stuff I spent so long learning and of course ran out of dye half way through. It was a train wreck as far as reproduceable results are concerned, but I just wanted to see some color on these two fabrics and get something.....anything going again. So stay tuned.

Pet of the Week

  Dot da da Taa! Drumroll please! I'd like to introduce you to Sunny, Pet of the Week. This is an honor that only the extremely available can hope to achieve. Every week the advertising booklet published by my employer includes a photo of someone's pet. Sometimes people bring their dogs or cats or other more unusual animals in to have their picture taken, or just bring in photos they already have. We feature these pictures as Pet of the Week. Occasionally the pet well runs a little dry and my colleague Joe (who lays out the rag) starts begging for input. Here is my attempt to keep up the quality of Pet of the Week. Pretty cute, huh? Sunny is a Welsh corgi, the tailless kind. She is eleven and a half, but keeping pretty spry and playful. Corgis are regular dogs, just low riders. They are complete characters and very cheerful company. Check out Alicia's blog for a totally corgi-ful entry I really enjoyed.

Gardens of nostalgia

  Since my new job has a standard Monday through Friday schedule, my social life has re-energized itself with a vengeance. It has been so great be free to go to weekend parties (and when else are parties held?) and see so many of my old friends. I'm not used to it and will have to slow down soon, but re-connecting with my favorite people has been fun.

Last weekend we stayed with our old neighbors on our old street in the suburbs east of Seattle. We moved there in 1988 when our boys were still pre-schoolers, and were delighted to find that many of the other families on the ten house cul-de sac also had children about the same age. Everybody got along pretty well, and some of the women on the street became especially dear friends. Most of us were interested in gardening, and eventually formed a small garden club amongst ourselves. It was a wonderful excuse to visit the nurseries and gardens in our extended area that we might never have otherwise seen, and resulted in some really memorable excursions.

I was reminded forcefully of our old garden club this year because two of my former neighbors had their gardens featured on the local "big" tour sponsored by the very large and active garden club in the nearest town. Between three and four hundred people usually do the one day tour of five or six gardens. I never missed it when I lived there, and was always amazed at the high quality of the gardens shown, so I know the pressure was on for my friends when they agreed to take part. They spent a year concentrating on their yards and the results were just breathtaking. Each garden completely reflected the personality and  taste of its maker even though they stood adjacent to each other in the same woodsy setting. The combinations of texture and color, the careful consideration of areas both casual and intensely cultivated, the sweep and movement through the properties, the small details and the dramatic statements all came together into completely satisfying and distinctive gardens. It was like all the talk and dreams of our old conversations made real.

Visiting the scene of so much former pleasure has made me review what drew me away. Seeing my friends make such beautiful and personal places out of their arbitrary suburban lots reminded me how important this place is to me. To say that I have always wanted to live here is to trivialize the deep connection with this island I have felt since childhood. The longing to return was strong but hardly admitted, since it seemed so unlikely. The day that it became possible to acquire our present home was one of the most powerful, thrilling days of my life. There was no question about where I wanted to be, and there still isn't, even though I now know more about the costs of having my heart's desire. 

My neighbors' gardens show how love and commitment can shine through the landscape and meld together the person and the place. I am re-consecrated to my land by their example. Thank you, Kathleen and Sandra. With love.

    

Objects of desire

 

I don't shop much these days, but recently I went over to Macy's for some underwear plain and dull. On my way from lingerie back to my car I happened to pass through the china and glassware department. Okay, I went out of my way to pass through the china and glassware department, and was rewarded by finding these Dansk wineglasses. I just love them. I don't need them, I have no place to put them, and I probably won't be able to use them for ages, but I love them. The straight-sided shapes and the etched designs were irresistable, and to further erode any lingering scruples I should have had but didn't, they were on sale.

Sunday at Ala Spit

Yippee! Today is Sunday, the weather is perfect and I don't have to work!! Instead of dragging myself off to Home Depot this morning, Mike and I took Sunny to Ala Spit. It is a long, curving sand protrusion into the salt water, with no trees but lots of driftwood. In fact, there is so much driftwood that people have used it to make shelters; its the largest collection of driftwood houses I have ever seen. No one else was there, so Sunny got to run and play like a puppy. She doesn't like to walk on the shifty pebbles that most of our beaches are made of, and usually will jump from log to log as she makes her way.       These last two weeks have seemed endless. They were busy, since there are so few employees to cover the store, but still....long. I hope I have done the right thing in changing jobs, and of course until I start the new one I won't know, but this morning was great. I hope you are all having as wonderful a Sunday.

Brown table down

Using the brown leaf tablecloth turned out to be harder than I thought it would be. The blue napkins I found in my stash and the gray plates in my cupboard, so I was lulled into a false sense of complacency about the final outcome. I did search the limited shopping possibilities around me, hoping for accessories that would look great with the tablecloth ( I was especially looking for small glass fishing floats for a centerpiece...no luck ), but almost everything I brought home looked wrong in the end.

At Pier 1 I found some dishes that I thought would be great and I had the tablecloth with me when I saw them, but at home they were too yellow and too bright. Unless they look good with some other tablecloths I guess they'll have to go back. That said, I am pretty impressed with the cheap dishes available at Target and Pier 1. I'll have to re-think my view that dishes are too expensive to change easily. Of course, they are all poorly made in China, but the designs are nice.

Transitional blue

I am about to leave Home Depot. This week I received a job offer from a local printer and today I decided to make the change. You would think I would feel joyful, but so far I just feel blank. The new job pays less and offers fewer benefits, but the hours are regular: weekdays from 8:30 to 5:30 with weekends off. What a concept. (Tomorrow at Home Depot I am scheduled for 1:00 to 10:00 and the day after for 8:00 to 5:00.) Also, it is much closer to home, so I won't lose so much time traveling, or spend so much on gas. I will be doing graphic design and general dogsbody type work. It will be a chance to sharpen my skills on the big graphics programs like In Design and Photoshop. 

This afternoon as I was making this decision I got such a horrible headache behind my eyes. I rarely get this particular sort of headache, so I wondered if it had to do with the job. I focussed on it for a while, and like the answer in the eight ball, up from the depths rolled the thought that my eyes didn't want to work in the print shop because it is ugly. It is in what used to be a bank, built in the sixties, which was an eyesore to start with. Now it is worn and shabby on the outside, and absolutely crammed with presses and paper on the inside. Everything is grubby. I have been in several print shops, and the smaller ones were all like this, so I guess it is just the result of working with lots of paper and ink. When I realized what the problem was, I decided I could live with it, but that I have to make a point of looking at or making something beautiful as often as I can. With that resolution, my headache went away.

Tomorrow I will give my notice at Home Depot. I won't miss the soulless corporation or the horrible hours, but I will miss my friends.

Mad at miters

I have hemmed many many tablecloths, and every time I have trouble with the mitered corners. I found very clear instructions in the February 1997 issue of Martha Stewart Living but if I don't get it out and study it each time I mess up the corners. Even sometimes with the magazine open and available, I mess them up. As I did this time.

Out of the eight corners on the two tablecloths I was hemming, one went bad. Of course I didn't see it until I had clipped the seam, and after that there was no way to fix it. Sigh. Now the brown tablecloth is defective. Not that every tablecloth isn't loaded with mistakes, but this is so obviously bad workmanship. Grrr.

This makes me less interested in doing any embroidery on the brown cloth, but as I said I was on the fence about that anyway. I think I will declare it finished.