Raven and Sparrow

The wedding

For a year now we have been working towards Joel and Becca's wedding, which was held last Thursday at the Roche Harbor Resort out in the San Juan Islands. One hundred and six people traveled by plane, car, float plane and ferry to get there. It wasn't cheap or easy, but the separation of the island location from everyone's daily lives heightened the wedding spirit.

The intensity of the preparations has been increasing steadily and the last month has truly been very busy. It didn't help that Mike developed acute pancreatitis and had to spend two days in the hospital the week before the wedding. We were afraid he wouldn't be able to fully participate, or maybe even attend, but the doctors pulled him together and he was feeling quite well.... enough to resent all the admonitions to please take it easy. I am not too bad at managing my own time, but I am not a good at delegating or asking other people for help. Thankfully my family didn't wait for me to ask and pitched in with much appreciated enthusiasm. I couldn't have done my part without them.

The ceremony itself was really powerful. Never having attended a Jewish wedding before, I found the rites to be anchored in tradition, but still fresh, meaningful and inclusive. There were a couple of glitches...the microphone had to be abandoned after some horrendous shrieks, and a bug (a big one) flew into the kiddish cup just before the bride took a sip of wine...but the imperfections just grounded the ceremony in the absurdity of life and added to the buoyancy of the occasion. The most moving part for me was the love and tenderness in my son's eyes for his bride. This is what a mother most hopes her children will find...true connection and a partner for life. I have no reservations about these two being right for each other.

We are so grateful for all of the family and friends who went out of their way to come celebrate with us. The gathering created a palpable atmosphere of joy that we all will remember for the rest of our lives.  

  

Chuppah done

The wedding is next Thursday and the chuppah is done. It has turned out to be very hard to photograph, but I am reasonably happy with it. We'll see how it works on the day. After outlining the yellow leaves with chartreuse I needed to add more green so I went around each fiddlehead a couple times with a sharp yellow green and then a variegated yellow-to-green which makes them look a little glittery. Six inch white borders surround the whole thing, with buttonholes in the corners to slip onto the frame. Here is the other side:

It is backed with harem cloth and has the white-on-white feeling I originally envisioned, but I like the more colorful (barely) front better, I think. I have ironed it once and tomorrow I will do it again and then wind it onto some pvc pipe for the trip to Roche Harbor. Here comes the big day!

Addendum:

The day before we packed up and headed to Roche Harbor we took the chuppah outside and stood it on its poles to see if it actually worked. It did.

Hummingbird heaven

This is hummingbird time. From March until June our feeder is mobbed every day. At first we get mostly migratory birds....... black-throated and rufous hummers...but now it is all our native year-round Anna's hummingbirds. They are the smallest but feisty as can be. Usually one will try to monopolize the feeder and scare everyone else away, but in the spring there are so many that would-be tyrants are overwhelmed. We were pleased to find a nest along our beach trail this year, right at eye level. Whenever the mom is on the nest we go way around, but lately she has been out at walk time and Mike got some great shots of the babies. It never gets old.

Dyed and done

After subjecting my muslin squares to a range of quickie shibori manipulations, I dipped them in indigo. I tried to get them as dark as I could, although unbleached muslin isn't the best substrate. There are twelve squares but I could only come up with nine variations. I dyed the nine to see which ones came out best, intending to use those patterns to finish the remainders.Here is how each method came out.

One:

Two:

Three:

Four:

Five:

Six:

Seven:

Eight:

Nine:

The winner, in terms of biggest bang for the time spent turned out to be number four...the large rubber band circles. It took about fifteen minutes to band the last three and get them into the dye.

I don't often use shibori for my own work, but often include a quickie tie dye section in my dyeing classes. Putting the patterns on such large pieces is new for me. It was educational.