Lost

Isn't it just loathsome when you can't find something? And I just used it within the recent past. So I know I have it. I even remember saying to myself that I should put it with my craft tools. But did I listen? All of yesterday I searched for this bead reamer. I looked through everything. Everything. And what did I do when I got up today? I continued the search. But I had to leave for work. I'm home now and still looking for it. I am now re-checking everything. I just can't let it go. Spring cleaning is also taking place. Things that no longer serve a purpose. Scraps of fabric I have saved from what - three years ago~~~~ Bits of this and bits of that. I go to the bathroom and I am looking in the cupboard. What are the chances? Where could this little thing possibly be? I just checked the freezer.

You know what is going to happen? I am going to get a new one. Yes. It happens to us all. And the original will appear. How often does this happen to us. Now I have to clear my mind and just let it go. I am becomming obsessed.

The bread is on the rise. I began a loaf yesterday. I broke it down for its second rise when I got home tonight. It is now in its third rise. It will be going in the oven in an hour and a half. Denise tells me the recipe calls for too much salt. I agree. I have never put two teaspoons of salt in a batch even when there were two loaves. And this is just one loaf. So, I have only put in one teaspoon. And I feel the dough is too wet, so I added a little more flour. It is looking good. We'll see. It is a quarter to 11. This bread should be coming out of the oven around 12:15 in the morning. I will cut off a small piece to see how it tastes. Hopefully it will be better.

Life.

Film Quilt

So, once again, I am given a bolt of fabric that we have an abundance of in the warehouse. Can I do something with this. It's film! It's not like I can create a pair of pajamas or a dress, or a pillow. It's film. It's an accent fabric, not a focus fabric. I have to transform this into a focal point. And it can be terribly flat if not positioned properly.



So I was traveling from Home Decorating back to my sewing room when I decided to stop and quickly check out the quilt patterns in the craft department. This one just about jumped into my hands. I thought I could do a take-off on this.



What do you think? It won't appeal to just everyone. But what does? But it is a looker for what I had to work with. And I did manage to make the film fabric the focal fabric.

I think it is a winner. And my quilting skills are improving.

After Christmas Snow

I saw this snow coming when it began with just a few flakes. I have wonderful windows that expose me to a wonderful range of the universe. It began slowly, then denser and denser and then it fell hard. We got a good inch. An inch!!!!~~~~~~~

The city closed down. Yes, I think the city bought a second plow. Where do I live? Portland Oregon, population around 350,000 people. Should we have more than 2 plows? Why?

So many accidents as drivers think there is no reason to slow down when they are turning corners, changing lanes, or going down hills. It's just snow!!!!

And people still wear sandals and shorts! What???

I miss New England. I miss pot roast. Baked beans. Sitting with friends around the dinner table. Bundling up under blankets on the sofa during a snow storm watching movies. Boots.

Shorts and sandals~~~~

Needlepoint

I thought I might share a needlepoint I did a few years ago. I love this piece. Jody posted this really wonderful piece that she did that her sister transformed into a stool and I drooled. Is there no end to what our fingers can do with a bit of thread! I haven't worked with needlepoint in a few years. I used to design my own. I even have some silk gazar to create some silk thread needlepoint. And now I am thinking, if I start now, I could have my ornaments done using the gazar for the year 2012. This year I am going to make shoes for Christmas. But if I start now, I could needlepoint for next year. More to come on this I think.....

Fabric Depot Quilters

These are some of the most important women who guide me along in my quilting endeavors for the displays I create at the store. They are multi-leveled in their quilting abilities. Each one of them has their own vision when it comes to color choices and design. But their techniques are shared as they have been working together for years. Great friends. They are harmonious. Cheerful. Funny. Just great to be around whether they are quilting together in the classroom on Friday or Saturday nights or working in the store during the week. I love them all. I try really hard to be in my sewing room when they are quilting so I can listen in to their conversations and sometimes, if I have hand work to do, I will sit with them and do this work. Just to be around them is a form of meditation for me. They make me peaceful and happy. I would love to belong to such a group of women. I have never had the opportunity to join a group of women.

Once, many years ago, I tried. But on the first night, the women found out I did not have any children and I was "banished" from the group. I will never forget that evening. How humilitating. And this was in the mid eighties!

I may not earn a lot of money at Fabric Depot, but the benenfits of just walking into the store every day are tremendous. The people are simply grand. Simply grand!

Denise

This is my sister. She is an artist. This is a self portrait in acrylics I believe that she did while living in Alaska studying art. I made her the white artist cloak she is wearing in this. Denise is a beautiful woman and her talent in life is boundless. I have never known anyone like her. She can build a shower in a bathroom that has only a claw foot tub, while making delicate fanned buns in the oven. She can draw a horse so you can see every hair on its body and repair, herself, the sails on her boat. She speaks Parisian french and makes fun of my inability to roll my R's properly and is incredibly well-read. I love he to death.

And yet, she brings me a glue gun that doesn't seem to work, and really, I have looked at it, and I think the problem is, it has the wrong glue stick in it and when I go to work tomorrow I will get the right ones, and there won't be a problem. I am laughing. She is so frustrated about this little glue gun, and I really don't think there is a problem at all.

My sister is so precious. Oh, that we should all have such a gem as my sister Denise.

Sisters

My sisters, Denise on the left, Suzanne in the middle. Easter dresses I am sure. Maybe I was ten?

The new year is here. Imagine. What took so long! I have been writing this evening and I came across this little piece that began with a wonderful sentence that made so much sense.

"Fear is what happens when reality collides with our personal fiction." We are sometimes so filled with expectations that no life could live up to them and of course, we become filled with fear because ~~~~ where can we possibly go not being able to meet our expectations. Our moments become so complicated that there is no longer any direction to which we can run and we end up standing in one spot becoming filled with fear because we become saturated with the uncertainty of disintegration. "I am going to perish" And we begin to create hell on earth. No way out? Way out.

Stop thinking. Take up a paint brush, a needle and thread, a vegetable and a knife, and ply a craft. Absorb yourself in the beauty of the craft. Think only about the paint. Forget the self. The self will live whether you worry about it or not. Create something beautiful. Where does this beauty come from? What a luscious quilt! Where does the beauty come from? What a stunning painting! Where does the beauty come from? This soup is so rich and comforting. Where does the beauty come from?

We are each of us filled with a wealth of beauty, a fountain of talent, creativity, and in the end, we have at our service the knowledge of a vocabulary abundant of all the words necessary to describe greatness.

So what do we do? We complain. We become so negative that no one wants to be with us. We don't even want to be with ourselves. We make excuses why we don't communicate with our friends and those we love. The air around us becomes black.
They are our own
I know fear. I have been intimate with it. Leaving the house to go to work has been an issue. Dealing with it was not easy and is not easy. And living without fear at times seems inhuman. Unnatural.

Living without fear or as much as we can without fear, frees us to be more present for everyone around us. It allows us to more enjoy the textures of people. I love that. "The textures of people". And we do have feelings. And it is OK to have these feelings flow out of us freely. We can appreciate them as being a part of ourselves, our own texture. Our own present moments.

Fear is what happens when reality collides with our personal fiction. This really speaks volumes.