Turning Cooler

Posted on by Sandy Webster

We are covering up a bit more as the temperature drops.

The walks through the meadow have become more colorful.

This last one is like bits of clouds fell into the meadow.

So more small drawings of the changes go into the Meadow Book.

And yesterday I walked along another side and saw this…dried mud in such a lovely pattern,

And this when I lifted the camera on my iPhone.

Lovely light sparkling on these burst open grasses.

When I stepped back onto the road to my house three women asked me to join them in a lap around the block. It was nice visiting with new neighbors. I am sure to see them again.

This morning my old cleaning lady came by to agree that this house is very easy to keep clean and I am very capable of doing it myself. But she did promise to stop by and check on me once in awhile. She will message before coming so I have a chance to straighten things up just to prove we are both right….I can do this.

Tonight my old neighbor/friend/doctor is coming over when she finishes work to share a pizza and play a scrabble-type game while we catch up.

I might be getting more social.

This morning, right in the middle of making another loaf of banana/pumpkin/walnut/maple bread, our hand mixer finally stopped.

Lee had this before we were married 55 years ago. It has done a stellar job. I went on Amazon to find another General Electric hand mixer only to see there is no such thing. I think the company has been absorbed into something else now. All the other ones looked bigger, heavier and proud of how fast they can go. I like a slow speed to gently get into the mixing up part. More research is necessary.

But the other day I did a drawing for a new wood block and transferred it to the block.

I am in the mood for a crow.

And I also designed a new Christmas card carving for white line printing. It was nice of the mayor to offer to cut my wood blocks into the smaller pieces I want to experiment with.

Yesterday was the first day of early voting. I wanted to see the place crowded with a line but not so. Small town with people taking their time to hopefully make the right decisions for our country.

Til later….

 

Still Settling In

Posted on by Sandy Webster

I tried another outing into the square. This time it was the chili making contest.

I only saw two people I knew…both men from the morning coffee gathering. I put all my tickets in the one jar but found out this morning he did not win. But I did last a half hour smiling and tasting chili and pumpkin offerings.

My walk back down the hill was preferable to eating any more samples.

Past some lovely fall trees.

The night before the chili contest I went with friends to a very good restaurant in town. It was nice to be waited on, have a lovely wine and company before coming back home for more conversation.

Over the weekend I stayed home to work on the garage and locate the last of the books that needed to come inside. I wanted to locate my carving tools because I am getting itchy to make marks in wood. I am thinking that the Burke and Wills Story would be nice done in wood cuts. And now need to find enough small blocks of wood to get started.

Saturday was spent putting things away once they were moved to the house and doing laundry.

Sunday was baking a loaf of pumpkin, banana, walnut and maple bread.

And I got another drawing in the Meadow Book.

The only way to get better is to keep doing it. I photographed this favorite tree that is on my walk the other side of the meadow.

I love how it presents itself to anyone who will look at it. Every single Eucalyptus in Australia does this….leans in and spreads its branches out to get your attention. I used this one for the model of where Burke and Wills spend several years. You can see the door near the base and an upper circular window that Burke sometimes uses.  I wonder whether I am more content being by myself and in the company of a good imagination than out there in the public.

I did try to find out if there was a sewing group in the area. I went to the local quilt store on their day for people to bring in what they were working on and sit and sew. Thank goodness I was smart enough to just go in as a customer looking for thread. You can tell if the store caters to hand sewers by looking over their threads. Good grief!! Only a few odds and ends of very pale embroidery thread. A few balled spools of mercerized cotton…mostly off white but a couple deep indigo ones that I selected one of and headed to the register. All the fabrics, and there were plenty, were those crispy feeling cottons for quilt making. Nothing in there felt good to the touch. There was not even a package of cheese cloth! I paid over five dollars for the one spool pf thread and was told that the store was for machine users only.

It reminded me of when I first moved to the area thirty years ago and was invited to the local fiber group meeting. I was told to bring what I was working on and talk about it. I took the first of the Sarajevo coats about the war going on there. They were passably polite, uninterested and eager to get back to their discussions on craftmanship and marketability.  I slipped into the kitchen to see what refreshments were on order only to find some of their children, that they take everywhere, smearing the cream cheese they had wiped off the treats into the cracks in the floor boards. I did not go back.

Anyway, I am getting myself ready to start carving and pull out my little scraps of cloth to stitch together. I miss working on these pieces from last year.

It is supposed to get quite cold tonight so I will head inro the meadow to see the changes before I get out my necessary tools to start something new.

The crows are gathering so one might be the next addition to the Meadow Book.

I bought myself a steamer to try on my clothes. Even though I love ironing, steaming wrinkles from clothes left too long in boxes seemed a good idea.

More later

Some Lovely Sights

Posted on by Sandy Webster

I caught the full moon this week. Mostly over the roof tops.

And then the morning’s walk up the hill into town.

Yesterday I walked over to the creek and was surprised to find a monarch butterfly. He will go into the Meadow Book for sure.

During the day I baked. Pumpkin Maple Scones and Second Best Malted Cookies I Ever Ate, but with the substitute of a malt extract for beer making. They were not quite as sweet but still very good!

And two days ago I did a watercolor illustration of Burke and Wills looking out their window.

And one more walk to the creek. First heading over toward the bridge to the Indian Mound.

Leaves on the ground.

And the beauty of the massive amount of white flowers supplying nectar to the insects.

I took the scones to the men this morning. There was quite a feast waiting. One of them had brought in donuts and another had a crock pot of his chili we will all be tasting again at the Chili Cook Off Contest tomorrow evening.

Now off to meet a friend for lunch….

Til later..

Along The Hiwassee River

Posted on by Sandy Webster

Where I live now is not far from the Georgia beginnings of the Hiwassee River. The Chatuge Dam controls the flow of water levels in the river. When I last walked the other end of the Hiwassee on my Riverwalk trail near Murphy, NC the water was very high. So was the mosquito count and catfish thrashing about.

But two days ago I went back to take in the changes along that walk. It was later in the morning so the light was a bit different and more people were out.

Lots of ducks on the water and an occasional goose.

The river was way down and reflections beautiful.

I love the colors in this photo of the downed tree over the bank.

And this bit of sky trapped in the low water of a creek feeding off the river near the trail heading back upstream.

The flood waters of spring and summer soften the ground around old heavy trees that have little resistance left in them. It will become a moss-covered bridge for critters to avoid the snapping turtles who lurk in these shallow waters.

I always photograph this sloped trail heading back into the light. It was very nice to be back on this part of the river and I will make a plan to head this way once a week because I have missed it.

Back home on the path to the river at this end it is getting drier and the wind seems to have trained the tall grasses to mostly point east.

And in my garden out back….

This grass is so beautiful now that it is fully in bloom.

I pulled out my Boro shirt to sew on. There comes a point where a needle just needs to be threaded and cloth wants to be held to another piece of cloth.

This started out as a small Boro coat that a friend gave me some time back. I thought about just hanging it on a wall. But what I really wanted to do was feel it next to my skin. So what was there was reconfigured and patched with worn clothing of my own and additional old Japanese fabrics I had purchased because I could not leave them behind.

When we were in Japan many years ago with a group of basket makers led by Jiro Yanazawa, we needed to make a stop along a country road. It looked like an old gas station that might have some sort of facility out back. It turned out to be bushes at best. And when I had straightened myself back up, two Japanese fieldhands wandered by. I smiled. They giggled. They had on these wonderful patched and stitched shirts over their indigo dyed pants. The look and smell of these worn, patched, and worn again clothes was intoxicating to me. I would have bought the shirts right off their backs if it was not such an inappropriate thing to even think about doing. Now I will have my own done in the tradition of making something useful again with needle and thread.

If I was in Australia I could wear this shirt anywhere because there are so many people working in textiles and appreciating the history of Boro clothing. By that I mean the many friends whose company I enjoyed there. But here, in the conservative southern United States, I would be looked on as needing to return home to change. Not until I pulled out this Boro piece did it occur to me how few friends I have who would understand or appreciate the story of being clothed in such a history.

I used to buy used clothes to alter or cut up into another piece of clothing. When a former friend (who I am sure was embarrassed by it) asked me why. The best I could come up with was that I was wearing someone else’s history. We were sharing a time together. Perfect strangers feeling the same cloth on skin. It still surprises me how few people even think that it is something to consider. It is more than being mindful of making do and reusing what is there by putting a patch on….it is also about who else pulled this shirt over their heads and stepped out into another place at another time.

It is a very good thing that I like my own company and have become used to walking my own path.

I also have gone back to Burke and Wills. Drawing them more aged has been challenging.

Our youthful roundness will not last forever. Sagging bodies with wispy hairs takes over sooner than we thought. I love how these two have stayed together for so long. And look forward to doing more drawings and putting words and pictures on the page.

Til later….