Another Week of Doing

Posted on by Sandy Webster

I am still at the gym five days a week and love walking in and seeing the painting I gave them a few years ago. It is across from the blood pressure machine and gives me something to look at and remember while the pressure on the arm gets tighter.

I wish I could find more places to give work to.

Our mornings together start here at the dam. I am able to walk in comfort thanks to someone we meet here about the same time each day. I complimented her colorful shoes and she spent a good time telling me how comfortable they were and how to find them online. So I went there and the only color in the size I needed was the same as hers….a bit over the top since I was hoping for black or grey.

She was right. They are the best support and feel like walking on clouds. Hoka brand runners with hardly any weight. Nice. Patches took over the box right away.

The small Australian sketchbooks are almost complete. The fourteenth and last one is half filled with the help of Sadie.

The messy paintbox is a magnet for her hair. Here are many of the ones finished since last week.

And a nod to the wonderful hosts over the years and their baskets, pets, etc.

Jude Walker and Barbara Rowe always had the most interesting things to sketch in their houses and would get me to places for finding just the right tools.

Anne Newton’s cat Boris is even shown in part here. Such a tall tail.

Whenever I use this bottle opener I think of Mike, the pilot who took me into the outback for a splendid five days of pure Australia.

When I finish the books I would like to go through my leathers and find simple covers for each before housing them with the pigments pages book. I think I will make a map of Australia to complete the memory satchel that will hold them all. I think the pods are my favorites, pods and leaves seem to be what my sketchbooks are mostly filled with. Someone down under said years ago that I just painted dead things. I told her that those things stayed still long enough for me to get them down.

Sadie has made her choice for favorite.

It was a good week for us. The meals get easier. Lee makes his own breakfast. I make a smoothie. At lunch it is hot dogs (his favorite) or a turkey sandwich with fruit and a shared beer. Dinner is at a time when I feel a bit more stressed. Lee does too. So I like to make a meal that will last two nights. His favorite is spare ribs. I thaw Smithfield baby back ribs earlier in the day. At three o’clock they are covered tightly with foil and go into a low oven at 325 degrees. Two hours later they are unwrapped and BBQ sauce is put on his half and covered again for another hour. Easy, and lately served with fresh heirloom tomatoes from his garden. And with the oven on I can toss in a pan of asparagus and seasoned potato wedges. A glass of white wine each and we have a good meal.

Another meal that works for two dinners is taking four meaty chicken thighs and sear them on each side in a cast iron fry pan. Remove. Place a bit of olive oil in there with some chopped celery and onion. Saute a bit then pour in about 2 – 3 cups of Pepperidge Farm stuffing and about a cup or so of water that has had chicken base stirred in. Toss in some dried sage and mix together before placing the thighs on top (skin side up) and baking at 350 degrees for about an hour. I like serving this with broccoli and a bit of hollandaise sauce.

Usually once a week we will make our own pizza halves (using bought thin crusts) that rescue anything that needs to be used up from the refrigerator.

So there is the week. Not so bad. I will get back to finishing the small sketchbooks about memories from Australia and clean up the studio.

Til later.

Completing Something

Posted on by Sandy Webster

Sadie is such a helper when it comes to whatever I am doing on this table. Here she is all over my unfinished carry all bag and sorting the bits to make my own needles and pins case.

I wanted to make one using some cloth from friends in Australia. Aujke Boonstra had some lovely eco dyed wool blanket bits that I got several years ago. Scraps from Beautiful Silks looked promising. The inspiration for this little needle book was the ones made for me by Australians who seem to have a knack for putting things together with stitch and practicality. Jude Walker was the first one who said, “You can’t put your needles in that! I will make you a proper book for them.” And she did from an old blanket. Then there is the inspiring stitchwork and patching of Nonie Sudcliffe that I bought a small sample of years ago and used on the cover of a sketchbook. Another inspiring needle case I bought from Anne Newton to give as a gift but then couldn’t part with. Mine is pitiful by comparison…..but I like it.

Here it is closed.

First page opened to show pins and tapestry needles.

Some sharper needles and smaller tapestry ones.

Pocket sewn in to the back cover.

Sadie’s approval.

The scraps of heavy cotton canvas type material is what I used to make the outside of the carry all. That was really not such a good choice as it was so heavy. Then after I sewed all the zippers in I realized they were to heavy and long. They stuck out of the ends of what I thought was the right size bag. So I added more length to keep them inside more.

Here you can see that I did not follow the step that clearly states that the bag must be pinned in the center as well as the zipper so that things come out evenly. Also note that the longer zipper I was waiting for is olive green…..not the khaki of the ones inside. My excuse is the picture looked the same color so I ordered it.

I must say that refusing to go to Walmart for ethical reasons comes at a cost. And that is constant ordering from Amazon and taking what I can see on a computer screen.

Also when I added the extra length with these new ends I thought it should be “puffy”. My solution was to use some of the white felt from the trump pincushions and place a panel between the two layers of the outer bag and fold strips in half to shove into these added end panels. Looked like a great idea until I tried to shove it all under a zipper foot for this final stage of closing the whole thing off with the new zipper.

It was an amazing amount of work for something that looks pedestrian at best, don’t you think?

So I filled up  all the pockets with bits and pieces that I might just need to have handy. Today the UPS man brought the fading marker for cloth that I learned about watching those you tubes instructions over and over. And also the really clever little “wonder clips”…..tiny plastic clips for holding wads of cloth, felt, zipper and binding  all in one place while you locate the pins. I stuffed a bunch in that cane toad case.

Remember how I wanted to make this one bigger than the pattern because then I could put a 12 inch ruler inside? By the time I shoved seams into seams it became only 11” long at best. So I am using one of my favorite folding wooden rulers bought at a market in St. Andrews near Baldessin Press north of Melbourne.

Here is everything outside the carry all.

That’s a lot of things and I can still put a pair of scissors in as soon as I get a new medium size one from Amazon. I made those canvas tabs  to add to the zipper pulls because they frankly cover the section where the zipper does not make it to the end of the pocket….something to do with making the pockets fit into the end pieces used up more length. But it is a handy little thing.

And other than finishing this carry all I started back to work on the little Australian journals. Here is a few of the pages, etc.

I love this possum, goanna, kangaroo paw and yellow tailed cockatoo. I even sketched my latest sketchbook.

And some more urban things like gelato, the pedestrian walk sign of men’s legs and the sign for the “ladies” toilet. The hot pad is what I look for at the airports for Lee. He always wants kangaroos on brown backgrounds. They are not so easy to find any more. Mostly now it is oven mitts. Who uses those??!!

Enough for now….so glad that bag is finished. If you ever try to make one read the instructions very carefully, then go on you tube to watch the many, many episodes to get to the finish. Buy practical material and zippers and keep spare sewing machine needles handy along with very strong thread for hand sewing. You might want to make sure you have a zipper foot. Without that, there is no bag.

Til later.

 

Just Thinking

Posted on by Sandy Webster

These are the tai chi figures that stay on one wall in the studio. They are supposed to remind me that with practice, repetition, meditation and focus, things will improve. And it is true. Just do it. But sometimes it is like force feeding yourself brussel sprouts.

Anyway the sewing spree is over. Nothing in the fabric stash left but some horrible blue that was bought only because it was on sale and fabrics that were rusted and have limited value on wearability. That’s twice so far. Spell check disputes the spelling of “brussel” and now “wearability”. I have added them both to their “dictionary”. They need to just start checking these words before jumping to conclusions.

This week my second catalog from the Waterhouse Natural Science Art Exhibit came. There were only fifty-four pieces chosen for the open entries and twenty-nine for the emerging artist category. I feel lucky indeed to have been chosen.

And here is my work among some very stellar pieces in the catalogue.

So now there are two more books, even though small, that I won’t be able to part with. Where does all this stuff go when you slowly realize that either you or it has left the other behind?

This is the opposite wall of the tai chi figures over a day bed. I need to get rid of these books. I don’t use them anymore. Most are art related. Some are beautiful blank journals that I made with the intention of filling with word and/or image. I don’t need them. What I need is a way to get rid of them. I need to throw other things away. My energy is lacking for that right now. Maybe when fall comes and I get busy just for the sake of getting busy again. But now it is summer here, hot humid summer. It is a boring hot humid summer as well.

What I would like is to pare it all down to just the presses, papers, watercolors and brushes. And nothing over five by seven inches. If I want bigger, then piece them all together. I have done it before.

Easy to do and easy to control….and easy to toss on a burn pile.

I wonder sometimes if it is just that I might have lost the passion for doing something. I don’t care so much about some things enough to do work about it. Well, Australia would be the exception. I wonder if it is since the election of such an obvious ass that not only mine but other’s energies have waned. We get sucked into the hope that maybe today is the day his incompetent party will grow some spine and say “Enough!” But it doesn’t happen. Even today when most of us are wondering if we need lessons in speaking Russian. I feel the need to get the sewing machine back out and make more of these pincushions.

So maybe the sewing spree is not over. I do want to thank two friends from Australia who read my blog and assured me that “we are who we are” and “you look just like Michelle Pfeiffer.”  Such kindness from so far away. I think I will take them each a present from the studio when I go back down under next March. At the very least it would be two less things in the studio.

And then there is this. A special glass for white wine made by our son while he visited a couple of weeks ago. made from a pinot grigio bottle. (Spell check did not like those two words either…geesh!)

Another hour or so and I can head to the porch for one of these….probably two.

That is it for now. I am going back to my little sketch books….only seven more to complete.

I did have a bit of a break this morning while the cleaning lady was here. I made a thank you card for my physical therapist who has been working with me on strengthening vaginal muscles. It was a pop up card with a scientific drawing of that particular area with the vaginal floor muscle rigged to move up and down. How many of us get an opportunity to do something like that? My therapy is over. I know what to do. And like the tai chi figures remind me…..just do it!

Til next week….or whenever I have the urge to talk about something.

Mending, Patching, Holding Things Together

Posted on by Sandy Webster

It is sort of like this sometimes…just holding things together. Lee’s and my old clothing patches held together with spun coffee filters that contain hidden frustrations. Those small bits of gold for the times you just have to smile.

Anyway to be practical and because I am having a hard time giving things up right now, I am patching up shirts that feel so good that I need to keep them around me….literally. Sort of a hug in old cloth. Wouldn’t India Flint just love that. Actually I see that she is starting an online group that will do just that…patch things up one way or another.

Here is a linen shirt that I wore while doing some indigo dyeing at Beautiful Silks in Australia. You can’t be splashing all that blue around without getting some on your clothes. I almost tossed it out.

There were some scraps of a greyish linen left from making another shirt a few years ago. So I found some embroidery floss in “nice” colors to kantha stitch the patches that would cover all the splotches. See those buttons on the shirt. They cost $4 each so this is the third shirt they have been transferred to.

I took those buttons off….too much of a conflict with all these patches. I love how this feels and only have one more large patch on a side to finish before I can slip back into it. Also you can see that I am not so good with stitching which is a good thing as patching old clothes like the Japanese boro pieces seems to only require holding one thing to another.

And it is a soothing thing to do like stitching on the dementia shawl.

And a scarf I made of odd bits of old clothes and botanical print patches.

I have no idea why I can’t seem to keep those lines of stitching straight!

And while rescuing favorite shirts, I saved this one. It has a large loose cowl neck that tries to catch whatever it can. The unfortunate thing is that what goes over the cowl lands firmly on the chest or more correctly, bodice, of the garment. It is a big boxy shirt and worn so much that the softness is wonderful. The slits at the sides were fraying at the top, one of the cats let me know to put her down by making a neat hole near the shoulder and frankly the whole lower bottom looked a bit like a clean up rag for grease.

But here is the good thing. A pair of linen pants that were very close in color had their seat worn out and ended up in the “maybe I can patch it” pile. I cut a healthy chunk of the thigh to cover the front and made three smaller patches to do the side slits and cat tear.

I love this shirt. Here are the patches.

The weight of the patching cloth is a bit heavier but the color is a good match. I am not going to bother with that little mark on the corner hem here. And I machine stitched the patches…no crookety hand work. If I learn to lean over my plate more this shirt has a lot more wear left in it.

And here is what came in the mail the other day from the online fabric store….new linens to play with. The color ones will be sleeveless pull over short vests….sort of bibs over long shirts.

Company is coming today and that is a good thing for both of us. A few days of something different.

I can hear Lee running the weed eater which is a good thing. Thanks to a friend who repaired it and took away all the fuel cans that Lee was finding confusing. So now he has not only his weed eater back but his leaf blower as well. It is difficult for him to not remember how to do the things he was so good at. But put a piece of yard equipment in his hands and he is happy.

We are both trying to keep things straight.

My workshop in Australia next March filled straight away so I am happy to be planning that trip with students already. All the physical therapies for various parts of the body are going well and I am in shoes….wide ones….but shoes.

For now I will be off and finish the stitching on the last patch. Then I will wear the shirt…but not with my Eileen Fisher dressed friend. She will be secretly grateful I’m sure.

Not much else new right now.

More later.