Late Fall

You know I walk most days near a wetland area. And you know I take a lot of photos. I love the fall. I love the cooler temperatures and the changing colors and even the rain. In late November everything softens. The colors are more muted, the sky goes smeary and wet and the edges lose their crispness. We walk in all the weather, until the rain begins to soak in or the wind beats us up and then we retreat to our coffee and hang our wet jackets on the backs of our chairs and watch the storm through steamy windows. Summer seems long gone.













































I am spending time in the studio, and watching the creek rise and fall. It gets dark early and I use little flashlight when I make my way back to the house.








I found the Prisma app for my iPad and marvel at what it finds in my photos, like the one I took of the egret.













Or this photo of red berries, that certainly don't have to stay red.



















It's a little humbling to see how a smart machine can interpret my images in ways I sometimes hope to achieve by my own efforts. I'm not sure what to make of that...

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

I'm Still Here...

Flowers grow out of the dark moments  - Corita Kent
Thank you for the reminder Sister Corita. I needed that.

There are so many things I could say about the election and what I am feeling now, but honestly, I'm really weary with words and everyone's sadness and anger and confusion. I have my own share of all these things and I sit with those feelings and watch the birds out my window and know that while I can't quite get past all that has happened in our country, life must go on. And it will, but with a very unsettling undercurrent that requires vigilance and resolve. Perhaps flowers will grow out of these dark moments. Maybe love is stronger than hate. I want to believe that.

Meanwhile, here in my little world, my patience has been under assault for months with the construction projects out front. The current phase has been the realignment of our road, which has had the road closed for more than a month. My Facebook friends know all about it, but here I won't go into the details of the gas leak, the water, the noise, the mud, my run-in with the Sheriff, my dismal Open Studio and frayed nerves. Our driveway is where the orange barrel is on the left. Old road completely removed. A mess.






View out my studio window about 10 days ago. This week brought paving and a light at the end of this particular tunnel. The road is supposed to open tomorrow.




We took our grandchildren to the Portland Art Museum, to see the Andy Warhol exhibit and Corita Kent exhibit.






Corita Kent is a personal hero, so it was a joy to see her work which seems both very specific to a certain time, and still relevant.








My son-in-law, Carlos, and I were invited to exhibit our work, again, at the Beaverton City hall.








And out in my studio, I am taking my inspiration from Sister Corita and looking for the flowers in the dark moments and focusing on love.







Peace...

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A new thread scheme

One of my ongoing challenges in my studio is figuring out the best way to store and access my large collection of thread. I have yet to find the perfect system. In my old house the thread was on a rack on the wall.









It was an OK system, but kind of messy and, of course did not accommodate all my thread. In my new studio I opted for shallow drawers which was also OK, but messy, so I went to bigger, better organized drawers.























This has worked pretty well, except that I found that since these drawers are not within reach of my sewing machine I was getting up every time I wanted to change a quilting thread color, and, instead of putting each spool away after using it, I'd leave it out on the table in case I wanted to use it again in the piece I was working on. Pretty soon I'd have a dozen spools rolling around the table, unspooling thread and rolling off onto, and across, the floor. Not so good. So that old hanging rack idea once again held some appeal, but wall space, within reach, was limited. The side of a storage cabinet was handy but too narrow for the hanging racks like I used to use.



I did what any reasonable person now does—I googled "thread racks" and found a lot of possibilities and one that seemed kind of perfect. Here it is. So, off I went to the home store for an 8' length of molding and three 1/4" dowels. In the online article they call the molding "quarter round," but it is actually cove molding, which is easily drilled in such a way that when you insert the dowels, then attach it to a vertical surface, the dowel pegs are at a 45 degree angle—perfect for holding thread spools.



I cut my molding strip into 13" lengths to fit on the cabinet side, then marked to drill holes 2" apart. I had a drill bit that was exactly right for my pegs, which I tapped in with a rubber mallet. They fit tightly enough that I didn't even need to glue them.



















Then I measured and marked the side of the studio cabinet and started screwing the individual strips in place.



















And there it is! Pretty colors! The rest of my thread is still in drawers, but these are colors I am likely to be using at my sewing machine, and of course I can trade them out at the beginning of a big, multicolored project. I think this will really help in keeping those threads within reach, but out of the action on the table. Only time will tell. I might be looking for yet a better scheme.





- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad