climbing. and an unexpected visitor.

while working the long NOC shift last night, i had plenty of time to contemplate grooves and landscapes and such, but not a lot of resources from which to pull creatively. but, being the resourceful, and apparently clothing irreverent, artist that i am, i managed to track down an old discarded indigo shirt. the inner yoke of which harbored the delightful surprise of being a deeper indigo!

encouraged, i went out and dug about in the back of my truck and found that i had managed to leave my thread bucket and a needle book in the back (unconscious foresight?). the thread bucket also harbored a few scraps of vintage drapery backing cotton (one of my favorite backing materials) and an odd scrap of japanese ikat print from an old pair of boxers (remember my wardrobe ravaging trip to boise last year?).

excitedly, i set to ripping sleeves and linings!  the sleeve tore into an odd shape that needed to be squared up into a nice long rectangle. but do i tear it? or pleat it, creating grooves? of course, that was an easy debate. grooves it was! the darker bit of indigo yoke had a date with some cascade dishwashing detergent containing bleach to release a soft blue moon (since these moments of synchronicity only seem to occur once in a blue moon). and soon this long (or would it be wide?) cloth began to manifest its story. the plot of which is still a quiet murmuring in the back of my mind...but will hopefully begin to whisper more clearly soon.

as you can see, there are some hearty grasses sprouting up about the edges of the pleated grooves (the idea of a pleated groove, i like i think, since it suggests the groove has been closed up. breached. conquered. now easily stepped over instead of fallen into). there is a strip of the deeper indigo in the lower left corner that seems to want to become a quiet pond. and the ikat printed boxer scraps are suggesting, perhaps, dark clouds scudding across the sky. it seems there is a tree planted somewhere near the moon, but it has not put in its appearance as yet...though i can hear the whispering promises of its manifestation. clearly, there are miles to stitch and whispers to attend to before this story emerges fully!

all told, it was a productive evening for my needles...

this morning, i was joyfully greeted by a late season visitor, perched triumphantly atop the antenna of my truck, as if to celebrate my break through...and, perhaps, to whisper quietly into my ear of its desire for a home near the emerging pond on my new wide cloth!

namaste'