Patch Happy 2

I’m on a campaign to put patches back in style. I love my old Gramichi pants for gardening and messing around outdoors. The shredded knee might have been au current but it wasn’t pleasant when I wanted protection on the ground. Upcycled with patch and stitched over in sashiko “little stabs”. Good to go!

Step 1 – pin the patch inside and then stitch rows across it.

I liked it but it just didn’t feel finished.

Step 2 – I stitched the circle on the right, then the one on left overlapping the designs.

All done and good to go.

 

My last patch was covered and embroidered inside and outside to look good rolled up or down. It’s time to bring patching back in style.

Patch Happy

Bitten by an anxious little Datschund, I was left with  punctures in my calf (healing nicely with soap and water and hydrogen peroxide) and a gaping rip raveling my favorite linen summer travel pants. I was on vacation. I could cut the trousers off above the tear and hem them but I like the long capris length when it’s cool-ish and I can roll them up when it’s really hot.

First I tried a bright contrasting patch, thinking to create a funky look with Sashiko embroidery, tiny stabs (running stitches) in a contrasting hue. Maybe I could stitch an interesting design that included the shape of the hole?

You can see the stitches showing on the right side of the leg, it gets covered soon. I can see the outline of the frog but it’s not satisfying. Yet.

 

 

It just wasn’t working for me and it called even more attention to the tear. So I removed most of the white cotton thread and bound the edges with a whip stitch and then a blanket stitch in matching thread. The pants remained in my luggage the rest of vacation while I pondered the many ways of patching to keep the appeal of these dear pants. I knew I had a collection of batik frogs about the right size in my studio.

I needed a patch that would

• cover the hole and prevent it from further raveling
• look good when pants are rolled up, too
• be fun during the repair and when wearing the modified pants
• use hues and motifs that would go with just about any top I might wear
• use materials that are already in my stash
• use only hand stitching, why not?

What a lively frog! On the inside of the pants, Shashiko style stitches around and over the design secure the patch over the tear and hold down the pinked edges. I wanted the tied thread ends to show and the edges to fray. You cans see stitches showing through to the right side above.

 

 

I stitched some embroidery on the outside patch (a scrap) to lively it up and then attached it over the hole and inside the lines that show from the inside patch. The top stays open to form a little pocket for a fragrant insect repelling herb or something secret.

 

 

 

 

 

I can peek inside the pocket patch to check on the tear and give it comfort from time to time, a reminder of how this all came to be.

 

 

 

Brown stitching from the outside patch shows on the inside patch and I think that’s just fine. Funky and homegrown is the intention here.

Rolled up, the inside patch now shows and I think it’s rather interesting. Having 3 patches on this rip makes one pant leg a tad heavier than the other. If you find me listing to one side or walking in circles please lend me your elbow and set me back on the path. A disturbing accident is now a happy patch experience and the pants are good to go again.

This was so much fun I patched a design on my worn Gramichi outdoor pants with more sashiko stitching. Take a look here.

 

 

 

Flower Doodle

Ink and Prismacolor pencils in my sketchbook today. Leaves and stems have nothing to do with the blooms, just whimsical. I challenged myself to draw in ink, no pencil, no erasing, no mistakes in art.

Bouquet Whimsy

Mixed Media:  watercolor, Prismacolor pencils, ink

Oh, come on flowers! Get your bloom on. I love picking wild flowers and those in my garden for springtime bouquets. I’m waiting and waiting for blooms! Winter lasted long this season and I’ve found only a few wildflowers so far and a handful of crocus and snow drops. Tulips and daffodils seem doubtful that the snow is truly at bay. I’m hopeful!

Snow Drop Dazzle

 

Photo moment. I created Belly Biology programs when I worked in a marine science center and Olympic National Park in Washington state. Get on your belly and discover flora and fauna under the dock or off the trail. Snow drop is the first bulb to bloom besides wild crocus and buttercups. This is the first of a batch sent me from a friend where I used to live. They grew in my yard and I missed them so she dug some of hers and mailed bulbs. It’s in its second year. The first year none bloomed but they grew blades. Chipmunks and squirrels eat most of my bulbs so this survivor makes me springy happy!

This puts a smile on my face!

Weekly photo challenge: smile

One day We fell to Earth

Watercolor, Prismacolor pencils, charcoal

I believe in everything until it’s disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it’s in your mind. Who’s to say that dreams and nightmares aren’t as real as the here and now? ~John Lennon

Variations on a Theme: Beach Stones

 

 

Found art on Ediz Hook, Port Angeles, WA

 

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News Years Day 2018 gathering stepping stones on Island Bar, Salmon River, near Riggins, Idaho

 

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Stepping stone garden path in Cascade, Idaho. A small urban park for relaxing

I’ve been collecting beach rocks, as flat as I can find them, for years. Some already surround small gardens or make stepping places out of mud at the bottom of deck steps. Some are waiting to be placed in just the right spot or pathway in new gardens.

Weekly Photo Challenge:  Variations on a Theme

 

 

 

 

 

 

Believe

Ernestly engaged with her spirituality and religion, Kathy lived 66 years with Cerebral Palsy. In this photograph my cousin was 25 years old and in college. I believe a room mate or good friend made this image for a photography class in 1976.

This image seems appropriate to illustrate scale among several other themes. Consider the scale of one single person alone in a church but not alone as she connects with her relationship with the Holy Spirit. I think the statement is made by the long empty pews and the empty church. How small we are, aren’t we?

Weekly photo challenge:  Scale

Travel journal: Port Angeles, WA, US

Prismacolor pencils

I want to thank my followers for staying with me while I took a long break from blogging. I fell off a ladder & roof shoveling snow last January and injured my back so that movement was painful for several months. Then in July I had my appendix removed, followed by a month of abdominal infection and drains. Didn’t feel much like blogging and was mostly not very conscious for a couple months. As soon as I could walk around a block and didn’t have to use a stool in the shower I ran away – road trip to Port Angeles, WA, where I lived for a long time. I’m pretty well healed now so I hope to get back on schedule with writing and art for the blog and reading all your new posts. I really missed my blogging community.

Disturbance in my mind

What rhythm and blues looks like to me. Evanescent* moments in time. Big Mac and Neighbor Dave . . . disturbing sound waves.

 

*ev·a·nes·cent [evəˈnes(ə)nt]

adjective

1. Soon passing out of sight, memory, or existence; quickly fading or disappearing.

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: EVANESCENT

Break clear away

“Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.” » John Muir

“Here is your country. Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children’s children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance.” » Theodore Roosevelt

Hells Canyon above Brownlee Dam

“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together … all things connect.” —Chief Seattle

Weekly Photo Challenge: Earth

Belly Biology: yellow wild flower surprise

Belly Biology. I invented the phrase for workshops and daily programs that I taught at Port Townsend Marine Science Center. Basically it means to lay on your belly and see what you can see, most often laying on the dock and looking at what lives under it. Now a good DSLR’s flexible LCD screen can save me the stretch but I still came home with pitch on my jeans, really, from laying on my planet. Try it! Next best thing to laying on my back and looking at clouds!

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Butter Cup (Ranunculaceae)and Avalanche Lily (Erythronium grandiflorum) Note this Avalanche Lily supports 7 blossoms with one stem. Commonly the plant produces 1 blossom per stem. They are edible but don’t store well. Use them to top salad or cake and serve as soon as possible or eat them in the wild but only a few per patch to preserve the patch. This is the first edible wild flower to spring forth in spring, Rocky Mountains, USA.

Weekly Photo Challenge:  Surprise Shot with Olympus OM-D 5 set on close up scene, camera on ground. You don’t have to actually lay on your belly but it’s awe-fully fun if you do.

 

Old Pond

Furuike ya
kawazu tobikomu
mizu no oto

— Basho

The old pond

frog jumps in

sound of water

                 Bashoo

Literal Translation

Fu-ru (old) i-ke (pond) ya,
ka-wa-zu (frog) to-bi-ko-mu (jumping into)
mi-zu (water) no o-to (sound)

Translated by Fumiko Saisho

An old silent pond…
A frog jumps into the pond,
splash! Silence again.

Translated by Harry Behn

Antic pond–
frantic frog jumps in–
gigantic sound.

Translated by Bernard Lionel Einbond

MAFIA HIT MAN POET: NOTE FOUND PINNED TO LAPEL
OF DROWNED VICTIM’S DOUBLE-BREASTED SUIT!!!

‘Dere wasa dis frogg
Gone jumpa offa da logg
Now he inna bogg.’

— Anonymous
Translated by George M. Young, Jr.

The old pond, yes, and
A frog is jumping into
The water, and splash.

Translated by G.S. Fraser

The old pond,
A frog jumps in:.
Plop!

Translated by Allan Watts

Weekly Photo Challenge:  It IS easy being green!

Fire and Steel

When my friend invited me to Bend, Oregon, over Presidents holiday I didn’t expect to find a Fire Pit Competition at their Winterfest. They seem to be made from steel salvaged from Bend’s old mill. People gathered around the art pieces at Old Mill Park along the Deschutes River to share the warmth of the outdoor sculptures with a purpose – they had to be interesting to look at and hold a blaze.

Cabin Fever is no problem for these sculptors. They have a problem to solve and a product to craft. Mission accomplished.

This week’s photo challenge: The Road Taken

 

 

Relax is all headspace

Not long ago on a cool November day I stopped in a small town for coffee on my way home from a trip to The City. Well, really, I missed the coffee house, an old house alongside the highway, upscaled into a relaxing place to sit with coffee or tea. When I turned around at an intersection down the road a ways I noticed this almost secret garden between buildings. Just enough space to invite anyone to sit and relax, slightly removed from the street scene. Mind you, this is a small town with a highway running through it. The noisiest thing you might encounter here is a logging truck passing through.

I asked 4 people in the hardware store and 2 in the coffee shop about who created it and is it a memorial for the lady painted on the sign.  No one knew. And they all live here. It’s a real place but you can easily remember or create in your mind such images of relaxing spaces. Relaxing is all in your head. Right? I’m inspired to put some of these garden elements into my home landscape.

Relax is a state of mind.

Our minds think in images. Whatever images help you relax, that’s what you need to see in your mind’s eye until nothing else is there. Nothing. Think of it. No. Don’t think of it. If you can really think of NOTHING you are really relaxed. No THINGS are in your awareness.

Try this. Slowly push all the air you can out of your lungs, visualizing negative thoughts or images leaving your muscles and blood vessels as you exhale. Then slowly pull new oxygen into your lungs, visualizing light and new energy entering into every cell in your body. Make an image in your mind’s eye of a place where you feel relaxed, keep your focus on it and let it move you deeper within the relaxing space. Repeat. Repeat. Stay there as long as you feel comfortable and slowly come back when you are ready. You don’t have to be any place special or private to do this relaxation exercise. Just let yourself relax often during your day. If even for a moment and inside your own mind.

Weekly Photo Challenge:  Relax

 

 

Shine like Indra’s Net

This time of year I clean the glass on my china cabinet and all the porcelain dishes within. I can see the outdoors reflecting like a mirror. The dishes shine in autumn sunlight. Just think about all the shiny reflected light we encounter every day. Imagine a net that represents all life in the universe, the web of life.

The Rig-Veda, an ancient religious text, contains about 250 hymns to Lord Indra, India’s mythological king of the gods. At least one of the hymns tells of Lord Indra’s Net, the web of life. Every juncture of it has a jewel that reflects all other jewels. The Net represents the interconnection of all life in the universe. The ancient hymn describes Indra’s Net as an endless web of threads throughout the universe. Horizontal threads are space while vertical threads are time. At every crossing of the threads, there is an individual and each one a crystal bead. Every crystal bead reflects the light from every other crystal in the net and also from every other reflection throughout the entire universe.  This cosmic web might look  like this according to Terence McKenna in Approaching Timewave Zero:  Part 1:

“One way of thinking about it is to compare it to one of those mirrored disco balls, which sends out thousands of reflections off of everybody and everything in the room. The mirrored disco ball is the transcendental object at the end of time, and those reflected twinkling, refractive lights are religions, scientific theories, gurus, works of art, poetry, great orgasms, great souffles, great paintings, etc. Anything that has, in Nietzsche’s phrase, the “spark of divinity within it,” is in fact, referent to the original force of the spark of all divinity unfolding itself withing the confines of three-dimensional space.”

Now, think about this for a while. When you shine your light more brightly, you bring everyone else’s up with you.

For Weekly Photo Challenges:

Shine    chttps://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/shine/

and      It’s Not This Time of Year Without . . .

 

Delila state of mind

They always said DeLila daydreamed too much; she needed to pay attention to her work.

They always said DeLila was rather spacey . . . drifty . . . flighty . . .

Some said DeLila’s imagination was too fantastic; she wasn’t grounded in reality.

One said DeLila would never amount to much.

Another said she was likely to one day just flit away and never come back.

You know what, that’s just what she did.

 

Weekly Photo Challenge:  State of Mind and reposted today for Magic. I wish more people would, if just for a portion of their day, use a state of mind more like DeLila, who I invented here. We could just pop ourselves into a bubble and let the breeze carry us somewhere else. I have no doubt many bloggers practice this way nonetheless. I used this photo recently in another post but it felt appropriate for this week’s challenge. I love the weekly challenges, I ponder them all week and look at my world through a different lens because of the themes.

By the way, after I composed this flash fiction I made a quick internet search for the name Delila which I chose for no good reason. I found this story and songs of Delila, a Kurdish song writer, drummer, protester, warrior woman who was killed by a Turkish soldier. She was not at all like the character I invented here. Her music is delightful and mesmerizing, though I don’t understand the lanuage of her lyrics. 

 

keeper of the keys: Day 5

Crust and crumb, the sourdough rye bread turned out just fine. It raised more than it usually does at home. I gave the biologist and the technician each the end parts and kept the mid section for myself. It’s mottled and I like that, not the way I planned but it adds visual interest. I used the whole wheat recipe substituting rye flour for the whole wheat and adding 3 tablespoons dark baking chocolate powder plus a little chopped up fresh rosemary. Superb texture and flavor.

The piece of bread in the bag was baked at home, much denser loaf. Today I decided to take an afternoon nap. No such luck. Something struck the wall next to my bed hard like a football in the wrong place. Shortly afterwards it happened again. I heard the staff yelling at each other outdoors and I knew I didn’t need to get up. I’d hear about it later.

They call these suicidal quail. Both were fleeing the talons of a falcon when they crashed into the side of the house. The biologist held them for a while to see if there might be a heartbeat. When I came down stairs he warned me there is a dead bird in the fridge and told me their story. He gently placed the still warm carcass in my hands and together we admired the feathers. So tiny around the neck. How precisely the hues change and form patterns.

Feather tips felt smooth, but lifting them they revealed fluffy down next to the body. I imagined how the feathers held warmth when the bird puffed up in winter. Staff took the birds home for dinner.

I painted more autumn scenes that afternoon and evening. It felt odd painting inside a specific frame, the shapes of leaves I had traced. For practice with techniques perhaps this limitation was just what I needed. I could concentrate on the process and not feel like I have to compose to the edges of the paper. This is the first time I haven’t taped down the edges. It worked OK on Canson 140, but I prefer Arches 140.

It’s my last evening shift. I packed a few things but left the rest for the morning sensing that I won’t have many hunters picking up a key so I will have plenty of time to move out.

 

keeper of the keys: day 4

Coffee brews in the press and I have a little time before I open the office at 7. Let’s check the sourdough sponge set up last night. Look at the mark where it raised when the yeast were in their feeding frenzy and reproducing like crazy before death, like any organism. And then the sponge fell as it should after the protein in the flour was devoured. Oh! those bubbles! Looks just right and smells like beer. The surface is moving with gasses. I’m hoping bread at nearly sea level, where I am now, will turn out as well as that at 350 feet when I’m home. Natural yeast can be fussy. This should turn into rye bread like the piece in the bag. Tomorrow. I add more bread flour and water, cover the bowl with a small plate again, and walk away to open the office.

A few hunters stop in for a key or to exchange one for a different location. I take a reservation by phone. The Andrus Wildlife Management Area has gates to 6 different drainages or roads. Sunday morning is not very busy but in the evening I recorded surveys with 9 keys that were dropped off. It’s been a 3 day weekend for those who didn’t work Veterans Day holiday.

Today I take the chairs off the table and make room for water color painting. Seating for 12, this could be the mead hall or else it serves a whole lot of castle servants. What a great place to spread out projects. It’s overcast, might rain, so I go for a walk to collect leaves from different types of trees.

The idea is to trace a leaf and paint a landscape inside the shape. Water color takes patience, just like sourdough baking. While paint dries between layers I make a vegetable and rice curry soup with fresh tomatoes I brought from my garden.

Sometime in the afternoon I add more flour and water to the sourdough and by bedtime it has bubbled up to the top of the bowl. In a larger bowl I mix the dry ingredients with my fingers and then stir in the fermented sponge. For this rye bread I substitute rye flour for the whole wheat amount and add 3 tablespoons of dark baking chocolate to give it stronger flavor and a rich color. Rosemary, yes, chopped up and added for interest instead of caraway seeds. I hold back on the olive oil, using less than a full table spoon. I hope it will rise well. I stir it and then knead it a little in the bowl but the flour mixture doesn’t integrate well with the wet. It looks mottled. Hoping for the best I cover the bowl with a big loose fitting plate and a light dish cloth and leave it on the counter over night.

A friend called just when I needed to walk away from a painting and we talked for a long long time. All the while I studied skulls and antlers and horns that have been gathered from the wildlife area. They are on the walls and coffee tables and window sills. Everything needs dusting. If this were not home to a wildlife management area anyone could wonder about someone who would put bones around their living room. As a naturalist they interest me. As a writer they inspire me.

It’s so late when I get off the phone I don’t have energy to write today’s post. I turn the wolf skull to face the door when I turn off the light. Up stairs in  bed I read some twisted stories in  The New Black, A Neo-Noir Anthology edited by Richard Thomas. 

Previous posts of my stay as keeper of the keys are here and here.

keeper of the keys: day 3

My new best coffee! I get up at 6 AM to get ready to open the office at 7. It takes me a while to wake up. I brought a bag of instant powdered coconut milk for creamer. Mixed with honey in pressed coffee the flavors astound me! This one cup coffee press it’s great for a single mug.

Checking out gate keys to visitors was easy and I’m surprised most of them want to chat a while instead of rushing to their hunt. It’s a pleasant way to start the morning. I nearly filled the wood bin and then made pumpkin soup for lunch, stirring in coconut powder instead of canned coconut milk. Scrumptious with a mug of mushroom coffee! My husband rolled in with a friend and our 2 German Shepherds. The dogs stay in the van at the ranch so they can’t harass the resident wild turkeys. I made a pot of espresso flavored with coconut milk and coconut sugar and we sat  on the porch in the sun watching wild turkeys in the yard.

I took a map and keys to 3 gates, locked the house (office inside) and we went off in search of the roads.  We entered Lake Road access gate and found this small ancient dog house nearby. Our dogs are too large to get in. There is a loading chute and corral at the entrance. We encountered a stream crossing right away (no bridge) and looking at the road ahead decided it truly was best for an ATV, not our big wide Chevy Express. Let’s hit the highway for the next access gate.

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It was hard to find the Woodhead gate right across from the Woodhead campground. Duh! But the gate is behind a pond and no signs point to it. This road, too is not suitable for a van for very many miles. At least it’s not a steep drop off like Lake Road. Eventually we would have come to a peak and pine forest but I had to open the office at 4 so we turned around. I notice my office hours are the same time as the best light for photos, sunrise and sunset. I’ll be back in my 4X4 truck some other time to capture betters photos.

Brownlee Dam, the first of 3 dams on the Snake River in Hells Canyon, is just out of view to the right of the reservoir. For this photo I turned around and now we’re looking down hill. I’m in Idaho. The land across the river is Oregon.

See the road on the Oregon side, pretty high above the water? It’s not Lake Road but just like it. NOT taking the van on it! Looks like fun for a mountain bike. Yikes. When I was a child, not even in school yet, my family would take Grandpa’s Jeep on roads like that pulling a silver camper. What a hoot! Mom was wrong. Dad didn’t kill us all.

We’re pretty high above the canyon but still can’t get cell phone service here. I thought the Carpathian Mountains were steep when I visited Transylvania but I’m not sure they are steeper than these. Back just in time to open the office, goodbye to my guests,  and I swapped keys for hunters who are staying the week in Hells Canyon, took some phone reservations, and checked in returned keys. I gave one chukar hunter a tour of the bear trails around the house and under the wild orchard and black walnut trees. So much scat! I don’t find any fresh walnuts on the ground. Do you suppose bears or turkeys eat them? They’re a hard nut to crack. Um . . . not for a bear. He stayed and we chatted a while about wild plums and elderberries and recipes for foraged harvests while we watched the turkeys eating grass seeds and apples. They fly up and knock the fruit to the ground and then fight over it.

I closed the office at 5 and boiled brown farm eggs for dinner from the little Alpine store in Indian Valley. That place deserves it’s own blog post, it’s so eclectic. The sun disappears behind the mountain early so I brought in another load of firewood and put the wheel barrow back in the garage next to the tractors all the while gathering leaves with interesting shapes for water color painting tomorrow. That sound? Turkeys began flying up from the creek to roost in trees above it. I wondered if it was too dark to get photos but digital cameras are amazing at letting in light at twilight. Oh, the sound of these huge wings fluttering! It’s the sort of ruckus that stirs my imagination to write horror stories and paint scenes inspired by great beasts perching above me in the night. That was last night’s entertainment. Look what I can do when there is no distracting TV noise, none here.

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And now I’ve edited photos, done some writing, relaxed with lemon-ginger India Tulsi tea, prepared sourdough to proof overnight, and washed my face. Time to do dishes and then go to upstairs to bed and listen to my audio book Far Far Away by Tom McNeal. It’s a dark fantasy, something about a ghost and the Brothers Grimm and lurking evil, in the fashion of Neil Gaiman. If it doesn’t rain much tomorrow I’ll get out and explore more of the Andrus Wildlife Management Area.

 

If I had godlike powers

“I want to make time stretchier. I would like much more rubbery days, and I just wish that you could lean on a week, and sort of push the walls out a bit, and suddenly about nineteen extra days would rush in to fill the vacuum.

There is not enough time, and I wind up just wanting to do things that I don’t have time for. There are so many things that I’d love to do, and I have to put off, or that it’s a matter of me choosing, when really I’d love to do both. And if only time were infinitley stretchy, I could.”     Neil Gaiman

“My New Year’s Wish” by Neil Gaiman

Thanks, Sharon for sharing this idea. It’s worth remembering.

next word

A word after a word after a word is power. 

Margaret Atwood

Her bio:     http://margaretatwood.ca/biography/