Clouds in My Coffee

Bows and flows of angel hair and ice cream castles in the air 
and feather crayons everywhere I've looked at clouds that way

I'm on my way to pick up the keys to my apartment. This is it.The cusp. The sweet spot. The last moment when dreams about the apartment end and the reality begins.

I despise white walls and yet again I'm renting an apartment so I can't paint. I've grown and moved on from the paintings I made in college. I want to hang new work in the living room.  I want to paint a triptych mural of clouds and hang my black and white cloud photos between.

I've thought of several ways to make and move a mural size painting. Some of them even good ways but with my career and the running of the Midwestern Weaving Convention 2013 I don't see any of them actually getting done.

Throw in that I've dedicated 2012 to using what I have I've come up with a more realistic plan. I have all the squares left from my woodcut printing. I needed 4 for class but I had to buy a sheet of teak paneling so I have at least 10 left. I'll paint clouds on them or even just pain them solid colors in shades of the sky and hang them among photos. This way I can add color photos too.

None of my living room furniture is in any shape to make the move. So I'm going with the Japanese styling for right now. Not things from Japan but the empty rooms with a few great pieces and the use of floor seating. But with brighter colors and maybe a little of 60 kitsch. This photo sums up what I'm going for

I'll knit great lush floor pillows and puffs. Maybe even crochet granny squares. Or I'll finally pull my sewing machine out of the box and sew some seating pads. I'll even weave the fabric from plastic grocery bags. I felt some at KAWS and it's wonderful. I'll pick up a chair and recover it like the photo. Maybe even knitting a slip cover! and I'LL DO IT ALL FOR $15!


It's clouds illusions I recall

I leave in 20 min. The dream has 45 min to go and then it's over and reality sets in.
 

Cotton yarn- in this year of using what I have I went to deep stash. I've been hoarding this yarn as too special to knit. It's Mission Falls 1824 Cotton, the original spinning. Like all nice cotton knitting yarn it's more expensive than gold. I wasn't able to buy anymore that one baby sweater worth until it discontinued. Once it hit the sale bins I snatched up what balls I could find.

Because of that, I have random balls of random colors. I'm finally allowing myself to knit it up. This is the only yarn I haven't packed and I don't know how long it will take me to get everything arranged and unpacked. This might be my only knitting for a while.

Well, except for my knitting in my desk at work.... oh, and my car knitting.... right, and the project in my purse... and my other purse.

05.13.1923 to 05.25.2012

I'm back from Grandma Jay's memorial. It was perfect funeral weather, freezing cold with drizzling rain. We huddled together at the graveside under the awning for warmth.The service was lovely detailing her life dedicated to service to her church, community, and the Temperance Union.

There I learned a few things about her that I didn't know. That the pamphlets about the evil of drinking that came in my birthday cards every year instead of money- she wrote them. I knew that she got published everywhere, anyhow she could. Magazine articles, original recipes in cookbooks, children stories, but it never occurred to me that those were her work too. An over sight on the part of a child looking for cash among the Don't Do Drugs leaflets.

The service was lovely but didn't cover much of her life as I knew it so I'll share a few things here.

She was interested in fairness. So much so that at Christmas we grandchildren all received the same present. Age 5 or 20 it didn't matter. That's how at age 10 I received an AirBake cookie sheet, oven mitts, and a recipe box full of blank cards. This is from the grandma that can't cook. It wasn't so much that she couldn't cook but that she was inventing new recipes to submit to the next contest to possibly win and to have another recipe published. To do that she was inventive and would serve her trials no matter how they turned out. Some were spectacular, so I've been told, but I don't remember them.

It's because of her one size fits all presents that I received a stamp collecting book the next year. One of my cousins wanted it. I enjoyed the soaking of exotic stamps off of letters sent to my parents and the clear sticky tabs. Grandma bought the 50 state bird stamps for each of us and mailed them one at a time on a letter or card. That's something else about her. She liked birding and kept a life birding list.

My brother and I spent a week with her and Grandpa every summer. She didn't play with us but she did tell great stories. The Tumble Fairy and her antics was my favorite. She had a roll of paper attached to a wall. I think it was to feed through her manual typewriter so she never had to stop to put in a new page but to me it was drawing heaven.

She couldn't throw paper away. She had piles and stacks of papers and books next to her favorite chair. The stacks reached as high as the TV tray she kept at her elbow to hold her drink, pens, and highlighters.

The pastor and his intern spoke with awe about her bible and how every passage was marked with highlighter. They called it a work of art and dedication. A cousin and I snicked at this. She did read her bible every day and not only was every passage highlighted it was color coded with a key in the front. This book was very important to her.

That's not what made us laugh but that Grandma highlighted everything! The rules of a game? Highlighted. Giving the game as a gift? It would be unwrapped and the rules highlighted before being given to us in case we were to miss the important parts. The cookbook that she gave me and every woman in her family- All highlighted. Words were important to her.

I was given a packet of her photos after the service. I had hoped to get a photo of her. Instead they were all of me. Photos where she had written captions in a journalistic style and even if they had other people in the photo the captions were all about me. She had done this with everyone.

There is so much more to say but words are beginning to fail me. I'll wrap this up with the words she used most of all. "I appreciate you and I love you."