Dreams of Beading

One of the daydreams I've mused over for quite a while has been the possibility of trying my hand at beading. I first had this idea over here when I crocheted a glass cover and added beading to the corners to keep it from getting blown off the glass in a breeze. I've since shortened the hangers on this early effort and plan to make more of these. The idea of decorative beading has really caught my interest.

The current issue of Interweave Crochet has this scarf pattern in it and it inspired me to take my next step in decorative beading. Mary at Beadfluff has been very encouraging and didn't hold back when she told me why the first beads I used on this project were all wrong. She was so right. I like this result much better and plan to do more of this. I have lots of work ahead of me as I develop my technique and skill.

Corey's father

Last summer I had the privilege of meeting a wonderful human being. He was a husband, a father, and a grandfather. He was friend to all and loved by all. For almost three month, Corey has allowed us into her world as she has kept watch over her ailing father. And now, at that most private of moments, she has shared the beauty of his peaceful passing surrounded by his loving family. There could not be a better way to go then to be prayed over, touched, and lifted up to the angels for family gone ahead to greet him with love and joy.

Writers' Island - Outrageous

In she walks, slow and aloof.

Ignoring the looks cast her way,

she stalks, a red-tailed devil tat her escort.

Corseted and pierced, with high high-heels,
She's a heat-seeking missile in the flesh.
Glanced at, stared at, secret looks pry,
So young and so outrageous.

She knows the stir she causes but,
indifferent, she neither pauses
nor apologizes for her look.

I read her like I would a poorly written book,
scanned and sketched, details missed.
And yet, she makes an enduring impression,
a memory of persistent outrageousness.

Felting

One of my daydreams has taken form. After two years of knitting & crocheting I finally took the leap and started a purse for felting.

The yarn here is Patton's wool/soy blend. Since I had never felted before, I was curious as to how a wool/soy blend would felt. In fact, WOULD it felt? Well, the pictures show the results and I was very satisfied with how it turned out.

I lined the purse with fabric from a black velvet dress I found at a yard sale years ago. The dress didn't survive the purchase but the fabric did. It sat and gathered dust for a while but like all things I find, it was eventually used.

So now I can make my first red highlight on my list here. I hope the list is never completed but is only added to as the years go by. Daydreamer is my new middle name.

Thread

Split skirt, red and white,
Hair bobbed
and held back with a wide band,
She sat alone eating lunch
at Mr. A's.

Elegance surrounds
Conversations murmur low

She enjoys her book as she waits,
alone.

Next to her but a bit removed
Four silvered ladies, sit
like robins -
alert and watchful.

They laugh.
Old friends sharing memories and
making more.
Playing look and see,
Playing make believe.

Looking up, Red and White
discovers she has been approached.
Silver smiles shyly and quietly asks,
"Are you an artist? I told my friends,
I bet you are an artist. ARE you an artist?"
she asked hopefully, again.

In that single blink of a moment,
that single beat of her heart,
Red and White thought, "How could I
NOT belong to art?" and she answered,
"Why, yes. I am."

Face wreathed in a glowing smile,
Silver sparkled and crowed, "I knew it!"
Then she left with her friends and giggled,
"See? I knew it. I was right."

Red and White, sitting now in lavender and brown
reflected on how little she knew and
understood herself back then.
How true her words had been. How little
she understood the source of that
heart-felt "Yes. I am."

The thread of time stretched, taut almost to breaking ,
between what had once been and what was now.
She had been embarrassed of daydreaming back then,

Yes - I am an artist but
how long it was before she embraced
her good friend, Daydreamer.
How long it was before she recognized
her as one of the best parts of herself.

But now the thread hangs loose -
Recognition caught up with knowledge.
And today at another solitary lunch
Red and White, now Lavender and Brown
can proudly say with no embarrassment

I am a Daydreamer and
I am an artist.

Sunday Scribbling - #107 Compose

Compose - to write a recipe for this new phase of my life.

Writing - like the composition of a new song just for me.

Each ingredient carefully selected, tested, omitted, or chosen.

I bloom like the first roses of Spring

.

What I Dream

I dream a lot. Daydream actually. My daydreams are often much more interesting than life around me. I find that I am dreaming more now than ever. Retirement is approaching. I dream of a life at rest and calm; filled with beauty, wonder, a sense of freedom, a firm knowledge that I can do what I want, when I want, as quickly or slowly as I want.

Selfish? I think not. After a life of care taking in one form or another, I now feel that I am coming into my own time. Care taking may come to me again and I certainly would not refuse it, but unlike the refusals I have given to myself all my life, now is MY time. I will never turn my back on this time, MY time, again. Care taking will share the MY time when need be, but it will never take over again.

Here are a few of things I might do - Red = complete; Pink italic = in progress; Blue italic = things I've accomplished under Pink italic.

Make books of poetry
Paint photos
Finish my kitchen - Making progress
Learn how to promote selling my creative work
Read more (if that's even possible - I read so much now)
Crochet - Free form piece is now in progress
Bead a scarf
Do more scarf beading
Visit with friends
Visit with God more
Learn to successfully and completely read a recipe and COOK it right
Walk
Take a cooking class
Felt wool and make a purse
Find St. Benoit Yogurt
Take pictures
Explore close to home
Have a backyard aviary
Travel the Northern Coast
Visited Mendocino
Sew Point Arena Lightstation
Garden
Make a fairy room from a book
Take one of Ulla's classes at the Castle in Berkeley
Make paperdolls
and MORE

So here I am at my new blog. This is my spot that will be all about my dreams. This is the place where I will refresh and refocus and learn to embrace life. This is the place where I will visit ONLY when I have something to put on a page. This is where I learn what is truly MY time.

TOP contribution - Regional Poetry

November arrives, welcome relief from heat, now cool,
Misty morning sunlight with its companion, smoke.
Stepping out onto the porch, lungs expand, air is crisp.
I inhale the tang of harvest burns.
Rocking in my chair, my thoughts recall annual visits to the hills
and friendships bound together with cornhusk rope and cider apples.

Twenty-six years past, trees planted, our children like young apples.
Now a time for jackets, gloves and socks to combat the autumn cool.
I smile as I recall and anticipate the annual trek to the hills.
Bright sunlight faintly shadowed with harvest smoke
Within - my soul burns
For banks of leaves - dry, brown, crisp.



"Peach cobbler time has ended", Barbara proclaims, preparing a sweet fruit crisp
made with love and filled with cinnamin, sugar, flour and apples.
Her backyard houses a growing debris pile for the yearly burn.
My porch to hers, I breathe in the morning cool
and the repeating tang of harvest burns.
I relax knowing that for a short time I am in the hills.

Our friendship has been a gently rolling hill,
A soft series of never-ending swells punctuated with moments of crispness
or the smothering pall of vampyric smoke
heavy with the loss of one of OUR apples.
Inner life sags and cools
but then slowly rebuilds and explodes in a life affirming burn.

Back on my porch, I lose myself in the burning
desire to run to the hills,
to surrender to the autumn coolness,
to splash through leafy mounds of golden brown crackle and crisp,
to learn the secret of squeezing cider from apples
and pumping bellows on sausage, making rings of smoke

Autumn is smoking.
Orchard caretakers fire up the burners.
Smells waft, roasting green apples.
Friends tramp through golden rainbow hills,
have fun in the kitchen baking a sweet crisp
and breathe in the evening coolness.

Rocking on my porch, I dream of days at Apple Hill
wrapped in memories of drifting smoke and tears that burned,
binding friendship over fruit-filled crisps and cool evenings.