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    Autoquiltography.com by jeanne chambers is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License
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you can line the holes in your life with beautiful ribbon, she said, and they’ll carry you like a boat in the water.

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what if this is FUN? using an xacto knife i’d forgotten i had, i made three cutouts then wrapped one of them using 4 strands of floss (2 of each color). used 4 for no particular reason - certainly not for additional coverage because this fabric doesn’t ravel. that was so much fun, i (ambitiously) went ahead and bugged-up the entire leaf. what if we see what else we can do with this? i have a stray idea or two. others will show-up, no doubt, once i get going. might need some magnifying glasses, tho.

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what if . . . is one of my favorite motivational tools. when i’m having a fog-covered, moving-at-the-speed-of-cold-molasses day, i play “what if” with myself and first thing you know, i’m perking again. it’s a little bait-and-switch trick i learned/taught myself as a child.

and it still works like a charm. (used it quite effectively just yesterday and again today, as you’ll see . . .)

jude plays a mean game of what if. acey does, too. so does paula, and judith, and cathie.

so today i got to thinking . . .
what if i join in and play with jude, too?
what if i do something i seldom-if-ever do and detour from my current project, setting it aside before it”s finished?
what if i take a placemat that just happens to be shaped like a leaf and use it for something else?

what if i remove the vein that’s shaped with wire?

what if i ponder and sketch and sketch and ponder and eventually come up with an aha that tickles me?
what if i have more show-and-tell tomorrow?

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most of the women on our family tree are bookworms. some regularly pour over recipe books; others prefer craft books. some like to linger over decorating books or craft magazines. some could fill libraries with books touted to make them better women. fiction occupies some female relatives; others devour biographies to see how other women lived and coped and thrived. a few even like to conjure words of their own to fill the leaves in blank books.

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am back at work on alison’s deep dish after (yet another) slow turn out. the women before alison and me have cooked and fed - not just for nourishment, not just in the spirit of caregiving, not just in the sense of obligation or duty but as a gift. a creative, heartfelt gift.

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you know i’ve been having trouble leafing out my tree, so this morning i got up early, whipped out my oh-isn’t-it-the-cutest-thing-why-don’t-i-try-using-it-for-something-other-than-a-fashion-accessory studio journal, and sketched me out some leaves. initially the plan was to do green leaves in different stitches. but when those colored pencils hit my hand, i came up with more biographical leaves. huh.

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when the call came, doris mager (commonly known in audubon circles as “the bird lady”) said yes and went to pick up the adorable baby owl who had recently survived a wing amputation. baby is now one year old and learning to talk. one night baby owl hears a dog, listens intently for a while, then begins to bark. but somehow that doesn’t feel quite right, so baby stops barking. next, baby owl listens to a nearby elder screech owl and mimics the hooting. but that doesn’t feel quite right either, so baby stops hooting. over and over it goes: baby hears a fetching sound and tries it on to see if it feels right, comfortable, native.

tonight we had the great fortune of stumbling into one of doris’ bird talks where we met e.t., the 25 year old gorgeous pet owl, a sparrow hawk who allowed himself to be paraded around while he showed us the gorgeous underside of his wings, a vulture that was surprisingly beautiful (if severely angular), and this baby owl with one-and-a-half wings who is currently learning to talk.

as i stitched leaves today, took them out and stitched again - and again and again and yet again - i couldn’t shake the notion that i’m on the verge. like the baby owl in search of his native language, i search for my stitching voice.

and i sure do hope it shows up soon ’cause this one teensy little ole’ piece is starting to make “slow cloth” look like the leader on the nascar circuit.

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when nearly finished with roots, i decided i wasn’t happy with them. no matter how hard i tried, i couldn’t talk myself into liking the 3 colors. told myself that there are numerous shades of red clay. offered as how it created textural interest (or might to others, anyway). only got close to dissuading myself (translation: justifying convincingly) that there was no need to rip out all that stitching when i postured that the various shades might represent in-laws - and then only because the stitches were so intricately interwoven. they overlapped each other and wrapped around each other and scooted under each other so, that it was near impossible to disentangle and pluck them all out.

.

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working on roots now. the part of the tree that provides water and nutrients. the part of the tree that anchors it, grounds it. the part of the tree that is mostly beneath the surface. had root system finished last night, but alas: ’twas done all in shades of charcoal. sure, it might be visually accurate when viewing the trees providing a/c for our house, but we’re from georgia . . . so it all had to come ripping out because roots are that important. like jude (jude, do i remember correctly that you once said this or am i putting words - or in this case threads - in your mouth?), i am enjoying the backstitch. so easy to go where i want to go. so easy to curve and curl. so appropriate to go one step back to go forward.

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this sign indicates both my past and my future. i’ve been relegated to the turnout lane the past 6 weeks. kitchen-sink weeks, i call them: crammed to the brim, leaving no time for stitching or blogging or anything else particularly creative. this-coming week, however, i look forward to days of slow, leisurely respite as i tuck away with cloth and creative writing . . .

i needed to create a tree, but the pump hasn’t been primed in so very long, i angsted over how to do just that . . . thinking almost to the point of shutdown. recent occurrences out of her control have trimmed my friend acey’s wings, leaving her to enjoy what i consider creativity at its best: limits. acey, of necessity, has worked only with materials within her reach, and with that in mind, i reached out this afternoon, picked up a piece of fabric that didn’t require traveling even so much as across the room, and began cutting what i hoped would eventually resemble tree branches. haven’t appliqued in years and was relieved to find that i don’t detest it nearly as much now as then.

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