Found poetry 57

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"The Night at Wayne" --- Sold

First, Let's talk about art. This is a bad photo, but it is kind of interesting. This is my 3rd nocturne painting ever. I brought a portable light this time, but I did not realize how fast the battery fades. It was a good experience. Even under the fading light, the painting glowed in the dark night. I start to like nocturne plein air gradually.

Secondly, Let's talk about life. It is sort of like this painting: dark and fuzzy. Now we have closed our new house. The bank is empty, and I cross my finger for the future gamble. I hope it will rent fast so it pays its mortgage, insurance, and tax. The reason I don't like this main stream lifestyle is that it is totally out of control. Your fate is at the mercy of the "outside". If the "outside" says I don't like your countertop, you better change it. If "outside" says I want your arm and leg for the tax, you better give it. Just like Thoreau, I turn my direction to the woods. I love building my "Off-the-Grid" place. I experienced the entire process of human surviving. I have put a roof above my head, and I know how  to deal with black and grey waters. I spent very small amount of money to get my basic supplies. I am happy when it rains, because my rain tank gets fuller. I am happy when the sun shines. I check my volt meter to see how much energy comes to my battery. Yesterday was in the 90s, and I kept my AC running for hours to cool my small place to 82 F. I feel good about life, because the nature provides so many resources for free. I feel good about myself, because I am able to survive with my own hands and brain.

I want to thank so many good friends to encourage me. With all of you, I don't feel lonely.

Last week on Art With a Needle

My big news of the week is that my newly cleaned-up sewing table has indeed motivated and enabled me to start sewing on a quilt.  I think this is the first major quilt I've worked on in at least two years.  Can't exactly tell you why I decided to take a sabbatical from quiltmaking, or why I decided to start again just now.  But it does feel good to be back at the sewing machine.

Here's what I've done so far.

Not a masterpiece, because it's been three years or more since I worked with fine lines and I obviously haven't left enough unpieced space on the right side of this composition.  But that can be fixed.

Here's my favorite miniature of the week.  I sometimes feel that it's unoriginal to just find some random object and make a lot of knots onto it, usually with a couple of beads for good measure.  But then I realize that's an important recurring theme in my art, and I should just embrace it.  And I do love tying those knots -- so zen.

A small project -- finished!

Yesterday I finished a small "commission" -- from my sister, to make a piece of liturgical linen for her church.  It is 26 inches square, made to cover a funeral urn on the altar if the decedent has been cremated.  She's going to have a butterfly, symbol of new life, machine-embroidered on it (although I offered to hand-stitch one -- she probably thought it would take me forever, which is probably true).

I asked if she needed new linen and she said no, a repurposed piece would be just fine, and symbolically appropriate.  So I rooted around in my stash and found a beautiful old tablecloth, with a woven pattern of roses and stripes, acquired from who-knows-where, obviously well-used in its past life because the hemstitching is frayed and there are a few faint stains.  But I found a large enough clean patch in the middle to cut my square.  Actually, I tore it, because I wanted to make sure it was on grain.

I cut it four inches bigger so I could turn back one-inch hems.  Pressed carefully, mitered the corners of the hems and stitched them shut so they would not gap after being washed and pressed. 

In all these years of making fun of the quilt police, my favorite example of silly "rules" is that mitered corners on bindings should be sewed shut.  I always say that if your corners need to be sewed shut, you have done a lousy job of mitering them in the first place.  But that is for bindings, not for hems.  When you open up the hems and make a diagonal fold across the point of the corner, then bring the two diagonal edges up to butt against each other, there's nothing to hold the butted edges permanently in place.  I could have run several rows of machine stitching along that outside inch, but it seemed easier to just stitch the corners.  A first in my history, and with any luck, the last time I'll make anything this carefully.

It goes in the mail this afternoon.  And dividends: to get ready to work on this project I first had to clear off my large work table so I could put two large cutting mats together.   I had to clear off my sewing machine table of all the paints, glues, carpentry and wireworking tools, beads and junk that had accumulated over months of not actually sewing.  Finally, I had to get a scrubby sponge and some heavy duty cleaner to remove all the dried-on acrylic medium, paint, dirt and accumulated gunk from the sewing machine table.  My work place hasn't been this clean and bright in years.

Maybe this will give me the impetus to work on another sewing-machine project -- maybe an actual quilt.