a moment of perfection

My bucket list for the winter

As I watched the weather report the other night, I was struck by the powerful line of arrows showing winds, rain and storms heading inland in sweeping unison from the western ocean.

I am in a direct line for any battering the winter may send. 

Already I'm hunkering down, sorting my workspace and my office and thinking about unfinished Things.

One is a quilt I have pieced and stashed in my blanket cupboard.  I made it for my partner - it has been in the making 4 years and all I have left to do is the binding.

He particularly asked for post and rail.  A strong uncomplicated pattern.  All the fabric I had at the time was in red, gold and purple - so we agreed that was a reasonable compromise

some of the pieces I had handmarbled at a long ago class. 

he chose the backing which was a stretchy deep rich brown/maroon fleece fabric.  At the time I knew very little about quilting and this fabric was a challenging choice.  The joins of each patch were tied by hand in the corners with a soft muted maroon Shetland wool - the fabric wriggles too much to join the top to the bottom any other way.  There is no wadding - it weighs a ton as it is.  The nude was painted by my daughter when she was 16.

I can't say my sewing room is now as orderly as when I began the project.  The table is covered with collage and half finished ecoprint ideas.....my aim this morning is to clear it, put everything I'm not using NOW away, and then have fresh snapper and avocado on toast for lunch.......

the world is full of a number of things.....

After an enormous NE blow, there were monsters on Hudson's beach with ropey fingers

 and puffball humps

stretching from one end of the beach

to the other

four planets - Mars, Jupiter, Mercury and Venus aligned outside my back door in the early morning dark

my 90 year old Dad, who takes no medications at all, landed in hospital for the 2nd time in his life.  The first time he was 8 and he fell off the horse he was riding 4 up to school with his siblings.  He's now home and recovering well.

and a couple of pretty things flew up on the clothes line.



Getting a grip......

Recently I've been working with a combination of collage and journaling to move myself past my own cliches. 

It's a technique from an e-study course offered by Shelley Klammer http://collageforself-discovery.com/
It takes maybe an hour each morning to rip up some images, assemble and own them and write. 


It's not a thoughtful process - it's an instant identification of my current state of mind. 
I've learned in the past week that whatever images "land" on my page are me. 


So this morning, having struggled to put words or feelings into any order at all since the Christchurch earthquake and now the Japanese quake and tsunami, this is what is on my page.

I am Anger

I am the scream of the buried

the drowned

the burnt

the displaced

I am the snarl of the lost

the broken

the hobbled

the Dead and Undead

I am the hope against impossibility

of an olive twig on a bare branch



good morning cows

 the milking herd has arrived for breakfast in the predawn mist outside my study window

last year's heifers are often last into the shed and last out into the paddock

they arrive at a trot - strip feeding means first up best fed

it's serious stuff this eating

Is it a perennial?

On page 44 of her remarkable book Eco Colour, India Flint has a photo of "drying bundled goldenrod". 

A whole armful of it!! What bounty.....

I have 3 plants, given me last year by my organics teacher and carefully split so if I happened

to lose one in a drought

or through neglect 

or just because it disappeared never to be seen again under a rampant overgrowth of couchgrass

I would still have 2 others.

Which made me think about exactly what sort of a plant goldenrod is.

And how India managed to have such a lovely big bundle to dry.

My reading told me it is considered an invasive weed in China and Germany and that it is a perennial.  That means it comes back each year without having to "do" anything about it.

But I also have the choice of waiting till my 3 precious plants seed, and then saving that seed for resowing in Spring....."Propagation is by wind-disseminated seeds ...."(Wikipedia - Goldenrod)

Or, I can also let autumn roll on a little longer and wait till the flowers have gone and then divide the plant which grows......"  by spreading underground rhizomes which can form colonies of vegetative clones of a single plant." (Wikipedia - Goldenrod)

Better sharpen my spade, so I get a nice clean cut. 

Knowing a little about plants has deepened my love of ecodyeing.  There's magic and knowledge in their Latin taxonomic names - Solidago canadensis; Solidago virgaurea; Solidago spp and the clues names give to the properties of and even colours hidden in the plants.

Even if you only mutter them as a mantra to keep your brain stimulated and give you another tool of knowledge. Especially if like me, you have no Latin!!!!

India has a comprehensive section on pgs 49 - 64 labelled

 "Some Traditional Dye Materials". 

It's a great resource and she has included the common names and parts used.

in my own back yard

Tibouchina urvilleana

fresh leaves lying face down on merino and lyrca mix

once the leaves are peeled off



overview of the whole piece showing the depth and variation of colours



detail of print on merino lycra mix in the almost spent woad dye bath

 Amazing what you can find in your own back yard.