slowly she turned

Given that I have already been across the country twice this year already to wonderful art retreats, and spent a wonderful week at Sunset Beach, and we had the expense of the new HVAC system early this summer, I should not in any way, shape, or form feel deprived when I say that I am going to skip Journalfest this year. But I do. I yearn for it.

I took a quiz about happiness lately that identified the period before a vacation as the happiest time because of the anticipation. Makes sense to me. Doesn’t work well with the whole “be here now” philosophy, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not there, bugging me, asking me, okay, where to next, boss?

I’m considering the Newport Paper Arts Festival in Newport, Oregon, mainly because it’s an excuse to go back to Oregon with the added bonus of being in a beach town, and connect again with my awesome friend Judy. However, the information for this event hasn’t been posted yet, and it is at a time of year that is not so good for me.

To scratch my itch a little, I signed up for a shibori class in Asheville, which is a three hour drive away. I’ve wanted to take a class at Cloth Fiber Workshop, as well as at BookWorks, both in Asheville. Sandy loves Asheville so we might make a weekend of it. But he’ll have to spend Saturday on his own.

There are some interesting looking basketry classes there too, but I’m probably pushing it physically with the dyebath pots as it is.

Sometimes I get searches about “how to weave a hat” based on my posts from a hat-weaving class at John C. Campbell Folk School a few years ago. If you are here looking for a class, I noticed that Jan Stansel is offering a weekend class there in hat making next year. Go to the JCCFC site for more information. You’ll enjoy this class – I think that everyone in my week-long class with her was very happy, and she doesn’t teach it often.

It is time once again to present sentences from descriptions of Google results for “slowly she turned.”

“Slowly, she turned and lifted her eyes to Remus, who looked shocked and angry and not a little bit aroused. He quirked his eyebrows at her in question,”

“Slowly she turned and walked towards the holodeck doors. Over her shoulder, she said, “Let me know when you want to collect.””

“Slowly she turned to face him. “I know that… but I also know what I felt.”

“Slowly, she turned on the spot and faced him, mouth slightly agape while her eyes glowed in confusion.”

“Slowly she turned. He had thrown his cape over his shoulders. She saw suffering in every…”

“Slowly, she turned around, frowning in confusion. “Why do you say that?””

“Yet slowly she turned and looked up at her captor, straining to see the features hidden within the hooded cowl of the man’s mantle, but it was too dark.”

“Then, equally slowly, she turned. “That,” she said in a low, sweet voice, “was a dirty trick.”

Listening to the live stream of the Newport Folk Festival today, as bread baking is happening in the kitchen for the first time in a long, long time. I stopped trying to knead bread a long time ago, but I did discover that my old bread machine does a decent job of mixing, kneading, and sending the dough through the first rise, which is basically all I need. I put the ingredients in, set it on dough cycle, then take it out, put it in a oiled bowl, let it rise again, then put it either in pans or on a baking sheet, let it rise again, and then bake it in the oven. For a little while I baked directly on some thin brick tiles I lined the oven rack with, but I got fussed at about the possibility of chemicals in the bricks, so I don’t do that any more.

What I am miffed at myself about is that I put in a good bit of effort in grating apples and carrots for some quick breads to bake while the yeast bread is doing its thang. At some point I turned the oven off when I realized it was taking me longer than I figured to make up the dough. Then I put the loaves in the oven without turning the oven back on. So now it’s rather tricky. I put them in for 30 minutes more with the oven turned back on, and I hope for the best because these loaves are for the reception at Elements Gallery next Friday night. I am NOT grating apples and carrots again.

We are hoping to get some rain today, but so far it seems to be going around us. I picked lots of figs yesterday. Early in the morning I covered my body as much as I could and pulled as many weeds as I could before the sweating started and attracted the mosquitoes to my face and hands. It is a downward cycle in the summer. The more mosquitoes, the harder it is to keep the weeds and vines down. The more weeds and vines, the more mosquitoes. It is much worse this year because I was not able to do the mulching and clipping that I normally do in the spring.

Right now, I’m just stitching back the seams of the old patchwork squares, with the idea of cutting them into strips and either weaving them or doing a striped square with some solid color stripes in there to offset the multicolor stripes. Not ready to photo and post for a while.

Tomorrow night and Saturday I will be gallery sitting at Elements Gallery, and if it is anything like the last time I staffed the gallery on a non-First Friday night I will have time to browse the Internet and stitch. Come visit me if you are downtown. The gallery hosts a wonderful variety of artists.

I think that this texture photo from a wall on UNCG’s campus would look interesting as a stitched design.

Ah, well. I said that I was going to start blogging every day, except for vacation, and here I’m back and I’ve already skipped a day. So glad that nothing is set in stone.

I’m feeling pretty down. Don’t know if it is politics, which I really need to stop reading about, or health, since I’m having some problems, or post-vacation blues. Usually I have some art retreat lined up to look forward to and I don’t right now. Since I am so big on living in the present, I hate to think that might be it, but there you go. I feel indecisive and very tired.

I’m going to put together a stitchery bag tonight to carry with me for spare moments and hopefully the next post will find me in better spirits with something to show. I think that it is time to get out those onionskin dyed cotton fabrics that I dyed this past Christmas. Weaving strips of cloth is very satisfying and comforting to me.

Here’s a texture and line photo for you: