slowly she turned

Living the Slow life in North Carolina

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  • Making paper from denim scraps, part I

    I’ve been pretty bummed out about Fred and jealous of my friend Susanne, who spent her spring break marbling paper at my house while I dealt with April craziness at work last week. When the weekend got here I played in my studio until I triggered carpal tunnel in my right hand again. Can’t blame anybody but me for that one. I knew I was overdoing it but I wanted to get as many denim scraps cut up fine as I could to make paper pulp in Susanne’s “Critter” on Sunday. It’s going to make beautiful paper once my nerve endings get back to normal. Right now it is in buckets in my back yard. I am chompin’ at the bit to get back to creating and I find it very frustrating to be stopped in the middle of a roll like this, especially when I’m trying to distract myself from depression.

    ^^^Susanne Martin’s marbled paper


    ^^^Denim trimmings and threads that unraveled from the cloth strips I’m weaving together for a picnic blanket.

    ^^^Adding cotton linter pieces and stirring until the Critter started circulating the pulp on its own. Fabulous little machine.


    ^^^Later this week I hope to show you this stuff in the form of beautiful blue handmade paper.


    ^^^Planted these lettuce seedlings at the front steps this year. We are having a late frost so I’m glad that I haven’t planted anything else. I’m going to plant my butterbeans and field peas next to the fence again in a couple of weeks.

    ^^^A sweet shot of Theo, trying to charm me into letting him sleep on my pillow, preferably on my face.

  • Latest photos from Lake Waccamaw

    I didn’t get a photo of either pileated woodpecker that I watched while I was there, but I now know that the “wild laughter” I heard came from them, not loons. It rained most of the time we were there. We said goodbye to Fred on Monday and I sent a piece of driftwood and a duck feather from the lake with him.

    ^^^The bones of the tree that I am weaving. I seldom see it bare.

    ^^^A melancholy evening in bed.

    ^^^The Easter Gator.

    ^^^A reminder that persistence pays off.

  • Lake Waccamaw

    Below is a post from 2005. It was mentioned in Fred’s memorial service today so I reposted it. But, I suggest that you look at the comments at the bottom of the original post for some of the best insights and memories of Fred from his friends. Rest in peace, Fred. You were loved greatly.

    Laurie's avatarslowly she turned

    My cousin owns a beautiful place on Lake Waccamaw, where a house that my grandfather built in 1952 stands next to a sandy beach under bald cypresses. Across the road from the house is a canal where alligators swim and sweet bays grow wild.

    Lake Waccamaw is a natural lake with some species that don’t exist anywhere else in the world. Its origin, along with the other smaller Carolina Bay lakes, has been a subject of much research and speculation. The theory that the lakes are fed by artisian springs makes a lot of sense to me, since this property boasts one of the few artisian wells on Lake Waccamaw. The water rises through an old pipe and is icy cold and clear.

    Thank God the alligators don’t seem to have any interest in the lake. That’s probably because it is sandy and clear (at least in front of…

    View original post 780 more words

  • Saturday Morning Coffee Pot Post at Lake Waccamaw


    Sitting on the old glider on the screened back porch of my cousin Fred’s house, one of my favorite places in the world to be. Although we could have stayed at my sister’s house down the road, which is much, much nicer, we chose to come here this weekend because we have such an affinity for this place. I’ve been coming here all my life, and Sandy and I spent our wedding night here almost 29 years ago. I can’t count the number of nights I have spent in this house. It is well into the hundreds, I’m sure.

    Fred left this earth on the day that we came down here. He was our only living cousin on my father’s side, and was more like a brother than a cousin. My sister was closest in age to him and loved him dearly. She is trying to decide if she will be able to speak at his service on Monday.

    He had been in Hospice for more than a year, so his suffering was great. His wife is an angel.

    I don’t know what will happen to this place.

    The birds are amazing here. So many songbirds, many different water fowl. The mornings are filled with the chirps, chitters, knocks, squawks, and melodies of more variety than I’ve ever heard anywhere else. We have heard the wild laughter of loons as they prepare to fly north.

    Today my brother will come for a family Easter dinner, and we will hang out on the pier at my sister’s house and share memories of Fred.

    I have collected a wealth of driftwood and other objects for a new Lake weaving, and there will be many photographs uploaded later when I have a better Internet connection. In the meantime, I am going to enjoy the rest of this pot of coffee looking out at the lake, and the bones of my favorite tree who is still undressed from the winter, and do a bit of stitching in time with the music of the birds.

  • Bold Moon Nature Preserve

    A rainy late winter afternoon walk at Bold Moon Nature Preserve near McLeansville, North Carolina. Again, I focused on the little things, especially moss and fungi.

    I last visited Bold Moon Nature Preserve in October 2012, when its meadows were covered in goldenrod. Now Bold Moon is officially part of the Guilford County Open Space program, maintained by the Piedmont Plateau group of the Sierra Club, and UNCG has been active in doing projects there.

  • Denim blanket progress

    I started saving old jeans and other denim several years ago because I wanted to make a rugged blanket that I could put down on the ground and play on outside. Then I discovered Jude Hill’s wonderful art site and learned about some of her ideas for design and stitching cloth together. What really rang my chimes as a weaver was weaving strips of cloth together. It is a very soothing activity for me, and I learned to let myself stitch without judgement, learned that I could follow my nose or wherever the cloth seemed to lead, and use thread and cloth in the same kind of manner as I might have used a brush and paint. I’ve not been in a hurry. It has truly been a therapeutic process.

    This project feels good in part because I tend to fall in love with my jeans. I remember journeys taken in them. I still wear the pair that I wore most of the time in Ireland and it will eventually go into some kind of patchwork or weaving. I can recognize strips of favorite jeans from years ago. This blanket is about memories. If there are stains or paint on the strips, I get really happy.

    If I mess up, that’s an opportunity to bring in another patch or stitching. So, no pressure. Just play. Of course you can do this with any kind of cloth. I have a stack of cloth woven blocks that I hand-stitched with much lighter fabrics. Some of those might end up attached to this blanket for a splash of color.

    Since Winter seems to have made an early exit, I decided to make some more panels for the denim blanket and maybe get it ready for the nice weather outside. Now I have a big table in my little studio at the church and I don’t have to fight the cats off of it or worry about them swallowing the threads that come off the ragged edges. I love doing this so much that I can easily lose a couple of hours before I suddenly realize that it is dark and creepy up there by myself and I reluctantly go home.

    Jude Hill made an enormous amount of information and tutorials for which she used to charge (and it was well worth the money, believe me) for FREE. It would be nice if you gave her a donation for her hard work and generosity, though. This URL for the free tutorials may change soon, but you can access them on Jude’s website, Spirit Cloth.

  • Transitioning

    Welp. I came to a decision late last night, something that I’ve been mulling over for quite some time. I have such a love/hate relationship with Facebook. On one hand, it has connected me with old friends and new friends and artists all over the world who I would have never connected without it. But I found myself wasting an enormous amount of time and getting angry with politics and it just wasn’t healthy. I can’t simply get off Facebook. I admin on FB for work and I didn’t want to lose my artist page.

    Today I spent several hours creating a new email account, a new Facebook account, adding my new account as admin, inviting my friends to my artist page, and joining the groups that I want to keep. Tomorrow I will deactivate or delete my old account.

    Addiction, be gone.

    Also, Sandy set up this old laptop for me and so far it is working pretty well. I hope to be blogging more after this and doing more artwork with my computer instead of playing games and arguing politics.

    I’m not sure that I will be able to stay off Facebook as much as I’d like, but this is a good start in that direction.

    There is a feed from this blog to my Facebook page, Slow Turn Studio. See the sidebar.

    Now, off to the studio. I’ve been having great fun with my sewing machine.

  • Spring Break

    After a lot of coughing, sneezing, and whimpering, it feels like life is turning back to normal again. I was in super-busy mode at work and met the deadlines I needed to on Friday. It’s still busy, but much more manageable.


    It’s hard to believe that Diego and Pablocito have grown into such big adults. Especially Diego, who I sometimes call “Bruiser” now, because he is not very nice to the other cats. He and Pablocito still play, but you can tell that Pablocito is wary of him. Theo despises him, for good reason, and will hiss at him if he prances up to him. Diego is a buttkicker and a bully, and he likes to cuddle up to me. He has managed to get the bedroom door open two nights recently by pawing at the doorknob and pushing on the door. I don’t think that this is a good development. I love my bad boy, though.


    Pablocito is kind of puppy-like – good natured and playful, but isn’t really interested in being a lapcat just yet. Theo will actually initiate a little play with him but Pablo always wins and Theo is not trustful of him if it is Pablo’s idea to play. Pablocito likes to ambush people (and other cats), especially if it is one of his humans trying to go out the front door. The other day he jumped on my shoulders when I was trying to ignore him. Pablocito doesn’t like to be ignored, and he will tell you so very loudly.


    I don’t have a recent photo of Theo, but he is doing pretty well for a 15 year old tomcat trying to hold his own with two young adult toms. I think that he missed Lucy for a while. It is obvious now that she was grooming him because his fur is not as clean as it used to be. He yowls sometimes, but he gets lots of attention.

    I’ve caught up on the part of Cathedral that I unwove back in January. I have it to work on at home and I go to my studio at the church to work on other projects or just journal and relax, mostly on Sundays. It is a little bit creepy being there alone at night so if I go during the week, I try to leave before it gets too dark. Yesterday I finished hemming and backing the two small Sitka pine tapestries from last year, and I’m thinking about making them book covers.


    It’s still fun to play with cloth strip weaving, and I still plan to make my blanket of mostly denim. I’m just really getting cranked up there.

    A new fun toy came in the mail from India Flint the other day, wrapped in a scrap of her eco-dyed fabric. Wandercards! They have ideas and prompts on them, and there is a deck of blank cards for dyeing also. Maybe I’ll do some bundles the next time I go to Lake Waccamaw. That would be fun and there is a wealth of leaves that would be perfect for direct printing on cloth.

    Finally, I’m beginning to get excited about our big trip in May, only about ten weeks away! Sandy and I are going to fly to Minneapolis where we are going to take Amtrak to Portland, stopping at Glacier National Park for a couple of nights on our way. Then we will explore Oregon and Washington State by car, stopping at Pam’s cabin near Cannon Beach for a tapestry retreat. Something nice to look forward to on days when work is a whirlwind and politics makes me want to scream.

  • Pocosin Arts Cabin Fever Reliever

    I spent a few days last week at Pocosin Arts Center in Columbia, North Carolina. My friend Susanne, who was involved with them when she lived in the area, scooped me up and took me to a four day class with Daniel Essig, “The Altered Mica Book.”

    Dan Essig is one of my favorite artists and I’ve taken three other classes from him. If I lived a little closer to him I’d probably bug the crap out of him all the time. It’s good to catch him in North Carolina, and his classes fill quickly. He and I connect on the “cabinet of curiosities” type work. I love searching for quirky or even ordinary objects and squirreling them away for my own little museum. Maybe I should have been a Victorian. My house is full of pebbles and shells and feathers and sticks.

    We stayed with some artist friends of Susanne’s whose house was on the Albemarle Sound. It was filled with art and antiques and musical instruments and books. Piles of patchwork blankets for the beds, of which Carol said that she made one per year. We didn’t get to spend much time there, but this was a special place and Carol and I would be good hangout all the time buddies if we had a chance, I could tell.


    Susanne and I took a lunchtime walk on the riverwalk at the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge center in Columbia on the Scuppernong River on the first day, where we saw a pileated woodpecker. That gave me a focus for my book in the workshop. My work almost always has a theme around place, and so I gathered stuff from the boardwalks and the bushes and the grounds and the refuge center to compose a book about the refuge, with Woody as the main character.

    In the evenings, we gathered for a happy hour in the center’s gallery and then joined the other attendees at the Old Salt Oyster Bar down the street. We didn’t buy the meal plan for the retreat in an effort to save money, but their buffet looked delicious. We ordered off the menu and ate at the bar. I have to say that their gumbo was incredibly rich, some of the best I’ve ever eaten. The fried oysters were cooked perfectly, crispy, plump, and juicy. If you are planning to vacation near the Outer Banks and go down Hwy 64 to Manteo through Columbia, you should definitely give this restaurant a visit.

    Here are some shots of the workshop and the books we made. We worked on them right up to the last minute and took home supplies to keep going. Dan’s workshops always leave me inspired and more skilled – if you are seriously into book art, I highly recommend that you study under him.

    Each of us made a small book bound on an accordion fold to teach coptic stitch and to experiment in.

    Some of my mica pages, pre binding. It is difficult to photograph mica! I still haven’t gotten a successful photo of my favorite page with the bee, cicada, and snail shell encased in windows.

    Covers: We played with power drills and woodburning and nails and hammers and chisels and glue and paint and shoe wax and wire and ink. Fun stuff.

    I want to call this guy Senor Seagull for some reason. Maybe Don Seagull?

    <

    Old thesaurus pages were in the background of several pages. I tried to pick the words carefully.

    Anyway, I would like to go back to this retreat next year if possible. It’s at a bad time of year for me, though. I managed to get things done to take a couple of days off, work overtime ahead of time, all that, then I came back sick as a dawg and was home from work for another three days. Thankfully I’m recovering now and will get back into my studio this weekend, because I’m full of sweet inspiration.

    Oh, and by the way, this blog will celebrate its eleventh birthday tomorrow. How about that!!!

  • Saturday Morning Coffee Pot Post

    A series where I write about whatever pops into my brain as I drink a little pot of coffee.

    I have yet to get a working laptop so the blog posts have been put on the back burner for now. My husband got me a used laptop for free, but I can’t log in on it. So, when I say that I don’t have a laptop, he says, but I got you a laptop!!! and I say but I might as well not have a laptop because I CAN’T USE IT, and he says, oh yeah, I’m going to fix that, and weeks later I still don’t have a laptop that I can use.

    Anyway, (and there I hear my mother’s voice again, since she began many sentences with “anyway”) I have had something of a breakthrough emotionally. I went through a hard slog with the constant toothache and then I pulled a muscle in my chest which felt like I was having a heart attack and then my grand-nephew’s father died, which was tragic and put much of my life back in perspective. I went to my GP practice twice to get my heart tested, finally got a new prescription for anxiety meds and the go-ahead to begin the slow switch from my current anti-depressant. I had the long overdue root canal, which was really not much worse than having a tooth filled, and I didn’t need a new crown, thank God. Now I go to a cardiologist next month for a follow up, but I don’t think that anything is majorly wrong. I have palpitations that I think is due to anxiety and my current meds, so the problem is being worked out. The problem with my friend was resolved with a bit of honest talk and humor, and I’m dealing with work issues with a much better attitude.

    YAY.

    Today is supposed to be very cold, so I canceled my plan to go hiking and I am going to get my hair cut as soon as I finish my coffee. Nothing fancy, just take off about six inches. I am tired of looking like Kim Davis and I am giving up on the goal to grow it long enough to donate to Locks of Love. I did that regularly back in the 90s and the 00s but it has gotten much curlier (and frizzier) since I went through menopause.

    After my haircut, I am going to fire up the woodstove and sit down to weave on Cathedral. Pam gave me some good feedback from afar and I have unwoven a section and will weave it according to her instructions. It is good to have a mentor. If we are closed for weather on Monday, I’ll work on Cathedral again.

    Tomorrow I’ll go to my studio at the Church of the Covenant, where I have finally finished moving my supplies for fabric art and bookbinding and journaling and collage. I have been going over there every other evening or so and worked on organizing and I’ve been journaling for the first time in years. Friends join me on Sunday afternoons and it is one of the highlights of my week now. I love my little studio! Now the main task is to pick a project to focus on. That’s a toughie. Maybe the clothwoven denim blanket, while it is still cold weather.

    I’ll add photos later this week.

    Off to get my locks chopped off.