Three group members have worked on the group rug so far.  It's great fun to watch it come to life.  I look forward to a second round of working on it at some point.  Can't wait to see how it develops over the summer and fall.

One of the rug groups I'm in has decided to take on this pattern as a group project.  Meaning, everyone in the group will work on this piece.  Everyone will add a few colors of their own.  Everyone will add their own touch as they hook.  It's the perfect rug to use up scraps.

One of our members kindly got us started, and I'm the 2nd person to begin to work on it.  I've added some beading, thrown a few colors into the circles (I'll be adding more scattered around the rug before I pass it on), and my goal now is to finish the boring black inner & outer borders so that others can focus more on the fun scrappy circles.  On Tuesday it'll be my turn to pass  it on to the next person.  I can't wait to see how this shapes up!

The rug up above is only the second "group effort" rug I've worked on. 

The other one, on the left, I designed myself 15 years ago.  My rug group from that era all worked on it; it was made for one of our members whose family had been traumatized by a violent crime.  She and her family were so badly traumatized I sense it's likely that after we gave her the rug, she rolled it up and put it away as it may have been too much to look at just then--a visible reminder of their terrible loss.

Still, I don't care if it ever sees the light of day as she would certainly have understood the love and effort that went into its making, and I know she would have been comforted by that care.   I don't believe I've ever shown it anywhere before.  Each hooked hand belongs to one of the members of our former group--we all wanted to reach out and send our rug hooking sister love and comfort.

This is what I appreciate about group efforts--when we come together to make something for someone, there is love and kindness present.  Everyone works together.  Everyone cares enough to add a piece of their heart.  And all the pieces work together to form the whole.

A single arrow is easily broken, but not ten in a bundle. - Proverb

And now it's 2 days later, and I'm about to pass this rug on to the next person to work on.  I'd hoped to get the outer border done but ran out of the black wool--more is on the way.  I added lines to the inner circles.  I worked on it all morning today, and wonder what the next person will do.

Although I could be writing about this for days, I will refrain and restrict myself to some (not all!) photos I took of this amazing exhibit at the Southern Vermont Arts Center in Manchester Vermont this week.  Alas, it leaves Vermont on Sunday.

A friend asked me whether I'd seen it.  I didn't even know what she was talking about, so she filled me in and I researched what it was/why it was made and knew I had to go to see it.  I am so happy I did, and I urge you to as well.  To better understand what it is about, go to https://reddressembroidery.com/ and prepare to be very, very moved by what you see and read.

Meanwhile, here are more photos from the exhibit.

I hope you are interested enough to click on the URL I gave above and read about the intent of this amazing project.  Enjoy.  Many children also added their embroidery to the piece, including some little boys.  And as I mentioned above, around 7 to 9 of the 380 embroiderers were men.  The Red Dress is gradually being brought back to the 51 countries, to the people who worked on it, so that all may enjoy the completed piece.  Many of the women who've worked on it will get to try it on and be photgraphed in it.  I've seen some of the photos and they are incredibly empowering.

Well not really good enough to eat, unless you enjoy a mouthful of wool?

This morning I went looking for some sock/fingering weight yarn for my next punch needle embroidery project and what should I happen upon but this hugely expensive, luscious-looking hand-dyed skein.  I'll be building my next textile piece around the colors in this yarn.  Plus a few other colors.  Stay tuned.  I hope to be back to full speed soon, with more rug hooking, rug punching, yarn dyeing, drawing, and who knows, perhaps even some beadwork.

I don't own undyed yarn in this weight, so I can't dye any myself.  This gives me a great excuse to stand in the yarn store and drool over what other people create, and then buy some.  Hey, anything to buy more yarn, right?  I will file this under the inspirational category, Other People's Work.  Gorgeous!

How gorgeous is this?  I'm so proud to say I know the woman who designed and made it.
pgarbarino.com/
Paula Garbarino, Fine Furniture Maker

Two views of the same luscious hearth-rug designed, dyed, and hand-punched by my buddy AE. 

You haven't lived until you've sunk your toes into a hand-punched rug.  So luxurious.

I would love to say "I taught her," but it just ain't true.  I spent about half a minute several years back showing her how to punch and ditto showing her how to dye wool (yarn).  She already had killer textile instincts in other media, and with basically no instruction developed her own style and vision.  Now I feel like I'd recognize her work anywhere, and she's far surpassed me in her dyeing skills.  Really beautiful work here.  She also weaves, sews, embroiders, beads, and draws.  Some folks just have the gift!

Just this.

A quote from one of my most beloved poets.

Early Morning, My Birthday
by Mary Oliver
                                                                       4.
The snails on the pink sleds of their bodies are moving among the morning glories.
The spider is asleep among the red thumbs of the raspberries.
What shall I do, what shall I do?
The rain is slow.
The little birds are alive in it.
Even the beetles.
The green leaves lap it up.
What shall I do, what shall I do?
The wasp sits on the porch of her paper castle.
The blue heron floats out of the clouds.
The fish leap, all rainbow and mouth, from the dark water.
This morning the water lilies are no less lovely, I think, than the lilies of Monet.
And I do not want anymore to be useful, to be docile, to lead children out of the fields into the text
of civility to teach them that they are (they are not) better than the grass.

Today more than a hundred CZTs from around the globe gathered online with CZTs in Singapore to do an hour-long meditative tile on behalf of those who have suffered from Covid-19. 

These were the same CZTs who last year donated $10K US and this year donated $12K US to Covid relief efforts as a result of their two very successful and well-run schools for tanglers.

What I loved about doing it, though, was that 3 or 4 different CZTs from the other side of the globe led us all through an hour-long meditation in which, as we drew, we focused our compassionate attention on anyone who has suffered from Covid.  They did a superb job leading the meditation.  I so admire the structure they've created to support humanitarian efforts.  Thanks!

And now for the tiny treasure.  Yesterday I went to my local bead-and-jewelry-repair shop to get my watch battery replaced.  While waiting, I spotted this wooden box, which is no more than about 1 1/2" square.  With what appears to be a tangled Turtle on top.

In fact the box is so small I had to take a picture and enlarge the photo in order to see the fine detail on the turtle, which just blew me away.  The top of the box slides off so smoothly it's just a marvel of craftsmanship.  It's so small that I cannot imagine what to put inside. 

This continent was originally called Turtle Island by the First Nations People, and I still call it that.  I am very fond of turtles and simply couldn't resist this tiny masterpiece.

And this leads us right back to the meditative nature of the turtle:

Let's face it:  I just don't have the photographic skills to do justice to the spring colors outside right now.  The crystalline sunlight.  The intensely clear blue sky.  And the spring flowers!  Oh my--absolutely no way to capture those colors.  Crocuses everywhere, and squill all around them.  I'm no gardener, alas, but I walk by this lovely garden every day:

It makes my heart smile to see these small flowery gifts rising from the soil after such a very, very grim winter.  Indeed, after this winter, I feel lucky to be alive to see these gifts from the earth coming back to us.

Yesterday I did some wool dyeing in order to finish the rug I've been working on for months.  Because I'm doing a major revision on this rug, I've been pulling out one color and substituting another--a color I hadn't planned on and so I ran out of it.  Thus it was back to the dyepots.  I surprised myself by getting an exact match.  It reminds me of the purple crocuses, even though it needed to be grayed down for the rug.

A VERY grayed-down lavender.  But, it'll work!  Onward to finishing the rug.

                                                        And WELCOME SPRING.

Yes, it really looks this way. 

This exquisite photograph of the Grand Canyon at Sunset was taken on the Martin Luther King Holiday, 2021, by Michael Quinn, a fabulous National Park Service photographer who has lived at the Canyon forever. 

I think it speaks to his heart.

It certainly speaks to mine.

This was the scene as I took a walk this morning.  I do not live on a mountain, but this reminded me of one of my favorite instrumentals, Foggy Mountain Breakdown.

Such a lovely morning, and then in the afternoon, there was the sun and relative warmth.

Meanwhile, a good friend send me a greeting card I well remember from buying some of these myself in the 1980s.  I haven't seen them in years and loved getting this.  There was a whole series of these cards, based on flowers and vegetables.  Here is the lovely Eggplant Deva, painted by Azra Simonetti circa 1986.

Ah, here it is.  The prime example of Don't-know Mind, that shocking moment of extreme uncertainty.  I write this the day after the election, during a time when we still don't know the results. 

Here we sit. 

It's not comfortable.  But that is the truth of this moment. 

Even once a decision is clear, we still will not know what happens next.  In fact, we never can know what happens next.  We are always in Don't-know Mind; it's simply more obvious today than usual.  Since we are wired to prefer certainty, it's so much more convenient to ignore the reality that Don't-know Mind is our continuous state. 

Another thing I don't know :  who stained or painted the small square of watercolor paper I used to tangle on last night.  To whomever you are:  thank you.  The staining was faint but spread in lovely fashion across the paper and provided a wonderful smear-y background for linework and bits of color that I added.  I like the way the original background spreads out beyond the border here.

I rarely do either of these tangles, so every line on this square is a product of Don't-know Mind.

Thank goodness for Zentangle®, which is amazingly relaxing, even in the most uncertain times.

And I don't know who did make it, but I love it.  Someone showed me this sign today.

A sentence to live by, on so many levels.

 
I am in love with the London Drawing Group, a trio of women dedicated to doing and teaching art.  When I saw this workshop on Matisse's cutouts--only £7 or about eleven bucks, and only 1 hour--I thought, what a great way to stimulate creativity.  So I signed up and had an absolute blast.  We made a number of cutouts in only 60 minutes, only a few of which I used for this photo.  Here's the black and white version from my phone before I ran it through the Painnt app posted above this paragraph:

But I wasn't alone in attending.  There were people from all over the globe.  Two of them were good friends from my rug hooking groups--I had contacted them to tip them off in advance to the workshop and they both signed up.  We all knew it would have immediate uses for rug design.  And it certainly did.

Here is the work of one of my buddies, Kathleen K., who also attended.  Rather than cutting paper, she cut her shapes directly from wool fabric.  I love her results.  She gave me permission to post this:

And below is the contribution from Lynda F, another rug hooking buddy who also gave me permission to use her photo:

"I wouldn't mind turning into a vermilion goldfish."
-Henri Matisse

This lovely lovely mirror (with a portion of mirror part papered over to minimize distraction) was designed and made by a much-adored and longtime friend of mine, Paula Garbarino.  The inscription, "Il faut fertiliser notre jardin," can be translated to mean, "We must pollinate our garden."  Thus the honeybees, a favorite of mine. 

That sentiment can be taken on so many levels.  The garden of friendship.  The garden of kindness.  The garden of interconnectedness with each other.  The garden of the Earth itself.  We all need to pollinate, to tend, and to care for each other and for the Earth. 

We all know how hardworking a honeybee is.  Indeed it often takes a lot of work to tend and care for each other, especially at a troubled, stressful time like the time we are in now.

Normally Paula designs and makes fine-art furniture, and marquetry--a form of "painting with wood," is one of her specialties.  She has been at it for decades and I hope you'll take time to go to her website and browse her luscious designs in the photo gallery there.  Her work has been displayed in museums and is owned and collected by numerous people.

She does not normally make small pieces like this, though she has made a few.  This mirror, about 17x10", showed up unannounced in my mail as a gift about two weeks ago and it took me a while to determine a place in my home to hang it so that I could see it frequently every day. 

I am one very lucky friend indeed.  Much gratitude to Paula.  You are yourself quite like a honeybee--incredibly hardworking, kind, and of course, always building something oh-so-sweet.

The final photos from Deerfield's (MA) Memorial Hall Museum.  Enjoy.  See the previous 5 posts for the rest. 

This post has some additional textiles and some non-textile surprises.

More photos from the recent show which included pieces from their permanent collection, at the Memorial Hall Museum in Deerfield, MA.


See the previous four posts for more goodies.

I'm pretty sure this was called "The Last Rose of Summer," and is in their permanent collection.  Embroidered.

Beautiful textiles from Deerfield's Memorial Hall Museum continued.  This is the fourth installment--and there will be at least two, possibly three more.

And, here we go with more wonderful textiles and other goodies from Deerfield's Memorial Hall Museum.  Some are particular to this exhibit which I think is over by 8/31 but others (most of these today, I think) are part of their permanent collection.

If you want to see the first two posts I did on this, they are from yesterday and the day before.

Last--and very definitely least (by comparison), here is my own bedspread.  It's mass-produced and frankly, cheap.  But when I was making my bed this morning, in between working on this blog post, I suddenly "saw" it for what it is--a pale imitation of these blue and white Deerfield embroideries that I've admired for decades!  And I never even made the association before.  DUH! 

It gave me a huge laugh.

Stay tuned for more Deerfield treats over the next few days.  I look a LOT of photos.

A lotta cats copy the Mona Lisa, but people still line up to see the original.
--Louis Armstrong

More from the Memorial Museum's current exhibit in Deerfield MA.  For the start of this series, see the previous post.

Last week I saw some truly lovely textiles at the Deerfield Memorial Museum.  Here's a small portion of what I saw.  I'll post more when I can.

I am heartbroken over losing a good friend to COVID 19.  She had a long, gruesome struggle and it's finally over.  At some point about two weeks ago it became obvious that she was too damaged to come back to us, but the struggle went on.  And on.  And on.  Horrible.   She finally died last week and I have to say I was relieved on her behalf.  Now the grief sets in. 

But, there are still plenty of other wonderful people in the world.  One in particular--my 97 year old next door neighbor--called me last evening and told me she wanted me to come over to her property and cut myself a bouquet of her lilacs, "Since you don't have any on your land."  I went over this morning and did just that.  She even loaned me her garden shears.  I adore her, and she has absolutely no idea that I just lost a friend.  But somehow, she reached out anyway.  It just made my entire day.

You can imagine--I hope--the fabulous scent spreading through my home from her marvelous lilacs.  Thank you, Erm!  Kindness makes all the difference.

I've learned that people will forget what you said; people will forget what you did; but people will never forget how you made them feel.
--Maya Angelou

This is indeed a silent spring, though not entirely in the way Rachel Carson envisioned in her book.  I mean the term literally:  traffic is down, people are staying in their homes, all due to Covid 19.  It's very quiet out there.  For all the suffering and misery it is causing, and the fear, the few benefits from this pandemic experience are mighty:  the lowering of air pollution, the increased awareness of our interconnection with others.  New appreciation for nature as many people are getting out on walks, not to mention sleeping longer, spending more time with kids and pets.

In honor of that I include two photos friends have sent me, of two marvelous harbingers of spring.

I always enjoy these wonderful reminders of Spring when I see them in the woods.  This year for a number of reasons I won't be in the woods, so it was lovely to get the photographs.

Yesterday I got a small package with something I had ordered from Etsy.  Inside were the things I had ordered, along with a slip of paper I found utterly charming:

What a fun message.  And I'm sure it's true. 

If you, like me, are "Staying Home to Save Lives" during this pandemic, and if you're ordering things online I hope you'll consider buying from a small business when that is possible.  You know they need the help.

(And no, I do not sell online.  But I do like to buy from small businesses when I can.)

Two years ago I started hearing about this show, which is only run every other year.

Because I was sick, I missed the 2017 show and was determined to get to this one.  I made it to Vermont today and am glad I did.  This show is held at the Pompanoosuc Mills home base in Vermont, a gigantic workshop building where their signature furniture is made and the location of their flagship showroom. 

Why a rug & fiber show there?  Because Ed O'Keeffe, the Showroom and Web Manager, is also a rug hooking artist.  Ed teamed up with Jennifer Davey, another rug hooking artist and a past president of the Green Mountain Rug Hooking Guild (GMRHG), to mount this show on an "off-year" from the big show that is put on biannually by GMRHG.  Because the Pompy showroom is simply immense, there is a lot of wall space.  It's the perfect place to hang rugs!  And hang they did--check out these wonderful pieces below.  Note that I did not get pictures of all the rugs, only about half of the ones on display.

I should add here that all these rugs came from the talented members of the Green Mountain Rug Hooking Guild.  I'm thinking that Jennifer and Ed selected them from the Guild's bi-annual show and curated them for this display.

Another of Dana's astounding rugs, Red Riding Hood, was also on display here, but I have already dedicated an entire previous blog post to Dana. Her Red Riding Hood rug is so spectacular that an Australian rug maker did a blog post on it that's in-depth and quite good.  Don't miss it!  You can find it HERE.  And to see more of Dana's work, check my previous post about her HERE.

Despite these many photos, there were at least as many, if not more, rugs and wall hangings on display (and of course, the beautiful furniture everywhere as well).  If you are in the area, this show is well worth a visit. 

Details on how to get there and the duration of the show are on the postcard at the top of this post.  Enjoy!

My form of church, that is. 

I left very early today to meet a friend and fellow textile artist on a rural road 45 minutes from my home.  Each with rugs in tow.  Our goal was to drape the rugs we brought over the stone wall that looks over a meadow and then down, down, down into a huge reservoir (part of which is just barely visible over the tops of the trees and under the surrounding hills) and get a decent photo.  I ran the resulting picture thru an iPhone app and got this.  I'm pleased.  It's a mix of a few of my rugs and a few of her rugs. 

This picture describes my spiritual life--the natural world plus a meditative form of craft such as traditional rug hooking.  

The light, the earth, the stones, the colors, the sun, the clouds, the wind, the water, the trees, the hills. 

I can't think of a better place to be on a Sunday morning in the autumn.

“The sun shines not on us but in us.”
― John Muir