scrimmage vitiate script

Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier'n 

puttin' it  back.

My old friend Teddy sent me this SPECTACULAR ring today-  or the picture of it.  A three piecer, tail, body and acorn.  How cool is that?  So, who's going to buy it for me just for the hell of it?  Hmm.  That's kind of what i thought.

Another whole day in the studio trying to make up for time lost these past two weeks.  I did manage to get a few things done-  I got the photo scanner working with no trouble at all, simply had to start over installing it after it's brush with death over the summer.  And the big news is after two days of searching I found the one missing slide driving me crazy.  Yesterday I looked through all my slide books and envelopes in the studio, last night I scoured drawers where slides have been known to lurk, and this morning, after a questionable dream, I found a tray of old family slides and there it was in a box of baby pictures.  I don't even know who the babies were-  could be me or my brother, perhaps cousins, maybe my own kids.  I was in too much of a frenzy to project them.  I'm saving that job for what I'm put on bedrest.

So, phew.  Here is is.  This is a toile that I made into a quilt block of our quilt group-  that's me at the top right pointing, Sylvia below me wearing a big hat, and Carol below here with the straight brown hair.  On the left bottom is Jusy with no shoes because she always takes them off in our meetings.  Above her stands Barb and lastly Linda with the short black hair.  We are all standing around commenting on our quilts and being kind, not snarky.  This group is always honest and the suggestions on the sticky points are right on target.  I miss them so much, hard to depend on just instinct after 35 years of them 'suggesting' when to abandon something, or when to use the back of something, or to just take a rest.

So today I took a bit of a rest and removed the polka dots as they are way too distracting on this small piece:

This is actually a quilt about menopause, only one of the blocks about what was going on with me 22 years ago.  I finished it and put it in a guild show and it was sold that day to a Japanese MAN who actually paid me in yen.  In Boston.  What does one do with yen in Boston?  But the quilt disappeared from my life to go live in Kyoto and I never saw it again.  This was one of my quilt regrets- would have liked a week or two living with it, but I am yen-greedy. 

Then this afternoon I started working on the big Autobiography wall piece, still making circles and sewing layer upon layer.  My fingers gave out and I came home to finish off my 'Sunday sauce' which I've been making in stages for days now.  The brachiole were made along with the meatballs last weekend, then frozen.  The sausage browned the other day and hidden from the guy who stands in front of the refrigerator poking around declaring there is nothing to eat, and then finally today the actual sauce.  The smell is driving me wild.  C'mon over!  And bring me some bread.

The other thing I need to tell you is do you remember a giant agave plant that sent up a big shoot in the center that grew to 20' covered with tiny yellow flowers? 

This agave was a monsterii octoppusii os something comparable and we loved its' twisty arms.

And bees.  It blossomed in bands going up the stalk and then POOF, the plant died.  So, four years ago I bought a bunch of flats of small succulents to plant in the cigar boxes for Nate's wedding down in Key West, and when I got home I stuck a few leftovers into the ground.  One of them, another tiny agave, kept getting bigger and bigger and I finally stuck it in a pot and moved it over to the new house.  Guess what appeared this weekend:

So, here we go again!  This version doesn't have the thick twisty arms and I am hoping maybe it won't die after this exercise, but meanwhile I get to check it everyday for it's progress report.  Drat.  The spines on this thing are 2" long at the end of each leaf, and the edges look like a saw-  you can't get near it.

I need a diversion of an ART PART, you probably do too.

Artist Bunnie Reiss enjoys transforming the old into new, and has spent her life as a collector of weathered objects with rich stories. Reiss’s ongoing project turns her collection of old leather gloves into bright works of art, utilizing symmetry and cosmic imagery to connect both the past and present. The gloves are not obvious references to animal faces, but subtle gestures that reference eyes, ears, and noses within their design.

It is absolutely gorgeous here finally-  temperatures are low, the hot tub is bubbling, and all the windows and doors are open to the breezes.  It makes up for the hurricane scare last week.  Almost.  But it IS the reason we came here and it sure is nice again.  Have a happy weekend.  I'm hitting the Farmers Mkt tomorrow morning.  Just because I can get a fresh pastry and a Cuban coffee and walk around in the sun.  I am a lucky duck.