In the Western Hills ...a poem

For my friend who has painted many wonderful images...a word picture

for Daria…

In the Western Hills

The road rises

through gullies

edged with wild seed flowers

Queen Anne’s Lace

bobs high on slender stems 

Atop the rise, on both sides

Black cows graze in golden grass.

Yellow headed daisies 

poke through the white lace umbels

Sunshine in a sea of clouds. 

August 2019

Jeannette

painting by Daria Shachmat

The Madonna and Child

by Sebastiano Conca ( 1676-1764)

Such a lovely depiction this is...in the years I was privileged to see it daily, it never failed to touch me. 

Joyous Christmas Tidings 

Painting and Praying

Thinking of dear ones....

For Herb M. I am so glad you have been part of my life, with prayers and tears and hope brighter than any colors we can see or share...

For Susan H. as she mends in the hospital tonight.

For my traveling darlings ...

For Bill M. and his dear GJM.

For a sweet foot that has walked ever so many miles for me and mine.

*** *** **** **** ** *******

One of A Kind Mandolin Gig Bag ... A Justification for that Stash Pile

I had eyed my husband's mandolin for a long time. It was a gift years ago from his only sibling, his brother Jim, now gone; I knew it was precious to him. I had thought a number of times about making a soft case for it, but the instrument  was either hanging safely on the wall or being played so it was fairly  easy to talk myself out of  making a project for myself.

But lately he had begun taking it out and about with him, propping it in the back of his van or leaving it on the back seat of my car and October is his birthday month, so I decided to get serious.

It would take quite a bit of material for the case and the lining.  I would need a long zipper and  binding for the edges. If I ran out and bought all the materials, it might make more sense monetarily to just go buy a mandolin case.  I poured through my stashed  fabrics. I had several yards of soft small wale brown cotton corduroy I'd found in the free box at The Legacy, the senior center support store that receives all things arts and crafty that need a new home. The fabric was deemed unsalable due to a streak of fading on it.  I found a piece of padded cotton bathrobe the kind of cloth I save to stuff potholders and a piece of padded corduroy I had thought to make into a cat bed.  Why I would make a cat bed, I don't know, given that the cats would perhaps rather sleep anywhere but in a cat bed, except on occasion.

In fact, the reason I am still up and puttering around tonight is because I am waiting for a cat to come home and find a bed of her choosing

I finally stopped thinking about whether or not I could make a decent gig bag, as such soft instrument cases are often called, and took the first step. I laid the mandolin down on a piece of cloth and drew around it and then I cut.   I dug out my zipper collection. The only zipper long enough to let  the mandolin in and out of the opening turned out to be turquoise.  It's teeth will provide a little grin of color every time the bag is opened.

The tear drop shaped  body of the instrument is like cake with a smaller second layer on top so I knew the sides of the case would have to be accommodating.  I wound up making the sides too big and had to cut them down as I assembled.  The first piece of the side that I made was the part with the flashy zipper.

                                           
                                            Inside the case is another little flash of cheerful color. It might have been nice to have enough of the quilted brown, but then again, this case is one of kind.

I basted around the curves with pins and then stitched leaving the seams on the outside of the bag. 

The inside is the finished side of the seam.  

Not having to go out and buy expensive fabric helped me to cut and improvise without worrying my prototype would be a costly experiment.  I have never made a "gig bag" before.

I was getting a good guitar concert during this pinning session.

 Dusty rose binding out of my stash  finished off the top seam and the bottom seam is enclosed in a binding  made of the thinner selvedge edge of the corduroy, enough for one side of the case.  Now all I have to do is put the straps on.

.

At each stage I debated about driving into town and buying matching colors of things, but Mr. Mandolin kept giving me his approval to use the materials I had.  In the week before I started the case I had made a child size tote from scraps and that turned out to be a good warm up for this bigger project. 

 When you have stashed fabrics and ribbons and long turquoise zippers and have moved them down to Carmel and then back up the coast, it is a pretty good feeling to use up some of those items.

Down at The Legacy I bought the one color strap they had for 60 cents a yard. I  wasn't sure how that would look and worried the bag was  getting too crazy.  Mr. Mandolin had to go to the hardware store and there I saw and splurged on  black strap and paid 70 cents a foot, $2.10 per yard.

Now I am not sure which one I like the best. 

Well, I have burgundy strap and black. Which color would you choose?

Which ever one I don't use is going into my stash...never know what I might make next.

Ah, that cat in question just came to the door.  I better put this cozy little bag away or some kitty might think it's just right for a good night's sleep....no, it's not a cat bed! 

Broken Plate Mosaic Bird Bath ...A Garden Project in the Last Rays of Summer

Back in August we laid out our broken dishes on the garden table and began a repair on the bird bath that had both a big edge chip and a crack.  It  would no longer hold water. With summer heat and drought, I like having bird baths for our feathered friends to perch on, drink from and splash in. 

Despite our August intentions, a number of intervening realities left those dishes  spread out for several weeks, waiting on the garden picnic table like a Mad Hatter's Tea Party.

Then on the last Saturday of summer, I saw the opening...it was a day of gentle September sun and we were unscheduled. A small backyard project was just the rest we needed.

It was calming, in our somewhat fractured world, to take disparate pieces and fit them into a new coherence, to bring new purpose to objects too damaged for their original purpose, yet too pretty to just throw away.

Thinset is smeared into the bottom of the bowl.  the broken cherub
 was tried out and removed.
Thinset is nice that way...you can pull things off even after they have dried.

Mark taught me how to use his wet saw and I made some of the pieces smaller.  I plopped some thinset on the back of each piece, fitted them as shape and color seemed to suggest (and hopefully in a way the birds would like) and smooshed them into place.  

Here is my first  broken plate mosaic ready for the Thinset to dry which took over night.

It was fun. You can see we have broken a lot of dishes over the years.  I am glad I saved them. As I wiggled pieces around I remembered where or who the plates were from.  One was Mark's grandmother's and one was from my grandma.  My dad gave me some of the plates.  A few I had bought at garage sales to sit under potted plants and two of them were gifts many years ago from a boyfriend; dear people each one and I believe they all felt kindly towards birds as well.  

I  did the mosaic by myself, but when it was time to do the grout, Mark helped me...which really means, he did all the work, but it allowed me both to learn and take pictures of the process.

He had white grout, but the bird bath was terra cotta, so we added a little red to match it up better.  You pour the grout into the water in the bucket and mix it up so it is smooth and sticky.  

The goal is to spread the grout into all the empty spaces between the broken plates.

The grout tool he had was designed for larger flat surfaces, so I got one of my kitchen spatulas which worked pretty well. 

 Next step is to sponge the tile or in this case plate surfaces clean with gentle wipings with a very soft wet sponge that you keep rinsing out.

 Eventually the grout is confined to the spaces between your pieces and it is time to let it dry and cure.

 The test now was to be sure it would hold water.  It does.

So back it goes on its pedestal...to be filled it up for the birds...

And then you step back in hopes that the birds might come and use it. 

Backyard Food, Flowers and Fun...Pluck the Day

In the last week of August,  the pears on the tree sing "carpe diem."  I have read that a more literal  translation of  "carpe" than the imperative  "to seize" is "to pluck."  

"Pluck the day"... it is ripe.

Our very old pear tree is still putting forth

Early Girl lived up to her name

Tomatoes ripening on the vine is something I had nearly forgotten about the last seven summers on the coast.  We had a few red tomatoes in time for Christmas in Carmel but Sebastopol sunshine has brought forth an abundance.

The strawberries have been providing

 a daily treasure hunt opportunity.  

The Golden Delicious tree was cut in half last year by a neighbor's falling  Incense Cedar tree.  The clean up crew phoned us down in Carmel and wanted to cut the  remaining half apple tree down.  I'm so glad I didn't take their advice.  Our half-a-tree is bearing beautiful apples who sing a saucier song...and sometimes call for pie.

 and flowers...the roses are still blooming...

And all that broken pottery I saved in Mark's shop...we hauled out the box and we've begun to fix a bird bath that was broken in our absence.  This is a very experimental repair and as it's for the birds I'm hoping they they won't mind if it's more goofy than artistic.   

May we pluck the day and give thanks, while it still yet August.

Story Quilt

Sometimes I have to make quite a mess to get the creative juices flowing.  Phoebe the cat wanted to be right in the middle of it all.  She is usually more help than not, except for when she wants to get right on top of projects to see if she really likes them. She thinks all little blankets must be for her, right?  Not this one, Phoebe.  So first I cut a pile of little squares, each centered on a picture.

I played around with various arrangements of the pictures I'd  cut out, and then I photographed them to use as a map for putting them together.

This is truly a scrap quilt, other people's scraps. I  bought the fabrics at a store that supports the local senior center by selling donated craft items.  You never know what or how much  you'll find. There were several times I wished I had just one more little piece of  this or that color or pattern but scraps force one to improvise.

One click makes these photos bigger then the back button returns you to the text.

Perhaps there is another name for this type of patchwork, but I call this a story quilt.  I hope the pictures of trees and whales and teddy bears, villages, churches, lighthouses and ducks, strawberries and polka dots inspire the imagination of the two little guys at the home where this quilt now flops around.  See the yellow squares that each depict a raccoon on either side of the watery blue?

I know that real raccoons aren't pink.  The same week in June that I  was stitching these fabric pictures together I met some real baby raccoons who were born in a box in a crawl space under my brother's house.  We were cleaning and packing for his upcoming move  when one of the boxes wiggled a bit... Hello! 

Patchwork top ready for the next step...that's when I slow down.

I think it might help me to dive into the messy process more often if I  keep a little log of the things I make.  I like the idea part of the process a lot.  I have fun pushing the elements into different patterns and then at a certain part of the actual construction I start to lose it.  It is a good thing babies are small and  that they aren't likely to complain that their blanket mixes pretend pinkish raccoons with giant strawberries and whales leaping in the waves.  

All freshened up and ready to mail...

I might have taken a better picture of it but I was just so happy it was now filled with 100 % cotton and machine quilted, stitched in the ditched style.  It was ready to go so I popped it in the mail.

My favorite picture of this quilt is actually the one I got back with a certain young fellow making use of it.

So that's the story of the little bears who one day visited the ocean but there's no need to stick to it.. we can make up a new one for nap time tomorrow.

Did you ever see that old 1948 movie "The Naked City"?  It ended with the line,  "There are eight million stories in the naked city, this has been one of them."  I suspect my little story quilt won't have quite that generative effect, but I do hope it will inspire some fun and wonder and maybe help me remember how much I enjoy ( most aspects of ) a sewing project.

A Much Appreciated Rock

Recently I sent off a photo of this rock to an artist who had painted it after a visit here several years ago. 

She captured the rock  in one of its manifestations beautifully.  I mentioned to her that the rock and all the vegetation around it  has changed significantly since she had seen it and she asked me to send her another picture.  I took this one last week for her and then today I wandered around in my some- day-they'll- be- organized photographs and found a few more photos of this narrow rock  island in the southern cove. 

Looking south  in 2013

Rocks, substantial as they are,  change.  Over the last seven years I have watched the wearing down of this crop which sits centered in a tight cove with ocean lapping on both sides.  Tenacious cypress seedlings had worked their roots into fissures in the rock, growing, but miniature versions of the parent tree well rooted in soil on the cliffs above the cove.  Elemental forces, the winds, the rains, the crashing salty waves, the tremors of the earth and the roots of stunted trees  erode and weaken rock...and whatever strata is loosened or dislodged eventually slides and tumbles into the sea.

The first picture I ever took of the rock in 2006  looking south west.

In July of 2008 there was a ledge and we sat on it!

It seemed quite stable at the time.

I took this photo in a brief lull in a  storm 2008

The perch and several of the trees are gone. 2012

2013

 One of its faces of beauty was well captured by artist Sunee Jines. 

Carmel Highlands' Mists (c) Sunee Jines
                                 Prints & cards available                                                    

   Monterey Peninsula Art Foundation

            425 Cannery Row, Monterey Ca. 93940

 phone 831-655-1267

 I have been captured seven years on these cliffs of beauty ever changing. Now a season of change is upon us, and we will soon part company with the rocks of these coves.  I have a trove of photos and memories, some already shared in posts in this blog, but I look forward to more exploring while I gladly carry an inner cache of much appreciated rocks and waters.  

Ever changing Beauty 2013

                                                                 

Every Man...a Piece of the Continent

A few years back we hired an artist and a mason to fix two of the fireplaces in our employer's stone house on the cliffs above the ocean.

 Steve Gally was a friendly and very Central Coast independent kind of a guy whose talk was fast and far ranging, he was interested in the natural world and how to work with and in it, his community and people in general. He got to work when he got here and then he worked hard. He was so hyper-amped, so  excited about everything and so wanted to share, that I found myself somewhat overwhelmed by the boom of his presence, yet I always found him to have the best intentions.   

 After the job was over, he would stop by randomly with some  honey from his bees, or old veggies from the health food store that he would get for his chickens.  When he  ran into us in town he'd treat us as if we were long lost  and blurted out one day that even though we'd been customers, we were different...we were "like friends."


He told us both, more than once, that if  we ever needed any help, ever, ever, any time, to call him.

He had recently stopped by to invite us to walk with him on a ranch south of us.  He said he would be going by at least once a week  and we could come along anytime.  We looked forward to that, but that date won't  happen. We just learned that, Steve, 62 years old, died suddenly on  July 16th of natural causes at home in the garden sanctuary he was building with and for his lady, Jennifer. 

No man is an island,  entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were;  any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.  John Donne

We each have a flashlight he gave us for presents. I hope we shed a little light in his days too.  Man knows not his time.  May he rest in peace.

You can see  a glimpse of some of  the hands on doing and giving Steve was up to on Steve's blog.