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All of the August circles.

I am particularly proud of the collected-small-pieces circles. And I left the loose pieces on the beach.

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you can see my inspiration?

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That is a tiny piece of shiny shell stitched to this one. I am having a lot of fun with the textures I dyed with the indigo vat. I haven't checked it to see if it survived a couple weeks of neglect. Tomorrow. Today I spent crossing more things off a giant to-do list.

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Aerin and I staggered off to Amherst to deliver her to her dorm. She had a pile of stuff packed that seemed large compared to her room, but once we got there, she seemed more like the (usual) model of light packing our family values. Her bed is made, her poster up, her computer plugged in, and she and her Commonwealth College cohort have recited a pledge to work hard and be good to eachother. Then we ate in the dining hall, and came home.

It is a whole new stage. It could be a big step, except Aerin never really takes big steps, she just keeps moving, slowly and steadily, by the smallest measurable amount. In math, that smallest amount is called epsilon. Epsilon Girl, off to school two towns over…

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I'm having trouble thinking about the end of summer. I'm for sure having trouble sitting down and working at the computer to deal with these pictures or write anything helpful here. I think this is sort-of vacation still. But I'm still making circles! They are over in Flickr – click this one to take you there….

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Yesterday was re-entry difficulties, and another migraine, and getting Alice's first semester of high school straightened out (Chem, Bio and Geometry ALL in the 2nd semester? she's clever and wise, but even she would fold under that…)

Today Al and I have been married half my life – 26 years. Getting married was one of the best things I have ever done. So I made the 2nd circle just for him. Happy Anniversary sweetie!

I just think this one looks so much like knee bones! It was folded into the linen from yesterday, and had the same treatment, but a tighter weave makes it look quite different. Also, as I learned when dyeing things with Cindy-with-no-blog-yet, dipping fabric dry makes for very blurry lines and edges, while dipping things wet makes the edges of the resists very crisp. While I like crisp for edges of moons, I really like the slow fade that happens across this circle.

If things worked right, we're on the island of Monhegan, watching the sunset now. Unless it is raining. and then we are snugged up against the table in the kitchen with rum&lime, listening to the rain and talking. My brother and I always joke about the world's smallest family reunions. Come on mom, you know you want to be here for a day!

More of the texture experiments. This is a chunk of white linen that was fan-folded and pinched between popsicle sticks. the sticks were the resist, and they made the white lines that I emphasized with stitching.

We are headed to Maine tomorrow, taking my dad, visiting my brother and his wife and the Bestest Nephew Evar. I'll be back online in a week. I made one extra circle that will magically appear tomorrow, and then boom: silence.

I'm looking forward to it!

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Yesterday I mentioned I also had a burlap bag that carried coffee into the country from Costa Rica (I think). Look at the difference in dye take-up and coarseness in the weaving! The circle in the center is where it was bound around a penny – the tighter fabric did not absorb dye as well as the loose fabric, and the bound part (the corona) did not take up dye at all.