Lee Thomson

I was choosing a knife from the rack yesterday and I realized I have a pattern for adopting new tools and using old ones.

It takes me a long time to adjust to a new tool. Al gave me a stand mixer for a birthday; an extravagance, a lovely and durable object, a classic – and I couldn’t figure out how to use it for a year. I already had a mixer, a little hand held object that worked fine. I could make bread using older technology, wooden spoons and big bowls rather than dough hooks and whatever. I would try it for a project, and feel cross threaded and grumpy because my instincts were not correct. Yet I got used to it, and when the little mixer flamed out (cold butter in a double batch of cookies) I could integrate the bigger mixer into my cooking life. And now I love it and can’t imagine life without it.

I realized I tend to have a few tools that do a lot. My knife rack has 3 identical knives at each size, rather than graduated sizes with specific purposes. I prefer a flexible tool that works well for me in a range of situations, and then get a lot of them. Because I need to have the single useful tool available all the time.

So when jude says she hasn’t decided how she feels about using a sewing machine, I have a lot of sympathy for her. This is all written on the new computer, which I am working on adopting. It will be great in a while, but right now I am still barking my knuckles on the differences.

Nov 22
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

I was curious what the stripes would look like torn into strips across. They are little blocks of blur, with the ripped edge surprisingly bendy. If the stripes were not symmetrical, you could do some interesting things with flipping the fabric and having the blocks of lines match and not match.

I like the little silk flags – they are not stitched down, and can flip in the breeze, or with fingers.

Nov 21
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

Two days of postcards, even with the turkey induced stupor.

This one is stripes of velvet and purple/brown silk, with red leaves, like a book, and thin lines that felt like sticks across the pages.

I don’t believe in astrology or tarot or anything much at all, and yet I love reading fortunes and predictions. They seem like messages that I can meditate on, if they are the least bit relevant. The mind finds the relevance, or creates it, and I get some new insight just from having an open mind.

Having said that, I reiterate that no plan I have made for the last two weeks has gone unbroken. My response is to retreat to the tea leaves on the internet, which told me this:

Just because you can’t push the river doesn’t mean you can’t paddle your canoe.

Challenges come at the right moments to help us learn and if you approach them with a good heart,
all will go well.

I am approaching the challenge of being sick by attempting to get well.

I’m going back to bed.

Nov 18
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

Patches, stripes, and silk stripes over it all, with a lot of stitching. Another postcard courtesy of the Girls in the Basement.

Maybe I’ve been overthinking these things…

Nov 17
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

So we are still at home. Alice decided she wanted to stay here, she wasn’t feeling well enough to cope with the city. So I am working on more room clearing, and finding floor space and lost things and more dead pens (note to self, no more jelly pens. ever.) than absolutely necessary.

Talked with the Other Kate yesterday, and we joked about Thwartation, with a side of Shui (see Mason Dixon Knitting for usage) and other things that happen when it is impossible to plan.

As for this postcard, I am not sure what it is all about. I started to make it, and my hands took over, and found old bits and scraps, and just whanged it together. So I let my hands do it all.

Jenny Crusie talks about The Girls in the Basement when she’s writing, or collaging about her writing. The Girls are the part of your brain that knows what happens next, but can’t talk very well. So they show you colors or sing songs, or stop at pictures of your main character when you thought it was her sister. She says you have to trust the Girls.

So I let my girls work on this postcard. It is kind of interesting, working that way. I like this postcard too.

Nov 15
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

It has fur. I found this over at Ragged Cloth Cafe, and was inspired. Or whatever. In a fit of goofiness I attached a brown sheepskin heart to a brown velvet postcard.

The cleaning out continues. The room is in that disastrous phase where truckloads of carp are removed and the remainder is spread across the floor in the decision making process. Alice’s art school is totally loving me. So long as they don’t think I’m dumping stuff on them, we’ll all be good.

Al is installing the new computer next to me, so I’m cramped for space at the moment (mouse in the lap, keyboard under the chin) and things may be off-kilter for a bit. It’s a mac. With a really pretty screen. We’ll see how that goes.

Nov 14
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

I used to just like saying ginkgo, but I fell hard for the object itself when I found fossils of it in college (in samples in the lab, not in the field). It is a living fossil, older than dinosaurs, with recognized leaves from 270 million years ago. Wiki talks about it extensively over here; scroll down to see some fossils.

The leaves have this lovely flexible feel to them, with all the veins running parallel to each other the length of the leaf. The veins furl together at the edges where the leaf narrows. It almost feels as though you could unroll the stem into something as wide as the leaf itself, but I couldn’t. The leaves I collected remain quite soft still, when the maple and oak leaves are brittle and dry.