Cleaning is traumatic – and yet, it continues in the studio.

Timna came to my rescue this morning, and went shopping in my boxes of printed fabric. I'm doing more and more of my work with batiks and hand dyes, and just not feeling the love for these fabrics that they deserve. So we took two huge bins of quilting cottons, and she had a free fabric experience and chose a huge pile of things that spoke to her. But the bins still didn't fit easily in their shelves. So I sat in front of the bins and picked up every single piece of fabric. She took the pieces I picked up and did not love and put them in a bag to go away.

The bins contain only the fabric I LOVE right at this very moment.

It fells very different – I peer in, and no past projects whisper snide comments to me about failure to commit, no ugly things whine about lack of use. The only thing I see are all these fabrics I just LURVE beyond reason. Freeing!

Tomorrow, I address the box of silks and exotics. Already the floor is clearer (I do feel like an ad for acne medication at moment) and I can think better.

I've finally gotten sufficiently aggravated at the state of my studio to change it.

Today I celared off the work table, 6'x2.5' heaped high with fabric, smaller bits of fabric, scraps of fabric and a dusting of shells, beads, buttons and washers. The only unexpected things were the washers. Apparently washers were a favored medium for a while. I can remember thinking about how to string them into nets, and Al commenting that I had rediscovered core memory configurations for computers circa 1960.

I kept repeating to myself "sentimentatily is the root of clutter" and threw more things away.

There is still acres left to uncover and organize, but for now I am declaring victory on the table. Next up – the fabric collection.

May 1st happened – a Happy May Day, workers day and day of union celebrations to you

May 3rd was Northampton's biggest parade, the Gay Pride Parade. It was fabulous.

Today is Jedi Day: May the 4th be with you!

I have no May project, because the first two things I tried didn't work: bleach pens on t-shirt material, which would probably work better if the t-shirts I'd recycled were not so old and, well, faded; cutting holes in well loved t-shirt material is oddly pointless because the fabric is too soft and drapey.

I can start a different book, with new fabric for pages, or I can continue in this book and work to find something that shows up and is interesting on soft, well faded t-shirt material. Coin flip later today to decide.

I'm not sure if I am having organizational issues or motivational ones, but either way it means you don't get to see what I've been working on lately, which is not good.

I signed up for a "what comes after beginning drawing" class, which is helping me get things from outside in the world down onto paper in a two diemsnional way. I like the teacher (Paula Gottlieb) a lot – she's got a firm grip both on drawing and on explaining things. And I love the things she brings in to draw; eggs, shells, tree branches and birch bark – all things that speak to me!

My fellow students are an interesting bunch too. One woman does unexpected prints using craft foam on fabric, two others draw, and to our mutual astonishment, one has two pieces of my art that she got at Grow Gallery (veils of mist, and meadow maple, greening) which I still find cheering and humbling.

I am still working on the weird little April project I invented, drawing things in the hangman game book. Photographing it is harder than I expected because the book wants to be closed. I should probably locate a clip of some sort to hold it open, because I am not liking all the pictures of my hands and fingers holding it down, plus the focusing is much more difficult with only one hand.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/dancingcrow/13571025965/player/

I've had this book full of hangman games, and it's always felt like a book full of drawing prompts. So for April, I'll illustrate one answer across each two page spread.

Have some apple pie, to start.

April is International Fake Journal Month. Roz invented it, and runs the blog, and collects people's work into one place. You can read more about it at the IFJM blog too.

And no, although this seems random and weird, this isn't an April fool – I'll be back tomorrow.

Roberta wanted to know what the triangular pencil looked like, so I put that in as well.

 i took my mum's dog to the beach, where it was blowing like snit from the west, and we walked all the way to the rocks at the end of the point and back. it was glorious, and fierce. and there were three deranged people in wet suits swimming. they said from Gloucester, which seemed unlikely, but no more unlikely than swimming at this time of year.

I like printing on fabric a great deal, and I do it for various reasons.

I use transfer sheets, wherein I print on those and then iron the image onto the fabric, substantially less. The transfer medium – the image carrying medium – changes the hand of the fabric, making it feel more plasticky, and the surface becomes tacky as well. I thought I could experiment with some transfers in this little book because I am not stitching in it as much.

The images are trees I photographed a couple Januarys ago. I am exceedingly fond of trees.

Have some fireworks.

Also 2014 is the Year of the Horse. Which I find cheerful news. Red Kate gave me a Starbucks card with a joyful red horse on it, because it made us think of Kaboose.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dancingcrow/11658157326/player/

Purples are hard to photograph!

I had this idea about making a small book, about 5×5", and carrying one with me for a week or two, and then binding them all together at the end of the year. So I started this one on a week boundary, instead of a year boundary, and I'll see if there are enough interesting things to do with 5"x5" of fabric every day for January.