A summer story emerges.
It has some specificity – THIS August there will in fact, be a blue moon. This summer, cloth has hung on a string strung out back, not tree to post or house to post, but deck to mini-ramp. Still…
The rabbit in the quilt really does visit our yard, even when eight of us are having BBQ and salad at the table under one of the catalpa trees.
And the results of my indigo ventures are evident – nearly all of the blue fabric in this piece were dipped in the five gallon bucket out back. Some were bleached as well. I have fallen in love with the color of indigo, and more surprisingly, with the metallic smell it imparts to cloth.
I have been stitching to a boxed DVD set from library called, “Why Quilts Matter” (more on that another time) and in the evenings to Showtime’s series: The Tudors. Both K & I loved Hilary Mantel’s ‘Wolf Hollow’ and are psyched that its sequel now resides on our kindles… I’ll probably save that read for winter (and it may consume most of the winter!). ‘The Art of Fielding’ is a perfect tale for the end of summer, and some compensation for not sleeping until 2:30.
This week I watched ‘In the Electric Mist‘ twice. It is a post-Katrina murder thriller set in Louisiana. It stars Tommy Lee Jones and is based on a book by James Lee Burke. My sister turned me on to James Lee Burke. They are good reads all on their own, but are particularly interesting to me because I am currently obsessed with southern landscapes. I especially wanted to see one of his books on film to confirm what I found disappointing in the wonderful new movie, ‘Beasts of the Southern Wild’ – and that is, that ITS landscapes were repetitive and washed out instead of marvelously tangled and varied and intensely blue and green. (The relationships and characters of the ‘Beasts’ film more than made up for my disappointment about the scenery).
Today I include my viewing notes because it has struck me recently that perhaps I stitch in order to sit and watch one narrative after another on the screen, and not the other way around! Has anyone else ever had this slightly disturbing epiphany?
BEAUTIFUL!!! And yes, I agree that handwork is the best excuse ever for watching movies! 🙂
LOL and I’m not even sure I get your last remark!! Be that as it may: I love stitching whilst watching/listening to all sorts on the telly, even football, because it means I’m sitting close to my loved ones and creating, tada.
I can enjoy television at times for it’s own sake, murder mysteries are my favourite (should I be worried??), the BBC are very good and recently we discovered The Killing, the original Danish version and D. and I could not get enough: after a couple of days we bought seasons 1 and 2 on DVD and got up early saturdays and sundays to watch several episodes one after the other, the sheer joy. You cannot really stitch and watch that series.
And your quilt Dee: it has to be said: I love it; the clotheslines, the rabbit, the blue moon and the blues, the whole story is wonderful!
glad to know it’s not just me! We watch a lot of Masterpiece Mystery in this house. We loved the new Sherlock Holmes series, the Cold Case series, and even though I miss Inspector Morse, the sequel-series, Inspector Lewis. I will have to track down ‘The Killing’…. We were that way with the HBO five-season series “The Wire”. And, ‘True Blood’, too. And ‘Dexter’ (though I may not love it anymore – we shall have to see).
I love the scene in your quilt–so evocative of summer and home. Here in Beijing I stitch with TV on some times, but it’s government controlled and very limited, and of course mostly in Chinese. Various eras of James Bond have been looping continuously on the English channel for what seems like forever now–at least two months–so often I just hum (unconsciously).
Ha! Maybe you could make some SPY dolls?!! Do you speak Chinese, by the way, Ali? How much longer are you in Mongolia?
Your quilt is absolutely delightful; a great combination of peaceful colours, sweet images and perfect stitching.
I agree with Saskia re: TV dramas…she has great taste 😉