baring my soul

Over two months ago when I took that train to Syracuse little did I know about the life I was propelling myself into. If I had known, I would have done it sooner.

I had no idea love felt like this. I didn't know the capacity or the depth in which I could feel it so strongly. Every day it escalates even more. Being able to wake up every morning and open my eyes to see the man beside me has truly been the warmest and happiest moments of my life. I am astounded at the feelings that emerge morning after morning after morning. If I could bring this miracle into my life, what else can I do?

I ask myself that on a regular basis. I truly feel that I'm still holding myself back a bit. There's a distrust, no matter how slight it may be, that keeps me from truly believing in my own talents. Dan and I were watching a movie the other night about Jackson Pollock, and one of the things that struck me was someone's comment that Jackson himself doubted his own ability in creating astounding art. Well now...

I listened to those words and knew they struck a resounding chord with me. The only reason I am not where I really desire to be artistically speaking is because I've held myself back. I've allowed the inner critic's voice to be a tad bit louder than I'd like. I shake my head at this revelation because it seems crazy that I would keep myself from getting what I really want, but the truth is that I have.

I've moved across the country to be with a man that creates the most amazing fabric designs. He brings me materials to work with on an almost daily basis. I've purchased all new supplies and tools. My sewing space has been expanded yet again, and I create daily. I dream about new items to make. I'm "given" new directions every night in my dream state. I've even had my next novel "told" to me while I was sleeping.

I have manically sewn fabric stories, purses, and artwork along with knitting scarves and purses out of Dan's tie-dyed t-shirts. Hardly a day goes by that I'm not in my studio space bent over the cutting table or sewing machine and madly designing, sewing, or cutting. My new inventory is building up beautifully. I look at all the purses, scarves, and wall hangings a lot. I marvel at them. I even question where they came from, and maybe that's where the hesitancy to market them comes from. If I can bring into my life a love beyond my wildest dreams, then why is it so confounding to me that I can create the items that I have? How can I possibly deny others' joy in having them? Where exactly do I get off making myself smaller, less talented than I am? What am I so afraid of? Being successful? Having it all? Sweet Jesus! How will I ever know if I don't push myself out that door and welcome those who have been waiting for me just as I have them?

So I grew up Southern, Catholic, and the only girl in a house full of boys. So I grew up being told I couldn't do things because I was a girl. So fuckin' what! Get over it already! It's time to play in the big leagues. It's time to thoroughly enjoy my life with this dear, sweet man of mine. It is time to relinquish all doubts, throw caution to the wind, and put myself out there because no one can make what I make. No one else can put things together like I do just as it's true about everyone else. When we don't give the world our best gifts, then who are we really cheating? More importantly, why waste our lives, our talents, our skills like that?

Why indeed!

Here are a few of the items I've been working on. They weren't finished at the time of the picture taking, but most of them are ready to shed their light all over the world! I so enjoy what I do, and my greatest gift would be to shower the viewer with that immense joy.

what I can do with some tie-dyed t-shirts

scarves I knitted from tie-dyed t-shirts

This one has some mohair yarn knitted in also.



I knitted this from one of Dan's son's knit shirts "seaming" it with a tie-dyed t-shirt, knitted tie-dyed strap and bobble for a closure.  I still need to make the loop to put around the bobble, but this is my latest creation.



This is a purse I made from the sleeves of a tie-dyed t-shirt.

This purse is made from three blouses Dan bought me from a thrift shop. The brown is some kind of knit velveteen to give it a great texture. The only tie-dyed fabric on this one is the inside pocket and the loop that goes over the button. The lining is a cotton fabric from one of the boys' shirts.

And here's a view of some unfinished purses. They are all done now and up for sale! All are made from clothing, even the embellishments.

This is just the beginning, and I look forward to showing you more. Sixty-nine days after arriving here, and I've already taken over more than half of the front room. My fabric stash grows steadily, and I am so very, very grateful for being able to share with you what I so love.

access to scissors

What I started with was a tie-dyed t-shirt. Not just any tie-dyed t-shirt, but a Dan Leo. In the fabric art world that is worth some very big coin, and I got to cut it up. Yes, I'm sure there are minds around the world reading these very words and their realities have stopped existing for just a moment until they come to.

You see, once upon  a time I went to high school in Dallas, and there I heard of a teenager named Dan Leo. I've decided after listening to NPR today while knitting that I'm going to change my history, but I'm not sure where to start. I just know that Dan and I have raised a whole lot of eyebrows because I jumped on a train with a one-way ticket to travel across the country to live with him after only seeing each other for somewhere around three hours this summer. Yep, we did go to high school together, but neither one of us really has a great recollection of even talking to each other, and so here we are living and working together. Go figure...

Okay, so back to the ball of -- no, I think I left off at the t-shirt.

Once upon a time in a house in NY there lived a man minding his own business when along came a Facebook friend request from someone he had gone to high school with. He accepted the request. Ooooh dear, what little he knew of the consequences of that action.

Just a few months later he decided to drop in to see this Facebook friend that he had gone to high school with while she was living in the Dallas area. That visit lasted less than three hours. However, just a few months later this friend boarded Amtrak heading for NY where she now lives with this man, his dyes, his boxes, his boys, and his fabrics. Oh sweet baby jesus!!

So, with one of his tie-dyed t-shirts (yes, I am getting back to the original point of this blog post) I (the Facebook friend) cut it into strips and knitted it into a scarf as you can see in the above picture. And, for your viewing enjoyment here are some other pictures that highlight the communion of talents in this household.

Here's the latest one I've been working on, gleaned from a UT tie-dyed shirt. Just a little something to do on a Sunday morning in the House of Leo while all the menfolk are asleep. Well, not exactly... I actually knitted this after Dan did a morning of dyeing.

Dan's pile of tie-dyed wonders. This is something he did in just a very few minutes. On the other hand, the pile I did yesterday took me all day. Hm, he's done it a day or two longer than me...

And here they are after being dyed. And after the next process they go through who knows what could possibly happen to them if I have access to scissors.
stay tuned...

ma and pa

Ma and Pa

I was sitting here in the library working on a few things when along came this incredible man in my life with a figurine he got for me. He said it was us.

Now I know there are plenty of people out there who get gifts from loved ones all the time. I have never been such a person except when I was little and my dad would shower me with things that made him think of me. My father has not been physically on this planet for over 30 years now, and for the first time in my life I feel the very best that my father ever gave me in every moment he shared with me has been wrapped up in the most perfect package in the man that I now live with.

Every day that I'm with this man I feel so much more love for him. I well up with it and it spills out all over him. To have him in the same house with me, to be in the same building he's in, to work with his fabrics, to read to his little boy, to be able to do the dishes after one of his fabulous meals... wow, did the gods look kindly on me!

I told him last night that I could feel phase two of my time with him eeking into our lives. Phase one was getting to know one another, and oh! have we enjoyed that phase. I'm sure that's an ongoing one, but now phase two has crept into my brain and now I can't stop thinking and churning and creating and... There's nothing (well almost) I like better than to create things with his fabrics, and this morning he relinquished even more of his designs into my stash. One of his friends gave me a few bags of batting and fabrics, and you would've thought I had inherited the world.

In my previous life with the husband, I owned a quilt shop, ran another quilt shop, did commissioned work, designed my own patterns, and taught classes, not to mention wrote a book about a fiber artist. I had a 1200 square foot studio with five machines, a monstrous cutting table, a room full of fabrics, another one just for notions, a section for reading my wall of books, and every kind of paint, bead, yarn, etc. you can possibly think of. Ooh, and let's not forget the plethora of stamps and inks and papers and... well you get the idea.

And now I've got a borrowed machine, a stash of tie-dyed fabrics and t-shirts, a bag of batting, and a pile of fabrics that Dan gave me that I haven't looked at yet. The inventory I have now -- the one machine on my table, and the pair of paper scissors I use to cut fabric instead of all my rulers, cutting mats, and large cutting table -- pushes me to use my imagination more. I don't have the drawers full of stabilizers and fusing materials that made applique easy. Instead I draw onto paper the images I desire, and then freehand cut the fabrics I want those images to be. I don't have the tools I used to, and I'm finding that my designs flow easier. I'm more drawn to them. I just like looking at them so much more than what I've made in the past. I'm recreating how I work, and it's changing who I am.

I need less, and I create more. What comes from my hands now represents me more. I push myself to reconfigure how I work without all the tools and fabrics and notions. I stretch my limits until they're gone, and then I do it again and again and again.

I do it in a room that's filled with love for me. Can you possibly comprehend the enormity of that? There are moments that I just stop and breathe it all in because this is what I've been waiting for all my life. This outpouring of love. I want to do more for him. I want to be more for him. I want to grow myself so much more because he deserves it, and so do I.

So, I take what I have in my corner of the front room -- the fabrics, the ideas, the three spools of thread, the discarded men's shirts, and the buttons I cut from them -- and I send my imagination out in the far reaches of Idea Land, and miracles occur.

One day very soon there will be a website hosting all these morsels of imaginative fun, and I'll be sure to post it on the blog. For now, you'll just have to settle for some pictures taken of me on Christmas morning making a potholder for new friends of mine. Enjoy!

coffee and water mingle with the tie-dyed flowers I made



the Dan style is to embellish both sides



all fabrics dyed by Dan

All you fabric artists out there understand when I say I get to wake up every morning with this man too!

new home, new life

Since I last published a post in this blog, I've crossed several state lines, had dinner in Chicago with a brand new friend that left the train in Cleveland, and now I live with the man of my wildest, craziest, out-of -this-world dreams. I arrived a week ago, and I can honestly say that every single day I am more in love with him. I am happier than I've ever been, and I have finally reunited with the very best part of me.



jarring a shirt



putting yellow dye on all the white spots



My first morning in The House of Leo, as it is so lovingly called, began with a very hearty breakfast and two strong cups of coffee. He loaded me with caffeine and nutrition so I could get to work on finishing what he had started for me before I had arrived. The top picture shows what it looks like to "jar" a shirt. After tie-dyeing I soaked a t-shirt in amethyst dye. I'm not sure why I didn't take a picture of the finished product because that one really rocked. You'll just have to take my word for it. And the same thing with the second picture. It was a massive piece he tie-dyed with a huge mushroom in the middle, planets in the corners, and a two-legged peace sign. It is by far the most amazing peace sign I've ever seen even though it is missing a leg.

To give you an idea of what I've done with Dan's fabrics, here's a sampling.

This is made from t-shirts he tie-dyed in the 90s. The handle is cotton fabric he dyed, and I cut it into strips and braided it. The flower is made from the same cotton fabric with the center being a scrap from a t-shirt.

This purse is made from two sleeves off a t-shirt. The fringe is scraps from several of them as is the flower.

Here's a sampling of flowers made from his cotton dyed fabrics with centers cut from t-shirt scraps. They're going to grow up one day to be decorations on purses, clothing, etc., but for now they're sprinkled throughout the house.

Looking at this still takes my breath away. This is a detail photo of a skirt I made from his t-shirts. I have a hard time taking my eyes off the colors and designs in the fabrics. It's like falling in love with him over and over and over. And, what a lovely trip that is.

I love these skirts! They are amazing to look at and, oh my gawd, they twirl! When my daughter was little and I would make her dresses, the number one criteria was that they twirled. The twirling factor is still monumentally important. If they don't twirl, I'm not sure they're worth wearing. Just sayin'...

Our relationship started out (I think) with the fabric. Hm... the more I think about it, the more I think it started out with the eyes, then the smile, the voice, the laugh... well, I know for sure that the fabric factored in there somewhere.

Now I have a pile, a stash, a plethora of Dan Leo's tie-dyed fabrics to cut up. Just typing that statement made me weak in the knees. What I haven't done yet, and can't wait to do, is some thread-painting with his designs. The pieces he's made for me keep that little hamster running frantically in the wheel inside my head. For the first time in years, I want to enter shows again. I want to stretch again and again and again. There's so much to experiment with, so much to see what could be stunning and what's gonna really suck. (I found one experiment so far that fits that bill.) However, the ones that suck will just challenge me to see what I can do to "unsuck" them.

After typing that last paragraph, I decided to take a little break and walk around a bit. When I got back to my computer at the school where Dan works, this is what I found.

ah... nuff said