Phil Heaven, violist for Geoffrey's Nephew, in an interview with Margaret Bikman

Thanks to both Phil and Margaret!

Bellingham Entertainment, Movies, Restaurants | Bellingham Herald

The Fabric Tells Me What To Do

Tone Piper has been sewing since she was nine years old. She was born in Oslo, Norway, and her grandmother was a professional seamstress. Her mother sewed too, perfectly always. Tone started with doll clothes and gowns, then moved on to making her own clothes. As her own family grew she sewed all manner of garments for them, including costumes and prom dresses.

"The more experience one has using different kinds of fabrics, the more skilled one becomes." She draws inspiration from the fabric and with a twinkle in her eye says, "it tells me what to do. I love fabrics. I impulse buy something that I really like. I usually don't decide on the design until I have the fabric."

Then she turns it into a wonderful piece.




Such as this wedding dress for her daughter Cassiopia Piper (who will take on the new name Cassiopia Coyne on October 10, 2009). Cassy is a talented actress/dancer who lives in New York City. She acquired seventeen yards of designer silk blend fabric, which she sent to her mother, knowing that Tone would come up with something beautiful for her wedding.

She did.

As I write this, I can see Cassy in it, waltzing around on the dance floor like Cinderella. And Tone enjoying the fruits of her labour(s).



When asked what designing and sewing brings into her life, Tone replied, "joy, peace, a sense of centeredness, focus. It has given me self-confidence in general."



That joyous sense of confidence gets transferred to the lucky people who wear Tone's designs. She has sewn several pieces for me, and I love them all, especially the ones I wear for concert performances.

Hey... who is that behind the dress form? How did he get in here?

Capturing the last of Summer, a Goldenrod Dye Pot

A friend and I spent the day doing a Dye pot, that is dyeing wool from natural plants. We gathered goldenrod and tansy, those ochre-gold pungent herbs that bloom late in the summer season. It's a joy to pick them, to smell them, and then to stuff them into old pantyhose and drop them into a canning pot of hot water to steep. The hardest part was finding the old pantyhose - it's been a while since I've worn them. We let the water boil. Marya commented that it looked like we were trying to make Haggis. Indeed, the little stuffed britches full of botanical matter resembled what I've seen but never tasted of that Scottish...umm...delicacy.



We began by washing the wool with gentle soap, taking care to use lukewarm water at first, then adding more hot gradually. We added some borax to soften the water and let the wool sit in the bath for a spell. We had to mordant the wool with aluminum sulfate and cream of tartar. This took about an hour of simmering heat on the stove. It looked like noodles cooking. We poked it, but never stirred. Wool doesn't like to be agitated or to have an extreme change in temperature. I don't either for that matter.



It was time to add the wool skeins into the haggis pot. One by one we fished them out and in. They caught the color almost instantly. We cooked them for over an hour. They gradually grew to a deep yellow.



It was getting on in the day so we decided to rinse them in a clean pot of hot water and added a slight bit of vinegar to set the color. The rinsing seemed to fade the color just a little, which was sad. We hung the skeins outside on a stick between two chairs. It's important to dry them in the shade, so that's what we did. To our delight, the yellow seemed to brighten as the skeins dried. It's the color of late summer and I like it.



Marya is going to knit a blanket for her lovely boy, Kristijan. I wound my yarn up and put it in a basket, along with other yarn dyed from previous summers. It will eventually become someone's scarf. Someone who might enjoy the sight and fragrance of summer's end during the cold grey of winter.

India Slides, Vol. 11, Rajastan

Feels almost as hot today in the Pacific NW as it did in Rajastan, India this winter.

Mammoth Lakes, California

This is a journal entry from July 10, 2007 while we were visiting Yosemite.

I loom about the world
forgetting to follow my breath
I walk dizzy in the heat
I muddle about

We trek together
It's important to walk together
but not easy
takes patience

We wind about
though old forests
granite stones
heavy on the earth

Coming to the river
cool water dances
bouncing downward
upward
flowing cold

One puddle
in the rock
holds pebbles
so clearly they lie
so bright the light
catches
enlightens the water
and even though
I cannot see my reflection
I see my Self
in that
I am That.




This is a photo of Hannah and Lucas, our daughter and son-in-law, ever the enlightened jokesters.

Muzlink - music search - Lydia McCauley

Muzlink - music search - Lydia McCauley

Shared via AddThis

It's All So Fine When You Are At The Clothesline

I've always had respect for laundry. I mean, I like laundry. It's sort of sacred to me. Hand washing, hanging clothes to dry, pressing linens. It's odd because I certainly don't feel that way about other "household chores" such as vacuuming or doing dishes (although, come to think of it I have some delightful times just thinking at the sink). At our house laundry piles up long about Thursday or Friday. It gets divided into whites, colours, delicates. The sheets get pulled from the bed and thrown in.

In warm or sunny weather the clothes get hung outside on an umbrella looking line. You know, the old fashioned kind. It took us quite a while to locate one. We store it away in the winter and joyfully bring it back out in the spring. That's when the first swallows are returning, and the catkins are hanging from the big leaf maple. One can notice things whilst hanging out clothes on the line. There are small and dear Savannah sparrows that sing in our meadow, "sweet bird, sweet sweet bird, pretty pretty pretty." I've seen murders of crows flying in circles above the hay fields. And hawks, eagles, even owls going by. As you pin the linens on the line the sky shows through, very blue. Sometimes clouds. It's all so fine when you are at the clothesline.

There's that fresh scent that comes from being aired outside. Everything is crispy and cleaner it seems from the sun. Now, towels have their own way of becoming stiff and uninviting. It's just the way they are. However, the exfoliating advantages from a towel on the line can be recommended by some. And by day two of using them they usually soften up.

Early this spring I was hanging some clothes in the wind. I kept hearing a distant flute in a simple combination of notes. Over and over this little ditty kept playing. Was it a neighbor practicing a penny whistle? How quaint I thought. We have neighbors who practice the whistle. But it kept happening every time it was windy. I finally figured out that these little holes on the clothesline pole were making a little tune. A musical clothesline! I loved it even more.

One thing about being a laundress is you may find treasures that come from the pockets of the laundry. Sometimes it's only nails or screws, or the singular earplug. But last week I hit the jackpot. Seventeen dollars! Thus the dilemma, does one get to keep the money?





A long time ago people used to dry laundry over lavender bushes.

Here's a dictionary reference for lavender:
c.1265, "fragrant plant of the mint family," from Anglo-Fr. lavendre, from M.L. lavendula "lavender" (10c.), perhaps from L. lividus "bluish, livid." Associated with Fr. lavande, It. lavanda "a washing" (from L. lavare "to wash;" see lave) because it was used to scent washed fabrics and as a bath perfume. The meaning "pale purple color" is from 1840.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper

It's raining today and the clothes are in the dryer, but maybe I'll try draping them over the lavender next week. What could be better?

Happy laundering to all, and to all a good day.




Photo of Meadowhouse by Mary McCauley