like fly fishing but beads?
new cabinet, light, and the chair…
it’s exciting. new chair, light, and organizing cabinet. i can pick any beads easily! and they are organized inside the drawers in little bins by color, so it’s so easy to be more creative. the home pod for listening to podcasts. hello downtime.
ready to come back to this! because i got a new cabinet and have easy access to all beads of all colors (and it was hard to pick through the beads before) and a new chair and the cabinet has a slide out table top. it’s called “love is a wild thing” because kacey musgraves song.
starting new things can be difficult. how do you take things you like and imagine them in new ways? what if you choose a path and see another one that is also great, too. lucky!
struggling to choose which great ideas to follow on this new project. so just going to breathe and continue, putting effort into knowing it will be beautiful in the end. i did order a new cabinet in february that will arrive in a couple of weeks and it can be used to organize all the beads and scissors and threads. many drawers. putting things into compartments may help sort it out.
and then soon i will sit on the world’s most uncomfortable chair i also just bought, which is in the same room as the organizing cabinet, and create.
i got a new tshirt from laurie and lydia. mine says”unprecedented.” the others tshirts said, “i am not a cat.” “i’m wearing pants.” “challenging times” and “asynchronous day.” the shirt is black and gold and glittery.
stepping in to something new. laurie’s shoe. i think this one may be a bit more traditional. the other shoe, michelle’s, turned out more abstract with elements we picked up from the road sewn into the tread. i’ve put down a few beads here, taken them out, and leaning in to the idea that this one will follow black outlines filled with white and yellow tread pattern. i cut up a bib from Chicago 2007 thinking it was better sewn onto this project than in a drawer somewhere. we’ll see how this one evolves..
love it. thanks for your shoe, michelle, and for all the miles. this one was so fun. thanks for stopping to pick up road trash and for running during the pandemic. couldn’t have survived it without you and laurie. laurie…your shoe is next. :-) you can see the final product on the main “work” page.
not quite mile 20, that’s a little further out…but getting there. tip of the toe. thought about ways to finish this one…going to extend the tread into the toe, i think. have loved every (mile) (step) of this project. if i had any followers other than my running girls they’d tell me to cut back on the running analogies. but since not, let the words land. podcasts, quiet, thinking. the time with this one has been healing.
it’s been really nice this weekend to relax and sew. the storm closed everything and it’s not possible to get out. thought i might watch some TV but enjoying the quiet of podcasts. boots, not heels, sweaters, not lace. a run on saturday on the wildgrass loop, getting home just as the wind/sleet began. thank you michelle - we did time this right! put a square around what has changed since the last post. will keep working tonight and take some pictures of the snow later.
last week was nice. change of space, different foods, time to enjoy a few new things. also made some progress on this project. grateful for the time spent with friends that inspires creativity, for the things picked up along the way, and for each step forward. we like to say, “all of broomfield is uphill” and that’s true in many ways. but hopefully the hills make us stronger!
temperatures in the negatives gave a little time for adding frames this weekend. nothing but peloton, so missed my running girls. :-( but, the green line is laurie’s shoelace. it’s hard to see but i’ll find a way to fill in the edges so the tread fits the space. she’s overflowing the border right now along the top part but that won’t always be true.
well, tip of the toe is done. now moving on the mid-sole. the pink strips are those plastic pieces that mark utilities alongside the road. the yellow is the plastic from the flags used to mark utilities as well. all things collected from runs. also i’m done with this pandemic.
filling in. picked up some new road trash for other parts of the tread. laurie said, “typical.” :-)
what a great weekend for creativity. thank you, laurie and michelle, for slowing down every time i thought i saw road treasures. see the pink thread alongside the beads? road construction rope from 144th and Zuni. the horizontal plastic pieces? the tassels that indicate buried things. also today, laurie gifted me a bright green shoelace. oh geez. so excited to place her shoelace on this piece! (i think it was from her 3:36 Chicago. so that is a very special shoelace.) team #stupidhobby, always inspirational!
left, right, left. the pieces i pick up along the way will shape the design. don’t know how it will turn out. i’d planned for the shoe to be more muted as you can see by the brown metallic choice for the tread lines… but see the treasure i’m finding along the way? the pieces are bright and colorful. running and life. cheesy metaphors. can’t help what’s put in front of us…just say yes and make it pretty.
funny! this milestone snuck up on me. about a three days ago i realized…girl! you could do 2020 in 2020. so there, 2020. thanks miles for the breath, air, joy, ideas, clarity….
dear team #stupidhobby:
you.
made.
2020.
better..
—me
super excited. this one is already fun! filling in the tread. below the tread i’m collecting road treasures from our runs. like: broken glass, pieces of plastic from a tail light, road clutter…and i’m going to use those pieces somehow in the design. listening to a podcast, Blind Spot: Road to 9/11. it’s interesting.
i have never quit a project mid-project, but hey, 2020. i just couldn’t keep going on the last one. i’ll come back to it. i try to deliberately keep going. but this year… so changing direction with something close to my heart, running shoe treads.
i took all three treads from me, laurie and michelle, but in the end, the three treads felt like too much. i think one tread, Michelle’s, will provide a cooler look once the beads are overlayed. i’m excited and will start shortly.
every year, my running girls and i recite and celebrate mcsweeney’s article, “It’s Decorative Gourd Season.” (that @!#@ is so seasonal. you’re either ready to reap this freaky harvest or you’re not!)
took a short break to make these silly gifts for their upcoming birthdays. it’s true. cross stitch makes the gifts even more campy. someone’s got to appreciate this old, useless talent of mine. my running girls will. :-)