my cup runneth over

magic of telling

it is my riches

telling under trees..paradise (looking through this years photos)

there is a family staying with me. a completely non dysfunctional family. we are not related by blood, they speak a different language, there is a cultural affinity - they are a balkanic family, neighbours now, 200 years ago there were no borders between our countries. then there were borders, cutting off families, regions, pastures, deadly borders guarded by killer dogs and men with killing weapons

now we are both in the shengen agreement and they are free to travel

it is a long story

first the men came, workers, labourers,legal, illegal, crossing mountains on foot, coming from hunger to..where?the promised land of imagination

what did they find?

what did they leave behind

long story, I 've already said that huh?

now the families left behind are coming and seeing where their men were all these years, they see the places and the people they had only heard about, imagination is meeting reality (one kind, at least)

what are they seeing?

what will they take back home?

long stories

stories in the making

life

she is a doer

she cooks, cleans,washes, cleans, cooks, she takes care of them all

pitta from scratch, at least once a week she says, (when I say from scratch I mean from the gathering of dandelions and other weeds) there were quince in my fridge, waiting..(for what I don't know) now they are marmelade
there are lots of smiles, there is a lot of talking, and laughing, and the doing is done. just like that. soul searching at a minimum. It is a priviledge to be part of this, to see, observe, be, do in this company. mmm, and the food is good.
carols on Christmas Eve, a tradition. (ok since we're on the subject, 2nd generation immigrant..) children bring joy and luck to the household..the natives don't usually venture as far as here, remember, we are on the wild side..
the star, finished, travelled to spain, to my far away stars, first son and his dad. these are on sale.. waiting for the crisis to blow over most likely
for anyone interested in the subject of borders this is a book I strongly recommend.. A Short Border Handbook by Gazmend Kapllani

star

this has been in my mind since the stars a few posts ago..have you heard the story where the girl has married the moon and she goes to his house in the sky? there is a wide plain, and there are lots of people kneeling with their bottoms sticking up and their heads in the ground. later in the story she taps on one persons shoulder and he lifts his head. in the ground there is a hole, and she sees the earth and her place. when the being turns around and looks at her, she sees that he has only one huge eye in the middle of his forehead.. he is a star

off to bed, long day tomorrow, solstice storytelling begins. I'll post about that, I promise..

new

luka cat dog

her foot is on the big mythology book that serves as a table sometimes

yesterday I stitched all day, started 3 little cloths. The pictures are terrible, but I can't find the charger for the camera.

after watching jude's videos "making" discipline went down the drain. I had to get these out of my system

this is a the literal one.. a landscape

a ship on a winters night

and the holy wild cow womanstaring at the bases took much longer than the actual stitching

and there is some digesting to be done

and now, some housework

we are reaching the b.c. era- before civilisation

the solstice, 1

from 2007, a story...here

that is me on "living on earth" a radio program that airs in the USA.. I was in a radio studio in Greece, and they connected through internet phone

sweatpea..not a video, but close

(the photo is from 1996..)

like bees, this buzzing

this is athens today, from italian newspaper la repubblica, click here to see a live video from constitution square. General strike, no cars, riot police with the pidgeons guarding..what? our democracy? from whom? voters??

hard times

the link doesn't work any more, there were riots, molotov cocktails and tear gas, because of the strike I've been reading the foreign papers

winter, heroes, containers and the galaxy

envelope pouches, all plant dyed cloth
from clothes

weekend work- had to drive through this, ice at night, to go to tell stories and come back at night
the insides, sometimes a lizard hides in there
the outsides
little onesthoughts:

-why is the eye of the storm called an eye? from aerial pictures and because of the silence I would think it is an ear

-knitted cloth makes me swear. only the colours are fun

-it can take days to make one tiny pouch, and a few can be made in a day. this is not a paradox.

-making arroz con leche can connect you to the galaxy if you speak greek. rizogalo-rice and milk-gala=milk=galaxy. boys believe mothers are for making warm sweet milky things. maybe we are put on earth for that purpose.

-it is 4C outside. no central heating. fireplace night tonight.

-some people are heroes, they spend their life grumbling. (bus driver complaining today - well it was raining, and yes, when you go up a mountain there are lots of turns, villages tend to have not very wide roads, but mr... there are roads, they are better than passable, and your work is taking people places, no? and we have made this huge space for you to park and turn comfortably, and we brew coffee for you drivers, but, life has to be difficult, otherwise you wouldn't be a hero, huh?)

-children always ask me if goblins exist. I always say they do. our world is multi dimensional, and deep inside we all know that. that is why stories are true.

-seeing how wide their eyes get and their chins falling is priceless.

-Luka dog is a cat dog. when the fire is lit she wants to sit inside the fireplace. me too.

gathering,making, thoughts

the repairs on the car were far more expensive than the economy of this crisis hit storyteller could absorb, so said storyteller decided to make things and sell in a small bazaar type market

it was a bit like a whatif, as in whatif I do it and see what it's like

it has turned out to be a huge whatif, pushing me to think and do

I started by making little pouches from clothes I use in the koutsouna dollmaking with children

I'm very quickly learning about different weaves, knits, yarns etc and their conduct when forced or coaxed to interact with each other

at the same time I'm learning about design, making decisions, and about which aspect of making is more interesting to me and what gives me most pleasure.

and, of course, about discipline, focus, and organisation

I can't, in this context, follow all the ideas that come to me while considering a piece just to see what it will become

so, for the first time i made a "thought catching" journal, and it is becoming very important

also, at every step, I see the need to simplify and be effective

also how to plan realistically about how much time I need for each item
i do like what I'm making, but not as much as how it is teaching me about myself, about cloth, about reality

when I looked at one of the little pouches I made and realised that I found it cute, intelligent, but a bit "far away" I had a rethink

and it dawned on me that I do have lovely cloths that are unique and precious.

so out came the boxes of dyed pieces of sheets, pillowcases and canvas that had been resting in the dark

they were washed to become softer, hung in glorious sunlight to be blessed
I must admit i really enjoy lookingat, smelling and feeling this cloth
everything became much simpler. the design is a simple lined envelope pouch which folds upon itself. I'll show you tomorrow, I don't have daylight pictures. they are quick to make, and my heart sings when I look at them and when I hold them.

these are examples of the other style, I do like them, but they need a lot done to them, many desisions taken to get them to a state where they will satisfy me.

they say it will snow tomorrow so I went on small gathering expedition, to meet the short autumn

one of the best things that have come out of the market adventure is that I reorganised a part of my room to let the light in and become a working space. now, when my glance goes that way, for some reason it makes me think of Grace. maybe it is the colours and the cacti and what i think new mexico is like..it is a weird time, fluctuating, changing, i can't quite describe in words

i think I am moving more firmly on this path that opened with listening to the flowers talk

but it feels like a cusp, a moment when all directions are open

maybe life is like that anyway

and magic is always here

grace, grace of windthread is sending me a cloth that she found in a thrift shop, a cloth that made my heart bump when I first saw it in a post

and it is coming from socorro

oh

I think these are practising how to look like flowers

sky

sunrise
gulls. they come inland when the sea is too rough. that's what the fishermen say.they make the wind visible


the cemetery is the border between civilised and wild, for the village. I live on the other side.
soft and fluffy. I gathered as much as I could find. Not sheep, I think it is sheepdog down.must be moulting because of the heat.
the house I live in is the one on the left. The view is south-east, towards Marathon.
these are proliferating-cheeky little ...nodding their heads in the wind with their tongues out.I've decided(it is a bit like a what if) to take part in a christmas market, Im busy making fishy pouches from clothes and scraps

the car burst its radiator so I get to walk to my sons school school. Great!

this is not a fish

taking his meal to my son in school today I saw a tree going on a rideI've been working hard since I returned, but yesterday the sun was streaming through the window so I lay down on the bed to take a break and enjoy it. Yesterday the phone company gave me a new cell phone (to keep me as a customer for one more year) and I chose one with a strong camera. I was thinking of making a pouch for it. Lying in the sunlight I was thinking about being selfish and what a good thing it is, taking time to enjoy..

and when the pun appeared in my mind I couldn't resist...
I made a cellfishlate at night, taking another break from texts, translations, editing, I visited graces blog, windthread, and saw a yellow fish!

grace, thanks for the comment, now starfish are swimming in my daydreams

stars

I had time on my hands, visited various blogs, saw this and this, couldn't silence the sparks they set alight..started these



sorry about the photos with flash, it gets dark early here in Warsaw.
tomorrow I'll be travelling home

birthdays

hard to believe this guy popped out of me 14 years ago and made me a mother
he is already taller than I am, living with his dad and getting an education. I am so proud of him!

we are in Warsaw, visiting. Grey skies, fantastic nude trees reaching up, piercing the low clouds.

it is my birthday today, 45. I feel I am carrying many me's inside of me, all glad to be here.

colours

grey, yes, screams for colour. I washed some of my summer dyed cloths, tore bits, layered rags and now I'm practising stitching Round and roundand I finished(yes, finished!)two pouches, the blackbird for my brother and swinging my arms.

practising buttonhole edging, getting better by the stitch

it is much too hot for the time of year, the trees are undecided about how to deal with it. some think it is spring, new leaves, flowers etc, some are tentativeley changing colour. the mulberries are still in full green leaf, anemones are dotting the grasses, lilacs think it is eastertime, some plants have flowered four times this year. And the olives are on strike for the third or fourth year in a row.

cotton sheets and rags. indigo, cochineal bought a while ago in a quest for red, black eyed susan and mixes

grey

there is a mountain hidden there..
I think I will study grey today

a story about love and a way

I was making weavings on framelooms, then it was spring and I started thinking about colour on yarn, from flowers, searched the internet for natural dyes, started dyeing, weaving took too long to make trial cloths for dyeing, started felting, natural colours of sheep too beautiful, started tearing up sheets for cloth, found india , ended up with piles of scraps, found jude, started stitching, now we are back to weaving, it is a spiral, not a circle, weaving now is in everything I do, along with stitching and felting and dyeing, and looking at the world with new eyes every day, with wonder and joy, I am so grateful

foggy

but thread, cloth, weaving.. sewing with thread, weaving sewn cloth, stitching woven threads, stars in the sky, waves on the beach, trees in a forest
and a hare that jumped on to my woven?stitched? cloth

the road weaving the fogcloth
weaving for protection
this is a woven sack that sits in the bread room in the folklore museum in Varnavas, the wool is very coarse, must be goat hair, I am wondering what it was dyed with. Probably chemical dyes that were sold by wandering merchants- the lore of dyeing from plants is lost to living memory, unfortunately, the best I've heard was "oh yes, my grandmother used a yellow flower.."


foggy warm humid

african dust turned mud all over everything

still in transition

something is coming

maybe it will appear in the fog, where everything is possible