Hello from Temecula still…it’s not far from home, but it’s far enough. I wished yesterday for my ironing board, but survived without it. I forgot Q-tips, but someone had left some. I might leave the center today to buy some stuff…or I might not. I’m feeling like town would be a shock to my system. So do I really need the stuff on my list? Probably nots.

Things I’m realizing so far: I hate rethreading my machine. It’s not hard. I just don’t like to do it. On this thread painting, I rethreaded it at least 25 times. No 35. Too many (for me).

She needs a base to live on…not sure what that looks like, but I’ll figure it out. Maybe when I get back.

I made about 14 dye paste colors, then painted one Monday night…

I think a lot of the orange will wash out, but we’ll see. I will be washing that one out after writing this and watching the SAQA Textile Talk about art communities. I will be washing Tuesday morning’s piece too…

Dye is nuts because it has to stay damp for 24 hours and then you still don’t know what it’ll look like. I’m embracing that. (Update: it’s taken over two hours to try to get this post to publish even as a draft…the iPad is old and apparently couldn’t handle it any more…so I’ve washed both out…I’ll post pics of those once they’re dry. I’ve also spent the last two hours listening to sirens going by; there’s a fire about 10 miles east of us that ballooned up to 200 acres. It’s moving away from us, but I did walk up to see the smoke–I’m down behind a hill–and was distracted by the Watch Duty app and evacuation warnings. None here…)

I did a black outline piece Tuesday evening, but the wind kept popping up and I didn’t want it to dry, so I didn’t even take a picture of it.

Finding places to store these is getting problematic as they get bigger. Now I’m just stacking them under that table, but the oldest ones are on the bottom…which is only an issue if I’m being systematic about washing them out. I want to see what they’re gonna look like. Am I wasting time on these? No because it was something I wanted to try.

Trying to beat the wind, I got up a little early this morning. I went to bed early but then had a blood sugar issue and didn’t get back to sleep until late. I might need a nap later. This one has a lot of color, and I used the dye bottles to draw.

I can’t say it’s easy to do and the dye paste might be a little runny, but I wanted to try.

This one I started because the wind hadn’t picked up yet, so I decided to try a small one with brushes instead of the bottles. The first one I did was all brushes too.

The dye paste mix is apparently good through Friday, so hoping for two or three more a day.

I also pieced a background for a more free form piece I’ll be working on today…I think.

I have a limited amount of non white fabric (I have a shit ton of that)…wait, not true. I have a lot of crazy-quilt-type fabric with me, but wanted a cotton base to build on.

This is where I wanted an ironing board… but I figured it out. I have a small pad, but it was hard to get this done. It’s still not flat but there’s gonna be stuff on top, so it won’t matter. I’m very cavalier about flatness. A lot of it quilts out, thank goodness, because I am not a master piecer.

There was a sunset meet and greet, although only two of us showed up. We had a good conversation though.

It’s really hazy up here, apparently still from wildfire. Little ones keep popping up, but nothing I can see from here, thankfully. I have my phone on in case my biopsy results come in…pretty sure my doc is on vacation unfortunately. I may call if I haven’t heard by tomorrow. Today is 5 business days. Stressful. So the phone keeps chiming in with fire notifications instead. I did not realize the original arts community up here burned back in 2004…so this is the rebuild. So it’s a good idea to keep the phone on.

In the evening, I like to sit and cut things out or stitch. I finished all the Wonder Under on Monday night…

7 1/2 hours. It’ll have to wait until I get home to get sorted and ironed to fabric.

Then last night, I pulled out the embroidery threads and that black and white improv quilt I finished last week and started working on it.

I don’t really have a plan, which is fine. I’m going to be here for a while (here being handstitching on this piece).

Ok, some random things…I brought way too many clothes for someone who was gonna spend 50% of their time in one set of barely acceptable dyeing clothes.

On Monday night, a huge spider (ok my Australian readers will laugh at my idea of huge, but a lot of ours are poisonous too, so bear with me) ran across the floor into the pile of stuff I brought and I got up and halfheartedly looked for it, but figured it would just stay out there. Until I went to get ready for bed, and faithful readers, either there are TWO of them or that fucker followed me into the damn bathroom. Big and stalky. Nope uh uh. Got a shoe and waited for it to get out of a corner and whacked it 5 times before it succumbed. Flushed its body but there were three legs I couldn’t deal with…too creeped out, so I left them. Next morning, two legs were gone. This place has ants….not horrendous but enough that you don’t leave your dishes out, and those annoying bastards had taken the two legs for me. By this morning, they took the last one. I feel more friendly toward the ants now. Also there better not be another giant spider in the house. I killed a big red ant and a smaller spider, and then there was this guy…

I called it “Sir” about 10 times before persuading it to leap from the door.

I was going to go run errands, but none of them are desperate. Fire makes me anxious. Plus I haven’t gotten much done (besides dye painting two things, washing out two others, watching an art zoom, and trying to write this beast…way easier on a computer than the iPad, for sure. I need a new one. It’s ancient.) and I feel sort of reluctant to go anywhere. I’d have to put a bra on probably. And fight all those fire engines to get out (not really, but I’d rather stay out of their way).

OK. Rest of the day? (Note to nosy self: bring binoculars next time you’re on a hill.) Start freeform placing the figure on the pieced base. That’s all I’ve got. Brain is tired. I have lots I can work on…not worried about that. Play some music to drown out the sirens…that damn fire app will tell me if there’s an issue, but the fire is definitely moving east, away from us. Drink more tea.