Fuge State

Fugue state: An altered state of consciousness in which a person may move about purposely and even speak, but is not fully aware. 

I start sewing and sometimes, things get away from me.  I have been diligently working at reducing the stash, and I had an apple box full of orange and yellow strips, fat quarters, and miscellaneous leftovers.  I love these mitered squares.  So, on Thursday at 7AM I sat down to just put a few strips together.  I was supposed to meet friends to celebrate a birthday at 12:30.  I came to awareness when Kyle came home at 3.  And the quilt was over half done.  But my consciousness was absent the whole time.  I do not remember doing this.  It's a fun quilt, and I like it.  I'm not complaining, but the colors and the patterns and the hypnotic process . . . I just get sucked under and disappear.  If you ever wonder how old-time craftsmen could spend hours and hours and hours on their crafts, I think I have discovered the secret. The conscious mind goes someplace else.

We had a hailstorm a few days ago.  Beat the crap out of our calla lilies and tomatoes.  Thunder and lightning and more hail than I have ever seen in this city.  I am much too much of a wuss to live in the midwest.  I wanted to go hide under the bed with the cats.  I rather enjoy a good electrical storm, but this pea-sized hail hammering down was a bummer.






Here's what's left of a promising young tomato plant.  
 And then the flooding started.  You could have held trout races in the street in front of our house.  We don't look for summer till after the 7th of July around here, but frostbite in June is not that common either.  Climate change is real.  

June teatime

 I've been having some lovely walks lately.  The roses are all in full bloom, and many of these old roses smell so heavenly!

Almost finished with another quilt.  Pepper is helping because everything is better with a kitty.

And, since the second Saturday  of the month is tea time, I thought I would take a few photos of the fun.  I set the table with glass today.  Isn't tho a fun plate?

This setting came together  nicely, too.  Since it's been warm, I made cucumber water (slice a cucumber into a pitcher of water.  surprisingly tasty.) and brought out some of the miscellaneous stemware for it.  I like to give everyone a different glass so everyone can keep track of their own.

We had angel food cake. Light and sweet.

 I made rolled cookies with unsweetened chocolate.  Robust chocolate flavor.  Yum!  And almond cookies with taste delicate and light.  I usually have a godawful time making rolled cookies because I can't get them an even thickness and I work the dough till it's tough as leather.  But this time, Kyle got a couple of dowels for me.  I put the dowels  10 inches apart, put a sheet of waked paper on top of them, dropped a blob of dough on the paper between the dowels, laid another sheet of waxed paper on top, and rolled the rolling pin along the dowels.  Then into the freezer for 20 minutes, peel off the top sheet and use the cookie cutter on the perfectly even, neatly shaped slab of dough.  Use a spatula to lift the cookies off the bottom sheet, and put them on the pan (I use parchment paper on my cookie pans.)  And for extra ease and speed, I used a knife  and cut the cookie dough into squares and rectangles.

 All this to accompany fresh local Hood strawberries.  Bliss!  Bliss!

We were 13 on the 14th.  I want a bigger dining room and a longer table.

I love the music of happy women all talking at once.  These parties bring me so much joy!

Let's try this again.

 I have been a slacker lately.  Not much writing, knitting, sewing.  Just sort of drifting with the tide.  Well, phooey on that!  I have things to do!

Like, I can walk around the neighborhood and share photos of some glorious roses!

And, with the warmer temps and moiety rains we've been having, my Pink Peace rose has gone mad with joy.  Believe me, if it doesn't thrive on neglect, it dies in our garden.  This is one hardy rose!  Also a couple of scarlet blooms from an old, tough mystery rose, very fragrant, but not long lasting when cut.  Anyone want rose-petal potpourri?  I'm gonna have a lot of it.

Mary Jean and I did some sewing and came up with a child-size 9 patch quilt from a box of miscellaneous scraps I was given.  This one was particularly fun to sew.  We backed it with a chunk of fleece from one of those no-sew throws.  Ligkt and bright and nicely warm.

This weekend, Kyle and I took the RV out for a sort of trial run.  We went East to Cascade Locks in the Columbia River Gorge, and had a sublime time.  The KOA was right next to the train tracks, but the trains went by so often that by the time we went to bed, we were used to them.  I had no idea there was that much train traffic through the gorge.  Every twenty minutes or so, another freight train was rumbling by.

On Saturday, we got up and decided to walk the two miles into town.  The sun and rain has brought on a bumper crop of blackberry blossoms.  If the bees get out and do their thing, we should be elbow deep  in blackberries come August.

 Here's a view across the Columbia River to the Washington side.  One of the neat things about this location is the way the low clouds from the west get blown up the gorge, and the tops of the cliffs look down on them.  This is right where the rain shadow begins, so the clouds sort of melt as they blow in.  Magic.

There is a brass foundry in Cascade Locks, which has one of their sculptures on display in the local state park.  A great big cougar, slinking down over the native rock.  I was trying to suggest that it go get the tender youngsters playing on the swing set, but it had it's gaze focused on my sweet Kyle.  Bad cougar!!

I perspire easily, so we have finally decided to try a knapsack with a built in water supply.  I love it. The water is well balanced, the pack is constructed with an air space across the mid back, and there are lots of pockets for wallet, phone and other essentials of modern life.  Mine is red.  Kyle's is blue.

My pants are too short because I'm too damn cheap to pay thirty dollars extra to get pants that are long enough to fit.

june done busted out