It’s been raining fairy steadily for two days now, and off and on for at least two days before that. It’s good. We need it.

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I did this page a while ago. It was just colors on the page and then I sketched in what I saw in those colors. I wrote the poem, but haven’t actually pasted it down, yet, so that’s a bit of digital magic. That’s more or less how it’ll look when I’m done, though. (The goldfinch was already there–this was an old pocket calendar, originally.)

This is the poem:

Wizards of dark and cold and snow
chant the words to make winds blow
away what little hope
I have, make me mope
day after day,
blow away,
with strife,
life.

But
it’s what
still remains
within my veins
that holds. Spring has come!
Strength and warmth reach my numb
limbs as birds sing and rains pour.
Sunlight and love will let hope soar.

I was actually trying to follow a form called nonet, but didn’t go reread about it and ended up with a mirrored, rhyming octet instead. I’m still not 100% satisfied with it. It’s because I’m planning to rewrite it that I haven’t pasted it in the journal, yet.

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I was going to work on embroidery digitizing, but my laptop is dying and no longer recognizes the dongle to the digitizing program. The program doesn’t work without the dongle. (Dongle is such a funny word!) Considering this laptop is about 10 years old, it’s done well, but a new one is in my near future. Iqbal wants me to get a new one because then I will be in the same room with him, rather than being in the den using the desktop pc.

I may end up sitting at the desktop to get some digitizing done, though if I end up there, I’m more likely to work on organizing my files. That process has taken so-o-o-o long, but the end finally seems in sight. At least unless and until I am able to access the files on disk. (I’m not even sure that’s possible, but even though Windows Explorer says there’s nothing on the disk, it still is about 700MB, which is nearly full.)

Anyway, instead if digitizing, I worked on this.

What I’ve been doing doesn’t show. I’m using Jude’s invisible baste aka glue stitch to hold the black and white weave in place. Bottom two rows are done. It’s necessary, but not a part I particularly enjoy. I like to see results, and the whole point here is not to see. I’m also going to need to cut some of the black and white away to put in a curb and add some lawn around the houses. I find I like to hold this piece, and think when I get to embroidering, I will very much enjoy it. I’ve also been thinking about the sky. Ideas . . .

I like what’s happening with this, but am also trying to loosen up and be more abstract. I’m hoping, when I get to all the scraps I talked about in my last post, I will be more abstract. It’s funny how I like abstract art so much, but am totally stymied at trying to produce it. . . . Well, actually only when I try to think about it too much. I can’t have a clear cut idea about what I want to say/represent and do it as an abstract image. I’m better at letting the abstract image say what it will and not intruding my clearer thoughts. Maybe that’s a kind of abstract thinking.