Linden Trees 2

I have started work on 'Linden Trees 2' which, naturally enough, follows up on 'Linden Trees 1'.

I had called this piece 'detooR' as a joke on the word Rooted, the name of a show that I participated in a few years ago. I thought it was hilarious, to spell Rooted backwards, because the piece was about looking up into the canopy of the Linden trees and seeing the spring blooms, not down at the ground where roots are. But nobody got it. Back to dull 'Linden Trees....'

Dull might the title be, but the colours are a bit of a hit to the iris (iris plural might be irisii and that's just plain eye googly)

The colours are nearly the same as above, but the sparkly orange and chocolate brown are gone, replaced with a lovely light grey/blue (sky-ish) and two tones of a peachy/coral. The spring green leafs pick up these tones against the early blooms and have these colours again when they die in the fall.

 This is a colour study, the small sections of textiles are over and under each other, the threads are pretty close to the leaf colours. 

The size is 15" x 8" and the eventual shapes will be long, thin rectangles sewn onto a long, thin background. I am worried that the stitching is too hectic. This sheer fabric doesn't photograph well, if I get in too close, the shimmery threads blur. Where you can't see any stitching lines thereare  pale yellow and pale grey/blue lines. The amount of the darker peach would be a lot less. Any suggestions?

You might not hear from me next Monday, I am off to Toronto to visit family and go to a Quaker Representative Meeting. I have no idea what I am supposed to do there but I have about 60 pages of reports to read before hand. I hope I don't have to remember what the reports say. My experience is that only the people who wrote the reports remember them well, the people who participated in the events leading up to a report remember things well enough and those of us reading them say that's enough'. I hope the food is good, since I live by my stomach.

Today is my second last shift at the Out of the Cold Homeless Shelter. It has been a terrific winter for me, as a volunteer. I had a great team to work with, and the support staff were/are wonderful. Consistent, considerate and very compassionate. The guests were pretty darn good natured considering some of the storms and even blizzards they had to head out into at closing time after breakfast. Several of our regular guests found housing and our current regulars have coped fairly well. Some serious illnesses for a few of them. There is no where to be sick in a city other than hospitals and they are not available for recovery.

We had enough food all winter, more cleaning supplies than we knew what to do with, and lots of hot coffee. We ran out of men's shoes, jeans and especially boxer underpants over and over again. Tighty White-ys are not popular amongst men any longer. Who knew about this strongly felt fashion change? Men would go without rather than put on the old style underpants. Treats like hot chocolate, home baked cookies or bread, Monday morning pancakes with syrop and Friday night hotdogs were popular. This year we had cribbage boards and decent movies for anyone who couldn't sleep and we had two air circulators that everyone (!) really appreciated.

The cat is sitting on my wrists as I type, letting me know it is lunch time and she needs to eat. Again.