Found on the Beach

Something happens when we go to the beach.

When we start sifting through the sand and the piles of debris tossed up by the sea...

We're never sure what we will find.

But we know if we show up every day, rain or shine, when the tide is low...

We are rewarded by the magic that occurs in this transitional space.

Where land and sea mix together in an endless dance of creativity and expression.

An ecosystem at play, re-making itself day in and day out to accommodate the elements that act upon it.

The beach is the great eraser.

What was there yesterday, will not be there today.

And what we bring to the beach...our worries, our fears, the self-imposed pressures of our modern life...

are erased too...

Blown away in the wind, swept away in the surf...beaten out of us in time to the rhythm of the waves.

And what is left is pure treasure.

An opening.

To the purest essence of our true selves.

And our busy, complicated lives seem ridiculous and mis-directed when face-to-face with the marvels that have washed ashore to teach us our lesson.

And we feel humbled here amongst the crustaceans, the corals and the marine animals that share this world with us...this sand and sea.

We leave the beach with a blank slate:  a renewed spirit.  A profound peace.  And a re-commitment to all that is most important.  

And we take with us a bit of the beach...the shells of cockles, conchs, urchins and scallops...

To remind us that there is the greatest beauty in the smallest of things.

That what we do and who we become is less important than what we leave behind. 

Happy 16th birthday Jack.

The Little Ghost Crab

Say hi to Casper, the friendly ghost crab...

I felt the need to give this guy a name since we've spent so much time together.

Inspired by his brave stand-off with my Goliath-of-a-husband...

It took me quite some time to stitch all of his legs, claws and carapace.

Using buckram beneath both the top and bottom shells gave the little crab some structure. 

And the buckram was the perfect solution for attaching all those little legs...

Sometimes tedium is my medium.

Let's just say, that I took a LOT of therapy breaks and used a magnifying glass to help me see the detail.  

The pictures that you are seeing are taken with the macro lens on my camera, which gives a much more detailed rendering than if you were looking with your naked eye.

I purposefully chose a goldish-orange thread to stitch his legs in order to simulate the coloring on the actual crab, giving him a goldish-orange tint to his legs and knuckles.  The velvet worked beautifully, giving him a bit of a hairy appearance similar to the real crab; and the coloring does appear quite ghost-like against the sand...

Reaching speeds of 10mph, I can see why the ghost crab is the speediest of all crabs and why his name is "ghost"...

He keeps trying to disappear every chance he gets.

I better get busy and finish this block before I lose him to another beach.  

Not too long now...

Happy Monday everyone!

The Crab Zone

It's taken me three full days to finally get into the zone with this crab.

You know that point where you're no longer trying to figure out the pattern and design; where you're not searching for the right threads and supplies;  where you're no longer making mistakes because you've worked out all the kinks.

It's where you finally get to stitch with confidence because you know what you're doing and where you're going.

The first couple of days, I tried many different and unsuccessful approaches to crafting this crustacean.

I tried stitching it using different materials:  embroidery floss, silk fabrics, felt...you name it.

I don't think I've thought of much else...working out different ideas and approaches in my head while sleeping, driving, showering and eating.

Finally, as I was scouring the stash looking for some ideas, I ran across this piece of hand-dyed Hanah silk velvet...and I thought I would give it a try.

The great thing about this velvet is that there are many, many different colors contained in one small piece.

I cut out the sections of velvet that were in the pale yellow/green/gold tones and backed them with a stiff interfacing called Decor Bond to keep the tiny bits from fraying.

Now I'm cutting out each jointed section of the leg and sewing the velvet together with a wire in between.

Two down and eight more to go...

I didn't want to take a break but I realized I should bop in here and tell you that I haven't gone to the Caribbean or been slacking off...I've just been trying to figure this little guy out.

Back to crustacean nation...and the Olympics.

See you next time!

The Crab Scuffle

I remember the day well.

Jim and I were on the beach and noticed that it was littered with holes surrounded by small tracks in the sand.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of a small crab but it darted into one of the holes before I could catch his picture.  

Time and again, I tried to snap a picture of one of the elusive crabs but they were too quick and would disappear into another hole, leaving me with nothing. 

Trying to help, DH Jim engaged one of the little buggers in a scampering duel, eventually chasing the crab down toward the water's edge where he had little room for escape.  Which gave me just enough time to snap this picture...




At first I thought this was a fiddler crab because of its pronounced eye stalks.

But upon further study, it turns out our feisty friend was a Caribbean Ghost Crab.

Evidently, the ghost crab can scamper about at speeds reaching 10 mph which make them the fastest crustaceans on earth.  And those cute eyes, have great vision capable of seeing a full 360º.  His vision is so acute, he can grab insects from mid-air!

To keep themselves safe from feasting shorebirds, the crabs are mostly nocturnal.  Should they need to venture out in the day, they have the ability to change color to better camouflage themselves against the sand.

When the moon is full, the almost invisible ghost crab scuttles across the sand facing the moon hence the name "ghost crab".

So now that I've become more acquainted with this beach friend, I wanted to honor his memory by giving him a place on my shell block.

This will be the first time I'm actually trying to create something three-dimensional, wanting for my crab to scamper across the block much in the same way that it scampers across the sand.

So yesterday, I gathered pictures of ghost crabs from all different angles so I could begin to make a pattern...

They're kind of funny when threatened because they rotate the underside of their shell forward so that they almost stand straight up on their eight hairy legs.

I traced components from various pictures so that the actual pattern is a conglomeration of many images...

Next, I used the color picker in Photoshop to sample the various colors on the different parts of the crab so I could create a palette for my fabrics and threads...

Now comes the hard part.  

I've not quite figured out the best way to make this three-dimensional guy so I'm going to have to try a number of different techniques to see what works best.  

So now, I'm off to gather crab supplies and begin playing with my needles.  

Happy day everyone!

The Wrack Line

The wrack line is the line of dead seaweed, marine animals, shells, egg casings and other detritus left behind on the beach as a result of high tide.

The word "wrack" comes from the Old Dutch wrak which meant ruin; e.g the term "wrack and ruin".  In the 14th century, it came to mean shipwreck and today, it's anything that washes ashore...seaweed, driftwood, or any other debris from the sea...

Including shells...

Jim and I love to spend hours combing through the wracks of shells on the beach...

Studying what the sea has cast forth...

And discovering something new about life in the ocean.  

I imagine it's a magical world under the sea.

And walking the wrack line proves that fact time and time again.

And I'm not the only one interested in wrack lines.  

It's the prime feeding area on the beach for shore birds,  crabs and other beach critters.   The birds deposit seeds and organic material in the form of their waste, which leads to the formation of sea grasses and dunes and the ecological health of the beach...

There's no doubt in my mind that poring over the treasures in the wrack line is a meditative activity and leads to a sense of peace and well-being.   

And so it is placed on my shell block....the second in a Reflections series I'm working on for the Crazy Quilt Journal Project.  

It's been a joy working on these blocks...though completing twelve by December...phew...we'll just have to see about that.  Hope springs eternal.

I actually found a book titled,  Walking the Wrack Line:  On Tidal Shifts and What Remains.  I think I'd like to read that one.

I'm posting as often as I can but not as predictably as during the school year.   Summer life means less time inside to stitch and to be online.  It's one of those seasonal shifts that I enjoy, though I do miss being here.

Happy day to you all and thanks for your interest in my blog and my work.  

I'm getting close to finishing now...just one more major thing to figure out...

I'll tell you about that next time.

Barnacles on the Brain

I've finally sat still long enough that barnacles have started to grow on me.

In fact, I'm developing quite a fondness for them lately in comparison to my youth when I was afraid of being cut by their sharp edges.

It's been a while since I worked the Raised Cup Stitch, a stitch that resembles a barnacle quite nicely.  Given that, I got out a doodle cloth and began practicing the stitch using varying weights of thread.

The barnacles to the left were stitched with a silk twist; the middle barnacles with Coton a Broder size 20; and the far right barnacles with Au Ver a Soie 100/3.  

I decided the Au Ver a Soie was a bit too thin and wimpy.  Barnacles are definitely not wimpy.  I liked the Coton a Broder the best...less bulky than the silk twist...but I may still try a finer silk twist if I can find one.

I learned that barnacles are crustaceans just like crabs, mainly because they spend two larval stages floating around in the sea before they attach themselves, head first, onto something.

Evidently, the substance that a barnacle secretes when attaching itself is one of the two strongest "glues" found in nature.  And they'll attach themselves to almost any surface, with little or no effect to the host...unless you're a boat ;)

Barnacles release a chemical so that baby larval barnacles will know where to plant their heads.  That's how you end of with large communities of the things...

Live barnacles have "doors" which open to release "feet" which extend out into the current to feed on plankton.  When the tide goes out or the barnacles are threatened, they close those "doors" and close up shop until the threat goes away.  That's why they tend to fare pretty well in polluted waters...and they've been on the planet for millions of years...

They have staying power.

I like that about them.  

Purple striped barnacles like the ones below tend to flourish in tropical climates which explains why I find them on the shells in Naples, Florida.  

Charles Darwin wrote four volumes on the barnacle just before penning his famed On the Origin of the Species.  In fact, the barnacle had such an influence on Darwin's work that there was a book written about it, Darwin and the Barnacle:  The Story of One Tiny Creature and History's Most Spectacular Scientific Breakthrough.

I love where my embroidery takes me.  

Now I just need to find a home on my block for a family of barnacles.

See you next time...

Spray of Urchins

The sea urchins have been placed...

Nestled amongst some seaweed found...

Getting cozy with the skeletons of sea-worn shells...

And be-friending a family of barnacles that have quite an attachment to a pretty scallop...

Their attempt to take some of the spotlight away from their nine-armed neighbor has begun...

Sea you next time...

Thoughts on Random Stitching

Hello everyone, it sure feels good to be back in the embroidery saddle again.

I hadn't intended to disappear for a week but life conspired to take me elsewhere.

When last we left the shell project, I was leaving to stitch "sand" onto my piece...



Subsequent to that announcement, I received this comment from fellow BNF (blogging needle friend), Rachel Wright of VirtuoSew Adventures:

Random scatters are the hardest of all effects to achieve, but at the same time...you don't need to encrust the piece completely to create the illusion of a sandy beach

As we emailed back and forth, she added this bit of wisdom:

Random is hard because we are so good at pattern-spotting and pattern-making...

This really got me thinking.

Having attempted to stitch randomly a few times before, I often found myself unintentionally choosing a similar sequence of beads or evenly spacing bead clusters...filling spaces...the overall effect being anything but random.

My solution to combat my own mind, was to take a handful of "sand" bead mixture and toss the beads onto the piece, letting them all fall where they may.  I took a picture of this random scatter and used it as a "pattern" for my stitching the beads in place.

Over and over again, as I stitched this piece, I found myself falling back into a habit of selecting a certain sequence of beads or wanting to evenly space the beads out.  It was very helpful to refer to the picture as a guide to break me from my natural tendencies.

Even with the help of the random photo, I'm afraid that my final product is not as "random" as I'd like to believe.  I kept adding things that weren't in the picture and changing some selections.

Shame on me.  End result is nice but I think I have to do a better job of sticking to the original plan.

Rachel was right.  Random is hard.  Much harder than it looks.

Regardless, I thought this whole lesson in randomness was a good thing. Thank you Rachel for sharing your insight ~ it was a great help.

Happy day everyone; I'm off to stitch another sea urchin...