Three Days of Fellowship and Fiber Fun!

Where to start?

Always Start At The Beginning, Dear (I am hearing my mother's voice, loud and perfectly clear).

Wednesday was the kick-off of a three-day marathon event in Studio 508. Sandra and Cynthia came to stay with me. Charles so very kindly offered to go to Knoxville and stay and work on the house there. He has numbers of projects there to keep him busy, he assured me, as well as cousins to have dinner with. So, this became a chick party! And this way, Sandra and Cynthia could have the twin beds and the larger bathroom. Perfect!

Sandra and Cynthia arrived late Wednesday morning, and we had a salad for lunch. We ate early so we wouldn't feel pressured to stop once we had gotten too deeply into something interesting. As things progressed, we did do deeply interesting things. Sandra brought some of her toys, and we began to play with wool-ish items.

Meet Little Otto:



With the help of Little Otto, a champion Drum Carder, I was able to create several batts of blended wool fibers. Cynthia was working on a felted ball that required a number of closely-related shades of blue and green, and I do love to card and mix colors, so I grabbed Little Otto and set up my work station at the drafting table. These are some of the batts that Little Otto and I cranked out for Cynthia:



They became part of a felted shape that she plans to cut down the center to reveal the layers of differently-colored roving. It will need a lot of serious wet-felting to get to the cutting stage.

Sandra, meanwhile, worked at the felting/wool working table. She was making landscapes for later embroidery, using felted wool and roving, and blending them with her Baby Lock Embellisher. I think the landscapes got a little tiring, because she also made this grid:



By Wednesday afternoon, there was a respectable wool collection in progress:



The flower shows better after Cynthia had worked some more on it-- the "Orange Blossom" was originally a semi-felted cord of pumpkin-colored wool I had made last year for a project that didn't turn out as expected, so the cord was tossed into the "Ponder These Pieces" bin. She sewed the cord into a closed circle-- please remember that Cynthia's least favorite of the least favorite possible colors is ORANGE, and you get some feel for how seriously she took her responsibilities for "pondering". She added two leaves that were a combination project. Jill gave the leaves to Sandra, and Sandra added some decorative detail, then ran the newly-refurbished leaves through the embellisher to give a more uniform texture to the leaf surface. And this is the semi-finished result. We may have to check out her blog in a few days to see what other "ponderings" have taken place over the Orange Blossom:



We were late in leaving the studio and walking the short distance to the house Wednesday night. There were three distinct flopping-on-the-mattress sounds heard from our house. . .

Thursday we had a nice treat. Jordan and Julie so kindly made time for us to make a mid-morning visit, and to our surprise, Julie had a lunch for us. She works with a nurse whose husband has a catering business/small restaurant called "It's About Thyme" in Norcross, and Julie drove there to bring us fresh-out-of-the-oven, marvelous quiche(s?)-- I think they may be the best I've ever had! I was envious-- the custard was so much creamier than the one I make. I am going to have to really step up the quality of my quiche before I offer it to family or guests again! Thank you, dear!

Bethy and Ethan were perfect little angels (this is the grandmother bragging, but they were loverly! Honest!):





Cynthia took photos and said she would share them with me, so I will, in turn, post them later.

We went on to painting old picture frames Thursday afternoon. I have boxes and boxes of them-- a dozen, maybe more-- so we had a nice selection of sizes for playing around. Here are some results of the frame-painting:



Isn't the little edge pretty? Cynthia got that effect by rubbing the contrasting color over the painted frame, an old one so darkened with age that the little raised trim on the edge scarcely showed up. A bit of paint and some imagination go a long way, don't they! In the frame is an embroidered sampler of Fly Stitches. We used the Beaney and Littlejohn book, Stitch Magic for inspiration.

In this photo, Sandra's sampler of Herringbone Stitch is lying inside a frame she painted. There are many coats of paint on these frames!



Mine was the small frame for a dresser-top mirror whose mirror never really fit too well. In place of the ill-fated mirror, I must think of something to go in it that these cool water tones will show off well.



After dinner we went back to the studio to work with Stitch Magic, and the samplers morphed into fiber balls that we began putting together from fabric and woolen scraps. Over the surface of several balls, we added VERY freestyle stitches that we had just been sampling. I began to wrap one (the pink one) and the wrapping was so delightful I couldn't stop. It began life as a deeply red ball, but changed colors a number of times in the wrapping process. It ended as a pink ball, larger than a softball. I also began working on one I determined would eventually be blue. A Pink and a Blue Ball-- maybe for Bethany and Ethan? Here I've lined our collection up as if they were billiard balls, ready for a rather bumpy run across the table:



My two are the big ones at the back. Sandra and Cynthia created the smaller, neater ones, including the blue felted one (which has more to be done to it). Have you guessed by now that I can't turn an idea loose as easily as others, hence the lack of almost any evidence of production on my part!

We were even more tired Thursday evening than Wednesday. More flopping sounds . . .

Friday morning came slowly to all of us. We had overdosed on Creative Exchange for two days, and the batteries needed recharging. We did make the trip to the studio after breakfast, but not at a zip pace. There were still so many ideas we had discussed but not tried, yet. And Charles came in from Knoxville before lunch, so we took a break about 1:00 and had an extremely health-conscious salad. In fact, I could see that Charles was getting light-headed from all the raw, fresh veggies and sliced chicken breast. When I asked if he would be all right, his reply was that he needed a hamburger.

Back in the studio (while the Hamburger-Needy Charles did the dishes), Cynthia and I were finishing up our "Fiber Orbs" while Sandra was at the sewing machine. She was interested in the possibilities lying in the basket of vintage quilt scraps, eventually bringing up some pieces to use as coasters. A large stack of these is nice-- all different sizes, very simple zig-zagged edges, and (sometimes) a bit of stitching over the seams of the old fabrics to add style. And the stitching sometimes helps hold everything together. They are thin coasters, can be stacked double for really weepy cold glasses, and can be tossed in the wash if needed. Something useful from throw-away items! How "Green" is that?





I hated to see them leave. We had laughed and experimented with ideas and materials, and for three days nothing really seemed beyond our doing. Later, as Charles and I talked about our respective past few days, I concluded I'd had the better experience. He was busy with yard work and landscaping projects and has a mountain of housework to do next week when he returns to Knoxville. I, on the other hand, played my heart out with dear friends here in the studio. I patted him on the shoulder, but it was hard to look too sympathetic when I was smiling so widely!

Meet the Adorables

To my eternal shame, I have posted no pix of Ethan, my dear grandson, on my blog. Lest I be accused of bias, I have borrowed this photo from my son. The picture was taken when the family was in England for Julie's brother (Tony's) wedding in April. Can you read in his face what he thinks of formal dress?



These are from camping with Mum and Dad:









And Bethany, togged-out for the out-of-doors:



Can you see why we have moved to be only 3 1/2 miles away from them?

Freestyle Wednesday!

What a great day-- the Knoxville Freestylers met, this month at Peggy's house, on the water. These are some of my stitching buddies, minus the ones who couldn't make it this time--can you tell we're a fun group?

Teeney Weeney Wool Cottage

Remember the pink-ish weaving from Wednesday that just didn't have a stand-alone character? By re-purposing all that woven roving and rolling it into a (rough) cone shape, it has become the central construction for this small house:



You can see the heads of pins where I've temporarily placed some of the elements. The "walls" of the little house are wool felt strips that have been dyed and run under the embellisher, front and back, with lots of little chips of scrim pounded through from back to front. There are also some little "bricks" added to the surface, more of the embellishing machine at work:



The texture is so inviting-- I want to keep playing with it rather than putting it down and studying it to see how the parts are working together.



And here you can see some of the roof tiles that have been pinned in place:



I'm still thinking through how I'll assemble the roof parts. I've already made one roof (unfinished) that was a howling failure. I hesitate to start sewing things down until I've played with several arrangements of shapes-- I can't tell you how many things I've ruined by not stepping back and looking and thinking. Below are pictures of the window after I'd sewn it in place (including the green window box) and began to add french knot flowers:



This piece has a lot of work to be done before it's finished, but I think it will be a delightful journey. I especially like to work on things that are bright, happy colors with a lot of whimsey spilling out. Sometimes we need a touch of whimsey in our lives.

Starting out a little too early

What a morning! I awakened about 3 a.m. and after some tossing about finally got up, made a cup of tea, and was in the Studio before 4:00 this morning. And here it is, just after lunch, and I feel as if I should be in jammies and waiting for it to be dark enough to go to bed. I won't do this again any time soon. Next time it will be decaf tea and a snooze on the sofa.

I went into the dark back yard and began the little walk to the Studio. The night was alive with the sounds of tree frogs and rustling grasses. There was even a tiny movement of air. Above, the sky was still star-speckled. I felt quite alone in the universe, except for my cup of tea.

With all this sudden gift of time on my hands, I made a list of things to do today. At the top of the list was to assemble the four-harness loom my son built while he was still in college. The assorted pieces have been propped against walls of the studio for a long, long time, and since the wool-roving weaving experience, I have contracted the bug to make something using yarn and shuttles-- a "regular" sort of weaving. I thought the assembly of the floor loom wouldn't be too hard, that I just had to get the beams in place and everything else would line up and fall into a neat order. Was that ever a pie-in-the-sky dream! After a lot of struggling and nothing too much to show for it except that I finally began to understand which was the front and which the back, there was daylight enough to enlist Charles to help. Result: now there were two supervising personnel and no worker bees. In the end, I put everything back against a wall (the front wall, against the windows, unfortunately), and I will do this another day. Jordan and Julie are camping with the Adorables this weekend, so maybe I can persuade him to give me some guidance one evening next week and show me where the left-over parts go.

I am also working with the three wool roving pieces. The idea of weaving from roving and tossing the results into the washing machine is good in theory, but the truth is that some weavings are better suited for felting than others. I pored over the three pieces (blue/green, pinkish, and yellow/orange) and chose the pink for experimented with the embellishing machine, needle felting, and embroidery. I think I have an idea. It needs some nurturing, though. And it especially needs a clear head that has had lots of sleep before anyone starts doing drastic, non-reversible things to it. Right now I need a boring, repetitive job that will keep my hands busy while I think. Yes, I'm thinking about that bucket of bolts and screws and why the beams don't line up properly . . .

Weaving in the Studio

I've been thinking about my looms a bit, particularly as I am moving things, opening up boxes (and finding tools and parts to one loom or another), and it seemed suddenly very important to do something with the Tapestry Loom. I have so much wool yarn, roving for felting, and a cabinet full of cone threads, that coming up with a project would be no trouble at all. In fact, as I think about life past and future, if I don't use up a lot of these materials, they will end up in a landfill one day. Time to pull out all the stops and go for the big, over-the-top piece of hand-woven something-or-other.

So, with nothing to lose, I dragged the Tapestry Loom from its corner yesterday afternoon. "This will be a walk in the park," I thought as I set in on the floor beside my chair. Hmmmm . . . I couldn't remember how to warp it. Actually, I will confess to having had a hard time telling the front from the back. Then I remembered that this loom warps vertically, not horizontally. My first reaction was to glance back at the place it had come from and to think of how little trouble it would be to put it back there. But the challenge of how to warp this loom was too good to pass up.

By dinner, I had the warp on it (a narrow warp of only 20 threads, about eight or nine inches wide) and had started working out how to draw out the roving to make my weft. My intent was to create pieces that would be felted, that I would throw in the wash with jeans, so I was more concerned with color placement than good technique. It would shrink unevenly, as I am using merino wool, silk tussa and silk throwster's waste, merino/wool combinations, corriedale, goat batts . . . This made my job of re-learning how to weave a little easier. This photo shows the loom up on a work table (with attendant clutter).



Of course, you can't just cut a piece off the loom and rush to felt it, because you have all that remaining warp left that is under tension (and getting an even tension on each thread can be tedious, most particularly since I used wool for the warp, which is stretchier than cotton or linen). Best to put on yards of warp and use it for several projects, making it best to keep on weaving until you get to the end of your warp. I went from blue/green roving to spring pink/green/coral batt, to orange and yellow combinations of things. With each piece I became more adventurous. It is the last one, the orange and yellow, that is most texturally interesting.



And here is a detail of the yummy colors and texture:



Since I used curly locks here along with throwster's waste, I know I will not felt this. I have no idea now what it will be. If I had it off the loom, I could turn it upside down and see how well it speaks to me-- maybe those curly locks that are hanging down are really trees in a parched landscape?

I need to devote more thought to this one, and do some more weaving. There is an awfully lot more of roving in the yellow/orange drawer! And I will have Bethy and Ethan this afternoon, so I will ask them what it looks like. Have you ever noticed how intersting a child's view of the world can be?

Independence Day 2010

We are being quiet here. Charles has made a Vanilla Pudding (of which he is a little too proud), and I am in the studio (duuuuuh, did I really need to say that?). I've been going through boxes again. Today, I have two large empty boxes to be removed. Some of the contents were in the wrong place and needed to be put with others of a like nature. Some were destined for the landfill. But a nice little collection is going to a friend who is interested in niblets and nibs. She uses them in spinning wonderfully lumpy yarns for her knitting and felting projects. When I go to a knitting yarn store, I always wonder what people see in plain yarn. It is like plain yogurt to me-- in need of sprucing up.

Anyway, whether I have Rules Of The Studio or not, I am two boxes closer to being sorted out.

It may be that sorting is not a one-time thing. When a person moves a studio, they move their perspective and, often, their support group. Re-thinking past projects, how they were carried out, and wondering if those techniques are still interesting is well-spent time. I thought and re-thought the dyeing process until I knew I would not like to do that messy sort of thing again without a dedicated kitchen for the sole purpose of mixing chemicals and creating dye pots. Each time I open a cupboard (and there are a number of cupboards lined up against the walls) I come across another package of materials I collected to experiment with a process. Eventually, I'll be sure enough to either use them again or find a home for them.

And that is a sort of Independence Day isn't it?

Rules of the Studio

I made this silly rule. I am to take two items out of the studio every day. They can be any size, anything at all, but I must remove two items from the clutter in the studio. On the first day it was two glass jars I'd used for cleaning paint brushes. That was easy, since they were ugly and stained, and I had just found a box of about a dozen more, sparkling fresh from the dishwasher and ready for use. The following day, however, it was more difficult to see useless items lying about,so I surrendered to indecision and took out the two lids that went with the glass jars of the previous day. The third day, I skipped the rule. And by the fourth day, I needed to get rid of four objects. Fifth day, six objects. I could feel the clutter creeping closer, and I rummaged until I found a box that I thought would fit the bill. In it were assorted smaller boxes of envelopes and blank greeting cards from the time when I spent entire days making cards. Years ago I used to recycled my less successful embroidery, the pieces that just wouldn't ever work, no matter how much I might try, and these small pieces made very interesting subjects for "carding."

"Great," I thought. "A whole box of boxes! I'm good for the next month." And to add to my relief, the big box under this big box had more card-making supplies. These, however, were smaller things, labels, bits of old puzzles, game pieces, hand-made paper scraps-- all unsorted and unboxed. Hmmm . . . .

I decided to save them for Bethy. We'd cut and paste and make wonderful, messy things. Then I could throw away both boxes. Voile!

But, Bethy wasn't interested. After a while, I realized that it was I who was interested, and I made that incredibly fatal mistake of too much touching and thinking.

Which is why, this morning, when I meant to clean up from our day in the studio I, instead, spread the contents of the boxes on the drafting table, and when I finally looked up it was because Charles had come into the studio to announce that he was ready for lunch.

Lunch?

By then I had made a small selection of greeting cards, which I share with you.











If there is a moral to this tale, it must be that we should not make rules. Certainly not left-brained rules for right-brained operations.

Friday with Bethany

Yes, this is Bethany, now four. She is holding a little critter I made her that we call a "Ticklebug." I made it from scraps of felted wool and yarn while she played with wooden beads in the studio this afternoon. It is the sort of little stuffed toy whose charm is entirely in the eye of the beholder.

A better look at Ticklebug:



She arrived shortly after breakfast this morning, and we spent some time pasting and drawing in the Big Sketch Book she has had for about a year. After a half-hour of this she was ready to try something new. I showed her some embroidery thread and she fell immediately in love with the pink variegated cotton and wanted to stitch! Oh, heart be still! I put a threaded needle in her dad's hand before his second birthday, so I've been ready for this moment for quite a while. I found a hoop, linen, and a needle with a large eye, and we began.



I was surprised that she understood easily that the piece of fabric was two-sided and that she needed to go into the fabric on the same side that the thread just came out. Only once did she wrap the thread around the side of the hoop. The beads made the stitching even more fun, and the small scissors fascinated her. Showing her how to pick them up, remove the leather sheath and open them slowly and carefully-- this was easier than I'd thought it might be because she knew immediately that this was a grown-up action in which she was being allowed to participate.

How neat it was to watch her horizon widen just the smallest bit . . .

Recycling a Recycled object

Hey, is this green, or what! I have been using part of an old sock as a cloth to clean my paint brushes, so there was an accumulation of watercolors, gouache, and a little acrylic paint on it. I was cleaning up today and half-way through throwing it in the trash when the lovely colors began screaming, "Save me, Save me!" And so I did. I've always wondered what it would be like to embroider on a sock. This one was terry-lined, which gave me a double challenge: the knit surface and the looped underside.

After thread and vintage buttons were applied, this is my result:



Not bad, when you consider that the embroidery is the third life of the sock. However, I don't think I'll be doing this on a regular basis. The knit stretches, and the point of the needle pulls loops of the terry that make a little "mark" on the smooth front of the scrap. It is often very rewarding to embroider on a cloth that has some outstanding tactile characteristic that requires extra attention to detail, but I'm just not sure an athletic sock is that sort of rewarding experience.

After the little sock embroidery, I started thinking about making fabric books again. The only way I know to do it is to lay out a lot of linen and see what starts to take shape. Pieces of linen have to "talk to me" before I can begin the creative process. I started with my basket of small, rolled linen pieces.



They look like ancient scrolls, don't they?



Then the real fun-- unrolling and laying out the bits and pieces, fingering them, thinking of how they will hold stitches and buttons and beads . . .



I started stitching on one of the pages, and hopefully will have it ready to post tomorrow or the next day!

Last Day of June

The last Journal Page is finished. Five days in June. It sounds like the title of a book, or a chapter in a book. I wonder how I could make a book of these five differently-sized pieces that were not measured out beforehand and designed to be bound into a book. . . . There's always a project at hand, isn't there?

I was cheered on by a flutterby having a sip on one of the Lantana plants.



But, despite the Very Good Day In The Studio, the best news is that Jordan phoned today and asked if I would be able to pick up Bethy from School (Pre-K) on Tuesdays and Wednesdays beginning in August! Well, would a starving man like a steak? I can start working on dress-up clothes for her, now. Fun, funky clothes. Altered clothing. And hats. All little girls need hats with outrageous silk flowers and lots of ribbon.

Life Is Good!

Aaaaahhhhhhhhhh. . . . .

I think I have the hang of blogging. Thanks to Cynthia's exceptional tutoring, I have been able to get back into this blog site and even import posts from the one I started (in frustration) on another site, WordPress. What a difference a little education makes!

I've been stitching on Journal pages these past two weeks. Not steadily. I don't think I could produce a journal page on a daily basis, even when I am stitching at a manic pace. These are the results, so far:

It has been so dry here, and near 95˚F for 18 or 20 days, that my garden's need for water must have crept into my dreams. Fortunately, on Monday night (past 10 pm!) we had a storm of magnificient proportions, the lightning and thunder going on for more than an hour, and heavy rain pouring over us. The petunias would have been happier for a more lady-like rainfall, but I think We Should Be Very Thankful For What We Have Rather Than Looking The Gift Horse In The Mouth (my mother's admonition creeping in here).

This Monday Journal Page was a lot of experimenting with Knotted Stitches and couching heavy matt cotton thread (DMC Broder #4) while listening to Charles read the paper to me that morning. I was having a lot of fun altering the stitches. I love the texture that multiple lines of couched threads creates. It is especially nicely done in linen, which stands up and refuses to squish down. A Thread of Considerable Opinion, I think. Very vocal.

I will post today's Journal Page when I think through some parts that seem to gape at me with an air of expecting answers. This page would not be pleased to be photographed too soon. And it is lunch time, and I have a scrumptuous chicken salad left over from dinner last evening. . . . So sorry, Charles, you are in Knoxville today. But, I can add avocado chunks to it, since it is only for me!

Injection #2

Second epidural today (Tuesday). Less painful than the initial injection two weeks ago. I waited a long time in the doctor's office, so I got some stitching done. I am immune to the curious stares of strangers as I choose my chair by the quality of the light source and begin to setup my work area.

Hmmm...I am not supposed to operate machinery, and I think that warning extends to the computer. Off for a bit of a nap. The pain meds will wear off soon.

Busy Stitching Week

Garden Tiara Done!

My tiara is made from scraps of an old quilt that I found bagged up at a flea market. I couldn’t believe that someone would really cut up an old quilt, but when I saw how badly some of the pieces were rotted (especially the reds), I forgave the culprit. I’ve used these scraps for several years now for all sorts of projects. The points of the tiara are lined with felted sweater wool, and a piece of heavy-duty artists’ canvas stiffens the head band, to keep things from stretching out of shape. It will lie flat, with a button closure.

Next is a journal page from the 17th of June, which got the whole creative surge started.

It was a bit like reading Virginia Woolf, being Clarissa Dalloway as she moved between the present and the past. Whatever came into and out of the needle was simple where I “was” at the moment. Linen, cotton, silk threads and scraps, vintage rick rack and some lovely old mother-of-pearl buttons, beads– this was the impetus I needed to get started playing again, to stop worrying about the boxes of things still unpacked in the house.

Then, another journal page:

This one is a bit more rigid (I had started to worry about closet space again, I think). I made the surface from strips of linen and small bits of things that I basted to a scrap of an old linen napkin. It was following the strips that gave the perpendicular shape to it. Not sure this one is such a happy piece (it is NEVER happy to contemplate a lack of closet space). But, it was the piece for Thursday the 24th.

Yesterday I meant to clean things up in the studio, and I wanted to start with the gibblets and nibbles of wool left over from felting and embellishing. Yes, I save EVERYTHING. On my way to the trash bin, however, I made the fatal error that took me to the next project: I TOUCHED the little bits and pieces. Immediately I turned back to my work table and began to play with everything. On the table were scraps from embroidery, some silk threads, wool yarn, bright cotton flosses and perles and knitting threads– all things I’d been doing over a year or so. I wrapped some of these pieces with a length of wool yarn. Added some more. There were scraps from a winter coat my mom had made. And an embellished piece I’d done last summer. Before I knew it, I had wound an entire box of these scraps into a loverly froo-froo ball! But wait– there were more boxes. And a metal tin . . . this went on and on until I had not one or two balls, but THREE delicious spheres!

All the texture from the left-overs of projects is dizzying! Up close, this is what one of the larger ones looks like:

Makes me want to take off my shoes and dive in!

And other things are in the works– I am on a wonderful run, and can’t stop the flow!

Happy News!

Happy News! The computer is coming to Woodstock this week, and should be connected by the weekend! And, with a little luck, I'll be able to blog again. Now, crossing fingers and breathing deeply that everything works out as planned . . .

October over? How'd THAT happen?

How did October slip by me? I thought this was still September and I had so much time to get so many things done . . .

One of the most "fun" things I've done is to spend Fridays with Bethany in my studio. She is three and a half, loves to draw and make beaded necklaces, and running her hand through a bowl of threads is her idea of a contemplative moment. She isn't ready to stitch, though, but I'm ready when she shows the first interest. She asked, immediately, to have an apron like mine, so I decorated the canvas apron I'd bought for her (before she was born) with her name in big pink letters (she chose the fabric for each letter), and each time she comes, we add buttons and ribbons to it. She is in the garden, here, taking a break from a hard morning of drawing and counting wooden beads.:

Two weeks ago we went to Burt's Pumpkin Patch to find that perfect pumpkin for her dad to carve, and after being overwhelmed by the ocean of orange, I found the shed with gourds and corn, where the texture was so compelling I had to be dragged away:

And this past weekend Charles and I were invited to go camping with them to Hiawassee, GA, to an Airstream Rally. We have no Airstream, of course, so Jordan loaned us one of his. We stayed in the Silver Pickle (1959), Jordan and Julie and the children stayed in the slightly larger 1964 Airstream. He has a penchant for finding old Airstreams that need TLC and ripping in to them to bring them to life again. It was rainy and cold, but the mountains and lake were still a beautiful show of color.

We old folks think this might be a bit more fun in the spring. The time with family and meeting their Airstream friends was lovely, though. The most rewarding thing a mother can experience is the moments when total strangers come up to you and take your hand and tell you what a great son or daughter you have, and my buttons were a-busting with pride this weekend! I also got some lovely photographs to use as models in the pastel painting classes my sister and I are taking with Karen Margulis. My sister is the artist; I am along for comic relief.

I am working on two projects, now. One is a weekend class at the Campbell Folkschool I will teach in December on making Holiday Postcards in fabric. (Anne and Beth: I agreed to do this in March of 2008, before you two took up the Fantasy of Trees project with postcards and ATCs!) The other is to put together a proposal for a class to be taught at the EGA Regional Seminar in Birmingham, AL in 2011, also a weekend class. I am typing handouts for the Campbell class now, and making samples of 4"x6" cards. The EGA proposal has to be in by January, and if it is accepted, I will offer it to my Freestyle Group friends to do a test run on it and to tweak it a bit. So I have a few things to keep me busy for the next weeks-- including Thanksgiving and Christmas family dinners. To be with my family was the reason to return to the Atlanta area, and even without all our furniture, it is a pleasure to have us together for the holidays. Julie and my sister, Michelle, are ICU nurses who will work Thanksgiving Day, so our family dinner will be on Friday. I would like to have the dining room painted by then-- no small feat, because it was brown until I began covering it with Kilz (two coats and it is just a lighter, spottier brown), and a coat of white (still spotty, but more cloudy than brown). Fortunately, it is a room with an 8' ceiling, and I won't need scaffolding to get it done like the living room, sun room, and master bath. We need the pros for those rooms. And something stronger than Kilz. Anyone with experience in primers?

Plans for the next few weeks: to get over this miserable sinus infection and begin my crochet projects for Christmas. This is perfect weather for working on something woolen and heavy that drapes across my lap as I add to it.

Tough Week for Sunflowers

When we were driving back to Powell from Woodstock this morning, I was shocked to see the sunflower fields.  They had dried, were actually very brown and pretty well gone when we saw them last week, but today one of the fields looked as if it had been harvested.  No brown blossoms with the little crook at the top that held the drooping flower head.  Just tall, brown stalks, now.  It was the sort of thing that looks more like a bad dream than a harvest, so I didn't even ask Charles to stop so I could photograph it.  The stalks, several feet tall, no longer look crowded in the field, but stand there startled, as if they'd had their hats snatched off and they aren't quite sure whether they should continue to stand or is it time to sit, or lie down . . .?

I did manage to get a little "fun" work done last week, besides the never-ending tasks of sorting and putting away.  The only thing worse is having seen an item in a box and needing it, then wondering which box it was in.  I'll be so, so SO glad to get the cabinets here to hold these boxes.  Waiting for the Powell house to sell for that.

Anyway, I looked at my embroidery table and had to laugh-- what a mess!!!  I'm working on too many things at a time, and my table reflects this bad discipline.  Here are some of my little color books that I've been keeping for more than a year-- little mulberry paper albums with scraps and bits and pieces of ideas and miscellany and useless information about colors.  Anything at all is grist for this mill, so long as it is small and interesting and looks like the start of something sometime along the way.  I keep finding things for the book as I go through boxes, so they are stacked on the table rather than being on the shelf, where they would be no trouble at all.

In Knoxville:  Anne Stevenson and Beth Ralph are co-chairs of the EGA Fantasy of Trees project this year, and the theme is holiday postcards and ATCs.  I have been collecting ideas for postcards for a year, since I'm to teach a class in holiday postcards for the Campbell Folk School in December, but sitting down and turning the drawings into the real thing seems out of the realm of reason, right now.  But, I took the bull by the horns, or bit the bullet, or whatever it is you do when you have lost all excuses for gross procrastination, and I made an ATC.  It is a pear, from the "Twelve Days of Christmas" repeating line about the pear tree.  Now that I've gotten this first one done, there is hope for others to follow.

While On The Road

Traveling the road between Woodstock and Powell can be interesting, often an adventure.  We pass this sunflower field, about 45 minutes from Penny Lane.  It was in soy beans last year, but we were thrilled to see the sunflowers this summer.  They are droopy and brown, today, but this is the way we think of them, bright yellow and spreading across both sides of the highway, on and on . . .  It is easy to see how Vincent could have chosen them for portraits.

When we got back to Knoxville, the strawberry plants that grow in a concrete fountain were ready for rifling.  The three-tiered fountain was in the front yard of the house in Powell when we purchased it in 2001, and moving it around back was one of the first items of business.  A friend drilled drain holes in it for me, and we've planted it with a variety of things over the years-- wave petunias do especially well in the two deeper bowls.  But a couple of years ago we put strawberry plants there.  Raising the plants from the ground saves our backs and makes finding the fruit easier.  They're small, but really sweet.  Never enough for more than a bowl at breakfast or an afternoon snack-- but I'm not complaining!

The deer seem to prefer to nibble the blueberry bushes in the front yard, though I can sometimes get a handful before the deer come to graze.  I wonder if the bunnies who dance in the grass are waiting for us to plant something for them to snack on!