just a little side trip

over the weekend we made a quick trip to our daughter's house to help out with a little home repair project

since the current knitting I'm working on is for her, I couldn't really work on it while we were there

so, here are two afghan squares all ready to be shipped off --- I'm thinking I may put the supplies to do a couple of these in my hospital bag, so I can work on them if I'm feeling up to it

meantime, I have been working on setting up to work on the first of the mixed media architectural pieces to be framed

I'll be doing the bank first

Progress pictures to come!

new projects

As you may recall, yesterday I was babbling abount needing to start on a new project to get jazzed up to finish some old ones.

I can report that I did, and I am.

Although actually these drawings have been resurrected from about two years ago when I originally thought about this project then couldn't figure out how to do anything with it.

So, now that I'm more seriously working on beaded pieces that go into frames, it seemed logical to pull this out and reconsider it.

The plan is to create 5 pieces as a series in frames. There are two that got me started on this idea in the first place --- that very first one that is the theatre and the last one that is a bank.

We'll see where this goes.

Meantime, I started doing the embellishment on the giraffe print last night, and it's looking good!

Thinking about the "here after"

as in "what did I come in here after"?

I loved being on vacation --- I had a great time working on art projects with my friend. But now that we're home I find that I'm at the "boring" part of some bead work and the "are we ever going to finish this" part on a quilt.

And it's hot, which makes me want to just lay down on the tile floor under the ceiling fan with the dog and do nothing whatsoever.

Add to that the fact that next Friday I'm having surgery so I'm trying to put the house in order so it won't make me totally crazy while I'm recovering and can't just go fix whatever is bugging me.

{sigh!}

So, I need a new project to get me jazzed up enough to work on stuff.

While I was in California someone suggested it would be cool to make a lion out of beads (have you noticed there have been a series of African animals on the scene of late here?).

So I'm thinking about lions and whole new ways to make animals -- as in doing the skeleton out of wire then covering it with batting and unbleached muslin then working beads over the entire thing. (Wow, where did THAT idea come from).

and then of course there is that series of architectural pieces to put in frames that I was thinking about before we left

and the piecing of a suitable border to go around the giraffe print

but I digress -- Oh yeah, that seems to be the problem!

Blocking --- It's not just mental

Most of what I usually knit does not require "blocking"

Part of that is because I usually am using "un-natural" fibers -- acrylics, polyesters -- that do not require blocking, just a run through the washer and dryer and it's done

This project, however, is a whole other critter

This yarn is made of bamboo. I got it in the sale bin during a recent visit to one of my favorite yarn shops.

There were exactly two of the little 82 yard balls of this in the same color (and two of another sort of gray color which I did not like). And the price was low enough that I just couldn't resist getting some to play with.

What I did not expect was that it would work up so neatly

I had decided that I wanted to try the lace technique in a larger format so I could actually see (quickly) what I was doing. This stuff was great for that.

And now I have another finished project --- or I will just as soon as it drys.

Who knew blocking would be so much fun?

What I did on my summer vacation

Remember those compositions we had to write the first day back to school?

I've decided that the teachers were just trying to get a bit more prep time, so they gave us a "make work" project. (I also hated those compositions because we never did anything all that exciting over summer vacation when I was a kid --- hours and hours of laying around in a hot house reading and the occasional camping trip)

Anyway, since I'm talking about my vacation in this post (and the last one), I thought I'd share some things with you.

I had the best of intentions (and we all know where those lead!) to do actual physical journal pages with drawings, etc.

I did exactly ONE of them, and here it is.

Actually I learned some really important things from this idea and my failure to complete it:

1. I'm better with a camera and a computer keyboard than I am with a notebook and a box of pencils --- my drawing skills are just not up to the task of creating (to my satisfaction) some of the complex ideas I wanted to convey.

2. When I'm on vacation I don't spend a lot of time reflecting --- I spend time observing and doing --- and reflecting time is when I do journal (or blog) work.

3. It's okay that I didn't get all that drawing done because I had a great time, did some wonderful art projects and have some fun stories to share.

Odd things seen on the road #1: Windmill Farms

In the two and a half years since we last drove to California, a lot of windmills have sprung up.

These are not the old multi-blade water pump for the stock tank sort of windmills.

No, we're talking about those tri-blade high tech wonders that are becoming a part of our nation's power grid.

I for one find them fascinating --- and I'm happy to see them showing up on the top of hills that are otherwise covered with sagebrush in areas (like Wyoming!) where the wind seems to never stop blowing.

For years there has been a place called Altamont Pass in northern California where one of the oldest windmill farms in the country was. We drove over Altamont specifically to see if those windmills were being upgraded to the new ones. They are --- and they have added many, many more windmills too.

Odd things seen on the road #2: Dairy Cows and Moose

No, I'm not kidding.

When you drive Interstate Highway 80 (the most direct way to get from where we started to where we wanted to go), and go out of Wyoming into Utah, you go down a sort of narrow valley that has a lot of smaller family farms.

In the past I have seen fields with sheep, cattle and horses all together.

This year's trip was a whole new adventure.

As we're slowly crawling along in traffic (it's road construction time), I looked over into the field and saw 6 dairy cows (you know, the black and white ones like on the California Cheese commercials) RUNNING across the field.

I've seen a lot of dairy cows, but I can't remember any other time I've seen them running anywhere. It was puzzling. What were they running from?

But wait, there in the field ahead of them is another animal --- a female MOOSE! They were chasing the moose out of their field!!

What a hoot!

Odd things seen on the road #3: Urban Transportation?

In same areas along the highway, the road runs parallel with streets in little towns along the way.

As I looked out in one area I saw what must pass for urban transportation for one guy at least.

He was riding his horse, with his mule in tow and two dogs running along side right down the middle of the paved street into town.

I wonder if he was headed to Walmart ---

Odd things seen on the road #4: Air Travel?

This seemed to be the trip for oddities of machinery intended for air travel.

#1: Two helicopters without their rotors on trailers behind pick up trucks --- one seen on the way out to California, one on the way back.

#2: A little yellow airplane suddenly appearing from behind a burm that ran along the highway apparently taking off from a little runway that we couldn't see.

#3: Crop dusting with a small bi-wing plane in the Central Valley of California.

#4: A small plane flying at about 10 feet off the ground parallel with the road across the salt desert.

Odd things seen on the road #5: Dust Devil

We've watched dust devils from the car for years as we've driven back and forth to California.

They always look like little dirt tornados, kicking up dust and then disappearing.

This was the first time that we had actually felt the impact of one of them.

As we were driving along I spotted one out in a field ahead of us. Because of the speed and direction of both our van and the dust devil, we had the experience of driving through it --- or it running over us.

After that brief and somewhat scary experience I can tell you that I think those folks that chase after full blown tornados are nuts!

Odd things seen on the road #6: Back in Time

As we were coming home we saw two fully restored Model T Fords headed the other way.

It was pretty amazing to see them rolling along --- although not at 75 miles an hour --- in with the other vehicles.

Makes me think of a lyric from the musical Ragtime:

See my people?
Well, here's my theory
Of what this country
Is moving toward.
Every worker
A cog in motion.
Well, that's the notion of Henry Ford!
One man tightens
And one man ratchets
And one man reaches
To pull one cord.
Car keeps moving
In one direction.
A genuflection to Henry Ford!

(I have some thoughts about this politically as well, but we won't go there on this blog!)

Odd things seen on the road #7: Awesome Animals

As on every trip, I notice animals. Here then is a sampling:

1. A praire dog sitting on the edge of the highway as if he were counting cars as they went by.

2. Antelope in the fields with the cattle. (Unlike the dairy cows and the moose, the cattle didn't seem to mind)

3. Deer -- but none of them alive. I can't remember ever seeing so many dead deer along the highway.

4. Racoons in any state don't appear to explode on impact --- it must be the slick fur.

5. The last day of our trip we went up into the Colorado mountains with our daughter and son-in-law. On the way back we saw 3 elk in a little meadow by the side of the road. The bull elk was amazing --- the most enormous rack, and all in velvet still --- such an amazing creature.

So, just what did you do on your vacation?

Catching Up

I'm back!

For the first time in a very long time we actually spent two weeks on vacation!! Weird ---

As we have done shows and traveled for those in the past few years, our "vacations" have usually consisted of an extra day after a show to visit a place we've not seen before or to visit briefly with friends.

This year, since I will not be doing any shows that I'll be traveling to, and because a dear friend was celebrating her 80th birthday, we made a trip to California.

The point of the trip was that she and I got to "PLAY"!

In this post I'm going to talk about about the projects that I've worked on the past two weeks, then in another post in the next couple of days, I'll talk about our travel "adventures".


Project #1: The Angels
You may remember this project from a while back.

Even though in general I was pleased with the way it came out, I have long maintained that doing faces, especially human like faces, in any medium is not my strongest suite. This piece was no exception, so I took it and the fabric markers I had originally used on it with me, hoping for some help with it.

The suggested fix? Darker markers to do the shading/highlighting of the eyes, nose and mouth and under the chins.

The result I think is much better.

Project #2: Rubber Stamping
That we should be messing with rubber stamps at all is sort of funny as neither of us have ever been all that into the whole rubber stamping craze, but when we recently got involved with cutting rubber stamps from our own drawings, we got a lot more interested!

These are the pair of zebras that I cut and the first stamps of each of them.

There's only one problem with this -- my original plan was to have two zebras that would FACE each other --- except I got the transfer to the rubber wrong, and so both of them face the same way ---- Pfffttt!!

Okay, that means that I need to cut one more, but I'll have to get another sheet of the rubber stuff to cut first.

Project #3: Rubber Stamping and a Painting Technique Lesson
You probably remember that I've been sort of giraffe crazy of late, and that has spilled over into this project too.

There at the top is the giraffe rubber stamp, and underneath is the stamp with the embellishment of an added tail and mane that are drawn on with a fabric marker.

Because my friend has taken all those classes in painting techniques that come along with a BA in Fine Art she gave me a techniques lesson on using various sea sponges to create the tree and the ground beneath the giraffe.

My plan next is to use thread and beads to further embellish this and to create something that can be hung on the wall from it.

And yes, I'm thinking about something that will involve even more stamped animals.

Project #4: Dye Workshop
Ok, perhaps we should have labeled this "playing with dirty soap"

This project involved squirting dyes into a pan of shaving cream to form patterns then laying the fabric over the pan to take up the colors and patterns -- sort of like you do with marbling techniques on paper.

After that you pick up the fabric and let it dry for about 24 hours before you wash out the shaving cream and residual dye.

And these are my pieces from the project.

My plan is to use them as parts of more stamping/embellishing projects in the future


The Shopping Spree
This was not a trip where I did a whole lot of shopping for anything.

I did get the chance to go into a quilt store in San Jose while we were there and picked up a piece of fabric for a wall hanging we are working on that is titled Breakfast on the Hoof.

The "cow print" fabric was just too cute to resist especially since they were having a sale.

And here's the next question --- which is more useful, the purchase or the bag?

Since I work with lots of media, the bag will be just as good to have as the fabric!

A Project Complete!
One of the things I can do quite well while riding for hours in a car is knit.

While we were traveling I completed the last of the mittens for this year's Mittnz challenge.

I'll be sending along my picture this week.

Since those were finished by the middle of the second day out, I started working on this year's sweater project. Because sleeves are usually the last pieces I knit and I usually dread them if they are just plain sleeves, I decided to knit those first this time. And I'm now within 10 rows of having both sleeves complete.

And there have been some other knitting experiments which I will be sharing in the next few days, incuding the purchase of some absolutely amazing silk yarn.

And so there we are.

I'm back, I played, and now there is a ton of laundry to do ---- more soon!

last minute odds and ends

You'd think after 4 loads of laundry, helping to mow both lawns and packing for our trip that I'd be too tired to do anything but go to sleep ---

But no, the brain would not stop babbling, so after all of that I worked on the beaded band for the balloon piece, and on the Christmas quilt project, and knitted on a mitten

Then I drew this little swan

Another addition to the doodle collection -- and a possible candidate for creating a rubber stamp from

I packed my rubber stamps and the materials I have on hand to make more of same (tools, rubber for cutting) hoping that we'll get to play with that idea while we're in California

So after breakfast we'll pack the car and head on out

Watch for posts on the road and while we're in California "playing"!