We're back.....

We spent 2 days on the road traveling to a show we do in Nevada City, California, every spring. On the way we saw rain, sleet, snow, fog and even a little sunshine. It’s a good thing that our car is gray, because after all that, it looked like a giant gray mud ball anyway, coated with a thick layer of grime, salt and the other chemicals they use to keep the road clear.



This is a picture I took out on the salt desert in Utah on our way out. I'm thinking about using it to create another framed beaded piece.

I think the way the mountains are reflected on that very thin layer of water that sits on top of the salt is pretty interesting.







We rolled into Nevada City before noon and spent most of the afternoon setting up our table and talking with other artists. This year there were 3 artists that had never done this show before and 2 of them had never done any show before.

After all the set up was done I pulled 3 bears off of the table – the same 3 I have been fussing with since I “finished” them in the last month or so. I was never really happy with their faces. Well, after a discussion with one of the other artists, I hauled them back to the motel and reworked their faces. I think they look much better.





During the slow times, I worked on and finished the 3rd in the series of puppies. This one has a longer tail, ears and nose than the others, and I'm pleased with him.

I think Rags is a fitting name.




On Sunday morning I totally rearranged the table ... sometimes this move helps get things moving along.

It was an odd show....I sold NO bears, but I did sell both sheep (and took an order for a third one), the new toucan and one of the penguins sold as did the medium size camel. I came home with orders for a buffalo, a schnauzer and an aligator.

On the whole, a very weird weekend!





Right after the show, we went down to San Jose to visit with a friend and fellow artist.

Every year when we do this, we get involved in some sort of creative project, and this year's had to do with shaving cream and fiber reactive dyes.



This piece was done by my friend by "painting" with the dye in a pan of shaving cream then laying the fabric on top.....quite the splendid bird I think!





















If nothing else, I got a lot of squares done for Close Knit Hugs.

I'll be shipping off a box to them this week.



We got home Saturday evening, and I've since spent a lot of time working on getting unpacked, doing laundry and recovering from the traveling.

I did manage to get the rest of the beading done on the bracelet last night....Nice I think.

The plan for the next few days is to get started on the orders I took and then to get ready for the show we're doing next month in Albuquerque, NM.

Into the fray!

blog before leaving......

While I did spend most of yesterday getting things packed to go, I did manage to get almost all of the beading done on this piece.

I do think its going to be really pretty when its done! Like the stone, each end of the beading has its own character in pattern and color and that has kept me interested enough to keep at it.... A Good Thing!!

Along with this work, I did things like hard boil eggs and make a batch of Kolaches to share and take with us. When I made this batch, I calculated the calories, carbs, fat, etc. So if you're looking for that information too, I have updated the piece about this recipe on Hatties Kitchen.

We will be leaving this afternoon to head to our daughter's (she will be dog sitting while we're gone), then early tomorrow morning, off to California!

I'll blog when I have internet access during the trip, this weekend is "iffy", but I promise to "catch up" as soon as I can!

This morning it was snowing again here, so this promises to be a very interesting trip.....send up a little prayer for our safe travel if you would....

one more square...

I knit this entire thing while I was watching Cold Case on TV last night. I admit to being a BIG fan of this show, the way they use color, music and unusual shooting makes this one of the best "mystery" shows on TV.

Quite a bit more beadwork got done on the bracelet yesterday too, but I just didn't get a picture taken of it.

Today, after 3 days in a row of waking up to heavy fog, we had a clear blue sky. It's supposed to get warm enough to melt the snow today too....GOOD!

laundry and packing for our trip are on today's agenda....time to get to it!

new project and internet frustration.....

Since I had everything finished that I needed to do for the show, I started a new bracelet.

The stone in the middle is a jasper that I had picked up at a gem show, and its been fun working with a limited palette of color.

This one is over half finished already, so it won't take a lot to get it finished. It will not be traveling with me, however. Its too difficult to work "on the road" on a piece that I need to have 16 tubes of beads open at a time!

I will be taking the piece I've been working on that's titled Let the River Run....right now I'm still working on the various bezels around the river rocks, so I usually need only 2 or 3 colors of beads open at a time....much easier to handle in the car or a hotel room.




Finally finished the "oatmeal" square. That's what this yarn looks like to me anyway, sort of lumpy cereal with little chunks of dried fruit in it....yummy!

I'll be taking yarn with me to knit more squares of course, so I should have a pretty hefty group to mail to Close Knit Hugs when I get back.

I spent a lot of time yesterday working on the totally new look for our web site. One of the things I do every time I revamp is check out every link on my links page to make sure they all work, that they go where they are supposed to and that if we have asked for an exchange that they have added us to their links page too.

When I did that link check I discovered that over half of the ones I have do not meet one or more of those criteria. Needless to say, my link page will be getting very short for the near future, and I'll be trying to find new links to add with new artists.

So here is a general invitation.....if you have a website for anything and would like to exchange links, drop me a note from my site HERE and we'll get it done!

So today I'll be working on more of this......

its winter again

Just as I predicted a while back, winter has returned.

I woke this morning to find everything covered with about a quarter inch of ICE! The trees are all white, and the fog was thick enough that I could just barely see the back fence.

Its a good thing I had enjoyed the daffodills the last couple of weeks. The poor little things are all bent over and frozen stiff.

Fog kind of muffles every sound so you notice little things, when I let the dog out I could hear the grass crunch when she stepped on it.

Somber making.

I'm sort of in that place right now. I got the call from California yesterday that my uncle died around noon yesterday (Good Friday). The memorial service will be on the 19th, when I'll be in California anyway, so at least I'll be able to be there for it.

we're done!

Last night I finished the last of the animals I wanted to have done for the show.





After the third try, the kangaroo is done. I have already made some notes about what things need to change to do the next one, but this is the Version I for the show.







and this is the second Mousie.

This fabric has a longer, shaggier pile, so he looks different from the first one, but still quite cute I think.

I'm going to put together a kit for another dog to be worked on in the car while we are travelling. This one will be browns and a a whole different patchwork than the black and gray one. Its a lot more fun doing every one different.




All of the footballs, full and half are complete. Now its on to putting the circles together.

Most of the packing is done too, so I find myself in a very odd and unknown time -- just a few days before we leave for a show, and everything is finished....strange and a little frightening because it means I have a few days to get into trouble....mmmmmmmmm

3 done, 2 to go...

For some reason, when I'm working right up to a deadline for leaving for a show (we have ONLY 8 DAYS!) I'm never happy with how things turn out.





This little guy is supposed to be the Silver Anniversary Bear, for our celebrating 25 years of bear making, and I'm not really sure I like the way the whole face/tongue thing came out.

I'm also disappointed by the fact that I broke one of the really cool pale blue-gray eyes that I had hand painted for him when I was installing it, and since I have no more clear glass ones the right size, I had to make do with black. I think it spoils the whole effect, but what can I do.





And this is Amber or maybe Ambrose.

With this one too I'm not really happy with the mouth....it looks sort of like he/she got stung by a bee and the bottom lip swelled up....in fact I'm thinking about trying to find a little chenille bee to set in it so it looks more like its supposed to be like that.

At least with this one all the work of hand painting the eyes wasn't wasted, and I do like the color they came out. I also like the 2 color nose.

So I guess we're getting closer on this kind of face, and since its a new thing for us, I'm not giving up yet.






Now this guy came out even better than I expected!

The puppy I had made earlier in March has been adopted into a new home so I had to make a new one if we were going to have one to take to our show.

I made some changes to the pattern, and I like this one even better than the first one (it did take a bit longer to do, but I think its worth it!)

The next one will probaly be brown tones....I really like the patchworking effect!

I have started working on the sweater for my daugher. I cast on the 24 stitches needed to work the cable band that will be the bottom edge. As usual, I'm "tweaking" the pattern, so this will be an adventure!




12 half footballs complete ... only 2 more to go! I found the perfect plastic container to pack this into for the trip, one that I actually had on hand already which is a good thing.

lots to do today, so its time to get to it!

Reaching the count down stage.....

We have only 10 DAYS! before our show in Nevada City, CA, and I'm trying to get everything ready to go.

Spent most of yesterday working on the second bear that I need to finish. Its coming along pretty well, but I ended up making major changes to his lower jaw and nose. I also discovered that I'm nearly out of the larger size eyes that I use for these bigger bears, so I will need to get some while we're at the show.

I also have the second Puppy almost finished. Today I'll do his eyes, nose and ears then when we go to the pet store I'll get him a collar.



We took a break and made a trip to the store. Our Longs Drugs are being closed, so they have everything marked down 33%.

This is my "haul" of "off the wall" nail polish that I got at that 33% off price. I use these to paint the back of the clear glass eyes that I put on my bears. Since nail polish is translucent, I get some really neat colors by putting on layers of different colors.

The two colors on the top left are the colors I'm using for the eyes of the big bear I'm finishing up...I think they will be really nice with the batik fur this bear is.




The trip to the store was also to try to get new little foam covers for my head phones (when I'm working on the computer -- either the desktop or my laptop -- I usually want to be listening to music -- instrumental if I'm doing serious writing, anything goes when I'm working on graphic stuff) I have these really nice Panasonic headphones, but after about 5 years the little foam pads over the ear pieces had totally fallen apart (I put them on the other day and both sides of my head were covered with fine black foam particles....I briefly wondered if my brain was leaking)

Anyway, seems Radio Shack only carries the generic round foam covers, and I didn't want to go running around trying to find oval ones from Panasonic that would probably cost an amazingly large sum. Sooooo, I drew a pattern around one of the earpieces, raided my fabric stash and came up with these.....lovely RED velour covers at absolutely no charge except a little of my time. I'm feeling very smart as these are every bit as comfortable, I love the color, and I know these won't make me think my brain is leaking......

My trip to Radio Shack did yield a new pair of rechargeable batteries for my "Dictabird" (the hand held tape recorder that I carry when we travel to get down any ideas that I can't write down at the time). So now that is all ready to go, having found new tapes for it during my trip last week to the local office supply.

Last night I was all set to finish the second afghan square, but ended up in a trip to the frog pond instead! I evidently miscounted when I cast on my stitches, and instead of 21, I had 31 which made the square over 12 inches wide....too big for the project! NUTS! Ok, so I ravelled it all out, wound it into one ball of yarn (which will be easier to knit out of than 2 seperate ones) and cast on again. This time I counted it TWICE!!




2 more half footballs done......moving along! (flat footballs roll even more oddly!)

Today I will be doing the necessary ironing for our trip. I use a piece of antique lace over the center of my table and it needs to be starched and ironed (even tho' I dislike ironing, I love the smell of a freshly starched and ironed piece, it reminds me of my grandmother).

Time to get busy!

the show season has begun...

Yesterday during the time I'm usually at my computer writing and blogging and things, I was in the van headed up the highway toward Denver to do our first art show of the season.

The first show of the year usually has "kinks" -- something doesn't make it into the van, or something doesn't work properly, or we have to have a major "discussion" about how we'll set things up.



For a first show of the year, it went amazingly well! Our discussion about set up was held in the van on the way over the hill, and the set up went smoothly.

We didn't sell a lot, but I got LOTS of compliments on the new bead work, which tells me when we get to some of the bigger shows, we should do well.




While at the show, we purchased a loaf of Pashka Bread.....a traditional Ukranian sweet bread for Easter.....sort of like Challah....I'm looking forward to it!! And didn't the baker do a wonderful job decorating the top!!





Riding in the car gives me time to knit, so I got this afghan square done, and have started another one.

The picture really doesn't do this justice. The yarn color is called Peridot, and it is a lovely spring green with little flecks of red, purple, orange, blue...neat stuff! I got the only skein the store had out of the "el cheapo" bargin bin. I'm sure this originally came in some other colors, and it would have been fun to knit a sweater out of --- just not this color on me! Anyway, its fun to knit afghan squares with!




And I have now done 2 of the 14 "half football" pieces for the quilt. This week I will need to get the center pieces cut so this project is ready for the road.

Today it will mostly the mundane things of life: laundry, unloading the van, a little shopping, paperwork from the show....then its on to finishing the last animals for our show in Nevada City --- ONLY 11 DAYS FROM NOW!

gotta get moving.........