Making And Listening (And Thinking And Planning)

Dawn at Simple Things Notebook has started a new weekly post, Make & Listen Along. I made a note to myself that I wanted to join in, but somehow Thursday got here before I knew it. However, I snapped this photo today.

I carved the stamp one night this past week, while listening (more than watching) an episode of Merlin on Netflix. Definitely more listening than watching, because I take my glasses off to carve stamps because my close vision is much better that way. Today I stamped it on a piece of linen using screenprinting ink. I have plans for that linen--last week I also cut out several fabric pieces for some prototypes of ideas I have, using the materials I have on hand.

As for music, I usually have Pandora playing over the TV, often a mix of stations, but in the morning I keep it on the 80s alternative station. It helps get me moving, especially on days (like today) when I've been awake since 4:30--not by choice. Darn body and mind, they don't always cooperate with sleep. It's still (always) one thing after another here...small things, most of them, but cumulatively wearying. The latest is my 8yo's diagnosis of asthma, which truly isn't surprising, but is still a little overwhelming at this moment. (It'll get less so.) My 11yo is scheduled to get his adenoids out tomorrow. My husband leaves again in two weeks. No wonder I have trouble sleeping. And it always seems nearly impossible to get out from under all of it and make any sort of plans for myself. But I am. I've already made a tangible start. I'll tell you about it soon, I hope.

Also, I think I need to get a CD player for the studio area, or at least play Pandora over my phone. There's no music down there! And I do love to listen to music while I work.

Green Postcards

Karen's latest monochromatic postcard swap is focusing on the color green. Last night, I carved a stamp inspired by the painted silk scarf at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. (I talk about the scarf in the last post.) I decided I wanted the print to be the outlines of the drawing, to most closely resemble the print on the scarf. This, or course, was the most laborious decision I could have made as far as carving the stamp goes. Whatever. That's what I wanted.

It took about two hours to carve the stamp, and towards the end I was getting a little lost...I just kept my eyes on the pencil lines on the carving block and trusted those to be my guide. I am utterly delighted with the finished stamp.

Here's a finished postcard--I made four in the series. (I even numbered them.)

On the back, I explained the inspiration for the print. These are, as my 8yo pointed out, much simpler than my previous postcards (blue and yellow). The background is green watercolor, left to dry with some plastic wrap on top to create some texture. The stamp is printed in dark green acrylic, and I painted the border.

It's not just the finished cards that please me, or the stamp, although I really do love it all. It's that this is a direct result of getting to visit an art museum on Monday. I was inspired, and that is such a good feeling.

Yellow Postcards

When I realized on Thursday that we'd be spending the next several days at home, I made a list of Things To Get Done During This Storm. I've been using the sticky note program on my laptop, and that sticky note is gone--I did everything on my list. That means I have some things to blog this week, starting with these sunny yellow postcards for Karen's Yellow Postcard Swap. What better color to work with as the howling winds covered everything with snow?

I call these first two my lemon ladies.

I thought about adding some text but then decided to let the recipient--and you all--fill in your own ideas. Are these women making lemonade from lemons? Are they making some snide sarcastic remark about the idea of turning lemons into lemonade? I couldn't make up my mind. What do you think?

These next two have a print of my sunny compass rose.

I made these the same way I made the blue ones--I gathered a pile of papers in the chosen color, made a larger collage/paint background, and then made the final compositions once I'd cut the larger sheet into four pieces.

Here's to sunny days ahead!

Grown-Up Projects

I'm guessing if you don't have kids you may never have visited Lori Pickert's Camp Creek Blog. Or maybe you have kids but you're not homeschooling, so you've never landed there. But no--you need to visit. I'm biased, sure. I like Lori a lot, and I like her book, and I'm using her guidelines and practices with my own children. But now she's begun a series of posts for adults, and I think it's such important reading. Lori feels we all deserve to have the sort of life that some of us are trying to create for our children--one where time is spent pursuing interests and passions--a whole life, I would say. And--and I appreciate this very much--she is not writing lovely-sounding things and leaving the reader to send wishes up to the universe. She's got some concrete steps we can all take. I look forward to Monday mornings because that's when she posts her project posts for grown-ups. And she is saying things I already believe in.

How can you learn to use the time you have? (And you do have time.)

What does your space say about you? Do you need to change it so it reflects the kind of work you want to do?

What kind of negative self-talk do you  have going on? Stop it, already.

These things resonate with me. When I'm on my game, I can get quite a lot of my own work accomplished in the nooks and crannies of my day--because otherwise, it won't get done. I don't care if you stay home with kids or have a full-time job out of the house, it takes mountain-moving to get a hour or two chunk of time in which to focus on your own projects. So you squeeze it in. You learn to work in small increments. Every time I see the advice to leave a first draft (writing, or painting, anything, really) and come back to it with fresh eyes I just laugh, because I am always walking away from a work in progress to attend to somebody's needs. I always have fresh eyes. Lucky me, right?

And my house? My house is...cluttered would be a nice way of describing it. This is a picture of my chair, the one that is so clearly marked as my territory that guests rarely try to sit in it.

My knitting is sitting right there waiting for me. If I have a few minutes, I can knit a bit. If I have an embroidery project going, it's usually on the footstool. The binders on the bins to the left are full of printed-out knitting and sewing patterns. Most of my pattern and reference books are downstairs, but the ones I'm using for the current project are piled up next to the chair. My sketchbook is there, too, along with a zippered pouch of sketching pencils. So if I want to sit down in the evening and work out some ideas, I don't have to go far. The basic supplies are right there. It looks pretty messy. But it works for me. (When company comes I've been known to pick up all the piles and just dump them behind a closed bedroom door for a few hours.)

Projects or fabric-in-waiting is often sitting out on the ironing board. Goodness knows I don't use it for anything else when I'm not sewing. (My husband moves my piles when he irons his shirts.)

These two embroidery pieces are waiting for their respective display solutions. I need to get on that.

Downstairs is also where our art area is. Everything I need is within reach. If I--or the kids--wants to start a project, materials are gathered within minutes. We are so well stocked--I feel so fortunate there.

Ahem. That's just some of the storage down there. It's not very...tidy. It's so accessible though!

In the comments of the third post (which is about getting out of your own way) I admitted my personal big negative self-talk hurdle: "If my passion/interest/project isn't earning any income, it's not worth the investment of money or time taken from the family." This is something I deal with as the at-home non-wage-earning parent. It's completely self-generated. I don't hear it from anyone but myself. But always, in the back of my mind, is the constant circular mumble: Is there a way to make money from this but I don't want to figure out an at-home business it would kill my joy I don't have time for that I'm working quite a bit as it is but why take a class just for fun it doesn't benefit anyone but me that's so selfish is there a way to make money from this?

I could probably benefit from the extra brain space I'd free up if I could silence that inner voice completely.

So. No big words of wisdom here. I'm still working this out. I show up on Mondays and read the posts and get reminded that I don't have to have it worked out, that having my own interests, passions, and joys is necessary for a well-lived life, not to mention it sets a good example for my kids. This is how I've always tried to be. I've always had interests and creative pursuits; I've never stopped learning. But there are periods when I don't work at it as hard, often when life is feeling its hardest--which, of course, is when I need these things that feed my soul the most. So this series of posts is serving as an excellent reminder to continue to value what I need, all the time.

AEDM2012: Day 8

Wednesday I felt a Sick coming on, so I crawled into bed around 7 pm with some tea and honey, the heating pad, and a bunch of books and knitting. I mainly ignored the books and knitting; I finished the tea and dozed on and off, crawling out of bed only to dispatch children to bed at their appointed times. I felt better on Thursday, so I suppose my proactive approach worked? But all I managed on Wednesday was a little bit of sketching.

So Thursday night, I headed downstairs to do a little daily art plus some. First, a map. I rarely go to my childhood neighborhood even in my head (never in person, anymore), but I decided to create this quick, childlike map in a sepia watercolor pencil, hoping for an old-time look.

You can click to make it bigger. If you lived in that neighborhood with me (hi, Jill!) you may not recognize what I chose to put here. The BIG HILL is of course not all that big; but it seemed that way. And I don't know if we always sledded down it--how could that be? didn't they plow streets in the 70s/early 80s?--but I remember doing it at least once. The "deep dark woods" was really just a patch of trees on a hill between streets, but I loved going there and pretending I was Far Away. The "pond" was probably just an exaggerated puddle in a swampy area, but I did fall into it once, when Michelle (whose house is at the top of the BIG HILL) dared me to walk out onto the ice, and I did. As I said, it was a puddle; I only got wet up to my knees or so when the ice broke, but the rocks--which were there as fill, because they built houses on that swamp the next year--all froze to my corduroys, and it was funny. And I marked the way to Stop & Shop because at five years old, I figured I'd have to live in my parents' neighborhood forever because at least I knew how to get to the supermarket from there.

Well. That's more childhood reminiscing than I am likely to do for the next year. And how about this --I realized a couple hours after I drew this that I signed it with my maiden initials, abc, rather than my current ones. I signed it with the initials of the person who lived there. Funny Brains.

Also last night, I made some postcards for iHanna's latest swap, which has a theme of "empowerment," which can be interpreted any number of ways. I chose simply. Here's my group of cards to choose from (we only need five):

I already had all these backgrounds ready, so it was just a matter of deciding what to do with them. I am partial to the "Grow" cards; I think I will have to keep one for myself.

 Also using the theme of trees and growth:
 

And finally, more of the compass rose from earlier in the month. It's not the best choice with these backgrounds, but I think these two hold up okay.

There's still plenty of time to sign up for the postcard swap, if you're interested--right here!

Birthday Shirt

It's about that time of year again...

I realized when I made last year's shirt that I was going to have to make this a tradition. This year, though, it's not a surprise (although she won't see the finished shirt until her birthday). She just assumed it was coming because, after all, her number is changing, so she needs a new shirt. She had advance say on colors and design. In the end, she chose what I wanted to do anyway--a four with a crown--although for a while there we were awash in her initial in a circle with a crown and the four. I'm happy simplicity won out.

Goodness. I love that design, I really do!

I also really enjoyed sharing photos of where I live in the last post. Here's one more, a different pond that I drove by four times today (on the way to and from preschool gymnastics, and on the way to and from karate).

I didn't have my camera earlier in the day, so this was taken about 5 pm and it's not as vibrant, but still. Autumn is pretty here this year. Last year we sort of missed the colorful part entirely thanks to Hurricane Irene. The leaves that weren't stripped were salted, or something like that. There are a couple of trees on the way into town that are, as my son put it, so bright that it hurt his eyes to look at them. Next time I go in that direction I'm going to have to make time to stop, find a safe place to pull over, and take some photos.

Finally, I signed up for the Art Every Day Challenge. It takes place in November. I don't think I'll be posting every day, but I hope to have something to show for every day, when I do post. By the end, I'd like 30 postcard-sized pieces of artwork. I'm thinking of a variation on a theme--an animal per day, or 30 trees...something like that. Usually, if I make time to draw, it's a better day.

Before that, though, I need to sew up a sparkly cape. I didn't think I was sewing anything for Halloween this year, but the almost-four-year-old has other plans, and who can argue with the Birthday Girl?

List-It Tuesday: 15-Minute Creativity

 

The topic this week is "creative things I could do in 15 minutes or less." This was a fun list to make, using a combination of watercolors and Pitt artist pens.

How about you? What can you do in 15 minutes or less? Go!

Linking up with Aimee for List-It Tuesday.

Sewn: Mermaid Pouch

On one of the posts with zippered pouches, Cameron commented that she'd be interested in one if I ever got my hands on some mermaid fabric. Turns out, I had a yard of Heather Ross Underwater Sisters tucked away, and a brown zipper that matched perfectly. It's quilting cotton, which doesn't have the nice weight of the upholstery fabric that I think is just perfect for these pouches, so I decided to try fusible interfacing for the first time. Cameron also wondered if I'd be able to do a strap, so that was another new addition for me.

I think it came out adorable.

I fussy cut so one of those mermaids ended up on each side of the exterior pouch. The inside has the same fabric.

I continue to have issues getting the open sides of the zipper to meet perfectly on the side seam--they shift a bit. I wonder if this is because you have to sew the sides together with the zipper open? I wonder if there is a better way to keep those loose ends from sliding, if perhaps I have to pin the heck out of it right there, which is tough, because that's the thickest part of the seam (where the raw edges of the lining fabric and exterior fabric are piled up with the edges of the zipper--lots of layers) and because the zipper is hidden on the inside while I'm pinning. I'll have to think on that a bit. This pouch had even more going on right there because of the strap ends.

That little imperfection aside, I still think this little wristlet pouch is just too cute. And my zipper foot doesn't intimidate me at all anymore. Sheer repetition will make anything easier, eventually!

List-It Tuesday

About all I've been "creating" lately is lists, so when I saw Aimee was starting up List-It Tuesday again I figured that, at least, was something I could do. This week's theme is resolutions for the remainder of the year, but instead I decided to take a few minutes (stolen between supervising the bedtime routine and packing my son's lunch for the following day) to write down all the things I'd like to make, when I can re-work this crazy schedule and find the time.

You can click on that to make it big enough to read, I'm pretty sure. I scanned it, so the far left edge is a little blurry in spots. The stamps were an impulse buy at Target yesterday, and I am so bad at stamping alphabet stamps; I have to work on getting the pressure just right so I get a nice stamp of the letter but none of the edge. My list is not as gorgeous as Aimee's, but it is written down now, so when I get those precious itty chunks of time, I don't wander around going, What did I want to do again?

Where have my creative energies been going instead? Mostly in getting ready for my co-op classes and supporting my kids' project-based learning (here and here, and I'm not up to date on posting about it all yet). I think I'd be doing a little better if we could ease into the day, but with one in school, too, that's not possible. So I'm just hanging in until things even out, which I hope they do soon. Meanwhile, I have the goal of at least once a week producing a slightly prettier list than my usual scrawled-in-the-daily-planner type of list. Although, I think those workaday lists are pretty fascinating and just might share some of those, too!

August

This week, the one that begins with my mother's birthday on July 29 and ends with the anniversary of her death (five years this year) on August 5, has the potential for being rocky every year. I say "potential" because these things vary. Some years it's okay. Others, not so much. Sometimes bracing yourself for it just means it pops up somewhere else. I still have a lot of big, yucky feelings, understandably. To add into that, my 96-year-old grandmother was discharged last weekend from the hospital to a nursing home--the same one, actually, in which my mother died. When I visited my grandmother in the hospital I really thought, well, I thought I'd better tell her whatever I needed to tell her, and I did. Last weekend we brought the kids to see her in the nursing home--this is her third rehab stint there, all after hospital stays--and my oldest looked drawn. He remembers just enough of visiting my mother there. But we visited again on Thursday and he noticed right away how much better she seemed. She sat up and visited with us, enjoyed the kids, and she and I joked and laughed together. I felt so much better after that visit with my grandmother.

And despite the sneaking feeling that I spent a goodly part of the week lying on the couch in a heat- and inertia-fueled stupor, that's just not so (although there was some of that, too). We began the week by taking the kids to Watch Hill's Flying Horse Carousel. This was my daughter's first ride on the carousel.

While she was riding she was almost solemn. She smiled when we waved to her, but otherwise, I think she was just quietly soaking it all in. After her two rides were over and I went to help her off her horse, she didn't even say anything (unusual for this talkative girl), she just wrapped herself around me and hugged me tightly, so overcome, I think, with absolute excitement and joy. That ride was just so wonderful she was rendered speechless.

Later in the week I took the kids to the zoo, and later still, the oldest, youngest, and I painted rocks. My daughter had been asking to paint rocks again so on a hot hazy afternoon, we did. My oldest and I took our inspiration from an activity in My Art Book, which I borrowed from the library. It's based on Australian dot paintings from the Balgo Community--but really it's just taking the technique of painting dots and transferring it to rocks, not trying to reproduce the traditional paintings (which would give me pause). My son opted to paint a turtle but without the extra layers of dots; since he was painting a local turtle that already has spots, he kept his dots to the shell. I decided to paint a snake and go all out with my dots.

This was just super fun to make. And since I have acrylic varnish on the shelf (what don't I have, I wonder), I made it shiny. I want to make more--and even though we have rocks aplenty, I couldn't help but bring more home from the beach today, to become more animals, more shiny rocks, more brightly colored happy things.

Which is why I also painted this:

It's on a 6x6 gessobord, in need of a frame. It's a fragment from a favorite poem, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot. (I have also embroidered this fragment on my jeans.) I was trying out some different Pages + Paint techniques here, although no collage. It's just a happy piece, created to make me happy.

In the same vein as beach rocks and mermaids, this week I received a sweet little package of sea glass and driftwood from Cameron at Paint Myself Pretty.

The bag is shiny so it's hard to get a good picture of all the goodness inside, but it's also so pretty with that sticker and all that I haven't been able to make myself tear into it yet, even carefully. I'm just enjoying looking at it the way it is. But soon I will pour the sea glass into a little bowl and put it on the table so I can just look at it and enjoy it all. Thanks, Cameron!

And I've been working on my Ravellenic Games lace:

I've been trying to do a repeat per day (64 stitches times a 24-row repeat). The pattern says it took 15 repeats to get a 60-inch scarf, but my gauge must be different, because even with stretching, I don't think that will happen. That length right there is eight repeats. So while I may meet my Olympic goal of a repeat per day, I don't think I'll be done with the scarf at that point. I want to use every bit of that skein of lace weight. It's really pretty stuff, too. Here's a close-up; unblocked, of course.

So that's been the week, pretty much. Posting may be spotty for the rest of this month; we'll see how it goes. Pages + Paint had me in the computer a bit more than I wanted to be in July, trying to contribute to the discussions on the blog, in the Flickr group, and in the private forum. I'm feeling I need to counter-balance that and step back a bit (so much so that for two days this week, the laptop was not only off, but shoved under my bed so I couldn't even see it). Summer feels like it's slipping through my fingers, and I'm not quite ready....no, not quite ready.

What good things snuck into your days this week?

A Better Zippered Pouch

The comments to my last post about zippered pouches had some really great links and advice, which is why I have two better zippered pouches to show off today.

These are sewn from cotton upholstery fabric liberated from my sister's stash. (She's moving and has to sell her house, so if you know anyone who wants to move to Middleboro, MA, and likes old sprawling houses, let me know.) (Also, I'm very, very sad she's moving even farther away. The fabric only helps a little.)

So anyway, it's a thicker cotton, and a sturdier-feeling pouch. Naomi shared this tutorial link, which helped immensely in two ways. Firstly, I added a line of machine topstitching on either side of the zipper, which easily and immediately elevated the pouch into something more polished. It also eliminates any sticky-zipper issues. Secondly, I followed the tutorial's helpful tips on pinning the outer-fabric side first and how to position the zipper teeth. Once the zipper is in and it's time to sew all the sides up, the whole thing is so bulky in the middle it doesn't lie flat, and I was struggling, on my own, with how to approach it. Yay for helpful tutorials and helpful commenters who direct you to them!

My three-year-old daughter claimed one of these as soon as she saw them. I decided the other one was a perfect new home for all those cards I was trying to squish into a too-small pouch.

This photo gives you a good view of the topstitching and how neatly the zipper lies now. Also you can see that I lined the pouch with the same fabric. I have a lot of it, and it just seems like it will put up with a lot of abuse. I really like it as a zippered pouch, but I'm out of zippers that match it (for now, anyway!). I think this fabric will also make a nice tote, so that's in the works, too. You know, eventually.

A couple of quick, unrelated things:

* After a bit of a break, I'm back at my other blog, too, because it's the best place to talk about any homeschooling/life-learning topics and activities. (I suspect it might be in transition for a bit.)

* I had my annual physical not too long ago, and I had him run another celiac panel, because last year my tTG number was falling but still not normal. This year it's about four points above the normal reference range, what the doctor called "not clinically significant." I'm really happy about this because I hope it means my body is just about healed from all the damage I unknowingly did to it.

Hope you had a great weekend! I expect I'll have some things to share this week from the Pages and Paint online workshop, which started out great last week.

July

I have so many ideas zinging around my head, and so many things I want to share and show...in time. My goals for July? Because I have been keeping up with setting monthly goals.... June's was to spend less time on the computer during the day, and I'm continuing with that goal into July (which is why all my posting is done in the evening lately). It seems I will soon be entering this century when it comes to cell phones...having stubbornly resisted anything smarter than a flip phone that merely makes and receives calls--and, annoyingly, receives texts even when I don't want them, because they're not included in my plan, and I have no idea how to return them--I have now agreed to a smarter phone and a better cell plan.

My attachment to which phone is nonexistent; my husband is in charge of that because I don't care. I tell him what I'll use it for, and he does the research, which he enjoys and I do not. I can see how having a phone that checks email will enable me to spend less time on the computer--a good thing--and that it could be handy to text here and there, especially when my husband is traveling. As long as I remember to treat the phone as just a phone when I'm out in the world, I think I'll be okay with being dragged into the world of pocket technology. I don't want to have my face in a screen all the time. So.

Other goals for July? At least one beach day per week--and think of that, a whole day set aside to just sit and be, to play in the sand and water with the kids, read a little, find sweet little shells and stones... I am deliciously unbusy this summer, as much as possible. I've signed the kids up for nothing. Our days are our own. Day trips, beach days, days spent lolling around in the yard...

They read cuz they want to. Yay!

I've signed myself up for Pages and Paint, which starts tomorrow and is at cross-purposes with my no-computer-during-the-day goal, since new posts go up in the morning. I just have to remind myself, the point of an online workshop is that it is there and waiting for me, not the other way around. I can wait until nighttime to see what goodies Sarah has for us that day.

This week, I hope to have a tutorial ready to share--it's been awhile since I've done one of those. I want to show you what I made with this month's Whimseybox supplies. And there are some good links to zipper advice in the comments section of the last post; I have more fabric cut and just need to clear the art table off so I can set up the sewing machine again.

Today, though, we spent the day at the beach (again), where I found that sweet little piece of polished clam shell--I love those small bits of shell, tossed around by the ocean until they're perfectly smooth. This is a piece of the hinge, just the right shape to show how I feel about spending my day where the ocean meets the land.

Mixed Media {Intensive}

"Intensive" is the right word! I am exhausted, but in a good way--Saturday and Sunday I drove back and forth to Providence for six hours of class each day in mixed media, taught by Mara Metcalf, who was completely down-to-earth and welcoming, funny and approachable. The class contained a good mix of people with varying skills, experience, and backgrounds, and I'm betting not one person there felt they didn't belong. Taking an Art Class can feel pretty intimidating, especially at a place like RISD. Honestly? I've gotten over that. I've taken classes there myself, although it was a long, long time ago, and always through continuing ed; plus, I have an art minor in my background, so I no longer feel that Art Classes (capitals intended) are for Other People But Not Me. But continuing ed, truly, should be open to everybody. I think that's the idea of those programs, yes? And Mara was such an easygoing, natural teacher. I think it would be a good use of my time simply to look for more classes by her and try to take them, no matter the subject.

But what did we do, you're asking. Enough of the preamble! Basically, we messed around. Some people had an idea coming in, but I had none. I find mixed media challenging. Why? It has no rules! Anything goes! And I think that is exactly what challenges me. When I had the opportunity to pursue an art minor, I focused in photography. It had a nice rigid framework that I could experiment within, and boundaries to push against, but rules aplenty. You had to know the rules (of exposure, and chemicals, and development) so you could experiment with them. Wide-open-go-anywhere-do-anything-use-anything is hard. It is hard for me to just let loose.

This is what I ended up with after the first day.

We practiced with gesso and packing tape transfer. I'm familiar with the tape method (it's how I made this label, among others), and I'd seen the gesso transfer technique demonstrated during last spring's printmaking class, although I hadn't done it myself. (You can Google "gesso transfer" and get lots of instructive links.) So these three are a mix of transfer methods, collage, adding into the transfers with various materials...just playing around.

Sunday we were supposed to be a bit more directed. I didn't really have a plan, although Saturday night I did another gesso transfer onto prepainted paper, and another packing tape transfer, except I used contact paper instead, which is much less shiny and can be cut to the size of the image, instead of overlapping the strips of tape. I used both of those in Sunday's projects, which you can see here, pinned to the wall next to Karen's.

Karen's are the three on the left. Mine are on the right. First a close-up of the bottom one.

Talk about not having a plan! Not a one, beyond using the gesso transfer of the iris and the image of the girl, which is from a vintage sewing pattern envelope. (Hat tip to my sister, who provided the vintage sewing patterns!) And then I just winged it. There's some tissue from a sewing pattern, and some actual thread stitching, and some extra yellow glaze. Some marker lines that sort of mimic stitching, and finally, because the flower was sort of getting lost, I went in with some paint based on suggestions from Mara and a classmate. And then, you know, we all thought it more or less worked. (As an aside, I love mixing paint colors using only primaries, black, and white. I know there are a gazillion colors of paint available, and still, I almost always choose to mix my own. Love.)

The larger piece incorporates the contact paper transfer of a tree photograph...here's a detail shot.

Because I didn't think to take a close-up while it was on the wall, this has a bit of shadow and glare on it. I painted the underlying paper a yellowish green, then painted the dark green of the tree's leaves directly onto the contact paper transfer. You'll just have to believe me that this looks much better in person. The photo is one I took a month or two ago of a huge tree near one of the playgrounds we visit. It's one of those trees that spread out and the leaves fall all around you, and you can walk right under and it's like a play fort (especially if you're a kid) or a hideout (ahem, teenagers, it's not as private as you think), and the light is just magical in there. And then the tree has all these carvings on it. So I took reference photos both of the leaves surrounding you when you're inside, and the textual qualities of the bark, because these will, I suspect, show up as embroidery sooner or later. That's the plan, if I can clear the decks of all the other projects swirling in my head or on my work table.

And that right there is why I think mixed media might be a good solution for me. I like to do so much--paint and carve stamps and embroider--on so many surfaces--paper and cloth and canvas--that perhaps if I find a way to just combine it all together, I could get more ideas out of my head and into the world. And yes, I do stop to think to myself, What am I going to do with all this? I'm paying to take classes, so, to what purpose? Because we adults do tend to think we need to justify ourselves. But I'd never question my children that way. I'd never say, What are you going to do with that drawing, anyway? So the answer, for now, is that I simply need to do. I need to create.

And that is the other benefit of taking this class...time with other people who feel the same way. After class on Saturday Karen and I hung out for a bit and had dinner together. Those opportunities, for me, are few and far between, and rarely do I feel like I can completely be myself, because my self is kind of weird and a little awkward, but I felt completely comfortable around Karen, and in the class, too. And now I should go write down all the half-baked ideas swirling in my head before I forget them. I'll be back in a few days, hopefully with a finished project; meanwhile, the postcard giveaway is still open to comments until Tuesday night.

How was your weekend?!

Squam Stories: Into The Lake

This is the story of Saturday afternoon--part of it, that is--and how I fell into the lake. But that's not really the point of the story...

Every cabin has its own dock. This is mine. It doesn't really play a part in this story, but it's a pretty picture.

I ate dinner on that dock one night, and lunch the next day, sitting in the sun and reading my library book, which (oops) almost fell into the lake once. I knit on that dock with cabin mates. But Saturday afternoon, returning from a solitary (and perfectly great) tromp through the woods, I saw one of my cabin mates lying down on the dock. I wasn't sure if she was awake; she'd had a migraine earlier. I didn't want to disturb her. My cabin seemed otherwise deserted. The cabin next door, though--I could hear shrieks of laughter coming from their dock. It sounded like fun over there. I'd met one of the residents earlier, as I was setting out on my woods tromp. We talked for a bit. She was friendly. I'm friendly.

But groups...groups intimidate me. There, I admitted it. I didn't want to intrude. Maybe they wouldn't want company from the next cabin over. I turned back towards my own dock, but my cabin mate was still lying down, facing away; I really didn't want to disturb her. And it sounded like so much fun next door, too. So I went against all my normal instincts and walked over. Their dock was full of women, but they made room for me, too. Since I'd been hiking, I had no knitting, so I just sat with my water bottle, feet in the water, and enjoyed the sunshine and the company. I was still a little out of my comfort zone, but what the hey, I'd been out of my comfort zone since I'd left my own driveway, really. Soon another woman joined us, a very pregnant woman, and we joked about the dock handling all the weight. There had to be close to a dozen of us. About five minutes later....CRACK! Splash!

The dock collapsed. I went in up to mid thigh (I had to peel my jeans off later). We all got wet. Since nobody got hurt (and the pregnant woman was fine), it's a really funny story. Don't believe me? Look at this dock.

All the knitting was saved, and the embroidery projects with Sulky Solvy, too (yarn will dry; Sulky Solvy just...disappears). When I got home Sunday afternoon, it was fun to just drop into conversation, "I really need to shower, I haven't showered since yesterday after I fell into the lake." But the real story is that I was there at all, that I shut up that little voice that was saying, It will be easier just to go back to your cabin alone and instead listened to the one that said, But it sounds so fun over there.

It was. It was fun over there.

And that's the story of how I came to be on the dock that collapsed and plunged a bunch of women into the lake on Saturday afternoon.

Squam Stories: Knitting on the Porch

Hey, y'all. I'm back. After thinking it over, I decided the best way to share about Squam was by periodically showing a photo and telling you the story behind it. It's hard to summarize the entire experience, but I can say that the biggest gift of this short time away was mentally handing the responsibility for the kids over to my husband. I realized that my brain quieted in the woods; I was responsible for nobody but me. My cell phone didn't even work in my cabin. I called my husband to check in once or twice each day, walking the path towards the dining hall with my phone in an outstretched hand, triangulating for a bubble that AT&T reached. But before I left I made sure school knew to email and call him, not me. Whatever was going on, it wasn't my responsibility. I didn't realize how quiet my brain had become until the drive home. It had switched back on fully by the time I reached Boston. That quiet in my head, what a gift.

So, this photo. I love it. It was taken by a cabin-mate who was also a classmate in Fiona Ellis's class, which we took split between Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. I was sitting on the porch knitting the same wee triangle over and over, trying to get what I wanted and failing each time. I look so relaxed, but in truth I was just about ready to throw the yarn into the lake--which I could see through those windows right there. As the afternoon wore on I was feeling worse and worse, with an upset stomach and a descending brain fog that made me feel thick and stupid. Something not-good had sneaked into my lunch somehow (I felt better by about 8 that night, although I skipped dinner). Luckily I am aware enough of symptoms to realize that my stupid-feeling was just that, a symptom, and not evidence that the class was beyond me. I was able to approach the second half the following morning with a much clearer head. In the meantime, I just knit that same triangle over and over, knitting and ripping, knitting and ripping, and what better place to do it than on the porch of a cabin, looking at a lake, sitting next to someone who made me laugh all weekend?

That's the story of this favorite photo and of Friday afternoon.

Squam State of Mind

You'll know me by my tiara...

Everything I wrote five months ago about my Squam-related anxiety is still true, to one extent or the other, but it's all been boiled down to two main thoughts, flip-flopping through my head as I pack.

I'm going to miss my kids like crazy and I want to take that girl into the woods.

Honestly, I don't have many expectations of the next five days. Tomorrow morning I'll get up, get my big kids off onto the bus (hopefully; they're both home sick today), send my daughter off to her music class with her daddy, finish packing, and pick up a fellow Squammie at the local train station so we can ride up together. (She needed a ride and posted she was willing to take the train from Connecticut to Boston. How about to Rhode Island, I offered. So I'll pick her up at the station ten minutes away. It'll be nice to have company on the ride up, too.)

I do, however, plan to be out of contact. My cell phone is only good for making and taking calls, and I'm not sure how good the reception will be anyway. My husband can get ahold of me if necessary, and I can call to say hi to the kids. I can't tweet, text, or post pictures from my phone (I've kept it that way thus far by choice; when I am out in the world, I want to be out in the world, not in a screen). I thought about leaving my laptop at home but decided to bring it just in case I want to research places to stop on the ride home--it's helpful to do that ahead of time if I think I'm going to want to stop for lunch, since you can't always tell where you might find gluten-free food on the road. But I don't plan on checking or sending email, posting pictures, or, well, being in a screen while I'm away. I'll report back next week--this also gives me time to soak it up, take it in, and think about it before talking about it.

I am bringing way too much stuff for someone who used to travel light. I have a bag of yarn odds and ends and needles for one of my classes, a backpack full of various art supplies (although I'm not sure the weather is going to cooperate with any attempts at plein air painting), my box of embroidery floss (because I offered to teach anyone who wants a floss bracelet how to make one, since this is, after all, sleep-away camp), clothes for all temperatures, and I'll be bringing a bag of food and a cooler, too, because of my own food issues. I'm bringing my two current knitting projects, but I'm not sure how much free time I'll spend knitting. Knitting (and embroidery too) pulls me down and in, focused on what I'm doing, and I would rather be up and out, noticing what's around me--which is why I'm bringing the drawing and painting supplies. And I'm also bringing binoculars and my bird book, because I think I'll wish I had, if I don't. And I really, really want to hear loons, and see them too, if possible.

I'm not sure I ever mentioned which classes I'm taking. I'm starting with Three Tools, because I know nothing about woodworking, and am also taking Dive Into Design, because it sounded like it would apply not just to knitting but also translating what I see into other forms as well. I believe I'm also down for the Squam Extra Manipulating Stitch Patterns, but I think those are very loose and if I'd rather have the free time, that's okay too.

So, I will report back next week on my little get-away. Here I go...

Saturday Sewing: A Skirt For Mama

Yesterday I was awakened at 5 am by the sound of pouring rain. (I went back to sleep, no worries!) This worked perfectly into our no-plans Saturday; I wanted to sew a skirt for myself anyway. So I spent the day turning this

into this:

It's hard to see the ties there, but they're of the same fabric. I made this with a drawstring waist. Perfect? Nope. If I'm going to make more of these (and I think I am), I'm going to have to get comfortable with the buttonhole foot on my sewing machine. I did these two by hand, which definitely gives me more control but takes much longer, and probably isn't quite as neat--although I don't know, the one time I tried my buttonhole foot, it didn't seem all that fantastic, really. Also, the casing is a little (accidentally) gathered in one spot, but since the skirt itself gathers with the drawstring, it's not a huge deal. I don't expect anyone will be investigating my waistband anyway. (That's a bit too personal, no?)

Here's another view, from the back:

This skirt is really comfortable and flow-y. I love the line of it. It's a simple A-line, drafted using Sew What! Skirts. I used their suggested minimum of 2-inch ease for the top width, but I think I could go down to one. On the other hand, I like the slope from the waist to the hem the way it is now. And as you can probably tell from the one-day sewing, this was very easy to make.

And hey, look what the kids and I scored on Friday:

Someone was Freecycling wooden cigar boxes. Having never seen any before, I was picturing something less polished, that we could decorate and use for treasure boxes. We like these the way they are, but we could still personalize the inside covers, if we wanted. There are five boxes, and five of us, so we'll each get one. (The big people in the family are rather taken with these, too.) I plan to use mine for paper ephemera. I don't usually respond to Freecycle posts; it's often not anything I want, and if I do, it's already taken. But this actually worked out, and I had two of the three kids with me when I picked them up, and goodness, were we excited.

I hope you're enjoying your weekend! Today is sunny, but not too hot. Oh, and the cowbird chicks fledged...the whole story (with pictures) is here. Just so you're warned, it didn't end well for the phoebe's eggs.

Trees Follow Me

{There is still time to enter the giveaway--and be sure to check the comments; some wonderful poems have been shared there!}

Look what Karen sent me, a surprise just-because postcard!

Thanks for the trees, Karen. Perfect.

Remember the little blue canvas from the last post? It was destined for an experiment:

I wanted to try embroidering right on painted canvas. Because of the wooden frame, I could only embroider in the middle, so the buds on the edges are painted on. Here’s the back so you can see what I mean.

Haven't neatened my floss ends yet...

If I used a larger canvas, I’d have more area to work with, but then the French knots wouldn’t be in scale. Like I said, experiment. My mind will churn on this a bit more. Some of the French knots are wobbly, because I had a bandaid on my left thumb. Makes it hard to keep a good tension on the knot! I nicked it Sunday while stamp carving (I know better; I was being stupid) and then the next day I sliced it while opening a can of tomatoes. Whoops.

This is about the extent of my creative output for the beginning of the week, except for some knitting and two patched knees. For the second patch, I attempted to make an iron-on patch using the heat-n-bond. Alas, as I should have anticipated, the short-cut method did not work at all. I hoped it would, as I was patching jeans and it’s hard on the hands to sew through two layers of denim, but seven-year-olds are even harder on the knees of their pants, and the iron-on patch was half off by the time he got home from school. I’ll run it through the laundry and then patch it properly, with needle and thread.

May is hectic around these parts. It usually is, but this year, even more so. My goal for the month is to take one day at a time, breathing all the while. Amidst everything else, I need to lay the groundwork for leaving for five days in early June. With that in mind, I ordered yarn to make Azami, which I hope to bring to Squam to me—finished, preferably, but if not, I’ll work on it there, too. I may shift into more knitting than anything else this month, as it steadies me and helps me remember to breathe, when I might forget.

How is May looking for you?

Lots more creative people here.

Weekend Creativity + One Last Poem

Happy Monday morning! Lots of photos today, sharing some of what I was up to this weekend. First off, my younger son and I went to the Hera Gallery's Postcard Fundraiser, to which I donated two pieces. He's a good companion for these sorts of things. Together, we looked at all the art for sale; I decided we could each pick out one. We discussed and deliberated and came home with these.

My son picked out the one on the left, which is by Susan Hayward, an artist with the gallery. I chose the one on the right, a print by Mary Kudlak.

Also this weekend, my kids and I, inspired by William Steig's Rotten Island, drew some monsters of our own. Do you know the book? It's a fun read, with vivid pictures and description of the island and its inhabitants. I drew several monsters, but this one makes me laugh.

On Sunday, I took a found hour and made the most of it, bouncing between a couple of projects:

Ready to begin carving

Carving complete

Still not finished with this.

Yes, I seem to be a bit stuck on trees lately, even with the knitting:

This is a Branching Out mitt from Coastal Knits, using Cascade 220. It calls for a thinner yarn than that, but it'll work just fine. I knit a complete mitt (minus thumb) in some sport weight I've had lying around since last spring, but I don't. like. that. yarn. At all. I'm going to use it for felting, since it just wants to stick to itself anyway. (That's what I get for being kindly disposed to unknown yarn--it was bought at the silent auction at my kids' school.)

And finally, I'll leave you with some happy baby pigs (trust me, they're small; I don't have a mama in this photo for scale) that we saw when we visited a local farm this weekend. I could do a post just of animal pictures--sheep and lambs and chickens and the chickens' guard dog. It was very spring-y there.

But truly, the baby pigs? Were adorable. This picture doesn't do them justice. And for the month's final poem, I decided upon straightforward. Poetry Month makes me happy.

Happiness
by A.A. Milne

John had
Great Big
Waterproof
Boots on;
John had a
Great Big
Waterproof
Hat;
John had a
Great Big
Waterproof
Mackintosh--
And that
(Said John)
Is
That.

From When We Were Very Young.