Projects

I feel I've been neglecting this space! My ongoing crafty project, though, isn't too interesting to blog about. I'm still working on my sweater--I'm ready to begin the bottom ribbing.

Beyond that, I've been taking Diane's e-book class (highly recommended, if you're interested at all in that sort of thing), planning a map-making/sense of place class for ages 6-9 for our spring session of homeschool co-op, and working on a new series at my other blog, aimed at encouraging and mentoring adults to create a family art habit. It's called Art Together, and I'm pretty excited about it.

Actually, I'm excited about all of those things. I'm less than excited about all the international travel my husband has coming up; he's leaving for Thailand at the end of this week. I managed to schedule a day for myself before he leaves again though. I'll be back later this week to report on it.

Happy March, y'all.

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.

List-It Tuesday: What's New?

I've been absent from List-It Tuesday for a while! This week the topic meshes so well with my wanting to share the exciting things coming up for me in this new year.

Just a quickly written list...here are the details.

Learning: I signed up for a one-day professional development workshop at the Eric Carle Museum, and I really hope it runs, as they haven't met minimum enrollment yet. It's called Beyond Books: Art Inspired by Eric Carle, and we'll be painting lots of stuff, which sounds good to me. I also signed up for a six-week continuing ed class at the Rhode Island School of Design--Embroidery + Embellishment. I haven't even attempted a night class since having kids. Providence is a 45-minute drive, the class itself is three hours long...but the draw of being in a class where embroidery is considered a valid fine art medium is just too good to pass up. And finally, I'm in Diane's e-book course. It's just a thing I've been thinking about for so long I decided it's time to find out a little more.

Teaching: I'm leading two classes at our winter session of co-op, which is slightly shorter than fall and spring. My printmaking workshop is full (full!) with a dozen kids, and I'm excited and also a little wary, truth be told. I've planned a possibly ambitious schedule of process-based exploration. I hope we can fit it all in without destroying the room. I'm also teaching a class on vertebrate classification--early elementary, so pretty basic, but I've gathered some good stuff together. (I don't use curriculum, generally. I'm a gather-and-be-flexible kind of instructor.)

Sharing: I began the new year at my other blog with a three-part series (one, two, three) on the importance of process over product art for kids, but it's just as relevant to adults, too. I'm pretty passionate on this topic, actually. I also hope to share the details of the five-part printmaking workshop as well as the adorable little animal classification booklet I put together for the co-op class, once I figure out how wordpress hosts documents.

More lists can be found over at Artsyville here! What's new with you?

Sewn {Obsessively}: Zippered Pouches

I spent last week easing into the new schedule around here. It's not like I've been sleeping in all summer--my daughter made sure of that--but getting up, showered, packing lunch, and being outside with my oldest by 7:45 to wait for the bus (I hate waiting for the bus in my pajamas; I need to be showered and dressed first) took its toll last week while my body adjusted. One night, I lay down at 6:30 intending to rest my aching head for fifteen minutes. I woke up three hours later. It's hard to get any crafting done when you're unconscious during your crafting time!

Nonetheless, I made slow-but-sure progress, assembly-line style, with a dozen zippered pouches.

My present closet is pretty stocked now, wouldn't you say?! When I ordered the 8" zippers for my sons' pencil pouches, I added in ten white 5" zippers to make more of the smaller pouches using that great upholstery cotton, including the purple and green version I bought at the same time I bought the camo fabric for the pencil pouches. The purple and green pencil pouch is mine, for bringing supplies back and forth to the art class I'll be teaching at our homeschool co-op. I'll be making my daughter a pink pencil pouch, with a black zipper, so it wasn't included in this assembly line, which used white thread. Not shown is one more camo pencil pouch, which has already been mailed to my nephew, who had trouble finding non-girly pencil pouches to fulfill his school supply list. But that leaves ten small pouches for the present closet, and I adore them all.

As I said, these were sewn assembly-line style, with the last step being hand-sewing the turning opening in the lining. Up until this point I've just run them through the machine, but I had eleven to do, and my husband and college football were upstairs, while the sewing machine is downstairs. It's been a while since I sat and hand-sewed; it's so enjoyable. I'm feeling the need for some hand-sewing or embroidery projects soon.

I'm not quite sure I'm done with the zippered pouches yet. I'm still not perfect with the zippers. I'm much better at sewing them in, and a top-stitched zipper makes me nearly smug with satisfaction. I don't always sew the sides perfectly evenly though, which leaves a bit of a jog where the zipper ends don't meet quite exactly. So I suppose there is nothing to do but practice some more, yes?!

And...happy September! My anniversary AND my birthday fall in September, which I suppose will (maybe?) help take some of the sting out of the end of summer. It went too fast...

Some Paintings

For three weeks now, my art table has been covered with pastels, colored pencils, paint, my sketchbook, collage bits... I admit, I kind of what to sew something, but I have no place to do it. The table has been completely given over to Pages and Paint for the duration, so I can work on things in ten-minute increments if need be. Last week we moved out of the sketchbook and onto gessobords, which are pretty cool but unfortunately I can't find them locally. The ones I'm using here are 6x6 inches. (I can find really big, deeply cradled, $30 and up gessobords locally. Not so helpful!)

So last week we started off with a two-minute prompt game, which is also in Sarah's book. The idea is to help you approach a blank page, canvas, board, whatever--to start making a mark. All the prompts go into a bowl, you pull one out, set the timer (I used my new cell phone!) for two minutes, do what it says, and then repeat with another prompt. I struggled with this. Firstly, I am usually pretty loose when I go down there, because it's all play for me. It's not my job, and I approach this for what it is--fun--like I do with my kids. But this game seemed to shut that off. I think it was a combination of the timer, the precise directions, and the fact that some of the prompts just don't apply to me. Paint with a color I don't like? That one stumped me. And some of my favorite loose activities to do weren't included. The prompts are things that specifically work for Sarah, I'm guessing, and some worked for me and some didn't. I think I will use this "game" in the future when I need an entry point, but I will replace some of the prompts and add in some things I need to work on (leaving white space!) and some things I really enjoy (printing with found materials).

But anyway, this is the first "game" piece that I did.

"The Evolution of Useful Things"

I didn't add anything to this when I was finished "playing." Goodness, it's pretty full as it is.

This is another of the game pieces, but I added in a few more collage materials afterwards (which was a bonus assignment this week). I wasn't sure about this one at first, but it's growing on me.

"When Good is Better Than Best"

I think those gear-looking circles were added later too. I was trying to see how different pencil-type things would write over paint, and I did those with a graphite block, which worked much better than a regular pencil. Then right before I added in some of the extra collage pieces I went over the graphite with yellow oil pastel.

This last one was not a game piece. I wanted to incorporate a sketch I made of my daughter playing on the beach, and this is the result.

"A Day at the Beach"

I am still working on using collage materials--it just doesn't come naturally to me to layer in these different components, but I'm trying. In this one, the sails, bucket, sea shell, and the number "3" (my daughter's age, and what she calls "my number") are collaged in.

I am thinking I will have knitting to share in my next post. Meanwhile, I am managing to do some sort of art-making every day. Somebody mentioned in the class discussion group that it supposedly takes three weeks to set a habit, and we're there! That is an excellent thing, the habit of daily art-making, and one of the hoped-for results when I signed up for the class.

Drawing + Painting

A little of what I've been up to this weekend, not counting the knitting, which will get its own post soon, I'm sure. Part of what is making Pages and Paint pretty cool for an online course is that it's the first one I've taken that includes snail mail. Before the course began, we each received a little packet in the mail with some odds and ends, plus an envelope to open each week. (That's 200 packets that had to be compiled and mailed out--whew!) One of the odds and ends was a snippet of fabric, and this week's bonus assignment was to get out the paints and try to re-create the pattern on the fabric. What a great idea! What fun!

So this was my attempt. First off, I'd have liked some black to mix with the blue and white, because that background is really more of a blue grey, but the supply list had the primaries and white, so I'm sticking to those for now. (But yeah, I'm going to have to use some black. I like shades as well as tints.) Second, I didn't reproduce the fabric exactly. Once I had the white circles (made with my fingertip), I mixed colors and added them as I pleased, more trying to get the spirit of the thing rather than the thing itself. (With a nod to Wallace Stevens.)

I had fun. Also, I really like mixing paints. I've said before, yes? I'm realizing that this is one of those things that I think is easy because I can do it (a common way in which I don't appreciate my own skills or talents: I think if I can do it, it must be easy). Many people are relating how they are struggling with mixing paint colors, so that is another benefit of this workshop--I do not recognize my strengths, mostly. And while I still think if I can do something, certainly anyone can learn to do it too (and I do think this is a skill, not a talent; it is entirely learn-able, and my kids can all mix colors with varying degrees of success because they have been given the paint and the opportunity to do so), I'm going to take a moment and appreciate my love of color and willingness to experiment with it.

Okay then. So after doing that assignment, I decided to vary the theme, and came up with this.

Earlier in the week we were told to play with text and different ways of writing it. I used some letter stencils and some letter stamps (which is what you see here). In this instance, I stamped on tissue paper and then glued it over the painted background--squares instead of circles, different color palette, but still a direct descendant of the fabric assignment. This is the text, which might be hard to read:I have spread my dreams under your feet/tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

They are the final lines of a poem by W. B. Yeats, "Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven." Would you like to take a minute to read it all? I'll wait.

Isn't it lovely? I'd written this fragment in one of my many notebooks a year or so ago, thinking I'd like to do something with it, something illustrative, with embroidery, clearly. And I moved on to other things, and forgot about it, and found the notebook while straightening up the studio the other day, and wanted to remember it again. (I need to get better at keeping all the ideas in one place.) I love poetry. You probably knew that already though.

One more picture for you. A couple of weeks ago, iHanna posted about mandalas, and she included a video. I watched the video, and not too long after began drawing one every night before bed in a small notebook. It's very soothing. I think it's perfect to do before bed. Here are some samples.

The one in the larger notebook was done one rainy afternoon when I thought I might interest my older kids in trying it if I sat and did one myself. They were only sort of interested, but that's okay. They may decide to try at some point. All it takes is paper, a fine-point marker, and patience.

And you? Did you find some time to be creative--or contemplative--this weekend?

Pages + Paint: Sketchbook

I've only taken a few online courses, but Pages and Paint is my favorite so far of the ones I've tried, mainly because it is getting me inspired to do. Last week, Week One, was mainly about setting up our studios and inspiration board/wall. The kids and I already have a great place for art-making--it's not perfect (I'd love some natural light), but it's by far the best set-up we've had in this house and I'm so grateful for it. The walls are filled with works by the kids and me, studies we've done together using different materials, to inspire us as we work. But lately I'd been thinking I needed a section of the wall to hang up the odds and ends I've collected that I want to have out so I can see them. So that's done now.

But I just couldn't wait to get into that sketchbook! So last week, after spending a day at the local salt pond with the kids, when I wanted to remember some of what we'd seen, I combined words and sketch.

I think if you click on that to make it bigger, you might be able to read what I wrote, too. And yes! We saw a BIG horseshoe crab, and it was so so cool! There is nothing like seeing creatures in their natural habitat--while sharing their natural habitat. I can't even explain how it fills me up to be able to give these experiences to my kids.

Combining words and sketches in one journal/sketchbook was a revelation for me. I don't have to have a journal OR a sketchbook OR an art journal (the last, quite frankly, I find intimidating). I can put it all in one place. Obvious, I know, but it was something that needed to click for me. And all those photos I take (because I always have my camera with me) of random things that catch my eye? I can print them out--regular computer paper is fine--and stick them in the book.

Now, in Week Two, we are working in our sketchbooks as a class. One assignment was to make a double-page spread that felt "finished." Since I'm using an 8.5x11" sketchbook, I turned it sideways to do this.

The quote is from an e.e. cummings poem. Again, I think it'll be readable if you click on the photo. I was actually able to do this during the day (usually I get creative time at night). My boys were engrossed in their books, and my daughter was at the art table with me, working on her own composition, with crayons, stamps, and paint. Love working with her like that.

Also this week, we were given prompts. Mine was sunny*yellow*shady tree*try a sketch*happy. Because I'm trying to get more comfortable with materials I don't often use, I sketched this tree with chalk and oil pastels. The leaves were added with paint.

As a reference I used a photo of the enormous "fort tree" in a nearby park. I wanted to try approaching this prompt in a completely different way, too, so later I did this one.

This is more collage and mashing different things together, something that still feels so challenging to me. I think I drew here with conte crayons, which are always more chalky than I think they should be.

I'm excited about the "bonus" assignment for this week too...and that's what I mean about this course. It's got me doing. I'm really enjoying it.

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.

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?!

Getting Ready

(Giveaway is still open--postcards inspired by the lake!)

I will be spending Saturday and Sunday taking a weekend intensive in mixed media through RISD continuing ed, so I've been gathering my materials and preparing for this very exciting (and somewhat intimidating) experience. I signed up because mixed media feels so challenging to me. I'm hoping to exit the weekend feeling far more confident with it. To add to the excitement, Karen is taking the class too. I am very much looking forward to meeting her in person.

Linking up with my creative space--lucky me, I get twelve hours of creative space this weekend!

Squam Stories: Into the Woods

There is a me inside of me,
inside
the outside me
you see.

--Karla Kuskin

Back in January, I wrote that I was worried, after more than a decade of nearly constant company, that I may have forgotten how to be alone: "Somewhere buried within the organized, capable Mother is still the girl who would leave her apartment with nothing but some cash, lip balm, and a blank book; who landed in Paris without knowing a soul there; who was happy to spend hours just sitting and people watching with a notebook. Who felt that anything was possible and adventures definitely were for her. I want to take that girl to the woods of New Hampshire in June. I want to let her loose." 

I am so thrilled to report back that I am still completely comfortable by myself. It's such a good, life-saving quality, I think--the ability to be content with only your own company. Saturday afternoon I packed my backpack with some art supplies, my camera, and my water bottle, and I set out towards Longhouse, where my class had been that morning. I'd noticed the color of the water right there and wanted to get back to it.

I would have liked to try to catch that color green in watercolors, but it was so breezy I didn't think I'd be successful with the paper and paints, so I settled with trying to capture it with my camera, for later.

I'd brought a map of the camp with me and noticed there was a trail that followed the edge of the lake, so that's what I attempted to find. I took notice of whatever caught my eye. Interesting shadows--

Interesting textures--

I sat down on a bench with a dock and pulled out my sketchbook and colored pencils.

It's not a terribly good rendering of my view, but no matter. The words say, "It is strange to be around water that is not influenced by the tides."

Along the way, I took this rather goofy self-portrait.

That's me, perfectly happy, by myself in the woods.

And that's my final, most important story. I was able, over the course of those five days, to spend lots of uninterrupted time with the me inside of me. I affirmed that yes, I am just as interesting of a person, to myself, as I was before having children. I suspected this was true, of course, but it was important to me to prove it; I can't begin to explain why.

Thank you for coming along for these stories, which are just my unique way of sharing this experience. This is the last Squam story I'll be sharing in this space, although I have some projects inspired by my time there (and more to come, I'm sure). You can read many more Squam stories by many other attendees by checking out the list here.

Squam Stories: The Paddle Bit

On Thursday, I made a box.

This was in my first class, Three Tools with Terri Dautcher. I signed up for this class because my knowledge of Building Things With Wood is very minimal. I can use a hammer. I have built something with wood--a box, actually--years and years ago, in a short workshop offered by the art department in college, I think so art majors (and minors, like myself) could, potentially, build our own frames and stuff. Or not, in my case. Also, I signed up because I wanted to see inside Terri's studio. It didn't disappoint. She has everything in there; it's like it's a Wishing Studio, and as soon as you think, Oh, I could really use such-and-such, such-and-such appears.

But this story isn't exactly about the box, as you may have guessed by now. These Squam stories never are about the obvious. I will tell you that I'd originally pictured a much smaller box, and one a bit more decorated, but I liked the birch branch, and the branch dictated the rest of the design. Also, I may add more to it (possibly with that birch leaf stamp), but by late afternoon on Thursday I was so exhausted that I was content to let further adornment wait until I got home. This story, though, is about the paddle bit.

A paddle bit (also known as a spade bit) is this amazing type of drill bit that drills an exact circle. I used it to create the holes into which the birch branch fits.

You need to drill through the wood you want the hole in and into a piece of scrap wood underneath, so you don't go through into the table. I drilled a practice hole, and when I got nearly through the first piece of wood, the drill caught onto the second piece, and I guess, despite my best efforts, I wasn't holding the top piece firmly enough, and it went spinning around on the drill. I took my finger off the trigger, but it kept spinning a few more rotations. It was startling and scary. The piece of wood thwacked against my thigh, not enough to hurt, but enough to embed some splinters into my jeans. (Not my leg, just my jeans.) Okay, I thought. I know not to do that next time.

The real hole went a little better as far as flying wood goes, but I did splinter it a bit (nothing a little sandpaper couldn't handle). Because a branch isn't necessarily straight, like a dowel, I couldn't drill the holes in both side pieces at once, so I had one more hole to go. I'd marked it (turns out I could have done both at once; they lined up almost exact) and was holding the drill, poised, over my mark, when Terri walked by.

"Amy, do you want me to just do that last one for you?"

I sort of chuckled. "Do I look tense?" I asked. I was tense. Also, determined. "No, thank you. I'll do it." And I did. But I was exhausted by the end of that class, mentally and physically, all that concentration on something completely new, cutting the wood, drilling those holes, even nailing the damn thing together...my nails kept going in at an angle, and I'd try my hardest to line myself up with the nail...only to pull it out and try again.

But at the end of the day, I had a box. A HUGE box. With a bit of birch tree wood-burning on the ends, to go with the handle. I will probably add a bit more paint, and stamp some birch leaves on the sides, but these are the photos I wanted to share--taken on the screened-in porch of my cabin by the lake. Proof that I stared down the paddle bit and came out on the other side with a box.

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...

Orange Ruffles

I promised to talk a little bit more about this skirt, which I volunteered to test sew for Kim.

Really, it has so many problems. But I learned how to do ruffles, and the bottom ruffle is actually pretty good. The top and middle ruffles were sewn on in what I was calling "ruffle sandwiches." So, the middle ruffle was gathered and pinned to the top of the middle skirt piece, then the bottom of the top piece was pinned, and you sew through all three layers at once. With the top ruffle, the sandwich included the waistband. I think if you look very closely you can see an extra bit of stitching below the waistband, over the ruffle, on the left of the skirt. The waistband shifted while I was sewing the sandwich, and I didn't catch the folded-under edge on the inside. The elastic doesn't sit quite perfectly either, because of the waistband shifting. And the ruffles are a little crooked in spots.

So what did I learn? Ruffles aren't that hard, but I'm probably fine with one ruffle on a skirt, and no sandwiches. This is the first time I used an attached waistband instead of just creating a casing, and I think it's more trouble than it's worth for a little girl's skirt, especially when ruffle sandwiches are involved. (But now I've done it.) I think my feedback helped the pattern designer; I hope so anyway. I know she made some changes based on everybody's feedback. (You can buy the final version of this pattern here.)

It's definitely the most involved skirt I've ever made for my daughter, and it's her favorite color, and the imperfections aren't going to be visible on a moving three-year-old. (Also, my thread color matches really well. That was smart.) Speaking of thread, this pattern used so much. I'm not sure why I'm so thread stingy; it's pretty inexpensive, even if my machine only likes Mettler and will puke thread if I try anything else. I hate running out in the middle of a project though, and having to stop and wind another bobbin. Between the basting stitches for the ruffles and all the edges that needed zig-zagging...it's a good thing I stopped and bought an extra spool of orange thread! (I might be thread-insecure because I can only find Mettler at one local shop, and it's not open on Sundays or Mondays...)

Final verdict? Achingly cute skirt, imperfections and all. I did two new things (the ruffles and the waistband), and I like confronting something that intimidates me. Now, ruffles will be a choice, not something I avoid because I think they're too hard. I can now take any simple skirt and put a ruffle on it. (I knew I could.) And what fun to get to test out a pattern for someone--it was complete impulse to offer, but I'm glad I did.

Is there something crafty-wise that's intimidating you? What would happen if you tried it anyway?

Linking up with the brave and creative folks here.

Mighty Girls

You might have noticed the Mighty Girl Art button in my sidebar. I signed myself and my niece up for the e-session. It would be really cool if we could sit and create together, but she's ninety minutes away by car, so we'll have to settle for some distance sharing, which is also okay. Hopefully she doesn't mind if I share this little story about her and me. She's my older sister's first child, born a few months before I began dating my now-husband, in 1996. She was the first grandchild on either side of her family, and the next (on each side) was her brother, four years later. In 2001, when we let her know I was growing a baby, she got, well, upset. It turns out, she thought if I had my own baby, if I were a mama, I wouldn't be an auntie anymore--I wouldn't be her auntie anymore.

{Silly. I was her auntie first.}

I'm really glad she wanted to join along in this e-course, but I'll be honest--I'm doing it as much for me as for her! I think my girl-child self would have really enjoyed something like this, and probably needed it badly, although I can't think of any female adult in my life who might have wanted to do it with me at that time, with the exception of my older sister. And so, here is one of the many cool things about this course...Wendy has set it up so that one registration equals lots of girls doing it together. I'd checked with her about the distance: Would it be okay if my niece and I did it together but separately, or should I register us both? But no, one registration was still enough. And my niece is planning to do some of the activities with her younger sister, and I'm doing some with my daughter, and it's a Mighty Girl web just in our family, thanks to Wendy and her vision. Cool, right?

Wendy gives us art journal prompts each week. This is my response to the first one.

We were given the subject of a tree, I didn't choose it. Trees are just following me around lately.

This was created using conte crayon, ink and brush, and bleeding tissue paper. I will admit to struggling with the whole idea of art journaling in the past. Part of me just doesn't get it, probably because there are no rules at all. I tend to think of a journal as one thing, with words, and a sketchbook as something else, but slowly, I'm getting the hang of it. I want to get into an art journal habit, and I think with the help of this course, I just might. Here's my response to the second prompt.

The prompt was something along the lines of, What would your heart look like as it opens? I knew right away I wanted to start with a literal heart (found at The Graphics Fairy site, here). Oh, this was so much fun to doodle.

And here are a couple of the crafts. No forsythia blooms in our yard, sadly (I want some forsythia bushes!), but my daughter and I decorated a fallen maple branch with orange tissue paper--orange because it's currently her favorite color--and placed that in the center of our table. Below it is a wish bowl...along the same lines as the wish jar I put together earlier. I invited the whole family to write down any wish/dream/goal and add it. I'm not sure anyone will take me up on it...

...but it's a pretty little bowl, reminding us to wish. Those items inside right now? The heart-shaped polished stone, the rock that says "Dream," and the silver sand dollar were Christmas gifts to me from my oldest child. I picked up the pine cone one day because I really like its shape.

This post is already a bit long, so I will be back tomorrow with another poem post, sharing a particular favorite of mine. I hope you are doing mighty things, whether they be big or small.

Double Dog Dare DONE!

For the month of March, I decided my double dog dare would be to get my first winter tree embroidery ready to drop off in the Jamestown Art Center's Collaboration art show. (I kind of slid that information into this post here.) I dropped it off this afternoon.

A little bit of back story--I thought about entering something last year, but didn't. Both my boys did; my then-six-year-old won first place. This is an open show, which means what it sounds like--it's open to all, as long as you meet the criteria, which is 12"x12" format and a small entry fee. Any medium, as long as the finished piece is 12"x12" and ready to hang. So right from the get-go, this is about as low-stress an art show as you can get. In a juried show, you pay the fee, drop off your piece, and they may say, "So sorry, it's just not right for us," and your piece doesn't even hang. But this is truly open to all.

And still! I very nearly didn't get it done. In the end, the actual work to get it ready to hang did not take a lot of time, but it did take a lot of mental psyching up. I was just so afraid of messing something up along the way...but also, I was just sort of...afraid. I'm not sharing this to get lots of comments on how wonderful this embroidery is, but because it's so easy, I think, for most of us to see what somebody else is doing, whether it be entering a show, selling at a market, opening an Etsy shop, putting together a book proposal, and think, Oh, easy for her to do. Better that we realize it's not easy for most of us, so we don't think all that stuff is for those other people. It's for everybody, if that's what you want. (And really, I can at least be as brave as my kids, right? You can see their entries here.)

So some of the things that flew through my head (and, at times, out of my mouth)? Besides the fear that I would just plain screw up getting it wrapped around the canvas (here's a peek at the back side)...

...I worried I'd have to defend my choice of embroidery as art, that I'd have to explain it wasn't from a pattern (as if a painter would ever have to explain it wasn't a paint-by-numbers piece!), and, worst of all, Who am I to think I'm anything more than just a mother? You know, we'll just leave that right where it is for now. I'm just saying, I said it. And then later, I went and stapled that fabric to that canvas (the piece I embroidered on, by the way, is intact, except for very small stitches holding it in place behind the black piece) and told myself I SAID IT WAS MY DOUBLE DOG DARE AND I'M DOING IT.

Because, though it might just sound like a psychological mind-trick, I'd said I was going to do it, and I hated the idea of slinking in and admitting I hadn't. Because I'd have had to admit it, and the only reason for not dropping this off was fear. And I was driving there anyway, with my kids, to drop their pieces off, and I remembered the saying that you don't regret the things you do in life as much as you regret the things you don't do, and so I dropped it off.

The two women accepting the pieces really, truly seemed to like it. I did not have to defend my choice of medium (of course I didn't). It is sort of, um, obvious that it's not from a pattern. It's, you know, art, and just as deserving to hang on a wall in an art show as anything else.

The opening reception is Friday night. We're all going; I'm so looking forward to it. If you're local, it's at the Jamestown Arts Center in Jamestown, RI, from 6-8 pm.

Double dog dare DONE!

Dogs

Cameron, it turns out, is working her way through Drawing Lab and looking for company. And while I tend to do exercises as they strike me, not in order, and while I'm not sure I'll do one a week like she is, I went ahead and did Lab #6, "Index Card Multiples," over the weekend. You're supposed to start with a simple line drawing of a dog and a stack of twenty index cards and a big fat marker, and then draw that dog twenty times. This forces you to let go of detail--you're working small with a big marker. So I stacked up my cards, used the fat end of a marker, which still wasn't as big as a chisel-point marker, found a reference picture or two of a dog I liked, and got to it.

That's the whole twenty of them, plus my handknit socks (I was standing on the stool to get the picture). Also my coffee mug in the top right corner. I would grind to a miserable halt without coffee. Anyway, sometimes I tried to use the fattest part of the marker to force myself to let go of those details I was getting hung up on--I was working from a photograph, not a simple line drawing. Plus the photo I picked was of a BIG dog, and I was having a hard time fitting him onto an index card. Here's a closer look at the first ten.

And the final ten.

For the first one of this group I switched photos, to a close-up of the dog's face, but then I went back to the full-body photo, changing the orientation of the cards for five drawings to try to get more of the dog's body in--which, when I was drawing it, looked all different from what you think it looks like, just like hands and arms, when we really look at them to try to draw them, look sort of awkward and wrong. Anyway. These are my twenty big-dog sketches using big marker on small index cards.

I have lots of things to share this week--I've gotten four postcards in the mail so far, each one is lovely and happy-making, and I'm thinking at the end of the week I'll post what I've received by that point. I have some knitted stuff to show, and some embroidered stuff too...I'm having fun.

Oh, almost forgot! The dog is Elizabeth's dog Henry. I love his expressions. The two photos are this one and this one. And I'm linking up with Cameron's Lab #6 post here.

Winter Tree in Watercolor

One of my challenges to myself this year is to get out of the house and find the real-life community I've been missing. Sounds simple, right? But I've spent the better part of the last decade home in the evenings, nursing kids before bedtime and generally being on-call (this was by choice; I'm not complaining), which meant getting to a knitting group or sewing class or anything at night, really, was just not happening. Now that I can do such things, the challenge is to get myself to go, because it's easier to let my natural homebody impulses take over, get into pajamas when the kids do, and snug up at home. But I'm not going to meet anybody new that way, am I?

A couple of weeks ago, while I was out for knit night (see? I got out that night!), I saw a flyer for a one-night watercolor class at a local store. One-night classes are great, especially at this time of the year, when my husband travels a lot. So I went home and signed up. On Friday my daughter woke us up at 5:30, and we spent most of the day out and busy. By the time dinner rolled around, my eyes hurt, I was so tired. I filled a travel mug with coffee and went to the class anyway. I'm so glad I did!

I wasn't sure what to expect, and I was so happy with the class. I hoped she wouldn't have us copy her exactly so we all ended up with the same painting, although I figured I'd at least learn some techniques that way. But she didn't! She had a stack of photographs of winter scenes and she had us each pick one. I smiled when I saw most of them included trees; it seemed like a good sign. Then she talked us through how to approach the painting, which means I came away feeling like I'd learned quite a bit in only two hours. Although I've been playing around with the watercolors at home, I haven't had the confidence to make that leap to attempting anything representational. I understood the general process, but I really needed someone right in the room saying You can do it, and this is how.

I came home full of happiness, and my husband and oldest (who wasn't in bed yet) were suitably impressed--it's nice to have an in-house cheering squad. (My husband has mentioned it would look nice in his office.) It's a first try, but it's given me the excitement and confidence to try some more, on my own. The instructor is a natural-born teacher; she teaches kids and adults and clearly finds her joy in sharing what she knows and inspiring others.

This was a good way to begin the weekend. I hope you are enjoying yours!