In the Mail

Saturday's mail brought a package from Bluebird Lane.  I'm not sure why we are so susceptible to packaging, but most of us are.  It is such fun to open an envelope and find this:

 and inside are the lovely crinkled seam bindings.

 love them!

 love the lagniappe of blue that she included!

 Last year a friend gave me some gourds.

This one was broken, so I broke a large opening,

painted and sealed it

using the attic oven between coats.

Some of the WIPs...

Milly, the tiny ghost doll,

will make herself at home

in the gourd when it is done.

The tiny "rabbit" doll
(with wire through the body
and no legs a'tall)

is one of those left over from months ago.

It has been undergoing some more work,

an its legs are hanging in the attic.

---------------

I've been dashing from one project to the next, lately.  The latest addition to the project list is developing a correspondence a la the letter game.     I don't believe I mentioned it on this blog, but I recently read a delightful novel based on this kind of collaborative correspondence:    Sorcery & Cecelia or the Enchanted Chocolate Pot.  


I've already written the first letter to my grands in Baton Rouge and will mail it today.  I just have a few things to add.  I'll tell you more about it later...if Mila and Max are willing to play.

The Waiting Game

Yesterday, I showed you the fabric with the flour resist that I did using Jane LaFazio's tutorial.  I painted over the flour resist and took pictures while the paint was drying. 

 I let the paint set for 24 hours, then gave it a good rinse to get rid of the flour paste, and then washed it in the washing machine. almost like it better before rinsing off the flour paste, but I'm pleased with the outcome.

Some details:

I debated giving the strips another coat of resist and another paint job, but decided to leave these.  

Today I worked on two more pieces using a thinner coat of resist.  Not sure how they will turn out, but I think I'll try putting them through the process again, just for comparison.

Below are some of the cabbage leaves that I showed you the other day, now wrapped in silk around the coffee can.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the prints will work.  The bundle is silk wrapped around the cabbage stalk.  Will I be able to refrain from unwrapping for a month?

 See how sheer the silk is?  You can see the 

leaves right through it.

Finished bailing out the fountain for its spring clean up this afternoon.  Lots of leaves soaking in there from the recent thunder storms, and some gravel and stones that Bryce Eleanor added on various occasions.

Glad that job is done!

WIPs

These poor fellows have been pinned to my design wall for so long, I'll have to figure them out all over again.

                  What Lies Within -- they were begun to go with this quote by Emerson:                                 "What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies with in us."

Having her sweater dress fitted.  Watch for the pins, little girl!

His tailor is taking his time on his coat.

Not much progress on any of these, either.

I'm not sure what they were so interested in, I didn't find anything.

Black Cat, Pumpkin, WIP's

Black cat found a pumpkin sitting on an old tree trunk, and decided to perch on his head!

Some of the WIP's...

 Some of the WIP's are at the sewing machine.

Hope everyone is having a great day!

Nesting

I've made a bird's nest for one of the projects I'm working on.

I thought it would be easier and faster than it turned out to be, but I love using the bark.  The nest has dried grasses, twigs, and bark from the garden, some feathers, some wool roving, and moss.

Nests have such comforting connotations...maybe that is why we are all drawn to them.

"A crown is merely...

 a hat that lets the rain in." - Frederich the Great

But they are such fun to make!

Here is what is happening to the fused scraps I started playing with a few days ago, after finding my container of left-over fused fabric. 

I fused some of the scraps on to a base, then covered the whole thing with the gold sparkly material.  I have a few more details to add, but it is on its way to completion.

You can see the velcro on the end of one side.

I had no idea where I was going, since this is my first crown, but I figured out things on the way. 

This is what began all the simultaneous things I'm working on now (3 more of these in progress), what I've been gathering all the bits and bobs for.  I'm working on the others a bit here, a bit there, this one, that one, and back again. 

And I still have to figure out how I'm going to finish this one...

PIPs (projects in progress), WIPs, and UFOs

Here are some teasers from the several projects I have in progress.  Of course, that means that several other projects are being neglected, but sometimes you have to go where your imagination takes you.

Made from copies of old letters, a paper fan.  I'm liking this idea.  I've seen gorgeous examples of paper fans on lots of blogs.  I have an idea for other little paper thingies, too.  Putting together some odds and ends that may or may not end up   together is kind of fun.  (The green is for another WIP, but makes a nice background.)

 Below are more things I've retrieved from abandoned project baskets...

 This was one of several pieces of "tortured cloth" that I played with probably a year ago, but maybe I have an idea for it now.

 I think I know how to use these flowers (I so love the colors), but I'm not sure about them yet.  I'm just searching and putting stuff in little "possible" baskets for each project.

Hooray for Thera Flu strips, they help me keep moving with less coughing and sneezing.

Asanas, Buttons, UFO

After yoga last night, Robin and I steamed until we looked like lobsters and were weak in the knees! Then as we were leaving, we stepped out into a humonguous storm and got further soaked on the way to our cars.

I love yoga. I love the differences in approach from Susan's Monday night class (which I missed this week) to Ginny's Wednesday night class. I love the feeling afterwards. Although I usually try to do additional sessions at home during the rest of the week, intention and action don't always coincide.

The same problem occurs with meditation. Intention: twice a day. Reality: often only once a day, and some days are a complete miss. Still, the benefits are worth the continued effort for a regular twice-a-day schedule.

One source recommended slowing the breath to 4 breaths per minute or less. That is my first effort when I prepare to meditate. I watch the clock and if I can't get down to 4 in the first minute, then I'm almost always there by the second, and then can quickly move into a relaxing and refreshing session. Maybe alternating a seated session with a qi gong standing meditation would provide some variety.

I've been working on some more of these square buttons at night.
I've finally decided to do the quilting on this piece. It has been staring at me long enough and will be a wall quilt or a doll quilt or whatever, but it will be finished.

UFO

Notice I've switched from WIP to UFO...

Last year, inspired by Lazy Gal Tonya, I started this liberated piecing/wonky letters project. The work stalled pretty quickly because so much was going on; I was going to work on it after Christmas, but never got around to it. The pieces are in a plastic box somewhere, and I may try to finish it this year...

Found this fascinating site via Layers of Meaning. I've recently seen a reference to Robinson's work somewhere else...can't remember where.

Heard about Feufollet on NPR and since I love Cajun music thought I'd share. You can listen to a little music here.

Poetry and UFOs

"We are here on earth to do good for others. What the others are here for I do not know." ~W.H. Auden

Auden is one of my favorite poets, even though his poems are usually about the flaws in humanity, they always offer a possibility of hope and emphasize the importance of love. One of my favorite poems is September 1, 1939, which he wrote in 1939 on the outbreak of WWII.

On to more mundane things...

These cuffs have been in progress for months. I found them in the little plastic box where I stored them with the beads, Dorset buttons, etc. I was using. It took a while to locate the box, but determination led me through the chaos.
I'm trying to identify as many WIPs and UFOs as I can, and then determine a way to order them so that at least they receive occasional work.

More WIPs

"I get up every morning determined both to change the world and to have one hell of a good time doing it. Sometimes this makes the day difficult." ~E.B. White

Love that quote!

I'm not sure where these little moodles are going - buttons, appliques to add to another work, brooches...I guess the point is that they keep my hands busy. These are on a brown linen scrap.WIPs are an example of the shotgun approach; I just pick up one thing today, something else tomorrow, kind of randomly. There is rarely a purpose or a focus other than the pleasure of the activity itself.

Left over thread of any length gets stored at the bottom of the strip.

Labor Day Begins

My Bloglines Feeds are not showing! I thought it would probably cure itself, but this morning...still no feeds. Not being able to get my feeds is frustrating. Anyone else with this problem?

I have a meeting this morning and a dozen errands and preparing for the arrival of Erin and the kids. Busy day.

Here is the new piece in progress. Needs a lot of detail yet.
A couple of weeks ago, I tried to do a thread drawing based on one of my journal doodles, but the tension on my machine was giving me problems and I, uh, had trouble following the lines. It was never meant to be more than a practice attempt for another piece, but it didn't go so well. :(
This piece is once again in stalled progress, but at least I got the other border on.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Now What?

I have so many little pieces of projects...things that are fun to do, but for which I have no overall plan. These items fall into a "Now What?" category and hang around on the design board, in baskets, or in piles waiting for an idea to materialize that will carry them forward. They also fall into that WIP (or WISP - Works in Slow Progress - as Sharon B. terms them) category.

Part of the reason for so many of them is that I have only intimations, glimmers of an idea and feel compelled to do something about them before they are lost in the chaos. With no clear cut direction and lots of fractions of ideas, I play a while and then abandon them until inspiration about what to do with them occurs. Sometimes it does. Not always.

An example is the strange embroidered creature holding Mila's name. I wanted to have something to embroider for times I was watching my Netflix loves (currently The House of Eliot and Wonderfalls), so I took a figure from an old journal (that I used in mail art to hold signs and dates) and set to work. Finished even. Then didn't know what to do with him.Yesterday, I used pieces of left-over borders and framed it with more color. What next? - more borders? Maybe. Still don't know what it will be. Once again, I'm faced questions about purpose, but since making the little doll quilt, I'm thinking on those lines.

Monday Musings

I was the weekend babysitter for Bryce Eleanor. Well, from Saturday afternoon until Sunday afternoon. She was a joy as usual.


More stuff from the room organization:

Brooches I started and didn't finish over two years ago
The winter class piece that didn't get finished. The first part of Julian of Norwich's prayer:

All shall be well,

and all shall be well,

and all manner of things shall be well.

I was going to do the rest of the quote in embroidery, but now I really don't know how I'm going to handle it. Maybe it will be finished by next Christmas.