random art & projects

Transportation Update

2012-01-26T22:14:00.000-08:00

Just over a month ago I finally got another car (a miserable thing to do on one's birthday, but that's how the schedule worked). I'd had my old one just about 10 years.

Good-bye

Hello

Stats at the changing of the keys:
1990 Honda Accord LX 253,062.9 miles
2010 Honda Civic VP 35,534 miles

In some ways I was very sorry to part with my old car. I drove it long distances around New Mexico - to my first ever camping trip by the Gila Cliff Dwellings near Silver City, and to Santa Fe and Taos and Roswell. It drove in AND out of Chaco Canyon, and up through Navajo Country; Hovenweep and Arches National Monument in Utah, and Mesa Verde in Colorado. I drove it when I moved from Las Cruces to Portland, Oregon, and I drove it on a trip up to Canada, and on a bunch of SCA camping trips in Oregon and Washington. I moved four times while I had it.

And gradually, things stopped working...it is now nice to have heat, defogging, an overhead light, a non-leaky trunk and glove compartment, and to not be worried about (is that my tie-rod end about to go)??? The Civic is a *really* basic model...I kind of miss my automatic locks (really? There are new cars with push-it-by-hand locks?) but it is nice to have heat and defogging. And it is much peppier to drive, and has an excellently small turning radius.

One week and one day since losing the beloved kitty.

The last few weeks have been very crummy anyway. Missing Princess makes it worse except that the ongoing obsessive worry about her health is over.

Fare Thee Well Princess

2012-01-18T22:10:00.000-08:00

I have two blog posts planned but not done, and this is not one of them. Today my sweet kitty died. The last few months have been a gift - once food & medication were solved, she ended up having a lot of really good time, especially the last few weeks. She napped in different places, looked out the door a lot and went out on a few balcony patrols (yesterday was a good one). She collected me in the morning and at bedtime and even went to bed before me a few nights, climbing up her "stairs" of boxes since she wasn't very springy for the last month or so.

She had a nifty tent box the last few weeks, but recently felt good enough to come hang out near me like usual instead of in the box, whenever I would actually sit still for more than 40 seconds.

Fluffy banner tail enthusiastic kitty explored the box yesterday when I trimmed off the in-the-way flaps. (They were only in the way for a human, not a kitty.)

(It's really hard to draw kitties, especially from memory, but you get the idea; the second sketch is better proportioned.)

So she had quality days until today, when she succumbed to the non-food-related health problem (she was at least 16, and may have had a stroke at some point). I'm glad she didn't linger but I'm going to miss her so much.

Thanksgiving & Indigo

2011-11-27T22:02:00.000-08:00

On Thanksgiving I was grateful for the usual things - family and friends, having a job that pays for books and food and a place to live and internet access - but also that I still have kitty. We had a couple of very bad days.

The shibori class is now over. I barely managed it, but I did end up with a narrow length of handwoven which is now turned blue and patterned.

Stitched and tied:

Dyed, not quite dry:
Untied and unstitched (but not yet rinsed; the color will lighten slightly - and the color is *not* accurate; it is definitely dark blue, not black):

I also dyed some of the same cotton yarn so that I will have matching yarn to make a hanging braid; part of this is going to be a small wall hanging. The rest will be assorted very small things, yet to be determined.

I don't care if Wednesday's blue...

2011-11-10T22:59:00.000-08:00

...at least if it's because of indigo.

Here are a couple pieces from last night. They all spent about the same amount of time in the vat; the color difference is because they are different types of fabric.

Squares - okay; circles - okay; but the triangles really tweak my horror vacui gene.

This is the sample handwoven - I *really* like it. Too bad it's so small...and wish me luck that I can get some more woven in time for the final class next week.

Food again. If you like kiwi fruit, you should try kiwi berries. They taste like kiwis, they look like kiwis, but they're only this big!

(Meet Antler Man; I don't believe he has appeared here before, but he gets around. While you're there, take a look around at some of the great photos. Not by me, just to be clear.)

Seasonal Libation, and Several Sundry Tidbits

2011-10-31T23:24:00.000-07:00

Alas for the long hiatus - although I've had my delightful, completely functional new computer fully-installed for well over a month, it is the first time I've hooked up the camera to it. I suppose I might catch up eventually.

Seasonal libation:

Something completely different - a "Romanesque broccoli" which caught my eye at the grocery store (what is that? oh, that's PRETTY)

I'm taking a class wherein I have access to indigo, so I've been making things blue:

And I managed to weave a bit of fabric - these are the samples (washed and unwashed) - the intention is to weave more and dye it blue. At this point I'm dubious I'll get it done; we'll see. I'm still having difficulties from having several fingers not quite in, not quite out of joint. Weaving is not too bad; tying knots is, so the set up is irritating, as is preparing fabric for dyeing.

And, to round things out, a kitty picture. Recently this Nap Box has returned to favor; nose in the corner is one particularly-Princess posture.

Apparently August

2011-08-18T23:13:00.000-07:00

It is still cool - not that I miss the 100+ weather we can get, but I've only worn shorts about three times this summer. I have turned a fan on twice.

I never got around to posting this, from early July.

Such a tiny embroidered face looked...wizened. But I decided to just finish anyway, because I knew of no rule precluding a tiny feather-cloaked lady from being wrinkled. Er, the cat hair is, ah, for scale.

No embroidery since then, as six weeks ago I (sprained?) two fingers on one hand and they still don't work right. Frustrating in a lot of ways, including that the weather is perfect for schlepping and organizing, except you can't do that one-handed. I had planned on doing the outdoor closet so I could install a hook to hang my bike, and I need to repot some plants, such as the hens & chickens the jays keep vandalizing.

Instead, I've read a lot, and managed to start getting back to painting. Hence the pods. Here are the next two stages:

Time for the little brush on the black and white painting; I think one more session of black and white before I add color. The colored painting...I'm somewhat stymied. I accidentally made a large pepto pink - yikes. Maybe it will help to get an apple to model for me. I need more practice figuring out how the different paints work together...which is after all the reason for these studies. And seeing the pictures all together reinforces my niggling suspicion that the last time I worked on them I made them worse. Some of it is my photography - even dry they're kind of shiny. And the camera seemed pretty unhappy with bright red and green.

July?!

2011-07-31T23:56:00.001-07:00

Where has this summer gone? - or, where has it been? Because it just really finally got here. It's hard to be convinced by the calendar when the weather is cool and overcast.

At any rate, the weather has been almost completely like summer since last weekend, when I went on a hike:

(If you look at the large version, you can just barely make out one of the hawks that was circling around and around--one of the tall grasses points at it.)

Yesterday Princess had an excellent day.

And I finally got in gear and did some painting--two new in-process and one probably almost done practice piece from a while ago:

The pomegranate/seedpods are experiments in that one is going to be only colors, and the other is starting off with the black and white underpainting as per the workshop I took a couple of years ago. Initial notes: I "get" black and white. Instant color is fun. And I tend to either use very little or way too much Liquin (thinner).

Another project! And a plethora of pictures.

2011-06-04T12:39:00.000-07:00

This is the embroidery that was the antidote to the math embroidery. I started it Monday and sewed the last few beads on Friday! It has to be a record. (Blue linen, DMC embroidery floss and beads, 2 1/2 x 3 3/8 inches.)

I've been kind of hankering to do an owl for a while, and a week ago I realized it would be now. I didn't actually expect this particular owl, but that's what happens sometimes.

Speaking of birds, I've been watching the heron family in the park next to where I work. I have a bunch of pictures - the nest pictures aren't really much to look at, but a few times I've been lucky to find a heron parent hunting. This one is from yesterday.

I continued my walk, and hit the avian jackpot - for I was passing the heron tree just as a heron parent swooped in for a landing: feeding time! It was a prolonged and raucous affair. The youngsters truly sounded like dinosaurs as they clamored and squabbled and jostled and flapped. (They used to sound like hoarse geese.) (Horse goose? That must be worse than a pig dog.)

Then when I got home, the light was just right to inspire a quick bit of photography. I made these a few years ago, and I still enjoy them. They consist of birch twigs, abaca paper (handmade by me!) and linen thread.

To completely round out this post, a nap kitty photo. (She's still grounded, and she is way calmer. I may allow bathtub again soon.)

I could have titled this post "The Owl and the Pussycat!"

Math + Embroidery =

2011-06-03T23:39:00.001-07:00

SP (my Special Person) told me this was his favorite math formula. I instantly thought it would be perfect for a cross stitch embroidery. And I harbored this idea in secret.

SP cleverly used the formula as a decorative illustration in my birthday card. This was fortuitous because I had naturally instantly forgotten it, and now I had it and I didn't have to ask and risk spoiling the surprise.

Now, cross stitch is not really my thing, but it does have its applications. I've done a tiny bit of cross stitch. If you've done any serious cross stitch you would probably realize that I should have done some math. I knew I wanted this to be small, so I had to graph very minimal numbers otherwise it would be too big. Experimentation revealed that stitching a single strand of DMC over individual threads of 28-count linen would do the trick.

The equation went pretty fast, especially the second time. (The first time I did the "1" last and that is what demonstrated that two strands of DMC was too much - definite distortion of the fabric.) Then, background. Piece of cake; it would go along speedily, one stitch over and over, no counting.

Actually, instead of counting I should have multiplied. After taking approximately half an eon to do the first few rows of background, I did finally multiply.

Just over 2.5 inches square at 28 stitches per inch tallies out at just over 5,000 stitches.

At that point I didn't work on it for a few weeks.

Eventually I got back into gear; my cross stitch technique (and speed) improved. By the end I think I could do at least two rows an hour...this is an estimate based on my soundtrack - I never worked with a clock in sight!

Camera Captures Clever, Coordinated Kitty Cat Cuteness

2011-05-23T21:29:00.001-07:00

(Excess verbiage to assuage alliterative affliction.)

Licking the damp bathtub is a pastime that gradually developed into a refined practice.

There are certain ways to have drinks. By last weekend, the pattern was developing thusly: drink out of bowl in kitchen (long spurned, recently returned to favor). Proceed to bathroom to drink out of favored water dish. Demand loudly of human to run bathtub. If human is present, demand loudly again that the water should have been left running for feline amusement, and then as feline water fountain. Exit bathtub and have another drink at favored water dish.

From the human's point of view, this was becoming a problem due to the extremely loud nature of the feline's requests, and the increasing frequency the feline felt it was necessary to have bathtub fountain, and the unfortunate earliness of certain requests. Demands.

Thus as of Sunday, Princess was "grounded" from the bathtub. She quickly caught on that noisiness did not help, even when the human was RIGHT THERE, and she made quiet, disgruntled entreaties which were very entertaining, and staked out the bathroom for long periods, hoping that the bathtub would be restored to service.

Project and Kitty Pictures

2011-05-02T21:42:00.001-07:00

This is something I finished back in February - about 1 month from idea to rummaging around locating ingredients, to completion. It's about four inches square.

Sunday evening I realized I had knocked my doublet off the futon. Princess realized it first, and she knows a good thing when she sees it.

And here's a picture of Princess in the reigning favorite Nap Box:

Weaving News

2011-04-03T23:33:00.000-07:00

At long last, this afternoon I finally finished a weaving that has been languishing on the loom for ages. It was a warp set up for doubleweave (weaving two layers of cloth at the same time). More accurately, it was the tail end of a warp from ages ago when I took a weaving class. I wasn't able to finish the whole thing during the class, and I had to take it off the loom. (Couldn't waste all that string, after all.) I got my own loom a few years later, and at some point I decided I really had to finish up this warp. The main problem was that I wasn't very interested in it anymore...I finally figured out a simple pattern that would take advantage of the doubleweave set up, wherein one can laboriously row by row manually interchange the layers and create a pattern. I've cranked through it in the last few weeks; it came out okay, but I had tension issues and selvedge issues.

This is a close up of the patterning, which is made by trading the top layer to the bottom and the bottom to the top.

Now you can see the pattern--I told you it was simple! One interchange per row, that's it.

Almost done, and definitely done (no string left!):

Of the next two pictures, first is the front, then the back--you can plainly see the result of the tension issues in the spots where some of the threads didn't interweave properly. And the thicker lines are inattention issues, where I got the weft in the same shed twice.

Also, the sett was too close, so it's not a balanced plain weave--not necessarily a bad thing, just not what I had in mind. The section I had woven during the class seemed too loose...that definitely wasn't a problem here.

The best studio accessory--the feline muse--she has to go away from the living room when the loom is in use. (Sounds and moving parts. Not good.) One of the places I find her is the studio nap box.

This may be the first time that I finished something and posted the same day!

Happy Anniversary!

2011-03-30T23:38:00.001-07:00

Today is five years since Princess moved in with me. She spent several days under the futon; all I saw was glowing yellow eyes, but sometimes I could reach in and pet the silky, invisible kitty.

These days she is much more relaxed. I left some yummy stinky treats for her before I left for work, and this evening she performed numerous balcony patrols and had a good nap in The Box.

Medieval Inspiration for an Embroidery...

2011-02-27T15:15:00.000-08:00

or, Breakfast at the Ashmolean.

It’s just wonderful that institutions like the Ashmolean have invested in making their collections available online. Much as I would love to visit in person, it just isn’t practical...at least on short notice. And they wouldn’t allow tea!

In late December I finished the last bit of a small embroidery I started a long time ago. This experiment was prompted by historic examples in several books—separate inspirations for techniques and for motif.

TECHNIQUES:

"Embroideries and Samplers from Islamic Egypt," by Marianne Ellis.

Embroidery #5, pg. 16-17, done on linen fabric, is couched linen thread with silk filling in the background. Probably originally the end of a shawl, only the roughly cut off embroidered section remains. You can see it online courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum:
Textile fragment with Naskhi inscription, birds, and palmettes
Egypt, 12th century (1101 - 1200)

Embroidery #9, pg. 21, was couched with buttonhole stitching; that intrigued me, and I decided to try it.
Textile fragment with band of Naskhi inscription, scrolls, and floral pattern
Egypt, Ayyubid Period (1169 - 1260)

I really like how the couching turned out, though the effect I got in my embroidery is different than that in the picture. Some of the reason is probably that my embroidery was not buried in Egypt for 800 years.

DESIGN:

The design is one I made up; basically, I needed something that fit the linen I found in my stash, which was left over from something else. The shape of my fabric (about 4 ¼” x 6 ¾”/11 x 17.5 cm hemmed) dictated a narrow composition), and the shape of the border is a nod to the Islamic inspiration for the embroidery technique I used.

As for imagery, I’ve been hooked on pomegranates for some time; conveniently, they were ubiquitous for centuries of textile designs. I was also enamored of the adorable little partridges from a 12th century Italian tapestry weaving. I found it in "Tongeren. Basiliek van O.-L.-Vrouw Geboorte: Textiel van de vroege middeleeuwen tot het Concilie van Trent" (a collection of medieval textiles in the Basilica in Tongeren, Belgium).

Woven silk tapestry fragment, used as a wrapper for a relic; Palermo, 12th century. It is very badly deteriorated, and was “repaired” with embroidery in the 19th century.

Thanks to the Royal Institute for the Artistic Heritage of Belgium, you can see this online: go to http://www.kikirpa.be/www2/wwwopac/en/object.html and search for cliché number: N7124 (the cliché number search box is under “Administrative Data”)

I decided the bird in my embroidery needed to be as big as possible, and I filled in the top with as many pomegranates and leaves as I could fit.

The filling stitches used in the Egyptian embroideries seem to be mostly stem stitch, but I confess I deciding on chain stitch for the partridge anyway—it fills in faster, and kind of looks like feathers. And I’m not sure what kind of silk it is, and since I need it for another project I thought chain stitch might possibly use less thread. The beads are also my idea.

More bibliographic detail:

Embroideries and Samplers from Islamic Egypt. Marianne Ellis. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 2001.
1 85444 135 3 (paperback)
1 85444 154 X (hardback)
This excellent book is available from the Ashmolean—not only can you order directly from them, but they have THE ENTIRE THING online, hooked up to the collection! I just discovered this today, as I was tweaking my essay and playing with the links again. When you look at an item that was included in the book, you get the option to read the “object entry” about the item, and also to follow back to the Ashmolean publications…and then you can find all the items that are online that were included in the book. It’s very cool!

I recommend the book highly—it has superb photos, often full-page, in which you can usually see the threads of the ground fabric and of the embroidery; how often can you say that about photos of medieval textiles? Also there are a couple of diagrams that are probably not in the online version (a couple of stitches and some charted patterns).

Tongeren. Basiliek van O.-L.-Vrouw Geboorte: Textiel van de vroege middeleeuwen tot het Concilie van Trent. (Clenodia Tungrensis I.)
Uitgeverij Peeters, Leuven, 1988.
978-90-6831-125-9
Available through Oxbow/David Brown Book Co. as well as from the publisher; as you probably guessed, it is written in Dutch. It contains many, many delightful things, but the photographs are mostly black and white, and often smaller than you’d like. There are some very nice diagrams (mostly of weaving structures), and detailed textile information. I recommend this book highly, but with the caveat that I think it would appeal mainly to serious textile geeks as it is heavier on the brain candy than the eye candy, especially if you don’t know Dutch—though since my German is decent, and I’ve read a bunch about textiles, I was able to work my way through it all right. That, and a serious need to know more about reliquary pouches.

Project Table

2010-12-29T23:17:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Sarah for posting the link to Terri Windling's series of pictures of people's desks--I love seeing how other people set things up. A touch of voyeurism, I suppose, coupled with dosages of "oh, I'd like that" and "oh, I'm glad I'm not the only one that ends up like that." My personal best example: realizing I was just about to set a dish of inky water on top of a piece of velvet. It would be nice to have two work surfaces...and a large enough space that I could not reach both from the same seat. I have more space in my new apartment, but two work surfaces...not feasible at the moment.

Here is my project table--which looked radically different about an hour later, as I removed the embroidery stratum to provide access to the painting stratum.

A bit closer, with the embroidery on top of the weaving notes on top of the sketchbook (and a glimpse of my new little haworthia in the background):

There was a spot of sun today. I took a few photos of the charming feline; this is the only one where she was looking out intently. In the other photos she was obviously sitting there with her eyes closed!

Mini Projects COMPLETE

2010-12-27T10:45:00.000-08:00

This summer I decided I need to start making tiny, finite projects so I could actually finish something once in a while to kind of get the idea what that was like. There are pictures of the first two of these from back in July.

I did finish one of them pretty quickly. It was inspired by two samples from the fabric store--the orange velveteen was just appealing, and the magenta seemed to go with it (the colors are off on my monitor, making the magenta bluish). Two by three inches in size, chain stitch, several couched ribbons, and a scattering of French knots. This may be the first time--in an embroidery, at least--that I consciously added some complementary color, having finally realized that complete lack of contrast was what made pleasingly analogous color schemes kinda boring.

And then there was this one, not so quickly finished because of how I "had" to do the leaves. They're not chain stitches--it seemed like that would be too bulky. I had one needle with three strands of DMC, and I'd make a tiny loop and couch down the tip of it with the single strand of DMC in another needle. So that's why it took so long; I couldn't usually stand to do more than about 10 leaves at a time! and usually less.

A bit over a week ago I added the beads and filled in the trunk, and yesterday I did the hill--I had tried last week, but couldn't figure out what to do (it turns out I needed to use a different green and a plainer stitch). It doesn't lie flat, between tension of stitch and thickness of thread. I'm not sure how (or, honestly if) I will finish off the edges--I wish the fabric paint had been a touch more thorough at the edges; I like the raw edges fine, I'm just not keen on the white showing.

Notes (so I can find them again): 22-count cotton evenweave a bit over 4x4 inches square, painted with Jacquard Textile colors and embroidered with DMC cotton:

*one strand each of 4070, 4050, and 907 for the leaves
*one strand each of 304, 498, and 3831 for the trunk
*one strand each of 335, 602, and 3705 to sew the beads on (I originally was going to have French knot "flowers" along with the bead "fruit" but there really wasn't room for both)
*three strands of 562 for the grass

Musical Boxes

2010-11-01T21:26:00.000-07:00

This is another "post move" update.

Last night's idea was "move boxes." (Oil painting from Sunday was not dry enough to finish.) So I moved boxes. Things have been stagnant for a while, and it's been getting to me. All the easier/more obvious things have been dealt with, and the last bit is taking forever because I'm trying to not just put stuff away to get it out of sight, since out of sight = out of mind, and I really, truly wish to sort things out and have them accessible in order to (gasp) USE them.

I poked through several small cardboard boxes, dislodged a hammer and several nails, and hung two more things on the wall (for a total of three). The box containing my camera software is now more accessible, so when I feel up to it I will be able to mess around with trying to get it to work again on my computer.

I moved boxes, shifting a bin of camping things into the coat closet, which entailed first emptying the floor of said closet, which was not as bad as it sounds since said closet is not very big.

I need to find a place for the vacuum cleaner. In my last apartment, the camping stuff lived in the bedroom closet and the vacuum cleaner lived in the coat closet. My current bedroom closet doesn't seem to have room for it. (Much smaller closet.) The closet in the studio also does not have room for the camping stuff. Since I'm naturally using the somewhat larger master bedroom for the studio, that bedroom closet is somewhat larger than the other one, but it's full of Cool Stuff and, behind that, flattened boxes for the next time I move. And the water heater is in there, too. So the coat closet had to be the place for the camping stuff, and there is no room in the coat closet for the vacuum cleaner.

I should be able to put the vacuum cleaner in the linen closet. The shelves are only half the depth of the closet, so there is a lot of vertical air. In that case, I have to find somewhere else to put my clothes drying racks, which I currently keep in the linen closet, because there wouldn't be enough room for them if the vacuum cleaner was in there. They might fit in the bedroom closet if I didn't have the suitcases there. But that's kind of the only place for the suitcases.

Due to the layout of my apartment, the main bathroom has a lot of wasted space, mainly in the corner behind the door. I'll probably end up putting the boxes from the outdoor/balcony closet there. (The outdoor closet is smaller, too, and this balcony is not shaped like an outdoor room, so once again I have to come up with a new system.) Once I get the boxes out of the outdoor closet, I can install a hook to hang up my bicycle, which otherwise won't fit. But in the meantime, before I move the boxes, perhaps I can put the clothes drying racks behind the door in the bathroom, so I can put the vacuum cleaner in the linen closet instead of leaving it in the living room where it has been since late August.

Then, once I rearrange the boxes in the living room, I can move the fabric storage dresser out of the studio, where it is completely blocking the other fabric storage dresser, to the living room, where it will stay until I decide what to do with it.

Soothing picture of trees. It's impossible--for an amateur like me, at least--to take a really satisfactory photo of giant redwoods:

Mailing Myself a Book

2010-10-26T22:07:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately I can't post pictures at the moment--or, more accurately, I can't download new pictorial evidence of Sunday's productive painting frenzy, since my computer is unable to use the camera program. Apparently adding internet has addled its brain. Once I dig out the CD with the software I'll try reinstalling it.

Late last Wednesday, for the first time, I sat at home and bought a book on Amazon! Today it arrived: Orientalische Briefumschläge in Schwedischem Besitz, or in other words, Oriental Letter Wrappers in Swedish...well, "Possession" is literal, but I think a more English translation would use "collections." It is a charming book by Agnes Geijer and C.J. Lamm, printed in 1944--charming not because of the contents, but by virtue of being a small paperback with its original dustjacket.

Bibliographic interlude: Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademiens Handlingar, Del 58:1; Stockholm, 1944, Wahlström & Widstrand.

I think the first time I came across a citation was in the Textiles volume of the Topkapi Museum.

[Insert intermission as the computer shuts off in protest when I attempt to look up the citation because I don't feel like hauling the book off the shelf. No citation tonight.]

Not quite 50 pages of text, two tipped in color plates, and 40 black and white illustrations--as usual with textile books, the emphasis is on the textile and not the thing the textile was made into. But luckily there are several photos which give an idea of just what these "Briefbeutels" looked like--tall, skinny bags. It's easier to imagine the documents being rolled instead of folded. There are Turkish, Persian, and "Tartar" fabrics.

Friday.

2010-10-22T22:32:00.000-07:00

It was a week.

This weekend I hope to get in some time painting. More on that when I've painted something and have a picture.

In the meantime, at some point--oh my, a year ago!--I entertained myself by taking dozens of photos of fruit. I was so enthralled with the little fruits, I neglected to pay sufficient attention to the small bushes that grew them, so that I don't even remember what the foliage looked like.

I experimented with the camera, and ended up with ones like this:

Along the way I realized oh, I guess I *do* see some chance of sometime needing to use some of those methods I've read about for transferring photos to fabric.

Small Luxuries

2010-10-19T21:33:00.000-07:00

The torturously long saga of relocation has concluded. I'm reasonably settled in the new apartment--it has been well over a month now--and it has turned out to be a little quicker to unpack in a larger space.

Decadence: I'm sitting here in my pajamas with a glass of wine, online, doing laundry. (Firstly, my compulsive detail-oriented self, with twinges lingering from my upbringing, compels me to clarify that it is less than 1/4 glass of wine, otherwise I would fall asleep.)

*I now have internet access at home for the first time ever (whoah). This has made it plain that my inherited laptop is not up to the exigencies of web surfing and that I will have to upgrade sooner than I planned.

*I also have my own washer, so I can do laundry without quarters, and wearing whatever I want. (I didn't even like wearing my pajamas in public when I was in college.)

*I also now have a second bedroom, aka the studio, which is full of ingredients for projects. They're not all in there, but most of them are. And even though I kind of wince every time I call it a studio, I keep practicing. (I feel like I have not made enough stuff in the past few years to warrant a "studio." I'd be fine calling it a "project room" but if I think I want to feel comfortable calling myself an artist without wincing, I need to get used to having a studio.)

Two pictures: er, make that one. Trying to upload two caused my computer to shut off. So, one picture, being the Finnish style embroidery, at its latest iteration (I haven't worked on it in months, and I'm starting to be interested in it again).

Meanwhile, time to hang up my laundry.

July (?)

2010-07-02T14:49:00.000-07:00

I was up very early this morning (pre-dawn feline hairball emission cleanup services required). Eventually I gave up trying to get back to sleep, and got up--I put on two sweatshirts (does the calendar really say July?)(is it correct?) and worked on some embroidery until it was time to go to work. Here's the embroidery I was working on--though the picture is now out of date!

Also two little "quick" projects I recently started because obviously I need some new projects to work on in between packing boxes to move. (I gave up on a house--even renting is too expensive--and picked an apartment.)

Nature Pics

2010-04-30T17:48:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago I took a walk around the lovely park by where I work. I was thrilled when I spotted this stereotypical silhouette:

And even more excited when I used the maximum zoom (digital):

After that I saw numerous wildfowl, and the nutria, and took some abstract water photos, and then on the way back I found a four-leaf clover! It was an excellent day.

Last month I took a walk at Mt. Pisgah Arboretum, near Eugene, Oregon, and took a bunch of pictures. This is one of my favorites--a bee in an Oregon Fawn Lily (thanks to my hiking partner for noticing the bee!).

And this is a photo of a venerable incense cedar.

[Camera: Canon PowerShot SX110 IS]

Dalek Update

2010-03-22T18:24:00.000-07:00

This is the picture I didn't manage to find last time; it's from early January. I haven't worked on it since then, mainly because I haven't figured out how to resolve the empty spaces. Handy tip: it is a good idea to plan your counted embroidery piece before you start to embroider it.

Okay, I guess I did plan it. But then horror vacui kicked in and I was unable to stop with just the central figure. You can't really tell from the photo, but the edge of the fabric is less than an inch from all the embroidery.

I must say I have been entertained for the past month with thoughts of blackwork Daleks--seek, locate, decorate!--and it might be necessary to embroider one!

Brief Update

2010-02-23T18:26:00.000-08:00

It's been very busy at work, and I generally have been too tired to stay extra for fun internet things (still haven't moved, so I still don't have internet access at home).

Here's a picture of the Russian-inspired embrodery, in its late-December state:

Since the computer has decided I do not get to add more pictures, I'll stop here.

Yarn

2009-11-25T14:27:00.000-08:00

Here's a look at the latest spindleful of yarn--I'm trying to overtwist the singles enough that I can ply it. It's the most delectable fiber I've ever spun--50% alpaca, 30% Merino, 20% silk from Abstract Fibers. I got it at the Flock and Fiber Festival in Canby over a year ago. I'm spinning it on my favorite spindle, which I got from Magpie Woodworks six or so years ago at the Taos Wool Festival. (I also have one of his tapestry beaters, and I *love* it.)

Back to the fiber. It is delightfully bright in a roving--but what sold me on this colorway was the fact that, due to optical color mixing, you eventually end up with russet shades.

In the meantime, I am enjoying winding it on the spindle in a color-coordinated manner.

Delinquent Update

2009-10-23T17:49:00.000-07:00

I have been doing things, really.

Firstly, a view from my window:

And here's a picture of the supplies for the newest project, and a picture of its beginning. I'm embroidering on Osnaburg, because I wanted cloth loose enough to accomodate a lot of stitching. I pulled out some warp and weft threads, too. So far it's working out okay, except that for some stitches I have to sew a lot of background first--otherwise french knots just pop on through to the back.

And lastly, here's something else I recently retrieved from dormancy. I seem to have done enough embroidery in the interim that working on this seemed fast. It's mainly in split stitch.

I think if I get around to posting more often (such as after I actually, for real, get internet access at home) I am going to have to find a different blog publisher, because this one is strongly indifferent to my idea of formatting.

Purple Progress

2009-08-17T18:01:00.000-07:00

I spent a portion of last week here:

Yesterday was my vacation, and I spent a bunch of it sewing on the mirror & beads for the purple embroidery:

Something Finished!

2009-08-03T17:10:00.000-07:00

Last night, I finally finished a sample/project I started less than three years ago:
It is a paramecium doily.

How did that happen, you may ask.

I had some variegated embroidery floss I was itching to use. I looked about for a scrap of cloth, and lo, there was a scrap of blue linen a clever friend had used as giftwrap. The scrap of linen was vaguely reminiscent of a paisley, and I think paisleys are like paramecia. Obvious, yes?

The really time-consuming part was the obsessive needle-lace buttonholing around the edge. Around and around and around...

Don't faint...

2009-07-29T16:25:00.000-07:00

...here's a post. I've been busy, doing things and going places.

To begin, a picture from a while ago of an embroidery I started a longer while ago; the picture's kind of dark (I have since become more familiar with my camera).

As to what else I've been doing with my time--lots of hiking trips recently. This last weekend I went to Crater Lake. My photography guru was appalled that I had, er, basically never uploaded my photos. Here is documentary proof that I have now done so:

There will be lots more once I get them sorted out--Crater Lake is beautiful, and I took full advantage of the capacity of the digital camera by taking copious photos with different settings, and never running out of film! Zoom lens is great, too. At some point I'll probably set up a Flickr account to post more pictures.

A Picture and a Brief Update

2009-05-25T16:41:00.000-07:00

I have actually been working on things...just not taking pictures (or, if I take pictures, I don't remember my flash drive).

Most of my new photos are of waterfalls; I'll post a few once I get around to extracting them from my camera.

This has been a three-day weekend; I've mostly just been enjoying my time off by not doing anything. It's been more of a vegetation than a vacation, and consequently I'm feeling pretty rested, which is a nice change.

Medieval Weaving Tools!

2009-04-16T17:32:00.000-07:00

I just visited Isis & Machteld's wonderful blog Medieval Silkwork where Isis posted a manuscript illustration showing a bobbin-winding tool. (Check it out, Sarah!)

There is something very similar in a painting in the National Gallery, London: Penelope with the Suitors, by PINTORICCHIO c. 1509. I've been meaning to make a test version for some time, except I mainly think of it when I am in immediate need of winding a bobbin, so I end up using my rotary drill instead of building a new tool.

I spotted that bobbin-winder a year or two ago when I was poring over the pages of Broudy's "Book of Looms," looking for tape looms. That hunt was inspired by finding this Bandwirkerrahmen in the wonderful collection of Bildindex der Kunst und Architektur. (I don't seem to be able to link directly to the image, but you can copy & paste "Bandwirkerrahmen" into the search box.)

On a similar note, while reading "The Unicorn Tapestries" by Margaret B. Freeman I spotted a few small looms; one was this one--another Penelope, this time at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. It is a tapestry from the late 1400's. (Search collections for "Penelope.")

Once my house hunt reaches a successful conclusion, I envision more space for tools and making tools. And more space for bookshelves! :)

Retroactive Posting

2009-03-27T17:15:00.000-07:00

Battery issues etc. and not getting around to posting even when I happened to remember to bring the flash drive...not helped by still not having internet at home. Which now I'm not going to set up until I moved, which of course predicated upon finding someplace to move to. So far the house hunting rule seems to be:

I like a place: and:
it is too small, it needs work, I can't afford it, and/or it is not in a location I like

I obviously just need a lot more money.

Back when the painting class was going to start, I had a quandary about what to pick. I decided on a pomegranate, and then found out Kim was thinking of doing that, and I decided of course I needed to do something different. (Like somehow different pomegranates painted by different people wouldn't be different.) I decided on an artichoke, and then Sarah posted about artichokes, so I knew I'd picked the right thing. Right. Here are some artichoke paintings so you can get an idea of the technique:

By the time my artichoke had finished serving as model/muse, it was rather too desiccated to be eaten. It lasted a surprisingly long time!

On Weather, Reading and Painting

2009-03-09T15:55:00.000-07:00

I am always writing blog posts in my head--it's a hazard of the lack of internet access at a time when I'm thinking of writing, or a lack of inclination and time when I'm online (which is at work). There is odd weather again today which disagrees with my sinuses--like yesterday, today is intermittently sunny, rainy, and snowy; yesterday included hail, and today had something that was somewhere between sleet and hail but more the consistency of miniature snowballs.

Wait! I have remembered. The other morning I found Princess picking out what she wants to read next. She must have finished all the books on the floor.

I myself am reading The Coptic Tapestry Album by Nancy Arthur Hoskins and, intermittently, Speiser's Manual of Braiding and also numerous novels. (Connie Willis: To Say Nothing of the Dog--go read it!)

On to the pictures. I have been thinking a lot about oil painting lately; it is a distinct pleasure to work on something that provides basically instant gratification! I'm not sure why oil paint has such a reputation of difficulty, because it is delightful to work with. Yesterday was the last class, and I missed it because I was completely unaware of the time change. I painted at home, though, so that's all right.

Introducing Princess!

2009-02-27T16:20:00.000-08:00

Here's a picture of my kitty:

Isn't she adorable? :)

As you may have guessed, I do indeed now have a digital camera! It's a Canon PowerShot SX110IS; a point and shoot with lots of things to play with--including a 10X optical zoom. There have been technical configuration/internet access issues, so I have a backlog of images--yes, random art & project pictures, not just kitty pictures!

There has sort of been house hunting progress--realtor obtained, preliminary loan approval, internet ogling. However, the next step is to compile the data from last year's expenses, to see how much I can actually afford. My budget is not that compatible with prices in the housing market--at least with prices for cute/cool places in reasonably convenient locations. I don't feel like being patient. I want to find something now, move, paint it and get curtains, and plant things. For now, I'll have to settle for something like, oh, washing my dishes.

The Picture, and a Surprising Development

2009-01-30T16:33:00.000-08:00

Here's the embroidery picture--between being extra busy at work (end of the month, and my supervisor is abroad) and forgetting to bring my flash drive, it seems to be taking me extra long to get around to doing any personal computer stuff.

The New Development: the apartment complex has just raised my rent. This I could handle; after all, largely due to their disorganization, I seem to have missed the last one. However, they have also decided to have us all billed for the utilities previously included in the rent (water, sewer, and garbage). This new bill, of course, is based on math and not on actual usage. I was pretty sure I knew what my decision was going to be, and then I talked to the apartment complex manager, and became completely certain: I am now officially House Hunting.

I am reasonably certain that the timing is due to the fact that I have nearly reached the state of minimum entropy, maximum efficiency of my current residence.

Guess Who?

2009-01-24T17:13:00.000-08:00

There has been an unintentially long hiatus, which I will not describe at the moment (my laptop informs me that 25 minutes remain in the battery). Lots of snow around Chrismtas made life very...exciting...in a city that does not have a plan to deal with snow.

Last Sunday was the first meeting of the oil painting class Kim and I are taking--we got our supply lists, then went to Art Medie and bought lots of goodies (paints, containers, brushes). Our first hands-on class is tomorrow!

A few days ago, with a bit of desperation to work on *something* but not something requiring much of any thought, I started embroidering on one of the painted cloths from last month. Embellishing a painted surface goes way faster than embroidering everything!

Drat. It appears I cleverly did not actually save my scanned picture to my flash drive. I'll have to add it Monday.

Pictures!

2008-12-02T15:12:00.000-08:00

Sunday afternoon I finally got in gear. I cleaned all the arachnid detritus out from between the windows, and I cleaned off my project table. Then, in order to be able to put away the textile paints, I had to paint the fabric. Because of the expanse of empty table available, this was possible (amazing). Back in July I had this idea that it would be fun to have a new embroidery to work on during my trip to Florida, something like, say, a mermaid. Reason stepped in heavily, and I concluded that I didn't have time to start something else, and I wasn't going to have much time on the trip anyway.

The paints and cloth have been waiting since then, and now here she is:

Then, since there was paint left over, I painted this. It is hideous, but I like it anyway. Then, since I still had paint left over, I painted this: And then there was STILL paint left over, and I painted these.

Then I was really hungry and pretty tired of painting, so I did not use up the remaining bits of paint.

Notes on painting on fabric:

1. painting on colored cloth: thumbs up
2. I was reminded why gesso was invented--fabric is bumpy
3. This time, I will remember to iron the things BEFORE I wash them.

Success at the Front

2008-11-19T17:32:00.000-08:00

Sunday I finally worked out on the balcony--I wanted to get it tidied up before it gets cold (cold for Oregon, that is). I venture to declare some actual success and definite signs of improvement--true reduction of entropy, and not mere reconfiguring of existing chaos. It is quite encouraging. Princess found the whole thing quite strenuous--she had to go out each time I did, then HEY! It's all different out here!! and she'd have to get back inside IMMEDIATELY. Eventually she overloaded and had to take herself off for a recuperative nap.

I shopped at Art Media over a week ago, and still haven't used the new paintbrush I got. :(

Picture of some sort soon, I promise. For now, a link to several more pictures from the Sculptural Vessel Class. I'm the one with my elbow in front of my face.

Sculptural Vessel

2008-11-04T15:12:00.000-08:00

I had a good time at the Sculptural Vessel class, using materials I don't have at home to end up with something I wouldn't have made in the usual course of events--good reasons to take a class. I still prefer string, of course (it doesn't bite), but metal screen does have characteristics which commend it for further consideration.

Susan Gallacher-Taylor posted a picture of us with our creations on her blog. I'm center front with my vegetable/fruit/bulb/plant thing (I was not in the mood for hemming and hawing about how to fit everyone in the picture, so I set the example of Volunteering To Be Short).

I would be one of the "mystified" students. Saturday evening I finally realized what bothered me about my object: I can see through it. (Duh, it's copper mesh.) I figured it out after I thought it would be improved by the addition of fabric and stitching. (No strings, Laura. It's metal, and you want to put a candle in it, remember.) I added a few more dangly bits, but it still needs beads, and probably more gold leaf. All in all, now that I've had a few days to get used to [seeing through] it, I quite like the overall shape. But if I do it again, it will involve string!

Lamentations.

2008-10-31T17:01:00.000-07:00

I am afraid my blog is boring. I know what to do about it, too: 1.) do stuff, so I have stuff to post about; 2.) buy a digital camera so I can have three-dimensional pictures; and 3.) get Web access from home.

I will start by making a detailed list--particularly for the camera and Internet service provider.

"Doing stuff" will start happening again very soon, as in tomorrow, when I will be taking a sculptural vessel class with Susan Gallacher-Turner. I got to see some of her pieces at an Open Studio a few weeks ago, and I really love her aesthetic--shrines and book forms and things that open and things that have every surface, front and back, painted, patinaed (sp?) and otherwise adorned. I just had trouble imagining fitting one in my tiny apartment, sigh.

In general life--I did not manage to avoid getting sick, but as of yesterday I may have begun to actually get healthy. I sincerely hope. My supervisor is back after a four-month stint abroad (yay for his return!) which makes a big difference in a department of two people, him and me.

I am finishing up a pumpkin spice latte at Ava Roasteria. It is probably not a good idea to have 16 oz. of caffeine at this time of day, but nyah nyah, I am doing it anyway. I will then do my grocery shopping in a fully-caffeinated state, which will hopefully last until after I get home and unpack my groceries, because tonight, really, I WILL clean off the accumulated detritus covering almost every square inch of my project table. Much as I love my hordes of Interesting Stuff, there is something even more inspiring about an expanse of Empty Table. It is my theory that the Art Part of the brain thinks, "Ooh, look at all that space! I could put all sorts of stuff there." That is much better than, "If I moved all the stuff, I'd have room to do something."

I know this, really. Why is it so hard to put it--and keep it--in practice?

My latte is about half done, and the caffeine is definitely in action; off I go to the grocery store...I even have a list.

Marvelous Meteorological Moment, and Other Random Bits

2008-10-13T15:14:00.000-07:00

One of the days last week that I was home early from work (sick) there occurred the splendid situation of rain in front of my apartment, and sunshine behind. Delightful!

Last week was odd, some of it in a good way. I enjoyed two work-related training sessions given by Pete Mento (and I mean it; entertaining as well as informative--but I am going to send him an e-mail with incontrovertible proof that Europe did, indeed, have silk long before Marco Polo's famed voyage).

I may have avoided getting completely sick.

My car developed Serious Issues which led to procuring the services of a tow truck--preemptively. I have already been stranded alongside the road twice this year, and that is really quite enough. (Now my car has a new alternator, and is much happier.)

Saturday, after picking up my car, I had a fancy coffee and went to hear Widdershins play, which was a lot of fun.

Sunday I went out for cupcakes with friends, and was compelled to accompany them to Powell's.

There has been but little playing with string--just spinning the fabulous painted roving--and, spurred by envy of the friends taking a 4-day weekend, I have come to the conclusion that I won't make it to Thanksgiving without a break. At least if I don't want to spend this Thanksgiving sick.

Final bit of excitement: I managed to get the cell phone activated, a mere week after purchasing it. I promise not to talk and drive. It is a very cute little device, but I'm still fonder of my mp3 player.

Now, back to being overwhelmed at work.

Fiber Lust.

2008-09-30T15:54:00.000-07:00

No, not for shredded wheat. REAL fiber. Sunday I attended the Flock and Fiber Show, and I had a great time. I was not supposed to buy any fiber except for one particular project (hah) or any books (hah). I (it)did(/it) manage to avoid buying any raw fleece or any animals. I even avoided buying natural colored rovings (that's what forms the largest volume of my stash). I almost avoided buying books--but I saw a copy of The Handweaver's Pattern Book by Marguerite Davison for $10 and I took that as a sign that I ought to buy it. It is all 4-harness patterns. After the Complex Weavers Conference I felt sad at not having a complex loom; this book will help me learn how to get the most out of the one I have. (You can indeed do complex things with a 4-harness loom.)

Fiber-wise, I ended up with a little collection of this and that--largely related to the project I have in mind (and probably enough for about five!) and one bundle of painted roving that I just Had To Have. It's crazy, red and yellow and purple. More on that soon. That one is 50% alpaca, 30% merino, and 20% silk. The other fibers I got were Romney (cute and curley!), Merino, and mohair.

That evening I was tired & had a headache, but I spun up a couple of tidbits of fiber--one from a business card, the other from the outside of its bag of fiber. The main part of it was a blend with merino; the rest was mohair, which is diametrically different in the way it drafts & spins. Here is the result:

Weaving Success!

2008-09-19T17:39:00.000-07:00

Last Friday I finally finished the silk warp I set up last year to weave the garters for this outfit. (The one on the left. The one on the right is me!) I wanted a twill pattern because twill has more of a give, so the garters would be more comfortable and work better. I had just decided to weave a plain twill when I came across this article by Carolyn Priest-Dorman. I had to adapt the draft to work on my loom, and it was a lengthy and often irritating process before the whole thing worked. I ran out of the original color, and completed the rest of the warp with a contrasting weft--the pattern shows even better! (And, er, so do the errors.) I definitely need to try out another version of this sometime--once I figure out what I did wrong--and after I try weaving the skinny, skinny linen I recently acquired.

Kitty Habits.

2008-09-19T17:32:00.000-07:00

For several days in a row, Princess has roused herself from a comfortable spot to make an obligatory final final visit to the balcony before I leave for work. Not that she wants to go out, you understand. She MUST. Duty calls, and all that. She hurries out the glass door, pauses, and sits down, facing back into the living room. ("There's really nothing I particularly want to do out here at the moment, but I had to come out.") Thus she sits until I finish getting ready for work and let her in.

Knitting.

2008-09-17T17:34:00.000-07:00

Today I have been knitting my brows at work (figuratively only, don't worry) but a few weeks ago I managed to finish a knitting project that has languished for (and this is literal) several years:
Part of the reason I stopped working on it was that I realized at some point I was really disappointed that it wasn't a sock. Additionally, I'd messed around with stripes too long at the top, so by the time I got to the little pattern I'd charted, the proportions were really odd. Parts of the final result are quite satisfactory, but overall--no.

I pondered several ways of addressing the issue, including felting the pouch, but I wasn't sure I'd like the results.

Then it occurred to me to just unravel it. Yes, the whole thing. That pleased me somehow--I'll unknit all of it, then start over, and do it "right." So by the time you see this, imagine numerous little balls of mismatched yarn!

Update.

2008-08-20T19:16:00.000-07:00

The hiatus was unintentional; I've been extra busy at work (well, it seems that way because my supervisor is still overseas) and although I've been working on stuff, I haven't had the extra energy to scan it for a post, because pictures are important.

By the end of the month (I have to get moving!) I want to have:

1) a digital camera

2) internet access at home

Last month the highlight was spending several days with Sarah at the Complex Weavers Conference. I had a few additional days off when I got back, and did the last few missing stitches to complete the interminable White Embroidery, huzzah!

As well as working on embroidery bits--at some point I was seized by the urge to finish projects that have been languishing in limbo--I've also woven a bunch on my loom, even though it interferes with my cat's preferred sleep patterns, as Under The Loom is one of the Good Spots--all kinds of chin props and sprawl supports. I've also acquired some delightful new books, thanks to Powell's and Interweave Press (thanks to Sarah!) and, of course, Amazon.

Additionally, I have an order of linen weaving string wending its way, courtesy of Webs. That is because of a Turkish embroidery I want to do--I've tried a whole bunch of different fabrics, and none of them work--so I have to weave my own, right? That way I can get the high threadcount/loose weave combination I need. Several things first, though--I need a bit more silk (from Halcyon Yarn) to finish up the last bit of the silk warp on my loom. And I need a warping board and a swift in order to set up the linen warp--the linen will not be even remotely as forgiving as the silk was.

Almost Done!

2008-06-23T16:32:00.000-07:00

Almost done!!! I am going to add a few more leaves and also puff up one of the seed pods, which is nearly invisible since the background around it got finished. The only other embroidery I did was approximately one linear inch on another piece.

It has been rather an odd weekend. June finally seems to be here—Friday and Saturday were even warm enough for shorts and a sleeveless shirt.

Saturday began early; my don picked me up, we loaded my gear into the back of the truck with his, and headed off for a rapier tournament we never made it to, due to the unspectacular but effective failure of the clutch. All things considered, it was about as opportune a time to happen as there could be—we were scarcely out of town, not on the way to work, etc.

After the resolution of the transportation issue, I reconfigured the chaos, and was reminded that my elbow is not healed. I failed to parry something I should have in longsword class Thursday night. Ouch. Ouch. I was tired, etc., and it was a hard drill to start with after three weeks since the last class I made it to. :( I will be paying for it for some time to come. I moved more boxes than I should have on Saturday, and then sat & read a novel & drank iced tea & ate an apricot scone, while I iced the elbow. Then I went to Diana's, and she fed me tasty food.

Today, Sunday, I eventually got in gear and got a whole lot done. By 4 o'clock or so I had taken a nap, done a load of laundry, and taken out the garbage. A few hours after that I really got going.

The “new” dresser has been wiped down with water + Clorox (twice for the drawers, which have been airing out on the balcony for a week or so). I even remembered to wear gloves. (By the time I finished, the Clorox had taken a bunch of the indigo off them.) Between that and fumigating the frame by burning a stick of incense inside it, I hope to have taken care of the weird, unpleasant smell.

I repaired the most egregious problems—screwed down the runners to the backs of the drawers. I also glued down the piece of the broken runner that I found inside the dresser, and even clamped it properly. At some point, perhaps when I am painting it, I have to build a couple of new runners—the only intact ones are on the smallest size drawers.

I reconfigured the balcony storage closet (that's what a bunch of Saturday's box-moving was about) and today I was able to move the drill press out of my living room for the first time since, oh, October or so.

I reconfigured the chaos again, and ***now there are NO BOXES in the straightaway between the entry door and the balcony door. I can also access the living room without too much difficulty. The liberated expanse of carpet inspired me to vacuum. As it was completely dark, I enjoyed to the fullest extent the fact that my vacuum cleaner has a headlight. Princess retreated to the balcony, where she inserted herself in nearly-inacessible corner; I found her there, silent & upright, when I went to give her the post-Vacuum Monster kitty treat.

I've washed a bunch of dishes, and ***everything is ready for tomorrow. (Monday.) I therefore get a shiny insect sticker in my calendar for Monday. (I picked a bee-like moth.) I also get a shiny star for today, even though it is horrifically late, because I got more done this afternoon than over the entire 4-day Memorial Day weekend.

P.S. Saturday I found my very first oak gall! I now understand why they are also called oak apples. It's sort of the color of a golden delicious apple, but shaped like a bloated lima bean the size of a small mango. It is cracked from its plummet to terra firma, and I put it in a container since it is exuding dark liquid. It is very exciting. I have to look up the directions for making ink. In all my free time.

Swords and Sewing.

2008-06-16T12:49:00.000-07:00

Sunday I was very tired, and even needed to have a nap. (Princess helped with that.) I did dishes & dealt with a few small piles, moved the drawers from the dresser out onto the balcony (they smell weird), and that was about it. The only project thing was this, finishing the neckline of my gömlek (basically, a Turkish chemise). The garment has been finished, except for the neckline, for roughly a year and a half. It has been three years since HL Giana & I started "shopping" for the ideal Near Eastern outfit; hers is done. (It really helps to have a live-in tailor.) I have had the salwar (pants) mostly done, too, for as long as the gömlek. Also the uçkur, the drawstring/sash to hold the pants up. (It involved yards of hemming. But no hawing.) And also the çevre, or headscarf. Bits and pieces, but no outfit. I have a low threshold of tolerance for repeated sewing mishaps, and this has so far deterred me from tackling the outer garments, which are not strictly rectangular construction. Anyway, I brought this along Saturday, and finished up the last bit on Sunday, including a genuine monkey fist button (triple-plied crochet cotton) and a buttonholed loop. I got the button to work after a number of tries, and after deducing what helpful hints my directions had omitted.

Saturday Swordfighting

Saturday was the Baronial Rapier Championship. There were four of us; two vying for the title, and two who were there to "test our mettle/metal." In other words, they were there for exercise. Each of us held the field for five bouts against the other three (holder of field with one weapon style, challenger with a different combination each time). That adds up to, yes, thirty fights each. Then the top two who were going for the championship had a best two out of three. Yes; we did all that even though we already knew there were only two contenders. :) Naturally, Maestro Gregorio creamed me. *However,* a personal first: I won a bout with him in an official tournament. Also, I beat Msgr Chrestien once. Each of those out of a total of 10 chances. 2 wins and 18 times falling on the ground. Oh well...neither of them plays with their food! I am still somewhat sore, from the falling part I suspect. I also have a couple of bruised fingers, which, irritatingly, I inflicted on myself. I think longsword hand motions are contaminating my attempts at rapier/dagger coordination.

A final note: today is really, truly June weather!!! Sunshine and warm.

Dresser Update.

2008-06-12T17:48:00.000-07:00

(As per special request. We always strive to fulfill our readers' wishes.)

I do indeed have a dresser. It is not quite the quality I was expecting, so the $80 I paid seems kind of high--esp. because of several structural issues that need to be addressed. But it is a dresser, it fits into the space, and it is lower than the window, which is important in the effort to sustain the delusion that I actually have space, and also for the pleasure of Princess (it is the Kitty Television Window).

The dresser is very...oakish. I think I will be compelled to paint it. Once I've moved enough boxes that it could pass through the living room onto the balcony. Also I find the drawer pulls unsatisfactory. The best feature--drawers, of course. There are 9 of various sizes. Eventually--once it is cleaned and rendered sound and, even more eventually, painted--it will be quite satisfactory. And boy, even in its present state, it is still an incredibly vast improvement over a bulwark of boxes. I have just about had my fill of boxes.

Tagged by Sarah

2008-06-11T16:57:00.000-07:00

Sarah tagged me last week.

“The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.”

I don't know anyone to tag in turn, but if I think of someone (Kim, wanna volunteer?) I'll let you know.

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?

Living in the far north of New York State, working at my second temporary academic librarian position, filling out job applications.

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order)?

1. get up
2. dress
3. eat breakfast
4. let cat out and in several times, with hugs

(1-4 happen interspersed with one another)

5. go to work

6. today’s bonus: I am actually going to acquire a dresser to store fabric. I have tried a bunch of times over the past year; this time it will really transpire, which is good, because I spent hours last night moving boxes around, and I'm really intensely utterly sick of boxes.

3. Snacks I enjoy?

I don’t tend to snack much. Tea, though, is a constant.

One of my more regular favorite snacks is yogurt with a banana, so I was highly distressed last year to have to concede that my lactose intolerance includes yogurt and cheese. Fortunately, my favorite grocery store (New Seasons) carries one brand of goat yogurt. It costs almost twice what the “natural” yogurt costs, which is itself more than “normal” yogurt. And one pound of goat cheddar costs twice what 5 lbs. of regular cheddar does. But I don’t get stomachaches, and I LIKE CHEESE.

4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire?

* pay off my latest batch of student loans
*buy a house
*travel
*buy a car made during this century
*fund Sarah’s research foundation (if she wasn’t a billionaire yet).

5. Places I have lived?

Schenectady, New York
Hamilton, New York (college)
one semester in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany
Albany, New York (grad school)
Mount Vision, New York
Canton, New York
Las Cruces, New Mexico (in the United States, in case you were wondering)
Portland, Oregon (college prompted this move; I ended up liking it here a lot, and I am strongly disinclined to move cross country again without an exceptionally good reason)

And that's it!

Friday has been attained.

2008-06-06T16:15:00.000-07:00

Is it really June?

The weather leaves that open to question. Calendrically, of course, June it is. But if it stays in the low to mid 60s here in Portland, I'm going to find Florida pretty heavy going (Complex Weavers conference).

I have been working on stuff, but not having the extra energy required to turn around and turn on the scanner. Any potentially-extra energy has been expended on preemptive stress and anxiety—in a few weeks, my supervisor will be heading off to spend four months at our subsidiary in the Netherlands, and apparently at some level I feel the unfortunate need to worry now, even though I know it will go fine. (Oh, he and I are the entire department, in case you wondered, and the end of June is the end of the quarter, that surprise of the business world that happens every three months, and our jobs are involved with all the last-minute moving of boxes every which way around the world.) This week I have been feeling like a Hapsburg, being unable at times to close my mouth. I finally deduced that the pain in my jaw resulted from tension elsewhere...and additionally of course my sinuses are continually stimulated by the weather.

At any rate, here is some proof of action.

To begin with—something Completely New *AND* Completely Finished!!! One type of thread (Caron watercolour, 3-ply Pima cotton used in single strands), one type of cloth (cotton Osnaburg), and one stitch (eyelet, I guess you'd call it). Kind of minimalist in its own way.

[As I write this, Thursday evening, Princess the cat is playing purposefully with the container of Holistic Natural Feline Treats on the floor. She knows goodies ought to come out, but they just won't.]

The white embroidery as of Wednesday, June 4:

In conclusion, as part of the ongoing struggle to achieve some sense of actual order, I had to empty the bedroom closet so I could fit in the new shelves I got. Naturally, an inordinately large percentage of the things that came out of the closet will not go back in, leaving yet more things to add to the chaos in the living room. (I eventually reconfigured that enough, once again, that I can get through without too much trouble. And as always, there are numerous cat routes. I'm a good cat mommy, even though she doesn't like me to work on the mat that appeared in her fur. It's spring, technically, and I have been harvesting prodigious amounts of feline fluff. I have a project in mind for it, too. Naturally.)

At the bottom of one stack of four boxes in the closet was the box with my photo albums. I've been wanting to get this picture out for AGES. It's a carved cedar relief of Hathor, and it's my favorite thing from the strenuous visit to the Met in 1997 (!!!) with Marla. We mainly did the Egyptian collection—also Cycladic art, which I adore, and musical instruments, which I covet, and briefly peered down into the armour gallery. But mainly we saw the Egyptian galleries. They are endless. Every room has rooms off it, and littler rooms off them, until you get down to a few closet-sized rooms. I particularly remember one that was floor-to-ceiling full of tiny faience objects. You begin to wonder how there could be anything left in Egypt. It would be good to have some Egyptian version of Ariadne's ball of thread, too, to find your way around.

So after all that, here is Hathor. The picture is rather dark since I was good and did not use my flash.

A bit of drawing, and more embroidery.

2008-05-12T13:12:00.000-07:00

Last Friday was hectic, and I never managed to post this picture I scanned to prove that I *did* work on some drawing Thursday night:

Nothing too memorable about the weekend aside from attending a very sociable drum circle. I did a bunch of resting, let Princess in and out from numerous balcony patrols, and on Sunday worked on this embroidery, which I started a month or more ago. It is to provide me with a visual reminder of positive female energy. The colors didn't scan very well; they are not even remotely murky! I really need to get a digital camera...

More Tidbits.

2008-05-02T15:08:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I also worked on this, an embroidery I charted a few years ago from a picture in Embroidered Textiles by Sheila Paine. It was so long ago I don't know what I was trying to do (I have a suspicion it involved an attempt at ludicrously small cross stitch with a sharp needle).
And this is the current state of the partridge & the pomegranate tree (hee hee!) I liked the tiny pomegranates so much that I made another, bigger one. That fabric is a random home decor fabric I picked up a few weeks ago, with the idea of embroidering a wall hanging.

A couple of days ago, when my laptop arrived, my latest book order did, too. I opened everything, then sat next to the laptop and perused the books, two books about the artist Remedios Varo: Unexpected Journey and The Magic of Remedios Varo, a book that I hadn't actually seen before--it is the first time I succumbed to the Amazon "look what other people bought!" link...Ooh, the pictures! "Okay," I thought, "I need to get over this not painting/drawing thing." Inspired, before long I had cleared most of the string stuff off my working table. I sat down and...embroidered. Moral: Get pieces of nice paper ready. (I didn't have to hunt for the embroidery, it was right there...)

Why I Will Never Be Completely Organized, and Sundry Other Random Tidbits

2008-04-30T16:40:00.000-07:00

(We'll give this another try. My computer had issues on Wednesday, and I gave up; yesterday, I had allergy issues & stayed home--no internet, but *I now have a laptop!*)

A week or so ago I was the first one at practice, and waited in my car, sipping my tea with the hopes of inducing some caffeinated semblance of energy. I spotted the curbside remains of someone's gardening efforts: the extraction of a venerable lavender bush. I resisted. After practice and final visiting by the car, I succumbed, and rescued the gnarled stump. It stayed in my trunk for a week or so, and now it's on my balcony. But I have to see what I can make out of lavender wood, don't I?

Last weekend was a demo for a Medieval Faire; we had lovely weather, and I got a fair amount of exercise (hee hee), but it is a sad commentary on the level of allergens in the air that I barely felt really awake even for a bunch of full-speed longsword. I fit in some shopping, and landed this fantastic outfit from India--stitch resist-dyed (like shibori), beaded, embroidered, you name it:

Midday, Midweek.

2008-04-23T11:43:00.000-07:00

I haven't scanned what I worked on over the weekend, but I will before long.

As part of the ongoing general redesign of my life, I've been thinking more about how to get myself producing Art, rather than randomly messing about (even though that, too, is a valid thing). Kim has been writing about this in some of her recent posts--do all creative people have these same issues? Even though I have no family of my own, I *still* find it difficult to achieve balance, though sometimes I manage for whole minutes at a time.

Pick something to do, and DO IT. Write a list. Make a plan. The thing I have been avoiding most: drawing and/or painting--why, I don't know, but for drawing one factor is that I've been wanting to do big charcoal drawings, and there is no place in my apartment that is convenient. Like all similar hurdles, I need to break it down into steps (paper ready, drawing board heaved into position, charcoal extracted from box) so that when I have time to get into it, it is ready to go. And I have to decide to do it, and then DO it.

Visual artist version of Kim's writing prompts: draw/paint/collage something--anything. I made it through a whole year of Daily Devotions (Kim told me about this--she's a great resource!), and it was really good: produce one complete thing of some sort every single day (catch ups allowed). It would be really good if I would get a whole stack of paper ready, and do this again.

Tonight, I will pick something, and do it.

Monday Maunderings.

2008-04-14T15:43:00.000-07:00

I am not ready for Monday, but here it is anyway--close to finished, too, which is a relief.

I worked on random things this weekend, mostly non-scannable, like fixing the drape on my fencing mask prior to a demo on Saturday and taking undoing the bit of weaving I'd started a week or so ago. (I'd been a bit impatient & the warp wasn't evenly tensioned.)

The demo (for the Salem, OR branch of the SCA) was fun--even though it was 20 degrees hotter than usual; rather hot to be active dressed like this, but we survived. (Picture by Kim; taken last year at May Crown.) My doublet is getting too small across the shoulders, which I greatly lament. :( I love wearing it, but I did NOT love making it.

After I finally got home on Saturday, and ran errands, and took allergy medication, I sat and read with my cat. Sunday I did work on something scannable:

Well, I've actually avoided maundering, which is something of a feat. Is it Friday yet?

Serial Update, Part the Third: Bookcase, and Evolving Chaos

2008-04-09T16:58:00.000-07:00

My bookcase, which I ordered January 31, FINALLY arrived. Due to extenuating circumstances (namely shopping) I didn't manage to pick it up until Sunday afternoon. It is now installed, and full. And I still don't have enough shelf space--it is a small bookcase and I knew it wouldn't solve the problem, just help. I have plans (literally) for building another shelf to fit another space, and realized I still have one more space for shelves, if I build those, too. These last two will hold Stuff as well as books--jars of seedpods, seashells, pinecones, and the like. Visibility for ease of use and incitement to use up.

Inspired by the potential of having another human being in my apartment, and thoroughly sick of the congestion, I reconfigured the chaos once more. As usually happens, this process did minimally reduce the amount of entropy, which is a relief. Though the visit didn't happen (we had more shopping stamina than I'd anticipated, so there wasn't post-shopping hanging out) I am still appreciating the improved situation.

I haven't done much scannable stuff; a bit more work on the white embroidery, getting materials assembled for some other random project (a large scale embroidery with colors, and another one with exciting colors). I also successfully made a Turk's head knot. I'll need to make a bunch of them for my Purse Project.

Serial Update, Part the Second: Books!

2008-04-09T16:52:00.000-07:00

My delightful books from David Brown Book Company arrived. David Brown had sent me an alluring sale catalog which coincided nicely with my annual bonus at work. (Note: I actually spent more on clothes. Whoah.) The Spanish Apocalypse is fantastic! It is a huge book, so the manuscript (reproduced in full) is life-sized. Happy me!

Among the assorted other topics was one that I incorrectly guessed—I was under the impression that it was a catalogue of short excavation reports or something. However, it is actually about filters to filter liquids. It looks to be rather interesting in its own way, and is an abundant source of geometric patterns, which is always a good thing, and I have a general weakness for ancient objects. But it would have been worth the whole $7.98 for this sentence from the introduction: “Hence the containers must be cheap, rather light-weight insofar as the liquid itself supplies the balancing weight, generally porous if coolth is desired, and of an easily stored and replicable shape.”

Coolth!!! I have wanted that to be an official word for years, and am exuberantly pleased that some courageous scholarly soul has seen fit to commit it to print in an official publication. The above citation is from Fustat Expedition Final Report Vol.1: Catalogue of Filters, by George T. Scanlon. The filters are ceramic, and the perforated bases were made in many lovely patterns. They date from about 700 to about 1500.

Update: I was inspired to look in my dictionary this morning. Would you believe it, coolth is in my dictionary? I have had the word in my possession, in print, since I was 12. I can't believe I never looked it up before. I've wanted it to be an official word for years. In any case, there it is. I am still immensely pleased to have spotted it in use.

Serial Update, Part the First: Shopping! (and Food)

2008-04-09T16:44:00.000-07:00

I have a good job that pays well, finally. It has come to pass that limited financial resources coupled with a limited urge to shop for clothing have made it Absolutely Necessary to acquire new clothes. (Note: I never stopped buying books. I figured out my priorities years back!)

I also have become aware that I tend to buy things that—well, that aren't necessarily flattering, even if they happen to be comfortable, and it is more than time to remedy that. Fortunately for me, I have my friend Kim. Among her many talents [note: three different links] is a carefully-honed expertise in shopping, and a contagious enthusiasm. We had a shopping spree on Saturday, and as well as assorted shirts I emerged with not one, not two, but THREE pairs of jeans, which actually fit!!! Kim made me try on successively smaller sizes until I reached one that made me say, “No, these are too small, I could barely get them closed.” She gave me a LOOK (inner basilisk?) and said very firmly, “THOSE FIT.”

Those are the ones I bought, even though I was apparently still skeptical, since I was not entirely convinced until I succeeded in eating too much at supper—another friend's belated birthday get-together at Ya Hala in SE Portland. I ate too much and I could still get the pants closed. (Supper was absolutely delicious.)

Random Tidbits

2008-04-03T16:15:00.000-07:00

Here is the white embroidery as of yesterday:

This is an enlargement I made from the picture of the reliquary pouch discussed a few posts ago. (Sarah, on this one is actually sort of possible to see the stitches.)

Doesn't this sample look a bit more like the picture than the tiny embroidery did?

Happy Anniversary

2008-03-31T13:24:00.000-07:00

--to Princess & me. March 30 is two years since she came to live with me. :) She spent the first day and a half hiding under the futon. She has relaxed a lot, though she still can be hyper-alert kitty when the need arises. We are very cozy together even though I haven't conformed to her desire for a predictable schedule, and I keep her busy (she has an extra amount of work every time I reconfigure the chaos, because she has to check everything). I always make sure to leave cat routes between & behind boxes, and to make a lap nest with her favorite blanket so she'll sit with me. Sometimes her naps are contagious. Other times she runs around like crazy for as much as a minute, careful not to "hide" where I can't reach her. All in all, life is good.

Random Progress

2008-03-18T18:01:00.000-07:00

The chaos reigning in my apartment has been reconfigured once again, with moderate improvements. I'm still waiting for the bookcase I ordered at the end of January.

Progress on the white embroidery sampler--it is getting very crazy; what works and what doesn't are very apparent. Aside from issues resulting from not using an embroidery frame (which would be a good thing when using such a variety of stitches/stitch tensions), having the central pod "shaded" and the rest monochromatic isn't working; too much business.

Over the weekend I finished this little embroidery sample I charted from a reliquary purse: The purse itself is in the fantastic database of the Royal Institute for the Study and Conservation of Belgium's Artistic Heritage--note that although the search form is in English, you have to search in Dutch or French. "Beurs" is pouch.

Sarah, what technique do you think was used to make this delightful item?

Temperate Kitty, Random Projects, & Seattle

2008-03-04T15:53:00.001-08:00

Temperate Kitty is pleased with the current state of the climate. She doesn't always stay outside as long, but requests Balcony Patrol on a more frequent basis, thus giving her human more butler practice. She deigns to signal vocally for re-entry on a more frequent basis, judging that the speedier response is worth the extra effort, since her human's telepathy operates in an irregular manner (precognition is somewhat better, but still not entirely reliable).

Two Projects from about two years ago. I made them late 2005, and they were in a show at Sixth Street Gallery the next summer.

This was going to be a book, but it turned into a satisfyingly dysfunctional labyrinth. It is handmade abaca paper, formed to create irregular edges and interior holes--each "sheet" was thus made in one step, not altered afterwards. I "bound" it and applied various stitchery, including needle lace. The sheets are about 3.5"/45mm tall. It was creepily like sewing dried skin.

These are plant-like to me; maybe the kind of plant that could eventually walk around. Abaca paper over birch twigs--wonderfully flexible, shed naturally by the tree during winter storms--with needle lace. There are three more related pieces I finished early last year, but don't have pictures of yet. (tsk tsk) They were in an alumni show at Oregon College of Art & Craft, and are the same materials, but each constructed with a "skeleton" of three twigs, so it looks like they are ambling about. I finally found a place to put them where I didn't knock them over--they are very lightweight.

A day or so ago I did the last bit of the languishing binding for Natura Exenterata. It's done with tackets (those twisted bits of hemp string) which tie the signatures to the cover.

Status of the white embroidery as of midday Sunday:

Where did the weekend go?

2008-02-25T15:33:00.000-08:00

...I did stuff, but I also took a nap each day. I guess that since the stuff that was done wasn't particularly active/large scale, that's why it seems insignificant.

I did work on a few things--I made a few more fingerloop braids, and progressed on the white embroidery:

There are definitely things I like about it, but I would do almost everything differently the next time.

I was also pleased to spontaneously locate my photocopy of the fingerloop braid paper from "Middle English Studies." I laid it next to me and put the rest of the papers back into the folder--and that quickly, Princess was reclined on it, so I didn't get to look at it right away!

Funny Feline, & a Few Frustrations

2008-02-21T12:23:00.000-08:00

Feline

Arctic Kitty had her first short Balcony Patrol when I got home from work yesterday. After I disbursed my load of stuff and she had come back in and gone off to check out the apartment again, I went out to observe the progress of the lunar eclipse. Arctic Kitty heard the door and came trotting...and was so shocked she had to run away: she had forgotten that her human could go out on the balcony. On a few later attempts she was able to muster up the courage to join me, a bit nervous having me on the *outside* of the door when I opened it for her.

The eclipse was really neat. I saw the preliminary part of it on my drive home, and by the time of totality it was visible from my balcony, through the branches of a tree.

Frustrations

Entropy is getting to me. I have been wanting to weave on my loom, though I suspect that is partly because I know it is basically inaccessible. Not technically, but I would be *extremely* aware of the boxes I was leaning against. I really really need to make more progress in the sorting thing. The next stage is probably to box up the current spread-out stuff and spread out a different assortment.

Forward...

At least my work area is pretty much functional, and last night I made some fingerloop braids. I made another one this morning--the tempting loops were already set up. It is not possible to eat breakfast while making a fingerloop braid, in case you were wondering.

Bits & Pieces

2008-02-18T17:42:00.000-08:00

Visible progress on a couple of small things. First, the white embroidery, as of Sunday evening: At lunch today (Monday) I did the final padding stitches for the bottom half, and I will try a variation of the detached buttonhole stitching, because there were irregularities in the white part. Still fun, though, and very puffy.

Also, I finally did a bunch on this embroidery, which was inspired technically by some pieces in Embroideries and Samplers from Islamic Egypt by Marianne Ellis. The image is (very!) loosely based on a 12th c. tapestry fragment used as a relic wrapping. It can be found in Textiel van de vroege middeleeewen tot het Concilie van Trente, which details numerous textile delights from the collection at the Tongeren Basilica.

Winding Down

2008-02-15T16:53:00.000-08:00

The work week is nearly over; I'm about ready to go home.

I've made a bunch of progress on the white embroidery (I just love detached buttonhole stitch!) and will attempt to scan it this weekend. I really need to start seriously shopping for a digital camera.

I made this the other day for a greeting card (actually a farewell card):

I haven't used ribbon before, and I really like how it came out. The scanned colors are not true-to-life!

Tiamat Grows Restive; Marduk Focuses Mainly on Other Things

2008-02-12T12:56:00.000-08:00

Life Stuff.

Over the weekend I spread out some of the boxes from the Awful Pile. I'm afraid of it becoming something that has been there so long I don't see it. Now it's distributed over most of the floor of the living room half of the living room (as opposed to the half of the room full of boxes and a floor loom), ready for Initial Sorting & Redistribution. My cat approves of the alteration of the pile--it's now about level with the back of the futon--I found her reclining on it last night.

I made this sketch of Princess last fall. She is sitting in the Bed Time Now pose, which follows a bout of serious careening into my lower legs interspersed with Forceful Head Butts. If I don't go to bed soon enough, she collapses into a nap or just goes to bed without me.

Art-ish Stuff.

Monday I started the padding stitches for the seed pod on the white embroidery, after completing one more circuit of the background. Before I do more background, I realized, it would be a good idea to add the other Elements to my composition. Perhaps I'll do that tomorrow morning while I wait for my car to be repaired. It's has gotten to the point that there is not enough progress if I just work during my lunch break--ready to be DONE!

While I was doing it, one of the two people who has asked me about it (it's sort of a sociological experiment to see if anyone will notice; embroidery in the lunchroom of a high-tech company does not seem to attract notice like, say, naalbinding on the train)--anyway, she asked me what it was for. I had to tell her several times, with verbal capitalization, that it is a Sample!

Speaking of lunch, I believe I ought to go embroider now. I mean eat.

P.S for the last post: Armenian Embroidery (in Armenian with English summary)--it's in two parts; get both here
Armenian Lace (one page article by Nouvart Tashjian--citation information is on this page; you'll have to do a "find")

Assorted Projectification, Illustrated.

2008-02-07T13:01:00.000-08:00

6. February 2008, Wednesday.

I meant to include a link or two in the last post—here they are now:
*Armenian Lace
*Turkish Lace
*Italian Drawn Work and Antique Filet Lace (1922) This booklet has instructions for knotted lace--Italian, in this case. (I increasingly understand why Dickson [see below] uses "knotted lace" as her preferred term!) I liked the Turkish term "oyah" until I discovered that oyah meant the resulting specimen, not the means used to make it (i.e. a lot of newer oyah is crocheted).
Many other assorted goodies can be found at the On-Line Digital Archive of Documents on Weaving and Related Topics.

I've finished Alice Odian Kasparian's book. There are some really beautiful patterns for knotted lace, and I love the interlaced embroidery. Her diagrams are excellent; I must try it soon! (Project.) I don't know if I will ever find another embroidery book so—how to phrase it—fraught with emotion, or such a sense of Mission. The last chapter was her family's story—they were very, very lucky, for her entire nuclear family survived to emigrate to the United States. I couldn't figure out Kasparian's age, but she was certainly less than 10 years old at the time; it is not surprising that more than 60 years later, as she finished her book, she still wrote with such immediacy and a sense of loss.

As far as Art goes, I've done a minute bit of preliminary web-only research, and decided that though I want to stick with the basic premise of the series I mentioned the other day, I think my references will be more oblique, and the series shorter, because frankly it is a very depressing topic to keep thinking about. I didn't even make it through the whole Wikipedia article on genocide—partly because of time (I was at work, after all) and partly because it was distressing to think of committees sitting around deciding how to appropriately define genocide while elsewhere people were being slaughtered. End of mini-diatribe.

If you are interested in learning to make knotted lace, I'd recommend “Mediterranean Knotted Lace” by Elena Dickson (2005). Her instructions are wonderfully clear, and with what you learn there you will be well-equipped to try out Kasparian's designs, or perhaps Tashjian's “doily of marked distinction.” After I read Dickson's book last year, I made a couple of samples—they're in two different sizes of crochet cotton. The large size was easiest at first, but before I finished the sample it was obvious that something finer & smoother/more tightly twisted would work better. The next time I will also shrink the scale I'm working at. But I think I'll wait a bit before I try sewing silk!

Sunday I was compelled to make a fancy braid. I used 8 lace bobbins and assorted embroidery strings. It came out very twisty, which I wasn’t expecting, and I’m still trying to decide if I like it:

I just finished my first beaded crochet sample. I lost a few stitches along the way (probably turning rows), and it took me a bit to realize at least one of the problems I was having was not me but that the crochet hook was too small (?!?). The last few rows (at the top of the picture) came out properly—I switched to using double crochet (the half double of the first 3 rows at the bottom didn't work satisfactorily, & I don't think it was all me). The top 4 rows are double crochet, with each row of double crochet followed by either slip stitch or single crochet—the beads only appear on one side. (If you strung twice as many, you could naturally do front & back both.) I'm not sure why I ended up compelled to try this now.

Next is trying a crocheted beaded “rope”—I started stringing the beads tonight, using the needle-with-a-loop-of-thread method to get the beads onto the crochet cotton. Size of this sample will depend on how many beads I am motivated to thread.

(Good grief, the cat hairs show...)

In conclusion, two in-process embroideries started late last summer. I've mainly worked on them during lunch at work, so they haven't progressed too rapidly. The purple one is nearly done (and I'm about ready to work on it again) but the white one still has quite a bit to go—stems, another seed pod, and some leafy bits. Plus filling in the background.

A Decent Weekend.

2008-02-04T16:54:00.000-08:00

Not bad, as far as weekends go. No pictures, because 1) I didn't do anything particularly scannable, and 2) I forgot my flash drive at work anyway. Saturday I spent hours and hours waiting at the garage for my car to be examined--large mushy snow was falling, which made me strongly disinclined to wander about the streets of Beaverton. It actually was fairly restful to be trapped in one spot, though, so in a way it wasn't too bad. Then I went shopping--a bamboo slat "rug" for on my balcony (once it warms up) and one of those wooden croaking frogs that I've wanted for years. It's a really huge one, too. :) W-a-y on sale. Princess doesn't quite know what to make of it, in a disinterested sort of way. I also perused the Mill End fabric store quite thoroughly, and bought a couple tiny bits of velvet for Projects.

Then when I got home my books from Lacis had arrived! I got them out of the box, took a *really* brief glance through, washed a bunch of dishes at what even a normal person would consider a good rate of speed, and headed to North Portland, where Kim fed me supper & then we all hung out and visited. (Thanks again!) Very nice evening.

Sunday I spent entirely at home. I was not particularly interested in moving stuff around (having practice sitting on Saturday probably helped me sit on Sunday) and I ended up working on stuff. I even had a phone call, and washed dishes & got my new toaster oven up & running. (I used it twice already!) There was a lot of Lap Kitty time, as Kitty apparently felt very needy, and let me know with serious head butts.

It is a kind of peculiar disjunction, therefore, to relate that I ended up thinking about genocide quite a bit. No, really, it is connected--the books I got myself are "Armenian Needlelace and Embroidery" by Alice Odian Kasparian, and "Armenian Lace" by Nouvart Tashjian. The latter is definitely of its time (early 1920s)--my favorite pattern is the one for "a doily of distinction." It was written to disseminate information about Armenian knotted lace, with ways to use it on "the new table linens"--both for Americans, and for Armenian survivors of the Turkish massacres, who were making piecework to sell as a way to survive. Sort of a how-to advertisement.

The other book, however, is not only much more in-depth about traditional techniques, but includes a lot of first-hand information about the genocide--the author's family was lucky enough to survive in hiding, and it was in those conditions she learned how to make lace and to embroider from her mother. I've read about half of the book so far, and the author's sense of loss is apparent: people lost family, homes, and thousands of years of cultural history were eradicated--burned, confiscated. Not only did she write the book to teach how to make knotted lace and keep alive knowledge of a craft which had been of intrinsic importance in her culture, but to inform about the culture itself and a homeland that was very dear to her.

I also thought about a photography book I looked through a few years ago ("For most of it I have no words : Genocide, Landscape, Memory" by Simon Norfolk). The photographer had visited I don't know how many sites of genocide, and his photos were presented in reverse chronological order. One image in particular stayed with me--a shattered schoolroom littered with the bones of small children--not only had the murderers targeted innocents, but there was no one to bury the victims.

Anyway, the book ended with a picture of the empty field where one of the worst massacres in Armenia had taken place. (So there's the final link of my thoughts.) How many times has this sort of thing happened? Why are there still people callous enough to come up with such strategies--and people stupid enough to follow orders? Etc. Eventually I thought, "I can do a series about that." Small pieces, based on art of the region, and titled along the lines of "Armenia 1915." More research to do--depressing topic, but at least the cultural part will be good.

To end this lengthy post on a better note:

Arctic Kitty now likes to go out in the morning, as of about three days ago. Morning Balcony Survey is quite brief: outside, swish tail a bunch of times, inside (except for today, which was whirl around and squirt back inside immediately).

Nocturnal Balcony Patrol was really good last night. The human began to doubt her telepathy was working, and checked a number of times. Each time, Arctic Kitty was pressed up against the railing in a different spot, radar focused intently outwards. Eventually, Arctic Kitty made a small noise (!) which the human noticed (!!!) and dashed inside at full speed as if she'd been stuck outside for positively hours. It was one of the times she came back in extra fluffy with cold fur, and smelling of wood smoke.

A final item to ponder: Why do roosters crow, but crows don't rooster? Drat, where's the OED when you need it? As it isn't here...based purely upon the words, a rooster should be called a crow, and a crow should be a caw. "Caw" is onomatopoeic, at least. (This is hopefully a start to me actually remembering weird linguistic things I think of.) A rooster does roost at night, but that's not different from other birds. Crows roost, too.

Entropy Reconfigured

2008-01-31T13:18:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I made a couple stops on the way home from work--one of them to buy a toaster oven & some small shelving units. (Shelves, huzzah...) I assembled them & shifted all the boxes--well, not ALL the boxes, but a lot of them--and put some boxes on them. I reclaimed a significant amount of floorspace, which makes my heart rest easier. The living room half of the living room is now clear, except for a tall stack of books, and I can tolerate that a while longer. Also a basket full of stuff (baskets are tolerable, too) and my small, long-neglected tapestry loom. In fact, I could almost pretend that Order had been imposed, if it weren't for the stack of boxes visible behind the futon. At least I did make that pile relatively even, so I could put big pieces of paper on it. I wish I had a good way to store large pieces of paper...

A little while ago I phoned and ordered a small bookcase for one of the spaces Ikea didn't help me with. But I have to wait! :( Not a surprise, but hopefully it will be on the shorter end of the time they prognosticated. 24" wide, 48" high, 10" deep, with adjustable shelves. I have a steadily-increasing number of homeless books, and I've been "losing" things due to repeated shifting: I had to give in a while back and shelve by size instead of topic. And I have a tendency to retain books near my work area once I pull them--so there is usually a flock of books on the floor by my chair (books are best when within reach)--and these books tend to stay there long enough to lose their shelf spaces.

Anyway, I ended up messing around so long that I got to bed extremely late. Again. It was so late that the cat gave up on me, and went to bed by herself.

Marduk vs. Tiamat

2008-01-28T15:37:00.000-08:00

I do hope the allegorical title will please the Title Quality Editor. (See, they're better when I have time to ponder them.) ;)

The week off was not restful, as I ended up schlepping stuff all over my apartment and repiling it in different configurations. I no longer have a living room; the battle for chaos control has just begun. But my work area is significantly improved. (Is there a law of conservation for entropy? All the entropy reduced in one area reappears somewhere else, and entropy can be condensed into a smaller area if the degree of entropy increases geometrically as area decreases?)

Here are several entries written over the course of the week, including several illustrations of things more or less flat enough to scan with some degree of recognizability (so, no pictures of the cat).

Vacation Process Report.

21. January, 2008 (Monday)

Here is the doubleweave sample I wove a couple of years ago. (I happened to mention it while visiting with Sarah on the phone, and realized I could show it to her!)

22. January, 2008

Organizing is very very tiring.

The idea for today was to clean out some of the extra stuff in the “studio” and to reclaim the “living room.” With the departure of one of the utility shelves (yay) I have been left with Stuff that has no place. Drat. (But not a surprise.) I didn't end up buying the drawer units I thought I would, so there is now, after much carrying, EMPTY SPACE in my work area!!! For now I am relieved by emptiness but I hope that tomorrow's pilgrimage to Ikea will help relieve the living room of its chaotic congestion. At least I moved the stuff that was precluding door access to any but perhaps a weasel. Amidst the lifting I eventually found myself muttering ow ow ow almost enough to take some Advil. I still might, the final straw being inadvisably but stubbornly heaving my unemptied, solid oak spice cabinet up onto the file cabinet.

Must now eat—I am way behind on nourishment. Then a lamentably short shower (until I moved here, I never dreamed that hot water heaters came in such a small size—plus it is now really cold, for Portland at least, so the hot water gets “diluted” by the cold water being excessively cold). Then I will SIT DOWN and have tea while it's hot. And if I've regained some energy I will draw or something.

At some point during the week...

I finished the little one of these embroideries, inspired by reading a couple of really interesting books by Mary B. Kelly (Making & Using Ritual Cloths, and Goddess Embroideries from (of?) Eastern Europe). I made the first one over Christmas:

It's odd that they don't show at all to scale--the second one is a leftover from the first!

23. January, 2008 (Wednesday)

The trip to Ikea didn't happen, but I did do other things: took the car for a check up (verdict: it needs to have something done) and did a quick run to two fairly close-by potential furniture sources. (After the failure-to-purchase of the drawer units on Monday I had checked three other places.) Help me oh Ikea, you're my only hope.

I have forcibly reclaimed most of the living room, at least of the half of the living room that performs the living room function. (The loom, spinning wheel, reel, and boxes of fabric constitute the normal occupants of the other half of the room, with the futon acting as a room divider.) Yesterday's moving included moving the loom so that I could “conceal” the boxes I was displacing from elsewhere.

Hah.

There are probably 16 cubic feet of boxes, and the heap is, er, noticeable. :( I have so far restrained myself from evacuating the bedroom closet, which is poorly configured storage-wise. If I emptied it & reconfigured it I would have leftover boxes, and I can't bear to make the pile behind the loom any higher.

I didn't particularly want to spend my whole week off heaving boxes all over, but I shudder to think of how long this would have taken during an ordinary work schedule. Organizing is important. Once I get through this part of it (hopefully it's the worst) I have to remember that even tiny, incremental steps are progress. There is no use having Hoards of Cool or Interesting Stuff if I can't browse easily or if I can't lay my hands on a particular thing without a lot of rummaging. Using up the finite amounts of after-work Creative Power to deduce where something is—instead of using it to MAKE STUFF—got old a long time ago. Maybe 2008 will be the year I get my act mostly assembled.

Organizing is also very tiring for cats. Activity by the human is tiring under any circumstances, so a nap is necessary to recuperate, and then everything is different when you get up, and you have to explore it and see if you still recognize it. Then there is the socializing with the human (if the human is relatively sedentary) and then it's time for another nap. The nap starts sooner if the human is still active, because that is too tiring to keep up with. It is hard work being a cat.

Speaking of which, the cat is now telling me it is time for Balcony Patrol. Arctic Kitty prefers Balcony Patrol in the dark, especially if the wind is blowing interesting scents around. Balcony Patrol in daylight has been out of favor for several months. Nocturnal Balcony Patrol is most excellent, and Arctic Kitty checks everything out very thoroughly, returning inside when her human telepathically knows that she wants to (she keeps working on developing her human's powers of telepathy). She comes in all super fluffy and fresh smelling, and shortly has to have a nap to recover. After a bit of a snack.

(I do spend rather a lot of time with kitty, yes.)

25. January 2008, Friday, early afternoon.

Yesterday I went to Ikea. After the initial excitement wore off & I got down to the serious business of looking for specifically-dimensioned furniture units, it actually got kind of depressing, because my spots are so small nothing was fitting. For example, I need a narrow bookcase—but it has to be short enough to fit under the thermostat. I found one that was the correct width & height, but way too deep (it would stick out 5 or 6 inches too far) and one that was the correct width and depth, but way too tall. And then there was one that was just ridiculously small.

At least I have ended up with a work desk that I think will be very satisfactory. I bought two little file cabinet-like things with 6 drawers each and found one tabletop that was the right dimensions. The little cabinets are nearly assembled. They are marvels of engineering, really, and extremely admirably packed—plus the assembly instructions are commendable: no text, just pictures, with plenty of “magnifying bubbles” so you could tell what to pay attention to.

I am, however, about DONE with assembly. It is extra hard, I suspect, because I am increasingly sore as a result of an intense workout yesterday, in the form of quarterstaff drills. So far it is neck/upper back and forearms, but I expect it will be spreading across my back like it did last time, except probably worse, because we did more. One of the reasons I've tried to keep moving all day...but now I really must be still for a while. I think I will sit in my bedroom (free of chaos, sun now shining in) and watch an episode of Torchwood. Maybe Princess will come out from under the bed and join me.

27. January 2008, Sunday.

Today spiraled rather out of control, between sleeping through the alarm and Mom calling when I'd barely been up 20 minutes, and then we talked for ages (it might be for the first time since Christmas) which was good except it was way too long & the timing was not good. I eventually got a few of the main things done, except for the sitting around sewing/doing fun stuff part which I have pretty much not done all week. I managed to sit down a little bit early this evening, and read part of my book on Moroccan textiles & carpets (a recent acquisition) with Princess curled up against my leg.

Yesterday I finally mounted an embroidery I had 97% finished by late February. It didn't scan particularly well because of its puffiness (as Muriel Baker pointed out in Stumpwork, it is impossible to block it to remove wrinkles; I resorted to tautly stretching it and padding it with quilt batting). I do believe the recipient was entertained. He nearly didn't get it, as I developed quite a fondness for the monkey and was really close to keeping it. The picture is based on an image in a book of emblems I bought earlier this year (currently missing in action, or I'd include the title; I just checked a bunch of places—I remember where it used to be, but I've shifted everything several times since then).

Yesterday I also took an encaustic painting class with Amy Stoner. Something else to buy art supplies for! You can do collage with wax, too. In the Sept./Oct. 2007 issue of Fiberarts there was a neat article (pg. 20-21) by Daniella Woolf (she also has a blog about her work). She incorporates paper, silk, etc. into her layered encaustic works.

My initial experiments (once I get set up, I'll mess around with them some more) (usual web-picture caveat--in real life they don't quite look like this): Time to make the final preparations for tomorrow. After today, I think I really really need to get a shiny sticker.

Today, Monday January 28:

Snow everywhere this morning! :) Very pretty. I suffer from snow deprivation, but I'm just as glad to not have to drive in snow with inexperienced people.

Hiatus.

2008-01-18T16:25:00.000-08:00

There will be a moderate hiatus while I have a week of vacation (!!!) because of no e-mail at home. Since I've hardly started here, I presume the hiatus will be nearly imperceptible. Since I vow to be organized (making lists as Sarah suggests--I have even written things on lists that are already done, so I can have something to cross off)--since I will be organized, I will have Project Progress to report, and I will scan in flat things so there will be more pictures. Maybe part of my shopping will be for the digital camera I didn't buy yet; first, however, a phone & a toaster oven. And since I recently was swept along with the guys & said sure, I'll buy a long hickory staff too, I probably should buy more string to balance that out. For extra legitimization, I will first use some of the goodies I got at Stringpage Supplies and make some more fingerloop braiding samples. (If I'm using string up, it's okay to add to the stash.) (New string for inspiration, you know, and it wouldn't do to run out, after all.) (And you can never really have too much string, even though it seems like it when you live in a smallish apartment, but string takes up very little space, really, for how much fun it is.)

Picture!

2008-01-17T16:28:00.000-08:00

I remembered to take my flash drive home, put the picture on it, AND bring it to work.

Here is the picture I was missing--a kind of Celtic mandala drawn with many compass marks. I will try to remember to scan it at different stages; I've never done that before, and it will be interesting to see how it changes.

An aside: due to a timely reminder from a friend, I have begun applying stickers to my dayplanner when I get things done I'm supposed to do. It is an inordinate amount of fun; my inner child is presumably very lonely and neglected for stickers to be such a motivation, but I hope that such a simple reward keeps working.

Sigh.

2008-01-16T16:47:00.000-08:00

Yes, the missing picture is indeed on my home computer. It is still there because last night I accidentally left my flash drive at work.

I did the preliminary fabric scouting for a project for this year. The results indicate that if I want to do embroidery on properly-configured wool cloth I will have to weave it myself. Hence I will start with a different piece.

On a completely different note, I believe that I have found where the costume & textile collection assembled by Virginia Harvey now lives--at the Henry Art Gallery (University of Washington in Seattle). Next I have to find out how to get to do research there.

Minute Progress

2008-01-15T12:27:00.000-08:00

Not much concrete got done over the weekend; I tried to tell myself at least I was resting up for my WEEK OFF NEXT WEEK. It was further proof--well, not proof, more of a Serious Reminder--that I need to make lists or basically nothing happens, especially because I am not feeling particularly motivated. I want the paper sorting/stuff organizing to be done, but it is not a short-term project, and it is not finite (since the accrual of paper and Interesting, Potentially-Useful Stuff will assuredly continue).

Two pictures:

I made my first spiral fingerloop braid (bottom). It is carefully posed so that the mistake doesn't show. It was roughly four times as big around as what I wanted, and after a brief consideration I didn't want a fingerloop braid so much as something done, and I did a twisted cord instead. (This is for couching around the edge of an embroidery.) Both are made of a non-DMC embroidery floss. The braid is eight loops of 6 strands; the cord was two l-o-n-g pieces tied end-to-end, overtwisted, and plied, then the result was overtwisted and plied.

...I guess there is no second picture. I must not have put it on the flash drive. I'll have to look on my computer tonight.

Knitting Revelation

2008-01-10T17:21:00.001-08:00

I must confess that I had to resist calling it "knitting ravelation."

This morning I sat down (an anomaly in my life) to finish breakfast with a toasty warm lap kitty. It was right next to Knitting Project #2, which has been interminably long, probably an indication of disinterest. It was intended to be a little pouch, like Knitting Project #1, inspired by (and not remotely like) a knitted reliquary pouch I saw at an SCA event. However, Knitting Project #2, while better in color selection (based purely on available remnants), slowly decreased in interest, about the time I realized the proportions were somewhat elongated to be a little pouch, and that it would be much cooler if it were a sock.

Last weekend, looking at this persistently unfinished thing, which I don't really want to unravel, I realized I could make it into a sock, even if I didn't have enough yarn for a second sock (which doesn't matter since my two-color knitting drew in considerably and I'm sure I couldn't get it on). I could make a practice sock, and if I ever needed to store my ill-gotten gains under the mattress, I would have a nice, sturdy (though somewhat irregular) sock to use for the purpose.

Rampant Destruction

2008-01-08T12:28:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to work on my titles, as per special request. Largely I believe it will just be better to think of them when I'm not tired.

The rampant destruction happened Friday. I spontaneously demolished the interior of a cassette storage unit. (Well, I've planned on doing it for ages, but The Moment came upon me suddenly.) This resulted in a large, shallow box ready to be converted into a storage shelf for things like bottles of ink--this will reduce the condition "out of sight, out of mind."

Saturday evening a few of us went out to hear Painted Hags play, which was fun--rock versions of traditional/Celtic songs--with an electric harp thrown into the mix! Also very very loud. I don't think my ears will ever comfortably tolerate live rock, which is unfortunate.

Sunday I unintentionally sorted/filed a bunch of papers (gasp) and got a start on my copy of Natura Exenterata by printing out and folding all the signatures. Though the fingerloop braids section is rather short, I was able to stretch it out to four signatures by including a few blank sheets at the beginning and the end (like a "real" book) and printing only on one side (so I can sew in my samples--thanks to Sarah for the reminder!) I'm pretty sure I will need to go shopping to find the right sort of paper for the cover, but I'll be good and look through my paper stash first.

Second Post

2008-01-04T12:05:00.000-08:00

January 3, 2008

Here is the picture, somewhat more intensely-colored than in actuality:

I really must do the “real” Project before long...

Last night (that would be Wednesday, due to internet-access lag) I finished spinning the last of the two ounces of mohair I bought in Santa Fe on my 30th birthday consolation trip. I decided that it would be good if I'd actually get it made into something before I turn 40, and that time is coming sooner than I realize. Or rather I realize it, but wonder how it got to be that close. (I know, I know, one day at a time...) That time-warp effect has recently entered another phase of Heightened Awareness, due to the relatively large percentage of my immediate family who are in reproductive mode. I must remind myself that I'm making Art (and Projects), not babies. And I have an adorable cat. Eventually there will be an inordinate number of pictures of my cat. (I'm practicing, in order to have Cat stories to retaliate with against Baby stories.)

I'm contemplating launching a new Project: fingerloop braids. I know how to make the basic 5-loop one, but it would be most excellent to test out a few more, as well as timely, since I just got a batch of enticing string from Stringpage Supplies. (Purple, lime green, orange...silk, linen and rayon delights.) Other fingerloop information: Phiala's String Page (under braiding), Sample Fingerlooped Braids from a 15th Century Ms (the pictures don't load for some reason, but there is a nice bibliography). I also have a copy of The Compleat Anachronist #108 (the authors have a webpage with numerous links, as well as errata for the publication). And the marvelous website On-Line Digital Archive of Documents on Weaving and Related Topics has an excerpt from Natura Exenterata, published in 1655, which excerpt includes a section on “laces.” It's worth looking at just for the title page. (This is available in a transcription on the fingerloop webpage.)

Because I can effortlessly make anything infinitely more complicated, I'm probably going to print the fingerloop braid section of Natura Exenterata in such a way that I can bind it into a cute little pamphlet. At the same time, I can also dismantle my copy of the The Compleat Anachronist #108, and re-bind it with the errata.

Inaugural Post

2008-01-03T14:08:00.000-08:00

January 1, 2008

I wanted to come up with a splendid name for my first blog, but settled for functional.

This year I hope to focus on creating work; the first step will be creating a plan. Over the year and a half or so since I graduated I haven't made Art, but I have at least been working on Projects. Some of these are of course related to potential Art, and some of them are just for fun, and that really is okay. Fun is one of the things I have to work on.

I've had a bit more practice calling myself an artist, though it still feels peculiar, because for most of my life I thought of my stuff as Projects. One of my imminent Projects is organizing my work space; another is decorating. (I think of my apartment as a studio apartment; more about that at a later date.) I'm basically a mixed media artist, which I define as doing what I feel like doing—in art jargon: the concept determines the technique.

There will be a bit of a lag with posts for some time, as I only last year stumbled into the 20th century when a friend gave me a refurbished computer he'd fixed up for me; soon I hope to get my computer set up in a spot more conducive to extended use. At that point I will sign up for internet service. It will be very exciting to have internet access at home! (Says she who doesn't have a television.) Part of “conducive to extended use” means “no more kneeling at the keyboard.”

I will close with a picture of a sample I made a while back (I didn't label it, drat!). It's for a Project, though I suppose that in a few generations that Project could eventually evolve into a piece of Art. It's watercolor paper with watercolor and some water soluble crayon, shiny gel pen (which doesn't show), needle lace & embroidery, and a bead.

Hmm. Or maybe I won't. I transported my little entry on my flash drive, and in the conversion from the file type my home computer uses to the one my work computer uses, the picture turned into a little tiny orange square.