Lengthy Hiatus ~ Spring Restart

I was reminded why I didn't post the other times I'd tried; tonight, I persisted through a myriad of login attempts (drat, just which e-mail and which password did I use! and no, I do not want to set up a Blogger profile).

Much has happened, but things are finally settling down. I never found a house, but rent went up so much that I couldn't afford to stay renting if I wanted the luxury of space, a safe location, AND my own washer to do laundry at home (which is a luxury I had at my last apartment for the first time in my adult life). With downpayment help from my mom, I was able to get a small condo which is way better than I thought I'd end up with, and not only does it have a washer, but it has a garage and a view over a little greenspace! So with that, and being able to stay in the vicinity of where I've lived for almost 15 years, and the resulting hope for more life stability, my artistic witchy woods-yearning heart feels better than it has for years. Decompression will still take a while.

My cat adjusted so quickly.

A selectively edited view of my makeshift studio surface--the room is, in reality, still so very full of boxes. I try to look only at the table and at the large cedar tree outside.

I have ideas for a weaving post to do fairly soon; in the interim, I've been sharing recent art over on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/laurathodeart/

Paintings Proceed

First, documentary evidence of stripy windowsill kitty this afternoon the afternoon of July 6:

(My internet service has been PAINFULLY unresponsive for ages, but tonight it's back! To stay, I hope. Was it because of the World Cup?)

Next, paintings 3-7 of the 100 Paintings project--because I have decided I will publish all of them, even the bad less-appealing ones:

This one was inspired by the henna design I had on my arm a while back. I *really* like the background, but I was initially unenthralled with the painting because it didn't work like I envisioned. After not seeing it for a while I like it better. Acrylic paint with white gel pen for the outline.

This was my henna done by Roving Horse Henna:

...and I guess I'm done tonight after all; despite things generally behaving, pictures are v-e-r-y s-l-o-w. More paintings next time!

Ring out the old...

Just a few pictures so I can squeeze in one more post while it is still 2013! They are things in progress that have been worked on over the past few months.

But first, a kitty picture. As of November 30, Beatrice has lived with me for a whole year. She is truly a different kitty than the one I brought home--she is affectionate and talkative, and has relaxed enough to be curious and sit on pieces of paper, and I can walk over to her and pet her and she doesn't skitter away--unless she has a reason of the sort discernable only to cats. This is the characteristic loungy kitty pose, in which most bathing takes place.

A tapestry sampler and an embroidery, both of which were started several archaeological layers ago:

Happy New Year!

Settling In

Last Saturday was six months since I brought the sweet, terrified kitty home. She is a different creature these days! "Pet me now...but you have to follow me into the bedroom in order to do it."

A week ago Wednesday, Beatrice joined me on the futon for the very first time, hooray! She has since taken to sitting there by herself. "Why should I recline on the floor by you when I can sit on the futon?" Doesn't she look like an expert?


She is very snuggly in the morning, often curling up half on me, strategically situated to be sure I can pet her. And she doesn't automatically run away all the time anymore--sometimes she pauses and then stays put. Sometimes she flees to under-the-bed, and then pops back out. Not too much longer, and I expect she will meet me at the door when I come home, instead of sitting just around the corner in the bedroom doorway and watching intently to be sure it's me. Such progress!

And speaking of progress, there really has been textile stuff happening: velvet pictures are in the near future.

My Stripy Valentine

Apparently this is my 100th post. It's not the topic I planned - and it's also much more delayed than I had intended!

I am pleased to introduce the new kitty of the household. Please say hello to Beatrice:


She came to live with me nearly three months ago. I adopted her from the Cat Adoption Team, a local no-kill cat shelter that evaluates their kitties for personality, to make it more likely that they will stay adopted. I picked the personality that sounded most like Princess, part of the reason being that that kind of kitty can handle being alone a lot. Next, the kitty had to look NOT like Princess - and despite how completely different Beatrice looks, it was still really strange the first week or so to have "my kitty" mean a stripy kitty and not a fluffy black and white one. Part of my brain was seriously baffled.

Beatrice spent most of the first week hiding in the studio bathroom. She was *thrilled* for chin scratches and excited for petting - and would hide behind the toilet if my sleeve made the softest whisper. Eventually she skulked out into the studio, but it was too scary out there, especially if I was there, and she would run back to the bathroom for petting. Darting behind the toilet was her "reset" button every single time she got startled. After two weeks I opened the door to the rest of the apartment: her first exploratory foray lasted nearly 30 seconds before she bolted back to the studio, not venturing forth for another day or more.

After a month of nearly daily practice, she relaxed when I picked her up - she had purred before, but stiffened. At some point she discovered Under The Bed, which is now her main hangout. By about a month ago, she'd gotten brave enough to sleep on the bed with me, and will join me almost immediately. Last week she tried out my pillow.


Sometimes I can walk past her without her bolting away; under the right conditions she will even come to me for petting. It is very endearing to see her lift her chin for a scratch...when she's too far away to reach! And it's downright funny when she loses her balance because she was expecting my hand to be supporting her, despite the fact that I can't reach her. She's *very* relaxed when I'm horizontal in bed, and requests petting verbally. She is exponentially more talkative than Princess. "I saw you move! Are you getting up? I want breakfast. Pet me!"

The living room is still not popular as a hangout; occasionally late at night she will lurk just around the corner, but it's mainly so she knows right away when I'm going to bed. Mornings, there is sometimes good bird television:


She's not yet performing full Household Kitty Duties, but she's come a long way since the sweet, terrified kitty she was in November. She is super soft and ought to be sooo snuggly; I will have to be patient.

Oh my, she just walked into the living room! I said hello, and she's still sitting there. At the beginning, she used to run off if I so much as looked at her, never mind saying anything. :) Now she is ambling off behind the futon. It's so good to have a kitty again.

TAST 3: Feather Stitch

This post is timely; embroidery finished yesterday.

Feather stitch:

Bottom row - test samples.
Top row, left to right:
*spaced feather stitch would be a good border
*intertwined feather stitch would be good for plants (I have several books with embroidered gardens which are quite appealing, though I doubt they would assuage the gardening fever that hits hard every spring...somehow windowsill flowerpots aren't quite satisfactory)
*back-to-back straight feather stitch - probably could be a border, but it first made me think of a fish skeleton (vertebrae)
*closed feather stitch would be good for a palm tree trunk.

And because I've been missing her extra again the last few weeks, a bonus kitty picture of Princess happy in the sun last summer.

"Historic" Embroidery

A couple of weekends ago I finally finished the teeny tiny last little bit of the interminable lion embroidery. I *think* it might actually be my first embroidery - the first one started, at least!


The main point was to try couched/laid threads, as in the Bayeux Embroidery. At around this time I read Heraldry for Embroiderers by Vicky Lugg, and was smitten by the heraldic lions. I made a lion...and it came out rather unsatisfactory (bad edges).

It is on (14 count?) cotton,and I decided the cloth didn't look very appealing at all, and I should embroider all over it. Problem one: using leftover weaving linen. Bad idea because 1) you have lots and lots of short lengths (and since this was before I knew about starting/ending threads with no knots...lots and lots of knots) and 2) it quickly wears to the point of fuzzy catastrophic failure. Problem two: huge difference in density between lion and background. (And I didn't remember that when I made the "white pods" embroidery!)

Anyway, I plugged away at it for intervals, but it has been dormant now several years, practically done. I gave up on a few things I wanted to do - it has enough issues that there was no way to "fix" it, and so many knots that it would have been impossible (I really wanted claws).

Oh - and to fix the bad outline around the lion, I twisted two colors of embroidery thread into cords, and couched them down.

Also done, shades of white/stitch variation sampler. Some of the effects only show if you are at an extreme angle (picture two). My hands-down favorite is the diagonal satin stitch. My hands-down unfavorites are left as examples of what not to do.



I suppose eventually I will lose track, but today is eight weeks without kitty.

Transportation Update

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

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

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.

Seasonal Libation, and Several Sundry Tidbits

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.

July?!

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.

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!"

Camera Captures Clever, Coordinated Kitty Cat Cuteness

(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

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

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!