As American as Re-Shirts and Apple Pie

It is delightful to be back on schedule with a weekly blog—things have settled down to the usual weekly hectic pace.  I have been working on my next commission piece and I now have the background woven.  By the end of today I should have the piece stretched out in its frame.  My next step is to do the dimensional crochet to build the grassy shoreline forward such that there is a place to plant the willow tree and the bench that are the focal points of the piece. 

I love to weave, so that’s taken up a lot of time, but I’ve had to split my time between weaving and making more Re-Shirts.  Last week I cut out the pattern for 48 new Re-shirts!  I focused the fall/winter colors that are strong and bold.  I tried to avoid pastel colors, but a few fabrics just demanded to be used.  I am planning to do the Bloom showcase in February, so those colors might be more appropriate as spring approaches.  It was a lot of fun breaking open the boxes of fabrics I’ve been collecting over the past several months.  

 It’s a lot like opening Christmas presents with all the colors and textures.  I then get to piece them together to see who works with whom.  I began with eight bins of fabrics that have had a previous life and now I’m down to four.  So many of the fabrics have history, such as the Re-Shirt I made from Rosemary P. Miller’s curtains.  I even cut up my first official art fair dress, which was made of flax.  The back-story here is that I always have a collection of four or five nice dresses that I wear at shows.  The lower parts of dresses are usually in really good shape as the tops wear out, so I want them to live in a Re-Shirt.  I even have some shirts that Tommie has outgrown and should be hand-me-downs, but the colors and patterns don’t match Jacob’s aesthetic.  And of course I’m permitted to remove shirts from Jacob’s wardrobe that no longer match his vision of style. 

To keep myself fit I’ve been doing Bollywood, Zumba and Dance fit more regularly these days.  Yesterday morning I was even part of IU’s Dance Marathon as a back-up dancer in Darrelyn’s Zumba troop.  Our goal was to pump up the crowd of over three thousand IU students with some energetic music and dance.  They were thirty hours into the marathon at 5:30 in the morning when we started.  It was a lot of fun, although I realized I was the oldest person in the whole room.  What I lack in youth I make up for in enthusiasm!  The marathon was held in the indoor tennis facility to make room for all the students and dancers.

On Friday night, Tommie and I went to IU’s basketball game.  It was a lot of fun, whooping and hollering and cheering.  We even did the IU chop (on cue, of course).  On the way out we spoke French as we walked to our meet-up point with Jim and Jacob.  They went to see Ender’s Game, and they came to pick us up.  I think they liked the movie.   

With the balmy weather we’ve had this week I was able to sand and paint four more frames for this winter’s weaving projects.  That brings my total of finished frames to 24.  The warm weather will pass with the spate of thunderstorms and sporadic tornadoes that passed us by yesterday afternoon.   

 

Oh, and good news!   

A fresh apple pie appeared early this week!  I still have one slice left to have with coffee to start my Monday morning, so life is good. 

Until next week,

Martina Celerin