The Christmas season is full of festivities, including
family in the house, theater and the good food of the season. Somewhere in there I squeeze in a little art making. I bounce around between projects to keep all
of my projects moving forward. I pulled
out my weaving-in-progress that features keys in the background and started
imagining what the bird cage would look like.
I stretched and sketched--the background weaving was stretched into a
frame and I sketched the bird cage that will emerge in the foreground.
Then I could measure out the wire pieces that
will make up the cage and the door. I
also started to make the swirly shapes that will adorn the structure. But then when I have all of the components designed
and cut, I can’t just leave it in a pile and so I started to put together. Its not finished – but I really like the look
of it so far. The cage, with an open
door, will also feature a summer tanager, suggested by Cinny Schrodt. The orange red of the bird should really pop
against the brassy key background and the black cage foreground.
My down-time breaks over the holidays have also given me
time to keep poking at my Mexican sunflower petals. My pile is getting bigger, but I still have a
lot to go. I won’t count because I think
I’m still on the uphill slope of the hundred petal target, but it’s good to see
my bowl getting fuller.
My ongoing dyeing projects took a turn to coffee browns this
week. I’m an avid coffee drinker,
specifically morning espressos to balance out my breakfast pie slices. About a year ago I discovered that my blood
pressure was elevated, so I decided to deal with it through diet. I cut out caffeine and took the salt shaker off
the table.
I’m happy to report that my
blood pressure is back to normal, which means I can drink more coffee than I used
to, albeit decaffeinated. Jim now makes
me two double espressos almost every day.
That’s a lot of ground beans that usually feed the compost pile. I decided to redirect the flow into a bag that
I keep in the freezer until I had enough grounds to try dyeing with them. I put the month’s worth of grounds in the dye
pot and boiled it for an hour, making the house smell wonderful. After steeping overnight I then strained the brew
through giant filters intended to be used to filter oil, which worked
well. I put in some freshly washed
fleece, brought it to a boil, and left it to steep overnight in the glory of
the second-hand coffee. It turned out to
be a lovely maple syrup brown color—it’s a good thing I love Midwestern
browns!
The Christmas season brought us first Tommie (although we
had to go pick him up), who baked a huge batch of cookies with Shaunacee, his
accomplice in baking. She knew the
secret length of baking time to make the diablo cookies perfect—this was the
peak year for those delights. Grandma
and great aunt Lois came next, flying in from Michigan for Christmas. They helped eat the cookies and put together
a jigsaw puzzle. Christmas gifts brought
lots of surprises—Jacob got authentic lederhosen and the turntable he has been
pining for.
Lois got a beautiful
bracelet and watch that she eagerly showed off when she got home to
Michigan. I got a beautiful bowl made by
Marcy Neiditz that I think might be destined for display rather than use.
But most important we had a lot of laughing
and silliness in the house. We all went
to Cardinal’s Beauty and the Beast on boxing day, and the performance was
delightful as usual. The pie fairy really
came through too, bringing a Raspberry pie for Christmas dinner and a tart
cherry pie for my birthday yesterday!
I
even had slices from two different pies on one day! Let’s just continue that trend into the new
year, shall we?
Until next week,
Martina Celerin
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