It’s been a wonderful week to be home working in my
studio. The weather cooperated by not
being too nice, so I was ready to get busy and begin a bunch of new
pieces. I love carrying ideas for
weaving compositions around in my head. There
I can modify my designs as I think through technical aspects about which
materials might work best and how to achieve the end product. At some point I’m ready and eager to launch
on creating the weaving, and that was certainly true of my piece called Barbershop
Quartet. I dug out my big container of barbershop related paraphernalia and
began laying out the composition I imagined. When I was happy with the layer of
tools and barber supplies I pulled out all of my barbicide blue yarns and started
the background weaving.
Completing the
background brought me to a resting point where I now need to needle felt the
four goldfinches. I can do that task on
the move, so I’ll probably save the felting aspect until we’re driving
somewhere. I was still in full design
layout and background mode, so I plowed ahead on completing the backdrop for my
piece called Charging Station. Just like
the missing goldfinches on my Barbershop Quartet, I’ll adorn the piece with three
fireflies with glow-in-the-dark bottoms.
I can work on them as I travel too, but I’m finding much less time than
I used to for felting projects now that Jacob can drive himself to his
activities. For the background on this
piece I had a lot of fun creating and gussying up the electrical outlet
covers. I also incorporated all kinds of
jewelry bits, drywall tape, beaded pull chains for lights and other odds and
ends in the background. I find it
amazing what paint can do to transform an object from something you recognize
instantly into a component that blends well into a textured surface.
I still had another piece in my mind ready to launch, and
that was a composition called Changing Gears.
It will have a steampunk feel to it with lots of metal gears and
gear-like objects that I’ve been harvesting by tearing apart blenders and mixers
and pulling brass gears from old clocks.
Thursday I spent a little quality time arranging the composition and I’m
pretty excited about putting it all together.
I’m contrasting the hard metal gears with a helpful grackle in the
foreground that will present an alan key in its beak. The timing for this piece and the grackle was
perfect because I went to the Fleece Fair last week on Friday and picked up
some iridescent green-purple Angelina fibers.
I plan to blend them in to the black wool to create that sheen that
grackles around their heads. I know that
most people are not grackle fans because they steal bird seed and grain in the
fields, but I see them as resourceful individuals and kindred spirits in some
ways. I’ll certainly post pictures as I
make progress on each of these pieces.
Last Sunday Jim and I went to Lake Monroe to try our hand at
crappie fishing. We caught enough fish
to enjoy the fruits of our labors as fish tacos on Tuesday. It was a wonderful adventure, made
challenging by the lake being so high that we needed to paddle the canoe out to
a dock that we would normally walk out to.
We spent a few hours finding small flocks of fish and getting a mild
sunburn in the middle of April. I made
charred corn salsa and chili lime aeoli, which combined with fresh fish and
arugula on white corn torillas made for a delightful dinner. Oooh, yum!
Speaking of food, it was a pie day, but it was a pizza pie on
Friday. Jim has perfected the thin
crust, whole wheat pizza which he generously covered with vegetables and cheese
mixtures. It was really good, but I now
have a hankering for something sweet and fruity. Maybe a …
pie? Hoo boy—I can’t leave the kitchen
for a minute! I went on an afternoon
visit with Dawn and Cinny to Indianapolis and I came back to find a blueberry
pie! Perfect!
Until next week,
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