Scarfing 3.0, this time with apple pie!

Yes, I spent the week focused on scarves again. This time I just went wild with the color schemes. I used reds, teals, purples and I even pulled out some pinks to complement the purples. That’s pretty audacious for me, since I don’t generally ‘do’ pink. When I was younger, skydiving was outrageous; now it’s using incorporating pink in a scarf! I even created one commissioned scarf. It had a base of grass green with black ruffled edges, and I think it came out really well. Now it’s time to hit the pause button on wet felting for a little while and focus on some scarf pressing. Sometimes it feels like I’m not making enough progress, but looking back I realize that I’ve been very productive—I’m up to 31 new scarves! I’ll be shipping the first lot to St. Josephs, Michigan on Wednesday for display at the Holly Market. I’m hoping that displaying them in Michigan’s snow belt during the holiday season will be the perfect venue for sales.

In my weaving world, I managed to finish the needle-felted carrots I was working on. They’re for a commissioned piece based on the earlier ‘Baby Carrots’ piece, and I’m really delighted with how they turned out! It’s going slowly, but I feel like I’m moving the process along. And in a real blast from the past, late in the week I took advantage of a warm spell to finish up the BEAD (Bloomington Entertainment and Arts District) panels from last year’s Fourth Street Festival! I collected thousands of recycled plastic toys in the four theme colors of the BEAD logo. I picked them up at places such as The Recycle Center and Opportunity House in Bloomington, and 5000 kids and adults visiting the Fourth Street Festival glued them onto four large wood panels. The weather got away from me last fall and I couldn’t get them sealed before the snow flew. Of course I was too busy when the weather was nice in the spring. That meant the pieces had a nice home in our living room all winter, which my husband Jim wasn’t too thrilled about. I think he missed the fact that they added a certain colorful charm to the room. Anyway, I dragged them out onto the veranda and sealed them with a coat of varnish. This Wednesday I’m hoping to get a second coat on them and send them off to their new home.

On Thursday, more big things started to happen when Grandma flew in from Michigan. She always needs a project, so we got her painting a long-neglected wall and baseboards at the top of the stairs. Boy does it look good now! Friday night we all went to watch the boys test for their blue belts in Taekwondo at Monroe County Martial Arts. All went well, and the boys are sporting their new colors and have bellies full of reward ice cream.

Saturday was the big day for everyone with the boys out of school all day. We made it to the Farmer’s Market early and got two big pumpkins and a big batch of winesap apples. The pumpkins went on the front step and the apples went into a delightful pie—did I say I like pie? At least I like all the pies my sweetie makes for me. In the afternoon we drove to Brown County to get a bit of a color tour, but sadly the trees seemed to take the ‘brown’ county part a little too seriously. We then stopped in at Zaharako’s ice cream parlor in Columbus for some cool refreshment - a nice transported back in time to when life had a slower pace. The day was topped off with a visit to Bloomington South High School to see their performance of ‘Fiddler on the Roof’. It was well done everyone had a good time, even if we got home waaaaaay past our bedtime. But now I’m going to have some of the songs running through my brain today. If I were a rich man…

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Scarfing down some fresh apple pie...

I found myself in an all-to-familiar predicament this week. Back in the early summer it seemed like a great idea to commit myself to supplying scarves for both local venues and regional shows. You want twelve scarves for the Holly Market fall festival show? I’d love to! How about a nice scarf-as-art display at the Bloomington Bagel location on Morton? Sure thing! And you want them when? Plus a few more scarves for the holiday season art shows I applied to? Yikes! I’ve got a report on the Fourth Street patron survey to assemble and a grant to write to support our requests for advertising money, both due this week! I planned to devote October to scarf making, and I have. It’s just that a lot of other bits of my life have intruded into the process. On the bright side, over the summer and early fall I stocked up on a ton of scarf making supplies. I stopped in at Sheep Street in Morgantown and Yarns Unlimited here in Bloomington and picked up a lovely collection of fleeces across the color range I intended to explore this season. I also pulled together a beautiful set of non-wool yarns to incorporate into the scarves. I’ve been mentally working through some new designs and ideas I’m excited to try. When October came I was ready to hit the ground felting. That means taking over the dining room table, raising it up about six inches to spare my back as I lay out the scarf design and felt the fleece into submission. One of my ideas was to lay out a bunch of single ply merino wool yarn and try to bring it together with a minimal amount of fleece. It worked! Or at least it held together—the color combination isn’t ideal, but it’s a proof-of-concept piece. It kind of reminds me of a cocoon. It’ll probably end up in the collection of some local avant garde diva. Another idea I had was to incorporate many small holes into the body of the scarf. I realized that I could laminate material to create holes in one layer of the scarf on top of a solid layer. When the scarf dried I thought the concept was pretty interesting. My next attempt will be to laminate two layers, both with holes, into different levels of the scarf. Last year I also created a big ruffled edge look on some scarves that were well received, so I’m working on creating some new pieces on that theme. In all these new designs I’m trying to broaden my color palette. I want to incorporate some more oranges and earthy tones into my scarves. That takes me out of my comfort zone of jewel tones and reds, but I think a lot of people are drawn to scarves with an earthier feel. No matter what, I’m having fun creating new things. Now I just need to step up production!

Too much scarf work, with lots of rolling back and forth in the wet felting process, was pretty hard on my back and neck last week. I went through a bit of acetaminophen to try to get my body back on track. On top of my new morning Zumba workouts I’m getting all the exercise I ever wanted. You’d think that would earn me some kind of reward, and it did! It turned into a pie week. We got a batch of giant Mutsu apples at the farmer’s market last Saturday. There’s a lot less peeling if you buy big apples, I’ve learned. I helped peel the apples and Jim mixed them with a few secret spices and sugar and popped them into a delightful crust. On Wednesday evening, a wonderful fall apple pie emerged from the oven! My breakfasts this week have often been a slice of pie, a cup of coffee and a little whipping cream, all in a quiet spot with the morning paper. Who could ask for anything more?

Until next week…

Martina Celerin