Playing with Silk

I am posting these pictures just so that you know that I'm not sitting in front of the tv watching MSNBC all day and night (only all night!). Now, given the temperament of the country right now, that wouldn't be a bad thing to do, but I am trying to keep busy, and not obsess too terribly on the political scene.....not that that is a bad thing either! So here is my Holly Leaves (really catchy name, I know!) scarf for 2008:


I began this scarf by layering two coats of Japanese acid dyes on the stretched crepe de chine scarf. During the application of the second layer, I added some salt and also some alcohol (you can probably see those effects if you enlarge the picture above). Then I removed the scarf from the stretcher frame, steamed it, and stenciled on the holly leaves with thickened dyes (this is a stencil I made using leaves off of the holly tree outside of my studio). I also drew in the ribbony vines/branches and added the gold holly berries. I wasn't very pleased with it, so this morning I really doctored it up:


Elaine from West Virginia had emailed me and said that I had mentioned here about discharging with turquoise and she wondered how to do it. I told her that I had learned the technique from my friend Gerrie and gave Elaine the 'recipe'. That got me thinking about discharging on this scarf. So I made up a stamp of another holly branch off of my tree and stamped on the discharge paste, both with and without turquoise. I love how it looks! Here's a detail shot:


We awoke to blessed rain again this morning, so Barker and I had to delay our walk....and since there is no walking allowed on the golf course after 8:00 AM, we were relegated to walking the streets in the hood. Well, I got busy in the studio and the next thing I knew it was almost 1:00 PM and we still hadn't walked. The sun was shining and it was getting warm, so we took off walking: Barker hadn't eaten his breakfast yet, and I hadn't had my lunch! We got about a mile away and the rain began again! WooHoo!!! We plodded on, enjoying the moment/s and raindrops, and by the time we returned home, it was really coming down! Of course, it stopped almost immediately after we got back inside the house! Oh well.......our drought is so severe that we'll take anything at this point!

What, you might ask, is Garrison Keillor doing on my blog? Well, I'll tell ya (ooooooooops, hope I don't sound too much like Miss Alaska there!): my cousin Heather sent me this link, and you might just find it entertaining.

Hmmmm, and now who is this handsome young miss and what is she doing here on my blog?


You betcha! It's none other than Maureen Dowd! Go here to read another one of her great editorials.

and then there's this one (which happens to be about 'That One')..........and if you don't have time to read it, I'll just cut and paste the last little bit, which is almost too funny for words:

Palin finally took questions on Tuesday from her traveling press corps on her campaign plane. Asked if she thought Senator Obama was dishonest, McCain’s Mean Girl meandered:

“I’m not saying he’s dishonest, but in terms of judgment, in terms of being able to answer a question forthrightly, it has two different parts to this. The judgment and the truthfulness and just being able to answer very candidly a simple question about when did you know him, how did you know him, is there still — has there been an association continued since ’02 or ’05, I know I’ve read a couple different stories. I think it’s relevant.”

Of course she does.

PEACE, HOPE, CHANGE:
OBAMA/BIDEN!!!!