The Party's over :-(

I'm kinda sad because the Shibori party at Nancy Crow's Barn in Baltimore, Ohio is over. My flight was scheduled to leave a little after 4 yesterday afternoon, so I hitched a ride to the airport with Sonia, one of my classmates. Our final presentation and critique was scheduled for before lunch, we enjoyed one last meal prepared by the fabulous Margaret, and then we packed up and departed. It was difficult to leave this fun group. What a fabulous bunch of ladies!

The piece below is the result of the fabric that Donna was wearing in two pictures here

isn't that phenomenal? I just love that piece of fabric!

Here's a piece that I labored over for several hours on Thursday (or was it Wednesday?). First, it was pleated, then it was sewn to the pipe, then scrunched, then tied, then dyed, then dried, then immersed, then rinsed, then washed, then dried. Phew! I do love the piece!

and here is my little quilt, with all of it's components organized and ready to be stitched together:I really love it! So, if you want to learn how to make some fabulous Shibori, sign up for a class with the true Master: Jan Myers-Newbury.............she's the best!

PEACE

Scenes from a Classroom

This was Thursday, Day Four, of our five days of Shibori with the very talented Jan Myers-Newbury. I thought I'd show you a few scenes from our classroom, and some of the clowns with whom I've been clowning around for the past few days. What a great group of gals!

This is how my favorite pieces looked this morning when I arrived in class:

Someone or somebodies had neglected to deconstruct 'the bar' after last night's toddy party

We each had our own commodious wall space upon which to hang our work. If you enlarge the pic below, you will see that this is Jan's work:
Aside from being a great teacher and oh so very talented, she is extremely organized and bound and determined to get everyone's desired dyes mixed in a timely fashion so that pieces can be processed. She 'works' like a well oiled machine.....and we all are so appreciative!

This is Donna, one of our many class clowns:

And this is 'Christmas" as we get to view our finished pieces for the first time after they've come out of the dryer:

Here is Wendy.............a horrible picture of a lovely Texan: lovely inside and out, plus a very talented fiber artist!

And this is my piece as I left it this evening...........thanks to a little help from my friends! I may move a few more pieces around in the morning, but I'd love to get a good bit of sewing done on it tomorrow before I go home.

PEACE

Pictures!

It's early in the morning and Mary, my roomie, is in the shower, so I thought I'd try to upload some pics. It worked! WooHoo! It's taken about five minutes to upload each of these pics individually, so I haven't done many..........and those that I am including here are detail shots of my own work. Hopefully I can show you some of my classmates' lovely pieces this evening.

Hope you have a great day.

PEACE

BUMMER!

I have a gazillion beautiful pictures to show you tonight, from another wonderful day of Shibori at the Barn with Jan Myers-Newbury......but Blogger is being very uncooperative, so I guess you will just have to wait another day? I am very tired, having awakened at 5:45 this morning, eagerly anticipating another day in class. Jan went around the classroom this morning, and had each one of us shared our plan for our quilt, in order for us to narrow down the manner in which we would be doing our shibori, and also decide on our color palette. It was so helpful to me, and also gave each of us the opportunity to really admire our classmates' pieces............after all, there are 21 of us! We spent the afternoon and early evening clamping, wrapping, twisting, stitching, stirring, rinsing, washing, drying, ironing, and hanging our lovely pieces. It's truly a labor of love, this Shibori.

So, I'm outta here for tonight, but please come back tomorrow if you want to see some yummy dye works!

PEACE

We Have Pictures!

We're takin' it easy this evening and don't really have any homework, except to 'have a plan' for the art quilt we intend to construct using some of our fabrics. Jan has instructed that we now must have a goal when we are dyeing....no more playing around, not that that wasn't important in the first two days of class! It's been truly wonderful: I've learned so much, all 21 of us get along beautifully, and the facility is pretty phenomenal....and should I tell you about the meals???? Margaret Wolf is an incredible chef. She feeds us very healthy, fresh, and delicious meals....all with a smiling face....and she knows our names!

This photo is of a small portion of the dye studio (our classroom is next door and equally as spacious). Here, some of my classmates are doing direct dye applications to their fabric. The pieces will dry and then be manipulated.

This is not the most complimentary photo of either Nancy or Jan, but I wanted to show you our dye pots while they are 'cooking'. Jan has a very methodical system, and after

one or two go rounds, we all know our rolls, and do well with the system.

Here's another shot of the dye studio with all of our mechanical resist implements laid out to dry.

OK, this is going to look a bit crazy, but I wanted

to show you the two pieces that I completed today that make my heart sing the very most. Unfortunately Blogger is not letting me do that, without posting more and more pics of one of the pieces. So please bear with me here! I hope you can get the idea. Aren't they pretty!

Of course my classmates, like Gerrie's friends Carol and Karen, are making some phenomenal pieces as well, but do you think I'm going to show you theirs, here? LOL!

PEACE

Shibori at the Barn

Today was Day One of my Shibori Class with Jan Myers-Newbury at Nancy Crow's wonderful Barn. What a place to take a class.........and what an amazing teacher! There are 21 in our class, including two Swedish ladies, which is most wonderful for me, considering my Swedish heritage!

Here is Jan demonstrating string-wrapping a pole:

This piece was done by Nancy....isn't it cool?

I thought I had taken pics of some of my pieces, but I can't find them right now. It's late, I'm tired, and we have an early start tomorrow morning: 8:30.

Night Night!

PEACE

Here, There and Everywhere

I've finally had a bit of time to play with my new laptop, and figure out the WebCam feature. I won't share the photos I've taken of myself just yet, but here's one of Barker relaxing in the condo....and as you can see, we've got the Tech/Virginia football game on the TV.

This afternoon we went to see "Around the World in Eighty Days" at the Balzer Theater in downtown Atlanta. I really loved the show: James Donadio was a real hoot, and of course Tom Keyes was fantastic!

Tomorrow I am heading out to another dream class: 5 days of Shibori with Jan Myers-Newbury at Nancy Crow's Barn! WooHoo!!!! Yes, I know: I am one lucky girl!!! :-) I hope I'll have lots of pictures and info to share.

PEACE

Finished: phew!

Remember the pics of the splattered paint on the fabric from a couple of days ago? Well, I've managed to make it into a tee in record time (for me, at least!). I'm really pleased with the outcome....and so is Ethel, my model. [I had a difficult time convincing her to take it off!] I've found a pattern that is relatively easy to construct, and it fits me to a tee (no pun intended!, after some tinkering, so you may grow tired of seeing photos of this tee over the next few months!

PEACE

and did I mention that

I LOVE TO GET MAIL???????? This lovely little postcard from Gerrie arrived in the mail

today! The colors are so vibrant and sooooo very Gerrie! Thanks Dear Heart: you truly brightened my day!

Speaking of brightening days, the photography class that I'm taking met on our local town Square this morning for a photo shoot.

What fun!!! Our professor gave us a long list of the types of photos she wanted us to shoot, and then we were on our own. It was a lovely October morning, and I just had a

ball. At one point, my good buddy Dr Sock and I got together for a few pics, as evidenced by the one at left.

We spotted these darling little mushrooms marching through a hellebore planter at the library.

My friends John and Troy have a wonderful flower shop on the Square. I love their outdoor displays......don't you?

Hope your day was sunny and bright!

PEACE

He's My Man

Back in mid summer, C and I discovered that Leonard Cohen was coming to Atlanta and would be performing at the fabulous Fox, which just happens to be within walking distance of our condo. Well, last night was the night, and indeed what a wonderful night it was! We had never before sat in the balcony at the Fox, and we've missed an awesome experience: you feel as if you are in the heavens, amid stars and clouds that actually move across the ceiling above (that sounds hoaky, but it's not, trust me). The view is great, and unlike the main floor, I don't think there's a bad seat. Leonard did not disappoint: he began almost on time, the show lasted for 3 1/2 hours, with only a brief intermission and included at least four encores, and he sang song after wonderful song that we all knew and loved so much. Mr. Cohen also treated us to several poetry recitations. We were among an eclectic audience: many contemporaries who grew up like us, loving Leonard in the late 60s and early 70s, and then a surprising number several generations behind us. All were well behaved and respectful, and Leonard gave us his all!

I see from the link that I've provided for you, that the tour is continuing across the country, so check it out and go see this legend, you will be glad you did!




Here's the latest piece that I'm working on....what do you think it'll be?

PEACE

I Love Mail!

Yesterday and today have definitely been red letter days in the mail delivery department at our house! WooHoo!
This is the piece that thrilled me most yesterday:

It's called a biscornus and it was designed and stitched by my wonderful blogger friend Eva. You can read more about these and see more of Eva's fabulous work here.

I had been gifted with two large bags of wool batt from my friend Molly's Mom, Judy, and since I knew that Eva prepared wool batt for her biscornus, I decided to share my wonderful gift with her. (Judy raises sheep and then when they are shorn, she has this wonderful batt. All of the lanolin feels so good on your hands....you almost hate to cover it up!) How thrilled I was to receive this biscornus in return! And since I'm doing so much more hand stitching these days, my gorgeous biscornus will get a lot of use! Here are two more views of it:














Also in the mailbag was a package containing a gigantic silk screen and squeegee from Pocono Screens. I can hardly wait to get started using it! Last but not least was a package from Dharma with some wonderful cotton scarf blanks. I'll share pics of these once they are dyed up.

And today my new laptop arrived! YAYYYYY!!!! So now I've got to finish up this post and go play with my latest new gadget!

PEACE

Goings On

Today was one of those wonderful days that you wished would never end. Do you have days like that? You become so involved in just being, doing, and enjoying each and every moment that you foolishly imagine that it will never end! HA!!! Anyway, I have really been wanting to do some gelatin monoprints so yesterday I mixed up some gelatin plates in eager anticipation of some play time in my wonderful studio.
Can I tell you just this one more time how nice it is to have TWO LARGE WINDOWS in my studio and TWO EYES that can clearly SEE!!!

Life is good y'all!

But I degress. I have been dreaming about several projects which curiously enough involve gelatin prints, a medium I seldom use or feel totally comfortable using. I got out my trusty guide, Rayna's book, and after reading her chapter on gelatin prints, I felt a bit more at ease in tackling this playday. (Just as an aside: when I took Rayna's class at John C. Campbell Folk School, I had a serious sinus attack and spent the morning with the Doc in the Box while Rayna and my classmates played with gelatin monoprints. Rayna graciously took her entire evening walking me through the process, but I've never felt really comfortable with it.)
I love this particular 'brand' of oak leaf, and was pleased to capture it on my gelatin plate. When Barker and I walked this morning, I grabbed a handful of leaves, hoping to print them. You may see more in days and weeks to come.



Then I got down and dirty with this plate, and really had some fun

Here are some of my prints hanging up to dry when my playtime was over:

As you may have heard, we are having our fair share of precipitation these days. According to C, my local weatherman, there were 4" of rain in our gauge by noontime Monday....and this is how our backyard looked:
It has continued to rain off and on since then, but thankfully our lake is no longer living in our backyard. The good news is that our Lake Lanier is back to full pool.....and October is supposed to be our dry month!

PEACE TO YOU

Oh So Proud!

What fabulous news to greet us as we awoke this morning! President Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize! What a great honor. I think of all of us now more as citizens of the world rather than individual countries, and I cannot help but believe that having President Obama as one of the world leaders, holds such promise for a bright future for all of us.

C and I have just finished listening to Three Cups of Tea on our commutes to and from our condo. Both Greg Mortenson and Mr. Obama are thinking upon the same lines. By the way, if you haven't read the book, I highly recommend it.

PEACE!!!

TaDa!!

This is the place where I'll be hanging out a good bit of the time from now on! YAYYY! My wet studio is now just about complete and I really love how it turned out! The big change is the set of windows over my counterspace and the coat of lemon yellow paint on the walls. I've also cleaned out and culled a ton of stuff that I've found I no longer use in my dyeing.

Here is how the same space used to look:

The one thing I've toyed with doing but opted not to do is have the floor painted. I've learned that painting concrete floors requires etching first and then painting. With all of the heavy cabinets and paraphernalia that I have in my space, it would be a huge headache to accomplish....and also more time away from my dyeing! So maybe in my next life I'll have the floors painted in my studio! Besides, this way I won't agonize over spilt dyes!


Last night I made this yummy pizza. MMMMM! I used the Chicken, Red Grape and Pesto recipe out of the September Cooking Light, and a wonderful whole wheat pizza crust recipe from the New York Times. I'll try to get both recipes printed up on my cooking blog in the next day or two. The pizza crust is easy and can be prepared up to 3 days in advance. The recipe makes two crusts, and one can be prepared and then frozen. That's my kinda cookin' for sure!

Ruth Powers was the guest speaker at my quilt guild yesterday morning. Since I know and love
Ruthie Powers of Next Signal Designs, I thought it important that I go meet Ruth Powers, admire her works, and hear her lecture. She is a very interesting person and her designs are fabulous. I think her poppies were my favorites.

All in all, it was a great day for me........hope it was for you as well!

PEACE TO YOU

Progress

Things are definitely looking up around here, and I hope they are in your neck of the woods as well!
Yesterday I spent several hours painting my dye studio walls a bright and cheery lemon yellow. With the new color on the walls, two large windows bathing the inside in lovely natural light, AND eyes free of cataracts, I know that I will be seeing everything much more clearly while I work. YAYYY!!! I hope to finish up the painting today or tomorrow and then I will post some pics.
We took Barker to the annual Blessing of the Animals at our church yesterday afternoon. I wish I had taken along my camera as there were some marvelous photo ops. There are now four Standard Poodles in our Parish: Lizzie a wonderful black; Ginger and Tanner, a brother-sister apricot combo; and Barker our beautiful white boy. Among those being blessed were two calves, a chicken, a few brave kitty cats, an iguana, and of course a multitude of dogs. It's always a fun event, and Barker seems to behave better for a while after the laying on of our dear Father Doug's hands.


You can see my Noro Scarf progress to the right. I am loving all of the color variations in the yarn!







I'm off to quilt guild this morning. Hope you have a great day!

PEACE TO YOU!!!