March!

Time to change your desktop calendar.

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My new toy

One of my wonderful daughters-in-law gave me a present the other day.  She had been at a weaving workshop and got the chance to buy a leather bracelet that is also a tape measure.  It wraps around your wrist twice with just enough slack so you barely notice it's there.  Unwrapped, it's 17 inches long (or 40 cm).

She said she thought I might find this useful.  And she was so right -- not even two hours later, I was walking down the street with two of my gallery colleagues, looking at the temporary vinyl signs that a neighboring business had hung on its fence.  We were thinking about signs, and somebody said "How tall do you think that sign is?  Maybe 24 inches or so?"  I started to eyeball it, and then I remembered!

"WAIT!  Look what my daughter-in-law just gave me!!"  I whipped it off my wrist and measured the sign (it was 30 inches).  Rarely has a gift meant to be useful proven its worth in such a short time!

Having never seen an accessory like this before, I was surprised to see, the very next day, the same bracelet on the arm of a friend of mine whom I saw at an art fair.  Synchronicity in the universe!   (She thought she was ordering the same color that I have, but it came pale and raw.  Since she dyes things for a living, she just dunked the leather in some red dye and got this beautiful coral.)

I plan to continue wearing mine every day.  Who knows how frequently it will be whipped into action -- I suspect quite a bit.  Thank you Kristin!!  I'm so glad we married you.

Found poetry 9

"Demo at Lindale 2018 1" --- Sold

This is my first demo at Lindale workshop. Dark bottles and some fruit. I really don't know what kind of fruit at the front is. I don't think it does not matter. They are for the taste of the eyes. They manipulate the light the fruit way.

Kimono challenge -- my response

Last fall I wrote about the kimono challenge in our local fiber and textile art group, and showed photos of several of the different things that people made.  But I never got around to showing you a picture of my own pieces.

I made two small hand-stitched pieces with bits of kimono fabric stitched on top of larger kimono backgrounds.  Mostly running stitches, in a variety of different threads, with french knots for emphasis.

I did a lot of experimenting with different threads.  Silk thread felt elegant and I thought there was a certain karma to using it on the silk kimono fabrics, but even doubled, it made a pretty faint line.  Rayons and polyesters worked the same way.  They were fine as background running stitches but didn't have the substance to make assertive french knots.

After trying every thread in my stash, or so it seemed, I found two spools of variegated Aurifil cotton in the very heavy 28 weight.  I don't know why I bought them in the first place, because Aurifil is an expensive toy to get if you don't have a plan for it.  But the ivory-pink-coral-rust colorway looked just perfect with my pink and coral fabrics, and made beautiful, fat french knots.  I had so much fun making the knots that I started piling them densely on, totally covering the background.

Before I display these in public I'll have to come up with a way to mount them.  I'm thinking of affixing them to wood panels, like the ones I've been using for collage.  The contrast of the soft fabric with the hard panel seems appealing.  I'll let you know how that works out!