lots of things, and a pendant :D

I know, I know, serious blogging did not happen Friday... or Saturday for that matter. My only excuse, I've actually been rather busy and got some things done. I spun some yarn for myself, I set LOTS of yarn. Eight skeins to be exact and have begun building up my inventory of jewelry for this year's shows. I've been told that the first few months of the year are perfect for this and I am beginning to understand why. The weather of course sucks so all the more reason to stay in and be productive BUT, also because you are lining up your year at that point for show season. You are applying or getting ready to do so at all the shows, and once they start you SO you just don't have time to get a lot done without some all nighters.

That being said, I've also been working on getting some long overdue projects to friends and family done. It is a very wonderful and unburdening process and every time I finished one of the pieces, I feel that a weight has been lifted.

One of those very projects was this pendant that I finished about two weeks ago for my dear friend Linette. She only asked me to make something for her from this fossil she gave me about 3 years ago...

What can I say, I'm a slow poke. I am very happy with how it turned out though and I sure hope she likes it too. :D

We had a fiber dying party on Saturday at Jill's. She just started carrying the Greener Shades dyes (you can find them in her etsy store here.) I was so impressed with these dyes. They are made without heavy metals and have excellent colorfastness, lightfastness, etc., etc. Basically they are everything wonderful about an acid dye without all bad stuff for you and the environment. Really vibrant colors! Here are a few snaps of what we got out of em' on our first try.

I dyed a few different types of fiber but not very much of anything because I spent the day properly cleaning my now very beautiful alpaca that I had been hoarding. Kathy was kind enough to show me the way that she has found works best and carded all the dirty fiber prior to cleaning it so it went super smoothly for me. Thanks Kathy!!!  I will post pictures of my dry fiber hopefully on Tuesday.

There will be a shop update on Tuesday with a sneaky peak on flickr and the blog tomorrow (monday.)

another show added!

Well, I have officially decided to do another show. Michigan Fiber Fiesta will take place in Greenville, MI on May 15, 2010. It is the first year but I already see some of my favorite vendors on the list. :D

More details are available at the website. 

Tomorrow there will be serious blogging. I have shop updates, that pendant I never got round to posting about,.... oh just all kinds of things.

a little surprise...

Well, I just finally got around to starting to read this round of magazines from my recent trip to the bookstore. Imagine my surprise when the Artful Blogging I had had lying around for nearly two weeks had the little blurb in my "About Me" section referring to their magazine reprinted on their BUZZ page with my blog address below it. I was pretty tickled to say the least. :D

a shawl pin

Well, after much griping, encouragement, requests, and what have you, I have finally completed a shawl pin. I definitely hemmed and hawed a bit about it myself too because I have never been one to really wear shawls or pins for that matter but I am so pleased with the final result of this one that was made for my dear friend Jill that I will be making more of them. It was made to fit with my line, Cosmic Poppies. I currently only have earrings in this line but I soon will have some pendants and more shawl pins. Of course, I will be posting some pix when I get them all finished. :D

 

The first photo shows it in use on one of my friend Kathy's beautiful handwoven scarves. Kathy is an amazing weaver, spinner, and all around artist. You can find out more about her from her website here.

The second photo captures a bit more of the warmth of the copper but still is not an ideal photo. The next one I make I will definitely be photographing at home and not as it is about to leave my hands. :D 

Well, whaddya think?

Next time: A pendant

phew!

Well it was a fruitful Friday evening to Saturday morning. I have been meaning to rephotograph my geode piece for some time now to submit it to the 500 Felted Objects book from Lark Books for some time now but, after trying unsuccessfully for about an hour I decided to go with the photos my professor took back in college for me. I did however get some slightly better photos of my pomegranate piece Rich in Antioxidants, to submit.

After struggling with my printer and filling out all the paperwork I finally finished getting everything together which was a good thing because it needed to be post marked by today. I had to mail a few other things this morning too, (like two checks with applications for fiber shows I'll be doing in the fall,) so Adele and I rushed off to the post office this morning just in the nick of time. Now I've just got my fingers crossed that my images and pieces were good enough to be published.

 I dusted off the carder and had a rip roaring time with it for the first time in a while and made some batts for the shop as well as a monster of a batt for myself. :D

I actually have used my carder lately, it has just felt like more of a chore than the fun it normally is but I was feeling inspired and experimental so things went great! I just listed these in the shop:

 I also have listed another candy bracelet in a new colorway in the shop. I'm calling it "Glee."

In other news, I started teaching my second metals class on Thursday. It is another cold connection class and we are focusing on boxes and lockets. If it was possible, I think I was more nervous this time around than I was during the last class. Some of that was alleviated when I realized that two of the 4 people in my class were in my last class (phew! and a big compliment that tells me I must be doing something right,) and the fact that the other two women are really kind and excited to be there. I am really excited to see what comes out of this class. There are some really creative women and all of them are very motivated. We are covering more advanced techniques including hinges and scoring and folding. I am so thrilled to be able to teach these techniques because when I learned them at Penland a few years ago they really opened a lot of new possibilities for me so it will be really rewarding to pass them along. 

Now I just have to:

• get lesson plans done for next week
• finish my mom's birthday present (which was last month btw)
• finish the present for my friend Jill
• get a submission ready for Lark Books 30 Minute Rings

and a host of other things.... 

I had an incredible dream last night where I walked into the basement and suddenly there was this door that I had never noticed before. I opened it and it let to the most beautiful space in a walkout basement. There were so many windows and tons of light coming it and it was completely empty with concrete floors ready for me to make it into a studio. It was so perfect and lovely and all I had to do was move everything from the portion of the basement I have my studio in currently over there. Needless to say, I was a bit disappointed when I woke up. It's nice to dream though... :D and now, back to work! 

AARGH!

The cat is eating the dog's food (because the dog can't seem to keep it in his mouth,) there is a massive amount of snow falling in the great mitten state (my car nearly slid completely off road twice today while I was going a mere 15 mph, ) and I have a sick kiddo on my hands. I scrubbed and scrubbed the floor in her room to no avail... it still smells like sick.  Except now it smells like sick, citrus bac-out cleaner (when I was still trying to be enviromentally friendly and usually this stuff works like a charm,) and bleach (when I said to hell with the Earth, I need to get this smell out!!!)

Did I mention I cleared the driveway too? Still another 4-6 inches on it's way and we have gotten at least that much.

Recently, a friend was talking about taking her snow day, I would like to take mine NOW, and by now I mean the rest of the week. I want to stay at home and card, and spin, and work at my bench.

Just so that this post isn't a complete rant ...

I finished a really wonderful book today. It is called Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. I had seen it at the bookstore several times and was quite drawn to it. Unfortunately, I just can't quite bring myself to pay bookstore prices so I decided to wait till it was available at the library. It is set in the 1930's traveling circus and is "told" by a man named Jacob. It was a lovely book skipping between his time working with the circus and what led him there, to what would be his present time as an elderly man in an assisted living home. Excellent read for sure. :D 

featured in a treasury :D

Diana of fiberfancy featured some of my yarn in this lovely little treasury! She creates such gorgeous fibers! I'm especially partial to her hand dyed locks. :D