CAUTION: Work in Progress

After spending a huge portion of the long night coughing, I haven't been the least bit energetic.  Work on the  rug layout that I will be felting, hopefully Monday has been almost nil.  For me, this is the time in the project that is either a make or break for a project.  I have been out to the studio, added a touch here, taken away something there, blended a color here, added color there.  For me, this is what takes my project from "that's good" to "wow!"  I am not yet to wow. 

I do have to admit that my wow is not always John's wow.  And often John will say "stop, that's perfect" and I an driven to do a tad more.  My artist daughter always says a good artist knows when to stop.  I usually know when it is time. For me, it is like having a meat thermometer in a roast. It's done when it's done.

I have been asked to explain the process of "painting" a picture with fiber.  Here is a bit of explanation of what I do.  

  Here, I am creating a blank canvas of sheep's wool in the form of  batts.  I then add a second layer from the batts in the lower left corner.









That is the easy part. 

Next I begin to lay color to begin the painting.  As I said before, this is going to be a primitive looking piece. 

This is going to take a lot of shading and I believe the water pool needs to be larger.  The "mountains" are not showing up in the colors I have here. All of this is fiber that I have dyed and processed.  When it is completed, I will share the finished product. 

Earlier in the week I worked on some felted clothing.  I wanted to try to make a shrug.  It turned out quite nicely. 

This process is called nuno felting.  Nuno felting is when you lay your fibers on fabric.  I used silk chiffon in this project.  Whenever a piece is being made, shrinkage must be taken in consideration.  Here you will see that I have laid the silk out and am applying a very thin fiber.  This shrug will be very thin and drapey. 

Here you wee the fiber laid out on the silk gauze.  This is a completed project minus the closure.  When I get the closure applied, I will also show you this finished project. 

Having projects to finish is the bane of my artwork!  I have three hats, the shrug and the rug to finish.  Next week will be my UFO week.  (Un Finished Objects week).  I have only Monday through Wednesday to finish everything since we will be leaving for COWS Thursday.

OH, yesterday I said that I could not remember what COWS stood for.  Here it is - I sure hope I remember this correctly......Let's try Creators Of Wonderful Socks. 

Regardless............this time next week we will be motorhoming!  Whoopee!

That's all tonight....be save everyone and God Bless!

A Day of Challenges

Today's challenges have not been monumental.  They are just challenges.  But for some reason, they bug me today.  The heat, the air quality, the sock machine, the silk worms, the grass to cut, the weeds to pull, the motorhome floor to finish, the kitchen to finish as well as painting the house so we can sell it.  That's all. 

Today, the heat has been oppressive and the resulting air quality has made for a difficult day for John with his emphysema.  Working on the motorhome floor is impossible after about one o'clock in the afternoon.  He is so eager to get the flooring down and it is discouraging for him.  He pushes himself further than he should and this is a concern for me. 

The sock machine and I had a round today.  I am using a new / different yarn and am having a terrible time making all the adjustments.  I've knitted and ripped out more times than I can count!  As I have said before, this is a HUGE learning curve.  On the positive side though, I have found the perfect number of rows to fit my foot.  The first socks were too large for my feet, but the last pair.....just right.   What is so funny is that as I was ripping out a sock for the umteenth time, I was thinking that maybe I should get my spinning wheel and spin.  I had to laugh at myself.  When I was learning to spin, I would think that maybe I should just go felt something.  Nothing like wanting to take an easier road.  

The silkworms.....I have three very stubborn fellas.  They just don't want to stop eating those mulberry leaves and make their cocoons.  I have had cocoons for four days now, but these guys keep hanging on and eating.  I still can hear these three chewing on the mulberry leaves.  At first, as wee babes, they needed the youngest, most tender mulberry leaves.  Now they enjoy the large, mature leaves.  When I go out to cut more branches, I see those young, tender leaves and thing, ooooh they will like these.  I put the leaves in the silkworm container and what do these fellas want?  The old, hairy, tough leaves.  I guess my love of the spring mix for salads does not equate here.  I love the young and tender.

You can see the two coocoons and the worms here. 

I am tempted to reduce the amount we are cutting.  With the price of gas, I feel it is a waste of money.  It takes a lot of gas to cut 5 acres every 3 or 4 days.  The grass is still growing at a speedy rate and with most of our grass being out of sight, why not? 

And the weeds.  I just wish everything were level and we could just cut it all down....The woes of summer and home / mini farm ownership. 

We did have a cool visitor today.  I really do not know what it is.  It looks a bit like a dragon fly, but I don't think it is.  "He" was resting on the side of our house and I saw him as I was sitting at the circular sock machine.  Maybe you will be able to tell me it's name. 

Dinner is ready, time to go.....God bless all tonight~!

Happy Birthday Ross!

Today is our grandson Ross' birthday.  You can see Ross' pictures along the side of this blog.  He is a hoot and a sweet, sweet boy!  We will be attending his birthday party Saturday.  Some of his gifts came from our travels this winter.  While at the Grand Canyon, then at Joshua Tree Nation Park, we admired the cutest Junior Park Ranger outfit - including a Ranger hat!  We didn't get it and now we are so sorry!  Next year! 

The sun has been shining all day.  Most of the ground is no longer wet so I mowed.  It was good to be outdoors and I plan on working outside again tomorrow - if the weather man will let me.  I still cannot get all the way back on our 5 acres.  A huge "pond" of standing water blocks the way.  I think we will have to bale it if it does not dry up soon.  If not, we will have to have a bush hog and that's expensive. 

What do you think about the price of gas?  It has gone down from $4.29 to 4.15 in the last two days.  Thank goodness the Miata gets wonderful mileage.  We have just parked the truck for now.  I sure wish Obama would do something about the gas prices. 

I want to knit another sock on my circular sock machine tomorrow.  Looks like I have a big day planned!  Oh, I also have a hat in the studio that I need to finish felting.  The St. James Art Show in Louisville, KY is sneaking up on me.  Art shows, fiber shows, oh my! 

Have a great day all!  Blessings....

Trip Modification

After some thought, we have decided that we are trying to pack too much trying to pack too much into two months. We have cut our trip to the south east, Florida, Gulf Shores and New Orleans from our trip. Instead, we are heading to California to see Jojo and to Texas to enjoy new sights and experiences. In essence, we have cut our miles in half! Less time driving, more time enjoying!

We made that mistake last fall on our trip to North and South Carolina and Virginia. Being our first extended trip, we tried to pack too many "places to see" into 4 /12 weeks. This time, we travel smarter, not harder. Wow, we leave in just over a week!

On a fiber note, my waste yarn finally arrived yesterday. Now I can begin to use my antique circular sock machine! I've made only one sock so far and that was with Mary Ann, a wonderful and patient teacher. Now, to have a go at it on my own! I'm so sure there is a very steep learning curve, so here I go! That's okay though. John will be learning to weave on his rigid heddle loom and I will be on my Legare 400 making socks. You know, all that travel time we are saving? That time will be spent weaving, making socks, fishing, hiking etc. Sounds like a super trade-off to me!

Gentlemen, Get Ready to Start your Engine!

With the holidays over and the hardwood floors installed in the house, we are a few steps closer to leaving the Indianapolis area and heading on to warmer country. The Motor Home is at Edmundson RV, located in Taylorsville, IN for it's oil change, brakes, new water closet and a few other minor repairs to make our road trip worry free, (we hope) and more comfortable. Since we are new to this lifestyle, we are learning new things every day as we read the blogs of those more experienced. Oh, what a learning curve!

As of today, our first stop will be Savahna, Ga. Then on to Florida to watch the launch of the last space shuttle. Once we have experienced that, we are off to Gulf Shores, Alabama to meet up with family for a day or so then to New Orleans. After that, it is off to California to visit with daughter #2. After this, we hope to spend time in south west TX before heading home for the Smoky Mountain Fiber Festival in Townsend TN March 18 -20. From there, we head to Bowling Green, OH for the Black Swamp Market Day on March 26.

During all this time, we will be stopping off at antique shops and yarn shops seeking our dreams. We dream of any fiber related item, and John, also, of coins. Since I have discovered the antique circular sock machines and knitted my first sock, I'm on the look-out for more sock machines. Oh, my gosh, what fun the sock machine is....and when good at it, I will be able to knit a pair of socks in an hour....did you hear what I said???? AN HOUR!!!! Holy cow! I'm on one pair of socks I started knitting at the Michigan Fiber Festival in August of 2009! These sock machines were popular in the late 1800's and early 1900's. Many were sold or given to people to knit socks for the soldiers in the war. Now, these machines make socks that exceed the quality of any sock made in China or wherever.

John has started weaving on his birthday present I purchased at the southern Indiana Fiber Festival in Corydon, IN. He is learning to weave on a rigid heddle loom. I have a 4 harness loom, but he wanted to "start small" and work up...He's about to get hooked!

The drawback to this trip? My niece, who is more like a sister (6 yrs diff), is having total knee replacement. I wish I could be here to walk through the experience with her since I had my first TKR 12 years ago and my second 4 years ago.

Enough for now, but as the "blast off" date grows closer and arrives, there will be more.

quote of the day: "Success if the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." Winston Churchill