Practicing for their synchronized sleeping competition.

Out the Front Door

the very beginning of snow

This week I had some great finds of vintage fabrics, mostly linen tea towels from the early 80’s late 70’s, making for a really wild and interesting batch of potholders.

Master Gardner course

Tomorrow I start my Master Gardener training. I have wanted to do this for a very long time and finally I have applied and will be extricating myself from the studio, to go to class 2 mornings a week for the next ten weeks. Not really sure what I’ve gotten myself into, but will soon find out.

False Flowers

Shipping Day

Custom box building, to ship work in, is my most inane task as an artist. Once I get over that idea and before I realize I’ve made some drastic mathematical error I actually enjoy doing it. This one turned out mathematically speaking pretty well, although I did loose interest in tape neatness.

Pot Holder Production

I found some great black and white vignette material that makes great pot holders particularly with vintage aqua linen in between.
New pot holders will arrive at The Muse on Tuesday and on my Etsy shop throughout the week.

New piece or Finishing the last piece

I just finished and photographed "Displacement Triptych" today. Image and paperwork are in the mail for tomorrows deadline and if the frame arrives on schedule, it will actually get to Snyderman-Works Gallery for the 7th International Fiber Biennial, opening Feb 5th.

Stitching

Bead work done. Four different white. Onto thread.

Amaryllis 2010 Early January Bloom

Amaryllis 2010 is a little obscene in it's enthusiasm. No sign of 2009 blooming yet.

stitching

A little stitching work got done yesterday before heading to town on account of no dog food in the house, which had lead to a breakfast of Soba noodles with peanut butter for the dogs that morning. It was actually their 3rd creative meal of the New Year, all of which was much more exciting to them than their normal “healthy“ dog food.
Today, dogs properly feed, I stitched a good half day and I am looking forward to hot white bean soup cooked on the wood stove and fresh baked bread after a walk home in howling cold wind.

stitching

I will be stitching every day, most likely, until the 12th to finish a new piece for the "7th International Fiber Biennial" opening in Febuary at Snyderman- Works Gallery .

Sunday's Family Dinner

Last Sunday Jerry and I did a sit down dinner for 18, his family and my daughter, all squeezed into our little house. We made marinated broiled leg of lamb, mashed potatoes, a clementine/radicchio/baby greens salad and fresh baked onion rye bread followed by zabaglione with thawed red raspberries we picked last summer. The wine was great and the dinner was a fantastic success, after much deliberating over what to cook that everyone would eat.

Houston

The Japanese Tea House in Herman Park.

Galveston

A little side trip on our visit to Houston, to walk on the beach and look around.

The New Wood Rack

Jerry finished the new wood rack just in time for our first snow and then we got out of town and headed south for a week, missing our first real winter weather I hear. I love the new wood rack, the posts are made of locally fallen black locust that Jerry milled with a chain saw and the tin roof is salvage material. It's very near both doors, much more accessible in the dark and foul weather than the main wood rack behind the house, and this spring when we renovate the brick patio I think it will be beautiful with the stacked wood. Between the original and the new wood rack there's enough space for a winter’s worth of dry wood, we are hoping.

Some new padded pouches

I was sewing like crazy before leaving for Houston last weekend, mostly making pot holders for The Muse and pouches for Madison Arts Exchange. Next week I'll be adding these pouches to my Etsy Shop. I still have to photograph them as I couldn't get a good photo shoot in before leaving.

walking along the river

It's so warm here, for late November, things are still alive and it seems like the light is different, shifting to winter as the landscape remains suspended and the leaves are rotting in the water a lot longer creating fascinating surfaces.

I made a photo series of water surface images today on my walk that I am posting to Facebook.

Trees reflected in water

The Potomac River and C&O Canal in Brunswick Md near my house, looking like a fairy tale.

Happy Birthday Mom!

It's in the mail.

New Hand Stitch Work

"Undertow" 10"x 15"
Hand stitched glass beads, hand embroidery and acrylic paint on linen.

Well, my sabbatical from the studio lasted a good long time, much longer than I realized.

Partly I’ve been Gardening a lot since spring, mostly for clients, but also getting my Studio garden ready for a local Garden Tour, which was great, and we grew almost all of our produce this summer in our home garden and I have a little public garden I take care of as a volunteer. I also made a lot of handmade pot holders and bags to sell. All this is under the theory of diversifying my income stream to not just rely on Art sales. And I’ve been taking a lot of photographs, just for the pleasure of it. As much fun as I’ve been having, it was absolutely wonderful to get back in the studio and start a new piece this month.

I love this smaller format right now and want to do a series tentatively titled “Postcards from the Garden” but maybe not that sappy sounding. This piece does have flowers, as do many of my pieces, however I am more interested in pattern, the tension of the decorative quality and the process of tending. Well, more on all this later. I have a pie to bake.

A wonderful fall in Maryland

Last Sunday was a perfect, warm, sunny, fall day. We drove the back roads near home and bought apple and cider. Tonight I am going to make an apple pie, yum!

Beautiful New Pot Holders

This is a particularly nice batch of pot holders, featuring some great vintage fabrics. There heading to the Muse tomorrow. If your in Frederick Md, check them out, they make great presents.

A Little Bag Attention

Lilithevy has a wonderful Esty collection that includes one of my bags posted on her Blog. Thank you Eve!

Featured Bag

Joline of blackmustard has posted her list of top 12 bags on etsy, which includes my Flap Bag- short taupe and lime linen. Be sure to check out this wonderful collection. Thank you Joline.

New Pot Holder

I'll be listing new Pot Holder on Etsy in the next few days.

Weekend in Up State NY

It was a perfect weekend and so very needed, we were really over done and hanging out in this wonderful space and garden Chris and Vicky are creating was magical.

It’s so interesting as a gardener driving 6 hours North and experiencing what at home will not come for another month or so. The night we arrived was the first light frost enough to loose the basil and 2nd night a heaver frost, which we prepared for. Then traveling back to Maryland and finding our basil at its peak of production, note-to-self, deal with the basil soon. It’s not like you forget, but the graphic reminder sure made an imprint.

We brought home lots of onions right out of the ground (for now and to store) and purple and red potatoes as well as collected seeds of 1/2 a dozen flowers that I'll be starting next spring for our gardens and clients.

High visibility Art

Michael Bopst stopped by yesterday evening to show us his latest "Death Mask" painting, painted directly on the side of his van. Truly inspiring!

Evening River