More Edinburgh, but not more cows. Here are three photos of our visit to Edinburgh Castle that go along with the Holiday Photos #20 post over on Beach Treasure. I try to divide the photos up into touristy ones and artsy ones, sometimes that works out in a pretty even split, sometimes it all seems to fall one way or another.

Choosing what photos to upload, and which photos to upload to which blog, it continues to amaze me that I somehow managed NOT to take any photos of so many scenes or objects I wish I could share with all of you. Mainly what I missed capturing were the small repetitive things that we found different and unusual (to us, as tourists) but grew used to and forgot we wouldn't see anymore when we got back home - signs, post boxes, little "ordinary" things. The other thing I wish I'd taken more photos of were larger street scenes. I was so busy pointing the camera up or down or at something, I often forgot to take photos of the "ordinary" settings I found the photo worthy images set in. It was an ongoing balance between capturing an experience in photos and simply enjoying the experience in the moment itself.

This is William standing inside one of the first gates of the castle. Notice the nasty spikes above his head.


This shows the view from up at the top. You can see a bit of that large park down below, and out at the edge of the horizon, water, although it just looks like sky in the photo. Maybe if you click on it to enlarge it. I'm not sure exactly what water it is, but it's a large body of water. If not the English channel, then probably it flows to it.


One of the buildings you could tour in the castle had recreations of what it must have looked like when it was used as a prison, mainly for sailors. This was supposed to be a shadow of prisoners that spread against a high wall across from a window into the cells. They had movement and sound to go with it. I suspect the real environment would have been far gloomier and it would have undoubtedly smelled horrible. Still, it was more interesting then being shown bare rooms with signs that said "here's what used to be here". There wasn't enough light to take photos of most of the recreations.

More cows. More art cows in Edinburgh. If you don't remember, or didn't read the other post about the art cows, here's a link to more info about them.

These cows look rather small, don't they. But no, that's a big ol' building - the national art museum actually. How did they get all those cows up there!? Remember, you can click on any of the photos to see larger images with more detail.

We thought these cows weren't part of the art cow exhibit. We thought they were a "real" sculpture - by that I mean a statue that was there all the time. But nope, these were just a more sophisticated take on the art cows.

This one is covered in pets - made by a pet shelter organization of some kind.

This one was atop the Mercat Cross. Again, we thought this might be a regular feature, being as it was a different shape than most of the other cows. But it was an art cow. A whole different take on Braveheart, eh?

I liked the "orangeness" of this cow. I like orange, it's an often misaligned color, in my opinion.


This was such a cool cow. When we came across him, he had graffiti all over him. It was so sad. I managed to wipe the paint off the head to take this photo. I didn't notice until later that I had caught an orange cone in the background. And that tiny man on the right edge. Although, perhaps those unexpected and odd distractions make the image more interesting. I'm not sure. I find I often have a love/hate feeling towards this sort of detail that "sticks out" or seems "out of place". For instance, an image of a country lane - does a modern car driving down the road make the image seem more active or does it spoil the picturesque setting? Does a sign on a street or a person in the doorway or a scrap of garbage laying in a pristine setting help or hurt an image? Back to the cow, I would have liked to take a photo of the entire cow, but there was too much graffiti to wipe it all down. Now that I think about it, maybe that would have been a picture worth taking in and of itself. Hmmmm.

Oh well, too late now. I guess that just goes to show that, when it doubt, snap the picture. Particularly now that digital photography means one doesn't have to count how many frames are left on the film or pay to develop it to see if you want it - just delete it.

Are there any more cow photos left? A few, I think. I know there are still a lot of Edinburgh photos left to share. Stay tuned for the next batch. And you can go on over to Beach Treasure to find some more, non-cow tourist photos too.

It all started, really, with pair of pink suede snow boots. I saw them on sale at Payless Shoes a few years back and thought they looked both cute and warm. They weren't serious snowboots. They were more snowslippers. All suede and fuzz. Even with soles, they aren't any good in slush or serious snow. But they're warm and flexible and work well for just popping out to Walmart, if I avoid the dirty puddles.

I'd wanted something like this. Maybe not pink. But the pink was cute. And on sale, so even if it wouldn't work with all my outfits, so what. I bought them.

It turns out, surprisingly, that pink plays well with lots of colors and even though most of my outfits are green or black or red or something else that isn't pink, I've gotten a lot of wear out of my pink snowboots.

So when I saw the fuzzy pink jacket at Macy's (which, normally, I wouldn't be shopping at a Macy's, but I was just along for an outing with some other shoppers), I knew I wanted it. Even if it didn't match anything in my wardrobe. I stood there in the store, fondling the soft minkee-like fabric, unhappily looking at the expensive price tag, trying to justify a new jacket - when it popped into my head that I already owned pink boots. That was the excuse I needed, and the jacket went home (well, back to Joe and Lisa's home) with me in a big holiday shopping bag. And, pleasant bonus, it ended up being on sale.

Unfortunately it was a Macy's in San Diego and it was waaaay too warm in San Diego to wear it at all until I flew home. I had to carry it onto the plane in San Diego, but when I stepped out of the airport in Reno into a freezing wind, I quickly slipped into it and - it's nice and snug.

It's so warm. It's so soft. And everywhere I go now I hear "Where did you get your jacket!" and "Do you mind if I touch your jacket?" And again, I'm happily surprised at how it goes with just about everything in my wardrobe. Unfortunately I can't find my snowboots. I probably put them away somewhere for the summer. Hopefully I can find them before the winter is over.

But that's not stopping me from wearing my new, soft, fuzzy, pink jacket. Except for one thing. It might match most of my clothing, but it doesn't match ANY of my scarves. And when it's eight degrees fahrenheit outside, one really needs to layer on a scarf. No problem though, it's a good excuse to knit a new one.

Here it is. See, it needs a scarf.



I found some pretty multi-colored 100% wool on my last shopping trip to Reno. It has a dark pink, a dark purple, a soft teal blue and a warm green. All colors that I don't have in any of my other scarves (that all tend towards warm colors I realized), so it was a good choice - the dark pink would match the light pink in the jacket and the other colors mean it might work well worn by itself with some of my other long sleeved winter shirts and sweaters.

Next step, come home and spend hours looking for a new pattern, something easy enough to do while watching tv but not the same ol' same ol' boring knit purl knit purl. I finally settled on the basketweave pattern I found on Crazy Aunt Purl. (I tried to link directly to the post but I couldn't get it to find the specific page - oh well, you can go to the blog and click on her knitting posts link.)

Here it is laying on top of sleeping William. Why? Because it's less boring and less embarrassing than laying on top of my kid stained and cat hair covered couch. You might notice that the colors of the yarn do NOT match William's wardrobe.


I've spent two evenings working on it now. I thought the pattern looked too thin, so I made it wider. Now that I've got a swatch of it done, I'm thinking - crap - now it's too wide. I don't want to keep knitting knowing that it's not working for me. But I don't want to tear it all out either. Sigh. Like it or not though, that's what I'm gonna have to do do. Maybe start over with just four "alternating sections - knit five/purl five/knit five/purl five. Maybe do something different. Make it ribbed instead. Tonight I'll wind it back up in a ball and decide what to do instead.

And it all started with a pair of pink suede snow boots...

I promised photos of the things I made recently as gifts, after they were gifted. Well, I didn't get as much done as I'd hoped, but here are two things I managed to finish. The first isn't anything spectacular, just a polar fleece blanket. Buy the polar fleece, tie the edges. Nothing could be easier. (except maybe buy the polar fleece, don't bother to make the tied edges, which is what I usually do for my own blankets). I made it for my daughter-in-law Lisa because she was complaining about how it didn't feel wintery down in sunny, warm San Diego. I couldn't resist getting this Charlie Brown and Snoopy winter comic fabric.

Here it is opened up so you can see the comic strips aspect of it. It was really cute because Lisa opened it and looked a little disappointed. I asked "Don't you like it?" or something like that. She said yes but "did she have to share it with the baby?" She thought it was yet another baby blanket. I told her no, it wasn't for Joli, it was for her, whereupon she got a big grin on her face.

Here's the other finished gift, this one indeed was for baby Joli. (if you've stumbled in here and don't know who Joli is, she's my new granddaughter - you can read all about her arrival here.) It's a little painted sign, done up in red, black, and white - the colors of her nursery. It didn't come out quite like I imagined it, but it still came out cute, doncha think? It looks washed out in the photo, in real life it's very saturated, bright colors.

I had a hard time finding a spot with a solid background to take a photo of it. I finally settled on this spot.

Fred says "Hey, I was trying to get some SLEEP HERE!"

Just poppin' in to say "Hi! I'm still here! I'm sorry I haven't posted anything new in a gazillion years."

I have been working on some crafty things. Unfortunately (for you, the viewers), most everything I'm working on is for holiday gift giving, so I can't show any of it just yet. As soon as anything is unwrapped (assuming I finish any of the projects), I'll be sure to post a photo or two.

In the meantime I spent this evening watching television (I can justify this in the middle of the holiday rush by the fact that I'm still a bit under the weather with some stomach bug thingie) and making new dolls for my blogs. I had an autumn themed one up at Beach Treasure, so I made a new winter themed one. Then I realized I didn't have a doll for this blog, so I made one. I couldn't find any dolls holding knitting needles or paint brushes or anything crafty, so I put myself in front of a quilt background, and I'm wearing a sweater and scarf that, theoretically, if dolls could knit and if that doll were actually me, I could have knitted. (Huh?) And I gave myself, meaning, my doll, a haircut because I got one in real life. My bangs aren't quite that short, but that's pretty close. Of course in real life there's a bit of gray in there, although I'm thinking of doing a bit of red henna in it. That might be nice for the holidays, yes? It looks a lot better then the straggly mess it had become, providing I remember to comb it.

And now I'm off to bed with the fourth Harry Potter book. I've been trying to finish rereading this for months now and one thing or another has gotten in the way. I really want to finish it up finally so I can watch the DVD with the Yule Ball scene before Yule.

Stay warm and dry folks. Keep those sewing machines whirring, knitting needles clacking and swishing.

You can go to Beach Treasure Holiday Photos #18 to find the post that corresponds with all these cow photos. I had a lot of fun trying to find different ways to take artsy photos of all these artsy cows. Here's a website to find out about the Cow Parade. And another website about Cow Parades in other sites.

Edinburgh is such a literary treasure, it's quite appropriate that the first cow we stumbled upon was a literary cow.

I think this cow was named "Summer". Here she is longing to join the other petals in the flower bed beyond. Please forgive the fuzziness of a lot of these photos. My new camera wasn't a big fan of low light settings and I couldn't tell that on the small camera screen. I didn't find out until I was back home viewing the photos on my computer.

Er, both William and this cow are giving me somewhat disturbing looks.

Here we have a cow on her way home from a trip to Edinburgh's free fine art museum. She looks like she was very inspired by the visit.

Here's a very modern art cow coming....

And another more pragmatic cow going.....

Where is she going? I don't know, but I'm sure she knows as she's obviously bringing a map.

Finished? Only for today. There are plenty of cow photos left for your viewing pleasure. I'll try to get moooooore cows uploaded tomoooooorrow.

Moooooooo.

Howdy folks - how is everyone doing? Working on all those homemade holiday gifts? Like I am?

HAHAHAHAA! That last little bit - "like I am" - that was really funny!

Nah, lately I'm not doing much creatively. I spent the first half of the month stuck in a circular angst - To nano or not to nano. Round and round and round. With occasional soirees to the keyboard with a bit of novel writing to try to keep up just in case I decided to choose to nano. ARGH! Grrrr! Gnashing of teeth. Wailing of spirit. There was a lot of staying up late (and by late I mean late for me, and late for me means practically dawn. Which of course led to a lot of sleeping at inappropriate hours of the day and night. Well, not night. But the day part.

Conversation with Sam yesterday when he called and woke me up at 11:30 am:

Sam: Hi.
Me: (trying to sound like I was already awake because he'd called yesterday at 12:30 pm and I'd admitted he'd woken me up and he'd lectured me about still being asleep in the middle of the day) Hi Sam.
Sam: Were you still asleep?
Me: (short pause) No.
Sam: Are you lying to me?
Me: (another short pause) Yes.
Sam: Why?
Me: Because I'm don't want another lecture on being asleep in the middle of the day.
Sam: So, now I've got to lecture you about lying instead!? Geeze woman! What am I going to do with you!?
Me: So, what do you want?....

Anyway....

Part of me wanted to write - holiday projects, cooking, cleaning, showering, laundry be damned! Another part of me was completely certain that if I didn't try to tackle a huge writing project at this particular point in time, I'd dive joyously into finishing all those projects I've somehow not managed to finish all year. And yet another part of me, perhaps the smartest part of me, figured that both the other voices were full of baloney and that no matter what I said I wanted to do, I'd probably end up doing things about the same as I always have, frittering away half of each day doing things like eating a bag of Smarties, watching Wheel of Fortune, cleaning up after the cats, fetching fast food for my teenager, and blogging (or other internet activities). Which is, basically, what I've been doing, although in theory I haven't made up my mind yet - that way I can't be said to be doing nothing because what I'm actually doing is PONDERING, which is an activity that is almost invisible to the naked eye.

I did go to an art showing the other night, Thursday to be exact, mainly by accident. I was cleaning up a pile of papers that had accumulated on the dining room table and came across an invitation to the showing at our local arts council. It said the showing was Thursday, Nov. 16, from 5-7 pm. And it just happened to be Thursday, Nov. 16, 5:15 pm.

I asked hubby if he wanted to come with me but he was happily wrapped up in his quilt, on the couch, with his tea and Rosie. So off I went by myself. It was a nice showing - a bit of pottery, a few painters, some photographers - all artists that work in some capacity for our local community college. There was food. There was drink. There was live music. Pretty fancy schmancy (or would that be artsy fartsy) for lil' ol' Susanville.

All teasing aside, it was nice. I particularly liked one artist's paintings. Vibrant colors. Really captured the idea of "light". I chatted with folks, some I knew, some I didn't. It was both relaxing and inspiring. It made me feel like I wanted to come home and create. Or take a few art classes at the college. Did you know I am one class short of getting my art degree? Of course now it's been so long that all my acumulated college credit is completely worthless. Well, not worthless to me. But as far as the college is concerned, it might as well have been classes taken back in the Dark Ages. So, maybe I'm not terribly serious about the art classes part. But it did make me want to come home and create. Okay, OKAY! It made me want to come home and watch Ugly Betty and Supernatural and eat popcorn do a jigsaw puzzle and read some blogs and a little bit of Neil Gaiman and sleep in until almost noon and then create. (No. I did not create. If you want to know what I did the next day instead, read my other blog.)

One more thing before I go back to watching comedians on BBC - I stumbled upon this little art video on YouTube and thought it was kinda fun to watch.

Oh, one more thing! And this one redeems me. I am working on a new knitting project. I can't give out any details because it's gonna be a gift and I don't want to spoil the surprise, but hey, I am doing a little creative something. Whew.

More castle photos to go with Holiday Photos #16 over at Beach Treasure. One can never have enough photos of rocks and moss, eh?

They had recreationists performing the day we visited. I liked the new through the window of the old.

Old castle, the bay in the background. A tiny glimpse of a banner in the bottom lefthand corner.

The birds took advantage of every nook and cranny.

Back when the castle would have been in use, the large concentric rings you see in the sides of this tower would have been where the wooden floor/ceilings would have been.

I had the most amazingly rejuvenating, artsy day yesterday. I went to an art show, wandered botanical gardens, and had other lovely adventures. This was one of those posts that really couldn't decide which blog it belonged on, so to hear the whole tale, I'll send you over to Beach Treasure. Be sure to check out all the artist's links I've included.

The only part of the day I'll share here are a couple photos I took on my walk through the autumn colors. I wanted to upload more photos, but Blogger is being sluggish today, I'm getting really frustrated, and I don't want to lose the entire afternoon to watching that little uploading circle go round and round. So I guess these two will have to do, to pique your interest. Maybe I'll be able to upload a few more later.



As always, you can click on the photos. Unfortunately I've downsized them (why?), so they'll only appear a wee bit larger.

Another project finished!! This is my Train Hat. I bought the yarn and needles in Glastonbury, but no pattern. I figured I could "wing it." Throughout our trip, whenever we were on the train, I worked on it until I got to the point where I decided I should start decreasing round. I couldn't figure out how quickly I should decrease, so I tucked it into my backpack until I could find a pattern. Well, there it stayed until tonight when I searched the net, got the general idea, and round and round, smaller and smaller it got.

I hit another snag when I got to about 30 stitches and realized I couldn't finish it on the circular needles. First I tried using two sets of circular needles (in two different sizes I might add). That didn't work. Then I remembered I'd found a bunch of sets of open ended needles in different sizes in an antique store. I dug those out and tried to figure out how to use them. I'm sure you experienced knitters would have had a good laugh watching me try to reinvent the wheel. I kept ending up with all the stitches on two needles. I finally figured out you had to divide them up evenly onto three needles and always stitch on to the fourth needle. And then....

Tra-La-LA! A hat!

Here I am posing with Rosie and Buck, two of my knitting advisors. Yoda and Maisie, my feline helpers for the evening, thought there was far too much DOG energy, and refused to pose with "that other kind".

So tell me, do you? Huh? Huh? Do you like my hat!?

I finished it last night - my Samhain Scarf. Whew! For awhile there I wasn't finding time to work on it and thought it wouldn't be finished in time to wear it this year. Not that I can't keep wearing it after Halloween. It looks as much "tiger-ish" as it does "Halloween-ish". Didn't plan on that, but there you are.

Not the best photo of me, but I lost all my photographers after this take, so it was the best I could do today. Notice how jauntily I balance that piece of wood on my head while modeling the scarf?

I have this really cute orange and black polka dot ribbon with dangly bats and pumpkins and what not. I wanted to audition it for the ends of the scarf. I apparently put it, like many other items in my house, "someplace safe". Of course that means it's so safe, even I can't find it. Maybe it will turn up in the next few days, and it if looks nice and I sew it on, more photos to follow. In the meantime, I gotta throw on a jacket and my new scarf and go off to meet a friend for a late night Whine Fest and Dinner.

See ya later!

No photos today, although I posted another image from the same church yard as the photos I posted here yesterday, over on Beach Treasure, if you'd like to see it.

I'm just popping in to say, uhm.... I'm sitting here knitting. Well, I was knitting before I went back to typing and posting. But at least that's something, to spend a little bit of time knitting today. I'm working on my orange and black Samhain scarf. I thought I'd have it whipped up in no time but I haven't had a lot of "hand time" in the last few weeks. Did I mention that I tried to knit at one of my son's football games a few weeks ago. It turned out that they lost - got stomped really - by a team who's school colors were.....

yep, you guessed it - orange and black. The coincidence did not go unnoticed. So maybe no more knitting at football games.

More holiday photos, these go along with the Holiday Photos #14 on Beach Treasure.

Looking up on the Conway Castle. Wouldn't want to try to scale those walls. Too, I was standing on a nicely paved, winding walkway that took me up the rocks. I'm assuming that in days of ol' one had to start out down at the beach.


This was a fence that surrounded a large park area we had to walk through to get to our B&B. I like the way the fence seems to stretch and warp.


Hmmmm, doesn't seem like this church gets much business anymore. At least not through the front doors.

I liked the symbolism of a time piece (this is a sundial) in the grave yard. Time flies? Time's up? Time waits for no man?

There was something sort of sad/sweet about how these gravestones seem to be simply leaned up against the churchyard wall, like they've been set there temporarily, maybe for a yard sale or something.

A little while ago I mentioned that I was hooked on these things on ebay called ACEO's - which stands for Art Cards/Editions and Orginals. Basically they're teeny tiny original art from everyone from professional artists to well intentioned and sometimes surprisingly talented (and sometimes not) unknowns.

It must be a fairly new phenomenon because I've been watching and bidding on them for just a few weeks now and in that time the prices have skyrocketed! I have to admit that I was torn between sharing this new discovery and keeping the news to myself because... well.... I didn't want to push the prices up even more.

But alas, they're already moving quickly out of my price range and I've now spent more then enough pretty pennies on them so I guess it's time to share the secret. I certainly want to encourage and support the artists that are making these wonderful miniatures. I'm gonna bid on one or two (or three, okay, maybe four) more and then content myself with getting them all framed and displayed in a little montage.

I stumbled upon them while looking for Halloween art and all the ones I purchased have a Halloween theme of some sort. If that's not a theme that appeals to you, then I'm sure there are ACEO's that are right up your alley. Maybe it's cats, or botanicals, or fairies.... let's say you like horses - in the eBay search box type "ACEO horse". When it pops up, click in the sidebar to narrow it to Self Representing Artists and then again to narrow it to Originals.

I think there are places other then eBay to find ACEO's but if there is, you better not tell me. I might be tempted to buy more of them. What I really hope to do now that I've managed to get myself some teeny tiny original art from other artists, is dabble in making some ACEO's myself. All I have to do, as I mentioned before, is get out my oil can and loosen up of my "rusty fingers." Hmmm, maybe I should get out a pen or pencil. It might be hard to practice with an oil can. Snerk.

I did art!

I joined an art deck swap, my first ever. The theme was Between the Worlds and you could do anything that reminded you of Halloween, Samhain, Day of the Dead, Carnival, Ghosts, Cemeteries, and so on. You could choose between numerous mediums, although I suspect most folks did collage of some type.

I tried and tossed several ideas before I finally settled on the one below. This isn't the first image I tried for the idea either, the first one was too complex for the size parameters, which was 3" x 5". I had to whittle it down to it's most basic symbolism, a good lesson for little ol' detail oriented me.

First I'll show you the image, which may or may not make sense to you without the description that follows (and was included on it's own 3"X 5" card). It'll depend on if you know the mythology I used. But see how far you get first just looking at the image, I'm curious if it's at all effective. It's not at all the type of image I expected myself to design. Sorry for the tiny image:

Confused? Well, here's what I wrote to explain my card:

My card came from the juxtaposition of two unrelated events - the recent deaths of three local youth on a single day and a stray comment about the River Styx. I Googled “River Styx” and discovered that in some myths the Underworld is thought to have many rivers within it’s borders. Two rivers in particular caught my attention - the Lethe, from which you drank to forget one’s past life, and the Mnemosyne, who’s waters you drank if you wished to retain your memories upon reincarnation. It occurred to me that a death forces difficult choices upon both the living and the dead, between the pain of remembering and the balm of forgetting. I went to sleep dwelling on the grief of the teenagers in our community and woke up the next morning with this urban punk image of the river mythology that is more more in keeping with their contemporary world.

Remember that art card I tried working on a few days ago, only to find out I was horribly out of practice? I guess there are a lot of things one needs to keep up on to keep good at - foreign languages, tennis, belly dancing, sketching.

I gave up the sketching idea, was gonna go back to a collage idea based on Dia de Los Muertos. I had a couple images set aside to use - oh, yeah, head slap, I lost them.

Yesterday I stumbled upon another idea and spent twenty minutes or so looking up background info on it, and then set it aside in favor of bed and book. (I finished Charlaine Harris' Dead as a Doornail - I love Sookie, she seems like such a real person.)

Woke up this morning and apparently the new idea had wandered around in my head last night picking up details from a recent community tragedy (which you can read about on Beach Treasure if you want, it's very sad and I've had to talk about it enough today, so I don't want to again just now). Yes, it wandered around and this morning it popped out of my head in a little bubble of completion.

Of course I mean the idea was complete. The actual application of the idea was not. If only. With the deadline spurring me on, I started to gather the images and make some initial attempts at how I could put it all together.

Damn, I hate learning curves!!! (I hate shopping for clothes too, except for when I don't really need to shop, but that's another story.) Doing something the first few times, or in this case the first time, is toooooo harrrrrrd! (There should be an editing button that would allow one to automatically add a whining tone to a post. Since there's no whine button, I'm pretending that turning words orange is a reasonable whine fascimile.) It took me hours and hours to do what probably should have taken half that time.

After some more bed and book (a new one, Danse Macabre by Laurell Hamilton), and if I'm lucky, eight hours of sleep, I'm gonna go back to work with the intent of finishing it. I think the key to success is to stop worrying about "how good" it should be and put my focus on "how done" it needs to be instead. That and to try to enjoy the process instead of being concerned with the result. That's all probably typical, trite artistic advice, huh? If I'd ever read any artist's inspirational books I'd probably know, but I haven't, so I don't. Are you following me? No matter if you're not, I'm not. I'm being distracted by Julie Walters on Craig Ferguson. Her voice - I looked up at the television screen because her voice was familiar and realized - she's Mrs. Weasley!

Along with working on this art card, I've gotten completely sucked into the world of ebay ACEO's. Did you folks know about this!? Little jewels of art all lined up with artsy puppy eyes that say "Buy me! Take me home!" Does anyone know what ACEO even stands for? Maybe tomorrow I'll go in search of the answer and report back. But now my p.j.'s are calling. The gray flannel ones with the little silhouettes of flying witches all over it - Old Navy. And a floppy tee. And my quilts. And my chihuahua. Undoubtedly several cats. Oh yeah - until tomorrow....

Daughter-in-law Lisa, aka Speedy Gonzales, went home, finished up the last blocks, and put the top all together!

I have an embarrassing confession. I'm rusty. I didn't know I was rusty. It was a surprising discovery. It shouldn't have been. One can't drop a skill for ohhhhh, a decade or so, and then expect to just pick right up where you dropped off. Though for some reason, I thought I could.

I'm in this ATC swap on an e-list. Hmmm, that's probably not quite right. I don't think it's exactly an ATC, it's more of a art card - 3" X 5". There's a theme, everyone makes original art of some sort, makes copies for everyone, and we all get a deck. The choice of medium is open - collage, computer art, textile, paint - whatever you're inspired to use.

Originally I had assumed I'd do some sort of computer collage thing since that's where the bulk of the participants were leaning. It's always safe to go with the flow, y'know. But as the deadline started looming closer I gave some serious thought to how I was gonna go about the whole computer collage idea. I couldn't use Photo Shop because I still haven't learned how. I could use Appleworks graphics but it's not like I have a lot of sophisticated tools in there.

I had some ideas for old fashioned collage work - you know - with paper, scissors, glue. I'd set aside some images I wanted to use but they were displaced recently. There's a whole story behind the loss of the images that involves an annoying spouse, but since I'm not currently annoyed at anyone, including a spouse of any kind, let's let that story lie untold. The important thing to note is that the images were not to be found and the deadline kept getting closer.

That's when I had this sort of "duh" moment. I could draw or paint my image. Why not!? I mean, I'm a woman of skills. Drawing skills. Painting skills. Numchuk skills. Oh wait, maybe not that last one. But art-eeeeestic skills, yeah baby.

So I pulled out some fancy schmancy paper. I looked for my oil pastels - they seem to have run off with the aforementioned paper images that had gone missing. I considered watercolors for a moment and decided to KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid. Colored pencils. That's the ticket. I settled down comfy on the couch, turned on the t.v., and picked up a pencil - a blue one - and.......

and.......

uhm, and........

realized I'd forgotten how to draw.

I suppose it didn't help that I didn't have any images to use as models. I not only thought I could just whip out a Picasso, I thought I could whip it out completely from my imagination.

SQUEEEEEEEE-AK!

Where's the oil can!?!?

I'm Rusty!

I'm finally getting some pics posted from my daughter-in-law Lisa's visit last week. We didn't have as much time as we'd planned, but we did get one full day of sewing in. Well, Lisa got a full day of sewing in. I got a day full of cleaning the sewing room, picking out a block pattern, and puttering about while she sewed.

Here's a baby quilt top she made and brought up to show me. It's pinned to the batting but not quilted yet. She made it with scrap material that had signifigance to her and Joe. I think it turned out rather cute.


She was orginally going to do the binding on her Halloween quilt while she was here - which I forgot to take a photograph of - dang. But I suggested she select some fabric for the binding, cut it out, and then leave that for when she was back at home so, instead, she could raid my stash and make something new, as she doesn't have a lot of disposable income for buying fabric. Below is what she picked out, as she'd decided she wanted to do the baby's room in Guns 'N Roses colors - black, white, and red. The first two photos are finished blocks and the third photo is finished blocks plus the other fabric combinations she picked out, cut, but didn't have time to finish. You have to click on that photo to enlarge it so you can see the prints on the smaller pieces.


I was telling an acquaintance about Lisa's plans for the baby's room and looking concerned she asked me if I was okay with my daughter-in-law designing a baby room, my grandchild's room, in black, red and white! Well, of course! Clearly the woman who asked the question doesn't know me very well, eh? Now I do have concerns about the idea of a baby needing their own room, all alone, sniff, sniff, but I figure they'll figure that one out quick enough. The need for a good night's sleep is a very fast teacher.


Here's the sum total of my efforts for the day. I know, what an accomplishment -Not! I also made a couple half square triangle blocks out of the Halloween fabric, they didn't get in the photo for some reason. I decided I didn't like the pattern, so I switched to a bigger block. What you do see is some 8"X 3" strips for a Halloween print rail fence in black, purple, and orange. To the right are the squares and hourglass blocks for two Ohio Star blocks for a bed quilt I want to make in scrappy greens, blues, and whites/creams.

I was gonna upload some pics of the sewing Lisa and I did the other day, but got sidetracked and didn't get around to it yet. Hubby is home on his weekend and we spent part of the day running errands. I was busy finishing up some tasks at home because the weather turned stormy (in a nice way, the windy, air smells clean before the rain sort of way) and so I had to get some things I'd put outside under cover. Then it was time to go to my writer's group. (I haven't made it to a meeting since April and wouldncha know it but I was the only one to show up. Well, me and the woman who hosts it at her house.) Anyhoo, didn't get the photos uploaded.

I did, however, finally go buy a membership for our local county arts council. I've lived in the community for over a decade. I regularly go to their events. And yet for some reason I never joined. I always felt I should, but just felt a bit hesitant to make the jump - I have no idea why. In fact for several years now I've actually meant to join, as I knew that the group lost a lot of their public funding, but still I somehow kept forgetting. I'm very pleased with myself for finally managing to get down to their office/gallery and writing a check. I was surprised at how inexpensive it was - and now I feel sort of foolish for having waited for so long.

I was rewarded for my efforts by a wonderful discovery - a rock garden in the garden of the arts council building. I've gone in and out of that building almost a dozen times over several years and yet somehow I'd never noticed the rock garden. And by a rock garden, I mean a garden made of rocks. Obviously someone's personal collection. Beautiful large agates, jade, crystals, fossils, geodes, and many, many unique stones that I don't know the specific names. I sat down on the sidewalk, the better to view them (old eyes - sigh) and crawled from spot to spot as I spied new treasures.

I was so excited I went back to her desk and asked the secretary if she knew who had gathered the collection. I wanted to know so I could ask where they had found some of the more interesting pieces - maybe I could find some new rock hunting locations that are nearby. She didn't know. In fact, she asked "What rock garden?" and followed me back outside. We spent some more time passing stones back and forth and then placed them carefully back where we found them.

Hmmmm, I think I'll finish up this post and see if I can google "rock hunting" for my local area. Anyone else love rocks as much as I do?