Back in the saddle again.......

I'm back to doing what I love - anything related to the fiber arts. My eye is doing great, I can do all the close up work I want now.........and can I ever see better - whoo hoo. I actually had the go ahead on Wednesday but had other things to do out of the house the past two days.

In the last push to get things ready for my guild presentation on surface design I did some sewing today. This is a piece of handwoven fabric, a plaited twill using perle cotton for the warp, a paper yarn for the weft. I wove it a while ago as a sample in a program I gave on newer fibers for weaving. A few weeks ago I stenciled on it using Shiva Paintstiks.

Today I sewed it into a snap bag. Then I found a little piece of leftover handwoven fabric that I had stenciled on who knows when so I sewed that into another little snap bag. It's looks skewed in the photo but it's really not - they also look better in person.  Since I was on a sewing kick so I moved on to working on gifts.

My goal is to have everything ready for the guild presentation by the end of this weekend although I may be in the mood to work on more gift sewing too. Tonight I'm hoping to finish up a warp on the inkle loom. So nice to be working in the studio again...........

Getting close.......

I'm getting close to being able to get back to close up work after eye surgery. I wasn't sure what counted as my first day of back to normal activities, it was either today or tomorrow - since I was out part of today I decided I could wait one more day.  Vision is clearer although not perfect, just a little wonky, especially today, apparently it takes time for vision to dial in. Hopefully I'll pass the eye test at DMV when I renew my license within the next 3 weeks. It's been a boring 7 days of not being able to do the things I need and want to do. I'm far behind on things I have deadlines for - getting a little panicky but trying not to think about it today..........tomorrow will be here soon enough......

On Sunday I decided to bake pumpkin streusel muffins to put in the freezer for when family comes to visit in a couple weeks. See the beautiful muffins in the foreground? Those are the ones that had both the brown and white sugar the recipe calls for.  See the muffins off to the left? Those are the first batch where I forgot to add the white sugar. Stunted little raggedy looking muffins but they taste just fine.

Yesterday I made a pepper relish with apples, pears, red bell peppers, jalapenos and onion.....and of course a fair amount of sugar. It was a big time commitment since after chopping everything up it had to sit with canning salt on it for 6 hours before cooking and canning. I haven't decided if it was worth it or not yet -  although it is pretty tasty over cream cheese on a cracker.........

A new eye.......

Tuesday morning I got my new eye (cataract surgery). No real hiccups like last time with my blood pressure going wack-a-do. All went as it should have a month ago. When we left the house Tuesday morning my BP was 115/79 - walked in the surgery center door, got hooked up to the monitor and it was 170/100 - yikes. I told them it proved that they're the problem. But it came back down fairly fast after being covered with a warm blanket, lights turned down and spa music playing - there was a lot of down time before my surgery filled with prep and then waiting for the surgery room to open up which was perfect for centering myself and relaxing. By surgery time it was back down in the normal range. I was under such light anesthesia that I knew what was happening part of the time....but I didn't care. The fascinating part were the 'northern lights' I was seeing - it was the operating room lights above me and my guess is the prisms created by taking out the old lens, putting in the new. I vaguely remember asking about them. The nurses and technicians, not to mention my gorgeous blue eyed doctor at The Medical Eye Center were incredible, so caring, so kind. I went back yesterday morning for a check and healing is right on track.

So now is the hard part. Due to the type of replacement lens I chose in order to get a bigger range of vision correction and to correct my astigmatism I am limited in close up work to 30 minutes, 4 times a day for 7 days. Close up work is anything that I need to bend my arms to see - no weaving, no sewing, no knitting, no reading, no spinning, no doing anything I normally do. ARGH!!!  It's going to be a very boring week - I'll be a basket case by next Tuesday. I was told I could catch up on tv and movie watching - ok, I can never sit and just watch tv or a movie - I have to be doing something with my hands while doing it.........it's going to be a long 7 days. With that said I'm off to do laundry, a mundane chore I can accomplish...........

This and that.........

 Today I spent some time hemming towels. There are 8 of these blue towels that were sold before they were woven.......

 ......and these four are a wedding gift, they are colors being used in the kitchen of the new bride & groom.....I hope they enjoy using them.  This draft is from the Marguerite Davison book, A Handweaver's Pattern Book. I really like it and may eventually weave more.

Yesterday afternoon I pulled out these cones of 10/2 perle cotton for this years Christmas cards. Even though I was tired as heck yesterday afternoon I wound the warp and got it on the loom ready to weave. Late this afternoon I decided to weave the first row to see how they would look - I like them and ended up weaving 3 more rows - each row has enough to make 3 cards. I won't show the cards here until after I mail them out in December but I will take pictures along the way and tell where I got the draft from.........that I altered greatly.........and my alterations are much better than the original.......at least in my mind.........

Very tired of upper 80/low 90 degree temps, still dry as a bone, no rain, fire season still in effect - what happened to autumn???

A spinning fairy???

A weird thing happened at 5am this morning. We were fast asleep when I woke up to the sound of a music box playing. I thought I must be dreaming but then Sam woke up and asked me if he was hearing a music box playing. It stopped and he was ready to go back to sleep, not me, we had to search the house to see if there was anyone in it fooling with our stuff........even though we have an alarm system and would have been made aware had anyone broken in. I have two spinning wheel music boxes like the one in the front left of this photo. This one had the peg pulled out so I assume this was the one playing 'The Spinning Wheel' tune. Ok, so I haven't wound these up in forever, they haven't even been touched in a long time and there's the coating of dust to prove it. So, how could it start playing on it's own???  Very creepy!  It would have really freaked me out if it happened last week when Sam was out of town. I've decided it must be a spinning fairy busy in the middle of the night.......at least that's what I'm hoping.  And where was Bailey in all this?  Fast asleep on his bed - what a watch dog.

A bit of this and that..........

A few nights ago I finally plied the merino/tencel handspun I was spinning at the county fair. This was from some of my hand-dyed roving. It's beautiful. That big skein is almost a pound - I love how much I can get on those giant bobbins on my Hansen electric spinner. But I couldn't fit it all on - that tiny little skeins worth couldn't be squeezed on the bobbin, that bobbin wasn't moving. I haven't counted out how many yards I have yet......not sure what this will grow up to be until I know that.....this is a bit smaller than fingering weight size.

I wove the darker blue towels until I ran out of that color so have moved on to the lighter blue.

Got good news today - my doc has given the ok to the eye surgeon for my cataract surgery. As soon as I got home I called the eye surgery center and even though they're already booking into November there was one opening the week after next so I grabbed it. Keeping my fingers crossed that this time nothing goes awry.

Handwoven towels......

I finally got back to that towel warp I started on Oct 2nd - how did I lose all those days??? Anyhow, that first towel I posted 5 days ago was red. Below are 3 others that go with it, a turquoise, mint and then white using the red, turquoise and mint as a border. These are a gift for a kitchen with those colors in it.

Turquoise

 

Mint

 

White with Mint, Red & Turquoise

Next I start up on the blue towels that are a special order. I probably only have enough of this shade of blue for 4 of the 8 towels so the others will either be a lighter blue or peach to match that kitchen and the Blue Willow dishware.

Over the weekend I did finish up all the bookmarks to go with my program handouts for my surface design program for November. There are way more bookmarks sitting here on the back of the AVL than needed (7 in each pile) - will probably use the leftovers as thank-you's for customers.

Thinking of those back in South Carolina - haven't heard the news today on how things are going back there with the devastating floods. Sure wish some of that rainfall back east could be shipped out here - it's still fire season here, feels like it will never end. Usually by the end of September we have some measurable rainfall even if fire season isn't called off yet - not a drop here........

Hugo Ladies Quilt Show

Today friend Kathy and I went to the annual Hugo Ladies Quilt Show. I have never been to this show and am now sorry I missed out all these years. And it's held just 5 miles up the road from my house. They meet in an old historic house, I'm not sure if it's an old school house or old church - either way it's really cute. Not only were there quilts on display but there were booths out on the grounds of quilting supplies, lunch and pie available and musical entertainment...........and it was a beautiful crisp fall day........it couldn't have been a more fun day. I took photos of a handful of my favorite quilts.

This is a vintage quilt that looked to be a friendship quilt and it was local quilters from way back in the day. This is one of my favorite quilt patterns.

I loved this appliqued quilt - beautifully stitched.

This was another beautifully stitched quilt. I love all the color in it but yet it all flows.

One of the many fun art quilts. I couldn't capture all the beadwork on this, it's lovely.

A riot of color

This was one of the quilts from the featured quilter. I love the simple flowers. They're all the same flower in different colors and heights. It's one of those quilts that makes me smile.

I also loved this simple block quilt, simple as in looking, not in execution. What really drew me to this quilt was the fact that the fabric was wool. I know this would be wonderful to cuddle up under on a chilly evening.

So often I've been out of town or busy when this show is held, I'll need to make a point of putting it on the calendar for the future, it's always held the first Friday/Saturday of October.

Busy towels.......

I finally started weaving on the towel warp that went on the Macomber a few weeks ago - there's enough for 12 towels, I need 4 for a gift, the other 8 are already sold. Busy pattern, isn't it? Can't wait to see them washed.

Bailey is feeling sorry for himself - a really ugly hot spot under his ear warranted a trip to the vet today. Area shaved and cleaned up, came home with cortisone spray and antibiotics that are as big as horse pills....and he gets four of them a day! Biggest challenge will be keeping him from scratching it, especially at night if he decides to be sneaky and scratch while I'm sleeping.

Another senseless tragedy.......

This morning while working in the studio I was watching a dvr'd show.......then it was over.......the local station came on to the news of the tragedy that had just happened up at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg. Another tragic mass shooting, this one just an hour north of us. What a shock in such a rural area such as ours in SW Oregon. My heart goes out to the families of those killed, to those injured and all others who witnessed such violence. The news has been reporting on it all day long, not much new, but they just can't seem to stop.......but I could, I didn't need to hear it over and over all day long......change the satellite channel to Sirius 60's music. It didn't stop the thoughts of what had happened but it did help not to hear it over and over again.

I went back to working on the surface design bookmarks that I was experimenting with last week. First I stamped on the cardstock, then I stenciled, I did glue a second piece of cardstock on the back to add more umpf to them. Then this morning I added some sparkle with foil and cut them out to see if they were successful. Yep, they were.........

So, I pulled out more cardstock and stamped on it. After the paint dried I did some stenciling. These will now sit for a few days for the stenciling with Shiva Paintstiks to cure. Then I'll add some foil sparkle and turn these into bookmarks. These bookmarks will go with program handouts for my surface design presentation next month.

I don't know if I've ever talked about how to clean stencils and stencil brushes. I use Citrasolv. It's orange scented and pretty much non-toxic.....it's very orange scented, like have the window open when using it. It makes quick work of clean up. I can find this in the natural food/household department of my local grocery store.

I also got the inkle loom warped up today and wove an inch just to get the weaving pulled into the final width. I'll work on this in the evenings, then put a second long warp on as I need quite the yardage. It's for this year's inkling ornaments.....hopefully my idea for this year will work.........if not I'll have a pile of pink bookmarks!