Category: Family

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BOV Day 2

What a great day! It was cool, not so humid (even though it rained) and everyone did an outstanding job with their basketry work.

Some really nice surprises as the BOV members worked – their pieces just kept evolving into grander shapes. Not everyone went home with a finished piece, but they all seemed happy with what they did.

The day actually started out with a super lovely surprise – my love and I are expecting our first grandchild! Second son Tom and his wife Lydia just announced the wonderful news. Baby is due September 18 and has a healthy heartbeat already.  So excited for them!

Right now Sue and I are winding down after the busy workshop day. Actually, I’m winding down and Sue is still working on her piece.  There are usually so many choices than can be made as to how to continue/finish a piece that it sometimes takes quite a while to bring it to a conclusion. But, it seems she is in the home stretch.

Ed.: pics from the workshop are now online.

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Gingerbread Sunday

A light dusting of snow this morning. And then while enjoying a morning hot tub soak:

snowflakes – feathery water bombs falling through the sky hitting my upturned face with mini icy jolts – immediately adding their infinitesimal weight to the stewing broth

 

Later, amidst the steamy scents of simmering onion soup and the crackle of wood in the fireplace, in true traditional family style, we created gingerbread men of varying sizes and  accompanying festive shapes.img 6437 Judy Dominic Fiber Artist The Fiber Art of Judy Dominic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Topped the evening off with bowls full of the onion soup, fresh home made rye bread and an assortment of cheeses. Oh, and a glass or two of wine.

 

A most lovely day.

 

The only thing missing was the anticipated presence of friends who weren’t able to make it through the snow.  Another time.

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Twining

I’m on a twining roll. Started with paper twist and baling twine on Thursday and ended with the newspaper plastic bags today. Two separate pieces, one technique.

The baling twine and paper twist has some character to it – undulations, an opening on the side, a really nice found stick running through three sides of the piece.

The plastic bags piece has color – from the bags (blue and orange and dark green during winter so you could see it in the snow plus some lovely pale greens, oranges and tans). It’s shape is pretty staid – basically didn’t try anything different do to the very limp nature of the material. Halfway through the piece my love asked if I was making a bag to hold the bags?  Well…. That must be what it is!  Added a twisted handle at the end and hung it in the garage.  More bags to come!

Will get some pics up later this week.  ITMT, pics of the Oxford exhibit, Rock Paper Scissors are up on my Flickr site.

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Catch-up from November and on through December

Boy, time has flown by! Since mid-November it seems like I’ve been deep into one thing and then the next with nary a breath in-between.

The Branson Banana Bash was a rousing success, if measured in trunks bashed, fiber cooked and new friends well met.  No pics up yet on my Flckr site – hopefully over the holidays…. I did get a chance to pull some sheets fromn what was done in Branson and they are nice! A bunch of trunk pieces are currently soaking (actually, they are frozen solid!) in a wading pool and cement mixing tub on the deck. I didn’t think rain would hurt them but I totally didn’t factor in freezing temps. Oh, well, it will just take a bit longer to ret.

A lovely Thanksgiving Day (thank you Karen and Nick!) was followed by a group art exhibit at the Pendleton Art Center in downtown Cinti taking advantage of their Final Friday and Second Look Saturday events. It was a nice showing of nine different arts, a not so bad crowd and lousy sales. Even lousier attendance and sales the following day. We did the December Final Friday, too (which really is the third Friday this month because how Christmas happens this year), and skipped out on the Second Look Saturday due to the overwhelming (NOT!) crowd and sales on Friday.

ITMT, I made a quick project for our Weavers Guild exhibit at XU coming up – a smallish quilted hanging using color catchers. AND I started the large installation piece I proposed for the exhibit. If it all goes well, I will use 200 china silk scarves to hang on the third floor of the Student Center in the atrium area. Two panels that should each be about 20′ x 17′. Keeping each scarf in correct order so as not to mess up the design has been the challenge so far! (The side-by-side order isn’t as hard as the top/bottom order – and then the panel-to-panel order where they meet in the middle – that’ll be the killer!) I’ve got one panel’s worth mudded so far – need to rinse them out and then to start on the second panel. Already checked out hanging supplies at Home Depot.

I’ve had the bass out lately  getting ready for Christmas mass music. Tuning up the voice, too.

Throw in some oddball activities (like putting a new back onto a loved blanket for T&L), some smallish scrumble projects that absolutely required cool buttons from St. Theresa Textile Trove, meeting up with some friends of various stripes, guild seasonal parties, business and friend seasonal gatherings, an exhibit proposal, a workshop proposal,  the obligatory gingerbread cooking baking sessions – and I know I’m forgetting a few things….) and I’ve not had time to get into too much trouble.

The days immediately ahead look like they will be a continuation of same.

Many wishes for a most blessed and joyous season and new year!

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Rainy week

It’s been a rainy week. Temperatures on the cool side, overcast skies, water leaking out of the heavens as though someone was trying to fix the faucet (sometimes a downpour, sometimes just drips).

I look back on the week and can’t seem to find any major work accomplished, but I know  a lot of minor stuff has happened: daily pressings of handmade papers to encourage them to lay flat, coaxing a blouse to take on a new role as a vest lining for a collaboration piece, guild organizational meetings, creating lengths of ‘plastic yarn’, surface studio clean-up, a crocheted patch for a friend, butternut squash soup and prepping for a visit to Cleveland.

My godmother is celebrating her 90th birthday this weekend and I’m going to help her! I’ll also spend some time with my ‘kids’ while there. A two-fer trip!

Some interesting contacts were made this week, too. More on those as they develop.