Back to my newly created vessel,   I inserted a beach ball, filled the ball with air and it fit nicely, so all evening I mentally thought of ways to finish the vessel with hand applied thicken dye finished with machine stitching.  This is really my first object of my winter felting session as my headband idea died. I thoughtlessly put wool on both sides of the silk so it totally covered it.  I must have had some good distracting music on too loud and lost my way in the endeavor.  Since I am taking a trip to New York where the winters are wicked windy and cold; I bought a lovely wool hat similar to this style   which  upon my return from NY, I will wear  on bad hair days or just when I need to run out for quick errand. Therefore, hats are officially off my felting list.  It seems necessary for success to stick with what I know: making wall art instead of wearable art.

I had a hankering for Cuban coffee so I made my first cup.   In my 30 years of drinking various types of coffee from soy lattes to espresso to just home dripped, I have never enjoyed sweetened coffee. Yet, today this Cuban sweeten coffee is the best.   I have misplaced my demitasse spoons, so yes the spoon looks gigantic in comparison to the espresso cup; nonetheless the coffee is delicious!!.

I have been working a great deal in data centers lately with no energy to even step into the studio nonetheless, I think about making art incessantly.  This piece graces a wall in my bedroom.  It was made several winters ago of Lambs wool which felted so easily it was completed in less than an hour. The single line meandering throughout the vessel was not stitched but added on top with only wisps of lamb’s wool to cover the bronze embroidery thread. I cannot identify the feathers, as they were a gift from crafter in Ireland and they accent the vessel as naturally as they would a hat. The large piece is an agate pendant with a small 14K  gold finding.  As most of you collect things I enjoy the feel of vintage costume jewelry bakelite  and celloid. The surrounding beads, I collected from vintage necklaces.

Oh yes, I have a nice collection of items screaming to be used.   One can see that I wrapped the agate with brass wire and assembled the beads.  I had an exhibit and gallery had few pedestals so I came up with a way of displaying the items by making wall plaques with a shelf.  This shelf was constructed with Plexiglas formed into an L shape and mounted onto a piece of oiled cherry wood.   

I am at least trying to get momentum even if it is with posting older work.  The chalice (2009) looking vessel was my first attempt to work with locks.

I attended a fiber group who had just returned from a fiber workshop with Elis Vermeulen demonstrating exactly what I attempted on my own.  As you can see in my vessel the success of a demonstration even though, I did not add near enough locks.  I was extremely apprehensive about them felting on top of one another so I placed only a minimal number of locks even though they were side by side in the lay out stage.

Today, I am free of my tech work and so I would like to devote myself to the studio. It is only 5 AM here so let us see how the day unfolds. Perhaps today is the day a new vigor will ensue.

My dear friend Lindee knitted this lap warmer especially for me while she was vacationing in Colorado.  She drew inspiration from drop dead gorgeous colors in nature:  the shadows in the Rocky Mountains, the crystal clean waters of mountain stream, the meadows green with vegetation and the crimson of the setting sun.  I think she captured the hues with tremendous accuracy. She is a vibrant personality with energy unmatched.

Instead, I rambled across this sterling silver hand crafted hatpin, that I bought 40 years ago as a weapon.  In 1970’s, I walked a lot in the inner city and I had long, massively thick, deep dark brown hair that I often twisted atop my head, relieving my neck from hot humid summer days. This hatpin held my hair in place and should the need ever arise it could easily be accessed and pierce the privates of a perpetrator.  If I must say so, it looked so smashing against my dark hair.  Since winter has arrived, I have been thinking much about hats lately. They are a pain to wear because once on, it is a whole day commitment because the hat smashes my hair into a frightful appearance. Therefore, when I rediscovered this treasured hatpin, I wanted to share its craftsmanship and attention to detail.  I have over stated throughout my blogging, the perils of my aging camera so the details are slightly vague but enough shows that you eye can fill in the gaps.

Work in Progress

Work still in progress. The re-bar needs to be straighten and waxed.  I am still working on the idea  and what I am actually conveying in this piece. I am using a new camera, which I am uncertain it does the work justice so the camera back get returned.  I have fifteen days for a final decision.

Work in Progress

This piece was a direct result of  my local fiber group by demonstrating how to achieve locks. This piece was made of raw fleece, un-scoured, uncombed or carded  with wee bits of previously dyed fleece.

he teal, aqua, blue piece was totally an experiment with un-carded, non-scoured fleece and white silk  gauze. Once the piece was felted then fulled, it  soaked in white vinegar then while still wet, it was bound with  cotton twine and scrunched together. Three shades of blue of acid dyes were mixed and dripped onto the wet wool. The silk readily absorbed the dye the most.  Once the dying was completed, wrapped into cellophane shrink wrap and nuked for 2.5 minutes on high power.  It was reste4d then additional 2 minutes in microwave. Not shown are the intact locks at the top, which adsorbed the deep midnight blue dye that match the silk portions. It was left to dry in the scrunched position.  The vessels is in progress as I am making a copper tubing to hold it.  Once completed the piece will be displayed in its entirety.

The wrap on the sofa was made by a friend expressing a trip she took to the 10K feet Rocky mountains. A totally lovely piece with the colors coordinating exquisitely in my living space.

The glass mosaic with the hand blown glass balls is merely and experiment to see how camera reacts with reflective materials.

The jury is out on the camera, though it is a lovely camera I am still evaluating its limits and possibilities.  Though it is nice, it is an entry level SLR and I am not terribly satisfied with its limits. It is a Canon T3 and though it does recording pics in RAW and is a 12 mp camera I need something with more pixels per inch. This will only do 72  by default and I have unsuccessfully  attempted to raise it which limits  it immensely.  One can raise the over all pixel but it merely changes the size of the pic hence I can make posters of my work. LOL At this juncture it is heading back to the store. It does well with landscapes and people and functions but I did not purchase it for those purposes. My conclusion is my $67.00 camera is much more flexible than this $600 item.

Eventually my yearning for the forbidden fruit would capture my attention and I would find a secluded area and pluck one of the mammoth grapes; they were the size of shooter marbles and just as hard. I loved seeing the green ones juxtaposed next to the violet fruits. I would carefully peel the grape, revealing its succulent fruit beneath the bluish violet skin. It was so smooth and juicy as I rolled it around inside my inquisitive mouth. I would hear grandpa’s favorite pastime linger out the windows and guilt would heavily rest upon my Catholic shoulders, and I would trek back.  Once inside, I would crawl upon grandpa’s lap as he listened to the baseball game on a huge walnut upright floor radio while sipping a lukewarm beer.

I managed to escape any accusations of stolen fruit but it did imprint a delightful era in my years.  I suppose grandpa’s affection of sports naturally influenced my father, who loved all sports. If it involved a ball, my dad knew how to manipulate and conquer the rules accompanied.   I spent a great deal of my childhood on baseball fields, not by choice but accompanying my dad to amateur team practices.

Stitches

Anyway, the reason for this story is that this vessel is called, “Stitches” I was never enthralled with sports, I was more intrigued by the stitching on the balls, the baseball has pleasurable hand stitching that loops around and back again, and the lattice of pigskin with its bumpy leather texture were much more tactile to caress.  I never understood the white bare lines of a tennis ball but it reminded me of the white boundary lines of a baseball field. The pentagonal sections on a soccer ball were puzzling.  The black circular lines of a basketball, well they were not stitched, but they could have been.  The one ball I could call my friend was a tethered ball, one that could not get away from me.  Am I admitting that I am ball challenged? You bet!  Balls are an extensive part of my past with a love-hate relationship, given a choice art lessons would have been my pick.   Although sports tend to bore me, they are a part of the total sum of my existence and so this vessel is inspired by my past.