Up Date

Yes I have been busy. No, I haven't been blogging. Or taking pictures. Or doing anything beside being busy. 

I have worked at our little shop. 

I have taught a morning workshop in paper weaving to 7-10 year old kids. 

I have taught a weekend workshop in temari balls to 6 adults. 

I did 6 hours of spinning and dyeing demonstration for the New Brunswick Crafts Council at their summer shop. 

I spent a hot sunny day washing clothes and hanging them on the neighbours clothes line because my dryer broke.

I don't want to talk about it. 

I've cooked and cleaned and tried to wrestle with some of the piles of things in my house.

I got a call that my grandmother lost her battle with cancer. 

I have ignored the big garden and tried half heartedly to do something about my irises that are rotting because of all the wet and weeds. 

I am scheduled to start my Fredericton Arts Alliance Artist in Residence week tomorrow so I have been getting ready for that.

I found out that I start back to work a week earlier than I thought. August 24 instead of August 31. 

I feel like my summer hasn't happened and now I am looking at it being over in three weeks. 

I am tired. 

And in case you haven't noticed, I haven't felt very much like blogging.

I feel slightly over extended.

Having said all of that, I think that I am going to take a small break from blogging. 

Maybe something will show up here before Sept 1, but more than likely not.

Thanks for all your love and support and I'll see you in September

And it only took 25+ hours

Monday I printed leaves - 4.5 hours
Tuesday I ironed interfacing and cut leaves - 2.5 hours
Wednesday I ironed interfacing and cut leaves - 2 hours
Thursday I printed more leaves but got sneaky and printed my whole screen (13 leaves, 5 different kinds) I gave up on each leaf type being a different kind of fabric. Only the hand dyed fabric were printed exclusively as maple leaves This sped up the process quite a bit and I only spent 2.5 hours.
Friday I cut the last of the leaves (3 hours) and as I stated before, they totaled 163.
Saturday I hiked down to the school where I was able to spread out, take over large tables, and use the industrial sewing machines.
I cut out my pattern pieces and sewed a liner. Then I started sewing on all of the individual leaves. - 4 hours
After getting a good start at school, I came home to snack on Jalapeno Corn Bread (thank you Bill) and sewed more leaves. There was probably another 4 hours of sewing that night.
Sunday Back to the school by 11 and sewing the last of the leaves and the bottom of the pillow on to the leafy part. Inserting the liner and stuffing it was almost the end! Yeah!
I used bean bag Styrofoam pellets. Sewed up the liner, zipped up the zipper and called it done! - 3 hours.


Total time not including research, idea development, pattern development, making of the screen, doing test prints, and a concept board, etc. (total time approximately 12 hours) was 25.5 hours.

And here's the finished product, not in it's natural environment.