Buttons Buttons and More Buttons

I'm finished with my pre Christmas craft shows and have started on a bunch of new things I wanted to try. This technique is one I've done before but never on this scale. It's a way of felting texture into the knit fabric. I'm tying buttons into the wool before felting using the little elastics that are made for corn rowing hair. After felting I'll remove the buttons. Where the button stretched the fabric tight there will be an unfelted bubble. This is most of the front of an extra large man's sweater so it's going to take me a while. I'm curious about how many buttons I'll end up with in there but not curious enough to sit and count them! The small tumbled stones sold for flower arranging work well too. The bigger ones can be too heavy and end up ripping the material. I've got this idea to do some needle felting between the bubbles to add color. I love to layer techniques like that. The other thing I've been ruminating on for quite a while was how to make round felted cords from sweater wool. I'm tired of crocheting hat ties and the felted cord looks a lot nicer. Woolyfabulous, whose work I love, has a tutorial for sale in her shop, http://www.etsy.com/shop/woollyfabulous?ref=ss_profile. I have a strange attraction to reinventing the wheel so I set out to figure it out for myself. My friends were into wet felting so I had a pretty good idea of what might work and it did. But out of respect for Woollyfabulous, I'm not going to post the details. I'm sure her instructions are great so unless you're into reverse engineering like me, save yourself the effort and buy them!

Doodling is a Gateway to Illustration.

This image from the Philbrook Mueum of Art has been making the rounds on Facebook. I think I'm going to print it out and put it on my son's door. I'm beginning to think we'll have another serious artist in the family. The way that art is taught in a Waldorf school rubbed him the wrong way because he already knew what he liked before he got there. I'm not saying it was bad but it was a their way or the highway situation. I was worried that it had turned him off of art permanently. But over the last year or so he's gotten back into it. He has developed the self discipline to set goals for himself and keep working toward them. Our high school offers business courses and he's taking marketing, for which he'll get college credits if he passes the college level final exam. Their current assignment is to develop an advertising campaign. The girls are doing "mens" products like condoms and the boys are doing "feminine products". His is for Tampax and features a young woman swimming in the ocean. The tagline is "Don't be shark bait when you menstruate." His teacher loved it. I think he should submit it to the company.

Painting in Progress

There's still a good bit of work to be done here but I'm taking a break. I have a craft show tomorrow and I want to finish up some things for it. I let myself get too tired Wed. Well, there was a lot that I couldn't have avoided and after working so hard on making it to the gym regularly, I wasn't going to give that up. I hit the wall on Thursday and just had to take a nap to get through. Today I feel like a new person.

The Thirteenth Head

Are you superstitious? What are the little things you do every day to avert the evil eye without even thinking about it? I'll admit to throwing a pinch of salt over my shoulder when I spill it and always putting the sugar in my coffee before the milk. I once read a post from an artist who always put a penny on the ground in front of her booth to bring good sales. Recently, I bought a dozen styrofoam wig stands to use in my booth. I already had the one that I painted and glued to a pedestal. That's the one used to get pictures for my etsy shop and the plan is to cover and paint the new ones once things slow down in the new year. Loading up for the first show with all these great new hat displays I realized that I now had thirteen of them total and that bothered me but I shrugged it off. My booth looked great. The wig stands brought the designs to life. Unfortunately, it felt like we were having this fair in a ghost town. If tumble weeds had started rolling down the rows it wouldn't have surprised me. Shift ahead two weeks later to my next show in a town that, thanks to our autumn nor'easter, had been without power for over a week. I was not particularly optimistic getting ready for it but I woke up feeling happy that morning. I had accepted that it would work out however it pleased and I was just not going to worry about it. As I was unloading my stuff, the fancy head on the stand unbalanced, hitting the pavement and the pedestal broke in half. I chucked it back in the car and thought," Oh well, that takes care of the thirteen heads problem." This show rocked! I couldn't believe it. Small venue, on a Sunday, first year show right after the storm and sales were great even though attendance was not that heavy. So what do you think? Was the universe giving me a helpful shove when I dropped the thirteenth head? I'm not taking chances. From here on it's twelve or fourteen and up, but never again will I have thirteen heads in my booth.

A Productive Saturday

Feels like I've gotten things done today. I've been working out with my husband and I got my own gym membership today so I can go by myself if he's busy. My car is mostly loaded up for the American Made Craft Show tomorrow in Chester, I've gotten some more time in on the sewing machine and I have a 16" x 20" toy telephone painting started. Could it be that I'm a little nearer to finding a reasonable working balance in my life? Of course, it's always a work in progress. It's funny how things can work out. I've been mulling over how to do a top hat for my Halloween costume - the Mad Hatter, of course! But I wasn't thinking about it when I stopped in the thrift store today. We needed a lamp for the living room since the knob broke off the old one and we've been turning it on with pliers. They finally had one I liked, and then it dawned on me that I could use the lamp shade as the structure for my top hat. Excellent since I was planning to keep using the larger shade from the old lamp and didn't need the new one. I use this lamp shade as a swift when I need to turn a skein of yarn into a ball. The skein sits on the shade. I put the lamp on the floor, unscrew the finial so the shade will turn freely and away I go winding the yarn into a ball. My husband and I love Halloween so, naturally, we produced a kid who isn't into it at all. I kinda let that put a damper on my celebration but this year I've decided to get dressed up and hang out with my friend who lives on Main St. in Newtown. It's a trick or treat hot spot, unlike our house. Nobody comes here at all. I was going to take pictures today but I'm having trouble with the camera battery. These pictures are recent anyway. I'm really pleased with the pendants on this one. They are made of the seams that are leftover from deconstructing the felted sweaters. It pleases me that I keep finding ways to use almost every scrap.

Tools of the Trade

This is the painting I referred to in my last post. It's almost finished so I took a picture to get a feel for what else needs to be done. The background needs to be worked on and the raised trim under the crayon window is just a black band at this point. When the box was printed they covered the whole surface in red first and it peaks through the black in places that have been worn. Once that's in, the box will be more interesting. Thank goodness for NPR. I like to listen while I paint. It really keeps my butt in the chair longer.

Doing the Procrastination Tango

I'm frustrated with myself. I have a pretty nice painting nearly finished and I need it done for the next gallery change over. Of course I've been procrastinating terribly, letting it build up into this big thing in my mind. Naturally, I can think of a thousand more exciting projects to work on. It makes me wonder if I just don't want to paint at all but I'm not ready to say that. I've been going to the gym every morning for something over two months now, which is a good thing. I feel much better and I've lost weight. The down side is that I come home so relaxed or tired that I could happily sit and stare at grass growing. I was hoping I'd be past this by now but I did up some of the weights recently. So instead of painting I made two new crocheted hats because they're something I can do in that state of mind. *sigh* Time to pull up my big girl panties and finish that painting. Self discipline is truly the hardest part of being my own boss.