So, I’m here but not from home, which is a strange feeling. I can’t do anything about posting pictures because even though I have my camera, I don’t have the wire and software to get pictures onto Mum’s computer, and thence into cyberspace.

I had a lovely weekend being fed and allowed to sleep at Kate’s house (Hi Kate! Hi Bob!) and managed to make a postcard a day while I was there. They need backs and photography, but they have been accomplished.

I attended a baby shower for a baby I could not be happier about. Really it could not happen to nicer, stronger, better adjusted people. I find it insanely difficult not to spew advice non-stop, so I spent a lot effort shutting up and letting others talk about what they remembered and how wonderful their babies were. They were all completely fabulous, of course. As were my own.

I’m with my mom now, for a couple of days, with the girls. Since we’ve all spent most of the last couple days traveling and because it is -18 F counting wind chill, we’ve been staying inside admiring the view out over the marshes instead of accomplishing anything that requires effort. We might have to venture out tonight to feed ourselves, but by then the wind should have moderated some. 30 knots with gusts much higher right now, thank you Very much. Plus it comes roaring in over the marshes and hits the house like a hammer. Fairly exciting. We’ll be here another night or two, depending on the weather. Then home and the pursuit of boredom. It always helps to get the kids good and bored before making them go back to school. It makes school so much more enticing.

So – postcards when I hit home again, and probably not much else before then.

I’m about to address one of the major challenges to one-a-day anything: what do I do when I travel, especially when it is more vacation than anything else.

I haven’t finished today’s postcard yet, though I will before I leave, but I probably won’t have time to post it. I’ll be gone til Tuesday or Wednesday, and I think I need to make one a day for each of the days between now and then. I can pack stuff to use, and rely on handwork. I’ll let you know when I get back what almost worked.

Feb 15
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

The day after a snowstorm is always so bright and shiny! I carried this around with me on errands today, embroidering in the masher tracks, admiring the day. The base is an old hand-dye, with the molding paste on it, nicely colored. I was trying for a more marbled look, but the paint mixed in too fast. An embarassing thing is that I can’t tell if I have it upside down or not – I turned it around and around while embroidering it. I took pictures of it both ways, and posted the one I liked best. You can turn it over if you want.

Feb 14
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

A blizzard of hearts for Valentine’s Day.

We’ll return to our regularly scheduled potato mashers tomorrow.

Feb 13
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

Starting with some hand printed fabric from a series of texture experiments a couple summers ago, put some gel medium on it (with color this time) and mashed it. It looked not-quite-finished, so I added some hand work to it. I liked doing the hand work, and I’m thinking of incorporating it into more things.

Today was one of the Brattleboro/Circus days. Little A and I take a private class with Marina (who I worship as discreetly as possible) while Big A takes an advanced class with a crew of interesting girls. They were tucking their feet behind their heads today, while Little A and I were practicing trapeze. Pictures of that later.

Feb 12
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

I am liking the hand embroidery around the outside, but I should put it on before I fix the fabric to the postcard interior, the stiff interfacing. The stiffener is hard to pull needles through. (I know I’ve been knitting too much when I think about writing about kneedles.) The lines are just marker lines; I hadn’t realized how they echoed the grids from last month until I was looking at the picture here!

A barn day today. I realized it is hard to talk about horses and fiber in the same place. I don’t have so much to say about the horses. Part of it you don’t want to know (I clean 4 stalls). Probably because it is so physical, and hard to describe. Really, beyond “I rode well” or “I was sore and stiff and made the pony mad” there isn’t much that can be put into words.

I think that not a lot of physicality yields to description. You can dance something, or go for a run, but talking about it degenerates fast into poetry or babble.

I rode well, I had a good lesson, I had fun.

Feb 11
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

Finally, one I like again! I like the batik added, I like the hand stitching around it. While I miss having an organza overlay of a picture of the masher over the top, I’m willing to concede the death of the printer for the moment and it works OK without it.

Maybe it is just this particular masher that works so well for me. I’m going to see what else I can do with the gel medium that looks like mashed potatos. That was fun.

Feb 10 1
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

I got so frustrated with the postcard from yesterday that I attempted a whole set of fast ones today, and was only halted by hardware issues.

This one uses two layers of organza over a hand dyed background. The bottom layer is a negative, the top a positive. This made me mad, so I did the next thing….

Feb 10 2

This uses more of the masher batiked hand dye, with the mashers themselves printed on organza over it. This time I gave them a white background so they could be seen, but now they look washed out and oddly pointless.

IMG_0248

Finally I returned to the palette and masher I liked best, and was ready to add one more layer of something here – either a print of the masher on organza over the batik, or a copy of the batik printed on organza over the picture of the masher. BUT The connection to the printer is Kaput.

It is entirely self inflicted, because I was trying to make the scanner part scan again, and instead set off a giant and destructive cascade of unhappy computer behavior. So we will replace the hard disk before it crashes, as Little A has requested (little pitchers… she heard her dad talking to Aunt Carol about how computers just need to be replaced every 5 years or so, and after ascertaining that this machine was indeed older than 5 has been agitating hard for a new machine before this one breaks).

Anyhow – this is the one I like best, and it isn’t done enough to post with a name, so you get two inferior ones instead.

Feb 9
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

This one is making me grumpy. It is fabric I batiked using the mashers shown in the pictures. The pictures are printed on the see-through stuff (printable silk organza) and fused over the top of some stitching on the masher prints. I think it is ugly, and I can’t quite figure out how to retrieve it. I tried adding embroidery, but it looks lumpy. I tried adding another picture over the top, now you can’t see the only part of the embroidery that came out well. It is tempting to trowel some of the medium over the top and make impressions of those mashers in it.

I didn’t like the original fabric well enough to use it on its own, so I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised I don’t like what I can do to it either. I’ll stare at it a while longer.

Do I have to like them all? I can try again, or I can keep poking this one. Or I can be done for the day, and start again tomorrow.