I made a great little doodle, and then realized it could work as a fabric piece. There is more that will dangle underneath, with straight lines and little squares. 

I finished the leaves in a tin, and posted them to my shop on Etsy. They are perfectly charming, and I dearly love the way they tuck into their tin. The green ribbon holds them together as a group in a nice way, although I admit I had fun shuffling them into different orders before they were stitched down. 

It is astonishingly hot, and worse in my studio, so I've been working later in the evening. It means I don't have enough time to post here before I fall asleep, but it is much cooler!

Aand now, the start of the next project:

You could say I am coming out in spots. Well, except for the leaves.

Yesterday the fabric women got together, not all together at once but eveyone showed up at one point or another.  We used the Pebeo light reactive paints to make experimental fabrics. Timna's daughter helped, as did mine, and there were parades of plastic animals across the pint leaving inetersting footprints as well as leaves, flowers, stencils, jar lids and keys. I have the world's best box of keys, I got it for $5 in Brattleboro when a woman was clearing out her studio. It is filled with all kinds of random keys, old ones, new ones, "do not copy" ones, moderately useless flat ones – they make me fabulously happy.  Timna shows hers here, Audrey will soon, and Lynne swears she will have a blog soon. 

And today I rode two horses. Just as I think my riding schedule is returning to normal, because the gray horse left for his summer home, I was offered a ride on a little black Morgan mare. She is zoomy and fun, and needs some more leg stretching Mondays and Fridays. And then I made these tonight. Five leaves, to fit into a leaf shaped tin. I think they might need fabric on the back, and a ribbon to hold them together, and they are done. 

aaaaaand…

Aerin's prom was cancelled part way through on account of weather. Or as the saying goes at our house "on account of adverse weather conditions at sea" (the reason on ALL the absent/tardy notes we sent to school for my brother. And all true.) So they have repaired to the young man's house, where they will watch a movie or two and visit. Probably with friends. It will be quieter, and less stressful.

I am still stunned to have produced a child that 1) was invited to the Prom and b) decided to go.

On the whole, her prom experience has been NOTHING like any of the movies or TV shows I have ever seen that mention it even in passing. This just reinforces that.

really the tree fell down, originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

Everything always happens at once. Time is supposed to keep that from happening, but really, it doesn't, and in such a routine fashion that the joke is more in the telling.

Anyhow. Aerin was getting ready for prom.

 Her friend Rozi offered to help with hair and makeup, and following a fine family tradition of out-sourcing what we are bad at, Aerin said yes. So we fetched Rozi because there were Giant Thunderstorms headed our way and we could hear them, and they got to work. 

 

And then the storm hit. And there was a loud crack, like the beginning of thunder. And when I finally finished looking out all the other windows to see what might have happened, I saw the neighbor's tree across our driveway, in the narrow slot between garage and house – it has some branches against the house, and some against the garage, and the top branches lapping at the bottom of the steps to the back porch, and nothing broken as far as I can see.

Everyone is fine. The neighbors are fine. The neighbor on the other side is freaking right out because she is convinced my birch tree will fall on her in exactly the same way, but it didn't this time. Also my tree is healthy, at the moment, and the one that fell clearly had rot going on. 

Rozi, calm under fire and Aerin whining,

 

and

 

And the tree is still tipped over.

I think this is done. I like it too – although sopme parts are kind of catty-wumped. The sticks made a dreadful mess on the sewing machine, but I do think they make a nice statement in the middle of all that fabric. 

The mechanics of this Round Robin have been relaxed to the point of anarchy. Four of us brought twice as many pieces to the first meeting as necessary, so we parcelled them out in ways that were interesting to everyone, and then did it again. It almost seems like cheating to post a picture of it before the next meeting, but now it is up, so you have a sneaky peak before anyone else. 

All yesterday's circles, attached to a ribbon, with some filler pieces. I like the way they fit into the little tin. As a extra bonus, I like the way they get pulled out of the tin too – they make a Fwah! noise and shake out in a cheerful fashion. 

These are little circles – about 1.5" across – that fit into little tins that I have several dozen of. I have this idea for a set of fancy circles and plainer circles all strung together on a ribbon, that unfolds as you lift it out of the tin. 

One (of several) reasons I love my backyard: the dogwood I planted is so lovely.

Spring is springing, as we knew it would – it just seemed like a long cold wait until it got here. What I love best about this time of year is the veil of lacey color the blossoms throw over the trees. It is still possible to see the structure of the branches, but it is softened and colored.