Getting My Art Muse On

My art muse has been, well, lost.  It happens every time I clean up my studio (you would think I would learn the lesson in that, wouldn’t you?)  I’m happy that the muse seems to have returned, and although I’ve got a yucky virus (see picture of cute kids who gave me said virus below) I spent some time tonight in the studio, happily painting and layering my background for the piece I want to work on this weekend.

These are the sick babies who gave me the pesky virus.  They always look awfully sweet when they’re not feeling well.

Since being sick makes me sort of random, I’ll progress on and tell you my happy skein-winder story.  Several months ago I purchased a Mama Bear skein-winder.  It was love at first sight and made winding so much more enjoyable.  But, over time, my winder got a little bit of a bounce to it and didn’t seem to work as easily.  I still loved it, but it just wasn’t the same way it was at first.

So here’s the amazing part.  I emailed Tom, the really nice guy who makes the Mama Bear.  He spent a whole lot of time emailing me to help me figure out what the problem was.  It turned out that a big part of the problem was trying to wind from my umbrella swift, which was at a much higher level, onto the Mama Bear.  Tom’s solution was to send me a second winder to  experiment with, to see if it would help.  You just don’t get that kind of customer service anywhere these days!

Here it is — winding side to side on two Mama Bear skein winders.

I’m in love!  Thank you Tom.  And in case you’re wondering, this is how the skein (buttery soft bamboo) turned out.

Next up?  A brand new yarn for me.  It’s a 50/50 blend of Suri Alpaca and Blue Faced Leicester.  It’s incredibly soft.

I can’t wait to start dyeing it.  I think I’m going to use the same colors I want to use in the collage piece this weekend and see if I can’t get a jumpstart on the muse.