It's that sad ritual of late summer — the beginning of another school year. Our two youngest started on Friday — we have two more to return, a week apart, to school up north. In the middle of shopping for clothes and packing, I've managed to steal away a few quiet moments for art.
A long-forgotten back order of roving showed up in the mail a few weeks ago and I've been itching to dye it. An early Sunday, with no one else up, proved to be just the solution for that. I decided to dye some complimentary rovings, using the same base colors, thinking that perhaps when it was spun it could be used together somehow. I've dyed (actually, am dyeing as the last bits are cooking now) about 40 ounces total, both superfine Merino and Blue Faced Leicester, and can't wait for the final results.
While roving was marinating in dye this morning, I found some time to play with a yard sale find — this charming little frozen charlotte head. She is currently gracing my skein winder, although I'm not sure that it will be her permanent home. She has such a serious, demure little expression.
Charlotte watched over me while I worked on a canvas I've been playing with. I very rarely work in this large of a format, but I wanted to play with textures on a larger piece. This piece went through a very colorful background texturizing stage, which I've now glazed over with white. I have no idea where it's going, but thought it might be fun to share the process. I'm sorry I didn't get a photo of the earlier colorful stage as well.
You can see a little bit of the earlier incarnation in the upper left corner.
One fringe benefit of taking the kids back is lots of time while flying and settling in to knit. I'll be taking a couple of squares of Ellie's quilt along with me, and am trying to decide on a larger project to bring along — probably the Far Away So Close shawl. I'll share the progress along the road.
The new school year always means new scheduling issues; but, sometimes it means more time for art : )