Heading Into The Storm

We’re heading into thunderstorms.  Schools are closing at 11:00 (I’m not sure why we bothered opening) and there is lots of hubub and consternation.

The alarm has not made it to my house, however.  Apparently, as long as the four year old has his morning coffee, all is right in the world.

Yes, that is his Peace Fleece vest, still being worn for the third day in a row (with very authentic pieces of straw poking out of it, because he attends a Waldorf pre-school, and, well, that’s the kind of stuff we play in there).  The large blue blob is my Clapotis.

I have to stop here and say, do not, friends, be tempted to knit a Clapotis from Debbie Bliss’s Alpaca Silk yarn.  Yes, it is stunningly beautiful.  It’s very soft and warm, too.  Ollie is quite taken with it, and believes it is a cape I have knit for him.  But, do you see the solid portions, down near where Hermione’s paw is placed on the "cape?"  Solid, where there should be a row of rundown stitches?  The reason not to knit a Clapotis from this yarn is that it does not run and each stitch has to be picked out by hand.  I can’t even begin to tell you how tiresome this is. 

Would I do it again?  Yes.  This is one of my favorite things I have ever knit and as soon as I get all the ends woven in (still more downside, this yarn comes in small skein-type things that fall apart and tangle while you’re knitting, and because they are small and the yarn doesn’t spit-splice nicely, I have the ends from about 12 balls of yarn to weave in) I’m going to wear it every day, but y’all, unless you have some weird type of obsessive-compulsive disorder that makes you enjoy picking out hundreds of stitches, save yourself!  Pick a different yarn.

In studio news, I promise I haven’t been holding out on y’all art-wise.  First off, I’m working on Chris’s absolutely beautiful round robin piece, which she calls an Artistree.

We’re each journaling about our ancestors on it.  It is one of the coolest projects I have worked on in what has to be the most out of the box art journal round robin ever!  Here is a close up of some of the panels.

I also have a collage-painting that I have been working on for the last couple of weeks.  It has been through some obsessive background changes this week, but I still don’t quite have it where I want it before finishing the angel.

Not art, but new in my studio and something I am in love with is my new set of Elfa drawers.

It holds all of my shipping and wrapping supplies, and is a huge boon for a small home based business like mine.  I managed to score this and a frame for hanging files that I’m using for my collage papers during a January sale on this cool stuff, which I will fill my home with if I ever win the lottery.

You can see that unlike the brief period of time before and after I filmed my segment for HGTV’s That’s Clever (I’m expecting to get an episode number in early June and I will let y’all know when you can tune it to watch me make a total idiot out of myself on TV) when my studio was very clean, it has reverted to it’s usual sense of disorder and disaster creative mess.  I turned my desk around to make a little bit of extra room, and rediscovered two wonderful things on it:

My doodah and registration packet for Art & Soul East in Virginia this May.  I cannot, cannot wait to go and see all my Art-Sistahs and take classes and immerse myself in art.  I have to alter the doodah first, though, and I have no clues at the moment.

Also, waiting for a free moment, I have the knitting DVDs that Stephanie McPhee raved about a while back.  I am a visual learner, and reading knitting directions does absolutely nothing for me.  I thought these DVDs might help with some finishing techniques and generally be of interest to my family, but can you believe they would rather watch stuff like this?

Actually, I confess that I too love Curious George, especially this scene where he goes artist on the stuffy, rich lady’s penthouse walls.  As the Man in the Yellow Hat says, "Praise Science."