'All the People' colourway?

argh. blogger ate my post again!
highlights of the long post.
i love ballwinders.
(and i don't accumulate a lot of gadgets, so that's quite a ringing endorsement from me).
i wound all the skeins (see previous post for photos) into these balls of wonder. (organized in the same order, for reference).
had a mishap with the ballwinder at one point so ended up having to cut a skein.
favorites include: the mostly red, the bright Easter colours (trying to think of a good name for this one. stream of consciousness has led me so far from bright Easter, to progressive Christianity, to United Church of Christ; now I'm going to go within that larger topic to find a good name within -- suggestions welcome).
photos: starting at the top. the overdyed skeins in balls; my favourite reds; all the sock yarn; the (for now named: 'All the People' colourway, click on the UCC logo on the right column of my website for a brief "why?" explanation).

***hey, the first posting of the night mysteriously did get posted....oh, well, for now, I'm leaving both up.

in praise of ball winders!

i'm really not much of a gadget girl. not really tempted by infomerials (that doesn't look right - y'all will know what I mean though). but, oh...i am in love with ball winders!

look at the glorious difference before and after (before twice over for the overdyed batch -- the smaller six skein set) see previous posts for the before photos, i've arranged the balls in the same order as their skein before winding shots.

i knit a french press cozy the other day. i keep my french press on my desk at work. you know there are different coffee camps (i'm well out of the ****bucks camp), the coffee provided by the dining hall is not to my liking -- the best news to me about our dining hall coffee is that it is Fair Trade and Organic (but not "Strictly Organic" which *rocks*), so i like to make my own, at my desk. Anyway, I didn't bring my camera to work, so no picture of the great new french press cozy (my envisioned pattern, it is certainly servicable...but my next one will include a well placed hole for the spout too). Will take pictures and post next week.

While winding and winding sock yarn we ran into a couple of snags (literally) on the *last* ball of sock yarn, it got really hopelessly tangled and we had to *cut* the yarn and then fish for all the bits out of the gears. This is one of my favorite colourways. The deep reds are another and finally, the bright combination on the far left too. Any colourway name suggestions?

to crafty days

i finally finished framing one of my handcrafted gifts!
oh, i can hardly wait to show you. i'm quite proud.
my mom tells me that she reads my blog regularly (though she never posts a comment ;) -- maybe when i put the picture of this gift up, she'll post a comment about her thoughts on it -- please mom!)

so i'll wait to post when i'm sure that she's seen it in person first.

in the mean time...these are january 27 and january 28, 2007, the daily collages.

it's been raining, the sun is now streaming through the fig tree branches casting shadows on the floor of my studio.

i'm very tempted to go to the local big-box bookstore to check out the latest sewing and knitting books.

the other big pull is the messy desk...as i mentioned, my art flow seems to be good today...
...that settles it. i'm going to do a couple of chores, make a little snack-y lunch, and then right back to the studio for more art making!
hope you are all enjoying crafty days too!

i'm back...rested and so thankful!

wow! that was a wild week. the conference was great, staying just off Telegraph Avenue was *so* much fun. I did manage to be creative a little some time during the day. I hadn't brought my camera with me...so I'm updating with photos of the daily collages now.
The yarn dried while I was gone too...so here are pictures of the yarn I overdyed. Mill end wool that my mom bought in Australia years ago. I used several hanks of the palest yellow and palest green. More overdyeing will take place during the next dyeing party.

colours and collages

we dyed sock yarn yesterday! neither of us had done this before...but, we had a book and several pages of different directions from the internet (not conflicting directions, but, none of them said the same thing...so we sort of did different things from each of the directions, based on the supplies that I had on hand). There was a point when we thought that perhaps $20 a skein was totally worth it. (and of course it is! but we wanted to put the colours and colourways in our heads into the yarn)

And then***, when we lifted the aluminum foil/lid after all 9 skeins had steamed for 45 minutes and saw the bright, gorgeous colours!
*oh*my*goodness*
I'm so in love with the yarn I dyed!
I can't wait to knit some of it up to see what it looks like in a finished product. Of course I took *no* pictures. Cordelia did though. Sadly, Cordelia has been internet-less for several days. Maybe later today or tomorrow she'll have all the photos up, check back with her to see the whole process (and her yarn). My one photo is of my yarn and where we did the dyeing. I'll take more photos when it's dry and wound too.



Also, collage 1/20/07 and collage 1/21/07

tell me something good.....

it's been wild at work lately. that busy, phones ringing off the hook, people bring in lattes and cookies and lunch and we work feverishly and then all stand around the "refreshments" for 10 minutes (or so) and tell crazy stories about "last year at this time", or "oh remember EL of 1997 when X did Y" and we all laugh, or gasp, or hope for an *even*better* story this year. fun. i really love this time, i love the shared stories and the community that develops when we all get punch drunk and laugh so hard our sides hurt! So the conference is coming up. I'll likely be silent (blog-wise) for a couple of days unless I have wireless access in the hotel room (someone in the office made the reservation, and I haven't had the thought to check out that little bit of information for myself yet). So, in the span of less than a week, I'm going from rural (-ish, it's coastal California after all) to urban living. I'll be comparing and contrasting in my handwritten journal, I'll share a bit in the daily collages and maybe a bit in writing on the blog later too.

ahem.
o.k. *please* post a comment. pick a post, any post and post a comment.

home again.

newest collages.



back from a wonderful vacation. so inspired! more stories and photos to come.

the variety in wine country....

another glorious day in the country....

more wine country images

having a wine-tabulous arty adventure. some additional images. have seen *lots* of birds, all different shapes and sizes (cats too). tremendous numbers of glorious plants and still some trees with bright fall colours on them.

today's collage

wanted to get this posted before heading out for the day's adventure....
Yes. That is frost on the window!

wine country images

The last three collages.




Some more images from my artist retreat.
Isn't this latte gorgeous? From Cafe Noto in Windsor.
Free wi-fi and an organic latte. That's the way to start the morning!
It has been such a joy to be in the country for a few days. Despite the freezing temperatures. The air is crisp and clean and the stars at night! Absolutely a much needed break from the chaos and congestion of the bay area. There are definitely wonderful things about the bay area too...the strongest example is the human diversity. My goodness wine country is quite bland in comparison.

Wind, Sand, Ocean...space!

First time driving over the Golden Gate Bridge. I've walked it before, but this was a new and exciting experience. It is a beautiful and impressive piece of highly functional art.

Found this great example of what wind, salt, water, sand and probably thousands of people stepping on it over the years. At a beach parking lot in Mendocino.



Space, glorious space! how I do love trees, fields, greenery of all kinds...non-asphalt and -concrete and -glass. went to mendocino yesterday. it was *so* cold. great yarn store and coffee shop there, also had a great huervos rancheros at a cafe there. and then there is the art. the mendocino art center looks so wonderful...one day I'd love to take a class there. small artsy progressive towns, i *heart* them.

my kind of party in a box....

I'll be decorating the box too, one day when I just can't stop collag'ing...but for now it's hanging out with my bellybutton angel.

and...today's (1*9*07) collage:

1*8*07

thank you, thank you! I'm thrilled to have sold 101 items in my little spot on the web! and blessedly *this* was the 100th item sold.

today's collage. i couldn't wait to get home to make. I am so looking forward to time spent on these. And yesterday I figured out a wonderful way to display them. I'll take photos tomorrow.

wine and vineyards and glorious time weathering

going on a wine & art adventure soon. it's so on my mind, i imagine it will be the focus of many of these next few days.

collage #7

been doing some 4 x 4 sketches this morning too. supposed to be making silver pieces though.

after a little lunch time snack of apple, cheese & crackers I've get to the silver.