Amahl and the Night Visitors

Today I decided I would take a break and watch Amahl and the Night Visitors.  This was the first opera commissioned for television in 1955.  I grew up watching this on television every Christmas.  Opera you say!  Well it was in English and for children.  My sister and I still break into song, "This is my box".  You would have to have seen the opera or heard the songs to know our song.  Thanks for the traditions Mom and Dad.  While weaving this transparencies a few years back I thought about this opera while weaving. 

Coffee Cuffs

I sell felted coffee cuffs at a local coffee and tea shop here in Corvallis called Oregon Coffee and Tea.  I love making the cuffs to slip on a paper mug of a take out drink.  I weave them about 4 inches across on the loom, wash to felt and cut.  Decorating is extra fun--a button here or there(it is a cuff), maybe some needle felting and a bit of stitching.  I am taking a stack of cuffs down to the shop today.  See you there for a bit of Christmas shopping.

What is that I smell in the air?

I know it is very hard to be thinking about the next holiday before this one is over.  I got some sense of Christmas this week...I was in a long line at the post office mailing a birthday present.  I also got a call from The River Gallery in Independence, Oregon(about 30 minutes from Corvallis) where I am a contract artist to tell me they install the Holiday Show next week and are looking for new work this week.  I turned in several ornaments, handwoven scarves and kitchen towels for sale.  Many of the ornaments I finished up last year because I know how hard it is for me to be thinking of Christmas this early.  Weaving scarves and towels all year long is pure therapy.  I prefer to stick with Thanksgiving until...so I stopped at Bugerville for a Pumpkin Milkshake on the way home to get me back in the Thanksgiving mood.

Handwoven scarf for sale

A Bird's Paradise

A Bird's Paradise in progress

The show in the Corrine Woodman Gallery at the Corvallis Arts Center opened yesterday.  I just got back from viewing it and love what the overhead light does to the transparencies. 

Now I am working on a birdhouse for the birdhouse-themed exhibit titled, "Where Birds Dream..." and silent auction to open at The Arts Center in Corvallis in November.  Artist from all over the valley are putting together birdhouses either functional for bird habitation or entirely fantastical and decorative for the holiday exhibit.  In addition the houses can be purchased.  Mine is decorative and is a woven transparency with feathers.  The photograph above shows the birdhouse in progress, a coffee cuff roof  with worms woven in and a felted nest with felted eggs of wool and feathers.  This is what I wrote about my house that I have titled, A Bird's Paradise                 

        

Yr Built:   2010    .44 Square Feet

1 BR/0 BA Single Family House

Move in Now!!!  A custom built single level home with Eco-friendly roof.  This rare find was designed with the discriminating egg-laying vertebrates in mind.  Open and airy single-room floor plan, bright and cheery with lots of light from the expansive windows.   Beautiful window treatments allow for maximum enjoyment of the view. Nursery ready for new young ones on the way.  Fly by necessary for full appreciation.    

Finished the Sunflower

I finished The Sunflower.  The center of the flower is woven with dried sunflower seeds.  Wool inlay is used for the the rest of the flower, stem and leaves.  The lower part is the earth and root of the plant woven with a variety of fiber.  I used a linen warp. 

Getting Ready

I am getting ready for a joint show in a small gallery in the local Arts Center.  Bonnie Wedekind Albright is the other artist in the show and she weaves with wire.  I will have several transparencies and am working on a sunflower that I hope to finish for the opening October 26, 2010.  Here is a photograph of the mock up that I use behind the weaving to keep me on course as I weave.  I better get back to work.   

Fiber

I am just finishing up this series of transparencies I titled "Fiber". I am feeling like summer is coming to a close no peaches at the market today, back to school and Labor Day on Monday.

Permission to Play with crayons

This is another small quilt that I finished after a play day with metallic crayons in the Permission to Play class. I love to play with fiber!

Permission to Play

Yesterday I attended my Permission to Play class at a local quilt store. The class is for cancer diagnosed patients. We try out interesting and new techniques with textiles. This small quilt to the right is "Sun" which is made with the woven technique we learned several months ago. I just finished it. I will post the Texture Magic that we worked on yesterday when I get something that looks like something.

Towels on the LeClerc

I have been working on a set of commissioned kitchen towels.  The customer wanted towels in colors of blue, red and yellow.  We decided on an off-white warp in twill squares surrounded by basket weave and I will weave single color towels in 8/2 cotton.  They are coming along and I hope they will be exactly what she was looking for.    

Welcome

Memories of Susan

Hi.  I started my blog today.  My friend badgered me into it.  Thank you Cindie, I think! 

The plan is to show you what is going on in my fiber world.  I love to weave transparencies, a sheer open weave that allows light to come from the back to enhance pattern threads.  This is a transparency that I am finishing up.