I have a beautiful piece of art hanging in my living room on loan from the artist.
Isn't it great. My sister used to do quilting, she now is into costuming dolls--check her pictures on Flicker. She is the Dress Maker and her stuff is fantastic.
Here are a couple of detail shots of details from the quilt. I never had a quilt of her's so I am enjoying the loan.
100 Projects to Finish
I finished a couple of the projects from my list. I have started small and finished some recent work.
The first is the Angel Muse that I started with my sisters last October. I loved her, but she needed some hair so that she was a little more "frantic".
Her she is at the end of our weekend. The face could be better, but with the help of my sisters, she looks pretty good.
Here she is with the "upgrade", I think the hair balances the skirt that I put on her. I hung her on the door to my studio.
So this is the entrance of my studio, my Muse Angel reminding me of the necessity of creation.
The other two projects that I finished were the samples from the Orenburg Workshop that I took in January.
I knitted a small sample of an orenburg shawl. The construction is very interesting, designed over the ages to give a shawl that can be produced for sale and that has some wonderful lace stitches. It is knitted in one piece with only the final corner grafted, quite different from all of the other traditional shawl shapes.
Here it is before blocking,
and here it is after blocking.
And per my Finished Project criteria, I have it mounted and in the binder notes from the class.
I also did a sampler of different lace stitches that are used in Orenburg shawls and it is finished and in the binder also.
Here it is unblocked...
And here it is blocked.
I really liked the lily of the valley pattern. I was finally able to get the honeycomb stitch to work and learned the "stars" pattern. The Stars gathered in the stitches a lot, I would probably need to add stitches to balance the use of it in a shawl.
Here it is close up:
I think that it is an interesting lace possibility.
Anyway, there is the start of my three year journey to finish One Hundred Projects from Storage or 100P's.
I am looking forward to getting some boxes emptied.
I have been wondering about adding house projects to the list. I guess they fit the criteria, they are taking up storage space, I have spent money on them and never finished them. I am still deciding on them...what do you think?
I had my sick January again this year...what a pain. This year was infected sinuses brought on by the horrible cold and cough I seem to get each year. It has been about 4 weeks and I am still coughing a lot. Probably the bad air and talking on the phone all day (what I do at work) has contributed to the length of the cough. I will continue to use the inhaler when I need to (I try to limit that to less than once a day), I will run the humidifier (bought a new one that seems to be working well) and I will corner the market on cough drops (I really like the Ricola).
My Beginning Weaving class started last week and after four hours of talking, I started to cough so bad I lost my voice and had trouble breathing. That was the end of class! Hopefully this week's class will be better.
During our threading of the looms, we talk about all sorts of things and one class member mentioned rewarding herself for finishing up 100 hibernating projects. The more I think about this the more I want to do the same thing. I can easily come up with the one hundred and in fact have started a book with a project a page. I have entered 52 so far.
As usual, I have set some parameters for myself. I will consider it an unfinished project if I have bought something and have had to store it. And it is not a finished item until it is ready to use, give away or sell...it cannot go back into storage. So this will eliminate the handwoven yardage...it needs to be turned into a finished item. The list does not have to be done in order, and I think that the three years she gave herself is a good amount of time. Some of the projects can probably be finished in a week, but some (like knitting sweaters) could take much longer. So I gave given myself three years and I am starting today. I will darn in the ends and do the wet finishing of the stitch sampler from the Orenburg lace class with Galina.
The class was wonderful, by the way. She has insights and information about the craft that is done differently than I usually do with my knitting. Add to that the lace stitches (I have wondered about the "wheat" or "lily of the valley" patterns, but had not put in the time to figure them out), it was nice to have a class with quick instruction to get it done.
Thanks to the recent little snow storm, the air is clear and the sky is blue. I am off today and I want to get to the museum to enjoy the Trevor Southey show before it comes down. His work is wonderful to stand in front of and just enjoy.
