Alabama Studio

As you can tell by previous posts, I love the clothing of Nathalie Chanin.  She also speaks to my heart, since I was also born in Alabama and spent several years of my childhood there.  Her books remind me of my childhood spent eating biscuits (but not that often since my mother didn't like them, but boy, my father and I sure did), sugar cookies, and other southern delights, as well as the sewing circles with my mother and her friends, and the coffee klatches with their yummy treats.  Anyway,  I digress, Burda Style is having a contest for those who want to enter their Alabama Stitches inspired wear.  I entered several pieces, but thought I would show one new one that I sewed for my daughter and a better photo of the black skirt and camisole top that I made.

  Now it is back to work weaving my piece for the American Tapestry Alliance's Enchanted Pathways show.  And, there are always the taxes to start, and the New Year's letters to finally send out....

Sun Spots

Here is my latest piece, finally finished.  This piece will go in a show with my fiber arts group, Fiber Transformed (FT).  I have been working on this piece since Christmas.  The FT show is called "Starting Point" and must feature at least one black dot somewhere.  I mounted the piece on a 12x12" hand-painted canvas.

It is embroidered/thread painted with DMC thread on cotton fabric and measures 5 3/4" x 5 3/4". I beaded the sunflower center.

Yet Another Snowy Day....

After 10 years of no real appreciable amounts of snow, Mother Nature is making up for it this winter.  Before Christmas we received approximately 27 inches.  I stopped measuring at 21", but then it continued to snow for another 20+ hours, albeit at a slower rate.  This snow was followed by another 9 inches a few weeks later, to be followed by 4 more inches last weekend.  The predictions for this snow are ranging from 12-30 inches.  I haven't been measuring, but is has been snowing at a pretty good rate since 6 am, and it is supposed to snow through tomorrow evening.  Here is a view out our kitchen window.

You would think with a nice snow, I could get a lot of weaving or other projects done.  However, now I have three horses in the barn with water and hay to be given, stalls to be cleaned, manure dragged out to the manure pile.  Soon, I will have to shovel a path to the barn and the manure pile.  We had to stockpile wood, and start a fire to keep the fireplace clear of snow.    The last big snow when the power went out I couldn't start a fire because the chimneys were completely covered in snow. My husband was stuck at a friend's house for two days because he couldn't get up our unplowed road.  He is home today and busy outside doing most of the heavy duty work on stockpiling the wood.  We have a fire started, but my son just came in to tell me that I need to get it going again.  I have to finish this entry soon!

Of course it is not all work.  My kids and I have had some fun with my husband's surf board.  My childhood sled is only good on ice.  With this much powder, we took out his surfboard, he took off the fins, and snow surfers we became.  Here are my son and I trying to look cool as we surf down the hill into a pasture.

I think my son Scott has got me beat on the cool factor!


As for what I have been busy doing this week instead of weaving, my kids have only been in school 4 hours in the last week.  However, that four hours was a nice break.  It gave me time to run to the thread store and get some colors that I was running out of to finish my 10x10 inch tapestry, to run to the grocery store to get a few more items in case of power outage, and to go to my fiber arts meeting with a fiber group that recently asked me to join called Fiber Transformed.  We have one show mounted right now at Artworks in Richmond if anyone gets a chance to see it.  I was not able to finish a piece for this show, called Starting Point.  There is another show right now at Radford University called Wish You Were Here, based on photos from members' vacations.  Because I just recently joined the group, again, I don't have a piece for that show.  I am finishing one for the next Starting Point show which will be at Blue Ridge Community College at the end of February.  The Starting Point pieces must have at least one black dot in them somewhere, and it can be any size.

Today, I am trying to get a little weaving done.  Here is a view into the studio, you can get a glimpse of my companions.

Here is a shot of my progress on my ATA Enchanted Pathways weaving.