Knitting and my self portrait from 1966

I recently sent my son two of my remaining art pieces (I destroyed the rest, temperamental?) and now I just have one left. The two I sent him were a pen and ink - pointillism - of a young girl and a charcoal of a young boy. Here they are hanging on the wall in his house in Malta. I did the girl at 16 and the boy at about 19.

 I dug around until I found my old self portrait which NO ONE liked but me. Odd since I was so hypercritical of my painting as a kid. I was 15 or 16 when I painted it. Any how, the frame was crap so I re-framed it and I like it even better.

Now on to the knitting. I found this lovely lambs wool Aran yarn in my knee wall while looking for forgotten things. I have no idea what I will do with it.

And last but not least this is "The Lake", Horizon 3 on it's way to Arizona.

knitting bag

You know how it is in the winter - weight gain. I needed to have something to do with my hands other than put snacks in my mouth so I started knitting again. I was carrying it in a basket but it was too bulky so I made a cute bag with soft leather handles.

Maine was famous for shoe shops but the trade went to cheap overseas vendors. I was the recipient of MANY full leather skins. This one is very soft and perfect for handles.

Binding the top and applying the handles. The Juki handled the quilted fabric and leather easily.

Side seams and box bottom.

Both sides.

My alpaca cowel in its infancy.

My sister's new studio

My sister moved in to my old studio on the second floor of my house. It's huge (32 X 24) with a 12 X 15 bathroom. I moved my bed upstairs to free up the space in my former living room where I have been sleeping for the past few years. I just can't do stairs anymore. Now I only have to go up and down once a  day and there is a lot more room in my "new" studio area.

Most importantly are her dogs. Scruffy looks like my Jaic and the little black girl is Bebe. Scruffy travels with Susan when she is driving the truck and Bebe stays with us during the week.

Scruff in his happy place.

Susan and her space.

She already made a top. We hit a big Joanns sale and she bought batts and I bought LOTS of white fabric to dye, batik, deconstruct, or maybe silk screen

More quilt redux

This was really a wide quilt and I had a hard time finding a jar to slip inside for shape and stability. I made a load of Peanut Butter Crisscross cookies for the holidays and I ended up with an empty PB jar that fit perfectly.

This ruler was the exact height I needed.

It was a Rainbow Trout

I think this was so funny. I was cleaning out some cabinets so my sister could put her kitchen items in her own spot when I came across a coffee cup cuff I made long ago. It fit perfectly with this jar.

I slipped a small jar into to hold my magnifying glass for threading my sewing machine needles.

The last of the print table covers.

I had to clear out my print table and silk screens to make room for my sisters stuff in my garage when it comes off the truck. We will gradually get everything up to her suite but in the meantime.......

This was the last of the table covers from the Maine Event. I thoroughly sprayed the 4' X 8' piece of fabric with soda ash because I hadn't pre-soaked it prior to the event. Here it is coming into the house in a bucket.

It doesn't look like much here but it is really beautiful fabric.

70 pecking birds I received for my 70th birthday from my friend Rita.

Big news of the year

I can't remember if I wrote a post about finding my birth family but I found my "father's SIDE" about three years ago. There were so many illegitimate children, I am probably the child of one of them. I am not the daughter of any of the "known men" of the Henderson family.

After a strange and circuitous journey, I found my mother's side of the family. My mother had died a few years before as did an older brother but I still have a half sister, Susan, and a half-brother, Arlan.
Here we all are celebrating "Mother's Day". It was very apropos.

So the BIG news is that Susan is moving in with me next week. She is packing a Penske truck in Indiana and will arrive here the day after Christmas. She will move into my fabulous upstairs studio. When I first met her, her Facebook photos were of all the quilts she had made. Nuf said. You read a few posts ago about her visit and we decided we wanted to spend as much time as we had left being together and playing. She is still trucking for the time being but may start working in personal care after a while. She was a nurse for over 30 years and was tired of that so she starting trucking. It's a dangerous and lonely life on the road so hopefully she will finding something here in Maine she will enjoy. She is quite a bit younger than me so she is not ready for retirement yet.

So you can count on all kinds of textile high jinks in the future. Life gets better and better.

Taking a felting workshop

My friend TieDye Judy told me about this fabulous felting workshop she is taking. I signed up and my sister and I are working along with master felter Jackie Cardy. We've already watched 3 of the 12 workshops in the Fabulous Fibre series and are loving it. Thanks for the heads up Judy.

Love this landscape my sister made

This will be transformed with stitch (keep watching)

Above is my effort and I hope to transform this into something special!!

And in case you missed it on my Instagram account, these were special orders from my big Art Show and Sale a few weeks ago.