Collaborative Making...

Today I did a lot of sewing today. I cut out and sewed felt pieces for this game board for a project my son is making.

And a fun dinner celebration of 16 years of marriage!

Color Wheel Wreath

Here are my collected felted stones after the addition of last night's creations...

I was delighted this evening to discover I had enough to cover the wood ring I planned to use and that there worked out to be a good distribution of color.  I look forward to hanging this on the front door tomorrow.  

I can also go all the way back to this post from last January to see the beginning of this project...it feels good to complete it.

Some un-making today as well.  Disassembling the tree fence at St. Aidan's.  I am reminded how much I enjoy this way of being with others.  Thankful for the hard work and also the community and laughter of this group...

Felt stones

I created these felted stones tonight while watching Christmas movies.  They are felt left over from an earlier attempt to make a color wheel with wet felting.  The felt shifted in the process so the design wasn't as tight as I wanted. Later, our pup found it and pulled it apart a bit so I just saved the roving I could salvage.  The selection of colors worked well for this collection of stones.  

They add to this larger collection made over the past year...

Felting

Worked with felting today and managed to avoid any help from the pup this time.  Here is a needle felted labyrinth ball...

And six new stones, these are wet felted from wool that was part of another project that got destroyed by a curios pup...I am working to have enough of them to create a wreath of colorful stones.

And our tree...took two weeks to get it in the house and then another week to add the ornaments. Feels good to have it decorated now.  It's particularly fun to remember projects of years past as we add the ornaments.

Felting Practice

I'm practicing needle felting.  So far I've broken 4 needles and had to redo one ball because the dog got to it.  But I am getting better at holding the needles so they don't break.  This sort of felting is tedious but like knitting is a good way to keep hands active in conversations or in in-between moments in the day.
Here's today's labyrinth ball...

Felting

Labyrinth balls today...

...and the pup who really wanted to help after I reattached the felt he chewed off...

Color Wheel

I have been cleaning out around the house and finding various collections of the colorful felt stones. Assembling them here lets me see how many I have and begin to think about sewing them together into a wreath. More to come soon...

Mending...

So we had a full day running errands, meeting a wonderful dog sitter and generally preparing for vacation this coming weekend.

This evening I spent time hemming pants for my son.  We will have dinner with my grandmother tomorrow night and her community has a dress code that requires trousers for men.  So my making time was spent mending, hemming to be exact.

Not terribly exciting and yet, I'm reminded of how glad I am to know how to do this.  It's tedious but allows us to pull together dress code appropriate clothes at the eleventh hour.  AND I remember my sophomore year of college how working with an installation artist let me see how many of the making, sewing and building skills I'd grown up practicing were also art skills.  

So for today my making is mending.

Full days at camp...

Days continue to feel full at camp.  Most of my making is making space, framing time and space in the studio for making.

I did rinse and dry my experiments with felt dying...

And I began a collage of my own in the evening...more to come on that later.

Trying new things at camp...

So as I encourage my artist campers to try new things at camp, I am challenging myself to do the same.

Here's a linoleum block I cut this evening...

...I look forward to printing it tomorrow.

And here's a color spectrum of kool aid all ready to dye wool roving.  Hoping to put it out in the sun tomorrow.  It's supposed to work like sun tea and dye the roving in the jar when the sun heats the liquid.  So far it's been a fun experiment.

New beginnings...

I haven't done much with collage in a while.  Here are two new beginnings inspired by scenes at Huntley Meadows...

Here are the touchstones fired last night...

And a new experiment creating a felted labyrinth ball...

Felt and stones...

Today I glazed my collection of labyrinth stones.  They are in the kiln now.

Another summer project is organizing art supplies and spaces at home.  The dilemma here is that most of the disorganization is unfinished projects.  I seem to think if I keep them visible maybe I will return to finish them.  

One example is felt color wheels.  I made them in the winter with varying degrees of success.  And then my pup sniffed them out of assorted boxes and bags and tore them.  It's a good opportunity to reuse the felt to add to my collection of colorful felt stones.  The goal is to make enough to remake my color wheel wreath for my front door.  Here are the ones I made today...

I made a hat...

And got these in the mail - a good way to celebrate world labyrinth day today.

Rest in repetition...

Today was a busy day of meetings and appointments.  My only block of time for making came in the evening and I was tired.  I turned to crochet, a different kind of making that works well for tired eyes and brain but keeps my hands busy.

I can rest a bit in the repetition of the stitches...

Today I made...

A garland...

A birthday cake...

And some changes to this collage, adding more layers over the photo transfer...

Decorations from experiments

Today I used one of my experiments in felting and cut it into a set of hearts.

It made a different sort of felt color wheel.

Next step is to string these into a garland.

More felting...

Slowly I'm working on improving my wet felting technique - here's the latest.

Before...

And after...

Deadlines

Often creative time seems to run different than clock time.  It requires spaces to pause and reflect as well as times to make and do.

And then there are deadlines - opportunities that push for closure and decision making.  

I plan to enter this color wheel in a fiber arts exhibit and the deadline for entry is tomorrow.  This offered great motivation today to complete this project - here's the final version...

Sewing

My latest color wheel - a few adjustments and finishing still to come...

Clay and felt...

Fired clay pieces from the kiln last night...

A pair of acorn maracas

And 2 new labyrinths.

My making today focused on another try with felting. Here's the before...

And after...

The colors separated more in this one than in the first - will try again to see if stretching the fibers differently helps them stay closer together in the felting process.