fiberhart

Searching for the Muse

I did not spent a lot of time in the studio over the holidays- I finished the house quilt, gave it to the intended recipient, and pretty much turned the sewing machines off. I did spend a day dye printing with my brother- but I was singularly unhappy with the results. I won't even post them, they've already been tossed in the overdye pile. For the foreseeable future, I'm done with wet on dry printing.

So today I got out fabric, WU- and started making my first five postcards for my Art 2 Mail group. I had an idea, one I was reasonably certain I could pull off. I spent most of the morning crazy-piecing backgrounds, cut them into cards, and started machine embroidering the first one. Ooh, it was looking good!! After that was all done, I decided I needed to paint a shadow in- so I grabbed my Caron d'Ache watercolor crayons. No, I did not test on scrap fabric, of which I had plenty. I went at the card, wet the color- and knew I'd made a massive mistake. Wrong color, it bled more than I thought it would, and the white on white fabric I'd colored did not take it evenly. It ended up in the trash.

Then I started looking at the other pieced backgrounds I'd made. One fabric kept screaming at me, "I don't belong here!!" I finally decided it was right, and ended up chucking every single card I'd pieced. I did manage to pull them off the Timtex, and salvaged that part of the cards. Good thing, because I didn't have enough left to make any more cards.

I did make a good start on five cards- very different from my first attempt. But it was a struggle. I'm wondering where my muse has gone on vacation, because she doesn't seem to be residing in the studio right now.

I did complete something over Christmas, however. I used to knit a lot, then gave it up. When my boys were young, I happily designed and made them sweaters. I hadn't touched a knitting needle in years. Then I found myself in the predicament of not being able to find a cream colored vest to replace one I've had for years, and literally wore out. I hunted for over a year, and finally decided this fall the fashion dictators were not going to permit stores to carry anything even close to what I wanted. So I bit the bullet, found a pattern on the internet, and dug my needles out of storage. And I finished it!

I grossly overestimated the amount of yarn I'd need- so I knit my daughter's dog Dieter a sweater too, thanks to a pattern I found on Judy Perez Coates blog. So, here are Dieter and I in all our sartorial glory!

Mine has vertical diamonds done in moss stitch next to the border. Dieter's has horizontal diamonds done in seed stitch, with cables on either side of them And, a lovely 2 X 2 rib turtleneck, which, surprisingly enough, he doesn't seem to mind.
A closeup of Dieter's sweater-

It was nice having a portable project- so, I'm looking for yarn for a second vest for me. But I sure hope Ms. Muse makes her way back home before long, I have a four-day weekend coming up. And I need her to play with!