My Favorite Month

I love October and lucky me, it also happens to be my birth month.  Ian and I went to the matinee to see A Star is Born (wonderful movie) and out to lunch afterwards at BoneYard’s new brewpub.  We’ve been hearing about the atypical menu which is Asian fusion, nice to have another option than burgers and fries.  That’s how we celebrate these days, no more evenings out and driving home in the dark for us.  The irrigation canal is still flowing but not for much longer so I’m trying to incorporate it into my walks.

To my surprise and delight, my Christmas cactus burst into bloom on my birthday!

I’ve been telling myself to stop using UKI cotton when weaving dish towels but their great color choices makes it hard to follow through.  My cloth gets deep creases when I used it, and for some reason, I decided to measure each towel of this warp.  This pattern is a definite repeat so I can’t just stop when I get to 30”, I need to be at the end of the block.  UKI is a little thinner and all the towels with it was weft are shorter.  I’m really bummed.  I just ordered more Brassard and am going to box up the UKI cones and put them in the member sale next year.  And oh boy, do I have a lot of it.  Ouch.

I finished weaving another sampler from Robyn’s twill class, but this time with parallel threading, which is on the left.  My workshop sampler with a solid color warp is on the right and I like it much better.  I haven’t decided how to put this information to use in a practical way, though I think the only application would be scarves which are hard to sell anyway so I’m not sure I want to put the effort into it.  The last issue of Heddlecraft was on this every subject, but I just got the latest issue yesterday which is on Huck.  I love Huck lace and think if I’m going to weave any more scarves, they’ll either be Huck or Scottish tartan.

I got this warp on yesterday, got it beamed, threaded and sleyed, and I did it warping from the back.  I did a couple things differently which enhanced the experience.  I took the counting thread out of the cross and moved it inches ahead of the crosss, and I wound the warp in 2 1/2” bouts so I could keep track of the stripes and the thread count.  I wasn’t short any threads nor did I have any extras.  I was done in five hours.  Matt was here working on the bathroom all day and I was uncomfortable sitting around reading.  I was spurred to action.

The weeks prior to now have been all prep work and yesterday Matt was able to finish the floor, put up baseboards and the sink which still isn’t operational.  He said he wanted to give me a toilet for my birthday which was the day before.  I was thrilled!  He said he’s pretty beat so won’t plan to do any work next weekend.  I’m just thankful for what he does on it, whenever he does it.

He is a perfectionist and I took this picture to show off the way he cut this tile to accommodate the water source.  I can’t imagine what this would cost were his labor not free.  He is giving us a very generous gift.

School is back in session which means school visits to the Bend Art Center.  The kick-off visit just happened to be during my shift.  The students listened Dawn, our Educational Direction, give a 20 minute talk on water tables, which is the subject of the current exhibit in the gallery, and then they came back to the studio to learn some printmaking techniques and make some water table prints of their own.

They utterly loved the experience and weren’t afraid to apply the color and techniques.  Now that I’m back to the morning shift on Tuesdays I’ll be assisting in school visits again.  It’s exhausting and rewarding.  The $80 studio fee is traded for my four-hour volunteer shifts, a terrific opportunity for me.

The previous week I was able to use my volunteer shift to do some work of my own.  I had collected leaves from our yard and made these prints with them.  The two largest prints are on Rives BFK, a cotton paper, and the two on the left are the ghosts, done on thin Asian paper.  A ghost print is the second run of a plate with the remaining ink.

I glued them together and was really pleased with the results so also entered these in the December member show.  The show is titled Deja Vu and requires the submission of two prints that reference each other.  The viewer should be able to wonder when seeing my second print - Haven’t I seen something like that before?  I think the prints are good but I had some problem with the glue.  The entries are being juried this week so we’ll know by the end of the week who goes on to the show and who needs to pick up their work.