welcome to the studio

I was help out at the Pike River Rendezvous explaining the artifacts that had been recovered from the Resique Tavern site, which is at the same place as the Rendezvous.  The tent next to us had this beauty for sale.  I hemmed and hawed about it all day, then decided to buy it.  I was driving my Saturn, but the lady told me it fit in the back of their car... Yep you guessed it.  I am hot, sun-burnt in fact, and standing there with the man who sold it to me, no way to get it in my car and it is threatening to storm. Neither of us have any tools with us to take it off the stand.  Disaster!  When suddenly, a very nice total stranger said "if you are not going far, it will fit in my mini-van. I'll follow you."  I live about an hour from where we are standing, but a dear friend lives only a mile or so and I saw her at the Rendezvous.  So we load it up and take it to her house, but she is not home! luckily her porch was, so we unload it as the rain starts.  I call my parents, who only live about 20 minutes away.  Dad is at a woodworking conference in the next state and won't be home until late.  I call another friend - it was her wedding I was making dresses for - and she is home.  She and her husband race to rescue me.  It won't fit in her new car either!  They have not moved their tool bag into the new car, so her husband drives back across town to get them.  We manage to get it disassembled and into my car, then go back to their house to relax, wait out the storm, and eat some yummy homemade chocolate hazelnut ice cream.  When we got there I realized that not only did she drop everything when I called she did so in the middle of her dinner!  They say a real friend helps you hide the body, in my world a real friend drops everything to help you, even when the help you need is completely due to your own poor planning.  

Yarn along - long pink days

Linking up with Ginny at Small Things for the Yarn along, check it out.

 I am crocheting this blanket for my husband's cousin's baby.  Baby A is born and beautiful and growing faster than this blanket.  The blanket is about 16 inches square right now.  It is soft and pretty but tiresome and I have so many other projects! (That I would rather, and in some cases really need to be working on instead.) I am reading The Race by Clive Cluster, I enjoy his books this is a historical fiction set at the beginning of manned flight.  His normal stuff is a bit faster paced action save the world science fiction, maritime science.  I am also reading about spinning and weaving.

 Here is the skirt for Butterfly that I was working on the last time I yarn along-ed.  I will be entering it into the fair challenge. Oh and I really do not like tutu yarn, it took about 7 hours to pull all the fluffy stuff to the right side of the skirt! Butterfly thinks it is beautiful though and that is what matters.

My Amazing Father made these Oak, Walnut, and Maple crochet hooks.  These are prototypes he is planning on going in to business selling his wood-crafting work. They are sitting on a wool scarf I knit, 3strands at a time for extra warmth, for my cousin for Christmas.

Knitting and Crocheting along to see what is in everyone else's workbaskets. ~ Julia

Understitching and life lessons.

I normally craft as fast as possible and with a deadline, I am very good at it. I have been really enjoying spinning, to the point of not working on other things that have deadlines in order to spin, but when someone asks what the yarn I am making is for I feel a little panicky. FOR? um it is not FOR anything, I made it. 

I was just working on the 1840 dress for Badger, I estimated to have it finished in two days tops. I noticed the instructions were 'out of order' and overly complicated and started to look for why they were building the dress in this manner. I was stunned by the simplicity of the final product and the benefit to the dress all the "wasted extra steps" add. I started to understitch the back and was suddenly filled with the calm that spinning brings to me.

So there it is.  Self realization does not have to look like much, the bottom have of the photo is the inside of the bodice of her dress the top half is my ironing board cover, which is actually pink and clearly in need of cleaning.

I hope you work on something today that brings you piece and calm. ~ Julia  (Joy too!)