I am working my way back to healthy by going to the gym and working out, doing exercises at home, and riding a bike. I am prone to vertigo so a two-wheel bike is a horrible option. So I got a tricycle. An electric tricycle with pedal assist. I got an expensive helmet and flashing lights so people would see me when I’m riding my tricycle. I took my trike for a ride. Everything was going great until a telephone pole jumped out in front of me. When I hit the pole, I rammed the handlebars into my abdomen and slammed my tailbone against the seat. I put a serious scrap on my shin. Although I was bleeding, my sock never ripped. This getting in shape business is tough work. The shin is healing, the bruises are starting to disappear, and my tailbone hurts. Fortunately, my helmet had a great warranty. Because I fell, I got a new helmet for free.
I got the little person sewn down. I was doing hand quilting along the bars, but if it hurts to sit, I’m not going to get much done. I do want to translate this into a painting.
I’ve added some jewelry to my online store, Deb Thuman Art. I’ve got a pile of jewelry that I made and I need to get it all in my store. If I put three items into my store each day, in about a month, I’ll be up to date. Maybe. Provided I don’t make anything new.
These are all in my store here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com. There’s a necklace to match the blue/green earrings.
The photos are a tad odd because I had to crop them like crazy to use them in my store. Now when I put them in a blog post, the background gets a little weird. It’s always something.
We lost power for a couple hours because we had a rollicking thunderstorm with pouring rain. This made for some rain photos.
Some days, today being one, making art is difficult. I put beads in a row to make a necklace, and I hate every necklace I try to make. Nothing looks right. Aquamarine beads don’t look right coupled with any other variety of bead. I’ve got blue, teal, yellow and red tiger eye beads. None look right with any other variety of bead. Swarovski crystals don’t add anything to a collection of beads. Neither do pearls. I just bought sparkly black opals. Even though I have severe bling addiction and love sparkle, I can’t come up with a design in which to use them.
I’m stuck.
I’ve got a pattern for pajama bottoms laid out, but I don’t feel like cutting it out and sewing the pieces together. I’ve got a pair of slacks almost done, but I don’t feel like doing the final chore: inserting elastic. I need a pair of white slacks and I’ve got some white linen/cotton blend. I don’t feel like laying out a pattern.
I’ve started writing a second novel, but don’t feel like writing it. Maybe it’s because of how I’ll feel while I’m writing it. I don’t write fluff. I write my guts. My guts take a lot out of me. The novel is about the hell I went through working at the Public Defender Department – a hell that nearly killed me.
I want to blame this malaise on external events. Except external events aren’t the cause of my malaise. My painting teacher said my work is self-taught folk art. Um….doesn’t taking art classes take my work out of the self-taught category? Folk art? What the fecal matter is folk art? Anna Robertson Moses created folk art. I like to think my work is more refined than Moses’ work – which isn’t taken seriously. If Anna Robertson Moses’ work were taken seriously, she wouldn’t be known as Grandma Moses.
Maybe the subject matter of my current work contributes to the malaise. I’m doing another painting about mass shooting. Painting about antisemitism during Passover and on Holocaust Remembrance Day is a strange experience. I paint while thinking about hatred, oppression, slavery. The two landscapes I’m working on aren’t enough of an emotional break. Worse, a third mass shooting painting is working itself through my mind.
I take photographs of the spring blooms in my yard, but I hate the photos. There’s no magic in them. There’s nothing in the photos which grabs my attention.
I love yucca flowers. I don’t love the photos of yucca flowers I’m taking.
I don’t think the problem is my photos. My photos are technically good, but they don’t give me joy.
Why am I not happy about the crisp detail in this photo?
Why am I not pleased with the playfulness of this composition? I can’t even imagine turning this into a fabric design – and I love designing fabric.
I’m having a peripheral neuropathy flareup and the only reliable painkiller is to make art. I’ve been making lots of art.
One of the claret cup cactus clumps is blooming. We have several clumps, and each one blooms at a different time. The clump that is blooming now always blooms first and always has the most blooms.
Because the vertigo is under control, I can do more night time shooting. I prefer to shoot a less than full moon because I think smiley moons are intriguing.
I’ve been making jewelry and I’m s….l…..o….w….l….y getting the pieces put into my online store, Deb Thuman Art. The problem is it’s hard to tell if the entire necklace is in the photo online. I have to put an item in my store, write up copy, and then check the store to see if the entire necklace shows in the photos. So far, I have to reshoot one necklace.
Deep blue tiger eye, creamy pearls and Swarovski crystals. Swarovski is no longer making crystal beads. I do have a stash of Swarovski crystals, but once they are gone, I can’t get any more.
Agate and quartz. What the gem looks like depends on what flies out of the volcano, where it lands, and how fast or slow the lava cools.
I couldn’t resist buying these iridescent glass leaves.
I don’t often make jewelry for myself. I gathered all my favorite gems – smokey quartz, malachite, rhodochrosite, pearls among others and made a necklace for myself.
Painting class has started and I’ve picked out some photos that I’d like to turn into paintings. I suck at realism, so I’ll be doing some landscape paintings.
A special place in Aguirre Springs, New Mexico. It’s where I decided to live.
A special place at Rushford Lake, Rushford, NY. It’s where I buried the ghosts.
Rock formation on the south side of the Dona Ana Mountains with the mountains shrouded in clouds. Dona Ana, New Mexico.
I’ve been editing photos for Jim, and I started playing around. I may paint this eerie view of the Dona Ana Mountains.
I’ve been working on jewelry and have four new pieces in my store. I’ve been using up my stash of Swarovski crystals. Swarovski has discontinued manufacturing beads so once my stash is gone, I won’t be able to buy any more crystals.
Swarovski heart.
Swarovski leaf.
Pyrite and other semi-precious gems.
Smoky quartz – one of my favorite semi-precious stones.
I’ve been making progress on the spirit dancing quilt. I gave up on using iridescent fabrics because they just didn’t work against a dark background. Instead, I’ve re-designed the quilt and now it’s about dancing in the place where I buried the ghosts. This is one of the trails at Rushford Lake. We had a cottage there. I used to walk these trails every weekend because I needed to get away from my toxic family. One summer, my mother decided to take my siblings out to the lake for the week and left me home to babysit the drunk. I’d spend the day going through cookbooks to find something interesting to make for dinner. Eventually, the drunk would stagger in and announce he had already eaten dinner. I asked my mother if I could go out to the lake with her and my siblings. No. That’s how much she hated me. Later, I discovered that although my siblings and spouses could go to the lake and stay at the cottage, I couldn’t. In 2018, we traveled to Rushford Lake and I buried the ghosts that had haunted me for 50 years.
I’m not sure if I like what I’ve done so I’m letting the quilt sit for a few days. Frequently, something I thought looked terrible, looked much better the next day.
Brady looks so innocent when she’s asleep. Usually, I don’t like a photo to be this grainy, but I like how this shot came out. I used my cell phone for this shot.
I’ve been working with beads this week. I have more snowflakes. The snowflake frames come in 3.75” and 6”. It’s interesting working with symmetry and finding beads that work well with each other. With necklaces, I use a necklace board that has channels for beads and inch marks to let me know how long the necklace will be. With the snowflake frames, I have to find beads that work well together but still fit on the frame.
I’m having a hard time photographing the snowflakes. I want a blurred background and the entire snowflake in focus.
This is the setup I used to shoot snowflakes.
Once I get decent photos, I’ll be putting the snowflakes in my store, Deb Thuman Art http://www.DebThumanArt.com
I wanted to test out my new, cataract-free eyes, so I started working with 0/8 seed beads to make a beaded cuff. I haven’t figured out the best strength for reading glasses yet and I’m not able to work well with 0/11 although I’ve been trying.
This one is made with 11/0 seed beads and it’s not finished.
This one is made with 8/0 beads and it needs a clasp.
Used to be, I’d go into a major depression the third week of November and stay depressed until New Year’s Day. If you had to suffer through holidays with my family, you’d be depressed, too. The screaming. The fighting. The crying. The yelling. For a while, we took off on a vacation over Christmas so we wouldn’t have to spend time with the families. My sister-in-law said we were just running away. Damn straight.
It’s been a long time since I got depressed in mid-November and stayed depressed. This year, something odd happened. I decided to make Green Stuff. Every Thanksgiving, my mother would make Green Stuff. It was the only enjoyable part of holiday dinners. It took a while to find a recipe. It’s a lime Jell-o salad with whipped cream and crushed pineapple. I wanted to make it on Thanksgiving, but I forgot to tell Jim to buy whipped cream. He went grocery shopping today and discovered three stores are out of heavy cream. He bought a can of Red-I Whip so he could make puppaccinos for Brady. I’ll be using Red-I Whip in place of whipped cream. I think it’s a sign of significant healing that I want to make Green Stuff this year.
I’m still suffering from malaise. I printed out a Seamwork pattern, taped the pages together to form one big pattern. Now, I have to transfer the pattern to an interfacing that has a grid on it. Or not. Maybe I’ll live dangerously and just cut out the paper pattern. I’ve marked the lines for my size. I want to make this loose, oversized dress so I will have a cover up for when I model nude. Can’t very well walk naked down the hallway to get to the ladies’ room.
Hanukkah starts tonight. My favorite Hanukkah store comes from an article I wrote many years ago. I wrote an article about Judaic collectibles for AntiqueWeek. I visited a museum in one of the larger temples in Buffalo, NY. Among the fascinating objects was a small menorah. During WWII, a soldier took a tin that had held K-rations and 9 bullet casings. He attached the casings to the inside of the tin to make a menorah. Hanukkah celebrates the triumph of a small band of Jewish soldiers who vanquished Antiochus IV and re-took the temple. During a time when Hitler was trying to wipe out all the Jews in Europe, a Jewish soldier celebrated Hanukkah.
That sound you hear is me banging my head on the table. There’s a quilt I’ve been wanting to make for the last 14 years. I had a vision where I saw my spirit dancing in a forest. My spirit was a magnificent, shimmering being. Finally, I got the right background – one of my photographs of the woods where I buried the ghosts. I had gotten a sheer fabric that I thought would work – but I bought the fabric before I had the background worked out. Naturally, the fabric I bought looks awful with the background. Now, I get to audition fabric. My stash is huge. You’d think the perfect fabric would jump out of the storage bin, but that’s not happening. So far, I’ve found at least a half dozen fabrics that absolutely will not work. I’ve picked out one that has possibilities, but I need to let it sit on top of the background for a day or so in order to know if it works or not. I do have a batik – white with pale blue design. It looked wrong. If I use what I’m auditioning, I’ll need to add beads so it looks more or less shimmery.
Meanwhile, I went to print out a pattern for a dress (already designed and bought the fabric). #$%$%*(!!! printer is out of ink. I went to the Canon website (after checking and seeing amazon and Best Buy had the same price) and ordered ink. What a PITA! I had to keep going back because the form said I did something wrong. Eventually I managed to order the ink. Which won’t arrive for about 3 days.
So here I am. The wrong fabric. The printer out of ink. And all I got done is to draw out the template for the dancer to be appliqued onto the quilt.
I can only manage to make three snowflakes per day. More than that and my head explodes. These are all in my store, Deb Thuman Art here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com
My eyesight is getting better each day. My right eye is 20/25 and my left eye is 20/30. Before cataract surgery, my vision was worse than 20/200. It’s interesting having to learn to take off my glasses when I need to see distance and to put on my glasses when I need to see things up close.
I now have a pair of reading glasses, each with a beaded string, in my office, my sewing room, the living room (so I can knit while watching TV) and in my purse. And I have a pair of decent sunglasses. Used to be, I had bifocals, computer glasses, and sunglasses for distance only.
I’ve been working with watercolor pencils and watercolor crayons to make backgrounds for fabric designs. I like how the colors blend when I brush water over the paper. Spoonflower had a sale and free shipping so I ordered proofs for 84 designs. Several of the designs are whole cloth designs to be added to the whole cloth designs already in my Spoonflower shop here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman
Setting up at the Farmers & Craft Market isn’t an option. Jim is getting physical therapy for the repair to a torn rotator cuff and a torn bicep. EZ-Up is a misnomer. It doesn’t go up easy, and it requires two people to set it up. Then weights have to be attached to each corner to keep the EZ-Up from becoming a Flying-Up. Jim doesn’t have full range of motion in his arm yet. Instead, I’ll be adding things to my store, Deb Thuman Art, each week. My store is here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com
I made some snowflakes. I bought some small frames and some large frames. These are made with the small frames. I also made a beaded string for reading glasses. The snowflakes and beaded string will be going into my store in the next couple days. I need to figure out pricing. It’s interesting trying to find a price point where I make a profit, but I haven’t priced the piece so high that few people would be interested in buying the piece. No, I haven’t figured out a magic formula.
Brady held still long enough for me to focus the camera. She’s eight months old and weighs 33 pounds.
I shot the sunset the other day.
Jim went to a thrift store and came home with a Nordic Ware snowman cake pan. $6.00. I feel a pound cake coming on.
I’ve been working on whole cloth quilt designs and I’ve gotten proofs for 42 of the designs. They are now in my Spoonflower shop here: Click on “New” and all the newest designs will pop up. My shop is here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman
I got my Pfizer booster shot on Thursday. On Friday, I had a reaction which wasn’t unexpected. I had a reaction after the second Pfizer shot. Brady knew there was something wrong. She insisted on sleeping in the bed with me. She covered me with puppy kisses because she’s convinced puppy kisses will cure everything that could be wrong with her human, and she brought me some of her toys to play with.
It’s not always easy living with bipolar disorder. In mid-September, I had reason to believe I had been exposed to covid. Even though I’m fully vaccinated, I could have a breakthrough infection or worse, be shedding covid virus while asymptomatic. I got the first available appointment for a covid test. The results were supposed to be available within 24 hours. The results were 9 hours late. By that time, I was having stress pains in my chest. Fortunately, the test was negative.
Once I have a major anxiety attack, I’m susceptible to severe stress pain for a while. A friend passed away recently and the funeral was yesterday. For an assortment of reasons, there are people I never want to see again who were likely to be at the funeral. I made a plan. If I absolutely had to interact with one of these people, I’d say hello and walk off. Even with a plan designed to spare me the greatest amount of stress from seeing any of these people again, I still had severe stress pain. Fortunately, none of the people I never want to see again were there.
Today, safe from people who tried so hard to hurt me, I’m having major stress pain. I’ve taken extra klonopin. My choices were increase the dose temporarily or have chest pain for a couple days.
Now that I can see distances clearly, I’ve noticed I have invisible eyelashes. So I bought some mascara. Being a bit eccentric and not wanting boring brown or black mascara, I bought a tube of purple and a tube of green. If you’re going to a funeral, make sure your mascara is waterproof. Mine wasn’t. I had to try to soak up liquid purple mascara before mascara ran down my cheeks.
One of the side effects of cataract surgery is the need for reading glasses and the never ending search for my reading glasses. To that end, I’ve got more than one pair. One for my office, one for the living room so I can knit while watching TV and one for my sewing room. I’ve made beaded strings to replace the ugly string that allowed my glasses to go around my neck.
Last night, I looked up at the sky and saw a thin slice of moon. I tried to get both the moon slice and the tree in focus but couldn’t. So I have three versions of a moon shot.
Slice of moon. Nice, but boring.
Fuzzy moon. Almost, but I really wanted both in focus.
As I write this, I’m awaiting the results of my covid-19 test. Jim called Thursday morning and said his work study student called in sick and it might be strep throat. There’s an overlap between strep throat and covid-19.The phone call triggered a massive anxiety attack. I was scheduled to model on Thursday, but the class got cancelled. Covid-19 has to be taken seriously. Covid-19 kills.
The first appointment I could get for a Covid-19 test was yesterday, Saturday, morning. The PRC test is the most accurate, but there’s no way to know how long it will take to get the results and I’m scheduled to model on Tuesday. I need the results before Tuesday morning. The least accurate test results are theoretically available in an hour. I chose the Rapid Response test. Although it’s not as accurate as the PRC test, I can get the results in 24 hours. Except I can’t It’s been 27 hours and I don’t have results. I’m scared. Although I was vaccinated in March, it’s possible, albeit unlikely, to have a breakthrough infection. The vaccine gives me the best chance of staying out of the hospital and living. I waited in line for 45 minutes to get tested. I had to stick a swab as far up my nose as I could and move the swab around. It felt weird and I kept wanting to sneeze. I have no symptoms but that doesn’t mean the test will be negative. It’s possible to be asymptomatic and shedding virus for several days before having symptoms. I’m still having that massive anxiety attack.
The best way for me to stay calm is to make art. I have lots, and lots, and lots, of beads. And now I have seven new necklaces. I haven’t decided if they will go in my store or if I’ll take them to the farmers and craft market to sell. I also haven’t figured out a price for each necklace. Prices are based on time, cost of materials, multiplied by the number of times I have to swear at the beads and adding the square of the number of times I have to go on a search and recovery mission to retrieve the beads I dropped on the floor.
I’ve been working with my dwindling supply of Swarovski crystals. Someone at Swarovski decided to dump the bead line and concentrate on unimaginative jewelry, tacky knickknacks and rhinestone cellphone covers. That’s it. There are no other products. Then one of the honchos stated the bead line should have been dumped years ago. It’s a horrible insult being told the honcho considers me not worth the trouble regardless of how many beads I buy.
I’ve also got a good supply of semi-precious stones.
The blue beads at the center of the necklace are K2. The stones are granite – an igneous mineral. What makes these granite stones special is they come from the base of K2 – the second tallest mountain in the world. The mine is in a remote spot so the beads are expensive.
Carved amazonite in the center.
Dumorterite, mosaic shell, and shell pears. Shell pearls are made from ground up shell and compressed into spheres. Nicer than glass pearls but not as expensive as cultured pearls.
I like ladder pendants and this one is lepidolite. I like this shade of purple and I like the sparkles in the stones.
Smoky quartz and rutilated quartz, tiger eye, assorted other semi-precious stones.
When I updated the operating system for my MacBook Pro, the update played hell with my email accounts. I’m now unable to access my Facebook account. Facebook has no tech support. No support chat. No number to call. It appears Zuckerberg is too busy selling ads to dubious and sometimes fraudulent advertisers to consider the people who use Facebook.
I think I’ve finally processed my reactions and emotions from September 11, 2001. I couldn’t express my feelings at the time and my reactions seemed to be about a week behind everyone else’s reactions. As they were recovering, I was starting to feel something other than numb. This year, I read everything I could find abut 9/11. I cried. I watched documentaries. I cried. I felt the edge of fury. I felt the edge of outrage. Maybe someday I’ll be able to feel the fury and outrage in their entirety. I’ve healed to the extent I’m able to heal right nowI’m having flashbacks of the crap that happened to me as I grew up. As I raised myself and three siblings and listened to my drunken, violent, narcissistic mother tell me I was lazy and selfish. If I were gone for a bit, I’d come home and be told by her how peaceful it was while I was gone. I hate that woman although I haven’t felt the extent of my hatred for her. PTSD is an emotional landmine and there’s no telling when a trigger will step on one of those landmines. I rarely cry anymore when I have a flashback. I used to cry uncontrollably when the flashbacks first started 49 years ago. Now, the flashbacks are a nuisance. Unwelcome. A pain in the emotional ass. I’ve given up thinking I’ll ever be free of PTSD. It gets tolerable – I can’t remember the last time I had a nightmare – but PTSD never gets gone.
Armed with a coupon and about $43 Spoon Dollars I put together a 42 cheater square yard featuring the best 42 designs from what I’ve been creating lately. I also splurged on five yards of fabric to make myself a dress that will double as a robe when I model nude. I will be the best dressed nude model in the art department. But only if my test results are negative.
I joined Seamwork a few weeks back because I got a dandy deal and I liked a number of the patterns. One pattern is for a long, v-neck pullover dress. I’ll be modeling for the art department at New Mexico State University this semester and I’ll need some sort of cover-up for when I model nude. Yep. I’m a geriatric nude model. The dress pattern would make a perfect cover up. I’ve been toying with ideas. Do I want to do color blocking? If so, I need to start figuring out what kind of shibori pattern I want and start dyeing fabric. Or I could do batik. Or I could order one of the fabrics I designed in my Spoonflower shop https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman. Or I could sit here with indecision growing all around me.
I thought I had found my favorite shorts pattern, but I was wrong. It’s a pattern from several pounds ago. Seamwork has a shorts pattern that’s close to my favorite pattern. I have some old sheets that we no longer use that would be good for making a muslin. I got as far as printing out the pattern. I haven’t taped the pieces together. I haven’t measured me. I haven’t gotten out an old sheet.
I signed up for a Seamwork class and made a disconcerting discovery. I don’t have a clothing style. I also don’t want to have a clothing style. I don’t like what’s on the market. I don’t like anything I’ve seen on Pinterest or Instagram. I’m overweight and clothes shown on the covers of sewing patterns or on Instagram and Pinterest are modeled by anorexic women. No idea what these clothes would look like on me. Patterns for “plus size” women usually look like a tent with an elastic waistband. Um, no.
I’ve started getting jewelry ready to sell at the local farmers market. I’d planned on setting up in November when it’s cooler and everyone is looking for Christmas presents. Unfortunately, the self-centered, selfish people who refuse to get vaccinated or wear a mask have caused a surge of covid cases. There’s now a waiting list for an ICU bed in all of New Mexico. I don’t know if I’ll want to set up at the farmers market. Selling my art is nice. Dying because some people don’t take this virus seriously is not nice. My online store, Deb Thuman Art, http://www.DebThumanArt.com has a generous supply of jewelry and fiber art for sale.
Having been cleared to have cataract surgery, I called the specialist in Albuquerque in early July and got an appointment for October 1. I’ll keep the appointment, but I can’t imagine elective surgery being scheduled before next summer. With the ICU beds filled, the hospitals full of covid cases, elective surgery can’t be done safely. Meanwhile, I’m having problems seeing especially seeing up close. I am beyond angry at the self-centered, selfish people who insist on not being vaccinated or wearing a mask.
Brady ate dental floss yesterday. Dental floss can be deadly. We gently squirted hydrogen peroxide down her throat to make her throw up. After she threw up, I had to take a stick and fish in her vomit until I found the dental floss. It was a terrifying hour before the crisis was over.
She’s faster than a speeding shutter. She’s chomping on an unimaginative toy I made for her. She demolished a toy and I grabbed the squeaker before she could eat it. I put the squeaker into this toy, but the squeaker doesn’t squeak. It just clicks. This is good; that squeaker was obnoxious.
I’ve been doing a bit of photography. We’ve had a lot of rain for a desert in the past few weeks. The light when there’s a storm blowing in makes for interesting, albeit frustrating, photography. Do I keep the photo dark which reflects what I see? Do I tinker in editing to make everything artificially bright?
I’ve been experimenting with evaluative and spot metering. After seeing the shots on my laptop, I decided that I’ll stick to evaluative metering. I seem to be getting better color that way.
Bipolar disorder sucks. Near as I can tell, I’m having a mixed episode – both manic and depressed simultaneously. My responses to things are enlarged. I’m depressed and am having problems shaking the depression. The PTSD, which is likely driving this mixed episode, has taken a miserable turn. While I still have flashbacks about growing up in a house run by a violent, drunken narcissist and her violent drunken husband, the flashbacks are no longer debilitating but they are still a nuisance. Now, I’m having flashbacks about working for the public defender department. There was a lot of trauma in that job. I moved from western New York to southern New Mexico by myself. Jim stayed in New York to sell the house. I didn’t know anyone in New Mexico. My supervisor refused to talk to me for two days when I arrived. That should have been a serious warning sign but I wanted that job so I stayed in New Mexico. Nine years later, I had to sue the department because of discrimination based on my age. I had a boss who was, to put it gently, a raving, screaming lunatic. I had 11 jobs in one year because he was trying to force me to quit. I stuck around because I wasn’t going to let anyone screw me out of my pension. Just writing this has unearthed miserable memories. I retired when I got pushed once too often. Within two weeks of retiring, I no longer had back pain and I didn’t need medication to sleep. Within six months, I no longer needed medication to control my blood pressure.
Brady is now five months old and she either has the doggy version of the terrible twos or the doggy version of oppositional defiant disorder. At least she seems to understand that she needs to pee and poop outside rather than on the kitchen floor. Now that I’ve given up on trying to confine Brady to the kitchen, she and the cats are having peace talks. The talks aren’t going well. I’m staying out of the discussion.
I’ve gotten some new, exciting beads and haven’t been able to work with them. The one time Brady snuck into the sewing room where I make clothes, quilts and jewelry, she picked up a discarded scrap of fabric and proceeded to chew on it. It’s not that she could hurt the scrap, it’s that the scrap could get stuck in her throat. Although I’m home all day, creating has to wait until the weekend when Jim can occupy Brady.
Three years ago, we flew to Buffalo, NY. In part to see a quilt show, in part to see friends, in part to give me the opportunity to bury the ghosts. We went to Rushford Lake where so much misery happened to me. I found a nice spot and buried the ghosts. Several years back, I took an acting class taught be someone who understood visions and intuition. During one class, I saw my spirit dancing in the woods. My spirit was an iridescent figure. I’ve been wanting to turn that vision into a quilt. I will be having Spoonflower print up one of the photos from that trip. Now to figure out how to make an iridescent figure and to show the figure dancing. I’ve got some chiffon that might work. I’ll have to play around with this idea some more.
When things got unbearable, I’d take a walk. Here’s where my walk would start.
Here’s where I buried the ghosts.
My birthday is Sunday and major life events happen around my birthday. I started college the week after my 25th birthday and started law school on my 38th birthday. For the first time in I forget how long, I can eat whatever I want and drink whatever I want on my birthday. For a few years, I would either have a crown pop off or a tooth break. We’ll be going to Starbucks for my free birthday drink. I’m going to be baking a pineapple upside down cake and making croissants for my birthday. I’m also planning on going to Walgreens to get a flu shot. If I get my flu shot around the time of my birthday each year, I don’t have to worry about forgetting to get the shot.
Living with a puppy makes life interesting. Brady has to be by her humans. The sewing room needs to be deep cleaned, but I can’t do that if I’m the only one home. There are way too many places where Brady can hide and leave deposits. Plus, she has only two speeds: Mach III and asleep. Temperatures are hitting 99-104 this week. Brady doesn’t want to be outside when it’s this hot. I suppose if I wore a fur coat, I wouldn’t want to be outside either. Once she has all her shots, I want to get her groomed. I think she would be more comfortable if she has less hair.
Not being able to clean and use the sewing room means binding won’t be put on three quilts and a fourth won’t be quilted. I get spiritually constipated if I don’t make art. Making art without having enough room to make art requires creativity.
I have a sketch book that contains the drawings from a plant taxonomy class I took, reminders for what to put into the novel, and quilt sketches. I’m a multi-media artists, and my sketchbook reflects that.
These are from my plant taxonomy class. I thought they were something I’d never use again until I looked at them today. There are quilts in these.
These are the germination of quilts. Some have been used after some tweaking. Some might never be used.
Ideas for things to put into the novel I’m writing.
I’m still awaiting the arrival of the fabric I ordered from Spoonflower. I took five of my designs, ordered them in a 4-way stretch lycra, and the fabric will be turned into underwear.
I’m also awaiting an order from Nancy’s Notions. The order was placed May 31, and won’t be here until Friday, June 11. Because of the slow shipping, I probably won’t be ordering from Nancy’s Notions again. Pity – I used to love ordering from them.
I had ordered beads fromJL Dream Works https://www.etsy.com/shop/JLDreamWorks?ref=yr_purchases Great service, and the semi-precious gem beads are all good quality and great prices. It’s nice to have another reliable supplier for beads.
I don’t know what I did, but I woke up a week and a half ago in pain. I’ve done something to my left leg. I’ve seen my chiropractor three times and I’m working on trigger release points (to release the muscle) and seated exercise routines. I can’t stand without my walker for very long. I also can’t walk more than a few steps without my walker. When we had the house built, I thought having a whirlpool tub in the bathroom was decadent luxury. It didn’t take long to realize that tub wasn’t a luxury; it was a necessity. There’s a built in bench in the shower. When we had the house built, I thought that bench would allow me to shave my legs without doing the pelican dance. Now, sitting on that bench is the only way I can take a shower. I’d like to be working with a massage therapist, but we’ve still got restrictions here and the massage therapist I had been going to is temporarily closed. Temporary may morph into permanently closed. The pandemic has been rough on people who are self-employed.
Meanwhile….I pick up the puppy in three weeks. I need to be without pain when that happens.
Because I can’t walk without my walker and taking my walker for a walk in the desert isn’t practical, I’ve been working on abstract photos to be turned into fabric designs.
If this design goes into my Spoonflower shop, you’ll be able have matching yoga pants, sports bra and wallpaper.
I’m considering ordering fabric with the last two designs.
My bead order arrived and I’m working on necklaces. It ain’t called art therapy for nothing. One of the surest ways to relieve peripheral neuropathy is to make art.
I had fun using lots of Swarovski crystals for this one.
Mostly glass beads along with wooden beads and some agate.
Why are you seeing a gap between the last bead and the clasp? Two reasons. Although I use very strong stringing material, if there’s too much tension on the stringing material, it will snap. A little extra wire shows there’s no undue tension. The other reason is I have to get fingers and pliers between the clasp and the bead.
I am fighting with quilt batting. Normally, I work with fat-quarter size quilts. This quilt is 30”x45” not huge, but bigger than I’m used to. Because I’m tired of fighting quilt sandwiches, I bought fusible batting. The batting is large enough for a quilt for a queen-size bed. I had to unroll the batting, unfold the batting, and try to cut out a piece the proper size. I tried working on the floor, but that didn’t work. I tried folding the batting so I could cut on the folded edges, but that didn’t work. For so long, I worked on dark, emotional quilts. Now, I have a chance to work on a happy quilt. This one is from one of my manipulated photos that I had printed. I need to make some happy art, and this batting is keeping me from doing that.
I took some photos of jewelry I’ve made so I can put my latest jewelry in my store. Valentine’s Day is coming up and the mail service is still slow in some places. Order now to be sure your jewelry will arrive before Valentine’s Day.
Deb's Art 