Studio Purge Continues


Well the good news is I've made a lot of progress in the studio.  The bad news is now I'm cleaning, purging, and organizing about seven different things at once and it wasn't intentional but its a necessary evil.

I'm at the point where I moved my thread cabinets off of the big shelves and onto the cubbies, this is temporary until the place where I really want to live is freed up, but that space is currently occupied with stuff that either needed to go onto the big shelves or be given away.

I'm getting there, thank heavens!  When all is said and done the artwork right there in front of the cubbies, you know living on my studio floor, will soon have a home on the big shelves.  But first I must move my massive paint collection out of the blue dresser and onto the carts, and then the fabric living on the big shelves, well most of it anyway, can go live in the blue dresser.

Make sense?  Me neither.  I hope to have an update by this coming weekend.  The only thing standing in my way at the moment is the fact that the studio floor needs vacuuming before I can proceed any further.  And there is a huge dog sleeping in the middle of said floor.


Oliver, my faithful studio assistant who doubles as a paper weight.

The Drawing Table


The drawing table is finally in front of the coveted window!!!


Next up is repairing my drafting table chair, which should happen sometime tonight.  Calligraphy tools found, cart stocked with ink at the ready.  It's time to create!

In the meantime I'm still shoveling stuff out of my studio work space and will continue to sort, purge, and pitch stuff that no longer serves me.  I will be hosting a huge online sale here and soon, I thought that was going to happen last week and boy did I ever miss the mark on that one!

Where Have I Been Part 2


Yes there will be a design wall in this new space!


No more chicken coop wall, now it's a wall of cubbies pushed back a good eight feet for more space!


My drawing table is going in front of that big window there to the left, sewing table will be pushed at an angle further back once everything blocking it is gone.  The end of August cannot come soon enough!


I put it all into  well labeled boxes!!! I will be sorting and purging most of this through the month of August,  I'm hoping to have a huge artist yard sale towards the end of August when the students return.

Where Have I Been?

I have been in the middle of a studio redux, aka purging, pitching, and then setting the space up in a more organized manner.


I've posted photos of how my studio looked before, so there's no sense in belaboring that topic.  Since I've been asked before where I bought my studio furniture well John built all of the cubbies and shelf units you seen in these photos.


My self-imposed deadline to have the space vacated in front of that big picture window is tonight.  My self-imposed deadline to move my drawing table in front of said window is Sunday night, because there's a whole lotta cleaning, and further purging, that's going to happen between now and Sunday.


Fiber Purge Begins!!!


Tomorrow I shall be listing in my new ebay store, new because they apparently closed mine due to not using it for five years, wool and silk fibers of all types!  I also have gobs of needle felting and knitting tools I'll be divesting of, as I am now going in an entirely different direction with my studio.


Mohair in several color ways.


Loose hand dyed wool fibers of several varieties including llama and alpaca.



And I will also be divesting of some of my natural dyes, not the indigo or cochineal (yet anyway).

Busy, Busy, But Not Creating


A simple reminder of what it is I'm supposed to be doing today, but have yet to accomplish.  I spent most of today on the prowl for a cherry pitter and not just any cherry pitter but THIS cherry pitter. I finally purchased it at Amazon this afternoon after not being able to locate said beast locally.

Additionally after a very long search I was also able to order a part for my kitchen aide mixer that had unceremoniously broke.  I was very upset when I was told that my mixer was not fixable, more from the stand point that I had used it maybe a half dozen times but also from a green point of view... if you don't want appliances going into landfills then build appliances that can be repaired!

This little gizmo (called a blender coupler) stands between me and a smoothie, and it shall arrive sometime this week!  Now to purchase the face plate for my Champion Juicer, that hubs broke, and I'm set for a summer of smoothies and fresh juice.

I'm off to write and then maybe, just maybe stitch something this evening!


Failure to Post

That's exactly what I'm suffering from a failure to post and regularly.  I just noticed it's been awhile since I've updated.


I've been busy writing content for the 60 Day Bird Journal Challenge, and for Almost Stitched newsletter series (24 newsletters plus 6 bonus surprises) that I forget that others cannot read my mind.

So here's a photo of Pepper, our oldest cat, sporting some attitude while sitting atop a stitched story I wrote up yesterday with my sewing machine.  In between bouts of stitching and writing I've been dodging rain storms trying to get the raised beds planted.

Right now I'm at 50% or so completion and I have to say it's looking good.  John brought one of the porch chairs out to the garden area so that I can sit and watch the birds, butterflies, bees, and paint, sketch, and write unto my hearts content.

Many Hats and New Adventures!

In the past year or so I've been working on sorting out my ""art"" life, i.e what direction did I want to go, and how did I want to get there because yes contrary to popular belief we do get some choices in these matters!

With that in mind I decided to close the Natural Surface Academy and focus on writing and creating art instead.  Really all I want to do is focus on what I'm really interested in and yes this still includes Natural Dyes!

What I'm really interested in (aside from getting this crazy keyboard fixed) is hand and machine stitching, exciting surface design, and taking these two elements and combining them together for storytelling.  Yeah, I was surprised to find out that storytelling was one word as well!

So sometime around June 1st (2015) I will be rolling out my vision for this journey that I have named:  Almost Stitched!


Also starting June 1st is Round Three of The 60 Day Bird Journal Challenge (60 Days of Birds).  Click the link to sign up for the newsletters! 

 I will be posting more information this holiday weekend about how to participate in Almost Stitched!  

Hacks on a Shipping Tag


L-R Life Hacks, Pattern Hacks, Business Hacks, Photoshop and Illustrator  Hacks in front.

Back when I was subscribed to Alsyon Stanfields tribe she had us write down daily affirmations onto cards or tags, which I dutifully did and placed said tags onto a ribbon.

Then on day I noticed that Jamie Fingal had her pattern tags she was creating and she had organized them onto a metal ring.  Bingo, I have a ton of those, and I had a ton of these tags laying around that I was leaving notes on for Photoshop, Illustrator, and the like.

So I reorganized them, and I'm in love with this method of note organization.  Yes I still keep a daily journal and sketchbook, but it's super convenient to have all of my patterns on a ring on my table, or my life hacks on a ring and not have to dig through a journal from way back when to see what inspired me that day.  Yes I still put my life hacks/inspirations/affirmations into my sketchbooks and journals, doing so allows me to see where I've been and how far I've come!

Studio Rehab


Oliver, my studio assistant.

Well now that the solo show has been hung, and a few items cleared off of my desk it is time to take the studio completely apart (remember I started doing this at the beginning of the year) and rearrange stuff so that it works better for me now.

I'm tired of the piles of stuff laying about, and as I was looking for some tools this afternoon, I came across several drawers in my storage chests that are essentially empty.  Why they are empty is beyond me but this must be rectified and soon.  I shall be going for better flow in my space and adding two additional work stations while also removing two incredibly huge shelves from my work area.

More later and with photos... rumor has it I'll have a formal dining room again once I get this mess taken care of, and that would be a good thing!

Vignettes Hung

The Solo Show has been Hung!!! 
Yay Me!!!

So last week I was bemoaning the birth of a new series for me, vignettes of sorts that I've tentatively dubbed "Prairie Studies", and today after having hung the show yesterday, I've come to the realization that these pieces are a series of short stories that I've grouped together in a way that hopefully makes some sense.


When Wednesday night came around I was hating everything I had created, by yesterday afternoon I was like "meh", and after having hung the show thinking to myself "okay it's not so bad after all".  Honestly the Mary Greeley employee, who came by while I was away for a few minutes signing contracts and getting end dates for picking up my work in June, who inquired about purchasing one of my pieces made me really happy!

So all in all maybe I did manage to pull this one off, it was quite the in process journey of deciding how it would all go together. Oh and there's only one piece that I truly don't like and it's because the color on one of the items in the grouping is all wrong, but I'll fix that when it comes back home.