Two weeks away from the blog makes for a lot to talk about...

Stupid weather. Farmer's Market season is nearly over, which is good, because apparently my ability to gauge whether or not I should set foot outdoors has vanished utterly. I get deluged, stay home on a perfect day, get deluged again, then get my little pop-up sun shade nearly blown over again the week after that.

This coming Wednesday, the 29th, will be the last day for the market. We vendors are being encouraged to dress up and offer candy for Halloween.

It's been a really fun season, and a learning experience all around. I've certainly enjoyed getting my clinically-depressed self out of the house and talking with people, to say nothing of the fun involved in decorating people with little fiddly designs. I've gotten to know some of the other vendors as well, and I really like the way we all seem to look out for one another, whether it's by discounting the price of snacks or helping each other with setup (or packing up in a rainstorm). If you do anything crafty or garden-y at all, I really encourage you to look into applying for booth space for next season. The fee is ridiculously cheap, and the experience is worth every penny.

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With the close of the season, I was beginning to think I'd have to put the henna away till springtime, but it turns out that the local health-food place is once again interested in having me come out on a weekly basis. This makes me very happy for a number of reasons, not least of which is the guaranteed income from all the store employees looking for their weekly "fix" of henna.

If you're in town, I'll be at Nature's Pharm over in Lafayette, near the mall in the K-Mart plaza, every Friday from noon till roughly 5pm. And I will definitely still be taking bookings from anyone who wants to add some henna to their next birthday party, shower, ladies' night, or whatever.

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I haven't posted in the past two weeks because I have been troubled, and hoping for some good news to write rather than the worrisome stuff. Bear in mind, most of my life is operating as well as it always does, so there aren't any tragedies keeping me from the keyboard. No... I'm a little miffed and concerned because this most recent mosaic turned out very strangely. It seems that I didn't mix up the dry bag of concrete before scooping out what I needed for each stepping stone, and this most recent stone ended up getting more sand than cement. It's very crumbly and chalky, and I have a real worry that the whole thing will disintegrate if I set it out in the rain.

This sucks all the more because the actual image looks terrific, and was a pain in the ass to finish (see multiple previous posts), so I REALLY don't want to re-do the whole thing if it can be avoided. Suggestions so far have included applying a coat of concrete sealer, rubbing off the weak stuff till I find the strong bits in the center (assuming there are any), or just chipping the whole thing off of the image and re-casting the concrete.

Anyway, I've been unhappy about the mosaic and haven't been doing anything to fix it, so I didn't want to say anything.

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I also haven't posted because of guilt - why this should stop me, when I've had a lifetime of dealing with guilt trips, is beyond me, but let's not ponder too deeply. I'm feeling GUILTY because I had a commenter ask about the plates I had painted for our wedding anniversary, and wondering where the photos were that I'd promised to upload.

Sigh. Moments like these only serve to enhance my conviction that I am basically unemployable.

However, I do finally have a pitcha for those of you who just couldn't stand the wait... I'm including my imaginary friends and the voices in my head in the list of people who make up my fan base, 'cause it sounds more impressive that way.


Yes, I know it isn't perfectly symmetrical, yes I know the red is a little too pink. I did the entire thing freehand, using only the width of the paintbrushes to regulate the sizes of the lines, so all told, I think it actually turned out pretty well. The plates came out better than the bowls, which I regarded as practice pieces anyway.

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Last but not least, I have made quite a bit of progress on the Laughable Embroidery Project. The front of it is actually looking pretty good, while the back is a mess and the fabric itself is still stitched into the embroidery hoop. Whatever, it will make a lovely bookmark when it's done. Probably a quilted bookmark, since the extra threads hanging off the back make a pretty good padding already.

If I weren't feeling lazy, I'd have photos for you, and maybe even a link to the online sources I'm using for instruction and inspiration... but I don't. Besides, the voices in my head already know what the embroidery looks like, so posting images for them would just be redundant.

Until next time -

The secret to remaining young is to pick an age you like, and stick with it.

And now, something different

The weather didn't look trustworthy. I chose not to go to the farmer's market. The weather proceeded to get all sunny and gorgeous.

Farmer's market is about done for the season anyway - so now it's time for me to either put the henna away till spring, or start advertising for bookings, birthday parties and that kind of thing.

I've never liked marketing... maybe I'm just lazy.

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Speaking of lazy, the mosaic is still waiting for me to get it into the mold and pour the cement. I'll get there, maybe even today.

***

I've mentioned before that I come up with the absolute dippiest songs to sing to my kid (and how thrilled I am that she seems to be starting to do the same thing). Well, I do have one song I put together that I can actually proud of - not that I have any shame whatsoever about singing the other little things - and I wanted to write the lyrics down before I forget them. I don't sing it to her often anymore, partly because she doesn't usually have the patience for a slow waltzing lullaby right now.

Anyway, um, here.

Evening has come, the day is done
Look all around, the light has gone
Th' wind in the trees now sighs and yawns,
"Hush little one, the day is done."

Evening has come, it's time to sleep
Sun's going down, her bed to seek
Stars in the sky all seem to speak:
"Hush little one, it's time to sleep."

Evening has come, now rest your head
Rivers and streams flow to their beds
The whispering waves on th' shore have said,
"Hish little one, now rest your head."

Evening has come, it's time to rest
Rabbits and deer have found their nests
Till morning comes, I'll love you best -
Hush little one, it's time to rest.

(c) 2007, so don't go takin' credit for words you didn't write, or you'll make the little babies cry.

Thought for the day

I occasionally follow the online writing diary of professional author (ie, published and making money at it) Holly Lisle. She has a lot of free advice for aspiring writers, quite a bit of which applies really well to life in general.

She has a paid course that she is running right now, that comes with little movies and lessons and such, and to tease those of us with no money, she often posts portions of those movies on her writing diary. Currently, she's talking about Middles - that part of the novel where you're past the first love and excitement of the Beginning, not yet at the rush and excitement of the Ending, but slogging through all that stuff in between - that point where sometimes you wonder if you really have any clue what you're doing. What if you're lost?

Here is one of the things she has to say about that:

Getting Lost Is An Art
- when you are lost, you find what you weren't looking for, but needed all the same
- you learn who you are
- you discover adventure
- you become creative because you have to be
- you invent new skills
- you meet entirely new worlds

Well. When you put it that way, it makes you kinda wonder why we're NOT all out there, winging it and hoping everything comes out okay, or even just hoping that something cool comes out in the surrounding mess.

People keep talking about how talented they believe I am. I'm flattered, but I never quite know what to say. Yes, I have a reasonably steady hand, and a reasonably good eye for composition, but all the rest comes down to two factors:
1. Training - I trust my pencil or my paints or my henna to behave in certain ways, just because I've used them enough to get the hang of them; and
2. A willingness to wing it. *grin*

Seriously, I know nothing about wire sculpture. I've never made one, ever. The thing where I keep talking about building a physical representation of my family tree? I have no clue whether it would even work - but I'm willing to give it a shot, because the idea looks so cool, here inside my head.

Mosaics? Dude, I'm using a stepping stone mold from the craft store, and a cookie sheet with modeling clay on it to build the actual design. I can spend for-freakin'-ever on the designs because I'm not working with wet cement until the very end.

I can say something similar about almost everything I've ever done since graduating college, and a few things I did while I was still a student. I get this cool idea in my head and I decide to see if I can make it real. I mostly have no idea what I'm doing, right up until the point where I realize I've done something so many times that I do actually get it.

Lately, I've decided to get lost in embroidery. I so totally suck at this that I'm cracking myself up - I've already sewed the thing into the embroidery hoop because I wasn't paying attention. But I'm using cotton, not silk, on muslin, not linen, and yellow thread instead of actual gold, and I'm making a bookmark instead of the front and back of a medieval almoner's purse. So, you know, who cares if I screw it up?

When you wing it, you learn things. Or, to re-use my favorite travel quote, "if you know where you're going, it's not an adventure!"

And I guess that's my summation of Holly's really nifty thought.

Finally!

I have finished Step Two of getting the mosaic ready to go. Here are all the steps, if you're curious:

0. Get a picture, pick the colors you want in your tiles, figure out how many you'll need, blah blah blah.

1.Nip your tiles down from 3/4" to 3/8" size - the smaller size give you more detail (and you didn't have to pay extra for actual 3/8" tiles). This part can take amonth or so, because it's boring and your hand gets tired after a while, so you can't just do it all in a day.

2. Place the tiles on your temporary ground. This part took me, for this mosaic, close to a year. The red took the longest and ticked me off the most, but I've already explained why elsewhere.

3. Prep the tiles for casting. The technique I use guarantees a really smooth surface; to do it, I lay duct tape over the entire image, peel it off my ground (modeling clay), and then lay it face down in my mold.

4. Mix and pour the cement! Then you wait a couple days for it to dry and set, and that's it - finished stone.

Steps 3 and 4 together can take a couple hours, tops, not including the waiting part once you've poured the cement. Step Two is where the biggest, royalist pain in the tuckus shows up, but it's where all the gorgeousness and fun come from, too, so as long as the tiles are cooperating.

And I know you're looking for a picture, so here are the tiles on their temp ground, just waiting for me to attack them with duct tape.



This is the third in an intended series of twelve stepping stones, each with a medieval-ish motif. Once they're complete, they are meant to go around the outside of a campfire pit, to look cool and to help catch sparks. At the rate I'm going, they should all be complete by the time my daughter graduates.

Quick notes

So yeah, it's kinda chilly to be sitting out in the wind for three hours today, so I won't be at the Farmer's Market.

Instead, I'll be here, attempting to Finish The Damn Mosaic, and to start an embroidery experiment - any embroidery with me pretty much qualifies as an experiment, given how long it's been since I held a needle and thread in my hands. It's been nine years since I laid a finger on our sewing machine - literally - and longer than that since I've tried doing anything by hand.

Some call me creative. Some call me crazy. I'm in the middle of calling myself an idiot. It's not as if I don't have *enough* art things going on...