in which our plucky heroine waits patiently for plaid flannel season...
Some things are switching out today... The garment mending project, dropped off last week, will be picked up later today, and little Wellington has been reunited with his people, which will preclude any more necessary late night walkies. While I've appreciated the uptick on my pedometer count, I did not appreciate last night's crazy man. Heard loud repetitive yelps and muttering coming from an unclear direction, and was grateful that I saw the shambling upset man before he saw me. I immediately turned in the opposite direction and quickly walked down a different street, carefully tracking as the whoop mumble whoop mumble very gradually faded from range. Doesn't happen that often in our neighborhood, but these are the perils of urban life.
※※※
a history of crafting skills and styles...
a catalog of various techniques of material working I have learned so far in my life, starting with some of my earliest memories as a child, and onwards.
Before age 7 - Like any child, there was drawing and painting, I have particular memory of one year getting a book about how to draw horses step-by-step starting with geometric shapes and gradually adding curves to get a more realistic effect. I also remember a gift of a book of origami diagrams and a packet of pretty colored paper, probably the same year I got a packet of those bright colored paper umbrellas, intended for adult drinks but in my case for my Ginny dolls. In school, the one interesting technique we learned was to color stripes and spots of colored crayon, cover the paper with black poster paint, and then scratch off the paint in a drawing that was mysteriously multicolored. On the trip to Canada, where we spent several days at a folk school, I remember learning to make a basket from a wooden base and reeds, which for years after stood on the fireplace mantle. I wonder what ever happened to it, but my love of basketry is still very strong. And of course, like many girl children of the 50's I learned hand sewing, embroidery, and knitting from my mother, who must have been willing and pleased to share knowledge that with me.
As I got older, there were so many chances to try different handcrafts, both in school, and in afterschool and weekend enrichment programs which were both prevalent in those days, and which my good parents must have sought out, in the same way as they found music programs for my sister. One year we made pottery fish in school, as part of a unit on the tuna fisheries. I remember making paper mache animals, traveling a long way to USC every weekend for a batik class, braiding gimp lanyards with other children, and one memorable time we learned how to make marbled paper with thinned oil paint dropped into trays of water. Crewel embroidery on burlap in crafts class, and I made a huge wall hanging with some poem surrounded by embroidered foliage and ceramic flowers glued in place. We made faience "Egyptian paste" beads in the pottery lab, weighing out various chemicals, mixing and forming them, and turning them into necklaces. This also was when I first encountered enameling, done in a trinket kiln in an after school program. In fifth grade I was given my own small child-size sewing machine, so soon went from doll clothes to learning the rudiments of sewing my own garments... (this served me poorly in middle school, when my teacher didn't believe I had done my own work, and gave me the lowest possible grade)
As I became a teen, and we moved back east, it was an area rich in adult education in the various local towns and affiliate museum schools and workshops. These times will not come again I fear. I learned leatherwork and tooling, took classes in bookbinding, and several years of jewelry arts and silverworking at the DeCordova Museum School programs for youth. In regular school the only memorable new skills were making sculpture with wax, fooling around with lampwork in science club,
and some experimental table loom weaving in crafts class.
As as adult, I delved a bit into calligraphy, and knifemaking, learned tablet weaving, and various random combinations of skills, such as lanterns made from reed shapes covered in paper and suchlike. Carving printing blocks for artwork and textile decoration, and also stencilled fabric... Most of all I have spent quite a bit of time developing my enameling skills beyond what I learned as a child, as metalwork and enameling are my profession now. I wonder what other handcraft skills I may have a chance to learn in the future...
※※※
playing with the hat toile, using some of the grey canvas from one of my chore coat toiles. The canvas is stiff enough that I cannot imagine it needing any extra crown stiffening. If I can sort out the brim well enough, this may end up as a "wearable muslin" and fill in one of the niches in my "refresh my wardrobe" plan.
I dreadfully miss Fabric Depot, as I want several *yards* of Timtex, and buying it online gets me pieces folded into mailable chunks, which end up with permanent creases entirely unsuitable for making hat brims. I may have to learn how to use millinery wire instead, as a way to escape the dreaded floppy brim.
Timtex is spendy, and it makes the hat brims heavy and hard to sew but means hats are washable. Millinery wire is inexpensive and much lighter weight, but means hats are not washable. May be time for experimentation, since there are no good local sources for the kind of brim interfacing I have used in the past
... and, poking around last night in the storage shelves and found a good sized chunk of heavy Timtex? Peltex? interfacing big enough for
two hat brims! And a remnant piece of grey wide wale corduroy, which will be perfect for edging the brim, and maybe for the bias hatband as well...
※※※
don't know what sort of flower this is, so I'm calling it a pink appaloosa lily...
※※※
September SMART goals (x=extra)
| # | THINGS MADE | THINGS FIXED | THINGS GONE |
| 1 | 7 tiny sunflowers
| 6 pants for Beth
| yard waste bin
|
| 2 | - | - | recycle bin
|
| 3 | - | - | - |
| 4 | - | - | - |
| 5 | - | - | - |
| 6 | x | x
| x |
| 7 | x | x | x |
| 8 | x | x | x |
| 9 | x | x | x |
| 10 | x | x | x |
| 11 | x | x | x |
| 12 | x | x | x |
| 13 | x | x | x |
| 14 | x | x | x |
| 15 | x | x | x |
today's gratitude -
two brief porch conversations in one day, whoo hoo!
Time of Isolation - Day 928
. 
. 
