Vest

For quite a few weeks I have been working on knitting this vest for myself (of course). I designed it myself, and looking at it you can tell how ambitious I was in the beginning. Starting at the bottom, I had big ideas of complex, challenging patterns. As time went on I just wanted to get it done. The patterns got less and less complicated, and in the end I didn't even want to knit anymore. I crocheted the edging just to give myself a break. The thing was really a make up as you go project. I had to adjust and adjust as I went, but I like how it turned out and it fits me. What else could I ask of any project?

Frenzy of Painting

This is all my work over the last couple of days, trying out my new sort of monoprints but not monoprints. They are all small, around 3x5 or 7x6...whatever. Why I don't make these things standard sizes I'll never know. They would be easy to frame, and it really doesn't matter what size they are. Anyway, I pretty much covered the bases with subject matter, and with the last one, the nude, I tried incorporating color. Actually, to me there is nothing quite as nice as black and white. I'm a person who is in love with values. I'll need to increase the size now that I have the technique down so that I can be more complex. Finishing something in an hour or so doesn't really seem like much of an accomplishment.

New Version

It occurred to me that I could use oil paint instead of watercolor on the Yupo paper and get darker values. I rolled the paper up and did this like a monoprint, which is just what it looks like. It's not the image I had in mind, but I couldn't find what I was looking for (naturally) and came across this. I did a very small etching of this in school, of which I am very proud, and I like this bigger version too. Continuing in my self-pitying vein, it's from a photo taken of me and my mother when I was 18 months old. I called it "Do Not Leave Child Unattended."

Thanksgiving Pies

Armed with the experience of the lemon pie, I tackled mince pie for Thanksgiving. David made mincemeat using the green tomatoes left over from the garden. I made the pies separately just in case something went wrong with one of them, but both came out fine. I pinched a piece of crust off the edge of the less pretty one (on the right) to make sure it was up to standard, and declared the project a success. Just as the timer went off for the second pie, the phone rang. It was David saying that they had a holiday emergency.......their dryer had quit, leaving the linen tablecloth and napkins still wet. Now, moments later, they are swirling around in the heat of my dryer. What fun, and what a relief after recent events, to put everything else in the background. For one day at least, the worse that can happen is a wet tablecloth. We are ready, willing, and grateful to throw ourselves wholeheartedly into the celebration of a day, so I saw on TV the other night, that never really existed. How uniquely human...........we create a cerebral diversion for our cerebral troubles and step outside of the rest of the animal world for a moment.

Or at least we think we do. Dylan chasing his toys belies the fact that humans alone do things simply for the fun of it......

Speaking of animals, the chickens, who normally streak out the door the minute I open it and head for the far side of their pen to look for crumbs, noticed through the window as I approached that I was carrying a bag. When I opened the door, they surrounded me. Lilly, the brains of the flock, jumped up to investigate the bag while the others waited inches away for me to toss their Thanksgiving treats on the ground. Apples and cornbread......a chicken feast. Mine awaits down the street.