we have a lot of catching up to do. since we last talked i've driven across the country. i have seen, oh, i have seen so much... but more on that later, for now let us celebrate the spring with a spring sale! this saturday, May 3rd is the RISD alumni sale & i will be there with teresa & a tablefull of delicious creatures.
i don't like to post here when i'm unhappy. i try to keep this place positive and i think of myself as being an upbeat & cheerful person. i've kept quiet because this new year has been hard, it has been cruel & i haven't felt like myself...
some of you know that i had been dating someone for a couple months, i was having so much fun, my life felt full of possibilities. i trusted him & let him inside my world like i never have before. i shared my family with him, we made plans in advance. then something happened, i don't know what, i only know that when i returned from Maine he had cut me out of his life. i came home & he wouldn't speak to me, wouldn't communicate with me in any way. i tried, i reached out & he was gone.
while processing that sudden, unexplained loss, i was travelling to NYC to spend as much time with my sister & jo as i could. so much so that i started to feel like i lived there more than i do here. as of this past monday they now live in Switzerland! that's mostly exciting, we had a lot of fun together & ate a lot of great food before they left. (two meals at Lupa in one month? swoon!) my sister & i have grown so close these past few years & she's been there for me through some tough moments so it's really hard knowing that i can't just hop on the bus & arrive at their apt in time for dinner... but of course we can talk on the phone & i am already planning my trip out there!
so there it is. that's what's been going on. i'm sorry to have disappeared, but some times you need to retreat inside & take a little time to yourself.
first creation of the new year! and it's a weird one... i was feeling frustrated last night about some things that i can do nothing about, so i went into my studio & made this. it's kind of a bird, i guess. it began with the eyes, i drew a couple sketches & made tiny moose antlers out of Sculpey, but i'm not sure about the little arms & it needs a nose...
it's slightly weighted on the bottom to (hopefully) offset the weight of the antlers. its eyes are hand-sewn felt, its body is a very soft velour & its belly is a scrap of fabric from the super secret box making project for Raoul Textiles. i've been thinking about that project a lot lately (besides the impending doom of tax time & having to declare that extra income) i really enjoyed the challenge & hope to work with them again. i have always loved collaborating with other artists & using my skills to help them create beautiful things.
happy holidays everyone! i have returned safely from my adventures & am feeling healthy again, just as i had hoped. i go back to work tomorrow so now i will eagerly go to sleep early in my own bed.
(amazing new gnome cookie cutter courtesy of my coworker, ann - thank you so much, ann!)
taken at night by the glow of a street light, wearing wellies that i bought at Reny's in Maine this past summer (it's the Maine version of our Ocean State Job Lot) and standing on top of a 2ft snow bank. i forget to wear these most days that it rains, but have discovered that they are excellent for tromping over & into the giant piles of snow. also wearing my new grass green winter coat. i keep meaning to take a photo of myself in my winter get-up: bright green coat, striped boots & of course my very pink hat... when did i get so colorful?
i'm off shortly to visit my parents for Christmas & i'll be back in time to hop up to Maine for New Years with Art again. hopefully this new year will bring some health for me because i am, yet again, sick. not as bad as before, but i just can't seem to get 100% well. i'm tired of being sick! i leave you with a mosaic of my very last project of 2007 (more photos over on flickr)
it has begun! last night was the opening for the Foundry Artists Show, it will also be open this friday/saturday/sunday & the next. there is a ton of wonderful art, a great range of things both price & craft-wise. i'm really excited about the booth i built this year (photo below) i think it looks like a little ikea set - it just needs a rug! there are a lot of other things going on right now, Saturday is the RISD Holiday Sale in the Convention Center, Sunday is the Bazaar Bizarre Boston & Craftland is open in downtown Providence. I finally got down there this week & dropped off a pile of strange creatures. I won't be at the RISD sale or the BBB, but a lot of my friends & partners in craft will be so please check it out if you can! 
i am alive & frantically preparing for the Foundry Artists Show which opens next week! thank you, everyone who wished me well & especially all my friends who helped take care of me while i was so very sick. i lost about 2 weeks of time & am just now getting back on track. it's been really hard, i didn't eat for a few days while sick, lost weight & have been so exausted since. luckily i had been working really hard up until then so now it's just a matter of finishing everything in time...
that is a little sampling of what i'll be selling - about half of them are still unfinished, they need quilting or embroidering & to be stretched on their frames. i'm still not able to stay up really late, but i've been trying to doing some things before going off to work every day. i have so much to tell you, but there is no time! things at work have been fun & i had a wonderful family thanksgiving. you can get at least some of the story over on flickr...
i have not been this sick in a very long time. teresa is the best & transported my miserable self to the doctor's office to find out what was wrong with me. i endured a horribly painful throat culture, was abandoned in the office for what felt like hours & they decided i didn't have strep, but some form of ear & throat infection. i was given a prescription for ridiculously large pills (thanks, hard to swallow, awesome) and am safely back in my bed. i know i'll be better soon, but right now i feel unbelievably awful & just want to cry. so i called my parents & complained!
back to sleep now...
it's finally feeling like October in New England - yesterday was the first day i wore my light winter coat, today i also wore my favorite wool sweater. yes, i get pretty warm while walking, but that's how it always is, i wear layers & peel them off as i go. both coat & sweater looked so ratty that i thought i'd have to stop wearing them, but i used one of those little fabric shavers on 'em & they look like new again!
that petite cup is from a set of bowls that i had been coveting at Ikea called Syntes Konst. i finally bought each of the two sets of two: they're black & white and the smaller the bowl, the larger the dots. i decided that this is perfect for sipping coffee out of. i have a very small french press so i can fill this twice & it makes my coffee last a little longer.
last night was probably Art's last night in my apartment which is sad, but you should be seeing more productive photos from now on! it's fun having a friend around all the time except i have some important things to prepare for like Craftland & the Foundry Show...
i spent this afternoon sewing together a tiny pink quilt out of farics i had arranged months ago. they've been sitting in a polite little pile on the corner of my table, neglected despite their undeniable cuteness!
i almost completed it, but then i sewed something i didn't like so i left the house with Art for a little bit & went to the mall. what a terrible idea to go to the mall on a sunday! we only went into 3 stores, but one of those was Williams Sonoma where i briefly lost my self-control. some how i escaped with only a couple packages of halloween napkins (on sale for 99 cents!) mulling spices, white decorating sugar & a pink heat-proof spatula (which i actually needed.) i managed to not buy any of the octopus, sandcastle or stadium cake pans, but it was difficult!
so that wasn't fun! the Roto-Rooter guy juuuuust left. why was the Roto-Rooter guy here, you ask? because i came home to find that my kitchen sink had overflowed aross the counter, into the cabinets & all over the floor! sweeeeeet.
thank goodness art was here because he heard it pouring, tossed towels on the floor & bailed the sink out into the tub! so things were not as bad as they could have been. oh dear, they could have been so much worse... basically, unbeknownst to my landlady upstairs, a clog in the pipe between the 1st & 2nd floor was causing all her water to back up into my sink, across the counter, into the cabinet drawers & all over the floor.
but it's okay now. and i have a glass of wine. and the dishes can wait.
a quick glimpse of my weekend:
i'm completely reorganizing my fabric from my studio & in to the middle room of my apartment. i've been wanting to move it because i noticed some of my fabrics were getting sun-bleached. once i'm finally done picking it up off the floor & squirrelling it safely away, i will have more space to pull it out & spread it around so i can make all those quilts i'm imagining in my head!
it's totally art's fault that i didn't get much sorting done yesterday because at the farmers' market he thought of steaming mussells in tomato & white wine. we invited the other beetle over (art drives a beetle, as does kristin) and got cooking. of course he had to open a bottle of wine for the mussells & well, once it was open...
