Getting ready….

I hope you have been able to find the Stencil and Stitch workshop on the Durango Arts Center website under Education. For some reason “Staff” is listed as the instructor rather than my name – but look for the stitching image above (on the right) and you will find it! Preparing lots of samples, materials and info to share… it will be here soon!

Also organizing and reorganizing my new studio space. Trying to figure out where to put everything so it is easy to find when I want to use it. Anyone have a great way to store/organize embroidery thread??

New Place… new work…

This photo was the day we moved into our new house… in the mountains… giant ponderosa pines all around but some open space too. It feels like a dream…. my husband and I just look at each other some days and say, “Can you believe we live here?” After 35+ years together, we finally got to choose where to live. It was not an easy choice. And now we are up to our eyeballs in snow and wondering if we made the right decision! Not really, the snow will melt and summer will be glorious here. I just know it. For February, I signed up for an online class with India Flint – “a clearing in the woods” through her School of Nomad Arts. She had the lovely idea (she has many lovely ideas) of creating a class to keep the doldrums of February at bay. A little message and surprise every day of the month and a place to put them all into good use creating a shawl or a blanket or whatever sparks your joy. I am working on a Pashmina shawl in lovely, soft creaminess. I used a bundle dye process with avocado skins/pits and expected to get a pinky color. I wasn’t too sure how I would like working with or wearing pink as it is NOT my favorite color. But as I have learned through other projects, sometimes it is good to push yourself into something uncomfortable – even new colors. However, the long bundling process taught by India for this course, determined the color to come out a reddish brown – much more in my regular old color palette that I seem inexplicitly drawn to. Go figure. So working my way through February and dreaming up new things for myself has been a pleasure. I do not expect it to be done by the end of February – only a few days to go. It will be one of those projects I can pick up or take along when I need something to work on and be able to use it I the process. I sometimes lay it over my lap in the evenings as I work on it even now. I will show a more finished version in a later post. Happy stitching!