To the Acorn - Finished!!

I finished To the Acorn today. Yippee! I am doing such a huge happy dance. And I finished several weeks before our due date. :o) This was a lot of counting and a lot of stitching. I think I am ready to take a break from counted work for a while. LOL




I think next on my agenda is to finish Strawberry Trio, which shouldn't take long at all, then I need to get on my Phase 1 Japanese Embroidery piece. After that I need to get going on Crewel Choices, another EGA group correspondence course which is due at the end of June. And I also have Gracie and Florentine Christmas Ornaments, two other group correspondence courses that will be due around the end of August. These two have been retired, so if I want an evaluation on them I have to get them done! I just don't think I want to think about this any more. LOL

I had my little lambkin shaved last Monday, so now my little lamb is a lion. That's what they call this cut anyways. LOL Look at her poofy little front legs. I think she is just toooooo cute! :o)

Spring break and Art

This is our spring break week, and I am going to enjoy it. I plan to stitch, draw, and paint, with maybe a little housework thrown in here and there, MAYBE. :o) Megan is going to Lexington KY to visit the University of Kentucky. That is where she has decided she wants to go once she has her AA from Hinds. A part of me is jealous, because I would love to go there and work on a fine arts degree. They have a fabulous art department. :o) But I am happy for her, and I hope her visit goes well. In the meantime, I will get to babysit rats and rabbit.

two of the girls - Pepper and Pipsqueak

one of the hairless boys

visiting bunny - I promise she's just sleeping and not dead :o)

Megan, Billy and I went and played golf frisbee Friday afternoon. I had never heard of such a thing! But Mark informed me it was an old game; he used to play it when he was a teenager. Just goes to show you what's been missing from my life! LOL But it was a lot of fun, and Billy was very patient with Megan and my attempts to throw the frisbee. LOL

We are working on ink washes in my drawing class, and I am enjoying working in this media. It's not easy, and I'm far from having any control of it, but it is fun. :o) This morning I went to the park and did an ink wash of the bradford pears that are in bloom. They are so pretty, with their white flowers contrasting with the dark trunk and branches peaking through. Here is a picture of my piece from this morning.


Here are a couple of my other ink washes that I did during various classes.



We have done a variety of things in my design class, all in black and white tones. Here are a couple of pieces from that class.

This first piece is a drawing I made from a collage. I found the picture of the bones, and I worked and worked until I found a composition that worked for them. :o)


And this piece is an ink drawing. We had to form our picture using letters instead of lines. This was an exercise in texture. I made a B on it because I got the horse too black - you can't see any texture in him. But I don't care, I like the way this looks, and I am going to frame it when the class is over.


I'm off to stitch now - I am almost through with To The Acorn, and I am determined to get it done!

On the Knitting Front

I have been doing a little knitting in between my embroidery and art classes. I have decided to participate in two mystery shawl KAL's. I know, kinda crazy, huh? I discovered that I really enjoy knitting lacey shawls when I did the Mystery Stole last year, so I joined up for every stole and shawl KAL that I found. So far, I have only saved the patterns. But two that are starting up this month caught my imagination, and I have decided to try to keep up. Both of them are in the swatching phase, and I have them both swatched.

The first one is the Secret of Bad Nauheim, a mystery shawl by Moni, who designed the Secret of Chrysopolis. She is a German designer, and a very talented lady. I love her designs. I knitted this swatch in Graceful Lace Yarn that I bought at ROC Day. It is actually closer to cobweb lace than regular lace, so I'm hoping it doesn't drive me batty. But my swatch turned out to be close to Moni's swatch size, so I'm going to give it a try.



The second one is Mystic Light, the second of a series of designs by Anna Dalvi. The first in this series was Mystic Waters, which I also joined but haven't knit yet. I have that pattern saved on my computer, and I do plan to knit it. The theme of this mystery shawl has to do with fire and light, so we are supposed to pick a color that represents fire to us. I picked a variegated red. This shawl I'm knitting out of Fleece Artist's Sea Wool, which is 70% Merino and 30% Seacell. I first saw this yarn at our new knit shop, The Knit Studio, and I was dying to try it on something. So when I discovered Mystic Light's recommended yarn was between fingering and sport weight, I decided to try it and see if it would work. My swatch turned out gorgeous! I love the feel and drape of this yarn. It is going to make one yummy shawl. :o)


So, at this moment in time, I am officially up to date with my two shawl KALs. It probably won't ever happen again. :o)

Stitches and Snow

Wow! It has been over a month since my last entry. Time certainly flies by when you are having fun, and I have been having lots of fun! I am enjoying my art classes so much. I will do a separate post about them, and share some of that work. Teaching is great too, and the preparation for my class has turned out to be quite time consuming. And I have still managed to work some stitching and knitting into my life. Unfortunately something had to get shoved to the back burner, and evidently it was my computer time. ;o)

I have more progress to report on To the Acorn. I finished Lesson 5 last weekend, and I am working on the last lesson. I am so excited that I am actually going to finish a GCC in time to turn it in for evaluation!



Yesterday Mississippi NeedleArts had a crewel embroidery workshop with Barbara Jackson. I thoroughly enjoyed it. There were only 6 of us, so it was very cozy and intimate. Barbara is a nice lady and a great teacher, and I love the project. But it does seem that I am actually learning things in my art and design classes, because I looked at the design with different eyes. I could see things I would interpret differently, ways I would use the shades of colors differently, and a couple of other changes in the stitches chosen that I would have made. I am very happy that my efforts to educate myself on design are paying off! :o)

I will be taking another class with Barbara at the TVR regional seminar in June, and then two more with her at national! Its a good thing I like her designs and teaching style! LOL I really am looking forward to the classes. :o)

We got a "dusting" of snow, as the weatherman called it, on Friday night. So yesterday morning I got up and took pictures.




So we have now had two snow events this year. Woo hoo!!

Here is what Flea does when it snows.


Actually, it is what Flea does when it doesn't snow. :o)

Tuesday Twitterings

I taught my third class last night, and it definitely is getting easier. I am beginning to feel less nervous about being in front of all those people - okay, only nine, but when you are in front and all eyes are on you, it feels like "all those people." LOL I have thought for a long time I would like to teach, but then I would wonder if it would make me miserable because I do not like being the center of attention, and I am very shy when it comes to being on stage. However, I am finding that once we get into it, and I am busy sharing my knowledge, it doesn't feel like I'm on stage anymore. My lectures are getting better also because I'm not so nervous. I have already agreed to teach Accounting I in the fall and Accounting II next spring. She asked if I could teach Accounting II in the second summer term, but that would mean July, and I have way too much going on then! I will be in Louisville for the Master Crewel Class, and then at the Japanese Embroidery Center in Atlanta to start Phase II.

Rissa took pictures at the Blackhearts Ball Saturday night, and she got one of Megan and Ariellah. She really is a beautiful dancer, and Megan enjoyed her workshop and learned a lot.


Lacey, my 9 year old springer spaniel mix, had surgery last Wednesday to remove some tumors in her mammary glands. She had a lot in her hind tit, and then they were evidently starting to spread up into her others. I am happy to report that she is feeling much better now. In fact, by Friday she had started to bounce back to her normal happy self. I am waiting to hear if they are benign or malignant, but I am intending that they WILL be benign. She really is such a sweet baby.


We had some weak storms and heavy rain move through Sunday. Evidently, something has made Flea very nervous about thundershowers. Maybe a bad storm moved through while we were all gone to work or whatever, I don't know. But now every time it rains heavily and/or thunders, Flea gets all spastic and nervous. Sunday she had to sit in my lap all afternoon. Who could resist this pitiful face?


And I have progress to report on To The Acorn! I have finished Lesson 4, which is filet work. It was lots of fun to do. I really enjoy drawn thread work - I think it is the adrenalin rush you get from cutting the threads. LOL

Blackheart Ball and Gothic Bellydancing

Missihippy's Blackheart Ball was last night at Hal & Mal's, and Megan and I went. It was great! Ariellah was here teaching a workshop yesterday, and she performed at the Ball, along with several other very good local dance troupes.

Megan took Ariellah's workshop, and she seemed to really enjoy it, although she did come home a little sore. :o) The whole experience has strengthened her desire to move to Lexington KY, which has the University and a very good art school, but also evidently a very strong belly dance community. Hmmmm....maybe I can go with her and take the costume making classes at the university, and make her and her troupe's costumes. :o) What fun that would be! LOL

Watching all the dancers last night makes me want to continue to try to learn to dance myself. I just love the way the dancers have such wonderful control over the movements of their bodies. I go to belly dance classes at Butterfly Yoga just enough to feel like a total dweeb, but I don't go enough to get any better. So maybe its time to get over myself and really try.

Sunday Morning Musings

I love quiet Sunday mornings when everyone is still in bed. I've been piddling on the internet, reading my email, reading blogs, and my house is so peaceful and quiet. :o) I really need to get my butt in gear and open my mail and pay bills. Ugh. I just hate doing that, probably because I let it stack up and stack up until it is a massive job.


But that is because I have so many other, more fun things to do! Like, work on a quilt!



I finished my quilt top in the quilt class on Thursday, and I picked out the material for the border and back (the reddish-orange floral material), and for the binding (the brown material).


I took the class at Quilt Arts, our new quilting store here in Jackson. It is a very nice store, and the owners are so helpful to newbies like me. :o) The class was a great experience, and I plan to take more classes from them. Rhonda Blasingame teaches there also, and I would love to take one of her classes.

I will end this post with a masterpiece I call Boy in the Kitchen. Billy, my daughter's boyfriend who lives with us also, was left to my tender mercies on Friday night as Megan took their one car to work. Due to my insistance that the only things I cook are frozen cheese pizzas and meatless spaghetti, poor Billy was forced into the kitchen to cook him some meat.


Actually he cooked hamburger helper, and Mark happily helped him eat it. I had cheese pizza. :o)