What a hoot!

I changed the colour.  Originally it was light blue.  But the posture is a dead giveaway--exactly like Dad's.

Which Sister??

It is Beth, of course.  I recognize the outfit :)  

Sweat jackets

Friday, I decided to wash the casual jackets that hang in the front closet. Some are sweat jackets, some corduroy, and a couple fleece. These are the ones that I throw on when heading outside, or down to the studio.  When I was working, my "uniform" was Alia pants and t-shirts with an over blouse, but now that I'm retired these sweat jackets have replaced the blouse.    I don't like washing the fleecy ones too often as, over time, they "pill, and loose their warmth, but eventually they need washing.  I probably should have done it last spring, but what the heck?  I just washed the ones out of the front closet, as the seven in the spare room haven't been worn-lately. The size of the pile surprised me, so when they came through ( two loads) I counted them. Including the ones in the spare room, I have 19 of them.  Who needs 19 casual jackets?

Three of them have never been worn! for some reason. One of them came through all covered with lint, that has to be pinched off, piece by piece.  I'm not sure about the future of that one, although it is one of the "good" ones that I could have worn out for "special".  A couple are getting a little "ratty", and will be relegated to painting days.  But--who needs 19 jackets? Well, we sorted them out and found--tada--ONE--that can be discarded,  but could still be used on really cold painting days.  No, it will probable go out with garbage, although the only problem is the stains.

I realize that this all comes from the days I was working.  I never had to buy a new outfit.  I bought the pants ad T-shirt in the new colour that came out every year, but kept re-cycling older outfits with new blouses.  Well, now my jeans, or black pants and t-shirts, go with everything.

Ah-h-h..... but which sister?

Actually, young Samantha is there too, carefully cradled under her Mother's heart.

I know who they are!!!

My sister, my niece & my niece's daughter.  I even recognized them from the art!  No question in my mind.  I got all my carrots in the freezer last night.  My slicer misbehaved, but I asked a friend for her carrot cake recipe (with icing)  Her icing is soooo good.  I think the secret is the brown sugar.  So the carrots that were grated instead of sliced have a future.  Our play is November 29 & 30 and December 6 & 7.  The Dicken's reading is November 24. The craft sale is November 23.  I have an ACT board meeting on November 24.  I have no idea how I will fit all of this in.  I think that a cup of coffee tomorrow morning will be wonderful!  It is 6:50 pm and I am ready for bed.  I don't want to go cause I will be up at 3 am, but I am just burnt out!  Part of it is mental stress and part physical.  I can hear the geese flying by right now. I love the sound, but I hate what I know it means.  Our old dog, Nika is doing much better with the medication she is on.  No more peeing without realizing it.  I haven't gotten the bill for the drugs yet, but I ordered another bottle.  It works.... need I say more?!  I really do like having a vet that makes house calls, or listens to the symptoms and suggests something.  It is so much easier on Nika not having the stress of having to be loaded into the truck and driven 25 minutes to the vets.... and then home again.. and Danielle is really caring. She wants to have a traveling vet clinic... an old ambulance or something similar.It will be such a relief to me and so many of my friends.  I have been fighting a cold for a week now.  It has been hanging in. Maybe it would be better to let it take over for 4 days and be done with it.  As it is , it had been over a week with this low level cold.  Now, I have to email the new president of ACT and ask her a question.  Oh boy!

Wow, I can guess who they are......

Even though I think this entry was intended to go in the Mouse Factory, I enjoyed seeing it so much here. I can even remember fondly the walk along the road that was part of the inspiration for this masterpiece.
Not much new here today except more rain but more important very heavy winds gusting up to 100 km/hr. Hydro was out for over four hours this morning. I walked up to get the mail - or should I say I was blown along the road -the one restaurant at the corner has a big generator on a trailer that they haul in and plug into a huge plug on the outside wall. Obviously the place has been wired purposely for such occasions. And there was a lineup of people in the door coming for coffee or maybe food as the tables were full. A Lakeland Power truck pulled up as I went by and two young men dressed in the usual iridescent orange jumpers ran into the place and lined up for coffee. I guess with all the blown down trees and hydro lines they had to fix, a little break was in order haha
Have a good weekend folks - don't work too hard, and Cathy, take a moment to sit down and have a coffee with me OK? Lets all pretend we are together and we can have a real bitch session for a bit - and then we can get on with the rest of our day! I will use my Keurig machine, and I suppose Cathy will use her Tassimo, and Patty, what will you use?
Take care

May I introduce......?

Finally I have work finished,--sort of.  This first piece is titled 'Generations". I took the pictures several years ago at McConnell Lake, and combined elements from three of them into this hanging.  I really wanted the focus to be the height and age of the trees,but soon realized that I needed the  figures to provide scale. I have never put figures in any of my previous pieces--and there have been quite a few of them.  Creating a working sketch of the figures was quite a chore,but I'm happy with the result.I had a simpler image of the three people simply walking away, but thought that it would be more interesting if there was some evidence of interaction between them. There are a couple of techniques in this piece that I've not used before, and I think I  learned quite a bit making it.

The title refers to the many generations it has taken to grow these trees, the five generations of my husband's family that enjoyed the family cottage at McConnell Lake before it was sold, out of the family, this summer, and finally the three generations of my own family, who were models for the picture.

 Here is a close-up of the figures.  Poor little girl has had her shoe fall off, and is asking her Mom for help.

The other piece is titled simply " Bonsai Tree". I spent a lot of time reading about bonsai trees on  the Internet.  I found out that they can be made from almost any type of tree.  They are defined by severely stunted growth, which leads to very dense foliage.  The containers they are grown in are often quite elaborately decorated.  And they can appear in almost any shape and configuration you could imagine.  This piece is done on hand-dyed fabric.  I don't know if it meets the definition of thread painting, but is entirely created with densely stitched thread, two shades of Superior Fantastico in shades of brown and beige, and two shades of green Sulky Blendable, two shades of sulky Blendable in grey,  along with two shades of 30wt Sulky solid.  The different densities of quilting made it necessary to block this piece, but here it is with the binding sewn on ready for hand finishing.

And here is the close-up.