Well, rough night. Wild year. Nothing deep to say. (You know that’s not true – the not having anything to say part. Nothing deep – eh – that part’s probably true.)
Evidently these last months, the passion and nervous energy de moi has come out in the making of cute stuff. Actually, it has been so for the last year and half or so. And seeing that making things is actually a sort of performance art, I have to show you. There’s no value in the making of the stuff unless I do. Feedback. Exclamations that indicate that the exclaimer has been seriously charmed. Communication. Interaction. Bonding. YAY!!! Anyway, I don’t seem to be able to stop doing things like this. I’ve tried.
This is the beginning of October. During conference, actually. Guy oiled the saddles and the tack. I sat on the floor surrounded by bells, beads, felt, ribbons, needles and all other things useful for the dressing of camels.
The strange thing is that I always have ideas. If I were a marsupial, my pouch, now Joey-less, would be full of Things I Have Always Wanted To Try. At this point, I introduce the magical fact of Sticks Furniture, something Rachel and I discovered in a Park City gallery that was packed like grandma’s attic with the stuff. We fell in love instantly. Not the least, for me, because their designs are very close to the motifs I’ve been doing myself since high school. Very reminiscent of illustration. CUTE illustration, not funky, philosophical illustration.
The basic idea here is wooden furniture that has been “drawn” on a la wood burner, then painted and sealed. Who couldn’t do that, right? After I’d found the gallery, I “found” a heavy duty wood burner, then did nothing with it for years. But this year, being what it is, I finally bought myself a very basic, light weight wooden picture frame and broke out the Very Dangerous Burner. It’s a dual pen, heavy duty, hoity toity thing that is probably wasted on me. And I began to doodle – on the back of the frame, as I was terrified to venture onto the front.
Turns out that cheap frames aren’t that easy to work with. They’re kind of “hairy.” But sufficient for experimentation. So I did this. Acrylic paints do just fine. And I have always loved spar varnish.
But the project I’d been wanting to do for ages had to do with a tiny kid’s stool we’d had since the kids were wee. I’d never even finished the wood. And the poor thing had gotten dirtier and rattier as the years went on. So THIS year, I cleaned it off, considered the surfaces, and got brave enough to give it a go -
My motif. My baby stool. Finally done.
Chapter 2. I know I always do too many things at one blog. But I only blog in frantic spurts or not at all.
Once upon a time, Ginger brought this really, really cool sparkly glittered star to the Christmas party. Chaz won it. I wouldn’t let her have it. Not till I figured out how to make one myself. So I sat out on an Autumn afternoon, using the stool to sit on, and started encrusting wooden stars with the glitters I’ve been collecting since Ginger did hers.
I couldn’t find hers at first, so I was just going from memory. You wrap a wooden star with yarn, I remembered – bright yarn with metallic touches. Then you add a bunch of glitter. (the pine cones are coated with micro beads. The most important thing about them is that they came off the Stone’s trees, and we all love the Stones. Micro beads are not that fun, it turns out, and they cost like crazy.) So here are the stars – which I thought were encrusted.
Then I found Ginger’s star. And realized that my concept of encrusted was pretty sad. I also realized that she’d done the glitter encrustation first. Too late for me. But where I couldn’t do it first, I could OVERdo it at any point.
So I did.
They’re still not as good as Ginger’s, but here’s the thing: I scratched that itch. I did it. Mark it off the list along with the pine cones and the sticks and the camels. Making progress in my life. And bonus: I got a bunch of glitter-ridden stars.
Chapter 3: I should be able to make a kid’s dress from scratch. Really.
I shouldn’t need a pattern for a tiny little jumper. Right? All I’m really trying to do is make something one flipping quarter as cool as all the stuff Wabi does. Yes, I am a big fat copy cat.
So I found this cool Fall corduroy and bought it, thereby committing myself to the project. Then I borrowed a couple of Andy’s dresses for size and basic construction.
Long story short: after several drafts in muslin, I got this little jumper. Which ended up no more than two sizes too big. But I made up for that with details. Above, on the very left side of the neck line, there are three little leaves appliqued onto the neckline. This was an attempt to keep the bias tape binding from flopping over – sort of tacking it down. And it almost worked. One of the little leaves is just kind of a dangle.
And I added a little round pocket. It’s there, where the red ribbon is leaking out. The ribbon is there because the pocket has a secret – a ribbon tethered tiny bird.
The bird. Actually shot upside down. Fits in the pocket. Andy loves to pull it out and show people, which unfortunately usually means she is also showing off her tiny girl underwear. Unintended consequences.
Beautiful day. Not to my credit.
These pictures are me, trying to Wabi-ize my world. Son and his daughter. In small construction hat.
Without hat. With bird in hand.
I did not make this. I do take credit for some little part of the pattern, however.
Final Chapter: the gourds.
I found some cool, painted gourds Christmas ornaments in a gift shop at the airport in Santa Fe. And then I came into possession of a bunch of jewelry gourds. This project is kinda related to the Sticks project. And once again, answering the call of the Year I try Everything, I just up and tried my hand at it. They’re pretty crude and folksy – but I’m kinda happy with them.
And that’s it. Better than listening to me howl about elections and end of the world, eh? Maybe? And I promise, I’m going to run out of these long-held ambitions. Really I am. Pretty soon. And now I’m finished. Thank you very much.
The beautiful Chaz
Gasping! At each little treasure! Gasp! Gasp! Gasp!
Only you……… putting a secret in a pocket…….. that is so sweet and she will remember that about you. She will!!!
I wonder. Now I’m thinking about my grandmother and what I remember about her. Mostly things I think she hadn’t really done on purpose. IO really almost try to recreate that kind of thing in my house – always keeping in mind how her things made me feel. I wonder whey she chose some of those things, whimsical things – because she wasn’t whimsical in the least. I’ll have to think about this. The truth is, Andy did NOT want the dress. I brought the muslin mock-ups to them for fittings; after the first time, Andy would see it was me at the door and run, yelling, “Don’t like that dress.” So I had to do something that would intrigue her. The bird did. And she did like the dress, and said so many times, off and on. I have one more dress to do to her. Hope it works.
My Grandmother bought me a dress once and then a skirt. I remember them both fondly still to this day because all I ever got was hand me downs so to have my very own dress and skirt……. The dress she bought me when I visited. She took me to the mall and picked it out. It had a big apron on the front. I loved that dress…………. The skirt came in a package one year for my birthday. It was a skirt that was flirly and twirly and ruffly and nothing like I had ever seen or owned. To receive a package. That alone was magical and something that had never happened before……. top it with such an amazing colorful skirt. My little five year old heart or 7 year old heart…. can’t remember……. I just know I was little……….. was in raptures with that skirt. I can still see it today in my mind.
I had a dress once that was satin-y and sort of gold in a floral sorta way – and it had a full circle skirt and a gold satin sash. Every time I wore that thing, I was alive.
I can remember a bright yellow orange print with pink and aqua and white and green tiny flowers on it. My grandmother (who I got my crafty/handy gene from) made me a sleeveless tent dress with a rolled over stand up collar that I LOVED when I was probably 5 or 6. She is also the woman who gave me to home perms in the same week because she didn’t think the first one ‘took’ well enough. I was orphan Annie for a pretty long time.
That’s what I look like today. Finally. How sad that you can’t be yourself without extra chemistry. I mean, I can’t be myself. I wish I’d had a grandmother like that. Mine were interesting and quirky, but not much else.
Oh, someday someone will be so happy to get that frame and then discover the treasure on the back! They will be even so much more happy.
Now, those gourds. How tiny are they? How could you use the dangerous burning stick machine on something so round and tiny? And I think the Sticks store would like to sell them in their store.
If I put all my stuff out on the floor like that to work, I would have a cat laying (lying?) all on top of it and/or a dog walking on it to get to my face for a licking!
You did get some Wabi-ness in those pictures…the ones of the kids frolicking in the yard.
And the stars…you are an inspiration and now I want to be a copy cat, too…but not with the dangerous tool.
The gourds are pretty tiny. Maybe two and a half inches? I was hoping the crudeness of the work would have a sort of folk-art charm, because they didn’t take the heat evenly, and I didn’t try to keep my lines straight – the curve is hard to work with. But the Bethlehem scene seemed to work very easily, which was fun. Maybe I’ll try some more. I’ve made a bunch of deer, too – every night a few.
The cat would be lying down. The thing about “laying” is this: chickens lay eggs. “Holy men” lay ghosts. Or you lay the table. You almost want to see in your head somebody snapping out a table cloth – in the present tense, “lay” suggests something someone is doing to something. In the present tense, you lie down on your bed. The one that has the quilt lying on it.
In the past tense, you lay on the grass yesterday. You lay on your bed last night. (An older use was: Last night, he lay himself down on the bed – but we don’t use that reflexive anymore.) BUT you laid your thing on the desk. So the thing was LYING on the desk. And you were lying on the bed. And you were lying out in the sun.
The key is that, in the present, you have to LAY something. You have to have an object to do it to. But you do LIE to yourself.
The past gets tricky. Anything you could say I am laying about today, tomorrow you will say, “I laid it.” Or “I was laying it out.” Or “It was laid.” Or, “The table had been laid for a long time.”
But today, you lie on your bed. Yesterday, you were lying on your bed, and you had lain there quite a while.
The sentence you used is even more touchy because you used a modality (would, should could – might – that kind of thing) – and you used it right: would classically is associated with the idea of “if.” I would go IF I had the money. But we also use that commonly to indicate an action we tended to repeat in the past: “I would go to the store every night.” Which isn’t really correct, but is real usage. In that case you’d say, The cat would lie on the floor when I worked. But with the if – If I got down on the floor to work, the cat would lie all over everything. But the way you used it was a little different: If I tried to do work on the floor, that cat would be lying all over everything.
The addition of the “be” changes things and makes them more complex. It requires a present participle.
Anyway. Lying was right.
And this is why I don’t try to learn Japanese.
If I can’t even get my apostrophes straight!!! (Shaking head) I give up!
NO GIVING UP. And your apostrophes have been PERFECT lately. You just have to hook them up with ownership in your head, and there you are!!
I think I should print this out for future reference. How cool is it that you KNOW all that kind of stuff. I don’t think I know that much about anything.
I really learned more about verbs when I was learning Spanish than when I was in English class….in English I usually just know what sounds right but in Spanish I had to know WHY so I could choose the right word/tense.
Most of what I know about grammar, I learned in French class. Why English teachers couldn’t explain it so that this brain – this word driven brain – could understand at least a lick of what they were talking about, I don’t know. English teachers who can’t use the language to explain the language. Ah, mortality.
You are so too talented! I especially love the little bird in the dress….what a sweet little detail. I find that it’s good to just go with it when the motivation is there…in crafting and many other parts of life. I go through phases where I make a lot, but lately, I just havn’t been doing anything crafty.
It really is fun to get little ideas along the way and throw them in. And I envy you, really – I wish I’d finish up doing things just for a while. I’ve never been on a roll for this long – except when I was quilting.
Funny, I want to Wabi-ize my world too. Really, nothing seems quite right lately. Okay, not NOTHING, cuz these creations of yours are lovely and entirely right. That dress is inspiring. I need to learn how to do winter sewing like that. Sewing, it *is* seasonal, you know. I only do summer sewing. Really, really sloppy summer sewing. But with fabulous fall fabric like yours, I would be enticed into fall sewing. And a bird in the pocket! You are amazing!
And you made cool, folksy gourd ornaments! (The exclamations are adding up, non?) Did I tell you that I grew gourds this summer because while my pouch is still full of Joeys, I’ve tucked in all sorts of Things I Have Always Wanted To Try in the nooks and crannies and gourd crafts is one of those things. Bowls actually, that’s what I want to make. Hadn’t considered ornaments, but then my gourds are too big. I especially like your Bethlehem one. Makes me feel dreamy.
And I could never woodburn draw on frames or furniture. Cuz I just can’t draw. And the woodburning is tricky and would take lots of practice and I’m just not that disciplined.
There. I’ve just said a whole bunch of not much at all, and you know what? I’m feeling better.
YAY!! Yay for feeling better! And you haven’t even been through a traumatic election. The whole planet seems a little off axis these days. It’s funny that you see my stuff and I see yours and each of us thinks the other person does this cool stuff – bowls. You want to do BOWLS!! Have you been to Welbourn Farms? I think that’s how you spell it. They do on-line classes, and the stuff they do is first class. I wanted to grow gourds, too – but that hasn’t come into play yet. Well, every time I knock on your door, I come away fed. So every time I can offer you a little lunch, you know I am delighted.
Oh and HOW off axis it feels! No, no traumatic election, but the legislature is prorogued. Which is just annoying. Cuz ‘prorogued’ sounds just enough like ‘pierogie’ to make me hungry.
You are punchy tonight, girl. I like the outerworks of our lives to be transparent. If they have to make laws, they need to do it in the least intrusive way so that we don’t get riled up or worn out. Isn’t that what they’re hired to do? It’s like the planet has one leg about three feet shorter than the other.
You’re doing your own Sticks-like stuff?
[Swoon]
Such GREEN, GREEN grass. (per my reply to your comment on my blog)
Trying to. Kinda fun.
OK, so 1. I want the stool. If you refuse to give it to me, you can make me a different one. But it has the ocean on it, and as you well know that is MY motif.
2. Is one of those crusty stars for me? I certainly hope so, since this is the theme of my comment thread here. And they’re so crusty and lovely.
3. Since I don’t have a small girly person I can’t make a fuss about the dress, but I can say it’s ADORABLE! And the little bird detail can’t be beat. I’d be showing everybody too, underwear or no underwear.
Did I miss demanding anything else?
Yes, but you’ll have to wait till you get here before you see. If I get anything else finished, after making your presents and beds and wrapping everything, washing everything, vacuuming everything and planning dinner -
OHMYGOODNESS! I heard you talk about that star several times and I always thought you were just being so kind to me since I really don’t navigate well through the crafty scene. NOW I KNOW YOU WEREN’T JUST BEING NICE. YOU MEANT IT. I’m so glad you loved that ornament and I think your duplications are far more pizzazz-y. They have that uniquely Kristen flair.
Okay. I just have to say that you’ve made my evening. I might just get inspired to do my ornament early and perhaps, if I’m on a roll, I can WOW you again.
BTW, I have to agree with other commentors. The bird in the pocket is sooo dear. I’m glad little Andy fully appreciates it.
And the stool . . . well, it’s way too fantastical for being stepped on.
I WASN’T JUST BEING NICE. And I couldn’t replicate it, which still drives me crazy. Yours is SOOOOO much better than mine, it’s crazy. And the stool was made to be used. Even so, when Scooter stepped on it in his new cowboy boots, I winced.