Back on track, sort of, I think.

Finally! I started painting the shirts I wanted to do. Sometimes I get sidetracked by other projects, sometimes I get side tracked by things other than projects. This was a little of both.

I finished up a watercolor that was for someone special. It not only took some time, but it took space for a long time because it had to keep drying in between steps, taking the space I could have used for something else.

I also spent a Saturday at volunteer work for a group I belong to that makes charity quilts. That was fun, but it took the whole day. Monday was a holiday for the 6th grade, and Joseph wanted to play with his friend while I saw Janow. Since his friend lives close to the barn, I was going to drop him off and then pick him up after Janow. But...the friend was finshing up a homework project, he would be done any minute. That minute stretched out to the entire day. Should I have taken a whole day to wait on someone else's child? I took the whole day waiting with my child, hoping he would get to do something he loves to do. When he is grown up, he will have to spend time waiting for people so he can do what he has to do. He was disapointed in the end, but not frustrated or belittled by my indifference. It was important to him, so it was important to me.

I made a new banner. It's hosted in the same exact place as my old one was, so all the places the old one appears will now show this one. Maybe. Maybe not. I forgot to upload it to my host........bbl


I like it better.

Anne, of Gomilpitas dot com, has been very helpfull again in steering me to Google Adwords. Here is the banner for her site:

If you click there, you will find out everything there is to know about Milpitas and home schooling. If you find her jokes section, there are fantastic jokes for all ages, all G rated.

Sean, take care and heal up!

Need New Flyer

The Electronic Waste Recycling Center is having a free pick-up today. There is a small charge for big items like washers, dryers and refrigerators, but not for TVs. So Dave took out some key components that he made need to fix the one we are keeping, and put this one out for the pick-up.

Next time they have a free pick-up, they will rewrite the flyer to include an extra charge for projection TVs.

Load Up

I finally uploaded to my website yesterday! I do it at the beginning of each month, adding new items and writing a new introduction. It always takes longer than I think. I know it will take longer, so I wait until the last minute to do it, and then it takes even longer than that!

I added pictures of the floor cloths I made, but they aren't for sale yet. Maura and Jeff are due a housewarming gift and they get first pick.

The file sizes of the pictures here are small, but if you want to see them in great detail, go to my website by clicking on this sign. Those are big files, you will get a McGoo view that will show every speck. The size of each is also given there.



If you position your cursor over the sign and wait a sec, the words "click here" will appear. Then you know it is the right sign. Use the back arrow at the top of your screen to get back here.



If you've never heard of floor cloths, they are becoming popular. Made of heavy canvas, they are used in place of very small rugs and inside as doormats. They are good if you don't have a lot of door clearance and they clean up with a damp cloth. small rugs and inside as doormats. Most, mine included, have polyurethane applied, giving them a texture almost like linoleum. Some of them have a rubber non-stick backing. I can that, but will wait until M and J have picked and tell me if they want it on theirs.

Most of them are painted. Mine are unique because I batik them with hot was and fiber reactive dye. The wax acts differently on the 10 oz canvas than on cotton broadcloth and the effect is amazing. I hope to more next summer.
I have to wait until summer because I do it outside to avoid breathing hot wax fumes. We get all of our rain in the winter here. Summer is usually bone dry. Snow is so rare that you can say it doesn't snow here.

Peck Peckety Peck Peck

This is me, updating my website.


It always turns out to be a bigger task than I thought. Mostly becuase there are always things to fix, that I was going to fix last time, but forgot.

This isnt a really new picture. It might be from October or September, but it looks about the same

November!

Joseph carved this pumpkin himself.


I carved this one. You can easily see how I and clean and carve three Jack O' Lanterns in half an hour!

Here is Joseph with his Trick-or-Treat loot, sorted into piles. Dave took the picture, I was too sleepy to look and see just what his sorting criteria was.



There is Joseph, the hatchet slaying victim, in plaid. The last Halloween Parade of his school career. The last school year where you are glad your parents came. Middle School next year.

Halloween was the day after the earthquake, so it was the major topic of discussion in class. Sometime during the day, the whole class felt a terrible rumbling and shaking of the entire building. They dove under their desks, all 33 of them, proving they had absorbed the duck-and-cover instruction from the earthquake drills. It turned out to be the class next door, playing Simon Says as part of their Halloween celebration. "Simon says....stomp your feet."

All Shook Up

Here is the pad I recently finished.


And here is the current Work In Progress.

What a mess!

National Sticky Month kicks off tonight with the gathering of the candy. Oh Boy.

We felt it. We are 6 miles from the epicenter of last night's 5.6 earthquake. We have no damage or injuries to report. Last night, when it happened, we didn't know how big it was or how close we were to it. I remember the Loma Prieta earthquake in '89. But this one was smaller and all the water stayed in our toilets. In '89, poor Eric, our fish, lost half the water in his bowl. Fortunately the half that remained in the fishbowl was the half that contained Eric.

Eric is no longer with us, may he rest in peace.

click here to see more stuff

Silk Dying Made Etsy

After much delay, I finally got around to ETSY. ETSY is an on-line venue for art for sale by artists. The whole idea here is that the artist is the one who gets the money rather than the gallery or the importer or the marketer. It's pretty simple technically, so it goes faster than listing on eBay. It also costs a lot less. You can See mine at doublecatbatik.etsy.com or you can just go to ETSY.com and search by seller or subject or anything. There is some really great stuff on there...........................if you have a minute or two..........or three...............

Here are some sweatshirts I have on ETSY:

They are on my website too.



I finished another saddlepad. I have one more to do, but I have to draft the block first, so I'm putting it off while I use my table for other things.

Things like watercolor--I'm still working on it. It looks different than before.

Silk Screens, I'm making my own. The first ones were a learning experience, so I'm doing those over.

The floor cloths are still undergoing finishing, but they are getting closer.

Dying silk was something I had never done, so I am doing it now. It's a little different than cotton. But all the cotton practice is helping bunches.

On And On And On

OK
This is what I finished today.


And this is still in progress.

I worked a little more on the watercolor pencil picture, and I finished ironing the last floor cloth of the summer(fall) so it's ready to put on finish tomorrow. It needs 5 coats. There are two more that need a trim before the final 2 coats, and two others needing one coat. Those should all be done by the end of next week.

I also washed my dye solution bottles so I can make fresh tomorrow, and I prewashed 12 silk scarves so I can dye them.

I finally went to the library, may fvorite place(almost) and got a book on Incan art and one on contemporary African art. And a DVD: Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Joseph and I made a video of him dancing SouljaBoy. I could put it on YouTube, if we had a digital camera, but we don't. It can be done, but it's a pretty big technical problem for me.

Many Things Today

Many things going on, none major. I started ironing my last batik of the summer, except it's fall and I'm racing the weather. It was a biug surprise to see how the cracks and seams came out. This is what it looks like. It still needs more ironing and finishing.



This is ongoing. It should be finished tomorrow and I have another one part way done.


I've been playiong with watercolor pencils and this is what I have so far. I'm not sure if I like it, but it's fun.

The sweatshirt that says "WIRED" is sold already. That was fast!

I opened an ETSY store today. It's a web site for artist to sell art. Everything has to be hand made. I'ts less expensive than eBay and the exposure time is tons longer. All fixed price. My web site will still be the best place to see everything, and you can buy it with there PayPal too.

click on the sign to go there.

I had to make a new banner for ETSY. That took about 40 minutes, argh! But I like it, so I may change this one. You can go to ETSY by typing it into Google. My store is called Doublecatbatik, but it you go, look at some of the other stores there. Fantastic stuff.....and Christmas is fast approaching.

Last, but pretty interesting anyway......Joseph found this game, it's pretty good, and fun. Especially since he needed my help.Get the Glass

He Said That.

I packed a little cup of natural applesauce in Joe's lunch today. Whe he came home, he ate applsauce. I thought he had not eaten it at school, but saved it for when he came home. He said no, this was a new applesauce. I said "OK." Better than cookies. So he said

"I don't know how anyone can't like applesauce."

Me neither.

Don't you hate it when that happens?

I have some good pictures to show you, but instead, you get to see THIS!
I just wanted a rice cake with peanut butter, so I got the jar of peanut butter out of the refridgerator, and I got my knife and the rice cake, and when I opened the jar, THIS!
I can see maybe not throwing it away because you don't want to wash the jar and put it in recycle. I can understand not wanting to open the new jar because you don't want to stir it, but put it away empty? It's not like there are so many people living here that nobody will guess who did it!

All I can do is post it in the blog and hope the right mother sees it!

I'll show you the pictures anyway.

This is in progress:



and this is just finished:
(it's backed with Minky)

and this:
and this. Click on the picture to see the killer details.

three jacks

Here is the floorcloth I made for Halloween.
You can see it looks a little different on each side. This is because the wax and the dye penetrate the canvas a little differently.

I didn't put the rubber backing on it because it has such a great luminosity when it's back lit, like in a window. It would also be great as a table topper. So I left off the rubber.



I listed it on eBay at a fixed price, but it didn't sell, then I took it to a tack swap yesterday with a bunch of other stuff and it didn't sell(no brainer there!) but I took it anyway. So I'm putting it on Craig's List. I'll probably end up storing it till next Halloween.

That's the hard part about seasonal stuff.

Yesterday was the tack swap at a stable near Indian Hill, then a vet clinic with vaccinations, then a Boy Scout popcorn show and sell. I was pooped. Dave made dinner because it was Saturday and his night and I was too tired to be talked into doing it. He tried hard though. He does every week. He started by asking me what was for dinner, and I answered his first question with the usual reply: "That's a good question."

He caved, or rather, I refused to cave, and he made salmon with steam-in-the-bag veggies, bread and salad. I told him it was the best meal he had ever made. He said to be sure I put that in my blog because he wants credit for it.

Charmin Mails Monkees Underwear to Brussels by Flashlight for Pennies

I can't get picture upload to work...Again! Also, this link to Deb's blog has been giving mt trouble.

I've been tagged by Deb of BarryPatchDesigns2.blogspot.com.
This means two things. One, Two.

One, I have to share 7 things about myself. That's hard.

Two, I have to tag 7 people I know that have blogs. That's harder. It's a onus I wouldn't pin on anyone unless I knew they wanted to be tagged. I will tag only the people who contact me and asked to be tagged.

Here are my things:

1. I am afraid of the mail.

2. I still listen to The Monkees.

3. I save the pennies I receive as change, but not any others, until I have 100, then I buy a scone. I eat fewer scones that way.

4. I keep a new pair of underwear still in the plastic packaging, in the bottom of my sock drawer. I wear them when I am in a very sad mood, because new underwear is cheerful.

5. I have a three month supply of toilet paper for three people(Charmin Mega Rolls)hidden behind a secret panel in my house.

6. I like Brussels sprouts.

7. I like to read in bed with a flashlight.


Those are my seven things. Those seven things are mine. My things are those seven that you see.

I have been working on a new Vintage Sweatshirt design. It's a bird one. This is the first sweatshirt I have hand-dyed first. I think it's coming out well. I am excited about it at this stage anyway!

I have added pictures of the t-shirts I painted with Procion fiber reactive dye and they are for sale. I also made a little Minky backed scrap quilt and put it there too. If you have ever felt Minky chenille, you know how soft it is. Not the knock-off Minky that you can get at the popular chain store for about the same retail price, but the real thing. Click on the sign to go to my web site. Keep in mind, as a quilter and textile artist, I had to program the web site the hard way, character by character, no WYSIWYG editor like Dreamweaver. I think it can be compared to hand quilting, which I won't do!




Remember, it you want to get tagged, let me know!

Little C

Erata

I don't know if I can upload pictures yet. Haven't had time to check! I just checked, yes you can! These are tow of the things on eBay right now.

Today I go to Pacific International Quilt Festival in Santa Clara. I have signed up to sell Opportunity Quilt raffle tickets for my guild between 2:00 and 4:00. I also want to run to Joanne's (ick!) for some poly craft batt. I don't want exactly what I had last time and I want to see it, as much as you can anyway, inside the plastic!

Yesterday I took Joseph to the School Beautification Day at Pomeroy. He was a pill getting up in the morning and breakfasted, but he made the commitment to go so I made him follow through. He ended up having a good time. We were there from 8:00 to 11:30. I took care of Janow at the barn, then I dyed fabric and shirts while he and Dave went to a Boy Scout popcorn sale at Wal*Mart.

I have been working on updating my site for October and getting some of the large view photos bigger, but some have a smaller file size for faster loading. I have 4 new things this month.

Thursday I went to the California Dressage Society championship show at the Horse Park In Woodside. It had rained a bit Tuesday night and the footing was still saturated. People were upset. I don't blame them. That big of a show and there should be footing that can take the water. The Horse Park pretends to be that big, the arenas should have been crowned for drainage. What a mess.

Elise rode conservatively and did pretty well in her warm-up test.

Then it rained very heavily Thursday night and all day Friday. I can't imagine the soup. The show winners will probably be the ones who risk their horse's soundness the most to get the big gaits. The show losers will probably be the horses whose owners took the risk and it didn't pay out.

See? Busy here.

pictures

There is a problem adding pictures to blogs. It is not just me. Many bloggers are reporting the problem. None of the reports are answered. I don't know if the reports are ignored or if there is no solution to report yet, or if the person in charge is on sick leave. Maybe that person found a booger shaped like Jesus and they are looking for someone to show it to, someone who cares. I have spent two hours on the problem over the past two days. Now I am going to have popcorn because we are out of ice cream.

Third Monday this week

I got my drive cleaned up and some pictures loaded. And three ebay listings. My 6th grader has been home sick since he called from school at 10:00 on Monday. It's stomach flu.

I went to the workshop with Joy Lily and learned so much. I didn't make anything I really liked, but played around with her technique and have had ideas rolling around in my head since Monday.

It rained last night, ick. I have to check the forecast before I can figure out what I am doing today. There is a lot to do, and I'm stuck at home with Mr. Sick.

Three Jacks Floor CLoth

Four Pumpkins

Four More Pumpkins This listing has pictures of Whiskers and Janow.

I got them on Woo-Hoo Mystery Man. To find out what that is, go to the bottom of my listings, there is a link there.

a little later on.....

Hay, I got Ben on, I've tried that before, with a different YouTube, but it didn't work.

I just finished dying many pieces of fabric for tomorrow's workshop. It's all in the washer now, going around with some Synthropol. I don't know how many pieces. Some of them were pieces I had dyed before but didn't like, so I added more dye. If I still don't like it, it's no loss. Hmm, two pudding cups, a margarine container, two big Glad boxes, two peanut butter jars and a spaghetti sauce jar, one Thyroid-L bottle. Three of those had more than one piece of fabric, as I recall. That makes 12 pieces of fabric. Some are more than one color, but I don't remember exactly what colors and combinations I made. I had to get them done for tomorrow, or I would have kept a log so that if I liked one, or didn't like one, I would know what I did so I could repeat it or avoid it.
Joy said, on Tuesday, to bring fabric you know has been dyed with Procion dye. Well, I know mine is!

I will take some photos so you can see before and after. If I get my pictures folders cleaned up.

Joseph didn't win the presidential election, but he remembers his speech because one of the things he said was an enthusiastic backing of teachers and staff and student council and he got a big cheer for it!

Dave, our Birthday Boy for the day, has not opened any of his presents yet because he is still at work.

Preparing for tomorrow, ew

Well, my technical problem has been solved, but I've got a lot of cleanup to do. I have to prepare for the workshop tomorrow, so I'm not getting to it quite yet. I havent done that yet because I had to buy a birthday present for Dave whose birthday is today. Last minute shopping. Lucky for me I just had to stop at OSH. But I found this on YouTube. His name is Ben Sharkey. I think I can glue it in here, let meee seeeee:

He's pretty good, even if his house in the background is boring and he is wearing a Pomeroy Elementary uniform.

Joy-Lily Workshop

Last night at the Piecemakers Quilt Guild general meeting, Joy-Lily Came to speak and show slides of her work. It was fantastic! I had singed up months previously for her workshop next Saturday, but I had no idea the scope of her work! Then.....there were not enough people signed up for the workshop. Oh No! But she so generously decided to teach it anyway. Now I am SO exited!

I'm still waiting for the technical department to look at my computer program, so still no pics. Boo Hoo. But click on the link for Joy's web site. It's amazing! She used to make batik before she began silk painting! Ooooooh.

Today we continue to make campaign posters for Joe's Student Body President election.

Quotes

I saw this quote on another artists blog. I think it is worth sharing.

"Only too often we see the people not like they are, but how we are."
Anthony deMella


Another quote, this one much more down to earth.

"Mom! The one with the weird eyes is a medicine jar!"

Joseph said this to me on Wednesday at the Museum of Anthropolgy at UC Berkeley. We were looking at artifacts from Ancient Egypt. I looked at the group he was pointing at. Only one had eyes and they were not weird. Another one....was the figure of a woman but the head was broken off. I said

"Those aren't weird eyes."

He looked again. Sure enough, mom was right!