Dancing Crow Designs

home is...

Jul 31
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

I'm glad to be home. I'm glad to be home from other countries, and I'm glad to be home from the last round of visits and family and friends. I almost did my own bed again because really, falling into your own bed, with your own pillow and familiar sounds outside the window and all that? Really nothing like it. But this covers all the July postcards in one fell swoop, and now I get to think about the next thing.

Actually I got to think about something completely different today. Red Kate is making fish for juggling. It's an SCA thing. Don't ask.

Anyhow, after talking about it a good deal, we decided we should felt them, either felt a flat piece of goods and sew together fish shapes, or felt around something roughly fish shaped and juggleable.

We attempted the second path this afternoon. To start, we made little examples around little bottles. Hers came out mouse shaped, so she put more tail on it and swore she'd done it on purpose. Mine came out bottle shaped but can (and will) be manipulated into a fish shape, except I temporarily lost it.

Having (mostly) succeeded at a small size, we went straight for life size. We decided a juggling pin was roughly the correct shape and (inherently) juggleable, so we used those, and layered on the roving around and around and around, and wetted it out and soaped it up and started felting. We got tired. The pieces came apart, (on mine) or were too thin, (on hers) and we got discouraged.  Then we looked at a book, and somehow became inflamed. At least I did. I found all my old roving from a pre-school project with Aerin's class, and re-wrapped the pin and tied it all down with yards of fluffy and extremely feltable mohair, and then I got fancy, with fins and resists and even a dorsal fin. Then I put a knee-sock over it, tied it up tight, and tossed it in the washer with some jeans.

That didn't make as much noise as when I put it in the dryer with the same jeans.

When it was done, the fins had felted through the sock, some of the mohair wasn't, and therefore hadn't felted, and it all looks like this:

which could be worse. It is fusiform, it seems to be pin sized, and it seems to be holding together well enough. It even looks kind of catfishy with the bad string hanging off its head end. I'll cut it off the pin tomorrow, and see if it will hold polyester beads, and if it can be washed again. It still needs hardening up some, but I think I am encouraged.

a day's work

Jul 30
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

For the postcard, a reprise of the day's work.

I'm exhausted.

May I be excused please?

fear not the potato masher, part deux

I signed up for a hand-printed fat quarter swap. Only a day or two late, I have finished my fabric and dropped it in the (priority) mail this afternoon.

They came out well, finally.

I started with a handful of hand dyed fabrics that weren't quite... done yet. I printed potato masher prints all over them, BUT the black was not deep enough. So this morning I bought better black paint, plus Red Kate gave me a jar of black dye that I didn't wind up using. I over printed all the masher prints I'd made last night and got them good and Black. But they still weren't done. I found a lovely pot of copper glaze I had, and printed jar-lid circles over the mashers in a decorative pattern. Now they seem to be done.

 

I wanted the black to give little windows into the hand dyes, but it looks more floaty instead. The copper floats over that. It all looks profoundly lumpy, but on the whole, better than I expected. I hope the others like it...

I may have to name the potato mashers. The one with lots of holes is definitely Bubbles, and the one that is quite black has both an X and lots of  Os and could be XO (or Xoooooo), although there is probably a better name, and the flower shaped print could be Flower. Possibly Felicity. But I can't think of a name for the one I like the best - with little oval holes around the edge. In the bottom right-hand picture. I'm open to suggestions...

Weekend Update

Jul 29
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

Saturday was composed entirely of driving and talking.

We left my dad's house for the house of my spare parents. Everyone should have spare parents. When your parents are only human, your spare parents are differently human. They fill in the gaps. They are an extra set of eyes on you, hands to help... I treasure mine.

Alice and I headed to their house to crash the family reunion/picnic/potluck. It was completely fabulous. Al showed up from our house. I caught up with my oldest friend (she knew me when she was 2 and I was just born) and her (four, large, smart, slightly scary) brothers. Many people yearned to sail the dinghy I brought on the top of my car, some even managed before the tremendous thunderstorm rolled through. I gave the July 26 postcard (that came out so incredibly well) to my spare mom for her birthday. I hugged everyone repeatedly, and finally Al and Alice and I tore ourselves away, with promises to return the next year (with a boat that I have built) and went to find my mother with friends in Essex.

We had another dinner that couldn't be beat. The friends were sailors also, with a Shearwater that they were going to cruise around Cape Ann. They had some interesting stories about sailing, mercifully few of the type that start "it was about 2 o'clock in the morning and the wind started to pick up". It turned out we had been on the same trip 14 or 15 summers ago around Cape Cod and the Elizabeth Islands. So we swapped more stories and finally crawled back to Ipswich to sleep.

Although the original plan was for Alice to have some Grandmother Camp, my mum was under the weather, so we hammered home this morning, in time for me to start my (hideously belated) work on the fat quarters I owe Bitter Betty. (Betty, I grovel, they will be in the mail, express, by Monday afternoon - don't give up on me!!)

See?? fabric being printed:

So here is a postcard that is about not missing something at all, because I got a piece of it back.

remote blogging updated

I write to you from my dad's house. After a giant scrimmage we left Northampton yesterday and arrived in Maine only three hours later. I used the little GPS system we used all over England to plot a course to my dad's, and it brought me in a way no one had even thought of before. I had faith, and we turned up in exactly the right place. Very sweet.

Jul 25
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

Garden is a mad overstatement for the wild territory that is growing some of the tallest weeds in the neighborhood. Lynn and I are competing for tallest weeds. Hers are fuzzy, but I think mine may be taller.

But the backyard is perfect. It is fenced, so dogs and small children can be turned out, and the fence has many gates so that large kids can come and go as they please, and all the gates have chimes so I know when they are coming and going. I had three wild girls out there the other night, running and shouting and climbing until after dark. It was great.

Jul 26
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

I am awestruck by how well this one came out.

Today's postcard is hand drawn, and actually harks back further than my recent travels. I was hoping I wouldn't wallow in nostalgia, but it is where my head is.

I had the luck to grow up in a house that overlooked a boatyard. At age 5, my brother could, and did, imitate every different power tool he heard below us. We had a tiny sliver of waterfront that gave onto a perfect dock. We were allowed to row when we could prove we could get ourselves home if the wind changed (giving rise to one of my more deeply held beliefs; "Always go upwind first"). It was an idyllic childhood in many repsects. I miss easy access to the ocean. Easy access to rowing and sailing small boats. Access to the intensity of the storms that roll through in the winter. I've traded that for other pleasures, but I can still miss it.

Today my father and daughter and I took a small sailing dinghy out for its maiden voyage. There was very little wind, and where ever the wind was, we weren't, so Alice shed some clothes and leapt over the side and joyfully towed us about the lake, coming to rest in the shade of a small island for snack time. We had a great time. We didn't test the sailing capabilities of the boat very hard - difficult with no wind - however we had a very, very fine time.

I experiment with rigging the sail.

Alice tests the water...

Makes it over the side, and...

tows us to a small island.

Northampton calling

Jul 24
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

I can't walk to see a lot of my favorite people but I can call them. I missed being able to pick up the phone and catch up with people.

This afternoon I realized the universe has been telling me to call a very old friend. I talk to him maybe once a year or so; I think it might be guy-protocol rather than girl-protocol. The universe wasn't worried about me calling him, although it was insistent. So I did. He said he was up to his armpits in pachysandra, which sounds like pachyderms but isn't.

Al accuses me of calling people when I have nothing to say, but really it is just visiting. A different kind of visiting.

I wasn't sure I'd be able to post this today - apparently there was a blackout in San Francisco that took out the servers for Typepad, but here we are.

In the ongoing vacation retrospective:

We spent a couple days in London. My favorite part was the Thames. We spent some very happy time on a boat going to Greenwich to see Mr. Harrison's clocks and 0 longitude, we took a ride (I refuse to call it a "flight") on the Eye, which has bones almost as interesting as the Eiffel tower and we saw dragons everywhere, which I had to photograph for a friend's daughter who wants to grow up to be a dragonologist.

The Eye was very stable, and not at all like being on a ferris wheel. But it felt like it was missing something. I wanted to install some of the sliders that kids put on the spokes of their bikes, that would go up and down the spokes of the wheel as it turned...

DONE!!

Mr Potter is finished. I have finished reading Mr. Potter.

There are no spoilers in this post.

I cannot begin to tell you how relieved I am that I am done.

ok - back to our regularly scheduled issues

communications

Jul 23
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

typing, typing, 1, 2, 3

I missed my email, and my computer, and being able to deal with my pictures easily, and mousing about seeing what my fellow bloggers and artists were up to. I realized that when I finally reconnected with a computer in London, and spent a happy hour posting to this blog and catching up on others. 

Plus, as promised previously, the beginnings of pictures from vacation.

What amuses me is how much pictures of the area remind me of the Maine coast. But really, the land is much more cultivated, and has been under human habitation for centuries longer than my local landscapes.

The tiny, twisty roads gave Al palpitations every time he had to drive. They are substantially narrower than two cars, and lined with spiky stone walls. While driving, his communication was a non-stop natter and grommish - a steady commentary on the road size, surface, edging, the insanity of oncoming and overtaking drivers - mostly to keep his nerve, I think.

We had this kind of blowy weather for the 5 days we were there, plus several days after.  There were some breaks with additional sun for a hike, some days with steady rain for an indoor day. I know it was unusual - everybody told us so, for one thing, and I did manage to see a weather report that warned of more unseasonable rain and flooding. Even Yarnstorm mentioned the weather, making me feel less unreasonable about it. Or less personally persecuted. Or something.

More vacation tomorrow, and another postcard.

My mother pointed out that I could get a good nostalgic wallow going here - thinking of things I miss now from my "yoot", or even the less distant "awhile ago". But really I am trying to show things I am pleased to have returned to. If you see what I mean?   

river under the bridge

Jul 22
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

As promised, yesterday's finished and posted.

I have been working on taking a picture of the river every Sunday. It has turned out to be several pictures every Sunday. I missed some weeks, but mostly I'm there on the dock looking up stream and down stream and across the river, and documenting what it looks like this week.

I really love the place I live. I think the landscape is beautiful. The river speaks to me powerfully, and photographing it over and over and over feels like the least I can do to honor my connection to this valley. I'm planning to do something with the compiled images - they feel like fodder for a major project later, but right now they are simply part of my practice for the year.

off center

Aerin is at camp, I left her looking very pleased to be there.

The drive home made me feel like my head was filled with bees.

Red Kate came for tea and talk and stayed for supper. That was very good. But - my head hurts now, so I'm done. I'll post today's card tomorrow. It is half finished.

Promise. You know I'm good for it.