Dancing Crow Designs

happy turkey day

Nov 21
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

Two days of postcards, even with the turkey induced stupor.

This one is stripes of velvet and purple/brown silk, with red leaves, like a book, and thin lines that felt like sticks across the pages.

days go by

Nov 20
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

I managed this one yesterday, which pleased me with its simplicity. The brown velvet is from a long long time ago, when we used to play at swords and swashbuckling. It is scraps from the Queen's Winter court dress.

Alice needed me more than the blog did last night, or I would have posted it then.

I am vertical and staggering about, better but definitely not well. I can feel the coughing lurking in my future, although now it is only phlegm and snuffling.

We had this for weather:

first snow

so it was fine to be inside drinking chicken soup and watching old movies.

advice from...

I don't believe in astrology or tarot or anything much at all, and yet I love reading fortunes and predictions. They seem like messages that I can meditate on, if they are the least bit relevant. The mind finds the relevance, or creates it, and I get some new insight just from having an open mind.

Having said that, I reiterate that no plan I have made for the last two weeks has gone unbroken. My response is to retreat to the tea leaves on the internet, which told me this:

Just because you can't push the river doesn't mean you can't paddle your canoe.

Challenges come at the right moments to help us learn and if you approach them with a good heart, all will go well.

I am approaching the challenge of being sick by attempting to get well.

I'm going back to bed.

stripes, stripes

Nov 18
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

Patches, stripes, and silk stripes over it all, with a lot of stitching. Another postcard courtesy of the Girls in the Basement.

Maybe I've been overthinking these things...

ummm, yeah, thwartation

Nov 17
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

So we are still at home. Alice decided she wanted to stay here, she wasn't feeling well enough to cope with the city. So I am working on more room clearing, and finding floor space and lost things and more dead pens (note to self, no more jelly pens. ever.) than absolutely necessary.

Talked with the Other Kate yesterday, and we joked about Thwartation, with a side of Shui (see Mason Dixon Knitting for usage) and other things that happen when it is impossible to plan.

As for this postcard, I am not sure what it is all about. I started to make it, and my hands took over, and found old bits and scraps, and just whanged it together. So I let my hands do it all.

Jenny Crusie talks about The Girls in the Basement when she's writing, or collaging about her writing. The Girls are the part of your brain that knows what happens next, but can't talk very well. So they show you colors or sing songs, or stop at pictures of your main character when you thought it was her sister. She says you have to trust the Girls.

So I let my girls work on this postcard. It is kind of interesting, working that way. I like this postcard too.

patchy leaves

Nov 16
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

I liked the patchy, lumpy leaves on the rough silk background. I'll try the reverse of this when we get back.

Alice and I are headed to NYC. There is a stagehand strike going on, so the shows we thought we were seeing we probably aren't. I have a lot of sympathy for the stagehands. I might be one of a vanishingly small minority of children that dreamed of moving to New York and breaking into the tech side of theater. I wanted to make costumes, design and run lights, design and build clever and evocative sets... Other stuff happened instead, but I still think about it.

But it is a big city. We'll find things to do. There is my second favorite science museum, with a special exhibit of how real bones were interpreted to come from mythological creatures. She has been listening to The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and wants to see the Metropolitan Museum of Art, or some small piece of it. There is food and more art, and cool kids' stuff all over.

I am working on the new computer. The mac really is all about design isn't it? the key board is tiny and thin and really really beautiful, the screen is large and shiny and very lovely, it goes on and on. The biggest trouble is that I can't at the moment get my photos edited and over to Flickr. I'm sure that will get easier as more systems get migrated from the old machine, but at the moment I am feeling more like beating my head on this than stroking it lovingly.

fuzzy

Nov 15
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

It has fur. I found this over at Ragged Cloth Cafe, and was inspired. Or whatever. In a fit of goofiness I attached a brown sheepskin heart to a brown velvet postcard.

The cleaning out continues. The room is in that disastrous phase where truckloads of carp are removed and the remainder is spread across the floor in the decision making process. Alice's art school is totally loving me. So long as they don't think I'm dumping stuff on them, we'll all be good.

Al is installing the new computer next to me, so I'm cramped for space at the moment (mouse in the lap, keyboard under the chin) and things may be off-kilter for a bit. It's a mac. With a really pretty screen. We'll see how that goes.

ginkgo

Nov 14
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

I used to just like saying ginkgo, but I fell hard for the object itself when I found fossils of it in college (in samples in the lab, not in the field). It is a living fossil, older than dinosaurs, with recognized leaves from 270 million years ago. Wiki talks about it extensively over here; scroll down to see some fossils.

The leaves have this lovely flexible feel to them, with all the veins running parallel to each other the length of the leaf. The veins furl together at the edges where the leaf narrows. It almost feels as though you could unroll the stem into something as wide as the leaf itself, but I couldn't. The leaves I collected remain quite soft still, when the maple and oak leaves are brittle and dry.

chestnuts

Nov 13
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

I'm sorry, I have nothing useful to say.

I had circus class today.

I am working on a reverse New Year's resolution, where I resolve that my workroom will be cleaner and emptier by New Year's, letting me give that old resolution a long deserved rest. I read about it on someone else's blog, regarding fitness and weight loss. I thought it was a great idea, but I'd rather apply it to my work room because, well, I'm spending a lot of time in there, and I'd like it to be neater, better organized, and easier to work in.

I have issues 1 - 60 of Threads Magazine. If anyone wants to give the complete set a good home, email me and we'll discuss shipping. It was a great thing while it lasted, but they've gone all focussed and technical about sewing and skipped the rest of the string things they used to do so well. I've reread them, they are still great, but I need the room more than the inspiration.

tip of the hat

Nov 12
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

An acorn cap is one of my favorite things in nature. It can be plate or cup or hat or whistle. It is smooth on the inside with interesting textures and scales on the outside. The center of it looks like an eye.