11.13.2005

My poor neglected blog

Oh my! I haven't posted in almost a week! Bad blogger, bad! I do have an excuse... how many would you like?

Excuse number one:


I spent all of monday night after work, hand stitching with my hand dyed silk noil on all three panels. Where is all that hand stitching you ask? don't strain your eyes looking for it, it's not there. I went to class Tuesday night, expecting a critique, but we didn't have one. We had one-on-ones with the teacher, which was fine. I hung my three panels up and immediately we decided that the lighter pinkish one didn't really need to go with the other two. so that has become a separate piece. Then we spent quite a while figureing out what to do with these other two. I stayed for another hour in class and did more hand stitching and hung them up again to look. The hand stitching was only visible from about 3 foot away, once you got more than that far from them, even with gallery lights shining on them, the hand stitching dissappears.

Reluctantly, Wednesday night, I ripped out all my hand stitching. I cut out all those thin pieces of fabric and fused them to the panels. I am not in love with it. I definitely will do some hand stitching on them to help the fused pieces to blend in. right now, it looks like they are floating in front and are not a part of the background. I don't think I'll do anything to them for a while though. I need to put them out of view for a while so I can look at them fresh after a few weeks, months... uh... hopefully not years. I am just sorta dissappointed and wish I hadn't put those fused pieces on. I kindof liked that you couldn't see the stitching until you got up close to it, it's like a little surprise. I'm imagining them hanging in a gallery, from across the room, you see them and they are interesting enough to walk up to for a closer look. once you get there, you see all the meticulous hand stitching. I am kindof sad that it is gone. and mad at myself for doing the fused pieces, in part to please the teacher. So I MIGHT try to steam the pieces off. I used wonder under, has anyone had any experience un-fusing wonder under? does it leave nasty glue marks behind?

Excuse number two:

Here is the hat. I am more than halfway done. I am having so much fun knitting this. It's so easy and so not boring with all the k2, p2 ribbing and keeping track of what row I'm on. I love it!

Saturday, my mom and I drove to Grand Rapids for a visit with my best friend Leah and her mom Michele. They found out earlier this week that the cancer has spread to her liver and brain. They don't know how much time that leaves her. Leah has been staying with her at the hospital all day and all night for the past week. We came to help her out at home in any way we possibly could. They have been remodeling their basement since mid-summer so Michele would have her own bedroom there, it is nearly finished, that is mainly what we helped with; cleaning and vacuuming drywall dust and scraping globs of plaster off the cement flloor. We didn't get it all ready to be painted and ready for carpet until about 9pm, so we stopped for dinner and we left for home around 10.
I am very glad we could come help and also very glad we got to go to the hospital to see Michele. She was laying under the quilt I made for her. Leah has told me many times how wonderful the quilt is, that they take it everywhere they go and it brings such comfort to Leah to see her mom with it. That is exactly what I hoped it would do.

During the day, we escaped the "real world" for a while because Leah had a knitting class. She was learning to make a felted purse. So of course, we went with her and perused the yarn shop and some other little shops in the area. Did I leave empty handed? Of course not.

I got one skein of recycled silk. I have always wanted some of that! but it usually is kindof rough to the touch. this skein is particularly soft, so I had to have it. I don't know yet what it will become.
The other two skeins are Manos del uruguay, chunky wool. I think these will be mittens (for me!).

It was a bittersweet day, but I am extremely thankful we had it.

1 comment:

Shan said...

Gigi!!! My walls weep out of poor, boring emptiness!