Am I going to make it?

I have two weeks to finish this piece, get it framed and photographed and delivered to Iowa for this exhibit. What do you think? Any chance I'm going to make it?

This is the last in the series of the Three Fates (and no, I haven't made the middle one yet--waiting, still, for inspiration to strike. The first one is here.). This is "Atropos cut the thread of life." It is a photo of my Grandma Helen's hands--I asked her to pose for the photo at one of our Monday Night Dinners--so it has a lot of the familiar objects from those weekly family dinners in her kitchen--the blue and white checked table cloth, the maroon and cream china with the pastoral scene in the back ground, and Grandma wearing her favorite sweatshirt from Gig Harbor. Grandma Helen is 94 1/2 (She'll be 95 in December). She doesn't like the way her hands look--but I love them.
I've had a number of people ask me about the fabric I bead on--it is black silk noil that I buy from Denver Fabrics. I print my photo on archival paper, then cut it out to the exact shape I want to bead (in this case, a rectangle), and stitch it to the top of my fabric and then follow the photo as a guide. Someone recently commented that it was like paint-by-number, except with beads--and it is true, the cartoon does help in that way--but there are no numbers telling you what color to pick up--that's where the creativity comes in--you look at that color on the paper and decide what combination of beads is going to create the color effect you want when you step away from the piece.

Singing Hannah

Well, my post was going to be about my new etsy shop, but then I saw a new icon on blogger--I can upload videos!--and I just happened to take this video of Hannah singing, "Ding, dong--the witch is dead!" this morning and all else went by the wayside.

Fobbie fun

Here's the beaded fobbie I made for my friend Liz Mrofka--inventor of the fobbie as an example of what you could do with beads and a fobbie. A fobbie a clever little card with holes for ribbons that makes wrapping presents a breeze and lots of fun. I had a red one and decided to cover it with green paper--so here is the before and after. Same purple wrapping paper and green ribbon--I just photographed it in different rooms (this was all done on the fly--running out the door photography). I finished beading the poppy months ago, but never made it into a pin--so I finally finished it up this weekend. I forgot to take a photo of the pin by itself, though.

Speaking of running out the door--yesterday I was in such a hurry to make it to a meeting that required dropping Hannah off at day care at precisely 8 am--that I didn't realize that I had dressed, perhaps, a little too quickly.... my friend Ann leaned over, 3 hours into the 4 hour meeting, and said, "Amy--did you know that your blouse is on inside out?"

It kind of defined the day.

Dyeing in the backyard

A friend from work needed help with a sweater that she wanted to overdye--what a great excuse to pull out the long-languishing dye stuff and dye some fabric. We spent the day (and part of the night) on the back porch figuring out the dyes (yikes it has been over 10 years since I did any serious dyeing!). Hannah took a 3-hour nap at a very convenient time. Thank you Hannah. Kelly watched her while she was awake so I didn't have to worry about boiling water, dyestuff, and toddlers.

While we were waiting for the dyes to set, I taught Erin how to do a bit of bead embroidery and I finished up the beaded pin for Liz the inventor of the fobbie. She wanted an example of what you could do with bead embroidery and her gift wrapping tool. I had a lot of fun with that!

Saturday I helped another friend, Liz, move--she and her husband bought the cutest cottage with a charming backyard and lots of porches perfect for spinning or beading. She set up the greatest weaving room with a view of her future goats. I was so charmed by the house that moving seemed like a breeze--also, she was really organized about the whole thing--so it was pretty easy.

So it was a fun weekend filled with friends and creativity. Yay.