Off Loom Weaving and other projects

 I recently created my second off loom weaving, using a foam board card as my loom. It was a little more difficult to use compared to a regular loom, so I bought an easel loom for future projects. But I do like how it turned out... love using a variety of yarns and wood to add texture and visual interest!

Right now, I'm busy building my inventory for our annual Flagstaff Open Studios tour scheduled for

Aug 28-29.  

This will be the 12th year I have done the tour, and always love seeing friends and shoppers, and visiting with some of my fellow artists.  This year, we will have 5 at my friend Cinde's house, so it should be a fun weekend.

 

I'm also continuing to create my spirit dolls, which seem to be selling well at Sedona Artists' Market... I was hoping they would!  Here is my latest, "Wild Child" who will be going there Friday with a few others I've blogged about in past posts:

So, what's next?  Well, a couple of years ago, I tried my hand at eco-printing... you can see my post about it here. 

 I made a bunch of cards, then tried several scarves, but as usual... moved on to other things, and haven't done anything else with it since 2019.  But recently, I was inspired to do some tea-dyeing after watching a great video on a tiktok post, and did a few tries with tea I rescued from tea bags... not great results.  But my friend Jana of Little Cabin Soaps is an avid tea drinker, and she has donated loose tea from a local shop that she had in her stash.  I did my first experiment with it yesterday, and got great colors, but not the great designs I saw on tiktok.  So I'm going to combine some of the loose tea with leaves from the yard and see how that works!  It involves clamping together a number of papers with leaves sandwiched in between, and steaming or boiling for a couple of hours, so I'm re-assembling my equipment and chemicals to do a batch this weekend.

But that's not all!  I watched another video that creates prints with leaves, AND adds some dye to the mix to give it more color, so that's on my list too!  

I will "show and tell" pix in my next post, so check back soon... I don't think I'll be able to wait long to share the results (if they come out!).  Meanwhile, hope you are enjoying your summer!  We've had a very good Monsoon season so far this year... lots of rain, even had a lightning strike nearby take down our internet for 3 days, but the moisture is so welcome!

Until next time, Happy August!

Monsoon season

This is one of my favorite times of year... we suffer in June with high temps, then we get the relief of Monsoon season. Almost every day thru mid-September, we get a nice rain to water the plants and cool things off a bit. In the morning, we have the most deliciously fragrant air! And of course, everything grows at top speed now... hubby has been putting off riding the tractor-mower for too long, and we are now surrounded by vegetation that comes up above my waist. The cats love it, because they can skulk about and hunt critters, and... truth be told... I love the way it looks! But soon he will be cutting it back. We have cloud cover this morning, and I took these pictures to capture the mood. Also, I managed to re-connect our rain barrel to the downspout of the rain gutter out front just in time for the storm yesterday. I now have a 55-gallon barrel full of rain water, and need to come up with a plan to disconnect and re-connect the original downspout TODAY! We had so much rain yesterday, it left the patio room surrounded by a moat. Need to get more cinder rock!



This shot is looking toward the east from our back deck.

This is looking west toward the San Francisco peaks from the front yard.

The infamous rain barrel, re-installed, full and ready for the next dry spell.
Well, as I promised myself last weekend, I spent the day yesterday cleaning house... it was such a disaster, and I feel much better now that I have finished most of the work. A little dusting, one more room to vacuum, and sweeping and mopping the patio room, and I will be caught up. Meanwhile, I pulled a bunch of undyed clothing from the bins yesterday, and hope to get a bunch dyed this weekend. Two dresses are for a friend, the rest will go on the website and etsy shop. I also made progress on Thursday night on a challenge piece I am doing for our Quilters' Guild... not due until late August, but I would like to be done with it so I can move on to other things.
So many projects... too little time!