Busy Hands Homestead

I have been trying to spend as much time in the studio as possible.  (Does that explain the lack of blog posts? It should.) I have week or two until Adam is back at work and I no longer have the luxury of spending long day time hours at the studio.  I feel like I am constantly behind.  The list of things I want to make never getting shorter...  but a few nights ago I trudged through the snow carrying a backpack with a tripod and a camera and a giant box of mugs and bowls.  I had attempted to drive down the road to The Clay Studio of Missoula and promptly got stuck.  After a few tried I got unstuck and I parked on a main road that was getting plowed and walked.  My arms ached by the time I got inside. First learning how to use the wonderful camera I borrowed and then moving one piece at a time through three small boxes of new work. I snapped pictures for hours. By the time I was done, there were eight additional powdery inches of snow on the ...

The kids and I walked through our garden this morning an snipped flowers for our first summer bouquet:  some roses, a sprig of lemon balm, parsley blossoms, bolting radishes and flowers off of what I am fairly certain are pretty, but invasive, weeds.   It sits in front of me as I trail shapes onto the cups that I threw during yesterday's nap time.  While the children sleep an apple tree moves through the seasons; carrots, beets and cabbages grow  in rows; and hens peck at scratch. Today's nap time creations. 

I etched my last tumbler.   This one has bunches of beets on a plaid table cloth. Tomorrow morning it is off to the clay studio to throw a few more cups.

Flowers, French Toast Casserole with Blue Berries and Cream Cheese and a Fantastic Straw Hat (not pictured).  What more could a Mama want? A Marlies and Susan Collaboration - my newest flower pot purchased at The Clay Studio's Mother's Day Sale.  A late, late afternoon walk in the bright sun.

AH!!!!! I am about ready to scream!!!!!  I have spent the last 45 minutes trying to get one text box onto an image and I can not figure it out. I have focused on it so intently that my coffee is cold. Cold. I don't have time for this!!!! And then I accidentally saved it like this: I can't figure out how to undo it.  Anyway that last bullet point is supposed to say that I added 3 double crochet into each stitch for the bottom half of that corral shape (it appears denser).  A few months ago I watched this:  The beautiful math that links coral, crochet and hyperbolic geometry: Margaret Wertheim  I finally sat down and made myself a "stitch library".   Why?  Well, for years now I have been telling myself that I am going to combine all those craft skills that I love: knitting, crochet, sewing and pottery.  And then I fall short of that goal. I like the ceramic pieces too much on their own...  or I make up s...

The day has been creeping. The moment I woke up I wanted to pull the covers back over my shoulders. I am on a string of late nights, and Sylvan is a string of sleepless early morning hours, so while my shelf at the clay studio is crowded with an increasing number of mugs and cups, my body is telling me to just stop and go to bed - I didn't listen and now have a cold. Last night I didn't crawl into bed until 1:30, Sylvan woke up before I managed to fall asleep, and I watched every hour pass on the clock across the room.  I nursed, changed his diaper, Adam got water, I took Sylvan to the bathroom, when he started screaming: "Pee, Pee!" at the top of his lungs.  I considered trying to convince him to go in his diaper, and decided that that would be counter productive to the potty training effort. I dragged myself out of bed, got myself and the kids dressed and staggered down the stairs for a quick breakfast before we drove across the Y to Ivory's Rookie S...

After many, many more hours of work and a treacherous fall that put me flat on my back with this thing on top of me the clay component of my sculpture is finally built.   It is slowly drying, covered in plastic and hopefully no cracks develop.  This sculpture will be my first attempt to combine the many hand crafts I enjoy.  I hope to incorporate fibers -  sewed, knitted and crocheted - in the final piece.  (I like this form so much it will be hard to make myself take that next step.)  

Sylvan asleep, the dishes washed, dinner started and I sit down to sew a few buttons onto a cute cardigan Ivory was handed down from a friend.  She impatient, waiting for a friend to arrive and share dinner with us, utters those three words that parents dread: " I am bored." I pour a rainbow of buttons into a cake pan: "Can you find five buttons that are the same and match your red and grey and black sweater?".  Much too soon she gathers a little cluster of grey buttons and stacks of large, medium and small buttons are marching across the table.  Mom: "I am bored."  I stare at the table for a moment, set down the needle and thread, put aside my hopes of quickly fixing this silly cardigan and instead dig through my craft supplies to find that roll of floral wire I know is hiding somewhere in one of my drawers. Success. For an hour she is concentrating, silently stringing her stacks of buttons onto the wires - small, medium and large.  She hands the thr...

Many, many months ago I ran across this image on Pinterest: Keepsake Hug Pillow "This is a great gift idea for grandparents", I thought to myself and I dutifully pinned it onto my craft ideas  board. Perfect, because it can involve our entire family, because I have a giant stash of fabric and perfect because the final gift folds in a small envelope I can ship across the country. I don't however have a fancy sewing machine that would make nice neat letters and numbers, and as time went by I kept coming up with new ways to design our hand print pillows.     We traced our hands onto a thick cardboard folder.  I cut them out and then traced them onto Wunder Under.  Ivory pealed he paper backing off of the fabric hand prints and I ironed them into place.  While I sewed one, Sylvan paraded the other two around the house.  Each of our hands a single petal of a flower. Red, orange and yellow thread added a little detail.  And...

Interwoven  Wally's Blush Archie Bray Clay  Soda Fired Cone 6 (no glaze) wheel thrown pieces altered and assembled 8" x 8" x 8"   Cocoon    Porcelaneous Stoneware Soda Fired Cone 6 Red Flashing slip on the interior and recessed surfaces wheel thrown pieces altered and assembled 10" x 6" x 4" Emergence stoneware  Anagama Fire Cone 10 Red Flashing Slip  wheel thrown pieces altered and assembled  6" x 6" x 8"