'Tis the Season

..... For stormy weather, meaning violent thunderstorms, punctuted by tornadic activity. A lot of damage to a city 100 miles to the East of us - my neice's house was narrowly missed by a tornado Thursday night. But living in Nebraska, we expect this type of weather in the summer months.


My fiber-diet is not up to par right now, due to the Spring work I need to do (garden, flowers, etc), and the fact that my job has had me running insanely from place to place, crisis to crisis. It's starting to wear heavily on me. Now I find that a brief break I thought would come next month won't happen, because DS & DIL won't be here, so I'll have to save vacation time to possibly go see them later this fall. *sigh* It's been nearly 3 years since I was able to take a real vacation, more than just a day here or there (and those mostly have been to do something for my dad). I'm wearing out, and no end in sight. Poor Me *sob* ...... OK pity-party over.

I have a gel plate made, and did a few small prints with it Wednesday night. I hope to be home tonight in time to do some more. If so, I'll post here. I always print in color on white, but I'm thinking I'd like to try opaque lights on dyed fabric for a change. Perhaps do a slightly different technique to let the dye color come through, while adding a print element. How to do? Perhaps paper masks, or leaf masks - my print then becomes the negative space in the design. I sort of like that idea, and I think that's what I'll explore tonight if I can.

Working, Working, Working

BOTH of us..... on the basement project, which means I'll be that much closer to having the wet studio finished sometime in this millenium. Today, we are hauling out junk, with the idea that we will start painting the ceiling and maybe some of the walls today. The weather is finally nice enough to have some windows open to air out paint fumes, which is good, because the cats spend the day in the basement when we are at work. I'd hate to asphixiate the little darlin's.

I didn't realize just how much JUNK we have. It's quite the collection. We've hauled out all of the picnic stuff now - it's sitting on the back steps. I took out 20+ gallon glass jars that I use for dyeing big pieces in mottled solids (is that a contradiction in dye terms?). And I have a big box I'm filling with give-aways to take to my favorite thrift store. After we paint and lay the new vinyl, Mike is going to build a long wall of shelves for all these big items, to make them easier to store. Yay, Mike!!

Speaking of thrift stores, I made the rounds to several on Friday and came home with quite a haul on silk garments, mostly shirts. I do that sometimes - so far haven't done much with them, but I have this idea that I want to try - cutting squares to paint/dye some (DyeNaFlo, I think), others to discharge (thiox) and then over-dye and ultimately work out some small prairiescapes - long, narrow, but with a good amount of sky. Since that's what true prairiescapes are - long, narrow, lots of sky. This picture is from my dad's ranch, taken last winter, right after the first snow. His ranch lays along a valley, so you see less sky than in other parts of the country, but there is still plenty there!

So now my toast-break is over. I've been making all of our bread this year, and homemade oatbran bread is so filling that toast lasts me about half the day. Wish I could do something about the other half! I do think my bread is better for us than what we can buy in the stores - and it makes us happy to make our own. Even Mike has learned how to make bread in the bread machine (for the dough - we bake in the oven). OK - back at it!