Moving Right Along...

...to the next project.  Always looking for stuff to paint, I picked up this little tray a few weeks ago.  The box is also wood, picked that up meaning to do something with it related to the bureau project.  But then I found this beautiful teapot, and of course I had to have it because it's purple and green, and suddenly these unrelated things started to make sense together.  Of course when I spotted the fabric, it all jelled in my mind, and suddenly the bureau project got pushed down the list again.

The tray seemed a little wobbly, so I decided to give it some wood glue since it didn't seem to have any.  What ended up happening was that I took the whole thing apart, glued it and re-nailed it.  It wasn't put together very well, and I wouldn't trust that lovely teapot to cheap Taiwanese craftsmanship. Sparky laughs at me because I put SO many hours into these projects that I probably end up making the same pay rate as the guy who made the tray did.  But I bet I
have more fun!

Found this guy on my car, and boy, did he have a bad attitude.  He was strolling across my hood, but as soon as he spotted me he stopped cold and put his front legs out in front of him and turned his head to stare me down, trying to look like a badass. We stood like that for what seemed like a long time, neither willing to back down...until I went for my phone and broke eye contact, at which point I guess he decided he won because he turned and continued across the hood and onto the mirror, completely ignoring me but not willing to stop to have his picture taken.  He was apparently on a mission.

If Only I Didn't Have To Sleep!

The apple table is finally done!  Sometimes projects seem like they're never going come together.  Problems with the painter's tape, problems with the paint drying, and then when I got it all done and put together I discovered that the legs were not all the same length! Didn't notice that when I bought the table.  Off they came, and Preston cut them for me so now it's nice and stable. For a small table (18" by 30" x 29" high), it weighs a ton.  Hardwood.

The next project (I know I said I was going back to the bureau but something else came up!) is a wooden tea tray and tea canister that I'm going to paint to match a lovely little teapot I picked up.  And then yesterday I found a piece of fabric that also matches, so there will be a tablecloth to go with them.  Sometimes I have to wait a long time for inspiration, but these pieces, which all came from different places at different times, just all go together so well I have to move them to the top of the list!

 Try as I might, I didn't get everything done I was supposed to for the powwow.  This little dress was the last thing I finished, and I disappointed several people.  There just are not enough hours in the day to finish everything I think I can do, and I wonder if I'll ever really wrap my head around that reality.  Probably not.  I always think I'm going to have enough time to squeeze in one more thing before a deadline, and the part of my brain that loves to take on a new project does not realize that it also has to sleep and eat and do housework.  BUT, the people whose projects I did manage to finish in time were most appreciative.  I will have to plan better next year.  Please try not to laugh too hard.







Since Sue has been doing the South Kingstown Farmer's Market, and has removed almost all of her stuff from my shop, it occurs to me that most of the things I have been making are things that hang up.  I have lots of surface area in there, and have decided to fill it by finishing some projects I started a long time ago, like these dolls. I used to make dolls and lots of other stuff so long ago when we used to do shows, and haven't made any since before I opened the store.  These two I started when I first opened, but never got around to finishing them. 

It's also time to get out the fall merchandise; not my idea, although I love fall and can't wait to feel that little nip in the air.  But people have actually been coming into the shop and asking about fall and winter clothes for kids, so I guess it's time to think a little ahead.  I did find, when I got out the fall clothes, that the stash was pretty depleted so I guess in between dolls, I'd better get out the fleece and flannel! 

Don't Go In The Basement

 Slow going with the table!  I'm determined to get it done so I can get back  to the bureau project, but I ran into a snag...my paint won't dry!! It's been really humid here, so I thought that was the problem.  Brought it in the house, where it's significantly less humid, and that didn't work.  Preston said it needs to sit in the sun and bake, which made sense, so we had a couple of really beautiful days with much lower humidity.  I let it sunbathe, and still the paint was tacky.  So I did a little research, and found this to be a widespread problem with latex paint.  The solution everyone had to offer was, use oil-base.  Not helpful at this point.  And since I did see a post from someone who painted a bureau and YEARS later stuff still stuck to it, I decided that I would just go ahead and poly it.  Seems to be working out so far, the water-based polyurethane has no problem drying.  I'm going to put at least 4 or 5 coats on it, since it's a table top.

 As I paint, I have an audience of ginormous humpback crickets, or as i refer to them, my minions.  They hang out on the walls and ceiling of the cellar and are about 1-1/4" long plus legs.  The antenna, which you can't see in this pic, are easily 4" long.  They started to populate the cellar after Crash got too sick to go down there and putter all the time, and it took me some time to get used to them because they're pretty ugly, not cute like the usual black field crickets.  They look kind of spidery, also not a point in their favor.  They definitely are getting bigger every year. But they seem to regard me as a minor nuisance, and if I make too much noise and commotion they go hide till I leave.  I don't like to kill things, as long as they don't bother me I don't bother them.  Sparky is a little disconcerted that such monsters dwell in the nether regions of her house, but I assured her that they don't want to come upstairs.  They like the dark and damp. Plus, I can't remember the last time I saw a spider or a mouse in the cellar.  I'm pretty sure the crickets are eating them. Ah, life in the country.

 Finally, a beautiful evening I could spend in the garden without getting eaten alive!! Maybe mosquito season is over.  Sparky said maybe they decided to fly south for the winter.  Whatever they were doing yesterday, they weren't doing it in my garden.  My friends the cows, as usual, saw me out there and came to demand their fair share of grass and weeds and of course, I'm happy to oblige. They look kind of small in this pic, but actually they're getting pretty big. There's just a drop off behind my garden so they're down lower than me. And they were eating that thistle where it pokes through the fence!  Talk about heartburn!  I would think it would hurt their tongues but I guess cows are pretty tough customers.





The thistle is beautiful, I left it alone because it lives in the DMZ between my garden fence and the pasture fence.  The no-cow zone.  Not a very big space, but big enough! So there have been lots of bees and butterflies checking it out.  No goldfinches, but that's probably Sparky's fault because she feeds them all summer so they don't need to go looking for seeds.

 Some things are doing very well in the garden this year, some not so much.  The butternut squash seems very aggressive toward the bell peppers. Once it started to spread, it made a beeline for them and now is determined to wind its little tentacles around and choke the life out of them.  Not cool. I planted the butternut and the cucumbers more toward the north end of the garden this year because everything that spreads tends to spread south.  However, this year they are traveling north, which baffles me. But at least they're growing so I guess I shouldn't complain.

one lonely little ripe tomato!

The Garden is Doing Fine Without Me.

And I say that only because during the day it's too stinking hot to stay out there for long, and in the evening the mosquitos make it impossible. Look at my teeny, tiny cucumber though!  All my plants have little veggies on them, and yes, I know, people grow this stuff all the time but as I am not the sort of person who spends countless hours and money on her garden, I'm always impressed when stuff actually grows.  This year I didn't even get around to buying any fertilizer, but things seem to be going along very well in the garden without it.  I never use any pesticides, but so far this year the bugs have been minimal.

I did spring for some hay, and it's all mulched and looks pretty (yeah, I know that's not the point of mulching your garden, but it's a bonus), and smells of hay which I love.  Here's the potato experiment, going quite well also.  Preston says that's a lot of work to go through for a few potatoes, but I'm hoping it'll be more than just a few this year.  The stacks are now 4 tires high, and that's as high as I'm going because to shovel more dirt into a stack 5 tires high even seems like to much work to ME.

Still working on the table, although it's Powwow time so it's been forced to take a back seat for the time being.  This was a disappointing experience with painter's tape, it's not supposed to bleed under the edges but clearly it did.  Fortunately, in a RARE show of foresight, I had set aside some of that pale green paint (It was a color I had mixed up myself) just in case this might happen, and I was able to touch i all up so all that featheriness is gone now.  Once I took the tape off and looked at those stripes, I realized they needed to be a little fancier, so as you can see I've marked off squares so I can do the checkerboard thing.  I'm going to use the dark brown I used for the apple seeds, black seems a little harsh for this project.

And now, off to my real job for a little while.

Stairway to Heaven

Many thanks to Kathy for letting me know about this incredible performance.  I had to share it with you; maybe you'll enjoy it and maybe not, depending on your musical taste,  but I just found it riveting. In spite of the fact that the song was cut short of its original 8 minutes, it's still pretty impressive.

When Stairway to Heaven came out I was 8 years old.  Not only wasn't it the kind of music that was played in my house, but I was too young anyway to appreciate the genius that was Led Zeppelin.  Indeed, I didn't appreciate them until I was way older; all weird chord progressions, cryptic lyrics, and Jimmy Page. Now I listen to them a lot, and my band covers a couple of their songs.  We have DVDs, and there is concert footage on Palladia frequently, from when they were young and beautiful and millions adored them and their whole lives lay before them. They broke up in 1980, when drummer John Bonham tragically drank himself to death and the rest of the band decided that there was no replacing him. 

Bonham, Jones, Plant & Page; a match made in heaven.

It is, of course, fitting that Heart should be the band to perform the epic Stairway;  Heart covers many of Zeppelin's songs in their live performances.  It was also gratifying that Jason Bonham should pay tribute to his father, who has been referred to as one of the greatest, if not THE greatest rock drummer of all time.  Jason, obviously, is no slouch either.

But the best part of this video, for me, was watching the surviving Zeppelin members as they watched the performance.  Now aged from 64-69, it's hard to imagine what might have been going through their minds.  Looking back to 1971, you have to wonder if they had any idea what they had wrought or how many people they would touch with just this one song, which stands as the most requested rock song of all time. 

Apple Table Update

It's only a small table, the top measures about 18" x 30".  But such potential!  Like most of my projects, the idea for its final design has changed several times since I first got it  First I was going to paint a vine growing up one leg and continuing across the top.  Then I was going to paint koi fish on it.  Then I found a picture I had clipped from somewhere with sliced pears making a decorative border.  But one thing has remained the same, there had to be stain on that lovely maple butcher-block top.  As much as I love to paint stuff, I also love the look of wood grain.  So here, I'll have the best of both worlds!  I finally decided on apples, not pears, for the borders. I was going to paint an off-white stripe as the background for them, until it occurred to me that the sliced apple would be white.  That's way too much white and not enough color. So I mixed a shade I liked, and that's what you see here.  Then I wanted a darker shade to do the edges of the green, the apple leaves, and the table legs; but mix as I might, I couldn't get a shade that worked.  So today it's off to the local home improvement store to buy something I like.  I didn't want to get a full quart, because I'm cheap and I don't need that much, but I also know what I want and even if I have to pay $8 for a quart of paint, the table will look the way I want it to look. So there.  It's Monday, so I have an attitude.  Doesn't everyone?

Mission (sort of) Accomplished

The patio is done!  Well, almost.  Preston swept the sand into the cracks like you're supposed to, but somehow every time it rains the sand jumps OUT of the cracks and makes piles on top of the pavers.  I don't think it's supposed to work like that.  So there's this stuff called "polymer sand" and what it does is after you sweep it into the cracks, you wet it and it hardens and it never comes out.  I think we'll have to get some of that.
But the last step was to spread out that huge pile of dirt and plant some grass seed, which we did over Memorial Day weekend, once again with Frank's help.  That's a lot of dirt to move.  The ugly table ended up in the scrap pile, and Sparky bought a nice new one.  I had all good intentions, but the new one looks really good and was relatively inexpensive AND I didn't have to sand it.










Now we can sit on the new patio and watch the grass grow.

Our resident Rock Star came home for a weekend last month, and found a few minutes for a photo op with Sparky.  The reason she has that look on her face is because she absolutely hates to have her picture taken, and I believe at the time she was making threats to my person and my camera.  But as you can see, it didn't stop me.  I'm such a brat. 

Sparky and I took a trip to her new doctor's office the other day, and on the way out I spotted this in the window of the office next door.  I couldn't resist snapping a pic, sometimes I wish I could do this!!  I have been taking some time away from the shop lately, but it wasn't by choice and it sure wasn't for pleasure...I had pneumonia, and of course I infected my poor husband who, unlike myself, required medical attention.  We're recovering, but it sure does drag on.