Nice day for a White Wedding...

....it was the most beautiful celebration of a wedding I have ever seen. The weather was perfect, and the whole day was just indescribably joyful. I was unable to get a pic of the bride and groom together, because my camera batteries died prematurely but here's the bride, Paula, flanked by Frank Angell on the left and one of her friends on the right, during one of their many performances:
Both the bride and the groom spent most of the day singing and playing with various combinations of the bands Blame the Dog, The Woodbine Family, 5th Element, and Jus-Tus. Also performing were many of their non-band-affiliated friends, and local bluesman Harvey Jorgensen. I can't remember when I've had so much fun playing!

We have been busy with putting a new shower/bathtub in our house, so I haven't been able to get to Deb's to continue with the tree. Here's what our bathroom looked like yesterday morning:
There were only two of us home yesterday, so getting that tub out was a real bitch of a job, excuse my french. It's cast iron, and I don't know exactly what it weighs but it's a lot. Plus, when we put the tub in there over 20 years ago, it went in before the left wall so trying to wedge it out of there was...a challenge. But we got it out, and after re-plumbing the whole thing (which we didn't realize we were going to have to do), we are today ready to install the new unit. I hope it goes in easier than the old one came out, but that's probably too much to hope for. As we were putting in the new pipes, the mouse made an appearance from under the floor. Wonder what she must think!!

Wish I didn't have to sleep....

....so many projects, not enough hours in the day! Since I last posted, I have been sewing pretty much nonstop, only stopping to sleep and eat and play a little music! (More about that later). There is a powwow every weekend now, so I'm getting last minute requests from everywhere besides the ongoing hems and zippers and all that stuff.

I have been trying to continue with the tree, although this week I only got over there once. Poor Deb! The good news is that what I have done is coming out even better than I hoped! I worried about getting the plaster to have texture, but as it turns out texture should have been the least of my concerns. I'm pleased to report that, probably because I ended up putting it on there with my fingers, it's coming out very crusty and tree-like. I was going to do it with a putty knife, but Preston said that wouldn't work...and of course, he would have been right. I tried using rubber gloves, but the plaster just stuck to them and made them heavy and slide off my hand. So I just used my bare hands, which works better because I have more control over where the plaster goes. The trunk is the easy part, it's like finger painting and I can just slap it on there. But when I get to the branches it's a little trickier, I have to be careful and so it takes longer, which means I can only mix the plaster in little batches. So it's taking a long time.

We are still looking for a band to play with, but we get to jam this weekend with a bunch of different people at the backyard wedding of Rob and Paula. They played with us at Magstock, and had so much fun with the Beatles songs that they decided to incorporate that set into what has now been called "Wedstock". There is going to be an entire afternoon and evening of music by at least four different bands and even more combinations of bands. The event has also been called "Paulapalooza" by Rob, because of course being a wedding, it's all about the bride.

I Think That I Shall Never See....

...a project that takes as long as Debby's tree! Poor Deb has been waiting about a year for me to get going on this. She decided, after I was done painting trees in the bathroom (http://incrediblethreads.com/furniture.html) that the hallway was dull and needed something. See? Dull. So we decided that what it needs is a tree. So after putting it off for a year--and mind you, I have been really looking forward to this, so the putting-off part wasn't something I wanted to do--I've finally started. The first day I went over and sketched a rough tree. Willow, while very cute, is not a very good watchdog. She barked at me once and then decided I wasn't worth the effort.
The plan is to make it out of plaster so that it has some texture, so the second day I went over and put some galvanized window screen on the trunk and larger parts of the branches so that the plaster will have something to stick to. No blister this time from the staple gun, and there was minimal bleeding and no cursing. I have no idea what I'm doing, I'm making it up as I go along. With any luck at all, it'll work!

She's BAAAACK!

Just an update on the mouse situation; I did manage to catch her in the mouse cube finally, and because it was, like, 2 am I wasn't going to drive her anywhere. So I let her go across the street. But then....
We had just finished dinner, and I put these on the stove while I went to find a flashlight, so I could put them in the compost. That's how quick she is!! Notice how she didn't flinch when I went over there, nor when the flash went off. Brazen little thing. So now, out comes the mouse cube again. Too bad I can't fit a corn cob in there! Next time we have corn I'll slice off a piece.