This is how it starts....

...the obsession with a new project. I recently did a show where I met Kim Vredenburg, a very talented artist who works in glass. While her work was absolutely beautiful, the thing I couldn't take my eyes from was a pendant she was wearing that she had bought from another artist. It too was glass, although it didn't look like it. It was about 3" long and had a picture of a seahorse on it, a very fancy one with long spines, looked almost like a dragon. Finally I had to sketch it:Because the wheels started to turn, and I could just picture it (it was shades of brown and tan) made out of fabric, in shades of teal and turquoise, with many beads and wire....somehow. So the other day I took the next step, which was to sketch out a full-size pattern. Well, the thing is two feet tall. I can't decide if this is way too big or not, so now I'm stalled. If I make it this big, it's going to be a monstrosity and may lose some of it's coolness factor. But the smaller I make it, the more difficult it's going to be to work with all those spines, which are going to have to have wire in them I think, to maintain their spinyness. (spell check is telling me that "spinyness" isn't a word. I beg to differ, and reserve the right to make up my own words.) So I will ruminate on that subject for a while longer.

On the music front, we have a show to play! I am most excited. Turns out Decorus Mens could not find an opening act for tomorrow night at Bobby G's, so PJ asked me if we would do it. Although, as I reminded him, there is no "we" at this point, I decided it wouldn't hurt to ask Joe T. if he was up for playing some stuff as a three piece. Fortunately, he was! So now we get to play. And then Sunday we are jamming with another guy, in the hopes of putting an actual band together. I sure miss the regular gigs. Of course there's all the hassle and frustration that goes along with having a band, but that's a pain you forget...kind of like childbirth, or nobody would ever do it again.

The Goth in me...

...loves my latest project, which is made of blood red fabric and black ribbon. It's a ribbon dress for Marylou S., and I'm fairly certain there's no Goth in her, although you never know! This is the fabric:and I'm using Folkwear's Navajo Blouse pattern....for the first time, which is always interesting. Some of their patterns look simple, and this one isn't really all that difficult, but the construction techniques vary from pattern to pattern so it's an ongoing education. It's good for me, I guess! I spent the afternoon listening to my Tony Elman CD (look it up), drinking hot cider, and immersed in the construction of many, many pintucks on the sleeves of this dress.

I really should get back to Debbie's house and finish the tree wall, but first things first.

Gobble, gobble, gobble....

....yeah, yeah, yeah....
It's ten minutes till Thanksgiving, and here's wishing everybody a happy one! Thanksgiving dinner is at my brother's house, because his looks like something from Better Homes and the rest of the family's houses....well, do not. My part is about done, my pie is in the oven. That's the thing about having a small house, it's both a blessing and a curse; on the one hand, I never have to have the holiday dinners here. On the other hand, I never get to have the holiday dinners here. I really would like to, but there's just no room to put anybody!

So I just bring the pie. Mainly because I'm a pie snob, I can't stand those Pillsbury premade cardboard pie crusts everybody uses for some reason I can't figure out. I always make my own, just like Mom taught me. Except Mom now uses Pillsbury crusts. I guess she figures she raised me right and now she's done so it's time to coast. Problem with all that pie is that the dinner is SO good and my sister-in-law Ronda goes to SO much trouble with it, that nobody ever has room for pie so we just end up dividing them up and sending them home! So this year it's just one pie. I did make the traditional peanut butter pie for PJ to take with him though.

PJ and his friends, for many years, have celebrated "Thanksgiving II" which entails getting together the day after Thanksgiving and making a meal out of all the leftovers they have all absconded with the day before. Several years ago I thought that peanut butter pie sounded like something different for Thanksgiving, so I made one. But the thing was just so sweet and rich that nobody could finish a piece. So I gave the rest to PJ to feed to his friends the next day. I guess it was a big hit, so now I make them one every year. I still couldn't finish a piece, and I have a major sweet tooth. But I don't have to eat it, I just have to make it!

Come to the Open House!

If you live in RI or eastern CT, you might want to check this out! This little guy is something I made, but it's not just my stuff at the Open House; at least 8 other artists will be selling their creations this weekend! Directions are on my website .

It seems like it's been forever since I did a Christmas show, though really it's only been a few years; since I took the tailoring job and didn't have time to sew anything fun. I have missed it so much, and it's brought me a lot of joy to be able to be creative again. But as I told Carol, now that the floodgates are open again, new ideas and designs come to me on a daily basis and I just don't have enough hours in a day to make them all a reality! So this is why I need to be working on next year's show beginning right after this one. But like all the people who say they're going to start their Christmas shopping in January, it never seems to work that way for some reason! I did sign up for another show in December 8, at the Charlestown School, and there were a couple more local ones I would have liked to do but they're full now. All the more reason to think about next year's season!

At long last, the leaves are done...

...just in time for them to turn colors and fall off. Believe me, if I could think of a way to do that, I would.
So now the next step is to stencil the ferns coming up from the baseboard. After that, I don't know...I don't know how far Deb wants to carry this, but all I can say is that the white wall continues down the hall, and into the living room. That's all I'm saying.

Anyway, it has rained here quite a bit in the last couple days. Today was sunny, thank goodness, because I don't know if my dog can take more than one day of rain in a row. It's like having a 6-year-old who can't go out to play. She wants to go out, so I put her out and she stands there looking pathetically out at the yard and finally decides "this sucks" and wants to come in where she is literally bored to the point where she gets into mischief just so I will have to stop her. Then she wants to go out again. She likes it when it's nice out and people are in the yard, Preston doing yard work or working on one car or another and stopping to throw the ball, my Dad puttering around with one of his many projects and stopping to feed her milk bones. It's all about her. What a life! She does like the snow though, so that shouldn't be a problem. The only problem with winter, and it's already started, is with ME--I get this uncontrollable urge to cook. And while the house is fragrant with beef stew and biscuits today, as it was last night with the bouquet of baking eggnog cookies, I am going to need to find some sort of exercise program or I'll never fit out the door in the spring.

Band news: Decorus Mens is hosting a concert on December 7 at the Calabrese Club in Westerly so anybody in the area should go check it out. It's a benefit for the St. Mary/St. James Food Pantry, and the price of admission is 3 or more nonperishable food items, baby items (wipes, diapers, etc), or toiletries.

Sewing news: Linda Perra and I have resurrected the old Christmas Open House, which is going to be November 17 and 18; details at www.incrediblethreads.com. I haven't done a Christmas show in years, and I can't tell you how happy I am to be sewing fun little craft things for a change instead of hems and zippers.