I thought this was an appropriate quote for my little art retreat experience! Even though, on day three, I found it completely necessary to leave the house... dang.
So, here's what happened - I started the day by catching up on some of my favorite blogs and drinking a cup of my very favorite tea in the whole world - genmaicha. Next came the scheduling and set-up of the projects for the day:
1. Crack out the Makin's Clay and make some polymer faces using the Sculpey mold
2. Make some resin cabs using the Easy Cast kit.
3. Make some crochet lace for my latest fabric cuff project.
4. Try out the two sewing machine-esque thingys to see if they work of if they are junk.
Since I had not stepped foot out of the house for a while, a walk was in order. I checked out the garage sale listings, found two sales that were pretty close to each other and not too far a distance from me and had a wonderful morning walk. Wow! It was so beautiful out - sunny, cool, crisp - a perfect fall morning. I didn't find anything at the sales except one very tasty cupcake for 25 cents (SO worth it!).
Once back home, I started by getting out my new size C crochet hook and made some pretty edging to use on the fabric cuff. It's a little more wavy than expected but I was happy with the result nonetheless.
Next, it was on to the polymer clay faces! While unwrapping the clay from the plastic packaging, I noticed that some of the colors were more pliable than others. The beige and the brown had become a bit dry and were hard to work with but the other colors were very nice. This clay is really soft and pliable and pushed into the molds very nicely.
I still decided to use the dried out stuff too - as you can see from the photos, the beige faces are a bit rough around the edges but they reminded me of those great ruins you see in movies like "Indiana Jones" - great Buddha-like faces overgrown with vines, cracked from age and erosion.
Here's the complete collection - now I just have to wait for them to dry and they'll be ready for some higher purpose!
Next, I was hoping to tackle my first try at resin but was discouraged after reading the directions. When I read the part about curing and that it needed to be 70 degrees to cure properly, I knew this would have to wait until some nice warm late fall day (if we have any more of those!) or until next spring. Our house temp was 65 and the outside temp was cooler still. Refusing to crank up the furnace this early in the season just to cure 2 or 3 cabs, resin, I'm sorry to say, will have to wait. :-(
Next came the sewing gadget trials and they both failed miserably. The electric one didn't work at all and the manual one was so cumbersome that it would just be easier to hand sew so there really is no point to the darned thing. Therefore, a decision just had to be made!! Do I need a sewing machine? I had, after all, sold my last one at a garage sale because there just isn't room to sew in this house. But, that was a full-sized sewing machine with fancy stitches and stuff which I never really used. I quite enjoy just sewing in a straight line - maybe a zig zag here and there would be nice every once in a while - but I could live quite happily with a simple little straight stitch sewing machine (so there.). After some quick online research, I decided that a new sewing machine thingy was most decidedly in my future. Besides, all of the "Harry Potter" flicks had been watched so a trip to the library was in order. And, since it's on the way, I'll most likely stop at my favorite resale store. And since I was going out anyway, I might as well go shopping for a new sewing machine! Yep, you can say it... go ahead... I'm weak!
So, off I went to the resale store where I got some very cool stuff! I bought this old jewelry box...
... these fantastic old spools...
... some crochet books....
...and a size J crochet hook to round out my collection - I now have all hooks size C - K. Anything is possible with those!!
At the library, I found this great book, Mary Jane's Stitching Room, by Mary Jane Butters:
This book has lots of great photos and ideas for projects - mostly I just like the photos. As I was flipping through the pages I found myself intrigued by tatting - maybe that will be on the schedule of retreat events sometime? Maybe for My Private Art Retreat #2 - in the spring - so I can finally crack out that resin!!
And, after much running around town, here is the new sewing machine! Still in the box - I'll give it a trial run on day 4 or 5. It's tiny!! I'm pretty sure it's a chain stitch machine but that will be just fine for the type of projects I want to make with it.
Finally, I was home! I watched the first two installments of Back to the Future and worked on my fabric cuff for the evening. Here's the latest:
I'm not sure what will be on the agenda for day 4. Saturday is the best day for garage sales. My husband, who has been at a Russian 7-string Guitar Festival for the past 3 days, will be playing in an evening concert and I will be attending that. A large part of my day will be spent on the road as the concert location is 1 1/2 hours drive from Dubuque. After that, a friend of ours is having a CD release party so we will be drinking beer and listening to too loud music into the wee hours. Phew! It's going to be a busy day! :) I like those.
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