Sunday, September 28, 2014

Follow-up

So, that stray kitty who turned up here a couple years back...? Yeah, he lives here now. I tried - really hard - to find a sucker to take him in, but one after another got cold feet, or another cat, or any number of other excuses. And then the spouse named him. And that, as everyone knows, is the start of the slippery slope...


I've got to admit, he's a good kitty, mostly. At first, he had the declawed cat tendency to nip first and ask questions later, but once he learned that nothing really terrible happens to him here, he mellowed out on that. He's also a drooler. But that's my only real complaint. He's a conversationalist, and he's got a great big grunt-y purr. He was a bit shocked about the existence of other cats, and unaware of any foodstuffs other than kibble, but he's learned a lot - especially about the foodstuffs part.

Saturday, August 16, 2014

Gravy

I actually missed this on the first pass at the flea market last weekend, but when i went back to pick up a wee little uranium glass tumbler for the spouse, it jumped out at me: an Aesthetic transferware gravy boat, in pretty good shape, for the princely sum of three dollars.



I'm pretty sure i've seen this pattern before, but i don't for the life of me know what it is or who made it, and naturally, but for an indistinct number or letter scratched into the bottom (looks sort of like a backwards "7," but could conceivably be an "F," or, well, something else entirely...) this piece is completely unmarked. I'm reduced to sifting through image searches hoping to hit upon a marked piece in the same pattern... any hints gratefully accepted. So far the only matching piece i've spotted online is another gravy boat, slightly worse off than this one, also with something like a number on the bottom.

Saturday, July 26, 2014

Finally...

The commissioned block print of the Bernese Mountain Dog pups is all done and delivered to a happy customer, so it's time to show the final version here:


Again, i pulled a small edition, so if you need your very own, you can find it at PressingNeeds.

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Fluff

Too hot to think straight, so it's a good day for cute cat pictures. So, without further ado, i give you the Social Grooming Totem Pole of Cats:


Saturday, May 24, 2014

Multiplying

After the Dewey print, i was asked to do another one, this time of a whole litter of roly-poly Berner pups. There was some jiggering to do to insert the puppy who'd evaded the photo that had the rest of the litter. I'm printing the last of the edition now, and will be hand coloring the prints next - it looks a little funny without the colored bits filled in, but here's a sneak peek of part of the group:


Friday, May 2, 2014

Not exactly a walk in the woods...


...more of a billy goat scramble, actually. I went out behind the house today to check out the wildflowers and to scout a bit on the foraging front.

After a few very damp days, there were more branches of the little creek than usual, and hopping between rocks i did start to wish that i hadn't traded ankle support for light weight in my footwear choice - but the woods are putting on their spring show...










i met at least one neighbor,


 i've got a better idea where the pawpaw trees are, and i found this:


Thursday, March 20, 2014

Adaptive reuse

The horses and the chickens keep wanting to eat and all, and so the plastic feed bags keep stacking up at the barn. Sure, i wish they still packaged feed in printed cotton bags that i could make into garments and quilts, but if plastic is all i'm going to get around here, why not make use of it? Time to convert them into totes!


I made a few of these at Christmastime, and this one went to the silent auction for the Bluemont dance program. (I already had four prints going to different auctions that week, it was time for something different!)

There are a zillion tutorials out there if you have a regular influx of bags; a lot of them use the bits trimmed from the bag to make handles, but i've found that cotton webbing is less hassle and gives a much nicer result (yeah, and also i got a whole reel of it at a thrift shop for about the cost of a single yard, so it's not adding much to my cost at the moment). I've been sewing these on the Rocketeer that i bought back in August, a machine i had intended to clean up and sell... but i keep going back and using it for projects, under the guise of "testing," so i'm starting to think it's probably here to stay.

Sunday, February 9, 2014

A print. And a correction.

So. Done with the commissioned print, it's been shipped off, the customer is delighted. However, in going over the info before posting the listing of the rest of the edition in the shop, i noted that Dewey here is not a Saint Bernard, but a Bernese Mountain Dog.


In my defense, they do kinda look alike. If you want to take Dewey home with you, you can find him here.

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Today's lessons

1. Tepid renditions of "The Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gives to Me" give me the blues.

2. One really good waltz can make a two-hour drive suddenly seem worth it after all. (Yeah, that's two hours each way.)

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Keeping warm

Everything is chilly and soggy here, and i am waiting on a replacement part for the woodstove. Until that arrives, i can't do much to warm things up. And until it does, i'm thinking warm thoughts. With that in mind, here's you cute cat photo of the day:


(Cooper, the sort of speckled tabby at the top, prefers to use various siblings as pillows; here, he's with Lucy, the elderly Manx. No, i don't know how he manages to breathe.)

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Saints preserve us...

By way of an Etsy trade, i ended up with a commission to carve a block of a charming Saint Bernard named Dewey. It's been fun to do a pooch, after all the cats i've made prints of already... i just put the final touches on the block today, and will be starting proper proofs tomorrow. I'll be making a small edition of these - printed on extra-yummy Fabriano paper and hand-colored - so there will be a few available for the shop, too.



At least his coat is pretty high contrast (much easier than a tabby cat), but still lots of wispy hairs to follow!