Big round numbers

Though her birthday is necessarily somewhat approximate - she was born in the Fire Department herd that runs on Assateague Island - my Chincoteague pony mare turned 30 this spring. It's a respectable age for any equine, so i took a few quick photos to mark the occasion. (They're all a little dark, because she doesn't much fancy the flash, and it seemed mean to blind her with it while she was still enjoying her birthday peppermints...)

She's a pretty girl, through a bit ragged in the spring as she's shedding out her truly prodigious winter coat - you can see patches of longer hair peeking out under her forelock (always the hardest place to get shed out), while the coppery palomino patches are starting to show through on the rest of her body.

And as further evidence of the luxuriant quantity of her winter coat, here's a picture of what i took off her with a curry before taking her picture:

Kitty sells a kitty

Office visitor, upon spying the cat print - my proof of "Best foot forward" - that i have propped on my desk: "Ooh, is that a real print?"
Me: "Made with my own two hands..."

Told him about how i came to make that one, said that yes, i did have several left from the edition, let him know he could get it from me directly, scrawled out the Etsy shop address, and mentioned a local consignment venue too - though he said he'd much rather get it direct. (Suits me!)

Turns out, he's a local sculptor and longtime buddy of the founder of the wee local arts nonprofit where i toil away on development. Yesterday he stopped by again to pick one up for himself. And apparently showed it to anybody who would hold still long enough, on his way out... i was flagged down by the owner of the little leather shop next door on my way out, with "You made that print Malcolm had...?" 

So i'm glad he was tickled with it, and it's a nice little ego-biscuit for me, too.

Meanwhile, lots of prints are going to various auctions for organizations around the area. There's always a flurry of them in the spring - this week it's the Virginia Association of Museums, the dances run by Bluemont Concert Series, and the Lincoln Elementary PTO. Go forth and support your local cultural institutions, folks! And maybe get some fun art in the process...

Thrift store saves the day...

Thrift store FTW! After my trusty Aladdin oil lamp developed a messy, smelly leak - taking out a sweatshirt in the process - i tried to replace the lamp reservoir at Nichols' Hardware, the beloved local institution where i bought it many years ago... alas, Nichols' had nothing left for Aladdin lamps, save one lonely mantle for a kerosene lamp. I picked up a middling bottle of lamp oil, and left in dismay.

Next, i trotted around the corner to the thrift shop to seek a replacement for the now-soaked-with-lamp-oil sweatshirt, and found there a rather nice complete oil lamp, a good haul of vintage sewing patterns and sewing-related Farm Bureau publications (1940s-1960s), an early 1950s edition of the Dan River textile dictionary (i have a 1990s one, issued to me when i trained at G Street - it's decent on general textile terms and fabric names, weaves, and finishes - but it's really great for dating all those obscure fabric-related brand names, so this one will go in the vintage reference library), a sheet of chicken stickers (because chicken stickers), a 1940s square-ish Atlas quart jar, and, yes, the sweatshirt i'd gone looking for in the first place (unworn, still with inspection stickers on it). After cashing in my recently completed discount punchcard for the shop, the entire haul ran me $16 and change, which i ought to be able to cover again once i sell a few of the patterns.

Latest edition

January looks like as good a time as any to dust off the blog, and for starters, i thought i'd share this year's one-for-everybody-on-the-list handmade Christmas gift (i mean, besides the apple butter, which, while tasty, isn't terribly photogenic...). I indulged in a new woodburning pen - hurrah for those absurd 60% off craft store coupons - since the old one i'd had as a kid had been purged by the parents at some unknown point in the past, and stocked up on packages of assorted wooden kitchen utensils.


The nice thing about spoons and such is that although the space you've got to work with is a bit of an odd shape, it's not so much area that it's really daunting. And also, there's the fact that you can get a pack of spoons for a couple bucks at the grocery store, making it an excellent last-minute gift candidate that's easy on the budget. This greenman i did on a spatula with a particularly wonky handle for practice and my own use (because even a wonky-handled spatula is still useful).