Stitching and Snow

Overnight and during the day today we go about 15 inches of snow here in Maine. Here are a couple of brave neighbors I spotted out our kitchen window.....I didn't put even one toe outside today.

Paul took a walk with his snowshoes.....but stopped to clean off the bird feeders on his way.

I appreciate all the emails and kind words of support after my milestone post yesterday...I'm feeling the love! And go figure.....just this morning another image from the blog popped up in my Pinterest feed....this overly embellished leaf inspired piece I did after the Swirls of Color class.  

I wrote about my process here:

https://joyfulputtering.blogspot.com/2020/07/learning-curve.html

This piece is knocking around the studio somewhere....and as soon as I find it I'm going to finish it find it a home.

There's a LOT going on here.

But I like this similar, but simpler wool piece even better.  

https://joyfulputtering.blogspot.com/2020/08/wooly-leaf.html

Although there is some hand stitching in both pieces...most of the 

stitches are decorative stitches on my machine. Even some of the coaching is done by machine.

I do love to hand stitch....but I am also reminded what my sewing machine is able to do.  And I know I'm going to have to be careful with my thumb.....even after it heals.

I had spent some time hand stitching on my Stitch Camp project before my injury.....and wasn't going to post about it until I got a little further along.  I wasn't happy with some of it....and knew I could improve it with more stitches and a few overlays.  The goal is to blur the lines between the pieces and tie everything together.

Now I'm thinking there are parts I can do on my machine while my thumb is healing.   

I came across this sheer curtain piece I painted a while back....then machine stitched some texture into it with my machine.  I do love this little back and forth knotty stitch.....and I think I could use this technique on my piece in a few places.

As of this evening...it's still snowing.

Milestone

This is a view of the morning light in our backyard yesterday.

My thumb is quite a bit better today....and I was even able to do a little stitching at the sewing machine...but mostly I'm still letting it rest.  So it's a pretty good day to celebrate a milestone.  

Overnight last night I passed 200,000 views on the blog since I started 8 years ago.  That's just mind boggling to me.  

So....just for the fun of it....here are some of my stats.  Remember...typing is something I can easily do with only one good thumb.....and I won't know if you just skip the rest of this post. Thank you for getting this far!

I'm not one to worry too much about....or even pay too much attention to the stats....and I'm not doing anything at all to grow my readership.  I'm just sharing my joy.......my stories.....and my creative adventures.....every single day.  The growth has happened all on it's own.  And the fact that so many of you have found it....and seem to keep coming back makes me very happy.....and a wee bit proud.  Thank you!  

• 93 people subscribe by email.  It's a real commitment to get an email every single day in your inbox....and mailchimp is able to tell me that most of them get opened.  But I will take this opportunity to say it's OK if you unsubscribe.  That will always be OK.  I've unsubscribed from many newsletters and blogs I've followed over the years.
• I average anywhere from 120 to 180 views on the actual blog a day....sometimes less...sometimes more. 
• I get a fair amount of "clicks" or "links" from Pinterest.  I've never posted any of my work on Pinterest....but anyone can pin something from the blog...and then it circulates out there for a while....sometimes a long long time.  My 96 Collages post from 2019, for example....when I helped Muffy with a workshop....is still out there and has been looked at over 6,000 times.  And my Rainbows and Swirls post has been viewed 3,500 times.....all because of Pinterest.

These are the posts with the highest numbers of views.

And Blogger can even tell me where people live.....

....and they break it down by country.

                                                  

So there it is.  If you made it to the end of this post...congratulations!  I appreciate that your here...and willing to follow along with my joyful putterings.  

This was the evening light in the backyard yesterday.  I am truly blessed.

One Thumb

It's been cold enough to keep the snow clinging to the trees. That....along with the blue sky made for a beautiful late morning walk.  

There are things I take for granted that are hard to do with only one good thumb....like hold my toothbrush in my right hand and squeezing the tube with my left like I always do.  Paul applies his toothpaste one handed by putting the toothbrush in his mouth....I don't think that's for me.

But there were several things I could do with just one good thumb.....so I focused on....and embraced those today. They included tax prep, other paperwork and computer work...and finally setting up our personal finance books and online files for 2023.  I've been avoiding all of these things....and I actually came pretty darn close to enjoying them today.

It also dawned on me today...that I use only nine fingers when I type....my left thumb has no role while typing.  Win!

AND.....I spent some time playing at the puzzle table..... because look what I found!

I know it's silly....but I'm so tickled that a few of my little acorns are in Philippa's puzzle. There was one little blue one in the bowl along the side in the puzzle....and now there are five.

This puzzle has been finished for a few days.....

...and just like that....it's a pile of pieces and parts again.

Time to start a new one....puzzles only require one thumb.

I hope you Wordle fans have already done the puzzle today....I started with "thumb"....and it lead me right to "blurb" on the second line!

Overall....not a bad "one thumb" day!

"Beautiful Hands"

"Aunt MaryAnn, beading and weaving

Busy doing art, interacting with me

Project by project a true fantasy

Painting and drawing, sketching out plans

Making stained glass with her beautiful HANDS!"

Clarke Shupe-Diggs

Today was not quite the day I imagined.  

It snowed overnight....and our morning walk was just beautiful.  But as I was taking my gloves on and to take photos....I realized I had an injury.

For a year or more I've been having trouble on and off with my left thumb....and a little bit of trouble with the right one. I overuse it...then I do something stupid that strains it and I have an injury on my hands.  I ice, immobilize and it usually gets better in a few days.  But between last night and today I injured it again...this time even more so than before...with even more pain than before. 

So I saw my doctor today....had an x-ray (which didn't show anything)....and most likely have "de Quervain Tendinopathy."  

I'm not going to whine or complain....I'm just going to do what I need to do.  I need my hands....especially my thumbs.  So I'll take it easy for a while and let it heal. Then I'll take better care of them and not take my hands...and my thumbs for granted.

I thought it was the perfect day to revisit this art piece from Clarke....my niece.  She wrote this poem for me years and years ago....and it has hung in my studios ever since.

What cracks me up is that the image of the woman in the piece....doesn't have arms...or hands...or thumbs.  I smile every time I see it.

Clarke's piece hangs in my studio next to my cutting table....which by the way since I took this photo this morning have tidied up again.  I may not be able to stitch or do fussy art projects for a little while...but I can tidy and sort...with my injured "beautiful hands."

I took a few more photos of the snow....well a lot more photos....but this is my favorite.  

Paul kept walking while I took photos and then went home to ice my thumb.  

I left him a note....with my feet.

Round Things

The Circle Game, by Joni Mitchell

And the seasons, they go round and round

And the painted ponies go up and down

We're captive on the carousel of time

We can't return, we can only look

Behind, from where we came

And go round and round and round in the circle game

Sometimes joy is round and looks like a bowl 

Vietnamese chicken noodle soup with a dear friend!

 

Or it might look like mandala practice from last evening.

And joy is most certainly getting to use a tool to make round things I got from my father-in-law's stash.  Dave was an engineer and crafter....and I acquired several of his tools.  

This circle template is perfect for drawing the guidelines to practice mandalas.

Thanks to a tip from Roseanne....I've joined the free  Mandala Magic School....and I'm finding it quite enjoyable....and quite relaxing.

And when round things need square things....Dave had that covered too.  And now I'm all ready for another mandala this evening.

 

And who knows when I'll need s rectangle...or hexagon!

But today I'm celebrating round things....and fun tools from Dave's stash.

Stitch Camp

I started 3 new art classes this week....two of them free.  I'm hoping to improve my hand lettering....I'm drawing mandalas.....and I'm spending a week at "Stitch Camp!" 

On a tip from Lily....I signed up for "Stitch Camp."  It's free....with a lesson each day this week from textile artist Gwen Hedley who is taking us through a small project from beginning to end.  It involves painting fabric....cutting it up and putting it back together....hand stitching....embellishing...and finally finishing.  All that in a week!  The videos will be a available for a few more weeks....so there's time built in if I get behind.  I'm already behind.

https://training.textileartist.org/stitchcamp-signup-2/

I have admired work from several different textile artists using these techniques....and I hope to translate it to landscapes and fabric collage.

This fabric is the inspiration scheme for my class piece....and several other pieces that are in my head.  It already looks painted!

It's actually from a linen blouse I found at a thrift store....and I've been wanting to do something with it for quite some time. So I'm finally cutting it up.

What I love most about it is that you can get a whole different scheme when you isolate different parts.  Although I absolutely LOVE the dark inky blue...I'm using 

the lighter colors for this piece.  The dark will show up somewhere else.  

I settled in on Monday night and painted way into the evening. Our task was to do all kinds of mark making on light colored fabric....in a limited color palette.  I chose aqua, green and coral from my inspiration fabric.

Aqua and green came right out of the tube....but I had to mix the coral....and I love my mixing paper.

Problem: The other 1/2 of my studio that I haven't tidied up yet is my painting station where I do all my messy work including gelli printing. But I made it work....and I'm motivated now more that ever to get that 1/2 of the studio a little more organized. 

I was a little unsure of of it when I went to bed....it just seemed like a big mess....and this is what I woke up to.    

In the light of day....isolating little pieces and parts I thought there was hope.  

     

Yesterday's lesson was to join several different pieces of our painted fabrics. Here are four little swatches...along with 2 swatches from the blouse....tacked together into one strip.

One of the things we looked for when we joined pieces was natural connections....like this green swatch where the paint splotch connects with the linen fabric.  We'll be able to enhance these areas....and carry over lines into the next piece with stitch.  Or at least that's the hope. 

Today's lesson was how to blur the connections between the swatches with hand stitching trying to make it look like one fluid piece of cloth. I didn't have time today....but may get a start on that tonight.  

I'm thinking of this small project as a way to practice some of these skills in a sampler type way....and I am enjoying the process in "stitch camp" so far!  Thanks Lily!

This was one of my painted fabrics....but I'm not using it yet.  The background is an oatmeal colored linen....and I'm looking forward to cutting it up and using it in something else.

Blue

Today I'm celebrating blue sky and bluebirds at the heated bath.

And.....I'm also celebrating the long shadows in the afternoon light.

Speaking of blue....I'm in the home stretch on Philippa's beautiful blue arrangement....and I'm savoring the end.