“It is literally inexplicable.” John Cleese on Creativity
Squirrel du jour, carved from wood. My kind of taxidermy.
Audacity
Two days I spent bent over the new quilting machine. Granted, I shoulda woulda coulds taken a lesson but I tried to go commando, as we say, and do it my way. I sat with the brochure and followd the threading directions which were printed, but ununderstandable and also watched the built in video that moves at about 75 mph so I couldn't quite get the finer points. The stupid machine has about a 20 point check for threading the needle. And OF COURSE I got it wrong. I eventually gave up and took a 24 hour break but returned with renewed vigor to find the point where I went rogue threader, and I finally did.
OF COURSE once it was threaded and the bobbin wound and I got the quilt all clipped up and managable I found that my starting point, the big circle off center, was territory I shouldn't transverse- all my stitches were skipped and dropped until I got off the plasticized circle and onto regular cloth. OI do have some interesting rows of needle punches now, but no actual stitching. I then played with several of my circular rulers and did sort of a wonky clamshell thing in a spiral out from the circle but it looks crappy and I will probably (sigh) have to rip it out but they all tell me that practice is what makes it work. Oy. I don't have enough years left to get in the kind of practice they are talking about.
But FIRST I need to work smaller. A 90" quilt as a first time endeavor is just dumb. So perhaps before I rip away with abandon I will set the whole friggin' thing aside and let it moulder
Sunday, I stayed home today and grilled a spatchcocked chicken, a giant old thing but I forgot to find my rocks to spatch him! So he is kind of puffy and finally got done. With it I found some of the rice I heard about on the internet machine- it's grown in Florida in the Everglades as part of a crop rotation program with the Domino company- rotating with sugar cane. Sounds good to me, the soil is being enriched- so they tell me- and a whole new operation was born. I'll report back if it doesn't taste like Basmati. And I will write them a letter and I will boycott. Or not. Sometimes it just ain't worth rabbleing and rousing for things like rice. Which BTW cost twice as much as my regular brand, but hey- 'local'. What a scam. I scoured the Publix and finally found a manager who didn't know what I was talking about until he looked it up on HIS internet machine and led me to the end cap where they keep all the Florida grown products. I used to take maple syrup to friends, now I guess I haul along a bag o' rice...
So, Sunday is almost over, time to check on the rice, hack up the chicken, and call it a night. Oh. I forgot the ARTY PARTY!
This is sooo depressing! Check out this guy's masterful sketchbook! This is what we should all be doing in our spare moments.
New York City-based artist Nicolas V. Sanchez (previously) creates masterful drawings with only the aid of a few ballpoint pens, rendering unbelievably realistic portraits and still lifes in his many sketchbooks. Due to his precise application of highlights and shadows several of his works seem three-dimensional, such as the fruit bowl seen below which looks placed on the page and not drawn.
hanging my head in shame.
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