Another device to help me focus: a list of my works in progress. I’ll post about these and photograph as I actually progress. From the oldest to newest might be the best way to go, although I doubt I’ll proceed in this order.

1. Fabulously ugly scarf III - still on the floor loom in the studio. Weave it off and fold up the loom. I want the floor space for summer.
2. “Labyrinth” tapestry - looking forward to this one, actually.
3. Skirt and clean Bev’s fleeces, send off to be carded and spun.
4. Tobacco ATCs
5. Woven ATCs - back them and photograph. Soon, especially since this awesome ATC is waiting for my trade.
6. Second tapestry box bag - will probably be put on the back burner, quite honestly.
7. “Elements” tapestries - finish backs, make a quilted block to mount them on. Photograph.
8. “Mindful presence” collage, stitch, embellish, quilt.
9. Add beads to the “dingleberry” on the closure for the book I made for Dan Essig’s class. You gotta love his warped sense of humor.
10. Begin adding content to this book - a nature journal.
11. Begin putting together second coptic stitch book before I forget how to do it (kit from his class).
12. “Writing” collage - for lack of a better title right now
13. Embellished cut-off shorts (a creative hit from Ricë’s blog)
14. Begin a fabric art journal about my trip to Italy.
15. Carve stamps to fill in the missing ones from my “new” alphabet collection (given to me by Ricë!)

Lord. You can tell that I don’t have children. I do have a full time job, a vegetable garden, and five needy cats and a husband, though.

I’m particulary energized this weekend, because I won the alphabet stamp giveaway from Ricë! Am I lucky or what? I may have to erect an altar to this woman.

I realized that I’m never going to get started again on my artwork until I clean up and reorganize the giganto mess I made in the studio and the happy room before I went to Art and Soul. It’s like a maniac went through everything and tossed it around. Well.

I set up a folding table for my painting and stamping, and arranged a workspace and storage space for my supplies. I had the absolute perfect display and storage space for the stamps that Ricë sent to me, and I have more space for the ones I’ll be making. So I’ll be able to see them all, reach up, and pluck just the right one for my journal.

I made a list of works-in-progress and works-in-head and I had eleven items on the list! Whew!

I moved my floor loom over so that I’ll have some space at my work tables to get up and move around. One of the things on my list is to finish the scarf that has been on it since last summer and then I’ll be able to fold it up for a while.

I ordered a Japanese screw punch with five bits from EBay for less than $30 with shipping. Assuming that it is the same kind I used in my workshop (it looked the same), I saved about half the price. I distrust this luck. EBay is not my playground, and normally I avoid it like the plague. We’ll see.

I am ready to play in the studio this weekend. Woo hoo!

I thought that I might share a little about my creative process in doing the mini tapestries. It’s so simple that it won’t take long. Reading Living the Creative Life and The Artist’s Way made me think about this, and I figure that it’s worth sharing.

This is my current workspace in the Happy Room, on the futon that serves as a guest bed. Isn’t it a mess? But it’s really working for me, like I have a pallette of yarn.

I found that the trick to keeping my creative energy going is to always have a little cardboard loom ready. It takes about five minutes tops to warp a piece of cardboard, which I prepare by snipping slits top and bottom 4 or 5 slits to an inch. You can’t really get a lot of detail with this method, but the simplicity and limit is part of the charm for me. For more detailed designs, I use a pin loom, where I can get 8 ends per inch.

I could draw a design on the cardboard, but what I do with the mini-tapestries is that I begin with a blank cardboard piece, pick up a color, and begin. It helps a lot to have an idea prompt. I have a theme right now of “By the Sea.” As I needleweave the yarn into the warp, an idea will begin to develop. If it doesn’t, I do a solid block of color. I figure that I can embellish the solid blocks with beads, shells, embroidery, or needle-felting later, so it’s definitely not a waste of time. The point is, I don’t wait for an idea. I just start weaving.

If I’m not totally thrilled with it, it’s okay. I’ve only put a couple of hours into it at the most, and now that I’m interested in assemblage and collage, I figure that I’ll find a way to work with it later. In the meantime, I’m free to play, which is not something that usually happens with weavers. And playing was something that I struggled with so much that I even made “learning to play” a project for my “Creating Peace” class only last fall.

If I get an idea for a more complicated idea, I’ll work that out later with a cartoon (design for a tapestry). I should make notes, but I have to work on that. It’s usually hard for me to stop weaving and start writing notes! I had a dream last night with an idea for a weaving that I awoke from and said to myself that I should write it down. Of course, the part of me that wanted to go back to sleep convinced me that I would remember this great idea in the morning. Of course, I have not remembered the details as of yet. I’ve had a lot of these dreams and they’re wonderful in their details, but by the time I get to the coffee, they’re a fuzzy warm pleasant feeling. So I need to work on my methods for recording ideas.

Here’s a photo of the back of one of the tapestries. I designed these “signatures” in Word and copied eight to a standard 8.5 x 11 page, leaving a bit of space where I can attach a pin if needed, and then I used Ricë’s technique for printing them on a piece of muslin. I left the freezer paper on the back and cut them apart.

Then I made hemmed backs of a watercolory-looking blue fabric to fit the back of each tapestry (using fusible webbing), fused those directly to the back of the tapestries, then peeled away one of my muslin signatures and fused that on top of the blue fabric.

Here’s the (un-) funny thing - I decided to use fusible webbing for many of my sewing tasks to save my hands some stress and because I am such a klutz that I stab myself with needles and pins all the time. Well, here’s this fabulous alternative, right? I bought a little craft mini-iron that has a long rod handle and a little flat iron tip that I could use for little areas and corners where I might need more precision. So what was the first thing I did with my fabulous new tool yesterday? I mindlessly grabbed it in the wrong place and burned the hell out of my right index fingertip. If I don’t learn anything else from this hobby, I will learn mindfulness, the hard way if necessary.

“By the Sea: Wave”; series of tapestry artist trading cards, woven for trading at Art & Soul in early May. Woven on cardboard loom. Linen warp, cotton weft. 3.5 x 2.5 inches.

“By the Sea: Tidal Pools”; series of tapestry artist trading cards, woven for trading at Art & Soul in early May. I drew on memories of Sunset Beach and Tubbs Inlet for these seascapes. Woven on cardboard loom. Linen warp, wool weft. 3.5 x 2.5 inches.

The next two will be pins:

I’m not done embellishing the one on the right - I plan to bead an edge around it.
Left: Linen warp, cotton, wool, and chenille weft, shells. 3 5/8 x 2 3/4 inches.
Right: Linen warp, cotton, wool, and chenille weft, shells. 3 1/4 x 2 5/8 inches.

“By the Sea: Overcast Low Tide” - I think that we’ll keep this one, as it is too big for an ATC and I’m rather fond of it. The wool for the sky was space dyed leftovers from a weaving years ago. Linen warp, wool weft. 3.75 x 2.75 inches.

Here are the first two small tapestries of a series of four. This is “Earth” and “Fire.” Guess what the other two will be!

I took a piece of the cardboard box that I used for my tapestry bag and decided to work that part of the design in different colors. The loom is just string wrapped around a piece of cardboard with slits cut across the top and bottom - nothing expensive or complicated about that! I used some of the multitudes of leftover scraps of wool yarn that I have hoarded over the years.

These are 4 x 6 inches each and could be used for fabric postcards if I wanted to go that way…I think that I will mount them together as a wall piece though. The challenge is getting them mounted and maybe framed. Once I’m done weaving, it is very hard for me to follow through on presentation. Maybe I’ll do a simple one-color quilted square to mount them on.

I still need to sew together some of the slits from the back and probably will fuse a backing to them.

I wanted to show you my little seascape tapestries, but I can’t seem to get a good photo of them. I’ll keep trying.

I am totally overwhelmed with the books I’ve bought in the last few weeks. It’s like a book fiend has taken over my body. Yesterday Sandy and I did a big purge of books to take to Ed McKay’s today, so I could get my new stacks of books off the floor and onto shelves.

Some of these new stacks are of old books. For example, when I visited Mama a few weeks ago, I snagged the 1952 set of World Book encyclopedias, which I’m sure made me the geography trivia whiz that I am today. If today was in 1952. I always had my nose in these encyclopedias, and they meant nothing to anyone but me.

I also brought back my much beloved copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, spine well creased from obsessive re-reading, and a copy of Treasure Island, which I never read but I found a piece of paper in it where I had made as many words as I could out of the words Treasure Island. I made up a lot of word games as a child out of these books and encyclopedias. I found my old stamp collection and a list I had made of “My Library,” which included such diversity as Huckleberry Finn, Flip Wilson Close-up, Steppenwolf, How to Write Codes and Send Secret Messages, and Gardening Indoors Under Lights. I doubt that I actually read Steppenwolf, but I may have given it a try. The librarians on the county bookmobile had a very hard time keeping up with me - I’d have finished my stack of books they picked out for me long before they came back in two weeks.

There was a real treasure trove of old books in the free section of Ed McKay’s for a few weeks. I’ve picked up a lot of old school books and other interesting books from the turn of the century up through the fifties. I have enough novels from the free section to last me two years. And, believe it or not, I had been hitting the library on a regular basis, but I’m going to give it a rest until I read some of what I have at home. I started reading Wendell Berry’s novels from the beginning, and that felt like going back in time to talk to relatives long gone.

Yesterday, Sandy and I went to Empire Books, where I never made it past the cookbook and arts and crafts section. Sandy found a perfect copy of my favorite artist Andy Goldsworthy’s Time for $18. I picked up a $4 copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, three wonderful craft books: Art Stamping Workshop, Beaded Crazy Quilting, and Paper into Pots, and a 1950 half autobiography/half cookbook called Love and Dishes, by Niccolo de Quattrociocchi, an Italian restauranteur in New York City. It has recipes from all the famous NYC restaurants of the time. I’m really looking forward to digging into this one.

It is a good thing that I don’t live closer to Empire Books. I might go broke. I really, really need new clothes but I spend all my money on books, art supplies, and good food. My priorities are pretty good but I might need to get a little more practical.

So, what started this post was a question from Moomin Light: What creativity books have I been reading? I mentioned Living the Creative Life, by Ricë Freeman-Zachery. I’m also reading her book Stamp Artistry.

I was already into The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron, which I like but I’m going to wait until summer if I do the lessons.

Danny Gregory’s The Creative License is so incredible that I nearly have a panic attack each time I open it, but it’s next. I read his Everyday Matters last year, and I’m a lurker in the Everyday Matters Yahoo group.

In addition, I’m feeding my inner child and dreamer with Dan Price’s illustrated journal Radical Simplicity: Creating an Authentic Life. Because I spent a good part of my childhood winters building hide-outs and lean-tos and treehouses to read my books in.

I have Amazon links to these books in my pretend bookstore, if you’re interested in learning more or buying them. I’ll update it with my newest books later today.

Yes, I’ve been a book hound since I graduated. It is delicious.

My goal today was to complete a woven artist trading card, and I achieved that goal! Well, almost. I have to put a backing on it, but I think that I’m going to wait until I get about half a dozen woven and back all of them at the same time.

Earlier this month, I wove two other little tapestries which I meant to be artist trading cards, but the size was not quite right. The only two restrictions for an artist trading card is that it can’t be sold and it must be 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches. Think baseball card. So those two will be pins. When I hit the size right, it will be an ATC, and when I don’t, it will be a pin.

The theme of Art & Soul is “By the Sea.” From what I understand, most of the attendees carry with them lots of little handcrafted goodies to trade. I’m weaving these tapesties on little cardboard squares, and they are doing double duty - they will be trades and they are studies for my next tapestry bag.

Weaving these little tapestries is one of the most relaxing things I’ve done for a long time, and it is so easy. Taking photos of the little weavings, not!!!!! Also, I planned to do a lot of beading on my collages and art quilts and fabric journals and weavings. I might need to get my bifocals first - it is definitely ten times harder than it used to be to thread a needle and poke it through those tiny little holes. So, to recap, weaving = fun! Photography and beading = frustration.

Substitute any dream for the word “artist”…

“Give yourself permission to be a beginner. By being willing to be a bad artist, you have a chance to be an artist, and perhaps, over time, a very good one.

“When I make this point in teaching, I am met by instant, defensive hostility: ‘But do you know how old I will be by the time I learn to really play the piano/act/paint/write a decent play?’

“Yes . . . the same age you will be if you don’t.

“So let’s start.”

~Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way

I started a project that’s been on my mind ever since I received the book Artist Trading Card Workshop. I want to make my ATCs out of fiber and recycled materials when possible. The section that appealed to me most made nests of fibers on the card and melted them together with embossing powders and fusible webbing tape.

So I have been weaving tapestries from thrums and discarded warps and dyeing mistakes, and now I have a way to re-use the thrums from the thrums. It feels like, I don’t know, like I just found the last piece to a jigsaw puzzle. Ahhhh. It drove me crazy to throw those thrums away. Usually I give them to the birds or toss them in the compost heap when there gets to be too many.

Anyway, here’s what I came up with. Backgrounds for four sets of two cards each.

I had no freakin idee whut I wuz doing. I just played. If you were around in September when I began to have my meltdown, you know that this was a major goal for me. I’m a planner. It’s my personality. Weavers generally have to be. I needed to learn how to play. Squirt had a lot to teach me about that in his last year. He became more playful than he ever had been in his middle age.

I was so afraid that I had lost my mojo for good. Now I’m in the middle of four projects! Whee!

First there was the photo, taken at Healing Ground in Oak Ridge, North Carolina.

Then there was the idea and the cartoon…

Then there was a long period of dithering because I couldn’t decide between two approaches. One was to make the “path” blue, the maze white, and sew on buttons or smooth worn pieces of shell.

The other was to use all these little samples of handspun, natural or naturally dyed wool that were given to me along with the used loom I bought eight years ago, and make it more realistic.

I decided to start with the more traditional tapestry, and if I’m hungry for more, weave the other one.

Update:  I’ve added a place near the top of the sidebar where you can see the latest progress on the tapestry.