Snow Day

Thanksgiving camping, pink sunset

Thanksgiving camping - what fun. I made pie and turkey breast at home and fixed the trimmings here at the American Heritage campground in Norge. The campground is full, so many interesting people here. One family lives in Alaska and is doing a trip down the east. My "neighbor" lives in New England but during the winter follows the coastline down to warmer temperatures.

This is my campsite, spot 31. It has been more than a year since we have been here and all the sites now have nice level concrete pads. Especially when you get in after dark and have to set up. Ger and I have got our routine down and within 10 minutes of getting the rig level we have everything hooked up.

It is so nice and sunny - believe it or not I took this shot right after a light snow flurry today.

This vibrant tree is across from the park office.

.......Pretty pink sunset

Busy week and DAR invitation

Last weekend I did my first two day and one night show flying solo at St. Aidens in Alexandria. Lucky for me Bo helped me set up and take down and he did all the lugging in the rain so I could stay dry. Both last year and this year the weather has been rainy for this show but it did not stop people from coming out. Gina Lee, the organizer, did a great job and had wine and cheese for shoppers and vendors on Friday nite. Lucky for me Bo was able to help me set up and take down the booth. I stayed so busy I never got to take a picture of the booth but here is a picture of the show at St. James - it was the last one Nancy and I did together, a few days before her surgery.

Nancy has had her stitches out and can move around on crutches - but only for 5 minues each hour - she has to have her foot elevated at waist height the other 55minutes.

We had an exciting invitation, from the DAR in Alexandria, to participate in their Christmas Bazaar. It seems their Regent saw us at one of our previous shows and liked our work. So the first week of December will be a busy one with two shows in 5 days and my dentist appointment in the middle.

So far this week I have two trays out of the kiln and cooling right now are two candle plates. I have a load of "jewels" waiting their turn to go in.

Earrings - circles, squares and triangles.

A friend, who bought one of the red pendants I made, wanted a matching pair of earring that don't match. Well she wanted different shapes. I finished them and am waiting to hear if she likes them so I can mail them.

I got inspired and made a second pair - I have not decided how to orient the little square so the findings are not yet attached.

Black cats and Glass shopping

I know it's late but after selling out of all our black cat pendants and pins I got a jump start on next year, with this new litter. I have to put pin backs and necklace bails on them.

On Friday I had the most exciting day. Gerald and I went to Vitrum Studio for their annual Bullseye glass sale. At first I was so overwhelmed there was so much. We left about four hours later with my car loaded up with beautiful glass. It was neat to see original works of glass art by their on staff designers, who were more than willing to share "secrets" of how they created such wonderful pieces. What a great bunch of people.

Tuna Does Vegas , Ocean Windchime

Yesterday we met Nancy and Bo at the WarnerTheatre for the Sunday matinee of "Tuna Does Vegas". It was wonderful and we laughed so much.

This is the last week Nancy will be mobile, or at least on her feet, for a good while. On Friday she has surgery - they will start with her on her stomach to release her Achilles tendon, from just behind her knee, then they will turn her over for three more procedures (among them to remove that floating piece of bone the is causing her so much pain). The surgeon anticipates a four hour surgery after which for several weeks she has to keep her foot elevated and can lower it no more than 10 minutes - she will be issued a wheel chair. When all of this is healed she will finally get the knee replacement on her other leg.

I also picked up a windchime she finished that one of our friends commissioned as a gift for someone. Isn't it pretty? Of course the colors are so much prettier in person. I will string up the chimes later this afternoon.

Fishy tray, Crozet festival and the Blue Ridge

I came back in town last night and will be leaving again tomorrow since we get to set up for Saturdays show at Lake Braddock HS tomorrow evening.

Nancy made this neat Fish tile as a commission for a friend. She has the patience to bend stringer in a flame for the tenacles.












I took this shot while Nancy she was setting up our "booth" at Fort Belvoir - she doesn't know I took it! The Potomac is outside that window behind us.












Sunday Gerald and I went to an early church service then went to the Crozet arts festival where a vendor offered to take our picture. We had a great time. When we finished there we went to Carter's Apple Orchard and picked apples. We also ran into some friends, the Parker's, that we had not seen in a while - we had a great visit.











Blue Ridge from Carter's Orchard.

Turquoise! I loved those red rocks and thought that I would be making red glass but it was the turquoise that grabbed me and inspired my newest tray in turquoise, maze and hints of those purple sunrises out there. Picture coming soon.

Nancy and I had a successful show here at the officers club on Fort Belvoir. It is such a pretty setting - the back wall is a window overlooking the Potomac, where eagles are often seen soaring . I'll be heading home tomorrow morning and returning Friday morning to set up for our Saturday show at Lake Braddock HS. It is a juried show in its' 24th year. If anyone is up this way come see us - we've added a new component to our display.

Where did September go, solo show, Nancy's surgery

September flew by and took with it my favorite season...Summer. I really like those hot summer days, especially the ones in the desert with no more than a miniscule percent of humidity.

October has brought my second favorite - I really love fall and the smell of early morning air but just wish for 90's in the afternoon. Last weekend worked the Selma Railroad Days show - we had a great spot just down from the main bandstand.

I booked my first show solo show. On Novemeber 7 I will be in town at Clover Hill High School for their annual fall craft festival. Gerald will set me up early and send James to pack me out. Nancy is having her first surgery on November 6 for a bone chip that is floating around loose and damage to two tendons - there will be 3 incisions -ouch! She has to get that fixed before she can get her new knee.

I am thinking of going camping this weekend - just turned the 'fridge on in my Winnebago.

Petrogliphs

This morning we packed our cooler with provisions for lunch and went off to our adventure at Valley of Fire State Park - we actually did not even see it all (but spent hours there along the trails and climbing rocks) and it is not that big. There were petrified logs, yes entire logs. Rocks of every hue - reds, yellows, and all sorts of shades between. There were amazing panoramas everywhere and sunset was indescribably beautiful. Some looked like beehives (from centuries of wind, sand and water), an elephant and 7 sisters. Then there was Mouse's Tank that you got to by walking down Petroglyph canyon trail - oh my it was amazing to actually see up close and be able to touch such vivid petroglyphs. I do have a lot of pictures to bring back. This trail was loose, rather than packed sand and my feet and blue socks are now a lovely pinkish terracotta color. We saw jackrabbits, desert squirrels, little lizards. The ranger said the burros and mountain goats were out but we did not see them.

Hope you have time to check out those links. Going to attempt to get all that red sand off me so I can start off clean for tomorrows trip to Red Rock Canyon (I wonder how challenging those rocks will be to climb) and if we have time we are going to try to go to the Brothel Museum in Crystal.

Vegas, Death Valley and Date Milkshakes!

The furniture market was good -always fun to see the outrages things that are made. Haziza makes some really wild furniture and accessories using acrylic - take a look. I really wanted something for me but it is so expensive that you need a trunk full of spending money to get.We stayed at Treasure Island and they gave me a bottle of champagne for my birthday. When they found out Ger's was around the corner they brought up another.We left on the 18th and drove to Pahrump a really small town a little over an hour away. Their one and only yarn store is....Walmart. It is a friendly little place and a great base to see a lot of things, Death Valley being my favorite. Today, since it is Gerald's birthday he got to decide what he would like to do. We went to China Date Ranch and had a date milk shake then travelled a back road that we had never taken through Death Valley - really pretty vistas. I don't think we will ever see the entire park..but will certainly keep trying. We saw a baby coyote and some rabbits. At sunset we were almost at Badwater so we decided to stop and eat dinner at Furnace Creek Ranch (they have one of the borax 20 mule team wagons out front - a real one not a replica and it is so much bigger in real life than I expected them to be)... we shared a "Cowboy gyro"! It was a great day but now I need a shower and shuteye since we are up early again tomorrow for more adventures

Views From Hawaii

These shots are from Nancy and Bo's room! If it weren't for luggage weight limits I would have stowed away in a suitcase.

Playing with Matches!

Playing with matches used to get me in trouble when I was a little girl - you should have seen my mom when I lit up an entire book at once to see what would happen. Look what happened now that I am all grown up! Oh - I still burned my finger a little.

Nancy will be arriving in Hawaii in a couple of hours - I do hope she has good weather. I am so happy that she is getting to spend her 30th anniversary there. Bo planned it all - way to go!

Halloween is only a couple of months away and I already have two witches out in the living room! It is the only holiday that I decorate early for. Halloween glass was a bit more of a challenge but here is the black cat that my friend Barbara adopted the very first time it left the house - that's ok since I'm allergic to cats!

Weekend Craft Fair

It was a great weekend - first of all my sister Nancy was here which always guarantees fun.

My knitting guild, the River City Knitters , had a Craft and Art Fair for this months meeting. It's always great to see people enthusiastic about what we do and since these customers are our friends we'll have the opporutnity of seeing them wear our creations.

We really appreciate all the hard work our friend Cathy did of putting this show together - she did an amazing job.

My sister is a winner!

Nancy's apple windchime placed third in the artglass group challenge this month(read more about that here). The challenge was to use RED as the focus of the object. Way to go little sister!

Everythings All White!

Well, quite a bit is anyway. Here is a pictoral update on some of what is done - still have a lot to paint. First my "studio" which has wonderful light most of the day and the reason I work downstairs instead of using the spare room upstairs where my mess would be hidden.

I took the next two looking at an angle that captured a bit of the kitchen and hall. The bifold doors hide the laundry room - Gerald suggested we make glass knobs for the doors. You can see how much brighter the white is than the old Navajo White still in the living room awaiting my paintbrush.

One pillar and front door still needs paint. Wish you could have seen the surprised look when Gerald came home to the blue pantry!

Bo grows the absolute best tomatos - I picked them last night. I went up to one of my favorite glass shops to get more glass for Christmas tree pins, and drop off a "crop of trees" for Nancy to decorate when she gets home from Orlando. While I was there I saw these ripe tomatos so helped myself!

Past SHOWS

2009

April
Daisy Days
St. Catherine's School
Grove Avene
Richmond VA


August 22
River City Knitters

September 8
BWOC
Fort Belvoir, VA

October 3
Selma Railroad Days
Selma NC

October 13
BWOC Luncheon
Fort Belvoir, VA

October 17
24th Annual Arts & Crafts Showcase
Lake Braddock Secondary School
Juried Show
9200 Burke Lake Road
Burke, VA

October 24
St. James Episcopal Church
Alexandria, VA
http://www.stjamesmv.org/

November 7th 9am - 3pm
Clover Hill HS Annual Craft Fair
9am - 3pm
13900 Hull Street
Midlothian, VA 23112

November 12 & 13
St. Aidens Episcopal Day School
Alexandria, VA
Nov 12: 9am - 1pm
Nov 13: 9am - 1pm and 7pm - 9pm
www.staidansepiscopal.com/

November 20 & 21
St. Mary's Catholic School
Holiday Bazaar
400 Green Street
Old Town Alexandria
Preveiw, Nov 20: 7pm - 9pm
Nov 21: 10am - 4pm

December 1
DAR Christmas Bazaar
Mt. Vernon Country Club
Alexandria, VA
9:30 - 1:30

December 5
Episcopal Church of the Redeemer
2341 Winterfield Rd
Midlothian, VA
9am - 3pm
episcopalchurchredeemer.com/

New Things!

We have a new design for our business card....tell me what you think.
I have been a slacker lately, as far as posting goes, but I have been painting walls. It started with just the dining room and then I was only going to do the studio/sewing room but since that portion of ceiling is continuous through the kitchen and hall I had to keep going. Hard to believe it but I really love the pure white (I did leave the bit of turquoise in the kitchen). Next week I will work on the living room but probably at a bit of a slower pace so I can play with glass too.

While I have been painting Nancy has made some pretty things. Her apple windchime is finished - Gerald made jumprings and I wired it all together. Here it is in my backyard.

She also made this pretty sushi dish which I named Four Corners. It is really prettier in person corners, which are transparent, are lighter and the center is a solid turquoise/aqua.

I worked some on my bobbin lace making rosegrounds (this is an 8 step process to complete one little pattern) and think I have the hang of it without having to refer to the instructions quite as much.

I also changed the look, a bit less fussy, of our official TG Designs blog -give it a look. I am not quite satisfied with it but not sure what else I want to do.

Honest Scrap Award

I was surprised a few days ago when Cathy, bestowed upon me the Honest Scrap Award. I pondered participating but after thinking a long time decided it would be fun.

The honorees of this award are supposed to:

A) first list 10 honest things about yourself - and make it interesting, even if you have to dig deep!

B) pass the award on to 7 bloggers that you feel embody the spirit of the Honest Scrap

Well here goes:

1. Barbie - I still have my original Barbie in her box with the $3.00 price tag. I did not play with Barbie she was my first sewing dress form. I made all kinds of wonderful outfits from patterns I created myself but oft inspired by Jacqueline Kennedy.

2. I love everything about the desert - wide open spaces, cactus, buttes, climbing rock formations and best of all the smell of it at night.

3. I don't like to cook but I like to bake.

4. My father taught me to twirl a lasso. I have not done it for a while so don't ask for a demonstration.

5. My favorite foods are watermelon and birthday cake.

6. I love summer and can rarely be found inside when the sun is shining and the temperature is on up there. I do not care if I never see winter again.

7. I got lasik so that I could learn to snorkel.

8. I like to read light hearted mysteries like those by Janet Evanovich, that make me laugh out loud.

9. ...that I became a teacher since I was the queen of playing hooky from school.My Dad once caught me on the way home from a day riding my little red Honda 90 on the surfing beach in San Diego.

10. I love beach music and beach movies, especially old Annette and Frankie Avalon ones.

I've sent this on to a few people and hope that they will do this too...Emmy, Mary, Ali, Pam, Timmie . Anyone else please join in.

Myrtle Beach - 3 days away

We will be heading to Myrtle Beach on Thursday to visit my father-in-law and we're taking our Winnebago and staying at the Myrtle Beach RV park. It is right on the ocean and under a mile from a campground we used to camp at when we were kids, which has the longest fishing pier on the East Coast - more about that later.

Last weekend Gerald washed and waxed her and she is all pretty and shiny. Yesterday afternoon we packed linens, made the bed and cleaned out and rearranged the outside compartments- we had a lot of things we never used and everything is now more efficient.

This will be our first trip since our new floor was put in, now the only carpet is under the slide and in the drivers part of the cabin.

I plan to knit on the way down. I would like to finish my Daria purse, http://www.ravelry.com/projects/christinak/daria-purse, on this trip - I already packed it up. I know I won't knit a lot while I am there or at least until after the sun sets because if the sun is out and it is warm or hot I will be outside.

I packed my fishing poles, too. I like to fish more than Gerald does but he keeps me company, takes the fish off the hook, cleans and cooks them - what more can a girl ask for?

Viking knitting, band aids, and roses.

Monday was good - went to Williamsburg for my lace group meeting. We did Viking Knitting, we had all taken the same class (although we did not know each other at the time) three years ago but none of us had done it since then. It is done on a dowel or hex wrench. The tape at the end just holds the wire on. When finished you pull it through a hole in a dowel in everything evens out. Once you get the first couple of rows done it is easy. Check out page 2 of this link and see the end results http://www.fineartbyrocio.com/vikingknitdirections.html
Late afternoon I went to Glitz and Tommy gave me a great haircut - 3" off feels so good.

Tuesday - this is where the week started to go downhill - if I picked it up I dropped, spilled it or broke it. Not exactly the day I was looking forward to getting blood work done.... but I went to Labcorp (read that as vampire center) on Midlothian signed in and started reading a Janet Evanovitch. About 70 pages later (and trying not to laugh out loud) I looked around and everyone was still there. 2:30pm, an hour later and no one had left the waiting room - there was only one technician. Now I have really tiny veins so I decided by the time it was my turn that would be one grumpy technician so I checked out. I went across town to pick up a piece of glass I ordered and decided to try the the location on Forest Avenue. I only waited only a few minutes and and everyone was pleasant - the technician had "the hand" because I did not even feel the pinch of the needle going in. If you need blood drawn go there. I started to get a migraine on the way home as the barometer was dropping for the evening thunderstorm. I decided to make something to go in the kiln but wound up with 3 band aids from glass cuts. I did not make it to TNK.

Yesterday got better after playing in the garden and cutting roses to bring in I put the designs elements on a plate I had fused and experimented with a new firing schedule so that it would remain 3 dimensional - took it out this morning - success! Here it is - I need to take a better picture but I want to get started priming the hall wall. Wish you could smell the roses.

Nancy sent me a picture of a windchime she is working on - there is a caterpillar on the leaf but I can't see it in the picture. Today she is having a root canal but is here on Friday for a weekend of "fusing fun."

Busy weekend,shawl almost done & scary glass

I am almost finished with the Prayer Shawl - I got all the rows finished on our trip Sunday (more about that below) and last night Patsy showed me the magic to create the fringe. I'm almost done.

We started off the weekend early by going to the Greek Festival on Thursday evening - good food and we always see people we haven't seen in a while. Friday afternoon I drove to Chapel Hill where I met up with 3 of my bobbin lacing friends with whom I went to the NCRL Spring Lace Day on Saturday. We stayed at a hotel in Graham, NC and ate dinner on the patio of a local restaurant in the tiny downtown. Saturday we drove into Chapel Hill for lace day - it was fun. I bought bobbins from my favorite vendors, a wooden one from Richard Worthen and from Susan Wenzel (aka Lacy Susan) a lovely carved bone and a glass one, which I will need to spangle with beads. Aren't they pretty?

On Sunday Gerald and I went to the Chrysler Musuem to view more of the art of glass exhibit, we got there late and they gave us a discount so we plan to return on Friday. There is an entire room of the works by an artist from Italy, Lino Tagliapetra who at 74 is still creating incredible works of art. http://http//www.linotagliapietra.com/ but pictures do not even begin to do his work justice.

Some of the glass I made during the week - I have more but have not taken pictures.

Blues and greens: I really like dichroic glass and my favorite combinations are blues, greens and purples followed my the red, orange and golds. It was the first that I played with last week. Dicro is difficult to photograph because it reflects ligth every which way, but that is why it is so nice to wear.

It is only one pair of earrings but I took pics at diffrent camera angles. The center is blues and purples.

After making the shawl pin for Cathy I got on a pink binge and made a few pendants then since I put blue stringer in one of the pendants I was going to make earrings to match but that blue and green thing I have took over. I have been trying different ways to make the jewelry look good in phots and used a milk glass dish that belonged to my mother but I think I need to arrange the beans better if I want to use it. I like black beans because they do not create more of a reflection..and they make great soup too.

What was I thinking! I really really want to like frit - it is so pretty in jars and bags but just does not work when I use it. I could see them as buttons on some voodoo doll.