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.

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."

Knitting, painting, new glass success!

I did not make it to knit night due to a migrane(I really miss spending time with my TNK friends) but did get to knit with my prayer shawl group at church later in the week. I am almost done with the shawl and hope to get in done in the next two weeks, after the sale at Daisy Days, because I am ready for closure on this project. I will then finish another so nearly done piece - my Daria purse - I think I only have 2o inches of 6 stitch rows to complete the strap and then just need to sew it together.

I have been wanting to experiment with Spectrum 96 glass because they make such lovely vibrant tranparents. It fuses differently than COE90 that I use and is not compatible with the 90 so has to be stored separately. I had success with the larger piece but would like a crisper edge to the smaller ones. I will have to work on the firing schedule for pendant sizes but believe I nailed the large size on the first try! Here they are.

Today I am going to prime my dining room to repaint it. It is in need of fresh paint since it has been the old neutral, Navajo for about 13 years. We want to liven it up but having a hard time picking the color - the room faces the north and unlike the rest of the house gets only sun in the morning and the neutral looks so drab in the afternoon that I try to avoid coming in here. Ger has his vote in for yellow - good golly there are a zillion versions of yellow but as long as it does not scream at me and goes with the adjoining open kitchen which is turquoise (my favorite) I will glady go with it. I wonder what samples he will bring me tonight.