What was I thinking? I decided to go back to school and in order to transfer to Humboldt State I had to have completed English 1A. I check the school schedule and saw classes started the following week. Everything just fell into place, I love when that happens. I decided to take a few other pre-requisites for my major. I ended up adding 4 classes, 15 units. It is kicking my ass!! Besides the English class, I'm taking botany, soil science with a lab and finally a drawing and composition class. As the weeks have gone by I've been totally dedicated to school work and slowing I suppose because of the lack of creativity I'm starting to bounce off the walls.
I've finally made it to spring break and thought I was going to have some time to do some blacksmithing and to play with the fiber I have. It's not turning out that way. I have a botany test when I get back Monday a 5 page English paper to write and a play to read, "The Taming of the Shrew", and to top it off; the extra week off that the English teacher gave us is now being filled up with more work, that I got by email, of joy.
I ordered some new goodies I can't wait to jump in and start playing. I got 1 pound of recycled sari silk yarn, a bag of silk scrap threads and 1 pound of mohair.
I don't know where to begin sometimes. I'm thinking of getting a spinning wheel, oh the things I could make.
I spent a few hours playing around with different dyes and came up with some really pretty colors. I'm down to just a couple of pounds of wool and I'm beginning to worry about running out, so silly
I'm beginning to feel guilty about some of my unfinished projects. I started this lampshade last year. When I originally started the lampshade I had the strands much shorter and I didn't like it, so I modified my pattern and ran out of beads. When I placed my order the red beads were back ordered for 5 months. Needless to say when I finally got my order of beads, I had discovered wool and was deeply immersed in learning all that I could. One of these days I will find some time to get back to my lampshade.
The rain has finally stopped and I somehow managed to get Samantha to chaperon me on an outing. We drove along the river road that runs along the Sacramento river.
This is a parking lot a good, five plus feet underwater. Way off in the distance is the boat ramp.
I love this picture, it looks like the same bird in 6 different shots, but really I got 6 birds with one shot. We drove along this pot-holed levee road and came to this small creek that had lots of birds. Every time I managed to pull over and quietly get out of my car this is what would happen. The birds kept flying away.
I started to walk down the road, at one point I had gone so far ahead trying to sneak up on the wildlife I look behind me to see how far I had to walk back to the car and I see Samantha driving along a couple hundred feet behind me. I had to laugh, I felt like I was 5 years old on my first walk to school with my parent stalking behind me to make sure I was OK.
I managed to get a few good pictures.
On Sunday I went to a class at the Yolo Wool Mill, given by my friend Meg, on how to dye with natural color. It was amazing the colors you could get. There was a pot of Star Thistle going, they got a pretty sage green color from that, finally an upside to the star thistle.
The purplish blue on the left is logwood, the brown is tea, a brew made with tea bags, it has to be black tea leaf tips. The yellow is made with Tarragon.
Check out some of the colors I dyed the mohair, I have a forest green, a violet with alpine blue mix and a red and magenta mix.
Last night I made this cute little pin cushion. I have this habit of seeing something and saying that would be so easy to make, well it wasn't too difficult.
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