Eat a Slice

After tasting this heavenly pie last summer at a bbq, my husband begged the recipe. He finally whipped it together this weekend after several days of cooking mainly meat dishes. While the name made us a little skeptical, one bite was all it took to get me hooked. Oh so creamy, just slightly sweet with a hint of tart, it is everything I want to cool off my palate after a meal of spicy Indian dishes.

Avocado Pie

1. Prepare a standard graham cracker crust
2. Mix together until smooth:
   • two egg yolks, beaten
   • one large avocado or two small avocados
   • 1/4 cup lemon juice
   • dash of salt
3. To the above mixture add one can sweetened condensed milk, mix until smooth, pour into graham cracker crust
4. Bake at 325 degrees for 20 minutes, remove and cool
5. Top with 2 cups sour cream mixed with 1/2 cup sugar, 1 tsp vanilla and a dash of salt
6. Refrigerate until serving time

Thanks to Wayne Lennon for the recipe and the Crowleys for hosting the summer fun.

Buy Handmade. Buy Local. Hug an Artist

SpiderFelt will be in the school, the Blue Building and the house this holiday season with fresh new wares: felt flowers, scarves, ornaments, feltilocks, soaps, pebbles and felt kits.

Indie Banditas at Woodward Middle School on Bainbridge Island Friday/Saturday November 27 & 28 from 10-5pm
Winter Festival in the Blue Building at the Phinney Center on Saturday/Sunday December 5 & 6 from 10-5pm
Fatto a Mano, a trunk show at the home of Roberta Torgerson on Saturday December 12 from 11-5pm

Your Name In Letters

A few months ago, the editor from LMNOP, a cool new Australian lifestyle magazine, invited me to submit some felt balls for their 2009 Holiday Gift Guide. Their inquiry was my first introduction to the magazine, but a quick browse through their most recent issue was all I needed to see. The photography and styling is gorgeous, just the sort of eye candy I love.

My custom felt letter balls are featured in Issue 9, page 13 of the gift guide and page 38, in ‘Summer Hits’. Each of the nine issues are available for free download from their website.

Their latest issue also includes articles for families traveling to New York and Tokyo.  The piece on Moomah, a restaurant/art-space in Tribeca, caught my eye. It looks like a feast for the senses and a great place to spend the afternoon.

Charcoal Boxes

I went on a wild tear today, following the rabbit down the hole of inspiration, feeling the joy of creativity for the first time since…how many days ago did I make the feltilocks? Two weeks ago. The dry spells are hard on me, but probably worse for those that have to live with me. It is amazing how fluid I feel on days like this. There is an endorphine rush that comes from imagining something, making it and then seeing it just the way you imagined it.

The idea started with three large pieces of heathered charcoal felt, I set aside yesterday. After working all day to create the felt, I  decided to back out of  a custom order for some extremely large felt boxes. Working on these three pieces of grey felt wore me down, physically and emotionally. I love the wool from Harrisville Designs for the beautiful texture and interesting color blends, but there is no doubt that it is a tough wool to felt. By the time I finished the third piece, my elbows and forearms ached. The order was for three boxes, requiring fifteen identical squares. In this busy season, I didn’t have the mental fortitude or the hours to commit.

The dried pieces of felt jumped at me this morning as soon as I came downstairs. I can’t even trace the source of the inspiration, probably seeing the bowl of felt leaves as I sewed the pinbacks on a batch of completed felt flower brooches.

After finishing the first two, I wasn’t sure where to go next. Rather than making a rash decision, I walked away from the sewing machine to document the finished pieces. Suddenly, it occured to me, as I was stuffing the rectangles just what I wanted to do. Bright circles were the perfect counterpoint to the more subdued colors I chose for the rectangles.

Sometimes when the weather is grey and the days blend into each other, you just have to grab the tail of inspiration and follow it, even if it means setting aside the schedule. There will be plenty of time for jumping back on the wagon tomorrow.

Feltilocks

I spent hours and hours yesterday working on an idea that had been buzzing around in my head for several months. When it started to appear in my dreams, I knew it was time to start working it out in the studio.

I first saw feltmaker Tash Wesp wearing a bracelet she made of felt dreads at a workshop we took together in May. While I didn’t want to knock off her idea, I couldn’t stop thinking about how to make my own version.

My felt workshops always generate lots of scrap bits of roving, and often when I create a work, there is just a tail end of a handpainted colorway too precious to throw away. The pile of ends was spilling out of its plastic bag, so it was time to put them to use.

When they are spread flat, the locks remind me of strange seastars washed up on the beach.

The best part was pulling the colors together to make different combinations. I spent two hours working on the color pairing for fourteen pieces. These are now available in my etsy shop and will also be for sale at the upcoming holiday fairs (watch here for a save the date announcement coming soon).

My daughter wore one in a ponytail to school this morning; the best I could do was pull together two tiny ponytails on top of my head. Walking down the sidewalk this morning, I couldn’t help skipping.

Whidbey Island Felting Retreat

Months have passed since I stepped out with a group of intrepid felters for a weekend retreat on Whidbey Island, two hours from Seattle. We rented a large classroom space at an art school and three bedroom vacation rental a short walk from the classroom. We piled roving, pool noodles, bubble wrap and a sense of adventure into our cars for a weekend of experimenting and hard work.

This was such an amazing weekend of fun, it is hard to put it into words. Besides the bags and bags of food, snacks and beverages; everyone brought their favorite felting books and bits of eye candy. We shared our personal stories, our dreams and our ideas late into the night, while working very hard during the day.

The muse and inspiration for the weekend was Chris White’s book Uniquely Felt. We pored over the projects, dissecting the aesthetics and merits of each, imagining departures from the originals. I’m not sure which was more fertile ground: the evening discussions or the daytime experiments.

We collaborated, critiqued and assisted each other with the projects without getting in the way or interfering. I really can’t imagine how it we managed to assemble such a harmonious group of symbiotic personalities.

Our classroom had lots of space and enough tables that we could each pull two six-foot folding tables together for a larger work surface than any of us had previously used. The classroom had kitchen counters with simmering pots of water and two sinks on one wall, making hot water and rinsing stations easy to access.

With no time constraints, we pulled out all the stops trying ideas that were percolating in the recesses of our imaginations, just waiting for the opportunity to be made into felt.

Some projects were a raving success, while others were a learning experience. I spent most of a day working on a wrap-around skirt idea that just didn’t work. Now I have a whole lot of felt yardage to show for it, and that idea has been put to bed. Should I ever want to try a felt skirt, I’ll know where to start and what not to do.

The Unique Felters from left to right: Leah, Jean, Linda, Paula and Jeanette.

Stepping Out

My camera and tripod went on field trip last week to photograph the work of Roberta Torgerson, artist and Italian teacher. Her modern home was the perfect backdrop for a photo shoot.

While the goal was to capture her mohair scarves for a new blog, I couldn’t resist letting my lens wander around the house.

Paintings, pillows, teardrop vases were irrestible props.

Roberta seemed surprised when I entered with my tripod, though I can’t imagine going anywhere without it since the best photos seem to come with the least light.

Her scarves were as light as a feather and as soft as the down on a newborn baby. Knitting with mohair leaves me crying for mercy, but I’m glad someone else enjoys it because these pieces are gorgeous.

Setting My House In Order

Things that are hard for me:

making plans
changing plans once they are made
being late
giving up control
compromise
making mistakes

There. I’ve said it. In black and white. I sound like a real peach don’t I? Wouldn’t want to work for me, would you, or live with me when the stress starts to mount. Me neither.

In order to mitigate the eventual breakdown that occurs in mid-November as I start to realize just how little time is left before my first show, I grabbed the bull by the horns: I made a schedule. It seems like a simple thing, I know. But for me it was a major breakthrough. It meant I was making a commitment, even if it was only to myself. Let’s see how we can get from point A to point B with a minimum of casualties and debris left by the side of the road.

In theory, there are six working hours in my day, once the kids are off to school, a modicum of clean-up is done in the kitchen and I’m dressed. Not typically a morning person, my days need to start slowly, so the hours before lunch are devoted to photography, updating my etsy shop and business. In order to stay current in the Etsy listings, I have begun adding new items to my shop every day, with a few hiccups here and there. So far, so good. The sales have begun to pick up a smidge and new items are appearing in the treasuries.

The afternoons are for production. Monday: felt pebbles, Tuesday: felt soaps, Wednesday: felt scarves, Thursday: felt balls/ornaments/geodes, Friday: felt flowers.

While I would really love to make scarves all day every day, the reality is that I don’t have the energy to keep up that amount of intense felting and I sell far more soaps and pebbles than scarves. So, that means putting my energy where the sales are.

I have two new consignments in the works (a shoe store in our neighborhood and a gallery in Lake Forest Park), a potential spot in an Australian magazine holiday guide, and three holiday shows. If I pace myself, and resist the impulse to race off in too many new directions, I may make it through the holiday rush with my sanity and my family’s affections intact.

Revisiting Old Pieces

There was something about this piece that always bugged me. It didn’t fit on the chest where I really wanted it to be. The ends flared in an ugly way, the felt retained the imprint of the bubble wrap. In every way it just looked unfinished, like I’d whipped it out in a hurry without taking the time to work it fully (felt never lies).

As I have grown in my feltmaking skills, looking at this piece day after day irked me, but I left it there as a reminder of my progress, humility being important as an artist and parent. There was another part of me that was too impatient to return to a piece, however imperfect, when there was something new to try.

Because the chest sits by the front door, it is the logical spot to dump books, keys and bottoms (cat and youngest child being the primary perps). After picking it up from the floor for the umpteenth time, I couldn’t bare to smooth it out again. So I brought it back to the studio for a little extra felting.

After soaking it in hot water for a few minutes, I worked it on the glass washboard, giving special attention to the uneven edges, pulling them into line. When I started working on it, the runner measured 49″ x 12″. After just a few minutes of agitation, it started to shrink dramatically.

Now it measures 37″ x 10″, is mostly rectangular and fits pefectly on the chest. Last night I smiled as I looked at it across the room. The colors have faded as the amber fibers migrated further to the front, but I think it works better now. At least it gives me satisfaction instead of pangs of disappointment.

Felt Pebble Soaps

Back in stock at long last, the limited edition felt pebble soaps that were so popular at last year’s Phinney Winter Festival are in my shop again.

Made with pure olive oil soap, these unscented bars weigh just over 2oz each. Each bar is  unique, varying slightly in color and shape, just like your favorite beach rocks.