Well at Least I can do Something

I confess I am becoming frustrated. I have been without an artroom for two months (and with grandma there was all but without it for the two months previous-though at least I still had access to art supplies) and it begins to wear on me. I haven't been making so much art for the last long while, but I guess it was enough that the absence of all my favorite tools is making me cranky.

As is normal during the summer, I have been working quite frequently during those two months, and have not had the time to get into the city to buy stuff, shelves foremost. This reminds me of why I hate Broadview. Anyone else can just go to the lumber yard or what have you and get what they need. I have to drive an hour and a half-even more irritating since I can't frickin drive. Anyway, with nowhere to put art stuff, there's no opportunity to get it out and work on something. The room is half full of things I have rescued from mom's good idea of putting them all outside (granted in her defense, it's Saskatchewan. Our rainy season is usually like May. This year it was a lot longer, and hot).

Poor Art Schtuff. You were great and I'll miss you.

Anyway, since I can't do any of my conventional art, I made the executive decision to decorate the walls of the art room with flourishes. I had actually painted the walls two different shades of green, which is not immediately apparent, so when I did the flourishes I reversed them. I am still undecided if I am going to bring my two neutrals in or not. Just depends on how far along I get before I get the materials I need to finish the room.

Here is the corner between the two doorways; the original doorway was finished with no door.


As you can see.

These two pictures were pieced in photoshop, so they look a little odd. This is the south wall, with flourishes emanating from the outlet. This is the wall I am a little disappointed with. I think there is tweakage to do here.


Another pieced one, this is the east wall (trim for the window is another thing I have to buy)with flourishes starting at the corner of the window. The pictures unfortunately didn't actually overlap. I think this wall be my faevrit!



Since the room is so small and half full of the crap that I salvaged from the great outdoors, it's pretty difficult to take pictures of and get a feel for what I was doing. So here is the basic layout from the Book of Plans. The initial version of my flourish lemur is there too (you can see a bit of the better version of him on the page behind). I am not yet sure where he will go, though I am thinking on the wall by the dresser (which is why it has a little less ornamentation).



I never did take a picture of the other side of the west wall though.

Anyway, we have enough paint that I could always paint over it if I decide I hate it. We'll see.

The Reason the Internet Exists

For wasting time on really cool stuff, obviously. I am putting flourishes in the art room and found these ones. One word for all those words-AWESOME. The calligraphic forms of arabic have always made me want to learn it.
I had forgotten what a great site bibliodyssey is for the sheer amount of hours you can spend browsing on it. Only the best sites can do that...

Green Room Serenade

I am finally toward the end of completing grandma's room. If I hadn't been working, then waiting over a week for the trim to be delivered I might have gotten it done sooner. I am a terrible procrastinator though and we are still having no end of problems with the closet...So probably not.

I am also wasting time writing lists and making diagrams and other ideas for how I am going to fit everything I don't cull in to the other side. I have a book dedicated to this, about which Mama said "Oh no you are making PLANS." I don't know what her problem is. Several pages of to-scale diagrams are not obsessive, they are signs of organization or something like that.

Speaking of diagrams I've also become enamored of the idea of buying a new drawing board, but all the nice desktop ones come from the UK and cost like 90 pounds. I decided against a desk as all the split top ones cost lots of money and discriminate against me by having the flat part on the right side only.

Anyway, I have everything painted and most of the trim up, so we can move the furniture back in. As for the paint; my mom and grandma have one notion of colour and I another. Theirs being pale and wan versions of white and mine being, well colour:



I have wanted to paint that back room green for quite awhile, and now that it is two rooms I said I didn't care what was done with my side as long as it was green (which was a lie as the Book of Plans attests, but that was the paramount part of the plan even when I thought I was going to be able to have the whole room-as the Book of Plans also attests). Grandma who is not here at the moment will hate it but that's just too frickin bad.

Mom suggested what else but pale pale green. I countered with whining. What's the point of picking a colour if all I have to choose from are variations of white non-colours? We had the same argument when my own bedroom was built years ago. I had wanted blue and to my mother that meant bluish white. To me it meant blue. People would look and say 'hey your room is blue" blue. Granted both of these rooms are now impossibly small (8 ft and 5 ft) and if I'm being honest, the colours, even though they are not overly dark, do tend to overwhelm. Still I like to see real colours and that is what I have gotten. Now the whole house is shades of white with the exception of the rooms that I have involved myself in...
Dad always said that too many colours got you a Ukrainian house. Well they did give us perogies after all how bad could a Ukrainian house be?

Here you can have a look into the off-whiteness of Grandma's room, which should make us both happy.

The WORST

My brother finally managed to get down here and work on the back room (now rooms). Though he did the bulk of the work, he had to go back home before the mudding of the drywall was done. So I get to finish sanding.

This is how I feel about sanding drywall:

He was trying to say that mudding beads is messiest. WTF-does this look neat and clean to you? No I'm not a professional, but I've helped put up the drywall in almost every room of this house and I know for a fact the sanding is the WORST part. Bar none.
This was at about two in the morning (as I did the sanding after working an evening) and it was still about 30 degrees in there. It REALLY sucks when you are sweating so much that the drywall dust is turning back into mud as it hits your body.
And of course there was dust everywhere. Look at the drywall dust behind me! I had it in my hair, on my eyelashes and up my nose for heaven's sake.

And now I get to do it all over again. Bah.

Mine!

In his lecture on the background of the British drawing collection owned by the National Gallery, the curator who originally put this exhibit together reminded the audience that all of the drawings belonged to the people of Canada. So I already own a CRM-I just have to share it with 30 million other people. I don't know why they wouldn't let me get my time's worth out of it at by keeping it at my house for awhile.

Okay I didn't steal it, but I did buy the retrospective book that went with the exhibit, and by posting this picture from that am likely violating copyright so I'm still breakin the laaaawww.

At the time this was painted, the Mackintoshes careers were in the tank. While architectural and other design were abandoned, Charles focused on serene landscapes and continued doing his beautiful, painstakingly detailed flower paintings. I was reminded of the famous quote from a lecture he gave:

Art is the Flower...Life is the Green Leaf.
Let every artist strive to make his flower a beautiful living thing, something that will convince the world that there may be, there are, things more precious, more beautiful-more lasting than life itself.

I was so drawn to the cartouche, which he inscribed with his own and Margaret's initials in pencil.

The Salon itself was interesting. They had organized lectures, a piano performance (Mama and I only recognizing the most common of the four pieces he did-Clair de Lune-since we are part of the unwashed masses), a rather amusing tableau in which the performers re-created one of the paintings, and a poetry reading. All of these were interspersed with periods for conversational circles relating to various subjects. The major complaint I had was that the conversational circles were almost impossible to join in because we couldn't hear a thing. I tried very hard to hear the fellow who was involved in the work with the synchrotron, but to no avail.

At least we got booze and food-totally the redeeming part for mama. :-P She said it was just like all the functions she used to go to with dad; she had no idea what the hell they were on about half the time.


Here is what 100 of my dollars looks like. Why do art books always have to be so expensive? I think someone is trying to keep them from we unwashed masses or some such thing. Okay and they have lots of pictures-and colour ones at that.
I had to go back the next day and buy the book as the gift shop was closed during the Salon, then went back a third time and bought the Lanigan collection book. Since admission is by donation, I visited my favorite pictures-and especially the CRM-every time. :)
I didn't buy them at once was because I didn't think I could really afford both until mama the buying enabler got involved and told me to go back for the one on the left. Though both exhibits were beautiful, some of my favorites were from the Lanigan collection (he is reported to own the most impressive personal collection of PRB and related works in the country).


This one does however partially belong to me:

This is a detail of a large and meticulous pen sketch by David Wilkie chronicling a visit to Scotland of George IV. I just love this guy, he's all "who gives a rip about that fatarsed German king? Don't these people know if it's not Scottish it's crrap?!"

Leetle White Box of Nerd Cooties

As I type there is a little white box sitting on the desk of my room. As the title suggests, I am sure said little white box is jam-packed with nerd cooties, just waiting to be released so they can get me. Now one might think that because it is small there can't be that many cooties in there and conclude it is not so dangerous. Don't be fooled, for the strength of the nerd cooties in this box are particularly virulent and there is a thousand dollars worth of them in there. I'm also sure that, unlike their human hosts, they replicate like mad too. In fact the little white box is likely a nerd-cootie factory, one which I wouldn't be surprised to know runs on role playing games and science fiction films.


Behold The Cootie Machine:




EEeeeeeEeEEeeEeeeWWwwWWWwwWww!!!!!! Why did I pay money for this??!

Oh yeah because mama the buying enabler told me I had to.

I think she wants to poison me with nerdyness. What a slow and painful death that is, sadistic mama. She'll definitely never get grandchildren out of me now (not that she ever was mind you).

I also secondarily blame Grandma, as it is because of her that I must move the computer out of the back room and into my room where there is no room for the large tower I have now. I was looking at laptops but I didn't want to get rid of the lurvely wide-screen monitor I got for Christmas, and well, to me laptops kind of suck. I thought I might as well get a smaller computer that was wireless so we could keep the modem and router where they are-and I'd get to keep the Most Beloved Monitor.

Thirdly I blame my other Grandma, because mama had an ulterior motive in convincing me to buy the Leetle White Box of Nerd Cooties; she wants Grandma B. to have my old computer so they can all chat on the computer together (mama, aunts-who never visit my blog after I carefully erased all the evil things I said about them!!-and grandma). So she has a hand in it as well!

but you know it is so leetle and kind of cute-in a completely nerdtacular way...

BTW, "Leetle White Box of Nerd Cooties" has already become this computer's official name.

ETA and my keyboard doesn't work with it! Damn damn DAMN. Now I've unhooked everything from my other computer and I can't even work on the cootie machine.

Let's talk no more of the virus that has invaded my house.

Here is some consolation: about four years ago I bought six iris bulbs (or rhizomes or whatever the heck they're called) to plant in the crop circle because irises are one of my favorite flowers. When I got them, three were bad and the company replaced them, but I thought I might plant those away from the others. So I looked up how they were meant to be planted and cared for and carefully followed all instructions as I planted the nine bulbs I had. I waited and got...nothing.
It took a year or two before one lone little leaf appeared. I have been watching it with interest since, and finally this year, it got a flower. Yesterday the flower bloomed. So of those nine bulbs this is all I ended up with, but it is pretty so I think it was worth it. Maybe it's beautifulness is even powerful enough to cancel out the nerd cooties...

AaaaAAaart

While at work the other day, I was looking at a Saskatoon tourism booklet that had come with the paper. They had a listing of the current exhibitions at the Mendel Art Gallery. As the Mendel is just across the kinsmen park from what is still my grandma's apartment for the next month or so, I have spent many a good time hanging out there, looking at conceptual art involving cut up bodies and whatnot, and wondering who eats the bananas from the conservatory banana tree. It's always good to take some time to go there when we are in the city.

Anyway the Mendel is currently showing an exhibit of British Drawings from The National Gallery. The listing is graced by a nice Rossetti drawring, and the idea of resurrecting a drawing salon sounded kind of interesting so I figured I'd probably make a stop there when we go up in July. So I went to the website (I didn't even know the Mendel had a website) and saw that it's focused on Pre-Raphaelite work, which would be nice to see...then I saw those three special words.

You know the ones that cause heart fluttering and excessive swooning. That's right!

Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

AAAAAAAaaaaAAAaaaHHHHhhhhHHHH!!!!!

There's a drawing by CRM in Saskatchewan!! Now knowing me, you would be aware that I would be willing to travel there to see a piece of TP that was once stuck to the shoe of one of the Four. So you know I AM SO GOING to that now.

I am betting it's one of his smaller watercolours or flower paintings, nothing spectacular, as I think the Hunterian Gallery houses all the superextracool works of the Mackintoshes. Still wouldn't it just be awesome if it was that one...which name I don't know-but it's like my FAVORITE one, and it's all green and purple and crazy detailed and it has like shieldy-things, and I have it as my desktop background, and I close everything just to look at it sometimes, yeah that one-wouldn't it be awesome if it was that one?? I feel that either that or a textile design would be most worthy of the jail time I'd get for stealing it.


Mama will not agree to be my distractor however. I don't know what her problem is. I'm sure it will just be a little drawring and if I wear a big coat to hide it in no one will notice, even though it will be July when we go, because I'm skinny to start with.

And I'll delete this entry if successful of course.



Look I found my fave piece, isn't this...uh, superwickedawesome? I've only seen it in one book (from which I scanned it so the page break is visible in the centre) and don't know the title. It is so thick with detail-I do wish I knew what the heck was going on.

To You I Am An

Open Book, frontispiece; felt pens


Open Book, opened up; felt pens

So, as a constant ripper-offer, I am always trawling about for ideas to steal. When I had been all gung-ho about finding myself a letterpress (before grandma came) I was also into looking at the art of printing, which inevitably leads one back to Dard Hunter.

This piece originally was to look extremely different, but it evolved farther away from the initial design to the gatefold and the layout-all I had to choose was the font and the designs to sit between the text. I ended up hand drawing a Hunter-like text with a classic Roycrofter tulip. I also decided to re-create the type of justification of some of his books.

This was going to be the mock-up and it is done on plain manilla. However the inked piece took sooo long and ended up looking good enough that I decided to colour it and keep it as the final piece if possible.

My colouring was terribly messy, and I'm going to have to see what I can do to clean it up. I've never been so good with brush markers, though I know a lot of people like them. Other than that I think it turned out okay.

Random Things I HATE.

Since I just got finished with another round at the freakin dentist. This is one of the things I hate most in life. Dentist visits combine so many things I hate. Needles, gross tasting crap, RAINCOATS (God I abhor raincoats, burn them all in the lake of fire) drowning in your own saliva, and then paying lots of money to be tortured in such ways and have them tell you "don't drink caffeinated beverages with sugar." Hello. I can't function at five AM without being hopped up on a steady diet caffeine and sugar. If I weren't terrified of needles, I'd start an IV of it, then it wouldn't bother my teeth. Would that make you people happy?
And my TMJ always kicks the crap out of me for at least a week after a visit to the dentist.
Especially irksome is that I phoned in NOVEMBER to make this appointment and the earliest booking date was today. And losers are always whining "if we had a private health care system there would be no long wait times". When we booked for next year they told us they were booking into March already. Yes March. Considering that is only for a checkup it sounds like an inordinately long wait time to me, fools.

Getting ice cream at the end is the only thing that makes it better.

Anyway, this reminds me of all the other things that happen to have earned the label of "things I loathe with all the fire in my soul." This would be an incomplete list of my phobias and neuroses, as I find new things to hate every day. But here are the ones I can think of.

Phoning people. I hate to impose on people, probably because I consider answering the phone to be such an imposition. I usually just wait until the caller hangs up and then "pretend" to answer. Darn I missed it. I hate having to talk on the phone when I am involved in something else, especially if I am on the land line so I can't go over to the computer or my project and work on it anyway.
I was probably the only fifteen year old girl that when the phone would ring, instead of running to get it, would look around and say " so is someone going to get that?"

The title MS. As the old song goes this is the salutation for "knock-kneed bimbos walking like ho's". If you don't know why don't ask. And if you do, nod your head. And call me Miss while you're at it.

DOGS.

Getting my hair cut. I really can't rationalize this one, I just know that I really hate having to go to the salon and trying to communicate "DON'T DO A FRICKIN HACK-JOB" effectively.

Pretentious A-holes that use macs. Or any brand loyal pretentious A-holes for that matter. I have been thinking of getting a mac cube because they are leetle, but I don't really want to be that associated with A-holes incorporated. I do have an ipod, but it was a gift, and I swear at it and it's retarded clickwheel a lot.

Unitarian Cuddlefests of Tolerance and Diversity (yes I use this title as an archetype...often).

The trend of renaming every building and auditorium the "Credit Union" Centre. EVERY one. Centre of the Arts-Credit Union Centre. Sask Place-Credit Union Centre. Centennial Auditorium Credit frickin Union Centre. So you have no idea what they are talking about when they say "so-and-so will be playing at the Credit Union Centre." The real kick to the teeth was when Taylor Field was renamed Mosaic Stadium after some financial institution. At least it isn't Credit Union Stadium I suppose.

Worms! Aughghghghgh I have a longstanding phobia of maggots and worms. We've always had cats and they'd eat mice and then get worms. At which point I would pitch the cats out of the house like they'd just been blown from a rocket launcher. I remember Baba was especially bad for eating prey, and when wormy would look all sad and mew as if to say"why don't you want to cuddle me?"
At which point I'd kick him and yell "get away, wormbutt!!!" Then wash my shoe.
A few years ago I found out that this particular hatred actually has a name; helminthphobia. Personally I blame grandma for this one.

Living in a small town where everyone thinks your business is their business too because they are all above you since you are an outsider and they are all inbred Lords of the Town.

Farmers who say "without us none of you would have jobs" when four out of every five dollars they make is subsidized by the government which obtains it by taxing...all the people with regular jobs.

EI. This is not a government slush fund!

Why don't we have an American style Senate yet? I don't give a rip about our commitment to reduce fartyness. I want my damn Senate reform. This is why I voted for you people.

The Winnipeg Bluebombers, the most cheating bunch of bastards ever to live. And they are the most hated team in the league too, ask anyone!

I am torn as to whether I can truly hate the Riders, even though that useless sack of crap Kent Austin is back again. Grandma said "Well he did get us a cup", to which I replied "So did Ronnie Lancaster." She stopped there.
Okay so here is the paradox; I hate Kent Austin while I love the Riders. I hope they fire him soon. Tomorrow would be good.

Christians conflating the Gospel and...anything really.

People who play "how can a loving God allow bad things to happen to good people" like it's a trump card or something. Ah where the hell are these good people they keep talking about? Spirited away on some deserted island so that I have never never seen one of them? This only happened ONCE people and I think we could argue effectively that the salvation of the world was pretty good.

Which reminds me, Christians denying total depravity.

Certain stuffy people in the art world that don't realize Marcel Duchamp is probably laughing at them from the grave RIGHT NOW. I am convinced he just wanted to see if people would take his work as the ultimate parody seriously, and they totally did. I am with the artist who sledgehammered the Fountain; he was only part of the continuum of dada.

Passive-aggressive omega people. They always seem to pick me to annoy-unwisely as the end result usually involves taunting, tantrums and ultimately physical violence.

My skin. I am reacting to something yet again, probably air, or the effects of someone looking cross-eyed at it.

Some of the retarded rules of the health care system, most especially the interpretation of the right to privacy and the right to self-determination. Thanks alot for that.

Which reminds me; the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Way to render our legal system FUBAR. Apparently Trudeau was never educated in the "if it ain't broke don't fix it you total idiot" school. I would like to shove that thing where the monkey stuck the peanuts, as grandma would aptly say.

People that don't realize if it's not Scottish, it's CRrrAAP!


Wow I hate a lot of things, don't I. Well maybe I will do a Things Which Have Garnered My Complete and Total Adulation post to balance it out. I don't really think it will be as long. Or as fun.

ETA: I JUST got an email which says:

HINDER Playing July 10 at the

CREDIT UNION CENTRE.

Which one I will never know. The coincidence is weird.


ETA again; I totally forgot some of my most hated things!

BATH SHIFTS. I can never get through one without someone having a bm in the tub. NEVER. often more than one. Though if they wanted to really clean up the mineral deposits the water leaves in the tub, poop clears it right off. Why don't I mark myself NBS???

I am also listening to While My Guitar Gently Weeps, which reminds me that I hate covers of While My Guitar Gently Weeps.
If Eric frickin Clapton was secure enough in his abilities to do restrain the showy crap in deference to the theme and feeling of the song, certainly someone else should be able to as well. But NO. These people apparently have serious cases of aphasia, since they don't seem to realize that While My Guitar Gently Weeps is not the same thing as While My Guitar is Played in a Technically Impressive Manner by Me Aren't I Cool. Idiots.
I am sure there is a purgatory for crappy covers of great songs, and all covers of this song belong there-only the original should be kept from burning. Well the re-working of the demo on Love is quite beautiful, but it too has the advantage of George Harrison as opposed to the losers singing it.

Dip Dip

I am an "idea person". There are usually several things running around on my little hamster wheel at any given time. Quite some time ago I had the idea that I would like very much to make the Alexander McQueen jacket offered on the showstudio site in a crisp but heavy silk done in arashi shibori with indigo and black walnut or some type of tannin-producing dye in order to create a subtle vertical striation on the jacket. The other day I remembered that I had planned to do this, and at that point it was getting warm enough to bother running some trials.

Yay project planning! The joy of my OCD-riddled existence!!

First I had to throw La Retardado off of my dyeing coat (I made that when I were in hippyland so you can guess which one it is).


I have a little vat I created in 04 or 05-I can't remember which, but I know it definitely sat all of last year. I figured I would probably have to dump it due to it's age and multiple freezings and begin again. But hey, I'll see what it's doing first. I was more than a little surprised to see the vat begin to turn after a shot of thiourea dioxide-when I dunked a little corner of fabric in I did get colour. It still looked peaked so I decided to keep the vat and add some more indigo to it.

This is the test cloth after dipping.

I am going to get an aquarium heater for the vat, as I think it will be much more successful if I can control the temperature. That water is freezing frickin cold right now.

I use the recipe from prochem for the lye-thiourea dioxide vat. And I have my lye locked away in the Ugly Metal Thing-so don't even think about it meth-heads of the world. BTW you all suck for making lye so difficult to get.

I find this type of vat easiest, and there are measurements there for a small vat. Mama would probably never allow a fermentation vat, as we have a large enough ecosystem to deal with under the house already.

And before you ask, No I do not use urine.

Here is the stock I made. Look at the the lovely blossoms on the spoon-Mem, this is what you would paint yourself with-if you are tough enough to do so that is...See how it is becoming an ugly green underneath the surface-which is what you want, as it means the oxygen has been stripped. I have never gotten the perfectly clear yellow that indigo white is meant to be, but it works well enough.

I didn't think it would reduce properly at all, as I dunked the jar in some hot water, thinking it would hold up like the canning jars (I'm not too sure where the actual gem jar that I usually have used is). When I heard *crack* I did about the stupidest thing anyone with SFB would have known not to-I picked it up. Half-reduced indigo went all over the deepfreeze (or all-purpose workstation for all the Moores and Moore-like peeps out there). Okay, I thought as I surveyed the damage, not too bad at least it didn't really go everywhere...went in to get some paper towel, came back and looked at the floor:


Oh.


Look at all the precious indigo-wasted! And it was getting to be quite a light green as it flew everywhere too-I think that is why it didn't seem so bad at first. Reduced for naught!! Wahahahaaaa....
My docs no longer have their famous yellow stitching at the toe either, they now have an odd sort of grey-green stitching. And I tracked it through the house. Thanks be to God that it had oxidized already at that point. Heh.

Mom saw it and said "ah well at least you didn't have it in the house (this of course was after I hurriedly wiped up all the blue doc ska sole marks on the floor). Double Heh.

It's not the worst I've ever done. I used to spill india ink fairly regularly until my parents banned me from using it until I should reach the age of majority.

Well the rest of it did reduce alright and went into the vat, which is now a nice green. Here is how the vat looked after adding the new indigo. Still as cold as Cocytus though.

I think the indigo on the top of a vat is just about the most beautiful colour. It is rather metallic, kind of coppery but purple...or blue or...something...I wish there was a way that it could be used, and keep the sheen of it. Ephemeral beauty is the most irritating!

I lost the first piece of fabric somewhere so I got a new one to test how well that took. I will never cease to be fascinated by the process of oxidation on a piece of fabric that has just been pulled out of the vat. It's just beyond cool to watch it change colour slowly from ugly snot to beautiful blue! Such a metaphor for life...okay I am not the kind of person who can resist rolling their eyes when such metaphors are made. Here is my fabric oxidizing.


Right about this time mama came around the corner and said "why the hell are you taking pictures of it?" To which I replied " I will post this to my blog-it's for the new PROJECT!" Then she left, muttering something to the effect of "yeah the project, whatever. You're going to wreak that camera." She is always that supportive of the projects.

While I was out there I took a picture of the lilac bushes, they look pretty nice right now-obviously the town has not sprayed their yearly hit of roundup so that the entire east end of town can look like a nice little nuclear waste zone. Usually the lilacs protect the rest of our yard, but they sacrifice themselves along the way. anyway I can't believe that this quarter of our yard only looks kind of crappy as opposed to utter crapaciousness. I planted grass, I hope it can defeat the weeds out there and manage to live. That is mama's superpowerbarbeque under the tarp in the corner there, and of course the picnic table/other all purpose work station.


Here is my fabric after the second dip, I added the elastics before doing that. Again you can see the process of oxidation when I fanned the fabric apart to let the air hit the folds. This is why indigo has proven to be such a fast (and therefore desirable) dye. Once it oxidizes, it is insoluble in water. Hence the need for reduction, stripping away of the oxygen from the dye molecule, or fermentation. Such is the nature of vat dyes.

Al 2.3 & 2.7 and Bonus Eye

When I made the leetle goatlet for my own fibre fairy, as I have mentioned, I was told that his name was Al. I am going to guess that was an alliteration thing. Anyway Al's owner liked leetle Al very much and back in December she asked if I might make a couple more for her family members who had also admired him.

Oh sure, I said.

I probably should have added something to the effect of it's only going to take me SIX MONTHS to get around to finishing them.

So here six months later are leetle Al 2.3 and 2.7 (O.G Al and my first rendition being Al 1.0 and 2.0 respectively) sitting on one of my grandma's old aprons:


Happy that they are fully covered as they have sat on the computer desk naked since February. Can't you see the joy on their wonky leetle faces?

ETA, speaking of wonky, I just have to post this picture-because for some reason I have always been very proud of the genetic anomaly that caused my wonky eye and love to tell people about it.

I wanted to take a different picture for my avatar-one that would disguise the genetic anomaly that did NOT give me the skinny nose I deserve.
Anyway when I took this picture, the flash made my hair look orange like that flash always does, so I colour corrected it in photoshop-and lo and behold, there is my wonky eye, plain as day. It usually never shows up in pictures.

If you can't tell, my left iris is split in half colourwise. The top of it is green as the other eye but the bottom is brown. Basically I got mama's eye colour gene with a random bit of dad gene attaching itself in there. Now I've met and heard of many people who have two completely different coloured irises, but I've never met anyone (and only ever heard of one other) that had one iris that is split into two definite colours like that.

Oddity being the epitome of coolness, I have always loved my weird eye. I can remember when I was a child my mom was always hoping it would change colour to all green as I got older, while I dreaded that it would.
For some reason though people often think my eyes are brown. Ah no only half of one is...

I secondly think it's hilarious that my infamous grey hair is peeking out. People always seem drawn to pull out that particular grey hair. Often with only the warning "you have a grey hair, let me get it" *Yank*. It survived the last attempt on it's life by a co-worker the other day.
One time I had a resident point it out, and when one of the other girls teased him for being impolite, he protested "But mine are all grey". Ha.

I also have to say that judging by the look on my face in that picture, I think I may have been planning the Knife-stick match of DOOM or wondering how much more I would like the hellions if they were slathered in barbeque sauce. Heheh.

LOOKIT

BLUUUUE SHOOOOES of DOOOOOM!

And indeed, with 4-and-a-half inch heels they may just be heralds of doom. At least people will notice my shoes if they cause me to go arse over teakettle.

After so many long sad days of searching and being met with nothing but a slough of crocspond, or being thwarted by the sartorial deities (er, patron saints I mean, patron saints.) in any attempt at procuring my much-needed blue shoes, lo I finally have them in my hot little hands-eh feet. Well you know. This totally makes up for the recent prickishness of certain family members (also the photos are at my house where they will remain, suckas!).

Never thought I'd own a pair of "designer shoes" as even I won't justify such outrageous prices for a couple of pieces fabric, leather and foam- but such was the depth of my need of the blue shoes-and it didn't hurt that they were actually fairly cheap as they are at end of-the-line sale.

Like Odysseus and his Ithaca, determination has brought me and the shoes together at last. Yeay!

I actually made a "Dr Tongue's 3D House of Blue Shoes" video of the shoes. I am such a freakin nerd.

Because I am a useless sack of...of...of the opposite of willpower when it comes to shoes I still ended up getting the Carlos, just in red as that was all there was on ebay.
Now I suppose I should probably give lots of money to charity to make up for my excessive nature. That's not exactly like an indulgence is it? No it's that I have more shoes to love, and my heart is so full of joy. I want to share the blue shoe joy.

>:-(

Damn youtube! It won't let me watch Thriller!!!

I did however LMAO at Fight for Your Right. I had totally forgotten about the pies. Hahahaha!

Also these guys are so so SO beyond funny. Them doing Jump On It also fills me with mirth. I must take a minute for gratitude that youtube did not exist when I was a kid, as my best friend and I would have so been arsing around in exactly the same way and posting it.

Thank you God!!

ETA: I fixed the link to the dudes.

Sam a Trois

Sam has not always been a curmudgeonly old nasty dog. He used to be quite easy going, and as far as dogs go was about the best you were going to get. We are not dog people at the best of times, but we have sort of gotten on with the dog-dad looked after him most.

My own theory is that dad in his estimation was the omega (bottom dogson) of the family and now that dad is gone, Sam knows he is the omega. As nobody wants to be the bottom of the pile, he is behaving aggressively and being wilfully disobedient in the hopes of challenging us for our spots in the family and having at least one dogson to look down on. When he does it of course I have a tendency to see red and start beating him with whatever is convenient, especially when he starts snarling and/or snapping at me. Mama is just as bad, and so he is always making trouble for himself.

He used to be pretty good natured. He let me dress him up as Osama Bin Laden:



And he let me put him in a cart and make him pretend to be a postal employee (though you can't see it he is wearing a postal tie) :


And I used to play fight with him.


Now I am usually just fighting with him. My SIL said that on the farm they often had dogs that got mean and ugly in their old age. I don't know if that is Sam's problem or if he will get over being his Majesty the Prick of Tails. As we will never get rid of him until he dies of extreme old age, I rather hope he does.

Part Deux

Have I ever mentioned my undying hatred for DOGS? Because I really do HATE DOGS.

I seem to be getting a little deja vu here...

My brother insists that we keep his stupid dog-he just loves the dog so much, never mind that he has not bothered to take responsibility for the stupid thing in 10 years. So we spend thousands upon thousands of dollars and all MY time keeping his dog.
It really wasn't that bad because Sam used to be a reasonably good dog (as far as dogs go) but over the last few years he has been getting incredibly obstinate and cantankerous. I threw him out of my room yesterday and he returned the favour by trying to chomp my leg off (at which point I started whacking him with my moleskine-and we tore the picture of bannock damnit).

I just noticed that one of the bites looks startlingly similar to a mocking smiley face:


Can't you just see it saying "Haha you will have to look after the dog forever."

Looking after other people's dogs will obviously be a punishment in one level of hell or another.

Guess who pooped everywhere

ihatedogsihatedogsihatedogsihatedogsihatedogsihatedogsI hate dogs I hate dogs I hate dogs I hate dogs I hate dogs I hate dogs I HATE DOGS

I HATE DOGS.


That is all.

In Which I Make A Dress

Digging through the piles of fabric reminded me of all the projects I had planned-a lot of it had been bought for specific pieces. One was a cheapo flowery clearance fabric I had bought to make this dress. Since it's finally getting warm enough to wear something like that, and the fabric once again has come to see the light of day, I figured I might as well make it.

When I sewed it together, I discovered the bodice was too big. Lessons learned-if you are going to make a muslin, don't wait until a year afterwards to make the actual dress as you will likely forget what alterations you had to do. I still have the muslin version I made last summer...heh.
Here is what it looked like after the first fitting-the muslin is behind me (black flowered fabric) :

I think this is an excellent picture of my tongue. The prints are due to the fact that I am always walking into this mirror (as you can see they are about nose height).

ETA-with access to photoshop (which is on my computer and not on mama's) I fixed the pictures-a little anyway.

So had to hack a bit of the bodice off, widen the seams and move the straps. Ultimately it worked out not bad. Then I had to find the zipper, which diabolical forces hid for a few hours before placing it in plain view on my desk. This happens to me often, and I know it's either boggarts or employees of Monsanto doing it. As Dad would say, "CATTLE PROD."

Certainly if we do have brownies, they have long since turned to boggarts, because they sure DON'T CLEAN ANYTHING.

Now where was I...Try as I might I couldn't get a picture that was actually in focus, maybe that's because the glasses I have on are from two prescriptions ago as I broke my regular ones at work last week-I hate those old glasses! they just accentuate the sausageyness of my already sausagy nose. Anyway-this is the best one (ignore the glasses please).


I notice that the state of my room is quite distracting-you can see the frickin floor!! But the bed and the desk are covered with crap so that's alright.

Here is a better picture of it, though wrinkly and unhemmed as of yet.


Now all I need is the fates to quit conspiring against me and my need for blue shoes to go with it.

Hemming it would probably be a good idea too.

I hate that I can't sew at four in the morning anymore. Richard says he is going to come down and we can convert the one room back into two, so Grandma can sleep and I can sew and dicker around on the computer. Of course Grandma is usually awake at that time anyway.

My Train of Thought Rides A Twisty Rail

I have finally regained access to my keyboard!!!

I have had to completely rearrange this back room-and I had just gotten through my yearly bout of "cleaning" (which admittedly left it looking far worse than it had beforehand).

We got a call from my uncle a week ago all worried as only he can be-my grandma was insisting she wanted to move. We've since found out she is also is not taking her meds or eating or leaving her house. Then says "I don't know why I am getting such terrific headaches". Frick. Her doctor has told mama that she's giving herself CVA related dementia from not takeing the blood pressure meds. Double frick.
It is obvious her independent days are over and we have decided to bring her down here where of course she will move into the back room for now. While I thought I might put her in my room and move back here, I think that may have required even more work. Though my dresser was built for the closet back here...feh.

While mama went to get her I got to stay home with Estupido dog, and change the room around. I guess I could say I've made several discoveries as I moved all the stuff:

Damn I have a lot of fabric. I mean day-mn! It didn't seem that bad when I was organizing it a month or so ago, only six drawers full...Well one was full of UFO's. But now that I am trying to find some other place for six drawers worth of fabric-well, damn.

I have like ten years worth of VK's. Huh. And probably ten years worth of yarn to go with them. I forgot how beautiful some of the yarn is, or what I bought it for, for that matter. I petted the yarn for awhile, that was nice. I think I might hoard silk like Fafnir hordes gold. Death before relinquishment of the silk-not necessarily mine either.

I found the dirt I stole from PEI!

I hope whoever put the house breaker box in the wall of this huge closet so we could never make it smaller or change it has long since been choked with electrical wire.

Also that whoever painted my little sideboard bright blue died as a result of the paint being lead based. Why did I tell old Fridolf that I had one of the doors for that? He refused to make two new ones because "that one is perfectly good". And I knew darn well he'd do that. Now I have one nice one and one covered with the wicked vestiges of the electric blue paint of death.

Of course maybe it would matter if I could find the hinges I bought and actually put them on.

My dad had quite the doorknob/hinge collection. None of which fit the new door I had to put on the room...I ended getting annoyed and attacking it with my angle grinder when it wouldn't fit. It does now!

He also had a nice door collection in the shed, but I knew that. He used to rebuild the doors for sound, and the one I took off was substantially heavier than the one I replaced it with.

Also many were reconstructed after another round of hurricane Richard. One was "fixed" (I use the term loosely) by Phil trying to disguise the fact that he had smashed the front door in with a golf club. If he was your brother you'd lock him out of the house too.

The pantry door is still in one piece out there! No reconstructions.

I had to use my lino cutter on the door because if I can't see something I can't find it, and the chisel got pushed under a bag of garbage and ceased to exist for awhile.

Dad also had a ski wax set in the Ugly Metal Thing (a cabinet of sorts in our porch). It, along with the sideboard came from our camper and when we got rid of it, we brought them home. they were both covered in green, orange and yellow flowered mac-tac. Think of the fugliest patterns the 70's could conceive, that is this mac-tac. "Assault on the eyes" is simply not enough to convey it's hideousness. The Ugly Metal Thing still has it.

Also in the Ugly Metal Thing was the adaptor Mr Korfman gave us when he converted Richard's fisher price tape player to AC. Mr. Korfman could fix anything, especially electronics or bikes that you had wrecked while trying to pop-a-wheelie or something. I had a Micheal Jackson radio that never worked until he fixed it. It's probably a given, but that was back when a Michael Jackson radio was cool enough to be worth fixing. It was red and black of course. I saw Mr Korfman when I was on my practicum as he had returned to town for a visit. I wonder if he still fixes kids' bikes and radios.

I found an adaptor in with all the wires from the computer, with no corresponding thing to be adapted. No idea where it came from.

My idiot brother has kept issues of Run from 1986 because he thinks they will be worth money someday. They are full of things to do with your commodore 64. I wonder whatever happened to the commodore 64. I remember one time my auntie was coding a game on it and she was almost done when one of Phil's friends accidentally turned the power off. Hours of work -for naught! Haha.

I wonder if I'll ever be able to remember how to put that quilt hoop together again.

Happy now I did not buy a spinning wheel!!

I've had too many years of owning that back room, I had crap EVERYWHERE. And now I am not particularly sure what I am going to do with all of it, especially the books that had been in the side of the closet I converted into bookshelves and now is a closet again. I have to do something with this computer too.

Wow that is very rambley-well now you have a little look into the little hamster wheels of my mind's workings.

ETA-with all of that, I forgot to mention it is Athanasius Day. Have a happy belated fight to the death for the truth!

Some Instructive Use of Time

As someone who's greatest skill happens to be time wastagement, I thought I should take up the old adage "misery loves company" and show off some of best time wasting sites I have found recently. Mostly while looking for California bungalows and the Glasgow style, as I do with probably improper regularity.

Unified Vision-Prairie architecture in Minnesota. I have spent two days looking at this! The tour of the Purcell-Cutts house is worth the time taken (the glass in the fireplace is just about the coolest idea ever). Easy to get lost in and with great attention to detail, this is what Arts and Crafts concepts applied to web design would look like I think-very fitting.

Nocloo-children's Book Illustrations-This site features illustrations from Arthur Rackham, Maxfield Parrish, Kay Nielson, and Glasgow girl Jessie M King (this is how I found it) among others.
From there I found Art Passions-more fabulous illustrations!
I must say I find it entertaining that there are many versions of the Arabian Nights and other Near Eastern stories, and in the bulk of them the women seem to have an invariable dislike toward clothing. Sure they're drawn replete with necklaces, bracelets, anklets, hair ornaments or turbans, just no actual clothes. Having said that, I do particularly like Dulac's version-a notable exception.

What a great job they had.

Hunterian Gallery A great collection of the Glasgow style (just click on Mackintosh and spend some time engrossed in the world of The Four)-This is the first website that I've seen feature solo works of J Herbert Macnair. It also features a tour of the Rebuilt interior of the Mackintoshes house in Glasgow. One of these days I am going to get myself to Glasgow and take in everything.

...Of course I will have to find a way to inoculate myself from the artschoolitis I am prone to first, as I know that if I spend much time at/near the Glasgow School of Art, I will be making plans about going to art school again. Such is the nature of the disease-I can't get within 20 feet of an art school without deciding yet again that I should totally go to art school-the ultimate time waster.

Now I need to find a really comprehensive gallery of Archibald Knox. I would be happy to find some more work of the likes of this.

Ramblings

So I have been continuing to organize the wild jungle of memoorebilia we call a bookshelf. Look at how nice and *comparatively* neat it has become! (Don't look at the floor.)



I told you not to look at the floor.

Notice that the books in the lower centre shelf happen to be holding up the shelf above them. Unsurprisingly, those books had to stay where they were.

I maxed out my free membership on librarything at 202, I got one and a half shelves of this set in! Dad actually had more than one edition of many of his books I have discovered. Clearly I will need to break down and buy a membership to do the collection justice.
Mama also thinks this is a good idea-and therefore not a complete waste of time as my usual pursuits like sitting around and sleeping are-as we will have an actual catalogue of books just in case her fervent and often loudly vocalized wish to have the house burn down is ever realized.



Look what I found as I perused the shelves! It was fun to look at and see all the old guys, Bobby Jurasin-I still have our "Rider Sun" bandannas in the cedar chest, Ray Elgaard-I still can't believe they didn't retire 81-bastards!, Roger Aldag-whose nearly life sized cut-out Richard used to sleep next to heheh, Don Narcisse, and all the guys from the days when we actually managed to win a cup for the whole second time in the last hundred years. Back then, we kids had season tickets in the cheap seats but always sneaked into section 28-especially if those dirty cheating Bombers were there-so we could yell along with the drunk college students at the opposing players bench directly in front. And the flame was still there!

Ah good times....sniff.

I am hoping I can teach Avery to bleed green as he was very interested in my Gainer key chain when we were there for Easter (yes yes never mind that it just looked like a little stuffed toy to him). I don't know what I'll do if he ends up a lamo stamps fan.

Anyway, back the book; as good as the memories may be, I cannot believe this page existed in my house for all these years without having me deface it:


My family used to laugh at my undying hatred for Kent Austin. They of course would bait me by mentioning that Kent thought our recent loss of say 65 to 3 was still a good game because he felt he played well. AUUUGGGG! Kent Austin YOU SUUUUUUKKKK! Ahem. Sorry, flashback. (I come by this honestly, BTW, as my Grandma hated Ron Lancaster with an equal fury. Forever locked in my memory is "Look Ronnie is going to start crying...")

I have ALWAYS regretted not being at the game the 13th man won against BC the first year after Kent Austin was traded to them, which I think was only a season or two after this. That was unfortunately the first year we didn't get season tickets. It also happened to be like the only game we won of the season, and one of the few BC lost. If time travel were ever made possible, forget all the "big" events of history, I would sign up to go to that game.

I so would have harangued the crap out of him with the drunks in section 28.

Speaking of which, I bet this page could still make good bog roll...