It always seems to happen this time of year. I mourn for summer break. Maybe it’s because I live in a University town, maybe it’s because the weather and the smell in the air. The kids have all left town and teachers have the summer off, parents are making summer plans for their children and already I see kids out playing and running around while I drive home and back to work on my lunch break. Sometimes I’ll get sad or midly miffed when I see someone walking their dog or just sitting on a blanket in a park during the middle of the day. It’s like their mocking me with their open and free schedule that allows them to allot blocks of time in the middle of the day for “joie de vivre”.
The funny thing about it is that I can’t really remember ever having a summer break, not since I’ve been adult that is. I always held a job or two or three during summer. When I was in college teachers and advisors would say things like “Just you wait till you have to enter the REAL WORLD and work everyday, enjoy this time now” and I always took that with a chuckle because not only was a going to school, but I was also working 2 or 3 jobs. Really, I shouldn’t be missing something that I never had.
I was just surfing around the web and came upon the blog The Glass Doorknob (theglassdoorknob.blogspot.com). In just perusing the first page of her blog, I’ve discovered that Shari and her husband have just transplanted to rural Vermont and a much simpler way of life. This alone has given me pangs of memories of how I imagined my summers to be when I grew up. I had this vision that I would live in a very rural area and walk long gravel overgrown roads to get places. I’d live in a farm house, have a huge garden and a large yard with sunlight and shaded areas to hang by the hammock. I’d raise chickens and have a detached art studio/cabin and of course plenty of leisure time. Ahhh, could someone please pour me a glass of sweet tea?
The good news is that coming up pretty soon this summer we will be taking a mini vacation to Door County. A large group of my friends have booked up all the cabins at a particular campground. I’ve never been before but in my mind I imagine a lot of hiking, exploring, sharing good company, and most importantly slowing down and taking in the scenery. I can’t wait.
Archive for June, 2008 Page 2 of 2
It always seems to happen this time of year. I mourn for summer break. Maybe it’s because I live in a University town, maybe it’s because the weather and the smell in the air. The kids have all left town and teachers have the summer off, parents are making summer plans for their children and already I see kids out playing and running around while I drive home and back to work on my lunch break. Sometimes I’ll get sad or midly miffed when I see someone walking their dog or just sitting on a blanket in a park during the middle of the day. It’s like their mocking me with their open and free schedule that allows them to allot blocks of time in the middle of the day for “joie de vivre”.
The funny thing about it is that I can’t really remember ever having a summer break, not since I’ve been adult that is. I always held a job or two or three during summer. When I was in college teachers and advisors would say things like “Just you wait till you have to enter the REAL WORLD and work everyday, enjoy this time now” and I always took that with a chuckle because not only was a going to school, but I was also working 2 or 3 jobs. Really, I shouldn’t be missing something that I never had.
I was just surfing around the web and came upon the blog The Glass Doorknob (theglassdoorknob.blogspot.com). In just perusing the first page of her blog, I’ve discovered that Shari and her husband have just transplanted to rural Vermont and a much simpler way of life. This alone has given me pangs of memories of how I imagined my summers to be when I grew up. I had this vision that I would live in a very rural area and walk long gravel overgrown roads to get places. I’d live in a farm house, have a huge garden and a large yard with sunlight and shaded areas to hang by the hammock. I’d raise chickens and have a detached art studio/cabin and of course plenty of leisure time. Ahhh, could someone please pour me a glass of sweet tea?
The good news is that coming up pretty soon this summer we will be taking a mini vacation to Door County. A large group of my friends have booked up all the cabins at a particular campground. I’ve never been before but in my mind I imagine a lot of hiking, exploring, sharing good company, and most importantly slowing down and taking in the scenery. I can’t wait.
6.6 theo skirt, originally uploaded by robayre.
Last night I decided I was going to make a skirt. I have the book 49 Sensational Skirts and had some sudden and driven inspiration. I dropped by JoAnn Fabrics, where they were having a 60% sale on linen, went home and got to business. I wore the creation to work today, and although I did not get any “cute skirt” comments, I didn’t get any sideways glares either, so I’ll just take it as a compliment that people assumed it was a store bought skirt. It’s a simple, just below the knee black skirt with detailing on the left lower portion, seen above.
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I cut circles of yellow, gray and black patterned fabrics, layered 3 of them and tacked them down in random/balanced/assymetical position.
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I used the sewing machine to sew three stips down each stack of circles.
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Then I took the scissors and cut between the strips of sewing, dividing each circle stack into three divisions.
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Next, I trimmed away a little bit of each circle away, making each layer underneath slightly visible.
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Lastly, I went through each circle layer and fussed with the edging, letting it fray and look messy.
Voila, an adorable skirt.
One more thing, completely unrelated.
Within a week, it has gone from “okay, it’s finally getting to be summery” to “Dear Lord, please bring on a new ice age”. I hate the feeling that I want and need to take a second shower during the day because I’m sweating. yuck. Point being, all week the only thing I’ve craved are the following 3 things: slurpees, thai iced teas, and mcdonalds new sweet tea.
Have a great, cool weekend everyone!
A bunch of links I want to keep for future reference:
Inspire someone, contribute and destash
I’m proud to say that I am finally closing in on my latest Artomat series. Yeah, I know, it’s been a very looooong time. But when each painting takes so much time, and with such varied interests, it is hard to just commit and sit down and paint back to back to back.
I may be just about done with the miniature paintings, but it will still be a while before I am ready to send them in. Each of these paintings takes so long and has so much invested in it (building each miniature frame, creating a collage and then painting from the collage), that if I were to sell them individually on etsy or where-ever, I’d probably be pricing them no less than $30 each. The last time I contributed to Artomat, I blinked my eyes and they were already sold out. This time I hope to create about 2-300 prints (either silk screened, or gocco-ed) to space out the paintings with. The idea so far is to come up with about 20 to 30 little illustrations, pull 10 to 20 prints from each image, and then detail with watercolor.
