This Summer

This summer went by entirely too fast! We spent a week at the beach and Miss Priss loved it - she is very much a beach bum. She had a pirate party for her birthday. It was a lot of fun. If anyone is taking kids to Panama City Beach, the Pirate Cruise was the best money we spent all week. We can't find enough good things to say about it.

During July I participated in Ravelry's WIP Wrestlemania. For those who don't knit, a WIP is a work in progress. I have way too many, and I got about 12 of them completed during the month. I played on Team Tardis.

I also painted a butterfly for Decatur's public art project, Arts Aflutter:

I am also painting a rain barrel for a similar project in Huntsville.

That's all I have for now - I have been putting most blogg-ish stuff on Facebook, so my blog has been neglected!

Plexiglass Drypoint

I am planning on spending 6 weeks with my Art II class on printmaking next year. I wanted to create an intaglio lesson plan - we have a small, seldom used press. I had heard of using plexiglass for engraving, but didn't know if it would work well with water-based ink. I did a little playing around to try it, and it will be fine for high schoolers.

I've never done anything but collagraphs and relief printing, so this was new to me. I did a little doodle & some scribbles to see how it would work.


I added waterbased printing ink:


and scraped it into the cracks with a piece of plastic (an old driver's license):


Then I wiped off all the excess ink with old phone book pages:


My brand new press didn't work right, but I managed to get a semi-decent print - the only bad part is it's very light. Once I get my press fixed (or replaced) I will experiment a little more and see if I can get it darker. Maybe if I don't soak the paper. See how light it is?


It only bled in a couple of places, though. I should be able to tweak it to use in class.

Motivation

Plurk has motivated me to update my blog. I have finished another room, the second-worst in the house. I present to you the sewing room:

It's not really a room, but a section of the downstairs that is blocked off by my storage shelves and cubbies:

On the other side of the blue shelf and white cubbies (my cheap acrylic storage, decent yarn is on the other side and really good yarn is upstairs) is the TV area. Working around the room, you can see the rest of the shelving on that side (and the 'door') and my fabric storage (unspun fiber is on the other side).

I am very happy with how it has turned out. I still have to organize my fabric and yarn, but it will do for now - the goal is for me not to be ashamed for someone else to see it, and here it is on my blog, so I need to work on other areas of the house next. 

My sunroom is next. It is where I do my painting, jewelry making, and all other artwork except for knitting and ceramics. I will have to move some things around in the closets in my sewing room (if I haven't used what's in them in the past year, I probably can get rid of it) so I can move some things I don't use so much down from upstairs. Then I will have space to get things done. Right now I don't have space to move up there!

The Swing of Things

Well, school is finally over for the summer and I have a week before I start teaching again (as long as everything goes as expected).  I have spent all of my free time organizing, trying to make my house something that I'm not ashamed for other people to see.  I started with the laundry room, which is also my closet.  One of the perks of living in a 100+ year old house is very little closet space.  Instead of ankle-deep in laundry (or deeper), like it used to be, it now looks like this:

That is all of my dresses, suits, skirts, pants, and SCA clothes.  No more dirty clothes on the floor!  The washer and dryer are here:

That is 'line dry' stuff on the small wheeled rack (I love it!), and everything else - tops, coats, sweaters, purses, shawls - is in the two closets and the small drawers below them.

Spare linens are in the top cubbies.

I have been able to keep the laundry room like this for about a month, so I hope it is permanent.  What I am really excited about is this:

It used to be the computer room (but now we use laptops and don't need the big desk, CD's, etc.  I have been calling it the weaving room or weaving studio.  Joe calls it (insert drumroll and in a deep voice, announce) "The Loom Room of Doom" - dum dum duuuuum.  

He built the shelves for me:

 and I have spent three days working on it and my sewing room (hopefully pics to come on that soon).  I hope to post more later!

Well, It's Official

...I'm a teacher. After over a week of training and working on my room, I had students Thursday and Friday. I was a little nervous, but I had a great time both days. And I'll be more comfortable once I learn all the students' names.

I'm going to like this so much better than my year at the laboratory school, where I was thrown in to teaching K-6 with no curriculum, no mentor, no training, no anything.

Everyone at the school where I work is really nice. We had Monday to work on our rooms, and I had everyone from janitors to assistant principals coming by to introduce themselves and welcome me.

I am only part time, which is good because I'm working on my Masters. I have two classes of Art Awareness (that's art appreciation) and one Art I.

And all the new teachers got $100 at the local teacher supply store to get stuff for their rooms. I'm going today to get a stapler, tape, dry erase markers... all kinds of stuff.

Not much knitting done lately, but I am working on a pair of Magic Stripes Socks. The mystery shawl has fallen by the wayside. Maybe once I get my lesson plans ready I can work on it for a little while every day before I have kids.

Alabama Mothers Deserve Midwives

Alabama Mothers Deserve Midwives

My latest project (non-knitting).

Playing with Windows Movie Maker

Lorelei's Babies

Something we did just fooling around over the break - warning: it's long and repetitive! I need to edit some.