EKjourney Backup

With my birthday money, I bought three books on fiber art works.  One was a book of stitchery and the other two are by a fabulous felt painting artist.  I have admired her work for some time so I decided to splurge and buy her two books - one with felted landscape and one with felted flowers/still life.  These two books were beyond my expectations in useful tips as well as inspiration.   One of the things that I took away from reading the felting books (And I was so good about reading her books.  I didn't skip ahead!  I didn't thumb through them.  I read, at every opportunity each and every page and I rarely do this when it comes to books full of visual representations.)  Anyhow, she talked about really studying your subject matter and making a mood board with your "study" material.  Sketch, paint, torn paper collages, photographs, and pieces of wool for color.  She highly recommended oil pastels as her favorite medium for making study p...

It was so nice to be on vacation this week!  No piano lessons, no Awanas, no speech therapy, no co-op, and Phil only had to work on Monday (he did a 10+ hour day and took some flux time).  Grandma Tracy and Grandpa Cliff came for a visit over the weekend so we had a nice relaxing time with card games a plenty!  Phil took the children to the lego store and to his classroom (such a good dad!).  I dived into a persimmon study (more on this soon).  We had Thanksgiving dinner at my parent's and today we are gearing up to celebrate Sawyer's 11th birthday! Evi drew this pictured and commented, "The eyes are so realistic, they scare me." Fixing Glorielle's hair with magnetic rods LOL.   Crochet time! Learning to crochet. On a whim, Phil bought Vienna a doggy sweater when he went to pick up dog food.  Alas, it was too big and she wriggled right out of it. The killing frost:  we had our first hard frost and the last of the deciduous leaves died back.  ...

I dug into my miscellaneous bits of fiber and dug out some of my favorite mixes of blues and greens and added some silk, metallic threads, and thin art yarn to make my own "art batts".  Normally this is done using a blending board or a drum carder but since I have neither, I sandwiched layers of material together and then pulled them out into thin roving strips to spin.  They spun up beautifully (but not particularly next to the skin soft), I will have to see how they work out in a crochet project!

I turned 41 over the weekend! I got a new spindle for my spinning wheel so I can make art yarn.  I practiced using some wool locks that I bought 2 years ago (and then discovered that they weren't very good quality).  They aren't very useful other than for practice.  I also learned how to make my own art batts (sandwiching various spinning material; locks, different kinds of wool and other fiber; and blending it).  These are usually made using a drum carder but I found a way to make them just by hand.  They spun up beautifully.  Unfortunately, the only way to learn to make yarn is trial and error and that can get expensive.  It is actually more expensive to buy dyed wool and wool mixes to spin than it is to just buy commercially made yarn.  Not only do you have the cost of materials but the time investment in blending materials and then spinning them.  A skein of yarn can easily cost 20 dollars and hours worth of time.  I am working on ma...

So just how is our Autumn shaping up?  Well, I do believe I have mentioned that this has been one crazy season for us.  I am actually glad for the darker days, cooler weather, and rain to move in so I can feel a little more home centered!  What does our weekly schedule look like? I get up early...which I love!  I don't ever need an alarm clock, I just wake up because I enjoy the quiet time in the morning.  I go for a walk (and listen to a sermon) on the days that Phil doesn't have to leave early and try and do some reading/devotions and email/computer catch up.   We homeschool Monday through Friday.  We try and get through Bible, Language lessons and Writing, Math, Speech, and a day or two of Science in the mornings and then leave quiet Read time, Awana memory work, and Piano lessons for the afternoon.  I do take a break every afternoon and let the children watch something educational while I have some quiet time to rest, read, eat my lunch, etc.....