"...do something every day that you have never done before. This may be as small as having tea instead of coffee in the morning, or going somewhere you have never been".
What Would You Do If There was Nothing You Had To Do,
Practices to Create Your Life the Way You Want it to Be.
By Winslow Eliot
I spent the last days of 2023 and the first couple of weeks of 2024 house and cat sitting, something I had never done before. I've looked after oodles of times, but never while staying in someone else's home. My 2 little charges were the most affectionate cats I have ever met, wanting to cuddle and be on my lap (and happy to take over my yoga mat lol). It was also some me time, stitching and working on a new piece of fibre art, and some planning for the year.
I brought a few projects to work on, including one hand-sewing and mounting mushroom-like fabric pieces onto a piece of barnboard, based on the photo here of mushrooms on tree bark. I have lots of lace I wanted to use for the edges of the mushrooms, and old upholstery samples I thought would be suitable for the main part.
This type of three dimensional effect was not one I had tried before. My challenge was deciding how to mount the fabric mushrooms onto the wood. I made some with wire mesh between layers, and others without, not being sure how well they would attach to the wood background. After assembling the mushrooms I added a small crease at the back side and glued this crease onto the barnboard, then used a staple gun to further secure the mushrooms. This seemed to work out well. I quickly discovered the larger mushrooms definitely need the wire mesh. And a couple of pieces that I forgot to glue down first didn't stay on the wood very well, so I had to remove the staples and glue down first before stapling again.
I also added liquid stabilizer to the lacey parts as they needed the added structure. I think this fibre art piece is now done and I am sitting with it for a few more days to decide if it needs more or not. I have a few extra mushrooms on standby just in case.
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| Mushroom Fibre Art |
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| Detail of the mushroom art |
I also have had my homework for the creative arts therapy class I'm taking, preparing the next set of assignments for submission. And stitching is underway on this gelli printed piece - stitching on paper is a favourite technique. I've been adding dark stitches to enhance the feathers, and hope to have this done in time for the class I'm teaching at the Ottawa School of Art Orleans campus on February 15th.
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| Gelli Print of feathers - with some stitching added - in progress |
Walks in nature were also on my agenda. I had hoped for some snowshoeing time, but with a green Christmas and New Year's, it was not to be (until a major storm yesterday that brought 20+ cm of snow). But we take what is given to us and I instead enjoyed some walks in nature even though it was cold.
Until next month,
