House and Cleaning.

I want to live in this house.


I want to sit on this porch.

I want to cozy up and read on this bed.

And, I want to make fabulous meals in this kitchen.

Is that too much to ask?


All images taken from House Beautiful, here.
Photo credit, Victoria Pearson.


See the rest of my lovelies on my Pinterest board.




tuesday notes:
i just don't think i could keep that house clean! this distresses me. maybe i should just stop looking at the photo's and start living in my own house. i've always suffered from, the grass is always greener, syndrome, but the living through photographs thing is getting a bit ridiculous. damn you pinterest!!!
i have been sorting and purging, however. great feeling. i've almost finished with the upstairs 'clean' studio - which is clean now instead of pretending to be a storage area. it never really was very good at that. now it feels ready for the excitement of a new quilt design.
i've also cleaned out the pottery room.
it's so tidy now it looks boring.

all i need to do now is the jewelry/painting area. that looks as though a bomb exploded in it.

i scared myself this morning when i walked in there and realized that this is probably how the inside of my brain looks! they probably have a 'condition' named for this but the more i work, the more chaos i seem to create.
i read a comforting blog post this morning by jennifer mecca. it's good to know that i'm not the only one to struggle with my pottery and to also read that potters such as steven hill are turning to the electric kiln. i should check his website out more frequently, his electric fired pots are as good as his gas fired pots.
i have one of his mugs. love it!

o.k. back to the studio ...

Bracelets, Pots, and Soup.

New bracelets in my shop,

Find them here.


I've been in the studio painting some old pots I made ages ago,

When these are fired they will be variations of blue.
And - here are some mugs,

These wont be blue.

And here is a weird, flower, thingy. 

I call them triffids after John Wyndham's, The Day of the Triffids.

They look too sweet to be man eating plants, but hey, I have to get my psychotic side out somehow.

None of the pots are fired yet. That's always the disappointing bit for me as I just can't bet on the outcome. They look o.k. now but ... 

Probably if I did it more, and really worked at it, I would be more satisfied when I open the kiln. As it is, I can't promise myself anything, and after I open the kiln I'll more likely than not stop making pottery for a while until I forget how disappointed I was and it will all start again ...

On a lighter note, we had a good soup last night!

Pasta e fagioli

I changed it up a bit. I used yellow onions, because I forgot to get the red onions, and I used cannellini beans, because I like them best :)

I also halved the ingredients because I hadn't made the recipe before and didn't want left overs if we didn't like it. 

Next time I will make more and try freezing it, as they suggest, coz it was yum.

Find the recipe here.

monday notes: really really trying to finish the third book in the hunger games trilogy. it's just not holding my interest. maybe because i'm not a teenager anymore, lol. i feel a commitment to finishing it, however. wish i didn't have that. the only book i didn't finish was, the old man and the sea (i know!). maybe i just wasn't in the mood, but, i just couldn't read about the sea and the waves and the sea anymore ... it made me so depressed, i felt like drowning myself. i should give that book another go sometime, maybe when i'm not fretting about it all going horribly wrong in the kiln. i confess that i also stopped reading moby dick. i did like that one but for one reason or another i put it down and just forgot to pick it up again. probably too many kids living in my house at the time. 

i'm really in my murder mystery phase right now. it's having a long run this time. i want to get back to my louise penny marathon and i have a susan hill waiting for me. the last in her inspector serrailler series. i did buy, the woman in black, a while back. i didn't know they were going to make a movie of it, now i wonder if it will be too scairwy for me! my favourite book of hers is, i'm the king of the castle. i smacked the !@&^%# out of the little boy in that book when i was on the train going to work one day. i had to stop reading for a while because it was getting a little too real, and people were beginning to look...

Today

Today we (N and I) are making bowls for Empty Bowls. 
(You can read a little more about them here.)
The challenge wont be in making the bowls, but glazing them. I haven't found a low fire glaze that I like yet. Maybe it's time to get the mid range clay out again but I just don't want to give up yet.


These are the styles I've got so far,


this,

and this,

and this,

(Sorry about the quality of the photographs, guess it's time to get the camera out again.)


I like them all, for various reasons, but, I'm just not sure it's what I want.
The top one is the most practical and I think I'll develop that more - and definitely use this technique for the empty bowls.
I love the second one as it really brings out my love of colour and weird flower designs - see this, and these.
The third is undecided. Not necessarily practical for everyday use but I do like it on my strange bottle thingies ... 


So, there. Perhaps I have resolved my glazing issues after all. 
At least for now.


Man! so much worry ....




tuesday notes:
warm and comfy with spencer and wally but need to get going now. a little low energy but know as soon as i open the studio door i will feel good. i like the quote on the empty bowls website, 'Volunteering is the ultimate exercise in democracy. You vote in elections once a year but when you volunteer, you vote everyday about the kind of community you want to live in.'. i hadn't thought about it like that before but i wonder why i always feel as though i need a reason to do the things I believe in? 


it's going to be a good day ...

West Africa

Thank you to everyone who bought from Cold Feet Studio.
I was able to send $500 to Care.org.

(photo via Care.org)


Let's not let anyone else die ...




"Some families are already down to just one meal a day of watered-down millet porridge," said Johannes Schoors, CARE's Country Director in Niger. "In a normal year, the hunger season doesn't start until April or May, but this year, it has already started. Adding to the problem, the worst-hit regions are scattered on the map. There are pockets of severely affected people, which makes it difficult and costly to reach them." - Care.org




We can't feel overwhelmed by this, otherwise we will give up. We just need to do the best we can with what we've got ...

Painting thoughts.

I'm going to get more wood to paint on as I'm not really enjoying canvas.
On wood I like to lay down the design and colour with acrylics, seal it with clear gesso, and then work it with oil pastels.
Sennelier oil pastels are my favourite.
I'm not sure which is the best wood to use, however. Fortunately we have a Jerry's just up the road so I might have to make a trip there to touch them all and find out.


The painting below was done on a bit of wood I got from the local building suppliers. I like that it is thin and that I can cut it to the shape I want, and, of course, it was also cheaper than art board, but, is it good? Will it warp? Blister? Rot?
Then I have to frame it.
The advantage of art boards is that they come already blocked and they don't necessarily need framing. They are ready to hang straight on the wall.
I know I don't like these clay boards, although I haven't tried all mediums on them yet, but it's a relief to, at least, eliminate one type.


The problem I have with my painting is that I'm all over the place. I feel that if I could just stick with one medium, one canvas/board, and one style for just a little while, I might actually get somewhere.
It doesn't mean I have to stick to it, but it might mean I get some satisfaction from developing it.




Man! I've just managed to talk myself out of painting altogether! Does anyone else get that, I'll never be any good at it anyway, so it doesn't matter what process you chose, niggling, nasty, deflating thought creep in whenever you start getting excited about stuff?


Too much thinking ...

thursday notes.
stop thinking!

Today

Listed today,

Come find it on etsy ... here, along with some other things I've made.

You know you want to ....


wednesday notes.
spicy thai coconut chicken soup tonight - can it top the chicken enchiladas from yesterday? i don't know, they were pretty darn good. going out to brave the down town traffic now. always touch and go. i usually arrive at my destination with my shoulders still tense from gripping the steering wheel so hard. perhaps some relaxing music?

Wow!

"I promise to make you more alive than you've ever been. For the first time you'll see your pores opening like the gills of fish and you'll hear the noise of blood in galleries and feel light gliding on your corneas like the dragging of a dress across the floor.

For the first time, you'll note gravity's prick like a thorn in your heel, and our shoulder blades will hurt with the imperative of wings. 

I promise to make you so alive that the fall of dust on furniture will deafen you, and you'll feel your eyebrows like two wounds forming and your memories will seem to begin with the creation of the world."

- Nina Cassian.

Monday Mood

Tired. Achy knees. Whiny. Sinus-y. No, oomph. No, get up and go. Bit sad. Bored. Rainy. Dismal.

Did I mention whiny?

Going into the studio (as soon as I get out of bed) to do some painting.

Going to listen to some Adele, some Florence and the Machine, maybe some Linken Park (because I need a bit of their energy), perhaps some Bowie. Wish I could find my Lou Reed ...

Going to have a fiberously healthy breakfast, a tomato soupy lunch and lots of cups of tea in my favourite mug,

Thank you Joy Tanner.

Or maybe this one,

(Sorry, forgot who made this, Mackenzie someone. I had two, but someone I live with broke one ... and yes, I know who you are ... )

OR, 

I could blow off the healthy breakfast and have this,

Except, I like my eggs runny and timing it just right is a little traumatic for me. I might just go for it though as it's looking pretty good to me right now. I'll keep you posted.

So, all that to look forward to eh!

Still tired and sinus-y and dismal and whiny though. My knees don't ache quite so much, however, so that's something ...

monday notes

not many, as i seem to have covered them already. except, this eckhart tolle quote comes to mind when i think about the egg trauma ... “Life isn't as serious as the mind makes it out to be.” i'm going to try to keep that in mind as i get out the egg poacher ...

LATER ...

WARNING RAGE RANT!

(including the inappropriate use of the word, 'snot', that's if it ever had an appropriate use in the first place.)

Can someone tell me how they go from snotty to COMPLETELY hard boiled in the blink of an eye!!!

Where the #%#^^*! is Gordon Ramsey when you need him ...