Earth Day

While I knew that Earth Day was today it didn’t really hit me to do something about it until Google automatically took me to a search of Earth Day. (Could have also been my possessed computer clicking at random as it does.) Every day is Earth Day for me, sometimes by choice and sometimes by necessity. At $3.50 a bag for garbage collection I’m inclined to do as much recycling and reusing as I can.

Today starts the Easter weekend holiday so I my daughter will be home soon from college – I posed the question to her – what should we do for earth day? “Aren’t you supposed to plant a tree?” It’s too rainy to dig a hole today so I decided to save a tree. Feeling the “need” for a new purse lately I decided to spin yarn from newspaper to knit one. Spinning paper has been a “to do challenge” in my mind for some time now so why not today? I should be able to knit up a nice handbag from my yarn – and then I can figure out how to keep the ink from rubbing on to my clothes.

On with the yarn! I picked out a few of the most colorful pages from yesterday’s newspaper and cut a few strips to try. Too heavy! And the join that I usually used to connect my plastic bag strips was making impossible lumps in the newspaper. The yarn was stiff and clumpy and wouldn’t feed onto my bobbin. I cut strips about half the width and joined them end to end with a spot of glue. While it made for a nicer yarn I still had to manually wind it onto my bobbin. Still, I feel success!

A word of caution: bunnies love tearing up newspaper so keep your eyes peeled for rabbits lurking around corners ready to make shreds of your hard work.

Rage!

How do you represent an emotion in a tangible way?   At my last spinning guild meeting we had an exercise to help us expand our creativity.  We listed a few nouns and then came up with adjectives to describe them.  Our challenge was to pick one of the nouns and then spin yarn that represented it.  I spun “ice cream” - vanilla, my favorite flavor, with chocolate chunks, mint and strawberry for added color.  This was a very timely exercise since I was in the process of trying to deal with a bit of anger that I had been feeling for the past few days.  So, I decided that I would spin anger!  What does anger look like?  Anger is powerful so bright fiery reds, oranges and yellows were my color choices.   To the colored wools I added some gold tinsel to feel like lightning striking in all its power.  Not good enough!  I stripped the seams out of a red silk tie belonging to the person who my anger was directed to and ran my rotary cutter over it until it was only shreds.  Then I ran all of my representations of anger through my drum carder to make a batt to spin from.   The finished product – a skein of rage.  Makes me smile to look at it gracing my coffee table and calms me when I feel the anger surfacing again.

Empty Nest

Yesterday I received news that I won a merit award for my fiber painting, “Lily,” showing at the Naperville Art League gallery.  I just recently began my membership there after being away for nearly 3 years.  When I started working fine art in fiber I was eager to show my work and so I joined the art league.  My daughter was in high school at the time and even though I was excited about fiber art it seemed that there was never enough time to get even one piece done a month for the monthly shows.   It amazes me how much that changed with my daughter away at her first year of college.  While she was away I didn’t come home from my office job and have to put dinner on the table, or sew a dress for the next dance, or just simply be company.  Not that I didn’t love to do those things but now, with my empty nest, I can choose to do whatever I want to do.  A lot of times that means delving into my fiber stash, maybe creating a new accessory line or working on my latest “painting.”  Summer put a temporary hiatus on my work but I’m eager to get going strong in September.  I’ve had a summer of inspiration that I’m excited to put into reality. 

The NAL pictured my “Lily” in their August newsletter which you can see here.  This is a large file that takes some time to load.  Here's a partial photo of the painting:

 

Currently Showing

Last week David Sharos of the Naperville Sun ran a piece about Naperville Art League’s latest project, “Between the Lines.”  I was surprised to receive David’s phone call but the very short interview turned out to be a couple of pretty nice paragraphs in the article.  I was pleased!  You can read it here.  I received the call from David because I’m showing one of my felted pieces, "Lily," in the Art League’s current exhibit.  David also included a large photo of another fiber art piece, "Americana," in the article.  Unfortunately the photo only downloads half way but I uploaded to my blog for you to see.  

This was my first of what I consider a large fiber piece.  The size (20” x 28”) and the 3 elements made it quite an undertaking but it successfully pushed me out of my “little” box.  I usually think in terms of 16” x 20” now and with needle felted detail this can become quite time consuming.  While I compare needle felting somewhat to colored pencil in the way I layer and blend and often work only a few “strokes” at a time I would never have undertaken a colored pencil drawing of that magnitude. 

I’m also privileged to have been juried in to the Naperville Art League member’s exhibit, “Spontaneous,” at the Schoenherr Gallery of North Central College in Naperville.  This show runs until August 22.  North Central College is my Alma Mater and my daughter is currently attending there so it really pleased me to be accepted.  The fiber piece, "Uganda Couple,” that I submitted took Best of Show at one of the league’s exhibits which qualified it for the Best of the Best in 2008 held at the Mayslake Peabody Estate in Oakbrook.  I don’t currently have the piece up on a website but you can see some of my fiber art here.

Carrot Juice

Back in 1993, after 3 years of dealing with 3 family members battling cancer, I purchased a juicer.  Both my dad and my brother went through alternative treatments and my brother especially was very conscious of the food he ate.  I learned to make whole wheat pizza crust (much better than white!) and was turned on to pure juices.  I’m still using the same juicer I purchased in 1993 but have to admit that fresh juices haven’t been a constant through the years.  Recently I’ve been looking at raw food cookbooks and found a “bunny spice” recipe that is super delicious!  Carrots, fresh ginger, banana (I keep a supply in the freezer), almond mild and a sprinkle of cinnamon.  It’s this recipe that got me thinking about carrot juice and the coaster design that evolved out of it.

If you're interested in purchasing these coasters visit my Etsy shop at www.kruser.etsy.com or directly at

http://www.etsy.com/listing/51831177/carrot-juice-wool-coasters 

Angora, Silk and Cormo Wool

This was at times an experiment in terror but I love the end result!  I received some angora fur from a friend some time ago and didn’t get to working with it because it needed quite a bit of work.  It took a lot of combing and in the end I still had lumps but decided to give it a spin anyway.  I blended it with super soft cormo wool, spun and plied it.  I didn’t end up with a lot of yardage but knitted up what I had – my scarf was a little short.  I had about 40 yards of silk from a spinning guild meeting where we had a technique session on spinning silk.  I didn’t want to take the chance of the silk being limp so I spun up some more cormo and plied it with the silk.  Then there came choosing the knitting pattern.  I’m not a fantastic knitter but I find that difficulty is based more on concentration than the pattern.  I sure picked the wrong pattern!  After many start overs I chose a different pattern and this is the finished scarf.  A final go around with a crochet stitch with the silk gave it a nice finish.

 

Charles Van Grooten

Charles Van Grooten is a House Rabbit Society foster bunny who came into my life after I lost a dear Californian rabbit to a heart attack during surgery. I was smitten by the sweet nature of big white bunnies with their contemplative faces and beautiful red eyes. After over a year of Chuck living with us he developed a bump on his side. The bump was an abscess that apparently developed from a BB that was lodged in his side from being shot before I knew him. Poor Chuck! The BB and abscess removal went well but he came out of the surgery with head tilt. He’s recovered remarkably well but he does lose his balance once in a while and if his 4 feet on not on the floor he’s not sure which way is up.

One of Chuck’s activities before head tilt was skyping with my daughter’s friends on her computer. She took an awesome picture of him staring into the computer screen. I couldn’t help but transform it into a fiber art piece. After needle felting a wool layer down with the color scheme I decided to use a mohair blend of yarn for finishing. There is some metallic yarn and flax as well. I still have to work the border but I couldn’t wait to get it on my blog for everyone to see. As me and my daughter would say, ahh, Chuck.