A Virtual Tour of Charleston Farmhouse in the UK

A heads-up that there is a great opportunity to support Charleston Farmhouse, the Sussex, England UK home of Bloomsbury Group Painters Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell. On Thursday, October 1st at 2 pm EASTERN TIME (7 pm BST), a Virtual Tour is being hosted by Artist/Decorative Painter Annie Sloan and Curator Dr. Darren Clarke. 

The Bloomsbury Group began in the early 1900's and encompassed a large number of artists, authors, and intellectuals including Grant, Bell, Virginia Woolf (Vanessa's sister), Lytton Strachey, Maynard Keynes, Roger Fry and more. Charleston Farmhouse became a mecca for their large group of friends (read about them here). Over the years, the rooms were hand painted with innovative treatments which have inspired textile and other artists for years. In the 1980's after the death of Duncan Grant, the home began to be restored. For years, it has inspired visitors with its beauty and quirkiness and has been featured in many, many books and publications. 

I had the good fortune to visit Charleston along with Virginia Woolf's home Monk's House which is now owned by the National Trust over 20 years ago. I look forward to seeing it again - if only virtually - on Thursday. 

The talk has a sliding scale of 20, 30 or 40 British pounds and a video of the talk will be available for a week after with your paid ticket. Purchase tickets here. Hope to see you at Charleston. 

Making A Life from Melanie Falick - A New Book

It's been a long time since I have been excited by a book..... but last week, I received a copy of Melanie Falick's new book Making A Life: Working By Hand and Discovering the Life You Are Meant to Live. 

When I received Making a Life I couldn't wait to dig into it. A quick page through and I was intrigued by all the different artists/craftspeople that Melanie included. 

Making A Life begins with Melanie's personal introduction to this project. She has always been a maker. Through this book, Melanie wanted to explore why people make - especially in our current world with all the technology that is so everpresent in our lives. She asks why people both to knit, to sew, to quilt. She introduces scholarly research at the very beginning to inspire the reader to "Discover the Life You are Meant to Live" as the title says.

This is a big book - 320 pages long. Unlike Knitting In America, there are no individual projects that you can make. That is fine with me. I am most interested in reading about other artists (or makers as that term now seems to encompass all kinds of artistic and craft disciplines) -- how they found their beginning, what makes them tick and how they keep themselves motivated to keep on making. Making A Life does that. There are 30 different profiles of artists/craftspeople/makers in disciplines that range from fiber, pottery, sculpture, quilting, weaving, dyeing, shoemaking, woodworking, welding, printing and more.  

Some of the artists featured I was familiar with but some were totally new to me. Melanie has always had the knack for flushing out talent that may be new the larger world. Lotta Jansdotter, Natalie Lete, and Natalie Chanin are women whose work I know. It's nice to read about their stories. It is even more fun for me to explore the other women and men that were new to me - to discover their work and find inspiration in their daily practices. 

Each chapter explores a person, a couple or a school. There are beautiful photographs taken by Rinne Allen. The photographs are arranged in a mixed layout fashion that gives an overview to their craft, tools, supplies, and life. So often books show big beautiful pictures but as we all know - there is only so much room when a photograph takes an entire page. This book almost reads like a good blog post of yesteryear profiling and sharing visuals.

Congratulations to Melanie on another gorgeous book. It is clear that she put her life and soul into this book and we are all the more fortunate for her energy and devotion to the project. 

You can listen to a podcast with Melanie being interviewed by Abby Glassenberg here. 

Melanie is currently on a Book Tour to share Making a Life. You can see the schedule here. 

If you are a fan of craft and art books, I am quite sure you will love this one. Put it on your Christmas wish list or treat yourself immediately. 

Fruits of my Labors

Here's a sneak peek of the small vases that just came out of the gloss firing in my kiln. I will be debuting them on Saturday at the Amherst Farmers Market in our Leyden Glen Lamb booth. The hours are 8 to 1:30. I'll try to take some photos of the set-up so you can see how the vases are displayed.  

I ordered a small wooden display rack from this shop on Etsy. It looks like mini stairs and was designed for selling homemade soaps which are a brisk mover at many farmers markets. I made sure that all my vases would fit on the stairs. It is very well made and was ready for paint. I painted it yesterday and it is all set to go tomorrow. 

Here's a close-up of some of the vases. This is all a grand experiment. At this point I don't plan to put any of them on-line but we shall see. I've got to concentrate getting more work done for the Garlic and Arts Festival at the end of September. 

Have a great weekend everyone and maybe I will see some of you tomorrow. 

Long Time Away.....

.... from this little old blog. This winter has been long and I am so ready for it to be over. We are still having a few lambs being born sporadically. This one was born the other day - The Farmer went a little wild with the orange marking paint. 

The 5 bottle lambs have been weaned now and are eating only solid food. Here they are on their last day of being fenced in. Now they are running free. 

All the older ewes have lambed and now it is the yearlings who are lambing. They are always a little problematic because some don't know what to do with their lambs - but some take to it naturally. 

Here is a particularly beautiful lamb who was born early in the season. 

The older lambs are growing and are very athletic. I posted a video of lamb races the other day on Instagram - you can see it here. 

There are some really beautiful lambs - many who are Texel crosses. This is the first year we have had a lot of Texel lambs and it is interesting to see the different features the lambs have. 

We have had quite a few black lambs this year. Not sure why but one of the rams must have had a recessive black gene. Some have these speckly faces. 

The snow is finally gone except for deep in the woods. The sap has been running here for at least 3 weeks and the little sugar houses throughout the hills have been boiling up the sweet stuff. It looks like sugaring season is almost over for this year. 

The landscape is still brown but the grass is starting to green up a bit. I am really looking forward to spring - even more than usual. It has been a long winter. I have been sick with colds, coughs and flu twice this winter - and so has my family. Considering I haven't been ill in 3 years, I guess it was my turn. 

My hens finally started laying again and we are starting to be awash in piles of eggs. Lots of egg dishes are going to be on the menu along with popovers which are my favorite at this time of year. I use this popover recipe from Julia Child. In re-reading this post from 2014, I realize that I was a really enthusiastic blogger back in 2014. I seem to have lost that mojo - as it seems many early bloggers have. But I haven't given up. I think that Instagram has replaced blogging for many - it is so easy to do and that seems to be where the action is. I post there almost every day. It is a nice community. Here is my page if you want to give me a follow. 

This past month I have been watching a lot of YouTube and Skillshare videos and trying to up my knowledge on Adobe Illustrator. I have worked in Illustrator since the very early days of Adobe Illustrator. I think my first program was called Illustrator 88. I have never felt really accomplished in it. I have found the videos by Helen Bradley to be very helpful. You can find her on YouTube and also on Skillshare. She teaches all kinds of programs - Lightroom, Photoshop, Excel, PowerPoint, and Word. Helen's own website is here. She calls herself "Project Woman" and she is a serious talent. 

There are so many on-line classes out there now and it is hard to stop watching them once you start. I am really enjoying Skillshare because the classes are taught by normal people and mostly filmed in their own homes. Some are better than others. They are having a special - 2 months for 99 cents. You might want to check it out here.  And no - this is not an affiliate link - just sharing with you all. 

That's it for today - I hope I will be back soon with more. 

Creative Retreat #2 - 2018 Fabric Printing and Stamping

On Day Two of our Creative Retreat last weekend, I taught Fabric Stamping and Printing. It was a smaller class than Day One but so much was accomplished. Unfortunately I didn't remember to take as many photos as Day One. Oh well. 

I envisioned this day as teaching Fabric Stamping in the morning and Linoleum Block Printing in the afternoon. With only three students there was more leeway to design the day to capture their interests.  In the morning we did do Fabric Stamping. I have a photo of 2 of the 3 projects. 

Stephanie has been here several times. She designed a pillow top that she will embroider to match the pillow top she printed and embroidered last year. Here is her foam stamp and the finished pillow top. She used a cork to make the circles.  

Here is a photo of Stephanie's stamped and embroidered pillow from last year and the new pillow top. Stephanie travels a lot so she is finding the embroidery a great thing to take to do on planes and public transport. (I'm with you on that Stephanie!)

I don't have a photo of Jan's bag she made - oops. 

Here is a project Cynthia has been working on for a couple of years. She is printing on navy and white ticking. I love how the shapes play together and how the colors overlap. I think this would make awesome fabric for upholstery (but that would take more time than I know Cynthia has). 

Just after lunch I showed everyone how to take a photo of a stamped motif and bring it into Photoshop. In PS, I tweak it a bit and saved it. Then I brought the image into the Spoonflower website and showed everyone how to use the program. I know there are many people who are very adept at Spoonflower but there are also folks who would like to try it and don't know how to start. 

Here is the photo of my stamp. 

Here is the page from Spoonflower where I demo-ed how the site works. 

Later in the afternoon, we went back down to the studio and Stephanie and Jan kept working. Jan continued work on her painted tabletop. Stephanie had brought a very cool project to work on.....

Stephanie's husband David had use of a laser cutter at his office. Stephanie asked him to cut out a series of different size ovals and circles out of a piece of adhesive foam. She brought both the circles and the piece of foam from which they were cut. We were all so excited about the possibilities of a laser cutter. I have never had the use of one and perhaps one of my readers might be able to give me a headsup to a scaled down home version vs the $5,000 model. Julia used a laser cutter and engraver in her woodshop class a couple of years ago and I was jealous. 

Stephanie mounted the circles and ovals onto foam. She used a brayer and block printing inks to apply the ink.

Here is her block and a piece of fabric which is printed with 4 of the blocks. 

Next she mounted the sheet of foam that the circles were cut from with the laser cutter. She inked that block and printed on the same green linen and on a canvas bag. 

Imagine the possibilites! I was so excited about her project. Maybe the laser cutters will come down in price so that individual artists can use them. Maybe they already have. For any of you familiar with the Cricut machine - does it cut adhesive backed foam that is about 1/4" thick? 

As with each Creative Retreat* - we had a bit of a hiccup when the plumbing pipe from the kitchen clogged and the basement sink filled up. Ooooppps. This has happened to the sink one other time in the 20 years we have lived in our farmhouse. Of course it had to happen when I had guests! Cynthia tried to plunge it out. No luck. I put some high power plumbing green blaster down it. Still no luck. Stephanie called her hubby David who was staying in the area with her. He went to Home Depot, bought a snake and was a real hero. After lots of work, 20 feet of the snake and a change of clothes, David cleared the drain. Thank you David. I do need to call the plumber who cleared it once before so I don't have the same problem this winter. I guess the clogged pipe will be a memory for everyone! 

*In past retreats, Nessie, the Border Collie, got skunked the night before and the toilet clogged on the very first retreat. Country living! 

Thanks to everyone who came to the second Creative Retreat of 2018. It was such a great weekend and I am still reeling from all the conversations and ideas that were floated around. I hope some more of you might be able to come to a future Creative Retreat here at our farm in western Massachusetts. 

Creative Retreat #1 2018- Day Two - Ceramic Tile Painting

On Day Two, we did Ceramic Tile Painting. Oh wow - what beautiful work the students did. 

Maureen came to this same Retreat last year and brought her friend Betsy with her this year. Here are Maureen’s tiles. She is thinking of making either a table top with them or using them as a centerpiece for a table. I can’t wait to see these fired. 

Betsy is a water color artist and so we all were looking forward to seeing how she handled the ceramic glazes. She came with her source material and had her tiles planned out. Can you believe how beautiful her tiles are? 

Mariana grew up in Finland and shared her interesting life with all of us. She hadn’t painted since her days in school. He design idea came from a Scandinavian napkin. At first she struggled with the glazes and painting but by the end of the day she was adding details like a pro. Won’t these tiles make gorgeous coasters? 

Here are the finished tiles. Now I will fire them once to set the glaze. Then I will add a gloss glaze to them and fire them a second time. 

In less than two weeks, I am hosting the second Creative Retreat of 2018. We are doing Furniture Painting and Fabric Printing. I have quite a few students for that retreat. Hopefully The Farmer will be a little more mobile and be feeling better. I’m looking forward to sharing another weekend in my studio with wonderful women.

Reflections, A Few Days Away in Maine + Henry + More

Thanks to everyone for all the comments and thoughts on Monday's post. I am still processing my thoughts on the "world without Classic Elite Yarns." I left there many years ago (2000) but I still had many connections with the new owner Betsy Perry and many of the original staff I worked with many years ago. 

It is very sad to see a long term business disappear - especially when it has been part of the basics and core of the knitting and yarn store community for over 30 years. Perhaps that is why it could not survive - because it was always deemed as steady and would always be there and not the hot young thing. Consumers almost always rush to the newest greatest thing with their dollars - that is just human nature. Yarn companies cannot continue to build new lines and inventory without moving the old inventory out. That is why yarn lines don't hang around for very long - products have to be moved out to make room for the new inventory. If not, more and more space would need to be rented to store it all. As knitters and fiber artists, we all know the problem - use up the old in order to make room for the new. Using up can be donating to a charity, giving it away, having a yard sale, selling it on-line, or just tossing it because the moths have eaten it. 

I know that the folks at Classic Elite Yarns must be happy to be hearing from so many of their long time fans. If you have a moment and you feel like it, post a comment on their blog post "Saying Good-by is Hard."

Last week, Julia and I had a chance to get away from the farm. We drove hours and hours to the coast of Maine and then took a ferry seven miles out into the ocean. We stayed with our good friend Sally and had a wonderful time. I thought I would get tons of work done. I did dig out my gouache and worked on a few paintings. I made more crochet hexies every evening as we sat watching favorite movies. The weather was overcast and cold until the last two days. We did get to the beach for a nice picnic on the rocks. But mostly - this is bizarro I know - I dug through Sally's pile of old issues of The World of Interiors looking at photos and articles that I had forgotten and reading stories about fascinating houses and places I will never go. I very easily could have done this at home with my piles of magazines but I am always distracted with other things to do. 

Look what we came home with..... A new little male island kitten we have named Henry Lee Mackerel Cove. 

I know - why do we need a new kitten you ask? Well we probably don't but we have a few older cats that probably are getting to the end of their days. I have always wanted an island cat and now we have one. He is very sweet and is settling in with the rest of the cats. We have a new litter of kittens and their mama Mittens is letting Henry nurse with her other 3 babes. He is the largest kitten in the photo below. He is having fun playing with the babies even if he is 3 weeks older. They are learning to stick up for themselves and fight him back. I think he is going to be a big guy and I am hoping he will have long hair. Time will tell. 

While I was away, my garden got tilled by 86 years young Doug and his trusty tractor. On Monday, I went to my favorite plant source in the world - Walker Farm in Dummerston, Vermont. I picked up almost enough annuals to fill my half my garden with veggies and cutting flowers. The other half of the garden will have sunflowers in it - seeds are ordered and hope to get them in next week.   

I have found a new podcast that I am enjoying - it is called Hello Atelier. Thanks Abby for including a link in your newsletter. 

I have also just re-discovered a blog that has a good YouTube Channel called Quintessence: Living Well with Style and Substance. You can subscribe to it here. Here is one of their newest videos that I really enjoyed. 

This quote resonated with me: "We are definitely more is more people."

Have a good weekend everyone. 

My New IPad + Procreate + Skillshare + Learning Forever

In November I purchased an Ipad Pro (I got the 12.9" model). I had been hearing about the Pro for a while and thought it would be helpful tool for my work and art. II also purchased an Apple Pencil so that I could draw on the Ipad. 

I bought the app from the App Store called Procreate for $9.99. I had also been hearing about Procreate too via many of the artist accounts I follow in Instagram. I figured I would give it a go. Over the past couple months, I have been watching YouTube videos to learn more about the Procreate app. (You can also get Procreate for the Iphone for $2.99.) 

I have found the channel "Stayf Draws" on YouTube. Stayf is a Dutch artist, illustrator and animator. His videos on drawing in Procreate are really good. 

There has been a bit of a learning curve to master Procreate. I am by no means mastering it but it feels really good to be stretching my boundaries and learning something new. My main reason for learning Procreate was to make the workflow on my pattern illustration a little easier in Adobe Illustrator. (I have been designing a lot of surface patterns lately - more about that soon.) I have figured that out somewhat with the help of an on-line teacher named Bonnie Christine. This woman is something else. She just relaunched her website and you can check it out here. Last year I took an on-line class with Jessica Swift. I am finally putting it all together. 

I discovered Bonnie Christine on Skillshare after I took one of her classes. She has several classes on Skillshare. Do you know about Skillshare? It is a fantastic on-line learning site. There are over 18,000 videos which are produced by people just like you and me. Most of the classes I have watched aren't fancily produced. Teachers are from all over the world. Sometimes the lighting and sound is less than professional but the general learning experience is decent. 

The way Skillshare works is you can buy a monthly membership ($15) and watch any of the videos you want. They also just offered a yearly membership for $99. The teachers are paid by the number of people who watch their videos and the number of minutes watched. They also have some FREE classes.

Right now, I am watching videos by On Mar Win - a British illustrator. She is a good teacher. Check her classes out here. I also watched a video on Designing Repeat Patterns in Procreate. It was a good class but I decided that I would rather design in Illustrator considering I know it and I get the outcome I need. I have been working in Illustrator since the 1990's or so. I am by no means a pro but I know what I need to know to get my work done.

Adobe Illustrator is difficult to learn but once you learn it, there are all kinds of uses for it. Illustrator is perfect for pattern design because it is vector based. That means that any digital design can be increased in size infinitely and will always look good. (Photoshop on the other hand yields digital files that will look pixelated if they are increased in size.)

The main thing I am using Procreate for now if drawing outlines of shapes and flowers that I am bringing into Illustrator and then making into patterns that I can upload to Spoonflower. It has made things a little quicker for me but it is still not an automatic thing that I am quick at. 

I am sharing all of this with you because I want to encourage you all to try to learn something new - whether it be art, textile crafts, baking, gardening..... You are never to old to learn. 

Learning a new skill opens up all your senses and makes you think differently. Looking at things I have always looked at with a new slant is good. 

My 83 Year Old Mom's First Painting - Finished!

Thanks for the nice comments about my Mom Nancy's new hobby - watercolor painting. She had her second class and she finished her first project. My nephew sent a photo of the painting. Doesn't it look great? 

When I checked in with her after the class, she sounded so excited and proud of herself. She told me about the next project she would be doing, about the people in the class and about the teacher. I am so excited for her and the new things she is learning. It takes nerve at 83 to try something new. Here is my Mom Nancy with her finished painting.

So many people think they can't learn a new hobby and they just give up learning. I know that there are so many good teachers out there teaching adults of all ages. It helps people's self-esteem and health, I am sure. I think every nursing home should have some kind of art therapy program. 

My friend Robin has been learning to draw and paint and she has recorded it all on a blog which you can see here. Recently she began taking an on-line watercolor class with Liz Steel and is loving it. You might want to check it out if you too are interested. There are lots of classes on Creativebug, Craftsy, and Skillshare available for all kinds of art. They aren't expensive and many are available with an inexpensive monthly membership. Check it out if you have ever wanted to learn to paint or draw. 

Remember - you can't just think about it - you actually have to do it. Pull out the paper, the paints (or the yarn, fabric and thread) and do it. Every attempt will get better. It just takes faith and a zeal to learn, not being afraid of failure, and the will to conquer a new art. 

83 and Still Learning Something New + You Can Too!

A few weeks ago, Julia and I were visiting Mom in New Jersey. We went on a little adventure which I wrote about here. When we were visiting The Kubert School, we discovered that they also teach "regular" folks -- not only enrolled students. I encouraged Mom to sign up for a watercolor class. My Mom hasn't picked up a paintbrush too many times - mostly for painting something in the house. She certainly doesn't consider herself an artist. I know she has an undiscovered talent. As my sister Laurie says "where did it all come from?" At age 83 - it is going to be fun to watch Mom discover her talent. Her first class was last week and she had a great time.

Luckily my nephews Nicholas and Francisco were at Mom's house tonight. Francisco snapped some photos of Mom and her paintings. I'm hoping there will be a "second version" after her next lesson. (I'm trying to get Mom to take photos of her progress on her phone. Fingers crossed she can figure that out!) 

I can't wait to see what she paints tomorrow. Hopefully Mom will be able to send me a photo to share with all of you. 

There is a fantastic children's book called Emma. It is written by Wendy Kesselman and illustrated by Barbara Cooney (one of my favorite children's book illustrators). It is out of print now but you can pick it up used here). 

I used to read this book to Julia over and over when she was small. I loved the possibilities it offered both children and adults. The story is about a 72 year old woman named Emma who teaches herself to paint. 

She doesn't tell anyone about it but she becomes obsessed with painting. 

Her family discovers her talent and tells her she is good. She covers her house in her paintings. The last page of the book is beautiful. It reads 

"Emma was surrounded by the friends and places she loved. 
And she was never lonely again." 

I know that not everyone can find art classes in their area and that is where sites like Skillshare, Creativebug, and Craftsy come in. There is so much out there to learn. For the small investment in a monthly membership, you can spend hours learning and exploring something new - all in the quiet of your home. 

Of course, watching the techniques will not make you a success. You will actually have to practice and do it versus just thinking about it. 

I feel fortunate that I have been able to teach on both Creativebug and Craftsy and on PBS's Knit and Crochet Now. I have no clue how many people I have helped to learn something new. And I love that I too can take classes here at my home and learn something new from someone who comes from another part of the world. 

I hope you all are having a good weekend. Let me know what you are learning this winter if you have a chance.