Tuesday, July 13, 2010

If you don't like feet skip this post.

I like my feet. Not everybody does.
Great whopping, hard to fit 10w's, my Dad told me I'd fall over if my feet weren't so big.

I spend most of the time going barefooted and, according to the podiatrist I saw yesterday, since I no longer swing from tree to tree, my feet are paying the price.

He said I have "flexible flat feet" and mentioned lemurs and seal flippers in the nicest way as he slipped HUGE needle into my right heel giving me an injection that is supposed to trick the muscles there into shutting up and doing their jobs without sending big time pain message to my brain. He said the bones in this kind of foot leave too much of the work to those muscles hence the pain.

The shot and a bandage/brace thingy, flexing exercises and ice foot baths are supposed cure this aggravation. Meanwhile my left hip, knee, leg and foot are pissed off having to work overtime.  He also said that my cowboy boots would be good for my feet! Going to dig them out of the closet and see if it's true.   For now I'm  taking my flippers to the pool.

And to the foot pervs who have Googled this post - Have a nice day but don't bother to leave a comment. They're just feet.



Sunday, July 11, 2010

ocean homes & working art



I already have a beach well underway so I went straight to the water and the cottages but now I'm have second thought about all those red roofs, in fact this may be the only one.

I had to sit a while with the other house quilt and examine the various techniques and sequence of stitches to remember how it went. I may forget about the roofs altogether. I know they are houses.

The blue with hand painted red dots was a dye painting experiment from over a year ago that was "lost" in the studio.  And I've been waiting a long time to use the batik that Terry sent me. It has the most wonderful hand and a pattern woven into that you can see unless you are holding it in your hands.

For a while I've been thinking of fiber art in terms of functional beauty. Like most fiber artists, I started by making blankets and I always seem to find my way back to that starting point - witness the Flings and this will be another in that line, three or more layers of rescued or re-purposed cotton - mostly muslin, no batting and lots of hand simple stitching on a base that was machine constructed for stability and strength.

It's a form of self comfort for me to make "something from nothing" - something beautiful & useful from something else that was cast off and deemed no longer useful. This kind of  making soothes my frugal Yankee spirit both in the doing and the outcome.








I've always admired these and these.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Building my own ocean

I've started building my own ocean. 

Been sleeping under hand stitched houses for a while now and always wishing it were just a little bit bigger all the way around.  This one will be lots bigger and it will have beach houses.


The studio help was just helping too much this morning so I've taken the whole business outside for now. 

Friday, July 09, 2010

salvation & inspiration

Most days I don't pretend to work out. The Manatee wallow is my stroke of choice.


There are those who say having a pool is too much work. I do it for free and this is my reward.

Chillin' as we can

The cats take advantage of the night cooled concrete and flooring and I take advantage of the first light from the east.

The heat will break later today with  storms, hopefully more rain than thunder and lightning.

Time to shut the door - I can feel the heat coming in with the light.