Page 138 – Elliebelly Knit & Dye Works

Snow Made It Exciting

Posted on February 15, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

Concidences seem to abound sometimes. The first night of our trip, I decided to pull out a little sketch pad with 8" square pages and turn it into a new art journal. It’s a funny thing how I always seem to start a new art journal to coincide with really bad weather. I still treasure – in a sort of weird way – the hurricane journal that I started the weekend Hurricane Ivan hit us and that I finished shortly after Katrina. It seemed sort of fitting to be starting a new journal just before the snow storm hit.

The cover is very simple — just some odds and ends I stashed in my suitcase before we left.

If you look closely, you can just barely make out the words above 2007. They fell, serendipitously, out of a page from an old book that I had stashed in with my art papers.

Snow made it exciting. Really.

We are scheduled to fly home tomorrow morning. We’ve seen some great schools and received some wonderful advice (and I have to digress here to say that if you are the parent of a child with the DiGeorge Anomaly who struggles with nonverbal learning differences, the schools we have looked at this week have really helped us come to believe that there are people out there who know how to educate our children and help them reach their potential). I really can’t wait to get home. I hadn’t anticipated that being away from my other children would actually be a physical ache. I can’t wait to wrap my arms around them and tell them how much I love them.

I’ve knitted a lot of love into this vest this week.

It is for Ollie and the crummy hotel room photo doesn’t begin to do justice to the beautiful burnt orange shade of Peace Fleece he selected for this vest, which I am knitting in the basic Peace Fleece vest pattern. I want to try and knit most of the front tomorrow on the plane so that I can put it together for him this weekend. That is, if I can stand to put him down long enough to do it. I may have to just sit with Ellie and Ollie on my lap for most of the weekend.

Wish us no flight delays in the morning! I can’t wait to get back home to my babies.

Pictures From The Trip

Posted on February 14, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

Go figure. They haven’t had a decent snow storm in New England all winter. But somehow, we managed to land ourselves right in the middle of a real Nor’easter.

The snow didn’t start until late on Tuesday. So we had an entire morning in Vermont, one of the most stunningly beautiful places in the world.

A little squirrel greeted us outside the entrance to the school we were going to look at.

Early in the morning, Bob and Teddy were still smiling before the novelty of walking around in the snow wore off.

It was C-O-L-D. Not yet snowing, but bitterly cold in the way that only New England can be. And incredibly beautiful. I had forgotten how much I love the mountains and the sound of snow crunching beneath my feet.

The school had an amazing rope course and this beautiful stairway.

And the trees looked like a fairyland.

We left Vermont and drove down past Stowe, on towards Brattleboro, and into Massachusetts. We stopped to see a second school there. It was dark by the time we left, but by then, we knew there was some serious snow coming, so we decided to get as far as we could towards our destination for Wednesday morning. We drove and drove. Sometime around 10:00 p.m., it started snowing. And around the same time, we realized that our assumption that there would be hotels scattered all along the highway was incorrect and we were in a deserted corner of Connecticut. Who knew there was such a thing? Fortunately, our oldest son was still up and his help on google led us to the most wonderful bed and breakfast, just down the road from our next school. The innkeeper installed us in a beautiful room with a high beamed ceiling and a sauna. There was a fabulous little alcove for Teddy, who promptly went to sleep.

There wasn’t much snow on the ground by morning — definitely not the two feet we had been hoping for. Our little balcony had just a light dusting of snow.

We drove up the street to our next school, and had a wonderful visit with them. The school was fantastic and we actually enjoyed sliding around and playing in the freezing rain.

Things got a little bit more interesting after we left the school. There weren’t very many people out on the roads and even though they had been plowed at some point, there was a good bit of snow and ice on them. Our next school was about an hour and a half away, still in Connecticut, so we slogged through it and are now happily ensconsced in a very comfortable Hampton Inn — the kind with the new comfy beds. It doesn’t sound like we’re going to have an easy time making it to our school in the morning, but it’s been a really wonderful adventure despite a bit of inconvenience. Teddy is enjoying himself and cracked us up by telling us he was "really enjoying the drive" while his Dad was white knuckling it through snow and trucks. I think we’ll go out and have a walk while the snow is coming down.

New England: Day 1

Posted on February 12, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

I’m departing from my usual ramblings about knitting and art, so I can share some pictures from our trip (the Judge and I are up in New England with son #2 to look at a couple of schools that specialize in helping kids with nonverbal learning disorder, the learning disorder that seems to go hand in hand with his genetic defect, the DiGeorge Anomaly). It’s a lot colder in Vermont than it is in Alabama. Here are some pictures from our trip, so our other children can see what we have been doing.

There isn’t nearly as much snow on the ground as I remember from going to college in Maine. But it’s still fun to see it — we haven’t had snow in Alabama in forever.

The mountains are incredibly beautiful, snow or not.

Burlington is a very cool city. We stopped for lunch at a place near the water that had more kinds of tea than I’ve seen in my entire life and wonderful side dishes like pita bread with feta and tomatoes. My boys aren’t very photogenic, but it was such a neat place.

I also got a lot of knitting done on the plane. I’ve only got three repeats left in the straight section of my Clapotis.

And this is the start of Ollie’s vest — he picked out the color. It’s going to be fabulous.

Tomorrow, after visiting a school in the morning, we have to drive down to Massachusetts to see the next school. We’ve got a pretty tight schedule. But I have a feeling it might get thrown off.

In case you can’t tell, that’s a nor’easter headed our way. Mmmmm….they’re calling for 12 inches of snow.

How To Pack For A Trip

Posted on February 11, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

The Judge is perturbed. He caught me packing. He thought clothes might be more helpful on our trip than this:

At a bare minimum, I need primaries plus black and white in Golden’s acrylic pant, some brushes, a few rubber stamps and stamp pads, gouache, a rubber stamp alphabet, scissors, gel mediums and some papers and ephemera. This is traveling light. I’m not sure why he doesn’t understand.

Then, I added another layer (there really are some clothes down on the bottom):

Let’s see — that would be the Muench Touch Me for my Vintage Velvet scarf, the second ball of Peace Fleece for Ollie’s vest, some Colinette sock yarn I thought I might swatch, and the big red blob is Ellie’s Cahaba River Jacket. The blue yarn is the rest of my Clapotis yarn. Let’s just say that I’m being optimistic and bringing it all along. We were told today that they are expecting 12" of snow near one of the schools we are looking at, so I’m preparing in case we get snowed in.

I hope I can blog while we’re on the road. I’m looking forward to seeing snow — real snow — for the first time in eight or nine years. I went to college in Maine (Bates) and I still miss the snow terribly.

Evidence of Everyday Existence

Posted on February 10, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

This is a journal page for Catherine’s round robin "journal," which is actually a heart-shaped box with pages cut from heavy watercolor paper. The theme is non-romantic love and it is filled with immaculately beautiful art.

I really didn’t feel up to the challenge this morning. You see, we’re setting out with our second son to look at schools in New England this week. New England is an awfully long way away and as much as I know it is what is best for this particular child, I’m heartbroken about it. I’m also terrified of both myself and the Judge being on the same plane and leaving the other three behind — a sort of latent mommy-fear-of-flying that is far more potent than anything the terrorists could impose. In any event, I haven’t been at my best this week and it seemed like a theme of things I love wasn’t going to be anything beyond pathetic.

Ellie and I worked on her Valentine’s this morning, so i decided to take out one of Catherine’s pages and play with texture (I gessoed tissue, a Nepalese paper, and some pieces torn from a glassine envelope onto the page). I liked it, so I thought I would experiment with tar gel and had fun spreading some tinted tar gel onto the page with a palette knife like it was a fondant icing.

Ellie’s Valentine’s were coming along nicely and as I was helping her, I remembered that Michelle Ward’s current Street Crusade is to journal about evidence of your every day existence. There is nothing I like better than little everyday things when I’m feeling blue. I took a long, cold walk with Ollie this afternoon, through the alley behind our house, and that was fun. He stomped through the leaves and stopped to look at the ferns. I looked through my collection of vintage lace and fabric pieces, thinking I might find something to finish my "emerging violet" collage. The little everyday things worked their magic. I finished my piece for Catherine and wrote "hot chocolate" on the last tag before I glued it on. I’m off to make some for the kids.

I hope that long after I’m gone, they’ll remember my home-made hot chocolate in winter as evidence of the love and fun we all shared.

Sprout

Posted on February 8, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

This is my piece for Illustration Friday’s "Sprout" theme. I was drawn to this theme in large part because of all the little sprouts — my four children and their friends — who populate my world.

This piece was a stretch for me because the girl is a black and white image from an old postcard that I played with in Photoshop. My friends Karen (you really need to see her new blog) and Joanne have encouraged me to play with computer graphics and nurtured me along. I haven’t mastered it yet, but I enjoyed working with this sweet little girl.

I have no knitting news or pictures because, well, i had no clue that twelve repeats in the straight section on my Clapotis were going to take so long! I have to give a lecture tomorrow and am driving over with some friends. I am hoping to get a few repeats done while driving. In the meantime, I am daydreaming about starting a vest out of Peace Fleece for my baby and socks for both the Judge and myself out of hand-dyed merino. Hopefully, I will have new knitting pictures by the weekend.

Yarn For Sale

Posted on February 6, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

Three little words to stir the heart of any knitter: Yarn For Sale!

I have three new colorways, including the beautiful Peace Fleece pictured above, going on sale at Midday Faire today (Tuesday) at noon. There is also a lot of wonderful yarn, including some cashmere, silks, and organic merinos at Elliebelly. Although I don’t usually mention my business on my blog, I’m doing it this week to let those of your who ~~need a fix~~ might want to buy yarn in the next little bit know that I will be out of town next week with one of the kids looking at schools, so from Saturday to Saturday, I won’t be shipping. Come and get it while it’s hot!