Two Steps Forward . . . you know what follows

This past week I “slipped back” a little into last year’s habits of sort of aimlessly wandering when it came to working on projects. I have a class starting later this week (Lyric Kinard’s Artist’s Toolbox at Quilt U) so I don’t really want to start anything new. So . . . .not a whole lot to share with you right now.

I experimented with some bleach and wood pieces and clamps; that was a colossal failure, so no need to take pics of those pieces.

All my sketches this past week were pretty awful. I haven’t felt well and I was forcing myself to sketch anyway, just to make it a habit.

I did run across these purple and green blocks that I had made WAY back when I started piecing traditional blocks. I started to stash them away and realized I was so tired of running across them, so I impulsively slashed them up and inserted some hand-dyed orange fabric, then sewed them together.




Definitely an improvement, but I’m not really sure what I’ll do with this block now.

So, there you have it.

On the other hand, I do have a couple of book recommendations for you. I just finished Mary Karr’s Lit: A Memoir. This book has been out for a couple of years, but I just got around to reading it. Karr is a brilliant writer, and she held me captive with the tragic, poignant, and funny details of her recovery from alcohol addiction. If you’ve ever know anyone who suffered from an addiction, you won’t want to miss this book. Even if you haven’t, it’s one of the best memoirs I’ve read.

For you Kindle people, I happened to run across Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinore Pruitt Stewart. These letters were written beginning in 1909 by a young widow who traveled to Wyoming with her 2-yr. old daughter to work as a housekeeper. I’ve only just started reading them, but Stewart is a gifted and funny writer who paints a detailed picture of life at that time. And, the best part is, this book is free for your Kindle!

I haven’t been completely slug-like. In addition to that great wonky block above, I went on a marvelous adventure this weekend across the web, learning lots about one of my favorite poets, Rainer Maria Rilke. Next time I post, I’ll tell you how I started at Rilke and ended up at Ad Reinhardt’s black canvases.