And we’re back
Hello, my little blog. It’s been over a year, hasn’t it? This is just a brief post to break the radio silence, to get back to documenting my projects, because I have a lot of things planned in the next couple months. Things like cross-stitching pegboard.
Lamps and other things that light up my life
I just rewired a lamp!
What, it looks really familiar? That’s because I painted it last March (!!!). Rewiring lamps is a simple thing. It only takes a couple minutes, and I even had a lamp kit ready and waiting. But it sat on my side table, looking pretty, but lackluster, until just the other day. Life’s been kind of like that recently. Turns out that when everything gets thrown in the air and you move, change your career, generally overhaul your life and take on several big projects at once, it takes a bit for all the little things to come back into focus. And that’s where I am. There’s time for lamps now, time for projects and time to blog again.
Here’s the highlight reel of that last couple months:
I was in a full length aerial circus show as part of the Philadelphia Fringe Festival with Tangle Movement Arts, the performance group I work with:
photo credit: Michael Ermilio (michaeltakespictures.com)
I biked 150 miles in two days in the MS: City to Shore ride:
photo credit: one of my awesome friends who provided road crew support!
(and Crystal and I are currently featured on the homepage of the website! Yeah!)
I was in another circus show-lette with Tangle, called Half Life, which will be developing into a full length show by the end of March:
photo credit: Jill LeMin Lee
I have a pattern in the current issue of Knitscene, called Secret Song mittens:
photo credit: Knitscene magazine
And I think that sums it up. It’s really been a fantastic few months, and there’s so much upcoming that I’m really looking forward to, especially some more time carved out for lamps and other small projects. (11 months! 11 months to rewire that thing. I mean, really.)
Adventures in Painting
It’s Fall? Already? It felt like the last few weeks of summer just slipped through my fingers. Don’t get me wrong, I love pumpkins, cider, wood stoves and down comforters, but I’m feeling a little wistful for one more afternoon swimming in the river.
Along with the leaves, everything in my life seems to have changed recently, all of it for good. I have a new job that I’m excited to go to every morning, and I’m settling into my new home. I love it here, and it’s been interesting working with such a blank slate.
It’s easy to forget how much work has gone into it when I’m looking at the finished (up to this point) product. When I moved in, it looked like this:
The bed was oriented on the other wall, and even my quilt couldn’t save the blankblankblank sterility. First things first, I painted all the walls Behr’s Almost Aqua and rearranged the furniture:
I had all these paint chips that I’d picked up, and as I fanned them out in my hands when I was initially trying to pick a wall color, I decided to paint stripes. I’d never actually even painted a wall a single color before this, but it seemed to go pretty well, and I generally have (overrated? misguided?) confidence in my DIY abilities. I came up with a color scheme, measured the intervals and taped.
With an even number of stripes in my repeat, that meant that I could tape half of them, paint half and then switch. The wall color was one of the stripes in the repeat, so there was that much less to tape and paint. Theoretically, it should have taken two days.
This was the end of day one (which I actually really like, and in retrospect, maybe should have stopped there:
Day two in progress:
But it wasn’t… right.
The dark grey and the yellow were too prominent, so all I could see was a road with a yellow dividing line. So two more nights of taping and painting and I came up with a softer palette that I like much better. It was helpful that the half pint sample cans were the perfect size for stripes this size. I only wish I’d realized that before I bought some of the initial colors in quart size.
Some tips and tricks? Taping is the most important and time consuming part. Take your time, because that’ll make the biggest difference.I did use a level, but the walls really aren’t level, so I relied more on measurements and perception. On a couple other blogs, I read about initially sealing the edges of the tape with the original wall color to prevent bleed through, but I didn’t do this. I did smooth down the tape with a credit card before painting, and that seemed to mostly do the trick. The only time I got drips that sent me panicking for a rag was when I used a brush on the thinner stripes. There were no accidental drips at all using a roller. Also, if I’d thought ahead, I would have played with the stripes on the computer or maybe with graph paper by hand beforehand, which would have saved me from having to do the redo. Oh well. Next time I know.
The rest of the room is starting to come together, but I have a big project in the works that’s going to maximize my storage and workspace in this smaller room. I’m excited to get started!
In the meantime, though, this is really starting to feel like home.
Slice of Life
The faster life moves, the less time there is to step back and document it. I’m not going to try to play catch up right now, because there’s a sweater waiting for me to finish, more work to do and the MS Bike Ride to prepare for tomorrow. I have a lot more projects I want to tackle in the upcoming weeks. But for the moment, I’m going to sit here with my cereal and cat next to the open window on this rainy morning. It’s good. I’m happy.
Banner Days
Circus continues to be front and center of my creative endeavors recently. I’ve been working with Tangle: Movements Arts, a group of other aerialists and artists, on some local performances. (Go like us on Facebook! Go! Do it!) Over the summer, we’ve put on monthly shows Clark Park that we call tinycircus. They’re very informal, a great place to try out some new material. We rig in a tree right near the children’s playground, and a lot of people spending time in the park make their way over to watch. It’s been really, really great how receptive people have been to what we’re doing.
For more pictures, including some absolutely fantastic ones of the faces of the kids in the crowd, go check out the write up they did about us in the West Philly Local.
Our next performance will be as part of Philly’s Fringe Festival. For the past couple years, I’ve loved attending Fringe shows. It’s a 16 day festival in the city of every kind of performance art you can imagine. Anyone can participate, and the shows range from brand new amateur to international professional. I’ve seen plays, comedy, improv, of course circus, and I’m so excited to be a part of it this year. If you’re local to the area, our show will be running on September 8th at 6:30pm and September 9th at 7:30 and 9:30pm. There’s more information and tickets here. I hope you come see us!
Somewhat related, but of a different venture altogether, I’ve made several paper banners recently that I’m quite proud of. Firstly (and this is the related part), I made one that we’ve been using for tinycircus:
And my MS Bike Ride team held a fundraising bake sale recently, and I made a banner for that, as well. Here it is waiting to be packed up:
And in action:
(psssssst…. JUST IN CASE you want to donate, time is running short and I still have money to raise. Even $5 will help me make my fundraising goal. My page is here.)
Also, I got a really nice mention on the Kelbourne blog. My good friends Kate and Courtney have moved their business to an awesome new location (it’s an 18th century stone manor house!) and I’m really excited to see that a banner I made for their oft used phrase has also found a new home. Here’s a picture I snapped of it in their old space:
But, really, you need to go take a look at it in its new home. The setting is much more picturesque.
So I’m thinking, come fall, banners- cute, fun, sassy, irreverent banners- may finally be my foray into the world of Etsy. In my mind, October is going to be this magical month with all this new found free time. I really am enjoying every single second of what I’m doing, but between moving, the Fringe show, the MS bike ride on top of the rest of my busy life, time has been a precious commodity around here. Until then I’m going to keep kicking this idea around, and if you happened to require a custom paper banner in the meantime, I take requests!
Goin’ Places
This summer has been flying by, full of swimming, biking, picnics and adventures. Last weekend, I went ziplining and this upcoming weekend, I’ll be going on my first camping trip. I’m training for the MS City to Shore bike ride (150 miles!) and working with some fantastic people on exciting circus projects. Busy busy busy! Another big adventure coming up is that I’m moving in August. A dear friend bought a house, and I’m so excited to be her housemate. A part of me, though, is a little wistful at the thought of leaving my current space. I’ve lived in this studio for two years, and I’ve put a lot of work into making it a home. If it wasn’t for the fact that it’s so inconveniently far outside of center city, I’d probably never leave. Nonetheless, onward and upward, change is good, etc, etc.
So, before I go, I thought I’d do a tour of my apartment to remember it by. Some of the pictures have been recycled from earlier blog post, sorry sorry. But, here we go:
When you walk through the door, this is the overall view. Except that Naomi, cat face, will be directly underfoot.
To the left is an antique dresser, a leftover from my childhood bedroom set.
I painted and rewired the lamp, and the dried lavender is from my mom’s garden.
Moving clockwise, this is my office corner (where I’m sitting right now!). The chair was a show floor model from Urban Outfitters that I got for free. It didn’t fit in the trunk of my car at all, but that didn’t stop me from buying rope, driving slow and hauling it home.
Close up of the little shelf thing on my desk. It was a $3 thrift store find. Also, in case you find it pertinent, I love a good bouquet of cut flowers, and I prefer white ones over anything else.
And here’s a shot of the full wall with the Valentine’s craft that was just never taken down.
The working fireplace, which was amazing in the winter.
And the always ever-changing ephemera on the mantle. I spy letters and postcards from friends, holy water from Knock shrine and my family’s well in Ireland, a painting I found in a snowbank and a bar of soap that says, “Stolen from Mabel’s whorehouse.”
My bed with its summer bedding and the branch tree. It seems silly to even think about moving the branch tree across town, especially since it’s just something I dragged in from behind my apartment building. It’s only a half thought… it’s just a particularly good branch.
And the windows, the windows, the windows.They’re amazing. They face west, and I get the best sunsets:
It didn’t matter how many times I saw it, if I was home, I’d stop what I was doing to watch the sunset.
The side table is another great thrift store find, a old children’s school desk.
I never really managed to fill this large space of blank wall, but it worked well for displaying banners-in-progress. This particular one went on to live in Denmark.
The couch is my one “grown up” piece of furniture. It’s upholstered in linen, and I love it. I rarely sit on it, to be honest, because I sit at my desk chair more often, but it sure is pretty.
And the side table, which I refinished last fall.
I don’t have pictures of the kitchen and bathroom, but those are the only other rooms in the apartment. I might post a follow up of some detail pictures, for my own posterity sake.I feel good about moving, excited to have a new space to decorate and a chance to weed through all my things. Let the packing commence!
Slice of life
Inspiration from a recent trip to Arizona has resulted in these minimal interpretations of dreamcatchers in bright pops of color. I used the light wooden frames from embroidery hoops and crocheted around the outside to encase them in wool. I love the lacy look of the geometric interlacing. Fast, simple, fun!
