WMEB*

*World's Most Expensive Basket

Okay - I was going to write this post as:
       Membership Fee = $x       
       Registration = $x
       Day fee for not staying at hotel = $x
       Class fee = $x
       Kit fee = $x
       A day spent with Karen = priceless

but, to be honest, I'm embarrassed to say what I paid to take this one workshop.. and it takes a LOT to embarrass me...individually as you are paying out the $ over a couple of months,  it doesn't seem unreasonable - thank Heaven I thought the class fees a little steep, so I only decided to take one day-long class.

Is this normal? the real-world cost of workshops??  None of the fiber-related workshops over the last few years cost me that much - an entire week in Houston with 7 workshops wasn't much more than that (removing cost of hotel).  Well - anywho - that's that for workshops for a long time.  It will have to be something really compelling to get me to take another one (in any art-form) unless it's free or less than $20!

So - it was fun - as only a day with Karen can be...

Karen with her basket from the prior day's workshop

and, of course, let's not leave out our 100+ newest friends:

The goody-bag was nice - it even had a towel with my name on it!

Other Hitchhiker's fans will be pleased to know
that I KNOW where my towel is
and that it is specifically mine!!

As for the basket - it doesn't look more than a mess to start with -

 

But, once you get started, it begins to go well..

Until, at last:

Must not have done too badly if the teacher didn't mind posing with me!

It was fascinating that two people can take the same class and come up with different designs:

Karen's on left - mine on right

And, of course, Karen is much faster than me at making these things, so she talked the instructor into letting her make the kit from the next day's workshop - giving her two baskets for the same time-period and meaning she could spend Sunday with her husband -

And the basket?  Well - it goes behind glass with a copy of this blog with the real cost marked on it so whoever inherits it understands its lowest monetary value!

Frog Prince #2

Once again, The Sketchbook Project had a 2013 version going, and since I signed up as soon as it was announced, this little frog has been sitting in the studio for a year...

And, of course, I did it all in a day, the day before the deadline ... something I hate, by the way ... I was NEVER the kid doing her homework in the car on the way to school the day it was due...

That being said, I was absolutely uninspired so it sat there and turned into an ugly frog right before my eyes - but since I paid good money to participate, I put together a book containing some of my photographs over the last 8 years along with some of the abstracts I've created with them ... interesting, but not my finest work - I'll have to consider whether I want to do it again or not for 2014...

Meet Frog Prince #1...

note: I didn't "make" it 

I know, I know...doesn't look like an ugly frog ... BUT... it was purchased by one of my faculty who asked if I could "fix it" so he could display it...and I said yes before seeing it ... and it's been in the studio for a very long time.

This is what I got:

The mola and the embroidery are nice,
but the strips were stitched so that it was never going to lay flat...

So, I took the blue strips off...

then I took the white strips off...

trimmed it to size...

ironed and starched it and, using black batting,
re-sewed the white strips back on (quilting it as I went

re-sewed the blue strips on (again quilting as I went):

Squared it up, and added binding...As soon as I put the sleeve on the back tonight, it will be ready to return to its owner.

Whew - one less project in the house!!

Decisions

I don't really believe in resolutions - or, if I did, I'm not the type to wait until the false beginning of some schedule set up by Big-Guy Greg #8 in 1582  - because ALL things decided in the 16th century MUST be continued, don't ya know, because WE MUST STAY ON SCHEDULE!!!...ummm...no...besides, the git didn't realize he was already 10 minutes behind...how can you trust someone who didn't pay attention to details?

Anywho...if you are going to make a resolution, make it when you think of it...that is, technically, the beginning day of the rest of your allotted scheduled time on this planet....

So - even if it's not a resolution, it is a decision with no definite timetable - about my art, anyway.  I've decided to EAT THE UGLIEST FROG FIRST...based on the logic that if you have to spend your day eating frogs, then by eating the ugliest one first, the rest don't seem so bad....

Last cycle of the Gregorian calendar seems to have piled up a lot of things in my studio that are started, partially finished, almost finished or on some list to be done...so...I'm off to my studio to see which frog is next....