Just When You Think You Can Get Back To Work On Your Art...

I hadn't posted anything for so long and I wanted so badly to catch up with my friends, but life always seems to have other plans. But my mother has been delivered more of a blow. 

Mom and I were having one of our ordinary days of doctors appointments, grocery shopping, and regular run of the mill adventures of missing freeway entrances and getting lost. I was getting ready to go home after getting her hearing aids fixed for the third time when we were getting out of my car and my mother tripped on the curb and fell. She had hold of my arm, but did a ballet move I hadn't seen before and fell on the sidewalk on her side. She smacked her head hard, and I had horrible visions of my mom dying in front of me.

Mom insisted that we not call an ambulance, but I would not  hear of it. At 92, or any age, you do not smack your head on the sidewalk and refuse to call an ambulance, especially when you think that you may have other injuries also. 

I won the argument, as I knew I would in that instance, and off to the emergency room we went. She had a broken wrist, and they did a CAT Scan. Luckily, no brain damage, or fractured skull. 

By the next Thursday, the fall was Friday of the week previous, she couldn't get our of bed as her back was hurting so badly. By the next Monday, it was July 4 weekend, we were in the doctor's office.

 After tests, we were surprised to find that Mom had very low oxygen, a high erratic heart rate, a fractured disk, COPD, etc. She was admitted to the hospital that Monday and now it is Thursday. She is still there. 

Tomorrow she will be released to go to a skilled nursing home where she will work on walking while on pain pills, and  breathing with oxygen and inhalers. She may not be able to return to her current residence.

What's my point? Live life to the fullest and be thankful for every moment of health that you have. Take care of yourself, and don't take health for granted. Watching Mom go through this is no fun. Take care of those you love and don't ever take them for granted!!!

If you have a queasy tummy, don't look at this picture, it hurts.

The Garment That Hides The Flaws

 I began making this top about a year ago and my friend Helen was gracious enough to model it for me. She is a lovely, tall redhead and makes it look fantastic. This is a top that can make any of us look more thin, as I can attest. I have put on several pounds in the last few years and I can wear this without feeling uncomfortable.

 

The flow of the chiffon fabric gives it an ethereal look. The drop of the fabric on the one side causes the eye to notice to beauty of the arms, neck and shoulders of the wearer.

 

 
 

This is a very graceful garment that has been very popular with women in the gallery. It is also a lot of fun to wear. Though it is felted with a small amount of merino wool, it is very light weight and perfect for summer evenings.

It can be either sewn on the side or left entirely open with a blouse, or tights under it. The top is very versatile and lends itself to many different ways of dressing it up. It can be dressed up or down.

 

 

I would love to hear what you think.

What To Do Now?

So now that I have left the art gallery, what do I do next? Sure, I have many interests, like the flower gardens in my back and front yards that you can see pictures of below. But will that be enough? I need to be making things, using my imagination. Sounds pretty compulsive and I think that I need to take a rest. Some of the artists from the last gallery already want to start a new gallery. I'm not sure that we are ready. 

Bits and pieces of my back yard.

I am enjoying taking pictures and playing with them in Photoshop. If you haven't had a chance to take a class from Kim Klassen do so. This is an area in which I can be creative for now. As for a gallery, we'll have to see what develops.

Some delicate beauties.

Poppies this year were fantastic.

I AM BACK TO BLOG

I have been an off and on blogger for a while and I left this site a while back after my father died. I am going to try to be a little more faithful. I was a member of an art gallery for 2 years and had a wonderful time with many great artists, but am now taking a break from that for a while. I need to spend more time with my 92 year old mother. She lives in Portland, Oregon which is about an hour away from me given the traffic.She relies on me to take her to doctors appointments and shopping. 

Mom lives in a great retirement home on the 15th floor, where she can see the mountains and the river flowing through the city, but she still calls the place, "the institution." At 92 she is still in good shape, goes places with me, and has a great sense of humor. I enjoy her company. I can tell from her pictures as a little girl that she was a character. There she is in that crazy old buggy.

Mom and her sister in a buggy.

When I left the art gallery I still had many felted garments. This shrug is one of them. It doesn't show very well, but it has fabric painted cheese cloth in it, and it looks great on.

This coat took forever to felt. The wool is beautiful. I'll have to take more pictures.It has inlaid silks throughout and several different wool's.









The two coats below have sold, but they are examples of garments that can be made in somewhat similar fashion. I never make anything the same again. It is too much fun to make different garments each time.





I am looking forward to visiting with some old friends again. I hope that some of them drop by to see me now that I am back.

Chelsea's Romantic Wedding

 My niece, Chelsea had a fairy tale wedding in Long Beach, California. Everything was beautiful, right down to a transformer blowing creating a fireworks display that people thought was planned until we all noticed that we had no electricity for a while. But that didn't dampen the party. The weather even changed for us, blowing in some cooling air after a day of intense heat for this Oregonian.

 My niece, who is also my God child, looked fantastic! She married a great guy. What a wonderful couple and beautiful event.

Chelsea with sister, Taylor

They got so tickled about something.

Chelsea, Nell and Mike

Chelsea and Taylor

Chelsea and Mike

And the Winners Are...

Drum roll please. Each step in the process gets documented
for the sake of security.

Ten names are written on pieces of paper,  folded
tightly and placed in a bowl.

Husband is asked to draw out two names as the
bowl is held over his head so that he cannot see
the papers.

Cameron unfolds the first name and the winner is
FIONA!!!

The two papers are handed securely to Cameron.

Cameron unfolds the second piece of paper
and the winner is AUDREY!!!


Audrey and Fiona have each won a hat and now must send me an email link so that we
can discuss head size. I am not great at this, but I'll give it my best shot. Don't take that literally ladies, if you don't use that expression, means I'll try very hard to get it right. But I think you know that. 

Thank you so much for your participation in my contest all of you. This has been so much fun. I will be having more contests in the coming weeks, so stay on board. 

Also, I have started a new felting hobby. I want you to meet some new friends. Coming soon. For now, many hugs for all of you, Cameron

Drawing for Hat July 1st

The drawing will take place on July 1st, so please let me know on the previous post if you are interested in having your name drawn for one of these hats. Please let your friends know about this contest. Many thanks and good luck. 

Hugs and have a great rest of the week, Cameron

Making New Garments Out of Old and a DRAWING

After a number of years of felting now I have many scraps and quite a few prefelts. I am now using some of these to make new pieces to save a few dollars. Last year at tax time I got a good break because my output in money was quite a bit larger than what I made back. Though I never went into felting to make money, I would like to pay for my supplies a little bit. So using garments that I haven't sold, or that I am tired of is one way to save a bit. 

This colorful vest was a pretty ugly jacket at one time. Hard to believe now as it looks nothing like its former self. I used several of my prefelts to decorate it and had a great time doing it. I went over to my friend Kathy's and got some great vintage buttons that she got from her father after they closed an old woolen mill. Her father worked in the mill. As you can see in the picture below, I have plenty of felts to use and many garments to consider, though not all of these will be recycled.

Vest that needs buttons

Prefelts on vest

Garments for consideration

Bucket of prefelts

DRAWING FOR A HAT

On another topic, I want to have a drawing for a hat, but you will have to spread the word to have the drawing. I have been having fun making "Free Form Felted Hats," and I would like to share one, one with a flower. To have the drawing, I want to have at least 5 entries. I think that we can do that. I have changed my header so that there are 2 hats at the top of my blog and those are the hats I am talking about. To enter, just comment and say you are interested. Make sure that I have a way of getting back in touch with you if your name is drawn, email, blog, etc. Also, talk it up with your friends and blogger buddies.

Hope to hear, hugs, Cameron

Button, Button Who Has the Button

Charter Oak

Little Red Riding Hood

 I have started a new hobby, the collection of sewing buttons. The problem is that the collection of these is very addicting and there are so many of them. This little hobby began when I bid on 2 pages of buttons that were being auctioned in an on line auction that I watched. I just happened to bid on and get them. I didn't know anything about old buttons and still don't know much, but I love the look of them, especially the old metal ones like these. Ever since then I have kept an eye out for buttons that I find to be of interest.

Mary Tudor

This can also be an expensive little hobby as I seem to go over my "button budget" very easily. And my budget does not have much room to spare these days. If you have any info on old buttons love to hear. For now,
Love and Hugs, Cameron

Ivoroid

Trying New Things

Forces

 I saw an advertisement for a juried show called "Radius 25" and I decided to look into it. The theme was "Face to Face," and I knew just what I would do. I had been working on making faces for some time and had just been putting them away in a drawer. This allowed me a way to incorporate them into my felting and do a mixed media piece. I called it "Forces." I know why I called it that, but I don't want to have to explain myself to anyone else. It didn't make it into the Radius show, but they established a new show called "Interface" which it fit right into. I was very happy to get into any part of the show.

My own gallery, The Red Raven Gallery,http://redravengallery.com/, which I still haven't made my artist page for, also had a juried show on a much smaller scale. The theme was "Full Moon Rising" and we were to celebrate round. I made two felted wall hangings for this show and took the one on the left. (These aren't the greatest pictures as I took them while they lay over the back of my sofa.)

Dancing By the Light of the Moon

I was asked by a friend in another gallery to make some wall hangings with a summer theme, with leaves and flowers. I like simple and symbolic, so I came up with a few very colorful little pictures that I had fun with. The first was a girl running across a field with a bunch of balloons. Again I took the picture on the back of my sofa so it's a bit slanted.

Frolic

The next wall hanging that I did is of a tree with leaves falling. It isn't quite finished, as I have to stitch around a few of the leaves yet. There is a small boy under the tree who is very sad and forgotten. He has a hoody pulled over him. This is called, "Forgotten." Again, the slanted sofa picture.Some day maybe I will come up with a way to take a decent picture.

Forgotten

I have one more picture that is almost finished, but each time that I think that it is ready, I do something else to it. It is already so thick that it may turn out to be a pillow instead of a wall hanging.

I bought a felting machine about a month ago and have had a great time playing with it. This is a piece that I made with it. It may or may not be finished. I love the colors. These machines are great, but as those of you know who have one, they can be very expensive it you try to hurry them or are not very careful when using them.

 Hey everyone, have a great day, week, etc. So good to hear from my good friends, and thanks for the good wishes for my Mom. She gets better each day, makes new friends, has new adventures. I just hope that if I get to be 90, I have half the spirit that she has. I am so blessed to have such a person to look up to.
Hugs, Cameron