Bugsy...who rescued who?

My too-cute little boy..

Helping me with sewing...NOT

He's totally sweet and spoiled, my constant shadow and protector. He came into my life at the perfect time. His only job is to keep me sane and smiling and he's REALLY good at that!  

I saw a bumper sticker today that had a paw print and text on it was "Who rescued who?"  

Ain't that the truth!

I'll miss you, Sweet Tess

 Tess

 When we rescued Tess 10-12 years ago, she came to us bald, except for her head -- she looked more like a lizard than a parrot. She had a broken claw and wing. She had been abandoned in an apartment when her owner skipped out on the rent. I don't know how long she was without food or heat before the landlord found her. She was one tough old bird to survive the horrible things that were done to her. 

It was almost two years before she let us hold her and then, when she finally realized that we really could be trusted, she turned into a big ole snuggle baby. She loved nothing more than crawling up under my husbands sweatshirt and cuddling him while she got her rubbins'.  She loved chicken and veggies and apples and bananas and chewing up the wooden playpen that my husband rebuilt for her every few weeks. She did great sound effects and said hello in both of our voices and make kissy noises and whistled the chicken song. She always gave a thank-you clicking sound when she got treats. She often shared the table with us at meal time and had to taste everyone's food to make sure she wasn't missing anything.

This morning I shared an orange and a cookie with her and she was happy, as usual. This evening, I came home and she was at the bottom of her cage, with no strength to stand.  I held her and tried to give her some warmth and nourishment and in a short time I felt her very last heart beat on the palm of my hand and then she was gone.

 Waiting for belly rubbins' from her favorite guy

 With her comrades, Biscuit and Coco

Birds must go to heaven, right? 

I mean...you always see them hovering around with angels in art...

Excuses

Where have I been?
Nowhere, really.
I've been  busy -- sorta.
Not much gardening this year. Six weeks of rain, then six weeks of temps in the 90's. Bleh.
Not much biking -- same reasons. Bleh.
Daughter and grandkids still living here... More bleh
Bought a trailer so I can take the Dog on bike rides -- he loves it!  Hopefully we'll have some dry weather this fall.
I made a little bedroom into a small gym. Bike, rowing machine, treadmill, free weights and weight bench. Slowly getting back into that groove.

My desktop crashed and burned, but the Geek Squad was able to save most everything. Bought a refurbished tower.
Laptop appears to be suffering from some other fatal computer crap.  More bleh.

Lots of studio organizing going on here. 
I have dyed tons of fabric. I played with resists after reading  Lisa Kerpoe's terrific series of articles in QA about Resists From The Kitchen. Lots of fun -- my favorite is the mashed potaoes.
Been making lots of new screens, did some more deconstructed screen printing,  gelatin plate printing, made a bunch of small foundation-pieced wall hangings. Been painting fabric, making stamps, doing some lino-cut and woodcut prints. Started some oil paintings for next a solo show I'm doing next summer.
Took tons of photos.
Played with the Dog...um...a lot.

Can't even imagine life before Bugsy...

What I haven't done is blog.
I've wanted to.  but I like pictures when I post and getting photos blog-ready on this new/used computer is a pain in my patootie.
So I'll try and 'get over it' and get back to posting, coz I really have lots to show you.   : )

And the winners are...

In all the fuss over the new sweetest pooch in the world (yes, I'll admit it, I'm totally over the top with this dog), I forgot to make the announcement!

There are two winners (just coz  I'm soooo happy this week)...

Ann and Norma!  Yay!!

So please email me at artgoose@yahoo.com and send me your snail mail and I'll get you fabric out to you ASAP!

My new studio companion!

I adopted a 2 year old Bichon Frise last night. From the moment we got home, he has become my little white shadow.
Sweetest. Dog. Ever.

 Look -- he likes fabric -- he's perfect!

 He seriously need some grooming...

But look at that sweet face!!! 

Snow, some ice and still more snow. And a give-away

If you live near the Great Lakes, you know about the "Lake Effect".  (Always said in awe and written with caps)
It has to do with the humid air over the unfrozen lakes causing crazy amounts of snow in winter. (Think Buffalo, New York)
"They" said on the news a couple of week ago that there would be no more 'lake effect' snow, because the lake (Lake Erie) was frozen. 'They" lied.
a) the lake was not frozen over (I drove to the shore and checked)
b) it's snowed almost every day since they said there wouldn't be any more snow.
c) and then it snowed some more.

So I've been doing a crazy amount of snow dyeing.
Hey, I couldn't get out of the driveway for a week -- what's a girl to do?
I've snow-dyed over 150 yards since the first of the year and I'm out of pfd fabric.
So, until I get more fabric to dye, I'm going to do a give-away.
Go to the New Fabric page (see the tabs at the top of the page ), leave a comment here, by Friday, telling me the number of your favorite piece and you will be in a drawing to win it.

Please make sure that I can reach you -- the last time I did this, I never could get a hold of one of the winners and had to draw another name.

When life gives you snow...

Snow dye!




































Another batch of new fabric (see New Fabric tab above), from 69 up.