Molly Bee's Attic

The more I pare down, the more stuff   I have coming out of the woodwork! How does this happen?!?! Part of it is hobbies...I knit, spin, weave, draw, make baskets, 'play' music, etc. etc. etc. Each of these hobbies comes with it's own little cache of goodies that needs to be at the ready for when the mood strikes. Plastic bins here, plastic bins there! Here a spinning wheel, there a guitar, everywhere a flute, flute♫. Because 99% of my hobbies involve 'making things', I  have a bunch of knit goods, baskets, jewelry, etc. laying around. I give most of the stuff I've made away, but now that I'm trying to get my Etsy store going  the 'homemade stuff I had laying around' now turns into 'official inventory' and needs a place to live. Because of my Etsy shop and the fact that I work from home some, I have an 'office'.  OK so it's a corner of my bedroom, but still...it involves papers, writing utensils etc. and we all know how those ...

This week's Diva Challenge was to close your eyes and draw a 'blind string' and then deal with the beastly thing. I drew my outside boarder (traced a coaster), closed my eyes and drew the string. When I opened my eyes, about 1/2 -3/4 of an inch of graphite was actually inside the boarder, so I did something I never do on a challenge...  I started over. This time the majority of the lines landed inside the box so I just ignored what was outside and set off. Here is how it turned out: My scanner decided to cough up a fur ball this morning and it's really grainy, but you get the general idea. Once I finally got the string down, I had fun and used some patterns that I had never used or hadn't used in a long time. Thanks for another great challenge Diva!

I am so excited , you guys! As you all know, I never go anywhere, I never do anything and I never have any fun.  (*cough*)  Poor me! (*cough*) So this afternoon, I booked myself a birthday blowout weekend !  There is going to be a t wo day Zentangle retreat in Mineral Point,Wisconsin on October 13th and 14th taught by Diane Knauff from Stone Angels Studio !!  I even sucked it up and got a hotel room so I don't have to drive the hour and ten minutes home on Saturday night only to turn around and be back on Sunday at 8:30 AM! I love the Zentangle art form but have never taken any classes. It's my dream to take the teachers' certification class in Baltimore next year so this will be a good baby step in that direction. I only hope that all the large-scale-doodle-pa-looza-ing I've already been doing doesn't make it too difficult to stick the the true 3'x3'  format of the art.  But it wouldn't be me if I didn't have something to obsessively worry abo...

Went to Irish Fest in Milwaukee on Saturday. I had an opportunity to take a bus tour from one of the local travel agencies so I did. I was the only one on the bus that didn't have a cane or walker slowing me down but it was still fun. The bus let us off at noon and didn't come to pick us up until 6PM. The weather was gorgeous; about 75° with a breeze coming off Lake Michigan. This picture was taken down my Meehan's boat dock.  Beautiful view of the Art museum and you can see a currach in the foreground.  I watched the races for quite a while. They should consider putting fins on their paddles. They row with what looks like a big,  long, straight stick. Maybe someone just hasn't mentioned the proper paddles yet. I bet they'd make me a saint in Ireland if I blessed them with a big-finned dory paddle!  Off the pier is a nice bike path that goes around the other side of the bay.  Someday I'm going to go over and take a walk on it. Wonderful views of the b...

I didn't think I was going to participate in this week's Diva Challenge since I have a lot of other things on my plate. But after seeing that it was a DuoTangle (using two tangles only- Assunta and Mooka ) an idea kept niggling at me until I finally took 10 minutes and threw it down on paper last night. It's not fancy. It's not elaborate. It's probably 'cheating' on a lot of different levels but I just had to get it out of my head, so I thought I'd post it anyway. Heck, I posted a picture of my grubby barn-self holding a turkey a couple of posts ago. Can't get any worse than that can it? Thanks for a 'niggle-y challenge, Diva!

My weekend started off with a pic of this little cutie Patootie.  This is Noelle and Ella the Elephant that I knit to celebrate her first birthday.  I can't believe she is a year old already. What a little sweetheart! She and her big brother William are quite a pair! On Saturday I went down to Paoli. It's a town about 10-15 minutes and is little more than a wide spot in the road, but almost all of the buildings in town have been turned into art galleries. It's so neat to poke around down there. This weekend in addition to all of the galleries, there was an outdoor art fair on the banks of the Sugar River that runs through town.  The scenery was spectacular. This little bridge is behind the Paoli cheese shop and crosses the river to a beautiful little grove. The fair was set up just beyond the bridge. The weather couldn't have been more beautiful. It was such a serene setting to view the beautiful art.   Beyond the fair was the river again, windin...

This week's Diva Challenge was to use Zentangle Master,  Shelly Beauch's pattern' Brayd'.  My piece isn't a traditional Zentangle in size or form-only three patterns and not abstract, but I  had fun with this one! Thanks Shelly and Diva for a fun challenge! See if you can tell which pattern is  'Brayd?' :-)

As the world's most unphotogenic person, I hate to have my picture taken, let along have anyone else see it.  So why would I post this picture of my disheveled, dirty, sweaty self at the barn last Sunday?  So you can meet my buddy, Esme of course.  Esme seems to like to have me hold her. She lays her head on my arm or my shoulder and the rest of her body goes to Jell-o.  I have to hold her on my lap if she's not balanced just right or she would flop right off. I whisper sweet nothings in her ear and she closes her eyes.  She is such a sweet girl.  This Sunday's session lasted about 20 minutes until I finally convinced her that she had to get down and I had to go home. That's Kristin sitting next to me with Sonny the Rooster. He snuggles Kristin like Meme snuggles me. She was walking all around the barn with him under her arm on Sunday and his head was hanging and dangling over her arm like he was sound asleep. She can even interpret the different wei...

I thought I had a volunteer gig down at the library last night. I rushed home from work, made treats (Nilla Wafers, Nutella and banana sandwiches), packed up the car and went to the library only to find that I was the only one there. Seems the volunteer thing is NEXT week. Sigh. So I took the treats over to The Sow's Ear and off-loaded them on the knitting ladies. There is no way that I wanted a plateful of those little lovelies in my house!  Then I came home and realized that I had an entire evening to do with as I wish. I had previously thought that I wouldn't have time to do the Diva's Challenge this week. I didn't last week's and I hated to miss two in a row so I decided to print out the mandala for this week's challenge and attempt it. I haven't done them before and it was pretty interesting. Here is the mandala template that you were supposed to tangle. And here is mine. I didn't have time to shade it with graphite but I got it finished before...

I finally had a weekend where I wasn't running around like a head-challenged barnyard fowl, so I took some time and finished up some projects I had in the works.  I finished spinning, washing, drying, skeining and labeling yarn from the Heartland Farm animals. The 5 skeins of grey are little Teddy's (miniature Shetland) entire fleece. The white is from Bert (white sheep with black face) and the brown is a combination of Bert and Mick (the brown llama). I would have like to do more, but ran out of time. I turn it over Wednesday night for the gala on Saturday. It took me about 8 hours per skein and I had to work it in around my normal hectic life. I have more roving, so once I get the feeling in my hands and wrists back, there will be more Heartland yarn in the future. This is Ella Phant. I knit her eleventy hundred pieces right up quick and then realized I had to sew them all together so she sat in my knitting back for a bit while I sucked up my courage. Finally her whimperi...

I loves me the County Fair! I haven't missed it once since moving to Madison 22 years ago. I'm not a ride goer-on-er person but I love to visit the show animal barns, all of the kids' 4H displays, the business expo, petting zoo, and to just watch the folks in general. This year, I fulfilled my dream of becoming a carnie and actually worked at the fair! Heartland Farm had a public awareness booth in the Expo center and I signed up for a couple of shifts; one on Thursday afternoon and one on Saturday afternoon.  The Thursday afternoon one was pretty much a bust, attendance at the fair was pretty low but there were still enough folks around to make the people-watching interesting. Saturday was busy and I made quite a bit in donations to the farm which is always greatly appreciated. My favorite conversation was with a lady who, upon learning that the Heartland takes in farm animals (remember that because it's going to be important in a minute), insisted that we wer...

I am trying my dangest to get out of drawing a square and completely tangling the inside of it. I look at others' designs and love the airy look of the negative space they've used.  I decided to start with baby steps and just draw a string with no border and try that. The result was 'Dragon Wings and Things'. Well...It's not square, but it's approaching it and it's very densely filled. Still looks clunky to me. Next step, way less square with some areas in the middle not filled in at all. ...EEEEEKKK!

I am so excited, you guys! I have been working at getting this shop up for so long! It's still a work is progress.  You know my history as a horrible picture taker.  I'm working on better photos, but for now there are 7 items posted, jewelry and note cards, to get my feet wet in the Etsy pool! If I see interest, I am planning on adding more types of items to my shop; knit goods, original art, pine needle baskets, handspun yarn...who knows! You can either click on the link   Molly Bee's Attic Etsy Shop  or click on the widget on the left side of this blog to go check it out. I am looking for constructive criticism and ideas for making my shop great, so a comment would be greatly appreciated!

This week's challenge over on the Diva's site was provided by guest challenger, Rho Densmore.  The challenge is to use the Olympic Rings in a design.  For whatever reason, this was a difficult challenge for me so I decided to make it more difficult by using tangles that I have rarely or never used before. In for a penny, in for a pound I say!  The result was a design with more substance than style, I'm afraid, but I still had fun.  All of the patterns I used behind the rings begin with the letter U, S, or A.  Go Team USA! Bring us home some Olympic Gold!

I've learned many new things over the past few days. I learned how to draw ' Auraknot ' the new Zentangle pattern and theme of this week's Diva Challenge ... Auraknot is the star in the middle of the design. I like how it looks woven. I also learned how to make Butterfinger cake.  I made it for friends and it received two thumbs up. ( Photo by the great wonderful, FANTASTIC, couldn't get any better, friend Joseph "The Great" Tremain. Description of photo written by the same.) Butter Finger Cake Bake a yellow cake (mix or from scratch in a 9x13 pan). When it comes out of the oven, poke holes in it with a straw or a fork. Mix a can of sweetened condensed milk and a jar of Smucker's Caramel Ice Cream Topping together. Pour all over the top (and in the holes) of the still warm cake. Cool completely. Once it's cool, sprinkle two crushed Butter Fingers candy bars over the top. Cover all of that with a container of Cool W...

The past week or so has been hot here in Wisconsin.  And not just annoyingly so... face-meltingly so. All the grass is dead, the water in our ponds and lakes is at the lowest I've ever seen. The crops are dying. We are in the middle of a drought. On Saturday afternoon the 100°+ temps that we'd endured for days scooted over for a little bit of cool air and I, for one, was ECSTATIC.  One more day of swimming from the air-conditioned car to air-conditioned buildings, and back and I was apt to climb the bell-tower with my sling shot. Mr. Ben was happy too. We went for several walks Saturday night and Sunday. He'd been cooped up in the house for so long, he had LOTS of news to read on the area trees and hydrants. Consequently, we didn't get very far, distance-wise, but one of us got a lot of reading done! The crew at the barn was much happier yesterday too. I can't imagine how it was for them last week, sweltering in their furry coats in the blazing meadow and non-a...

This week's diva challenge was a Use My Tangle one. The tangle is Fiore de Pietro that Rho Densmore designed in honor of her late brother-in-law.  Participants (the challenged? :-)) are asked to use her design in a piece and then allow her to use it in memory books that she will be making for family members. I think that's a beautiful tribute.  She mentions in her request that her BIL's death again reminded her of how everything can change in a heartbeat. I've been thinking a lot about that lately too.  We let our family and loved ones 'get to us' over little (and sometimes big) things, despite all of the wonderful moments we've spent with them. But at the end of the day, if they should happen to no longer be with us, we'd pay money for one more moment with them, even at their most frustrating.  Hold your loved tight and tell them you love them.  Tomorrow isn't a done deal. It can all be done in a blink. Fiore de Pietro

Lots of folks have been asking me about the spinning I'm doing right now. Now I know a lot of you are spinners already, so just talk amongst yourselves while I school the newbies! The farrier that trims the animals hooves at Heartland came this spring and sheared the llamas and sheep. As I understand it, he doesn't usually shear for spinning, he shears just to get the heavy coats off the animals for summer. If you're an official shearer, you cut the wool or fleece(sheep)/ hair (alpacas and llamas) in a certain way to get the very best parts in the longest lengths possible. First it's skirted, which essentially cuts off the poo and other nasty bits that have to be removed before it can be washed. Sometimes you see sheep with coats on. This is done in an effort to keep the fleece clean so you don't have to do so much picking, or lose so much wool, due to all the yuckiness. This wasn't skirted so what I got was 5 trash bags of  fleece/hair with everything under t...

OK. Confession time. I cheated on this week's Diva Challenge . I don't have a whole lot of time to spare this week. I'm working on some knitting commissions, and I have a work conference, and there's always the mountain of spinning...so my entry for this week's challenge, which is to tangle where you're from, is a couple of pieces I did a while back. But they fit the bill, so I'm going with that. I'm all about adapting on the fly this week. I love the idea of tangling where you're from.  I tend to do a lot of Maine designs because I love it so much.  It's beautiful and inspirational to me. Here is a piece I did when I first started tangling.  I can't remember what that fish tangle along the bottom  was called, but I really like it. I was surprised that a  lot of people missed the moose the first time around! And here is one that I did as a t-shirt design idea and entered it in the employee art show at work. It's the second lob...

Last night I went to Knitter's Guild where the AMAZING Arne and Carlos spoke. I had wanted to take their Christmas ornament class on Sunday at The Sow's Ear  but I had to work. They couldn't have been more engaging, funny speakers and were very friendly to everyone. They live in an old train station built in 1900 in the mountains of Norway outside Oslo. They've fixed it up to be truly lovely and even landscaped it with gardens that no one though possible at the elevation where they live.  They have been fashion designers and now concentrate on knitting pattern books using traditional Norwegian patterns with a twist. I got both of my books, one on Christmas balls and one on knitted dolls, signed and had SUCH a great time. (I also learned a very important fact. It's pronounced E-kea not I-kea. They should know!) I didn't get home until 9PM and had chores to do, but I was so reved up after the meeting and anxious to start this week's Diva Challenge that I d...