The Good, the Bad and the Lovely

Well, time passes swiftly and a lot has happened in the past two months. The highlights are these, though.

The Good: WOOT! The City of Kingsport purchased my "Labyrinth" for their permanent collection. It will adorn the new V.O. Dobbins Community Complex. I hope to attend the opening on Friday and will be recording my artist statement for the cell phone audio tour of the public art later today!

"Labyrinth" (c) Cindi Huss.

The Bad: I accidentally felted the commission I was working on. OY! Forgot about the felting properties of the wool batting I was using. How? How could I forget?! Beats me since wool has become one of my major materials. Perhaps fatigue? Perhaps trying to do too many things at once? Perhaps because it was inside rather than on the surface. Anyhow, I've recovered from my initial shock and dismay and have decided it actually is a good thing because I am working on an even more wonderful version of the piece now. (Pascale, you are not alone. Unfortunately, the product has not been transformed into a coordinating rug.)

The Lovely: I got together with a couple of friends last month and we dyed. For two days! And we're going to do it again on Wednesday. We dyed yarn (for the knitter), leotards, tights, and silk gauze (for the dancewear designer), and I dyed wool prefelt and natural woven wool fabric to be backgrounds for my felt paintings.

Also, about three weeks ago, fellow quilter Pam Morris announced that she was done dyeing and ready to quilt up all her lovely fabric, so she was giving away all her dye supplies. For Free! So I drove over to Burnsville, NC, to pick up many containers of fiber reactive dye powder, many containers of mixed dye (poor thing sprained her shoulder before she could use it all up), a small plastic table, and loads of measuring implements, dye containers, rags, and auxilliary chemicals. I really appreciate it, Pam, and will let you know what we do with it!

Also, I'm about to send a couple of quilts and some fabric off to Timna Tarr of Q Tailored Quilts. I haven't plugged her recently, but Timna is fabulously talented and highly reliable, and her services are reasonably priced. I'll post photos when I get the quilts back.