Martianknits

I have been procrastinating in blogging. The problem with being between creative periods is that writing is hard too. The problem with being in a creative rush is that writing is not what I want to do. What I should be doing right now is finishing my Loch Shiel rug hooking.  As you can see I am done but for the border. I have decided to keep the border very thin and a purply plum colour. I have also changed my mind about putting it on the floor as an actual rug.  It will be a wall hanging. During my procrastination time we had the living room area painted and I started to put Christmas up. And I did a few fabric cards using some of the techniques I learned at the November Workshop I took.  Finishing a project, decorating the house and making small cards are small creative acts but they do keep my brain distracted. I am keeping myself open and available for the next inspiration. I know it is there just out of reach. I go to bed at night hoping tha...

This has been a fall of filling the idea tank. I traveled, took classes, went to 2 exhibits and shared ideas with other creatives. You know I traveled and I owe you some France photos. Texture on Juno Beach Mont ST. Michel Inside the town at Mont St. Michel   Church in Norville Church in Dieppe Classes or workshops are a good way to fill up the idea tank. Classes I choose to take are usually in a technique or art form I wouldn't choose to do on my own. It helps to get out of a creative rut and there is a real possibility that the technique will inform future work. A few days after getting back from France I took a workshop in Zentangle influenced hooking. I wasn't very good at it. But I got a new angle with which to approach surface design. all seeing tree  My resulting piece is nothing like Zentangle but uses its principles. The next course I took was a 3 day intensive with Alice Vander Vennen with techniques and methods fairly new to me. Fi...

My husband and I have only really been able to travel since selling my business and downsizing our house. I have figured out why I like traveling so much. Traveling brings newness and change. It gets one out of the day to day struggle. It is an excuse to forget that overdue bill or a looming deadline. In putting oneself in an unfamiliar situation or country you have to  be totally present to new customs, foods, languages etc.. Just the mere fact that I have to be open to all around me allows for new creative pathways inside me. (Does that make sense to anyone but me?) Boat on River Yar on Isle of Wight I do not take your usual Tourist photos when traveling. I am interested in textures, light and colors of a new area.  I take fewer photos because I am more interested in just being present in the moment. That being said I had to take a photo of the beautiful refurbished church my friend Jules and his wife  live in. It is stunning both in and out.  We stayed in...

Those of you who follow my instagram and/or facebook feed know that I post many in progress shots of current projects. Maybe you wonder why. I take many photos because it is a good way to get a distant view of what I am doing. When working on something intricate like rug hooking or even knitting it is so easy to get wrapped up in the minutia of tiniest of details. What I see while working is usually something like this. Picture is a bit blurry but this is usually how close I am to what I am working on. So I have a vision, the Big Picture, but I work in single loops of colour. As I choose my colours I hope that it is working with the whole.  It is therefore important to take a step back. Even further back. So I take a photo. I ask myself. It is hanging together as a whole. What do I need to change? Where should I go from here? Then I want to share my progress.  Some artists do not. I enjoy the fact that you get to see how the piece comes to life. I enjoy the...

Enceinte.   I was listening to Jeremy Dutcher  (if you haven't listened to him you MUST) and looking through some old doodles and this French word came into my brain.  Enceinte. It means Pregnant. What? Why would this word pop into my mind? I am pregnant with ideas? Certainly not with child!! Perhaps it was this doodle. Looks kind of like a pregnant profile. Non? So I looked up the word.  It turns out it is also an Achaic  noun that means: an enclosure or the enclosing wall of a fortified place. As an adjective it means pregnant.  It comes from the latin  INCINTA which means to “gird in”. Makes sense that it would describe a condition of being with child.  We bearers of children gird them within our fortified belly for nearly 10 months. And then they demand freedom. What other fortifications do we have around ourselves? We all have them I am sure.  I have lovely walls to keep people (and therefore ...

For when you're stuck or in doubt. Hold the vision.  Trust the process. Part of Trusting the Process (for me) is enjoying my down time and playing with ideas.  Last post I showed you  the Winter Field I did on a whim.   I was thinking about Monochromatic designs and also about all the yarn I have in storage. So I trolled Pinterest for ideas. I seemed to be attracted to photos of snowy fields. After looking at a few photos I closed Pinterest, did a quick sketch on my fabric and punch hooked it deciding on colours and details as I hooked.  I like how it turned out and it may inform a more well thought out piece.  This last week I did the same exercise with browns and the idea of a Petosky Stone .   I punched hooked 12" X12" rug . This is not a good photo but the playing is leading me to another more intricate rug.  This quicker way of getting hooking done is almost like sketching for me ...

August has been a month of rest for me. We spent a week at a lovely cottage with nothing to do but relax. I lie. I finished off my Santa and the Man in the Moon rug. Completely. The binding is on the back and it is now rolled up for its appearance at Xmas time. And completely finished Kessie's Rug. Otherwise I read a book (11/22/63 by Stephen King) and swam and kayaked and put my feet up. Since being back home  I have done little in the making end of things.  I am going through the absorb phase of my creative process.  I always feel guilty for a bit that I am just trolling Pintrest or reading  (My Cross to Bear by Greg Allman) or dreaming but it is a stage that i need to go through. I did do punch hook  "sketch" though.  I looked at several Pinterest pics of fields in winter and then went and "sketched" my impression of what I had been looking at. Winter Field I am pretty happy with it so it will go up for sale on Etsy once all the fin...

Practise. Practise is hard . Practise is a large part of being creative. It usually doesn’t feel like practise because it is the path towards a creation. A knitter knits. A musicians plays. A writer writes. Creators are drawn to create. Yet I feel that there are parts of practise that all creators find hard to do and I think it is the parts of their craft that is difficult for them. I am sure that everybody has something that they want to be good at but they avoid because they are  not perfect at it. What is it for you? That thing for me is sketching. I am never happy with how an image in my brain turns out on paper.  Because of that I rarely sketch. That is counter intuitive to what I need to do. I need to accept my  imperfect sketching and work on it but it is so hard to put self-judgement aside. Why? How does one move on past the practise issues that disrupt creative flow? For me it comes down to scheduling practise. And then bei...