Flying Fox Studio

Just comments about my art, kids, animals and the eccentricity of it all.






Sunday, July 31, 2011

been rug hooking....

So here are the first two hooked rug chair seats, I really like them. The others are in progress.
The first picking of green beans from the garden, a huge bucket full, and we should have more pickings too.
As I sat with the bucket of beans I had such strong memories of my dear dad sitting on the back steps snapping beans just as I was doing. Mom bottled them and he often helped with that too.
Mom bottled hundreds of quarts of vegetables jams and soups and many many bottles of peaches.
It seems to me the time is coming to re-learn those old skills and preserve and produce what we can.
We ate some of them tonight and they were delicious.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

nuts

Posting from state of mayhem.
Installing wood flooring in living room. Contents of living room now in dining room and office.
One hundred antique quilts and quilt tops stacked on one desk cannot find other desk. Hoping to find chihuahuas soon.
Making progress on the hooked rug seats for dining room chairs.
The floor is almost done, son number two and I will do the trim work and hopefully it will be done BEFORE I go totally nuts.
Some would argue its too late for that.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Finally

Obviously I have not been posting.
I have not been doing any art work either. Not only has my leg been messed up but I have a nasty bit of tendinitis in my right arm. So I thought if maybe I changed up my arm movements a little bit the pain would ease. It didn't work. My arm is worse but I am getting some old projects done!
For years now I have had antique dining room chairs with no seat pads because I could not make up my mind what to do with them, I had considered needle point but decided to hook some wool "rugs" as pads. Two seats done two to go, and I have also re-addressed the hooked rugs I started a loooooong time ago.
As soon as I got the wool box out, the cats took over. It must be wool fumes or something, they just love the stuff.
Lynx made a nice nest under the hoop with the rug in it and Yoda (queen of the world) took over the box of wool fabric and cut strips.
As you can see she is pretty darn relaxed.
The other day I was reading a blog and the writer had posted darling pics of the doll house she had been making for her daughters. So cute. I had three sons and my totally un-biased opinion is that they are pretty stinking wonderful young men.
But. Little boys did not want a doll house so when they were little I made them a toy ship.
There are three little sailors, and the deck opens up on leather hinges as a "hold" for all their little sailor stuff. The sails are handmade heavy paper.
There is a chest with tiny gold coins and a treasure map, buckets and little mops for swabbing the deck, a chest with plates an minuscule silverware, pots and pans, a bird in a cage, tiny ham slices and slices of bread for sandwiches, bottles of rootbeer, carrots, sacks of flour and grain, apples, tiny oil lamps and a ships log.

One thing my youngest son always wanted and I never got around to doing was a sea serpent.
This week I got the stuff together and after all these years I am finally going to do the "monster".
It will be on wheels and have a spring in the tail so the tail moves.
Finally.
Now the big question is, what if I made a couple more of these and put them on Etsy. They would be several hundred dollars and not really a toy but a piece of folk art.
Any opinions? Anybody? What do you think?

Sunday, July 3, 2011

July 3

Round little Yoda loves the warmth from the computer. She looks a bit like a football don't you think?
Precious tiny duckling with a splint on it's little deformed foot. It is straightened out a bit, hopefully we can get it more functional.
Lynx, by the way cannot seem to keep her nose out of others business.