Artful Weekend

This last weekend was almost completely devoted to creative pursuits. Since I leveraged Veteran's Day by taking Monday off from work, I had 4 full days to fill. OK, a certain amount of laundry and grocery shopping was required, but beyond that I was able to spend 4 happy days basket-making, knitting, whittling and woodburning.

Sunday was a workshop on making lids for pine-needle baskets, so I spent Friday night and much of Saturday making a basket for which I could make a lid. Audrey Frank taught the workshop, and I learned a lot, including making an inside lip for a snug fit and another way to start a basket that leaves a small hole in the center for inserting a tiny pine cone as a handle.

Saturday was the Carson Sierra Spinners and Weavers November guild meeting. I took my in-process basket to work on. Lots of folks were working on holiday-related gifts or decorative stuff. I was good about not buying more of Mim's glorious hand-painted BFL roving, and fate rewarded me by making me the raffle winner - lovely balls of white wool that I can hand-paint.

On my way home from the guild meeting I stopped at the "Wild Women" art exhibit and sale that was going on at the Wilbur May Museum in Rancho San Raphael Park. Gretchen Ericson was exhibiting her beautiful, refined pine-needle baskets, which fired me up to with all kinds of ideas for future baskets.

Although I spent much of Monday afternoon at the DMV, I was pleased to also do a little craft supply shopping. A trip to Michael's netted me a crochet hook tiny enough to fit through seed beads, and a selection of beads to try some beaded knitting. I also purchased a selection of balsa wood and a wood-carving Xacto set.

The rest of Monday and Tuesday was devoted to a project I will detail as soon as it is complete. Here's a sneak preview.

Here's a quail on the back porch, too.