W2W2 and Other Stuff

I got my last W2W2 envelope from Alicja, which turned out to be a bit more personal than she might have intended. First off she's from Poland, my dad's favorite country; he visited Poland three times in the 80s, twice scoring a visiting lectureship he throughly enjoyed. 

In my pack was picture of a concert hall in Reykjavik; a colorful Picasso card; a two-page picture of a queue of cows going home; a map of Bergen, (my parents' favorite place; while working on my sketchbook, I looked at my parents' postcard stash; I always asked for postcards from their travels, and discovered last year they bought them, just forgot to send them to me. Now I have most of them, among them lots of Bergen;) two small skeins of handspun yarn, one of which when she dyed and posted on FB I wanted as my hair extension; another of fluffy mohair (?); some samples of very soft commercial wool, an Berlin exhibition ticket, used, (I love this!); a small lovely ceramic thimble; a small photo of a rather regal-looking ram; and a postcard of birds in lovely blues, (I wanted to learn more about birds so I recently bought an intro book on bird-watching in New Zealand.) 

The piece that caught my eye, besides the bird card, was the back of one of the cow pictures. It could be of a volcanic spring; it is of a rocky hill/mountain, snow on the top third, and like the bird card, there is a lot of lovely blues mixed with a bit of yellow and some grays/blacks. Dreamy colors. But if it is a sulphurous spring, then I will pass on the smell.

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My second bag went on its first outing to the dentist's office today. It's wobbly and when I stuff my regular contents sans the camera, the shape isnt' flattering. There is great scope of improvement in the pocket planning. But I love the hand/feel of the cloth; it's not going to be a long-life nor a rugged bag, but it has its merits and I may think of these again for special projects or gifts.

But the dental appointment was horrible; he extracted the bottom hidden part of the tooth on which my stray crown had sat. He's using less anesthetics which isn't a bad thing usually but today it was, and I may becoming a bleeder, too. Yikes.

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Reading about Vincent van Gogh before going to bed has become a lovely relaxing routine. Though there are good books and terrible ones, I feel comfortable reading a little about him and thinking about or gazing at his paintings. Chronology and errors don't bother me any longer; I find this an interesting development.

I've also started to think about drawing/painting/mixed media/book binding more often; I don't do them, but have been visualizing working on small projects. I find my kind of mixed media (including postcards) or bookbinding extremely personal and comforting, as if I'm exhaling completely after an arduous experience. I imagine painting to be likewise.

The other night when I was awake I even imagined having used up enough yarns so I could work on these projects in my stash/design room tables. There is a lovely big window that looks out to or garden there so that would be a wonderful setup. I'll never ever not weave, but this kind of personal making appeals to me now. 

Although it's not going to happen any time soon. I moved back everything I hauled into the kitchen for the sketchbook back into the stash room and it's... crowded. I won't show you a pic; it's becoming a bad habit this posting-my-stash-room-mess-pic-itis; next thing I'll be posting pics of my garden mess. Wait, I did that...