Working through

The lid is slowly starting. I had to force myself to stop around 11am, and it was only prompted by a visit from the residency director about something. I'm working with thinner cords this time and they are shorter. The joins are the hardest on my hands and this means I've increased the number of joins by using short cords (but I really just wanted to get rid of them). The problem is that I realized about this far in that they won't match the thicker cords I used for the outer layer of the pot. It's not awful, and I suppose a good teaching tool once it's all done.

It's so rare that I get pen pals who do things like use typewriters. I took a break this afternoon to compose a letter (only the greeting was embroidered!). I get to do it so rarely that now I realize how helpful it is, how soothing. Then I went to make dinner and got angry b/c it was so gross, which upset my stomach (on top of a few too many cheese cubes--I was being lazy and snacking on whatever was around). But I was able to keep working, skipping the farewell dinner for Charlie at my favorite restaurant so far in the area. Cobi came by to say hi on a brief break from studio work, and it felt nice to know that he was also forgoing socializing for work.

The first dress was meh. The second, I realized before it was too late that I could glue the cones to place them rather than pin them or hope that they stayed still as I sewed (that last strategy is akin to herding cats). Duh! Paper to paper, easy peas. I switched from sewing them all with one long thread to tying off each knot per cone. This first way of going sew, cut, knot was not a good method.

I know now for dress #3 that I will sew the cones on BEFORE piecing the dress together.

This takes longer, but not much, and works much better than using one thread.

I knew it was a good idea to do more than one, since the first was not quite right. My tummy still aches but my head is clearer.