Dog Love

In general I love dogs. In practice, I love some dogs more than others. For instance, our friends basset hound. Don't love. He smells bad, and he has a listening problem. But in most instances, I love dogs and they mostly love me. I'm an alpha.

Chihuahuas are a longtime favorite, a childhood love. As a baby we had a Chihuahua, Nino, who bonded with me and wouldn't let anyone touch me except my parents. That's a strong kind of love. Since then I've been languishing without a Chihuahua.

My dog, Bindi, whom I love with a passion I share with little else, is possibly the best dog in the world. At least, for me, which is what's so great about dogs. Everyone thinks their dog is the best one. She and I are in a little fight about food right now. She has stopped eating her food, and she is a remarkable hold out. She has barely eaten anything for over a week. I cajole her into eating a little of the Royal Canin kibble each day, feeding it to her by hand. And this is a new food as she stopped eating her Canidae canned food all together. What she wants is people food. And it's my fault. I always share a little of my food with her. I consider treats an enrichment to her life, but now she has become uncommonly fussy. I've never had a dog before that didn't love it's food, so I've made a mistake with her. As second in our pack, I guess she feels she's not an animal. I'm very close to just giving in and baking her a chicken every week. I'm bad. She's winning.

Spiders

Well, I have been away from the ol' puter cause there was a spider lurking. Making it's merry way, oblivious to the emotional trauma I was being caused by it's encroachment into my little world, straight for my conduit through which I access the world during the week. Pesky. Creepy.

Horrid.

I went up and brought the computer down cause I still can't stand to be up there by my lonesome.

But, there are certain things I admire about spiders as well. They eat bugs, which I am all for. Daddy longlegs eat other spiders, also a good thing in my book. But I am a great admirer of their webs. Particularly in the mornings when you can see them bejewled in dew. Orb weaver spiders make the most spectacular webs and I am always fascinated by them. They themselves are often quite beautiful. It's too bad really that I can't get over my irrational fear of them.

One spider that I am enamoured of is Miss Spider. She's a vegetarian. I can get behind that.

And then there is the mythological tale of Arachne;

The mythological story of the contest between the goddess Athena and the mortal woman Arachne was perhaps told best by the Roman poet Ovid in his Metamorphoses. A summary of Ovid's version of the tale follows. According to Ovid (Metamorphoses, Book VI), Arachne lived in the country of Lydia (which had a legendary reputation for producing some of the most splendid textiles in the ancient world), where she matured into one of the finest weavers ever known. Arachne was in fact so adept at weaving that she became arrogant, and claimed that her ability rivaled that of the goddess Athena. Athena, as the patron deity of weavers and quite an accomplished weaver herself, immediately took notice of Arachne, and travelled to Lydia in order to confront the boastful woman. There the goddess assumed the guise of an old peasant, and gently warned Arachne not to compare her talents to those of an immortal; Arachne merely dismissed this reproach, and so Athena was compelled to accept the mortal woman's challenge. They would each compete by creating a tapestry. Athena wove her tapestry with images that foretold the fate of humans who compared themselves with deities, while Arachne's weaving told of the loves of the gods. Such was Arachne's skill that her work equaled that of the goddess, and Athena, overwhelmed by anger, struck the hapless woman repeatedly. Terrified, Arachne hung herself, but Athena transformed the woman into a spider who quickly scurried off. Thus, this tale explains the spider's ability to weave its web.

Technology Revisited

So, MyBaldGuy figured out why I wasn't able to upload pictures; It won't work with IE. So I wasn't hopelessly technotarded. It was the tool. So there.

Here is a picture of my FaerieWorlds Shawl...
Finally.

On Hoarding

Beads are one of my obsessions/addictions.
These beads are a recent purchase. I think about them a lot, but have yet to break the strand to do something with them. I'm a little afraid that I will dispel their magic by breaking them up, but they're not workable as a strand. Plus, strung as they are, you miss out on their real beauty.
At any rate, these carved shells are old, often worn in the hair of north african ghwaazee dancers. You can check out some of these women photographed in Africa Adorned, by Angela Fisher. This is a worthwhile buy as it contains over 400 spectacular color plates. When I'm feeling low on inspiration, I break this puppy out and drool over the beautiful pages.

When I'm honest with myself, I'll admit that I'm a hoarder. But, I tell myself, without materials, on hand, how can I create. What I need is a room of my own, a studio. Maybe then I wouldn't feel so bad about my piles of stuff crammed here and there.

Technology

Ummm. For three days now, I have been trying to upload a picture. As one can see, no pictures appear in my blog. MyBaldGuy assures me that it's not my fault, it's the upload tool's fault, and yet, he has pictures on his blog.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrr.

So, I've been working on crocheting a strap for my FaerieWorlds bag. If it's gonna take me this long to finish a piece, I'm in trouble. And I wonder why it is that Knitting seems to garner more respect than Crochet. I've noticed this in trying to sell some of my wares. A woman at a local doggie boutique had issues with paying me what I thought was a very reasonable price ($12-$18 bucks) for my crocheted collars, made with top of the line materials, and yet she had no problem charging $200 to $300 bucks for a tiny knitted sweater. Crazy. The materials are the same, and as far as I'm concerned, the time spent is the same.
I don't get it.

FaerieWorlds Festival

Back from Oregon and the FaerieWorlds Festival. La-La-Luved Oregon. So nice and green, friendly folks, clean. I want to move there. MyBaldGuy really dug it too, so maybe. Ate mostly vegetarian while there, and I liked it! Yum. If I can manage 'mostly' vegetarian, I would be happy. Gotta get my mind around lovin' the veg. Since my history with vegtables is mostly bad cause my mom used to boil the hell out'a everything, along with all flavor, I need to re-boot.

Anyway, busy, busy little bee I've been making shawls and skirts for costumes. Made a georgeous brown and copper shawl for myself and a copper-orange one for my friend Ivy who went with us. Also made silk and velvet faerie skirts, cut on the bias, a new learning hurdle for me. Ivy helped me with all the sewing. We also drafted out a pattern for a bias camisole, but due to time constraints, we didn't make them. But got an awesome pattern anyway. I happened to find two cami's at LB that were just about perfect color and style wise, so I was set. Though, because Ivy is a perfectionist, and generally plans too many things, we spent trip time working on her costume stuff as well. My little finger can tell you what it feels like to hand stitch a corset cover all by it's lonesome in one day. Though now I can do this! Cool! Love learning new techniques! Maybe I'll become a corsettier! It thrills me when something takes shape like that!

Didn't finnish the bag I was crocheting to go with my costume, but I'm working on it now. My shawls were a big hit, so maybe I'll vend next year. That could be fun. Though I'm not much for camping, maybe we could work out some sort of RV situation. The peeps at the festival were so nice and easy to talk to, it would be nice to hang around, maybe make some new friends, connections.

My next looming project is for a camisole/thong that I purchased the pattern for from http://whiteliesdesigns.com . I plan on making this for a birthday present for a good friend, though I haven't found the yarn yet, so I might have to make it for a Winter Solstice present. I'll make myself one eventually. I also want to make sleeves for a t-shirt. Wild, expansive, expressive sleeves, with ruffles at the wrist.

So thats all for now.