Buried in the The Outlander Volumes

I’m reading Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander/time travel series again. I find it wonderfully engaging, again.  The first 4 probably 4x now over the years, bk 5 3x, bk 6 twice, then on to the 7th and final one. The depth and description of the historical details is fabulous. Political, personal, daily life conditions, inter-personal relationships, romantic episodes, sexuality, violence of course, intrigue, all juicy and each time it draws me deep into the story.  For me, it seems to be the perfect escape tool these last couple of months.

Fine beadwork is back in front of me also. After finishing the big sphere, previously published I’m working another project that is really pleasing to me. Winding new thread balls also to begin with Temari. Have you been watching the moon and Jupiter/Venus this month? It feels very cool to me to sit at the shore here and watch them together, close, in the twilight sky. Of course catching a fly by of the Space Station is quite cool as well.

So, this sphere above is called “Mouthing Off”. Various mouths appear in all directions with YES sprinkled around. 14” diameter, sewn and Painted, stuffed with Bison Hair.  Fun and silly, perhaps some loud and cynical, uncertain expressions coming you.

Listening to Candy Dulfer jazz, great saxophone, mellow and sweet.

Gosh, now that I have a list of cool things lined up here that describe how my days are here, it’s time to planet gaze again.  jT

 

Wise Words

One secret to happiness is allowing every situation to be what it is;  rather than what you think it should be.

–Unknown–

Complexity of Void

This beaded sphere was started 4.5 years ago. It was just over halfway done with just the foreground figures complete. It went on the shelf at that time as I was just learning how to make Temari. I became totally infatuated with the new medium and  more or less have done nothing else but Temari since then. Every so often I would take down and uncover this, thinking, just finish it. However back on the shelf it went. A month ago I went to house sit across the island and this is what I took with me, determined to finally complete the sphere. So, 6 weeks and 250 hrs. later, this 14.5” diameter fully beaded sphere is complete. That feels great! The over-all project on this 660 sq. in. surface area takes more or less 1 hour per sq. in. Spirals of each form oppose each other, all forms spin off into the void. Void being not at all an empty place but something full of particles in motion. 1st Step was to make the sphere, the skin is reinforced wool felt stuffed with polyfil batting. The geometric form used is the ‘truncated icosahedron’. Pentagons and hexagons sewn together in sequence to form the sphere.