Sewing, Rusting and Brick Laying...

It's been a creative week so far with more in store.  I've been sewing, dying, rusting...and laying bricks.

For years I've daydreamed about putting a rock or brick pathway from our back door to the driveway. When it rains, it's a mud hole.  It's been on my ever growing "priority list of things to do later".  And later finally came!  It was not premeditated, I just started digging...

I spent a few hours digging the trench and setting the bricks, and of course they had to be set perfectly tight and level, as perfect as old bricks could perform!  My two construction assistants brought gravel and drove the dumpers and loaders back and forth across the piles to simulate serious work going on.  Then we "broke for lunch".

In contrast to bricklaying, this Alabama Chanin wrap project has jumped to the top of the project list as well.  (It's folded, only 1/4 of the thing shows here!)

It's 100% hand stitched, a technique she calls "random ruffle".  She being Natalie Chanin, an artistic hero of mine.  Her 100% organic, American handmade "Wal-mart antithesis" really speaks to me.  I've bought all her books, and dream of sewing my own wardrobe based on her patterns and then taking my old clothes to Savers!  (Back, to Savers...ha!)

This wrap was started a year ago.  I've a tendency to start many projects at once, leave them for dead, and return to them one at a time...slowly!  It seems that other projects always cut in line, like candle painting, birthday gifts, and toddler craft!

These are papers I rusted a while back that I was saving for "that perfect project".  I realized that it's silly to roost on some rusted paper because I can make more easily, they're not gold or rare antique pieces!  So I cut them in half.  Now they're sitting on my work table as I stare at them, turn them this way and that, and try to learn what they want to become.

There's a time to just jump into things, and there's a time to wait.  I'll move onto the next project until inspiration strikes!