Fashion!

 Stumbled upon a fun exhibit in a textile district in Tokyo!

My favorite:

Fabric store

 During my first day in Tokyo, we went to an amazing fabric store. It had a great collection of fabric, notions. 

Indigo!

 Did some indigo dyeing today:

Travel!

 I'm leaving today for Japan. Actually, I left for LA on Sunday. Today is my 12 hour flight to Tokyo.  I was reflecting on other long flights - Israel was long, but broken up with a stop in Zurich.  Morocco was long. The drive to the Grand Canyon, back in '87 was my longest road trip. My goodness, I can't stay focused!

When i began prepping for a journal to work on during this trip, a friend suggested a daily haiku.  Great idea!

Alone in LA

Waiting for day break and flight

Distant land in mind

Dream

 A task in the Artist Way plan encourages dreams. I may be a quilter, stitcher, felter, surface designer, weaver, etc., but I am to explore my other dreams.  The day at Bishop Hill reminded me that working with clay has been in my dreams for ages. 

Field trip: Bishop Hill

 Bishop Hill is a quaint town about an hour south of my home. Started by Swedish immigrants,  it still has Nordic charm. A bit of shopping, delicious lunch, and time watching a potter. And time with family. It was a fabulous day.

Last solar print of the season

 Spurred on by an idea from a friend, I jumped into a bit of solar printing today using Dye-na-flow. My results are not the best, but I can now start my list of prints to work on next summer. Gosh, that seems like a long time from now!

I've been breaking and tumbling small bottles for a stitch project. I wondered what they would do with sun printing. I used Dye-na-flow teal. I was very windy outdoors, but I opted to not cover the 9 x 13 " pan. Some of the small pieces did roll around a little bit.

This serving plate was actually in the box to take to the thrift shop. Will it make a good print?

This tray was also going to the thrift shop. I decided to try black dye-na-flow

Results:

None of them are very amazing, but the black one is definitely a fail. Certainly a learning experience and an easy way to fit a little art into my day. I'll be on the lookout for some interesting glass pieces to try next year and will probably opt to use cyanotype instead of dye-na-flow