tashina knight

Alright, who took Spring?, originally uploaded by tashina.

I like Spring. As a matter of fact I’m pretty sure it’s going to be my favorite season here in my new home of Austin, Texas. That said, it was 100 degrees in Austin yesterday, breaking the previous record by 10 degrees. Yep, I believe in global warming.

The above photo is a bug from my first summer here last year. He must have been 5 inches long not counting antennae. I currently have 2 chigger bites and one mosquito bite. Looks like summer to me.

This week, I’m just working on a couple of book submissions. I also need to clean up the studio because it’s getting to be a mess. I love the size of the room (17×21) but one wall is all windows, one wall has two doors on it, and one wall is a half wall with arches overlooking the first story. Storage space is at a premium.

I see artists studios in books and often they have a particular focus. The quilting studio, the ceramics studio, the scrapbooking studio. Me? I have the mixed-media, beading, quilting, acrylic painting, mosiac-ing studio. It’s going to be a challenge.

Lineclr2, originally uploaded by tashina.

Spotted, dotted, checkered and just a little wild.

grandma1small, originally uploaded by tashina.

This is my grandmother’s bridal photo (on my mother’s side). I was sent this a few years ago when she died just a few months shy of her 100th birthday. She was British and if she had made it to 100 she would have received a letter from the queen.

Having grown up thousands of miles from her, I only saw her twice, once when I was 7 and once at 22 when I lived in England for a year. She would not leave her country - I don’t think she trusted airplanes -  so I had to go to her.

She was sure full of personality. My favorite story about her is that as she got into her 90’s, she started to hear voices in her head. Not like the schizophrenic voices that tell you to harm people. Nope. These voices were singing. A full chorus. They would sing and sing and it was very annoying to her as she really hated the songs they chose. Through sheer force of will, eventually she talked them into only singing the songs she liked and then she was okay with it. She had her own Big Band that she carried in her head. If I’ve got to get a little crazy in my 90’s, I hope that I follow in her footsteps.

And don’t you love that little boy in the velvet pants? I’ll have to ask my mom who he is.

somerset1, originally uploaded by tashina.

Just thought I’d show a more accurate picture of my ATC that appeared in Somerset Studio’s ATC book.

I sent them several and this one was the simplest. It is made with Great Adirondack hand-dyed yard. Beautiful stuff. Just take your cardstock, then put down a double sided adhesive on one side - I prefer the mono-adhesive that you roll out. You start at the middle and slowly spiral outward. When you start to run off the side of the card, cut small lengths of yarn to fill in the corners. Don’t worry about cutting them the right size. Just stick them on and cut them after.

fireplacepaintingov, originally uploaded by tashina.

Hey, who forgot to tell me how easy it is to blog from Flickr?

I mentioned in an earlier entry that since I have a new house to play with, I wanted to pick out all of the colors for the downstairs and then paint a painting to go in the main space which is visible to all areas of the space, above the fireplace.

All my paintings have a little Dr. Seuss or children’s illustrator in them, but I was trying hard for something that didn’t  look like it belonged only in a child’s room.

The granite tile on the fireplace isn’t at all my style. I had picked out the plainest lest expensive beige tile in hopes of soon ripping it out and doing something more interesting there. The builder made a mistake and put in the granite (for free) and now I can’t decide whether to rip it out or not. Isn’t that the way of the world. If you have a coat that you don’t much like and you got it for $10 at the thrift store, you can get rid of it pretty easily. But if you once really wanted that coat and it cost $150, that makes it much harder to get rid of. The funny thing is that once you give away the coat to the thrift store, it will become the $10 thrift store coat for the next person.

The dog, who may get the deciding vote, loves the cool granite. It’s his favorite spot in the house.