Good morning! Today I have two things to share with you. The first is the July club colorway painting, and the second is the studio tour that I promised.

July Club Colorway Inspiration

Let’s start with the July club colorway. I chose Renoir’s “Spring Bouquet.” It’s a still life full of beautiful color. Here’s the painting:

My plan is to actually leave out the background for once and focus instead on the flowers, greenery, and the vase. I must admit that part of the reason I chose this painting this month was because I’m excited about the garden at our new house. I’m still figuring out what’s what and how to take care of it. The previous owner of the house recently told me that she put in these flowers because the tree feeds caterpillars who built their cocoons there, and then the butterflies eat the Butterfly Weed, so they have everything they need for their whole lifecycle right here:

Isn’t that neat? I think the plant in the big pot is a hibiscus, but I’m not sure. When we found it, it was in a garden shed just barely alive, and two mornings ago I woke up to a single bright red bloom on the plant that I thought was a cardinal at first it was so big and bright.

Studio Tour

Enough about gardens. I promised a tour of my studio. It’s a work in progress for sure, but I’m almost to the point where I can start dyeing yarn again. Please forgive the shaky camera. I need to work on my video skills.

If the video doesn’t come through, you can watch on youtube right here.

This is my third time around setting up a studio, so I definitely knew a little more of what I needed to make everything run smoothly. I must say that this room was one of the major factors in our decision to buy this house. It’s the one room in the house that we painted white so the colors will show true. I love the light and the windows and the fact that I have three whole closets to use. We had an electrician put in some additional circuits so I can use three steamers plus my hot plate at the same time.

The new sink is the bomb. It actually came with the house and was her garden sink, but it’s big enough to be able to wash pans on one end and have space to wash yarn on the other end. I also love the fact that I was able to finally separate my packaging zone from my art batt zone. That means two of us can be working on packaging and making art batts without being in each others’ way.

I’m still working out where I’ll dry yarn, and I’m hoping the light where I’m planning to do my photos will work well with just natural light. I haven’t actually tried it yet.

Life, the Universe, and Everything

We’re still in the process of unpacking. It’s those crazy mixed-up boxes at the end of a move that are the worst because they have no categories, and you have to figure out where to put each and every individual item and wonder why you even own it. At least that’s the case for us. We’ll get there though.

I hope to start dyeing yarn again next week. I hope you have time to enjoy the fiber arts.