One thing I’ve learned about design is that uniformity can sometimes be boring. You might say perfection is boring. (Is it even possible to be perfect in artwork? in anything?)

When I’m designing a pin loom square pattern I often have to struggle with interest vs. uniformity. Clarity usually carries the day. Sometimes uniformity is your friend. Usually a motif looks best if it’s centered in the square. Many designs look best if mirrored on both halves of the square.

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I miss my blog. I miss writing about Pin Loom Weaving here.

Full to bursting—my box of PLW patterns

Over the past few weeks I’ve invented a large number of pin loom weaving patterns and I can’t show anyone other than my husband who, though a gentleman, is not especially interested in weaving and—like someone who hasn’t “been there, done that”—can’t fully appreciate the aggravation and mental-and-emotional-wear-and-tear devising patterns can have on one. Read More →

en- — prefix . . . forming verbs with the general sense “to cause (a person or thing) to be in” the place, condition, or state named by the stem

Joy — noun — the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying

I have had a joyful week. And it’s only Wednesday night (technically Thursday morning, but I’m still up . . . as usual. I’m too happy to go to bed).

Nothing gives me greater pleasure—or joy—than helping other people. The joy piles on when I get to use my creativity and talents and, more especially, when the help and creativity required gobs of difficult but exceptionally satisfying work. Read More →

“We but half express ourselves,
and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents.”
(from “Self Reliance” by Ralph Waldo Emerson)

A week-and-a-half ago I wrote a post I could have called I Am a Writer, and said how I anticipated that embracing that fact would . . . well . . . make all my wildest dreams come true; the main wild dream being to escape immobilizing depression.

I mean, really, don’t you get sick of fighting it EV–ER–Y day?

Apparently writing isn’t the omni-cure I had hoped it would be. (It has its depressing side too.)

The other day I was skimming through my daily feed (think about that term for half a tick: “daily feed”) on Facebook. and saw a lovely face. She’s a painted drawing by Katie Kendrick, friend-and-artist (whose classes I’ve taken).

painted drawing by Katie Kendrick
(25 Feb 2017)

Something about her delicacy, wistfulness, the hint of wind (maybe she has a windswept mind as well) . . . . Also, the glints of light—particularly the one in her bouquet—said something to me.  “Whispering Hope,” maybe. I liked her and made inquiries. Katie meant to paint her, but I was graciously granted permission to purchase her as is. Read More →