If you were a little mouse in the corner, as my grandma used to say, you could find me burning the midnight oil in the studio these last few months! I even worked part of Christmas, can you believe that?
Well, it's true, and at moments like these I am so glad for an adorable and cosy workspace. A new friend I met through Victoria has asked if I'd post a few studio photos, and since I'm so wrapped in comforts here, I am glad to oblige.
I can't believe I'm showing you my oh-so-messy main work table. Notice the lamp overhead? It's the trumpet from an old victrola! My friend Tom, who owns the Brass Lamp in Snohomish, Washington, made all my light fixtures, and they are all sweetly funky. I feel I need another one! There is an old funnel made into another hanging lamp, and it still smells ever so faintly of machine oil, since it was used for tractor maintenance for many a year.
The shelves are a rotating seasonal display, and I change the delights there on a whim! You might find a wren's nest or some blooming violets or my grandma's old vase with some roses plucked from the doorway. Heirloom roses decorate the trellis just outside the front door, but of course they are sound asleep now.
And if you think the work surface is a mess now, just wait until this afternoon, when I need to make three Halloween hats for a new line of giftware coming out next year from Demdaco. Oh my, the snippets of ribbon and clouds of mica glitter! The bits of cut paper and tiny rivers of glue...
When my messiness overflows, the top of the big black filing cabinet is a great spot to catch the flotsam & jetsam. You'll usually find something drying on the big workspace by the door. If you walk through the door to the second room of the studio, you'll see the printing area, and the big old door that now serves as another work table.
The studio sits in the middle of the garden, which is oh-so-grand all summer long, with the foxgloves nodding by the windows and rose petals raining down over the front door. We nibble on raspberries between the house and the studio and munch a cherry or two from the tree just beside the french doors in back.
But for now, it's wintertime and we may see snow drifting gracefully past the window and settling gently on the sleeping perennials. Birds peck away at the suet feeders and my dear puppy snores at my feet.
Time for me to be up and doing Easter art for fabric, and then moving along to those Halloween hats. The studio is cosy in winter, and I am the busy bee.
