So that is why...

I have been very unproductive as far as art has been concerned in the last few weeks, and last week the explanation for this became clear. I am clinically depressed again.

This one came suddenly, and I am hoping it will go as (relatively) quickly again. I had begun a new medication to try and control migraine headaches which were occurring frequently. After enduring 2 weeks or so of start-up side-effects, I noticed that I was losing interest in my usual passions, couldn't sleep, ate a lot less and just felt more and more down and despondent and less and less able to cope. Then I was becoming tearful several times a day and everything began to look hopeless.

To cut the story short, I went to the doc, she checked my thyroid (normal) and needless to say I stopped the medication. It's been a week and a half and I think things are going back to normal, thank goodness. I'm not tearful and things are not as hopeless. I'm not jumping around for joy and motivation is still low, but I hope I'll get there.

The Inno deadline is drawing close and I need to finish some works to enter this year, so I'm working on that, but not with much gusto. I just feel empty of ideas and if you were to ask me, at *any* given time, what I would most like to do right now , my answer would be "go to bed". So I'm not back on top yet.

But I have some hope.

Kitten cuteness!

And then there were these...

... these Mucha gift bags, which I just had to buy because.... I think I was trying to do some retail therapy. They were just R10 each. I love Mucha. When I got home I looked at them more carefully. Of course, there it was, underneath, in small print, "Made in China". This "Made in China" thing is going to end badly......................... and I know I am supporting it by buying stuff and I should stop.

Flour-resist Batik again

Here is the final product of the green cloth I did the other day.

To tell the *whole* truth, this isn't the cloth I did the other day. That day I was not functioning on all cylinders and forgot a little ingredient when dyeing, viz the fixative, and so when i washed, um... yes, well.....! I spent a few days feeling miffed and then stubbornly began again at the beginning!

It works! Next I tried scrunching up the cloth and cracking the resist well, before applying paint _ I like this much, much better; in fact, now I think the green one looks quite bland!

Great fun to do and super-easy. I've since read somewhere that you're supposed to cook the flour paste (?) - I wonder why. I did notice that it fermented very quickly in the squeeze bottles - had to throw it away the day after. It's been 30 degrees C plus here. Maybe the cooking helps it to keep? Who knows...

I guess I won't ever

... be a kitten photographer, but here is just one shot of the Adorables. They won't sit still, they won't lift their heads for a photo, but I will persevere. They are seeing me through a bad patch.

Ok, maybe just ONE more.... :

Irresistabubble!

I'm not a knitter

... but every now and then I see something so beautiful it just makes me want to knit it. Here is such a thing!

Flour-resist Dye/Painting

I did some flour-resist dyeing yesterday. I will take a pic when I get home (the batteries are just re-charging ) it was fun to do and we had a hilarious moment when one of the cats hopped onto the table and began to lick the flour paste off the fabric! I live in a circus!

This is after the flour paste has dried. I dyed it first, and am now over-painting it. I had already begun, when I realised I had forgotten to take a pic. Below is a pic of the overpainting which now has to be left to dry, while we all hope the cats don't decide to leap onto the table and then prance around everywhere else with little green feet.

Footnote: It's wholewheat flour paste. I tried to sift out the bran, but didn't really succeed. I ran out of cake flour and the wholewheat was so old, I figured I may as well use it up, rather than throw it out.
Below: Part of the flour resist stuff peeled off:

Machine Quilting

I am currently on the learning curve of machine quilting and finding it very steep! I am quilting the full-size leaf quilt and finding it quite a chore, but I know it is simply a matter of practicing and putting in the hours to get better at it. But yesterday, as I was working on it, I found that I kept getting up and putting it off. I do this a lot when something is not going well. Of course, that was breaking my rhythm and making it go worse, but the tension of holding the quilting steady is also not something one can sustain for very long. How does one do it???? I really, really want to learn this.

Feeling that my world is coming apart...

... I went and bought myself a bit of glue.

Well, okay, a LOT of glue. It takes a lot to stick MY world together.

They bring these value packs out about once a year, though not every year, at back-to-school time. They are amazingly cheap: R12.99 for a pack of three glue sticks or clear glue tubes, which normally sell for about R7 or R8 each. They are fantastic for all the craft projects we do throughout the year, so I try to get enough to last for the year until the next time I see them.

Perhaps I could glue a few brain cells together too. That would be enormously useful.