fork :: press

pretty amazing tableware by kathryn hinton

challenge

the shop recently acquired this beauty for a song, including three extra blades & miscellaneous bits. I really do love it, and used it to trim these last night:





there. my annual blog post.

three minutes till wake up!

ahhh... the nap.... & hoping that he never gets too old for it!

well, insulation, sheetrock, AND paint have happened, and I have moved maybe half of my loot from the house out to the "studio" (yippie!). it is looking pretty lovely, and I can't even image how much I will love it when there is a cozy floor, a chair, and all the special things I've been saving for the "someday when I have a grown-up space".

the holidays are insane- I am 95% sold out of all my stock - holiday items included, and with No Coast rapidly approaching, this is not good! we've also got Thanksgiving, two big kid birthdays in december, christmas, two custom orders, and of course I should already have VALENTINE'S DAY cards ready, for pete's sake!

don't be fooled by the sheetrock that I've got

last weekend we started the studio overhaul... clearing everything out & bringing in itchy, prickly insulation! this weekend we put up all the sheetrock and finished all the mudding!! I am kicking myself for not taking 'before' pictures of the terrible bare studs to compare to the incredibly lovely 'after' pictures (which are surely quite a ways down the road).

in the middle of all this chaos (sheetrock dust & fiberglass bits raining down) I had to put on a dust mask and clear a little space to print. those masks are so terrible...

I ended up in the hospital (after 24+ hours at home) when in labor with ocean (almost twelve years ago) & had to wear an oxygen mask for hours to help his little heart. I remember the weird, hot, trapped feeling of the mask vividly and couldn't help thinking back to that day... of course once we unwrapped the umbilical cord from his tiny neck (five times!) he was just fine. now he is all big and cool, and was a great assistant this weekend.

I've somehow got to get the place cleaned up and organized (at least a little bit) in time to finish printing 2008 calendars -

long weekend

wow- it seemed to last forever!
I finally (mostly) made the move out to my new "studio". we picked up the new press- nearly getting killed by 1500 toppling pounds of iron in the process- got it home & the lift gate on the truck naturally broke. they came to fix the lift the next morning & even helped unload it, which was much less scary and life-threatening than doing it ourselves.
now I just need new rollers and a treadle and a nice name for the big press :)

inky world

I am a little bit scared every time I set out a new stack of pristine paper... between the ink & grease & little toddler hands & oh! all that stuff on the floor. somehow I seem to make it through the stack and then I just stand back and marvel that somehow this sweet, sweet pile of paper has passed through my press and my hands and my little messy world without a single (visible) mark. it may be the only pure, clean, and orderly thing in my life, but there it is :: precariously perched on a table full of chaos.