I did it again.

With the two weekends of travel, and holidays, I hadn't been able to get back to the studio to look at my last two pieces of glass.  When my parents didn't need me all weekend and there was an opening in Saturday's workshop, I went to see how they look.

I added a bit to the water scene, some more flower bits, and some pieces to make the fish look more like fishies.  I was pleased that the two lily pads made from the shimmery glass do shimmer in the right light, although they don't show much in the pictures.  There's a bit in the bottom leaf on the top photo:

Before.  I debated what to do about the fish.

After.  Still stylized but more identifiable.

The instructor and I discussed how to shape the other piece, which has fantastic translucency and I thought would make a nice tea light holder.

Yes, there is some lovely iridescence in the opaque pieces.

The piece will be heated and slump over the
cup underneath.  We'll see how it works.  If
it's not a tea light holder, it's a small dish.

The other students did some interesting pieces, including a plant stake with daisies and experiments with flowers and leaves between pieces of glass, and abstract pieces:

This student found a piece of glass to use as a starting point.

I also purchased some llama-shaped earrings that I will convert from hooks and wear next weekend.  My niece has our schedule planned - a few hours to meet friends and check out as many vendors as possible (just looking for her; mostly browsing the smaller dyers for show colourways for me), then we spend the rest of the time looking at the animals.  She's especially interested in sheepdog trials.

Over the past week, on my walks I've documented some of the surprises in my garden.  Last year a neighbor was giving away some iris sets.  Of the four I received, two did nothing; one seems to have a stalk that broke off early; and one has survived to offer several flowers:

  

  

  

I also have a tiny red rose bush that seems to have popped out of nowhere, and which is going strong:

  

I've tried to plant some ground cover under my two trees, and I think I need to water them a bit more:

The backyard has two kinds of mint and some Creeping Jenny.

 

I cannot remember what I planted in the front, other than that they are good spreaders with pretty flowers.

I thought the plants I added last year died off
during a winter free, but it came back.

Tour Eiffel Shawl update:  I am almost back to where I was when I frogged it last weekend, after some struggles on the eyelet rows and more frogging, but just a few of them.  I think it's less pattern error than knitter error as the way that row works is different from the others, and I don't quite have it memorized properly.  The good news is that this means I might be on the second hank by this weekend:

Bunnies and Drunkards and Random Paths

This past week, three things came together in a random way that highlight the randomness in my life and some of the paths I have taken.

First, I was finishing some semi-abandoned art pieces for an exhibit opening next weekend.  I will post more about them tomorrow as part of a "UFO Blogroll", but as I was working on one I mentioned to a friend who is also an artist that I had a plan for the piece, and I wondered if it would come out as I envisioned.  My friend, more experienced in producing art, counseled that sometimes you just have to let the piece tell you what it's going to be.  You can read tomorrow how that worked out.

Second, I was able to get a ticket to hear Franklin Habit speak on the topic of "Follow Your Bunny: The Creative Life from A to Q."  He is worth hearing no matter what the subject, but this one applies to almost any artist, not just one in the fiber arts.  Although the promotion said it would address what to do "if your creative well runs dry?", he spoke more to allowing creativity to flow and occasionally meandering off the expected path if something sufficiently interesting crosses it.

Gratuitous fan picture taken from well back in the auditorium.

Third, whilst looking for something (the best way to find other things you didn't know or remember you'd lost) I found my copy of The Drunkard's Path: How Randomness Rules Our Lives.  The fact that I have had this for a long time without finishing it was underscored to me by the fact that it came from Borders Books, which ceased operations in 2011.

The author writes about chaos theory and randomness and how things that appear to be random often are not as random as they appear.  I brought the book as my current trip-reading, and have plunged in to the discussion of how intuition and logic analyze experience to create innate decision trees.  More to come as I work my way through the chapters.

So now I am left to ponder whether it's mere coincidence that these three events, seemingly random yet about randomness, occurred in the same week.  Serendipity?  Cosmic message?  Or just a week in which three random threads happened to reach a crossroads, and not really as random as they seem?

I have a book to read, and yarn to play with, and another blog post to prepare so I can post it tomorrow.  Maybe a drunk (or not) bunny will cross my path and I'll end up doing something else.