Grab Bag for a Cold Winter's Day

Yesterday, the weather here preempted everything else--whether fun, or sort of important. Time to play catch up because there were some very lovely things that were happening for WillOaks Studio on other sites and I want to be sure to share them here.

The new exclusive piece I designed for "Yoga With Style" made its debut and I'm happy to share here that it is just the first of several pieces of my work that will be available at this very nice retail site for yoga aficionados. Meanwhile, I include one image of this piece here, but do take a look at Jennifer's whole site, with many wonderful categories of things for the yoga life style.

My readers here will recognize this as a new version of my ongoing "Made With Silk" series, which just keeps on growing!! Truly, I just keep finding new ideas, new treasures to incorporate, new color themes...and they become richer and more complex as the continue to evolve! And yes, they sell out because they are still made in small editions with neat things that I find in small batches.

My blog and Etsy buddy and fellow artist, Nancy, featured my work in her article on the "a little etsy love" blog here, and it includes a chance to win a gift certificate to use in my Etsy shop. The drawing on 2-9 is open to all who make the effort to enter!!

I really do like the way Nancy (her own blog is here) wrote up my work and hope you'll take a look (always nice to hear things from another perspective than mine...I'm the artist, after all, so am far from objective!!)



And finally, when I was making photos of the big snow drifts and after effects of our blizzard yesterday, I happened to notice and capture an image from the landscape that now I can see was a direct influence on the new pieces I've been working on and began to share here a few days ago. Well, I've done a few more versions of these since that post (see below) and can now juxtapose these with the "original source material." I love then this happens because when I wrote the descriptions of where this idea came from and what these pieces are meant to reference, I only had the image in my imagination....this photo from the Magnolia tree in the front yard here is definitely one of those photos "worth a thousand words. In fact, I'm just beginning to add it to the listings for these new pieces!


Thanks for dropping by....and if you happen to be in one of the sub-zero zones today, like I am....keep warm!!

Snow, Blow and now, 40 Below

As I made my way, shoveling all the way, to see how the front yard and my car had come through the blizzard that moved in last night, I noted the lovely drifts in the front yard.....and then, looked to my right. OMG!! The net effect of the wind coming around the corner of the house made a drift even tall than my car. It will be blowing again tonight...but this time, bringing a windchill predicted to be very dangerous and well below zero. And then can we start Spring? Pretty Please?

Blizzard Wednesday

Tuesday as dusk was falling, the blizzard was settling in and gaining speed and strength. It will be awesome to see what kind of drifts and views we'll have for Wednesday morning's light! Tonight, the wind is roaring and when gusts slam into the house, everything trembles....

Meanwhile, snug and warm in the studio, a new order of exotic artisan dyed "silk straw" was just delivered and some of these new colors are so inspiring! Thick, substantial pure silk with wonderful names like "Dragon" and "Rainforest" and "Silver." Still to come are "Raspberry Crush," "Deep Sea" and "Underwater Moonlight." It's really fun to riff off of another artist's creations!

So all the snow and grayness aside, do you think I'm already beginning to day dream about Spring? Yes, probably!! This new line is just now showing up in my ArtFire shop here. Stay tuned as new colors and forms take root here in the dead of winter!!

I've been wearing a couple of these cuffs for a few days now. The light, stretchy construction and the smooth silk and mother of pearl or quartz are so soft and light, the comfort factor is about 10 on a scale of 10.