Bohemian Mermaid Palace

Wait! Don't forget about Blues by the Bay in Eureka, CA this weekend!! I'll be there with tons of goods, my new color and prints... we'll all dance and have a great time in the sun. Wooo! Hm well I'm not usually good about posting my creative updates here. So I thought I'd share my latest color adventure... Rust. I've had lots of requests for orange, so this is my version. Happily, it turned out exactly as I pictured. Rich and earthy, but with lots of orange light... a bit brighter on the rayon than the cotton. I was a little shocked by the orange dye bath... it was practically neon orange. Barney would call it safety orange. Most of my dye colors begin with a bright under color, much like underpainting. I think it gives my fabrics an energy, some of them sort of vibrate. (or maybe I'm just a dye geek... ) Then I overdyed it with my favorite dark brown, and I'm really happy with the result. Oh, and I have a couple new prints I've been using... um tw...

Oh yessss, it's almost time for another Blues by the Bay , coming up on Labor Day weekend. Wooo! It's gonna be great. We had such a fun time last year... and this year my booth is much closer to the stage. Oh I'm excited alright. I just love a good music festival. If you haven't been, do it. It's really a family event... lots of dancing, food, local brew. Right on the water. People paddle their kayaks right up to it. Looks like there are more vendors than last year... of course, crafts have only been included for the past 2 years. I'm hoping their move to a holiday weekend will bring in more folks. And that the weather is nice. Woo! Meanwhile, the Buddy Brown Blues Festival in Blue Lake is also coming up on um... this Saturday, the 16th. I might need to go check that out as well. It's nice to be at a festival and not working, from time to time.

As I believe I mentioned a while back... I did a nice art & wine festival in Gold Beach, Oregon, where I met Mary from the South Beach Gallery. A very nice lady who now carries some hand-dyed Bohemian Mermaid pretties in her shop. Entire colorful outfits of ponchos with matching pants or jackets with matching tanks and skirts. So if you're in the area, check out her gallery. South Beach Gallery on hwy 101 in Gold Beach. Wooo!

What a weekend! I took my little clothing booth to Mt. Shasta for the big 3-day 4th of July festival. It's gorgeous up there and the show was fun. Barney's been working in the bay area for the past few months, so it was great to hang out with him and camp. My friend Doug the whale guy was right behind me, visiting with him was a nice bonus. Most notably though, was the drive across 299 and all the fires still going on there. Wow. I mean it's sad enough to hear all the reports... but seeing all the fire crews, big base camps, and thick smoke really brought things to life. In a few spots, fire spread all the way down to the river and was in view from the highway. Heartbreaking. But, thankfully, the smoke in the Mt. Shasta area cleared for the weekend and the weather was beautiful. Now I'm preparing to head down to Mendocino for the Mendo Art Center's summer craft fair. Time to get busy dyeing...

Finally! I have put my hand-dyed clothing into some local stores. Yippee! The Emerald is located in Arcata at the corner of Alliance and Spear (in the Westwood Hood, where I lived for many years) . This is a fairly new shop, filled with all locally handmade goods... like jewelry, T-shirts, Bohemian Mermaid skirts and tanks, sculpture and more. She's still adding artist, so I'm sure there will be plenty more interesting things to see. They also have a pool table and plans for a coffee bar. So, when you are picking up your burrito at the taco truck there, go in and check it out. Gorgeous murals on the walls too! um mermaids! helloooo! Conscious Home is located in McKinleyville in the Miller Business Park, behind Miller Farms. A great little shop full of natural goods for the home, foods, and a large selection of natural fiber clothing... now including Bohemian Mermaid skirts. Woo! I'm sooo happy to have my goods in these great local shops! Go check them out!!

I'm sick of looking at that heart post... now let's move things along. How about a craft show eh? Well, since my hospital stay, I've had to cancel 2 more festivals I had lined up. Add that to all the previous van misadventures and hm... not good. I'm thinking this recent episode has to be the grand finale of all these problems the past few months and I'm ready to get back on track! So, next we have the Nor Cal Blues Festival in Fair Oaks, which is a burb of Sacramento. This should be fun! It's relatively small, I think, just one stage... possibly akin to our local Blues by the Bay in size. Which means a mellow setup and some hang-out time watching blues. Sounds great to me. It's close to my dad's house, so I'll be visiting with him as well. He's been home with a smushed foot for the past 4 months, so he could probably use some company and lovin. Also, my friend Leisa wants to host a home party for me while I'm down there. Have her friends o...

I don't think I was... lol. A little over a week ago I had a heart attack. No kidding. I'm a little embarrassed to say so... I guess because it sounds so weird, or like I live an unhealthy life or something. Not so. Aside from the blockage that caused this, doctors say I'm perfectly healthy. And lucky in so many ways. It's pretty rare for someone my age (under 40) to go through this, and often women have odd symptoms that are misdiagnosed. Not me, luckily. My chest hurt, my left hand went tingly, I started hyperventilating and sweating. I had a good idea of what was probably happening, unbelievable as it was. And I was at home, only a couple miles from St. Joe's. Lucky. I called 911 before I could pass out... with nobody knowing where I was or that anything was wrong. Lucky. I'm recovering quickly and plan to back to work next week. Lucky lucky me! :-)

Well the art & wine thingy in Gold Beach was so much fun! Ok... there were mishaps, but first the positive. Gold Beach is gorgeous! Right on the ocean, as was the Event Center on the Beach, aka Curry County Fairgrounds. And the people were SO so friendly, wonderful crafts and wine vendors. I just had a great time. Not only that, but I was approached by a nice lady who owns a shop in town, South Beach Gallery on 101... and she'll be carrying some of my nicer clothing items from now on. Woo! I really made some great new friends and business contacts. Fun fun. The downside (and I'm a little embarrassed to add this) was that Shiny Van broke again. Seriously. Barney came up all the way from the bay area to help me tow it back home. Again. I know... ridiculous. Well, the good news is that a) I believe the correct diagnosis has finally been made and is on its way to being fixed, and b) after a little sit-down with the lot we bought it from (used & 'as-is'), they seem t...

Pretty...

True, the show was not busy... still it was fun. I was surprised at how not-busy it was, really. I know it was an unusually warm weekend, but jeesh. Last year's was much better, even with all the increased advertising this year. Hmp. Again, the crafts were great, the music was fun (we were right in front of the stage), I saw many friends and spent some quality time with Dimitra & Veda, my awesome booth helpers. The print booth was a hit... well, relatively speaking. If there had been more kids or um people, I think we would have cleaned up! Still it was a great first run, learned a lot and over all it was well received. Yvonne of The wax hands come by to consult for a while. She had some great ideas for improvements. I think I'm going to try it (by myself!) at the show in Old Shasta for Mother's Day weekend. Woo.