A lot of things, all of a sudden

You know what they say:  When it rains, it pours?

I had the plague last week.  No really.  I started coughing on monday and when I woke up out of my chest cold, sinus pressure, fever induced sleep... it was thursday?  I missed three days of work, and I still have the cough.  Gross!  I was so sick I couldn't even knit!  All I could do was sleep, move to my chair (still wrapped in my duvet), sleep in the chair, and watch movies.  (Mostly Brokeback Mountain... which only really made me feel worse...)  But I'm better now!!  Yay!!  Except that stuff seems to have gotten a little piled up while I was out of commission.  So, here's the low down:

1.  I'm applying for summer classes at Penland and Haystack!  Unfortunately, I happen to be a poor-ass starving artist who's unable to pay for classes... so I'm applying for scholarships.  Apparently, however, that means applications are due at the end of the month... with 3 letters of recommendation and a bajillion other pieces of academic writing I haven't had to do since I graduated nigh on 9 month ago!  Gah!  I had forgotten how hard it is to write an artist statement!!  I've been working on it for, like, 4 days and I only have a few sentences!  How did I ever get anything done in college?  I could use some feedback so here it is.  Lemme know if you all have any suggestions.

"The more I study fiber art, the more I realize that the social history of our culture is inextricable from the history of cloth.  Through my ongoing and varying body of work, I am increasingly interested in learning about this history; especially in the intricacies of different techniques and in the lives of the individuals who spent their time devoted to these "crafts."  My current work attempts to recontextualize some of these traditional processes in order to examine marginalized histories in new and enlightening ways.  I am also always conscious of the relationship between fabric and gender.  Not only is clothing a distinct marker of gender, but for hundreds of years women in our culture have been responsible for the creation and upkeep of clothing.  Over the past century, as contemporary capitalism has grown and women no longer bear the entire brunt of keeping their families warm and clothed, knitting, sewing and embroidery have become primarily recreational.  They have, however, never been completely separated from the "feminine sphere."  My current and upcoming work acknowledges this and seeks to explore how this phenomenon is both persistent and culturally indicative."

Eh?  Thoughts?  Yeah... so I'm waiting for my merciful MICA professors glowing letters of recommendation and chipping off the other tasks little by little, day by day.

2.  I've been doing some collaborative work with Adam!  He's given me a bunch of prints and I'm embroidering on them!  I'm really excited about this collaboration... as we started discussing the work, I started really feeling like our concepts could jive constructively.  However, when we started working he told me I had until the end of February to finish, because he had lined up a show for the prints to be in.  But... apparently, by the end of february he meant... by the end of this week.  Gah!!  So... here's the first one?

Sorry about the bad quality photo.  The printed objects are:  an old fashioned drill, a pair of scissors, the scissors case, and a jack knife.  In response to these objects, all of which are used for destructions, I embroidered a case full of different types of sewing needles.  Needles basically enhance fabric through destruction:  they poke holes, but enforce the fiber with added material.  It was a fun process... but embroidering on paper by hand, was much for difficult than I thought it would be!  I'm trying to get one more done by show time on friday.  Finals, what?

3.  Knitting!  Although I have been sick and

 working and busy... I've been knitting every day!  Totally inspired, as always, by Ms. Nellyface, I've been working on a new scarf pattern, and I'm happy to say that I'm almost done with it!  I bought the pattern over Christmas at Webs... it's called the "Dragon Scale" scarf.  Not like you can tell from  this photo but the pattern is comprised of vertical stripes of lace and fan-shaped, scaley stripes.  It's adorable!  And really soft... I'm using an Alpaca Silk blend.  I'll put up some better pics of the texture when i get it off my needles.  :0)

I also was just well enough to go to the yarn store over the weekend!  I bought some new yarn so that I can try Nellie's Feather and Fan scarf when I finish this one.  Yay color!

4.  Nellie's coming to visit!  Yay!!!!  I'm so excited I can hardly control myself.