Readers Want to Know What is Happening... Road Trip

Hello to all my readers.  Many of you have been wondering what has been happening.  I have not posted in quite a couple of weeks.  I have been traveling.  We received word that my husband's sister was in hospice.  We drove from Virginia to New Jersey and Pennsylvania.  We stayed in northern New Jersey with his brother and sister-in-law, then drove to Pennsylvania where my husband's sister was in a hospice hospital room.  We visited for a day with her then drove back to New Jersey to spend the night.  The next day we drove home.  This was a trip of about 300 miles each way.  (480.82 kilometers)  So about 600 miles up and back with a side trip to Pennsylvania which was about an hour each way.  So as a guess, I would say that was about another 100 miles round trip.  So, 700 miles (1126.54 km) by the time we returned home.

I can't say that the trip had a lot of interesting scenery.  We were taking the fastest route, which meant we were going by Interstate instead of the back roads.  Along the interstate and on the New Jersey Turnpike, there is not a whole lot to see but trees for the most part, unless we were going through a city.  I did manage to capture a (far away) photo of the Washington Monument and I think the Lincoln Memorial as we drove by.  The traffic in northern Virginia was horrible, despite a highway system where the flyovers were stacked up as many as four deep.  The problem was that sooner or later all these lanes merged into just a few lanes.  It was miserable traveling through that area.

A word to those who might plan to travel in that area.  On the way up and back, our GPS kept giving us directions to go into the express lanes.  The express lanes are for Easy Pass users only.  There is no cash option.  It was stressful to have the GPS give us directions we could not follow.  We just had to take it on faith that if we kept heading up Interstate 95 we would hit New Jersey sooner or later.  By the way, in that area 95 is a toll road.  It was about $45.00 dollars in tolls round trip.  The other thing our GPS did was take us on route 395 that was shorter by a few miles, but took us through part of the city.  If you don't need to go into the city, take 495 around the city.  It is faster because there is not as much congestion.  Sometimes a GPS will get you there, but it is not always the best way to go.

Along the way around Washington D.C. we saw so many apartment buildings.  Thousands of them.  It reminded me that most people are not so fortunate as to see anything green and growing or even have so much as a slice of yard.  I suppose they get used to it, but it does seem to me to be a very stressful way to live. 

Frost crystals.

I had not been on the New Jersey Turnpike in about thirty years.  My memory of it from then was a few lanes in each direction and that there were a lot of some type of fir trees planted along the road.  The trees all had signs next to them saying they had been sprayed (with something noxious) in order to prevent people cutting them down for Christmas trees.  Well, what a difference thirty years can make.  The turnpike is a huge super-highway now.  There aren't any fir trees along the way anymore. 

Since we were traveling from south to north, we were also able to see how spring was developing in different states.  In the lower elevations of Virginia and D.C., the grass is green, the dogwoods and cherry trees are blooming, and pollen is everywhere.  Once we we passed into Maryland, it was a different story.  By the time we reached a place called Rising Sun, which is about ten to fifteen minutes from the Delaware border, the trees had not yet started to leaf out.  Everything was bare.  Nothing was really blooming yet in New Jersey.

We returned home and spent a day at there.  Spring has arrived in Mechanicsville and the grass needed mowing.  While my husband mowed the grass and weed whacked, I packed for a trip to the cabin.  The next morning we left for the cabin.  In case you had not guessed from so many of our previous trips, it was raining when we left Mechanicsville.  I am beginning to think that is some sort of prerequisite.  Fortunately, we drove out of it.  Unfortunately, it followed us to the cabin. 
The trip is about 150 miles up. (241.40 km.)

That night is rained very hard.  It was a scary storm.  Where we were at a high elevation we had torrential rain.  Down below there were tornadoes and flash floods.   We lost power for twelve hours.  The electricity went out at about 8:30 pm and did not come on until just after 7:00 am.  We lit a candle and tried to read on our tablets for a few minutes, but we were so tired from traveling we decided to call it a night and went to bed.  We woke up the next morning when the electricity came on again.  We lit the wood stove for warmth, but it goes out overnight.  In the morning it was a chilly 43 degrees Fahrenheit ((6.11C.) inside.  Needless to say, we were wearing our sleep hats.  It was just above freezing outside.

The next morning after breakfast, we drove over the mountain to see my mother.  It is about 20 miles
(6.l1 km.) each way, so 40 miles total (12.22 km).  We spent the day with my mom.  We don't have any cell service at the cabin.  The mountains block the signal.  When we stopped in a small town, there was some cell service and we stopped to check messages.  We learned that my husband's sister had passed away.  We drove back to the cabin, and spent the next day working on the cabin.  Then we packed up and drove home.  So round trip for that about 340 miles. (547.17 km.)

In the higher elevation of the mountains, it is still pretty much winter.  We even had some hoar frost overnight.  Spring is just beginning to put out some daffodils and forsythia.  The apple trees, which bloom early, are just beginning to put out the first little bit of leaf.  The birch and maple trees have started to form buds, but they have not opened yet.  Coming down from the mountains into the lower areas is something like the difference of the black and white pictures from the movie The Wizard of Oz turning into the color picture.  The greys, siennas, browns, and rusts of bare trees and dry leaves burst into a technicolor of bright greens, pinks, and yellows.  It does not happen gradually.  It is like you suddenly cross a line and everything is blooming.  It is absolutely amazing.  It is however, the bane of my allergies.  One minute it is winter, the next minute it is early spring, and as we go lower in elevation, spring has moved further along.  We move through three or four different growing seasons in just a few hours.  And of course, farmers have started planting hay. 

We arrived home, unpacked from the cabin trip and rested for a day.  The next day we set off for New Jersey and Pennsylvania to repeat the trip so we could attend the memorial service.  We drove up, spent the night, went to the service, spent the night, then drove home, so another 700 miles (1126.54 km.).  The drive home was worse than the previous trip.  The turnpike was at a complete standstill for over an hour.  When we finally drove past the problem area, we found that a passenger bus had been completely burned up.  There was nothing left but the frame.  We did not see any passengers, so we don't know if the bus was empty or whether they had been evacuated while traffic was stopped.  Further on, we were stopped again for about twenty-five minutes while firefighters  battled a blaze in a wooded area.  Then we crawled through and area in northern Virginia where there was an accident at one of those areas where the lanes were merging.  It took us a lot longer to get home. 

We had snacks with us in the car, so we made a rest stop, but did not stop for lunch.  By the time we got home we were really hungry, but I was so tired I could not tell you what we had for dinner that night.  By the way, I would like to say that the rest stops in Maryland are really nice.  Plenty of dining options and clean restrooms.  By comparison, Virginia rest stops are small (but clean) and if you are lucky, you have a vending machine.  Virginia should take a hint. 

Anyway, the next morning, Monday, my husband headed out to work.  I started working on the laundry.  On Tuesday morning my husband quipped, "We have been home for a day, shouldn't we be going on a long drive somewhere?"  The rest of the week we spent just trying to catch up on all the normal things that need doing:  groceries, the lawn needed mowing again, the house needed vacuuming and dusting, returning phone calls, and deleting junk emails.  After driving about 1,740 miles (2800.25 km) in a few days, we are finally just beginning to feel normal again.

Hopefully, in the next few days I will be able to start getting back into the studio.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to My Craft Project...

Regular readers know that I have been working on a large doll.  The project has been going at a snail's pace.  I have been having one of those months where everything in the world is getting in the way of getting into my studio.  I have to celebrate every little bit of progress, no matter how small just to keep from giving it up.  So today, my reason to celebrate is that the PVC base I created last week is now screwed down to the wooden base.  One more step done! Hurray????

Actually, that is not all that I did on the project this week.  I went to the hardware store to purchase some more PVC pipe for the armature.  I have been buying the supplies I need as I go along.  The plan for the doll has been evolving, and I did not want to purchase anything ahead of time because the plan was uncertain.  Sometimes I plan a project completely, but other times I let a project grow and change as things move along.  This is one of those times that the plan has been fluid.  As the idea evolves, I know more about what supplies I need to complete the project. 

So, I purchased more pipe, and took one length of it to my husband's workshop.  Although I have many tools in my studio, the hack saw is in his workshop.  I had just used the saw last week while making the base for this project.  I went to the spot where the hack saw resides and it was not there.  I shifted my gaze to the right and saw a stack of boxes.  I realized that the saw was probably buried in one of them.  I remember my husband saying to me earlier in the week that he was going to be packing his tools.  We are getting ready to start our spring campaign of improvements to the cabin.  Looking at the pile of boxes, I contemplated whether it would be easier just to go buy another hack saw. 

At the time, I had just run down to the workshop to make a couple of cuts while I had a few minutes.  Searching the boxes would have used up all my time.  Once the saw was out, I would not have time to get anything done.  At that point, I gave up on this project for the day.  Once I find the hack saw, I will be back to working on this project.

I started working on my quilting project for my guild's challenge quilt.  The quilt blocks are together, but I am not crazy about the way the quilt looks when I laid out the design.  I may have to rethink the pattern.  It is acceptable, but not great if you know what I mean.  I may have added to may colors.  I will have to go back through my material and see if I can come up with some sort of compromise.  I would prefer not to have to purchase more fabric for the project.

All in all, it has not been a great crafting week.  Everyone has one from time to time.  Time to pick myself up, dust myself off, and get to work.

Large Doll - Part 7 - The Base

Despite having lost numerous hours this week to physical therapy and home exercises for my sore shoulder, I was able to make some progress on the base of my doll.  I am glad that I am finally moving forward.   I finally had a day where the weather and my schedule worked together and I was able to get something done.   I think that things will move forward very quickly now. 

The doll I am working on is going to be almost life-size.  It will end up being only a few inches shorter than I am.  This is my first foray into large dolls.  This is going to be a big experiment in a number of areas.  It will be my first PVC armature.  I spent hours on the internet researching how other people have made armatures.  

The first part of the armature is the base.  I want to have a stable platform for the doll.  I plan to use PVC pipe to make the base, but I did not want any PVC to be showing on the finished doll.  I decided that I would build a wooden box to cover the base of the armature.  The rectangular PVC base will be bolted to a piece of wood.  Sides will be added, and once the rest of the armature is in place I will create a top for the box.  I have not made a final decision on the top.  I expect that it will be in two or three pieces.  The top will not be secured until after the doll body is well underway.  If the doll should turn out to be top heavy, I will be able to add some ballast to the box to weight the doll.

The first photo shows the rectangular PVC base sitting on a 12 x 24 inch (30.48 x 60.96 cm) plank that  is going to be the base of the box.  You can see the that three Tee pieces have been fitted into the pipe.  One Tee is facing into the center of the box.  That one was used only because I did not have a straight connector.  I had already cut some of my pieces of pipe, then realized that what I was doing was not going to translate into my vision for the piece.  I decided to connect two pieces that were already cut rather than cut another piece of pipe.  I am trying to make as much of this as I can from leftovers from my husband's stash of hardware.  I suppose that if the base needs a little more stability that I could add some more pieces of pipe there to help in that situation. 

The other two Tees will be where the legs and feet will connect to the base.  The rear Tee is straight up, because the weight will be on the back leg.  The forward Tee is slightly angled.  I want the doll to be holding a pose as if she is just pointing her toe while taking a step. 

Initially, I was thinking that the forward foot would only be resting on the base.  I decided that was not in the best interest of the doll.  I had a doll in a competition that came back damaged because someone had pulled the doll armature out of the base.  The doll should have been moved by picking up the base.  Instead, someone picked the doll up by the head to move it.  The weight of the base caused it to pull away.  (From now on I will also use a different type of glue when gluing a wooden armature to a wooden base.)  I hope that by having two supports glued in that the doll might survive being handled by other people.  I do plan to enter this doll in a competition.

To insure that the base will not be moving around in the box, I will be clamping it down with some single hole clamps.   (More hardware raided from my husband.)  I have not yet screwed the clamps down.  I think a clamp on each side will be sufficient, but I won't know for sure until I have all the clamps tightened down.  I can add more if needed. 

 I should make mention of how I determined what angle to use when setting the Tee for the front leg.  These pipes are glued into place.  Once the glue is set, it would be a lot of work to change it, so the angle is not just a guess.  I began by posing myself the way I planned to have the doll standing.  I used an angle finding tool to determine the angle of my foot in relation to flat ground.  When I dry fit the pipe together, I placed the Tee in at the angle I had measured.  To make sure that the Tee would be at the same angle once I took the pipes apart and glued them, I made some marks on the Tee and the pipes on either side so I could line things up properly.

In theory, the pipe should be in the correct position once it is glued in place.  If not my options are to cut out  that piece of pipe and glue in a new one at a better angle, or  decide that I can work with it in some way even if it changes the initial concept of the piece.  In crafting, we call this a "happy accident."  So only time will tell whether this actually works as I want it to work.

So, next blog post I will be blogging about creating the rest of the armature.  Maybe, if I have a quiet week, I will also have time to add some of the materials that will fill out the form of the doll.  For a while I was a bit intimidated by the armature, and that has been a contributing factor in taking so long to get to this point.  I think I hit that point with just about every project in one way or another when I am working out of my comfort zone.  I just have to give myself some time to work through that, then  I am ready to move on with the project.  It annoys me, but I recognize that this is all part of the creative process.  The important thing is that I work through it and not let it stop the project permanently.  Many times beginning crafters will not finish a project because they hit this point and just put the project in the closet.  It takes time to learn that recognizing the discomfort and sitting with it until you work through it will bring about an end to the impasse.

I should have photos of the armature for the blog next Sunday.  Check back Sunday afternoon.  I try to have my post up by noon.