Finally I have lost another two pounds. It seemed to have taken forever, but I am hoping tomorrow's weigh-in will show another couple of pounds gone as I'll be switching from Phase I to Phase II next Wednesday. Today I go to Aquafit so that will help a great deal as the hour in the pool involves a great layout of energy. I have always enjoyed moving my body to music and must say that doing water aerobics to music is very mood-elevating as well as being good for me. I also enjoy the time spent with Trish going and coming to the Crieff Leisure Centre.
As the above photos show, I have made some progress at last on the log-cabin project. I'm making rectangular blocks rather than the usual squares and I'm using all of my Art Nouveau fabrics. You can see I have quite a number to choose from. When RJR Fabrics put out their Art Nouveau line back in the mid-90s or so, I had no idea what I'd do with them but knew I had to have them, so I bought some of each. I've had them all these years and haven't used very much of them because I've been waiting for just the right project to put them to good use.
The idea I'm working toward is "Log Cabin for an Art Lover" which is a play on words relating to Charles Rennie Mackintosh's "House for an Art Lover", an Art Nouveau masterpiece in Glasgow. The house wasn't actually meant to be built but, rather, was a design submitted to a German design contest. The design included decorative details by Mackintosh's wife, Margaret MacDonald. Almost a hundred years later, in the 1980s, a drive began to raise funds to translate the design into actual plans and to build the house. This effort was complicated by the fact that when it came to the decorative details, many had only been hinted at in the submitted plans. Because the house wasn't designed for an actual client, Mackintosh and MacDonald could be as fanciful as they wished. It took a great number of architects, artists and craftspeople to translate the hints into actual design elements, but they succeeded beautifully. The building in Bellahouston Park is among the sights we highly recommend for anyone travelling to Glasgow.
My Art Nouveau fabric blocks will form the background to some sort of Art Nouveau design floated on the top. I think it will work quite nicely. I may not keep the blocks in the arrangement you see here, as I still have another 10 blocks to make. I know it may look rather gaudy just now with all those fabrics, designs, and colour, but I believe it also is quite rich and that I can transform it into an overall design that works. I surely hope so.
Don has been playing a lot of golf this week. He's getting around quite well, too. He found that he was better off without his stick and is relying on a sturdy knee brace and a careful way of walking to keep himself on the move. Yesterday, though, when he and Gordon went out to play, the wind was gusting fiercely. Don said at one point, he was blown off his stance as he was about to putt. He and Gordon had so much trouble with the wind that they finally gave up trying to play a game and just practiced putting and other shots as they were the only folks out on the course. They certainly had the better part of the day because it began to rain and rained most of the afternoon.
Today is to be partly cloudy but dry. The temperature is in the mid- to high-40s. Sunrise now is at 7:40 and sunset at about 5:20, so you can see that our days are stretching toward springtime and the promise of summer. We have snowdrops up in the garden but they haven't opened yet. The aconite, however, has been blooming all week. Daffodils are shooting up and trees are budding out. Again this year we have a song thrush who sits on a shrub or small tree between our garden and our neighbour's and just sings his heart out in the early morning. We only get to hear it if we happen to be up quite early (5 to 6-ish). Soon the garden will be tugging at my conscience, so I'd best get into the studio and make as much progress as I can.
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