I spent a really beautiful evening at the beach last week. Winter is finally over and Florida is getting back to that topical heat that I love when I'm in the ocean.  Hot sun above, turquoise water all around, on my board - one of the best feelings ever.  The water here in south Florida is often so clear you can see everything on the bottom too and well, it's just amazing. I love it.

So on this really mellow night last week I went out as the sun was setting and everything was beautiful. The waves were really small, but me and my longboard are good with that, and I got back that happy feeling I've been missing all winter.

Since that feeling is directly responsible for a lot of my drawings and style and such, I thought it might be worth sharing. When I'm stuck on something or can't draw a thing, spending some time in the ocean clears it up pretty well.  Looking forward to a long summer, full of art and surf and warm sea.

I loved it. All those interesting animals roaming about in the smoking wasteland... Amazing! 

So I took my usual 2 month "think about it" time to lay it out in my head and just this week started sketching it out.  Not a direct representation of everything mentioned there, but very much inspired by it.

The nightjar really is a beautiful bird, I loved drawing him. A little more exciting though was drawing the porcupine, something I probably would't have gone to otherwise. He's a punk, you can tell, but he has a sadness in him too. The weight of all those quills on his back. Protection and burden at the same time...

The linework is just about finished, so I'll be posting again soon.  It's been interesting (I think!) to see this one evolve.

And here are the backs of those owls. Black & white graphic fabric. Fun to look at the closely and enjoy the patterns, but still really neutral from far away.

I have to admit, I love this little owl family. They're like grown up dolls. "What? No, I don't have stuffed animals anymore! This is a very adult thing! I'm decorating!"

Here is a little step by step look at the making on one of my latest pillows. I didn't realize how much I would like drawing on fabric, but it's really fun!

With just about everything I do, there's usually an initial sketch. Even if it's a drawing, I like to get the overall layout down quickly, so I'll draw it out and then go and re-draw it somewhere else when it's all planned.  

This photo is good because it shows how important it is to have all your supplies laid out.  Coffee, snacks, sunglasses for some reason. I think this day they had the vanilla bean scones = awesome. Those thing are so good and they almost NEVER have them. Don't know what the problem is. If you know a Starbucks that carries them regularly I'd love to know about it.  Anyways... So in this case I was drawing on a white tee. I like to use vintage fabric, but this was a new shirt. The fabric gets stretched over a board and pinned down and I get to sketching. Should have done more progress shots, but it only occurred to me halfway through, so this is what you get.

It took maybe 3 hours to draw the whole thing. I like to be picky about shading and things. And I'll draw over the same line probably 10 times until it's the thickness and texture I want.

My original plan was to have the pillow be the shapes of the owls, but I sewed it up that way and the seams weren't laying right. It was passable, but not really nice, so I took it all apart and made it into a square shaped patchwork pillow instead. Doing the patchwork was pretty involved, but I think it came out great. And that's the story of how this pillow was made.

This was one of those shirts that I just didn't wear, maybe because it's brown, I don't know. So it was in great shape and with a little sewing, can sit happily on the sofa instead of being tucked away in the closet.

I'm not going to go into a whole list of instructions on how to make your own shirt pillow because that's probably already been done. Google it if you need to.  I do have one bit of advice that should be helpful tho...

Since tees are made from a knit fabric, they're really stretchy. Great for wearing, not so great when you want it to hold it's shape like in the case of a pillow. So my #1 tip before you sew it all up is this: Get something to reinforce the fabric. I like to use a fuseable interfacing. It bonds to the tee and won't let it grow any bigger. You could also just stitch it to another piece of non-stretchy fabric, like a linen or cotton, but make sure you do something to keep the knit from stretching out.

And that's it, sew it up and enjoy! Or if you prefer not to sew, let me do the work for you.  The tea pillow is available for purchase in my Etsy shop. Even easier.

I used to live in an airstream. It was a 1973 Sovereign, mostly original and I got into it completely by accident. My husband and I were living near Asheville, NC and he had a job to do in South Florida. Months in a hotel sounded like not the most fun ever, so we got the Airstream and, having never camped before, decided it was going to be home. And it turned out that for about a year it was the coziest, most fun home we'd ever had.

It's been about 10 months since we came off the road and I was just sitting here remembering the good times. Yes, it's small. Sure, there are a few inconveniences. But assuming you're with someone who's company you enjoy it's actually really, really wonderful. The feeling of freedom is something you can't get any other way, you're in places you couldn't be otherwise and you spend so much more time outside in the fresh air. It feels really great. And, since you're not actually in a tent you can have your vintage dishes and such, which make all those picnics a little extra special.

Another benefit to airstream travel, easy pet transport. We lived with our cat Reef and dog Silas. They adapted just fine, as you can see, and snugged right in.

Summer vacation in Melbourne Beach. It was nice because the water was fairly close.

Cooking tikka masala over the coals outside. Some interior shots.

Trailer Trash. Stopped by the side of the road, somewhere in the middle of nowhere Florida, waiting for some friends.

So that's enough reminiscing for one day. It was a good time tho, an adventure, and I like to think I keep the same spirit with me even now that I have some roots down.

Wednesday is craft day and I'm really looking forward to it. It's nice to have a time set up to get away from the usual and try something new. I have a friend who's an amazing craftsman/artist and she lets me hang out with her from time to time. I love seeing how other people work on things.

Last week I started sketching on vintage tee fabric and came up with some cute little animals pillows. I was pretty much delighted by them. Yep, that's the word: delighted.

So this week I'm expecting to do some more fabric sketching. Found a skirt made out of beautiful linen that would look quite nice on the couch. The fabric that is, I don't decorate with skirts.  So that's what the next pillow will be out of. I'm thinking of drawing rabbits today. Little snuggly bunnies. And some owls in a row would make a good pillow as well. Trying new things. Always more exciting that doing the same old all the time. And btw, all these things I'm making will be in the etsy shop.