Trying To Be Sunny Tangled Instead

 To close out this year, here is number 39 in the year-long series of six-word memoir quiltlets.  Hope your celebrations are as fun as possible tonight!

This one used the most ravely pieces of upholstery weight fabric (the light yellow), and I kept all those tangled pieces on the edge and even ended up referring to them in the six words chosen for the piece.  The two crossing pieces on top the blue and yellow are my hand-dyes, the rest commercial cottons.

 Words say: "Trying To Be Sunny

Tangled Instead"    Funny how these words kind of sum up the past year in a way...

Decision Time Easy. Black And White

 Well, I guess I'm not going to be able to show all of these six word memoirs to you in the actual calendar year that they were created.  But I shall keep posting them until I'm done, one at a time, just so I can check that box off of my to-do list.  A second black and white one in a row, interesting for me eh?
This is the 38th in the year long series. 
Words say: Decision Time Easy. Black And White.  This was from the week that I decided that I would go ahead and have my hip surgery.

 I used the printed edges of an upholstery weight fabric that I had previously made Halloween napkins out of back in October.  Also I used the woven polyester static-free insert that came with my son's laptop.  Don't you love the overprinted registration marks and the lines of squares?  The graphic-ness of them all was too cool to mess up with extraneous stuff added on top.

Words were written on with a Pigma Micron pen, one of the best for writing on fabric.

Seeing Through To What Is Underneath

Keeping on keeping on catching up with the six-word memoir quiltlets, this is number 37 of the year.
 Words say: "Seeing Through To What Is Underneath".  Stitched words, with bubble wrap quilted onto the top of the quilt sandwich.  The bubble wrap was a little hard to stitch, but not too bad if I went slowly.  Sure squeaked a lot more than I thought it would!

I intentionally used a colorful bobbin thread (orange) in the hopes that there would be some spots of color showing through the bubble wrap when I was all done.  It doesn't show too well in the pictures, but in person it works to move your eye around the piece.

Finally Finishing Work Worth The Time

 Whoops, back to posting after the too-long break for celebrating the Winter Holidays, hope you have had a good break too.  I really have some catching up to do with showing you all the weekly six-word memoir quiltlets, so be prepared for one after another until I've posted them all.  This one is number 36!

 Words say: "Finally Finishing Work Worth The Time".  And yes, I'll be posting pictures of the pieces I did actually finish which these words refer to, ones that had been hanging around in the finish-ASAP-pile for an embarassingly long time.

Nothing terribly special about this one, just scraps from the work table from recently completed works, some of which were made using a silk skirt (the zebra-esque print), upholstery fabrics,and a cotton print.  I especiallylike the added texture and interest from using the stitched hems of the skirt and raveled edges of the upholstery fabrics.

October Cornucopia

I made only a very few attempts at sewing in October besides the six-word memoir quiltlets.  First of all, I made this Halloween House quilt block for my Halloween Houses quilt-in-progress.  Yes, it is definitely supposed to wonky.  No I didn't measure or use a pattern.  I like this fabric combination a whole lot.  I've found there are two distinct colorways in my personal Halloween fabric collection.  The slightly dusky, muted, yet still bright  and then the just plain obnoxious, almost too bright.  Turns out they are hard to combine.  Going forward on this project I may have to rethink using them all together.  Or maybe one side of the quilt can be bright, and the other side can be dusky.

That makes 8 total house made now.  This Halloween Houses quilt is really taking a while to come together.  I know, I know, I write about it every year.  Some year (hopefully soon) I'll make a big effort and actually finish it.  (Hey, I have almost a year to get it done, right?!)  

 I especially still want to make houses with pictures of my boys in the costumes I've made them over the years in the doorways and windows.  Until then, it makes a nice, colorful, seasonal decoration in the studio when there isn't much else up on the design wall. 

Speaking of costumes I was only asked to make two this year for my son Alex and his friend CJ.  Alex found me the pattern online and we made these so he and his buddy could go as Finn the Human and Jake the Dog from their favorite cartoon show Adventure Time.  Have you ever seen this show? It is deeply strange, and very funny.  I can see why they like it!

 I had to do something with my favorite orange t-shirt, the collar was frayed all of a sudden.  The rest of it still looked fine.  This was one I overdyed a while ago, I think it used to be bright yellow and got very faded, very quickly, but the fabric was still in very good shape .

I just turned over the t-shirt neckline and stitched it down.  Mostly straight. ahem, don't look too closely please.  I'm pleased that it extends the use of one of my favorite shirts for a little bit longer.

Giant ATC Memorialize

This six word memoir quiltlet is the 35th in a year-long series.  It was done in the same manner as the last ATC's I made to trade at CQFA in September.  Just in a much  bigger size than an ATC.

I wrote the words: "Giant ATC memorializing trading with friends" on a piece of rice paper, tore the edges and then glued it into the plastic slide sleeve.  I like how the glue made it a bit transparent in some spots.

Colorful rubber bands, haven't used them as rubber bands yet, but they look cool here trapped in the slide plastic.

Watching, Waiting, Wishing, Hoping

Starting right back in with the year-long series of six-word quiltlets.  Yes I'veactually kept up with them and am excited to get back to sharing them with you now.  This one is from the week of 8/29 and is the 34th of the year.

The words say: "I'm always watching, waiting, wishing, hoping."  Written on paper, colored with colored pencil,  glued on top of rice paper, then glued onto a piece of a leather sample journal cover which I picked up from FabMo,  then stitched down with two buttons with orange thread. 

Surprise, I'm Back!

Hello there, surprise! I'm back!

I now declare this very long blog vacation over.

This is my excuse note here, for why I haven't been posting to this blog for quite a long time.  It involves a very personal journey of pain and healing and physical transformation, but not much art or creativity.  So if you aren't interested in reading about any of that personal stuff, come back tomorrow for an art post.   

  I've gone and gotten myself a hip upgrade, nothing but the best titanium thankyouverymuch.  A plate, a rod and four screws to hold the top part of my femur together.  I was going to post my x-ray picture here, but I'm chickening out, sorry.  It is cool though, maybe it will end up in my art somehow.

The good news is now I can walk again without mind-crushing pain (which had been going on since June).  The bad news is that it was major surgery and I have quite literally been off in la-la-land recovering for the past 6 weeks.  Let's just say being able to write a coherent blog post was way beyond the scope of what I could do. So I didn't.

Anyways.  

I'm so thankful that I had competent doctors that listened and figured out what to do and that it turned out to be just a mysterious growth in my bone and not at all cancerous.  

I had something similar in the very same place when I was 17. 

Is it related? Probably. 

Do they know if it will happen again? Nope. 

Am I glad I can stand up long enough to do the dishes without crying? Yep.

Thanks for being patient, I hope some of you have stuck around, I promise an art-related post tomorrow!

Because, yes I have been sewing during this time of blog silence.