High Fiber Content

Sweet Citrus Bells

2012-02-02T07:30:00.000-08:00

Holy Cow! I finally finished a quilt! It's been a while, so this is a big deal here in High-Fiber-Content-Land . A long, long time ago, I received a gallon zip-lock bag filled with fabrics,trims, beads and other bits, also known as a "Baggo" (a bag-o-stuff). And I was to make a quilt out of it for an unknown member of one of the online fiber groups I belong to (Hi FiberPirates). I also sent in a bag of my own stuff and had already received an utterly fabulous quilt back. So this quilt is long overdue. I actually made most of it in January. As in January 2011. Ahem. But then it sat there for a long time, because it was done to a certain point, and it just wasn't working past that, and I was just plain stuck. I hardly ever get stuck like that. But there it was. For months.

As you can see, I got unstuck eventually and finished it. I couldn't tell you how exactly. Just the passage of time, or maybe the pressure I put on myself to actually do it, since I was enjoying the Baggo quilt I'd received months ago. It got finished, all except hand-sewing the binding, label and sleeve. That took me another two months to finally manage. Not sure what the issue was there, but at last. It's done, and I'm pleased with it, and I hope Dolly likes it too.
The whole quilt came about because of the Tangerine Sours Altoids tin she sent some of the embellishments in, it really got designed all around it. And several times I almost pitched that idea, of having the lid be on the quilt, but as you can see it survived. As an aside, boy was that ever fun when I was flattening it...My teenager came running, rather alarmed at all the racket, "Mom, what are you doing?" I paused, with hammer raised, grinning "Making stuff." heh.

The lovely heavy bells made a wonderful tinkling sound as I finished hand stitching everything. Here you can see some of the leaf beads as well as the leafy ribbon that I used out of all the embellishments that came in the Baggo. There were a lot in there to pick from which made it fun.
So now on to finishing more quilts...

Blow Me Away

2012-02-01T08:00:00.000-08:00

Watercolor crayon and pencil along with ink drawing for December 10th, words in the margin say:
Blow Me Away

For December 11th, A magazine picture collage, with pen marking, and printed and solid tissue paper. The words say:
Is Your Tank Half Empty or Half Full?

Washing To Do

2012-01-31T08:30:00.000-08:00

A big stack of to-be-washed fabrics. Monthly batik packs from eQuilter and random purchases over the last year. I try to wash my fabrics as I buy them, just works better for me, knowing everything is already washed. I think I've been putting this off because it will be a lot of ironing, but the stack is taunting me, I want to use this stuff!

I Find It Trying

2012-01-30T08:30:00.000-08:00

This December 8th daily collage or sketch came about because I was playing with the Tangoes that were on my worktable for some unknown reason. Have you ever played this game? Really challenging! I traced each plastic shape in each color of fine tip Sharpie that I had (black, blue, green, red) then filled in with color pencil. Wanted to see what the overlapping would look like. The words say

I Find It Trying Being A Square Among Triangles And Parallelograms

The December 9th daily collage, magazine pictures and words along with colored pencil. Words say: Power Explodes When You Need It Most

Round Robin In A Day

2012-01-29T08:30:00.000-08:00

First quilt finished of 2012! This is from a CQFA workshop called Round Robin In A Day. We each started out with a small piece (the center windmill-ish square) and it gets added to and passed on several times.

Quick, improvisational and no pressure, the whole room just explodes in creativity as everyone rises to the challenge. Such a fun activity. This is what the piece looked like before the quilting.

Some closeups of the embroidery stitches I stitched on each seam, I used a lot of the ones on my machine, but not all.

We just did this activity again at our January CQFA meeting, so I'll post about that another time!

Imaginary Landscapes

2012-01-28T09:00:00.000-08:00

This time it was a pen and watercolor crayons in the daily practice journal. The words in the binding say: Imaginary Landscapes Draw Me In Every Time.

December 7th just magazine words this time and some pen marking. Words in the binding are:

You Know You Do.

Square Fabric Bowl

2012-01-27T09:00:00.000-08:00

A fabric bowl that I finished and gave away as a Christmas present this year.

It was pretty easy to make and is a nice showcase for cool fabrics. Timtex was used as the interfacing and the fabrics were fused to it before sewing it together. This was started in a CQFA workshop a while ago.

You can see how differently shaped it could be, depending on how high you sew up the seams.

I think I'd like to try to make another one in a different shape at some point.

Gather Gather

2012-01-26T09:00:00.000-08:00

Gather Gather - the daily collage from December 4th consisting of a magazine picture of a bee, paint sample strip, selvedge edge numbers, stamped words, blue tissue paper.
Words in the binding are: Oh! To Have Such A Purpose!

A little surrealism for the December 5th collage. A magazine picture of a chicken foot and a kudzu covered structure, colored pencil and magazine words ALIEN INVADERS. Words in the binding are:

Aliens have to come from somewhere. What do aliens call home?

What Do you do when your fortune isn't for you?

2012-01-25T09:00:00.000-08:00

Another of my daily collages from December, this from December 3rd. The power was still out, so I had my battery powered lamp on, and my little mp3 player for music, and my messy desktop for inspiration.

We had purchased some nicely bagged tea from Rivendell in Santa Cruz, and this was the front of the bag which had interesting stamps of horses and Chinese writing as well as the name of the tea (which was quite yummy). Pen and colored pencil drawings, along with a fortune cookie fortune (You love sports, horses and gambling but not to excess.) Painted paper and rice paper too.

The words in the binding are: What do you do when your fortune isn't for you?

Hello! How are you doing?

2012-01-24T13:48:00.000-08:00

"Hello! How are you doing?" I found those words in a magazine advertisement, how could I not use them to make a card? They're collaged along with colored rice or mulberry paper, ink from a stamp pad, and a paper lace border.

Collage Practice In The Dark

2012-01-19T18:02:00.000-08:00

For my birthday way back in the start of December I decided to start a collage a day practice. And I was stubborn enough to actually do it even though the power was out due to a massive windstorm. As my motto goes "Do It Anyways"

I used my new visual journal, which is a spiral sketchbook thing with bristol paper, nice and heavy and takes watercolor and glue really well.

First collage done via candlelight, no flash.

First collage with flash. The presss here circle is heat sensitive mood ring stuff.
Words are: "DISCOVER the mysterious. NO RIGHT NOW"

December 2nd collage. Power was still out, this is a photo taking via headlamp which was how I was working. Safer than candles, and brighter too.

Ancient's Eyes Are Always Open

New Favorite Dessert

2012-01-18T18:55:00.000-08:00

New favorite after-dinner treat. Pomegranate seeds on top of Honey Greek Yogurt. Especially in my favorite cat bowl. Ice cream no longer required.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-17T19:54:00.000-08:00

Heya Happy New Year! Another long absence from blog-landia, whoops! But there's several good reasons this time! How about a kind of spur of the moment trip to China for the holidays? Here's some pictures of our snowy freezing day on the Great Wall (Mutianyu). The weirdest, steepest, twisty-est stairs I've ever been on, which were also icy and snow-covered. Fun!

You can see all the funny angles of the brick work, nothing level, I found it disorienting when I was walking, but beautiful and interesting when I was standing still. Zach, Marc and Alex.

A picture of Marc and I. Wearing many many layers. On one of the graffitied corners.

We didn't get too many super long views because of the clouds, but the wall just goes on and on and then even further.

Another Zach and Alex picture with lots of the wall in the background. It really is an impressive thing and I'm glad we got the chance to see it ourselves.

On Mo's Street

2011-12-06T12:02:00.001-08:00

This is what late fall/early winter looks like in the San Francisco Bay Area. At least on Maureen's street.

I got out of my car, gasped at the beauty and had to grab my camera to try and capture the gorgeousness. There's just something about that red-orange against the blue blue sky.

Finding Fabulous Freebies

2011-11-26T11:18:00.001-08:00

Here's some of the fun stuff from the freebie pile Bron brought to our last CQFA meeting from FabMo. She always finds the most interesting stuff to bring to us and we all politely divide it up, there's never been any pinching or hitting or yelling, this is not Black Friday at Walmart after all. I liked these four fabrics and thought it would be interesting to make two pieces one, green based and one red based, building around these as focuses with a lot of the other fabrics I've been collecting from Fabmo lately which are easily divisible into red vs. green. I wonder sometimes what my brain is doing sometimes, I really do. Why red and green? Who knows. I couldn't tell you. Maybe it will all become clear after I actually make the quilts!

I liked this gold mum print a lot, the scale of it and the background fabric color. I think it will make a great applique on something.

I'm going to hem up the floral embroidered fabric as napkins. The stuff on the right is wallpaper samples,which is all bug paintings, the title of which cracked me up, Timorous Beasties. Sounds so Gorey-esque huh?

2011-11-21T14:20:00.001-08:00

All of a sudden it's time for Thanksgiving! Can you believe it? Are you ready?

And all of a sudden we're hosting the family, and some friends, all together 14 people if everyone comes. Which is awesome, and I can't even express how much I'm looking forward to it, but it is going to take some doing to pull off. Good thing my son Zach is coming home from college for the first time on Wednesday, (yay!), another set of hands that like cooking will be helpful.

I've dug out my recipes, made my list, now to steel myself for a trip to the store tomorrow.

Here's some of what I'm making, I recommend all these recipes, I've used them before in case you're looking for something yummy to try this year:

Artichoke Parmesan Sourdough Stuffing

Cranberry Orange Port Compote

Green Beans With Almonds and Shallots

One new thing I'm trying is Thanksgiving Star Cider, I have a feeling I'll be needing it...

We're also having plumbing issues (of course), and I have a big hole in the kitchen ceiling, lovely, so very very appetizing.

Hopefully this will go off better than the first time we ever hosted Thanksgiving when our stove element decided to go out in the middle of cooking the turkey. Yes, we finished the whole thing by turning the broiler on and off every ten minutes for hours. It actually turned out pretty well considering.

In case you're looking for music for the holiday, you gotta check out the NPR All Songs Considered

Songs for Stuffing Thanksgiving Mix. It's awesome, and includes Alice's Restaurant naturally...

Hope if you're celebrating Thanksgiving this week it is filled with peace, joy and fabulous food.

So Very Close To Done

2011-11-17T10:09:00.001-08:00

Two years ago for my birthday, as my big gift, my dear husband agreed to help me make me the design wall I'd always wanted for my studio. We went out and bought the insulation board, the wood trim and the flannel. And then a bunch of stuff happened, blah,blah,blah, and all the stuff just sat there, propped up against the wall. I used the insulation board as a photo background many times, but it wasn't the useful design wall I wanted and needed. I continued using the back of a flannel-back picnic tablecloth tacked up on the wall as my "temporary" design wall.

Recently, he had a rare day off between his many trips back and forth to China and asked me what I wanted him to get done around the house before he had to leave again, and for once I was selfish and said, "let's actually make the design wall." It involved a lot of outdoor sweeping out on the driveway to get the area clean enough to work with because I didn't want all that white flannel dirty from the start. It really was a two person job handling the glue and getting the flannel down without lumps or folds. I knew I couldn't have done it all by myself. The spray glue worked really really well and we had just enough. Originally I was going to cover both of the boards together, but we realized it wasn't going to work getting it back into the house so we did each one on it's own. The flannel is affixed to the back with good ol' duct tape, and lots of it.

So as you can see it isn't really done, because it isn't affixed to the wall with the wood pieces. We'd forgotten since so much time had passed that the two boards together are 1" too big for the wood to overlap enough at the corners to screw them to the wall. So one of the panels needs to be trimmed down an inch along each edge and then we can finally put it up on the wall for real. It still works pretty well as is just leaning there against the wall. Think it will be another two years? We shall see...

Unfortunately Zelda the WonderDog left a pawprint, she decided she had to investigate as we were moving around and I caught her just as she stepped onto one of the boards. We'd been joking about the cats lying down on the spray-glued insulation boards and getting stuck, at least that didn't happen. So now I have to decide whether to leave it as a memorial, or try and clean it off. I think I'll keep it, it's not too dark, and it will be nice to have that reminder of her in my workroom.

Learning Photoshop Elements

2011-11-16T11:13:00.001-08:00

I finally got started with learning Photoshop Elements by taking a beginner's class geared for quilters at Always Quilting, it was taught by Lynn Koolish. It was the perfect class for me, I got over my fear of using the program, finally figured out what layers are, and fooled around with a bunch of my pictures to get some really fun and different results. Lynn was a great teacher, very prepared, very clear in her instructions to all the people in the class who were at very different levels. I learned way more than I thought I would. This program is really versatile and I was amazed at what you could do right away.

A door in Port Townsend

Combining the door picture with the grapes. This was one of my favorites, I think I'll make a t-shirt out of this image so I can wear it.

A silly one adding words to a picture of my dashboard, my digital readout has been spotty, especially when it is really hot in the car, I never know what parts of the numbers will show up.

A pump from Vikingsholm in Lake Tahoe.

With a zillion layers and some words that say: I Was Full In The Past

A nut holding up our deck at home.

Looks like a quilt design to me!

I like this one even better.

My hand on the river beach in Boulder Creek.

HomeDepot plus J.R. Bob Dobbs was too hilarious to pass up taking a picture, remember Church of the SubGenius from the 80's?

I found that totally random pictures off my cell phone can end up making an interesting collage (at least to me!). I think it is because the pictures I take with my cell phone are kind of like ripping out images from magazines that I like, so they go together in my brain somehow. Anyways I like how this one turned out, a lot. And yes that's an x-ray of my hip in there, hope it doesn't weird you out.

So will I use Photoshop Elements for the quilting or mixed-media art that I do? I would say yes, if anything for design inspiration, for a new way to collage, and also for things to print out on fabric to include in quilts. There are a whole lot of possibilities...

Goodbye and Farewell to Zelda The Wonder Dog

2011-11-14T06:29:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately I have some really sad news to share, Zelda the Wonder Dog died last night.

We got her in September 2003, at the Santa Cruz SPCA, so we had her for eight good years. She's only the second dog our family has ever had. We were looking for a small to medium sized dog, but when I saw her in her pen, she gave me this look and I swear I heard her say in my head "just please, can you get them to let me out just for a little bit, you don't have to take me home, I swear, I just need to get out of here." She was the only calm dog in the place, all the other ones were flipping out and jumping and barking at us. She just stood there looking at us so patiently, and hopefully, so we did, we got the SPCA helper to come over and let her out so we could play with her outside. She was so happy just to be out. And we all laughed so hard when she dug in the big water bowl like a lunatic and splashed it all over. She just had this big, ebullient personality that you couldn't ignore. So she changed our minds in that instant and she was ours and we were hers.

She named herself, when we were filling out the paperwork, and I was asked what we'd like to put down as her name, she looked up at me and I swear I heard "you can call me Zelda." Which I scoffed at because then everyone would think we'd named her after the video game character, but no, she really wasn't, I always maintain, she named herself.

Zelda loved the water, unless it was being sprayed at her out of the hose. But she took over the kid's old wading pool as her own, and would jump in and out of it during the hot summers, digging, always digging in the water. She really loved swimming in the river, always trying so hard to finally catch one of the ducks. She didn't like fetching sticks all that much, I don't think she saw the point in it, she would just take them and chew them to pieces, but she did like chasing balls. But you had to make sure to take it away from her or she'd completely destroy it. She practically raised our youngest cat, Spike, we called them the dynamic duo. They were always going in and out of the house together, following each other around, sleeping with each other. Spike's going to really miss her.

We don't know how old she really was, last year the vet told me he thought she was probably 15 years old at least. So we knew she wouldn't be with us much longer, her breathing problems were getting worse and worse, so I'm happy for her that she passed away as easily as she did. My son Alex and I were with her as she took her last breath, so she wasn't alone in her final time. I'm just glad we got to have so long with her in our lives. She was a truly special dog that I don't think I'll ever stop missing.

Fabric From All Over

2011-11-10T11:20:00.000-08:00

Another bag of world textile treasures arrived from my Aunt Suzi from all her travels teaching English all over the place. She's so kind to think of sharing all this with me, I'm a lucky girl. I thought I'd share some pictures because so much of it is unusual and different to my eyes. And a great addition to my fabric stash. First are these batik panels.

They're both quite large and have great detail.

A really nice bordered batik print, red on black. There's maybe enough for a nice skirt I think.

Not sure of some of the fabric content on these,some are possibly polyester blend. Not sure why but this one had an elephant printed along the edge in one spot.

I like a lot of the labels and printed logos, they're just so different than what I'm used to seeing on US products.

And finally this thick woven one, isn't it gorgeous with that subtle lighter blue stripe? There's a lot of this one, maybe enough for a jacket.
Thanks Aunt Suzi!

Halloweenie Halloween

2011-11-09T19:55:00.000-08:00

Our pumpkin carving this year was late again, by one day, becoming a Stiller family tradition. The timing brought back memories of my unfortunate hand injury two years' ago. I only was able to bring myself to carve out one eye, (I'm such a Halloweenie!) so Alex and Marc had to slice up the rest. I scooped out the insides, roasted the pumpkin seeds and drew three of the faces.

This was Alex's, those round teeth are awesome, but they took forevvvveeeerrrr for him to carve. But he didn't give up and it looks great.

I liked this shot because of the light effects. I actually used a tripod with my new camera so I could get some non-blurry dark shots.

These two pumpkins are different for a good reason, the rind on them was almost two inches thick and super hard! Too tough to cut safely, so we decided that trying to carve was crazy. We got out the electric screwdriver and did dot-to-dot holes around the designs, but it turned out the bit wasn't long enough and the holes didn't go all the way through so the pumpkins were dark even with a lit candle inside :-(

Alex tried using a skewer to poke on through. Here's our pumpkin carving table complete with screwdriver, knives, sharpies, skull goblets of pomegranate grape juice and a sack of Halloween candy.

Skewering in action. I love how intensely orange this picture is. The final solution was to find a longer bit for the electric screwdriver, that finally worked and the candle light could shine through the dot-to-dot design. It was worth it, I liked how they looked when lit up.

I was lame and didn't take pictures of the three of us dressed up for Halloween. Too bad because I finally finished my gold fairy costume and it looked pretty fancy with gold hairspray and makeup, etc. I got Alex to put a ton of gel in his hair,he went as a character from a webcomic that he likes that has pretty straight hair, didn't work at all on his very curly hair, but it at least looked different than his usual style. I also got Marc to wear eye liner for his wizard costume which was rather a surprise at how good it looked on him. So booo, for no pictures.

Hope you had a fun Halloween this year!

Around The Immediate Neighborhood

2011-11-07T23:56:00.000-08:00

After many attempts with the new camera, I finally caught a pretty good picture of a bee in our mimosa tree this year.

Oh oleander, unsung heroine of California freeways and my driveway. Poisonous yes, and of course beautiful too.

Don't forget to look up once in a while! Hard to remember when you're walking through the forest sometimes.

Zelda the Wonder Dog, still goes on walks, it just takes her a lot longer to get up and down our hill than it used to.

We had a small, inadvertent berry harvest this year. I was a neglectful gardener due to my hand surgery and sheer laziness, so the berries didn't get pulled out from where they always try to grow, and we ended up with some freebie surprise berries right in our yard.

What is this? An aster maybe? I just loved the color, so close to blue in the right light.

Zig-Zagging Through PIQF

2011-11-04T05:41:00.000-07:00

Last month I met up with Jaye and her mom, Mary to see the PIQF show in Santa Clara. It was a great show this year, and it was really fun to see it together with them. We each notice really different things about quilts, so it's fun to talk about them all at once. And it was really great to see Jaye's quilt Zig Zaggy hanging in the special exhibit New Quilts of Northern California (yay Jaye!).

Jaye and I both bought this template from Come Quilt With Me for our next hey-cut-me-one-of-those-out-of-your-fabrics-when-you-feel-like-it quilts. We did that using their templates (which are great, very well-made) for the Tumbler quilt I'm still working on and her Eye-Spy quilt.
We're both going to do our own background fabrics and cut out the windmill shapes for each other. I haven't tried to make a block yet, hope it isn't too hard.

I had to buy these lovely soft fall colors, dyed in Kenya along with some very cool rolled paper beads. Oh man the guy running this booth, Akonye Kena was a hoot, I could have chatted with him all day.
I also bought a new ironing board cover but I haven't put it on yet, so I'll tell you about it after I've managed it (wish me luck, it's a little involved).

I noticed in the quilts that I took pictures of that I was focused on noticing many things like:

interesting stitching, both machine and hand-embroidery
use of other pre-quilted/embroidered/embellished/exotic textiles
unusually shaped quilts (hooray! finally!)
circles
leaves
interesting found objects as embellishments
dimensional shapes as part of the quilt
text/fonts on the quilt surface

New Camera New Orchid

2011-11-03T17:30:00.000-07:00

New Camera! Woot! And a new orchid to photograph too. This is my first indoor orchid, and I can already see why people get addicted to collecting orchids, they really are a special sort of flower.

Still learning all the bells and whistles on this camera, and boy are there a lot on this one.

So far I like it a lot though. In case you're interested, it is a NikonCoolPix P500.
Thanks CostcoRebateCheck...

WaterWord

2011-11-02T16:59:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I showed you a small detail of this quilt that is on the show postcard for the California Fiber Artists "California Currents" show at the EBMUD gallery, and today here is a picture of the whole thing. This is my piece called WaterWord.

And some more detail shots so you can see some of the stamping and writing I did on the quilt surface. This was all done after the quilting was completed.

I used a several times over-dyed piece of muslin that had some writing in sharpie which still showed through to the other side a bit, so it had a textured look already along the edge. I wrote over those showing through markings with several different pens with the phrase
"The Word For The World Is Water".

Here's the artist statement that I wrote that explains the choice of those words:

Artist Statement:

The Word for the World is Water which is written several times on the piece is a take on the Ursula LeGuin short story title "The Word for the World is Forest". It just came to mind as I worked on this piece, I found that I liked the rhythm of the words and how they looked as I wrote them flowing along the edge representing a shoreline. The squares and rectangles represent the human imposed water systems and controls. The natural state of water and the managed state of water both working together to sustain humanity.

This quilt contains hand-dyed muslin, quilting cottons and upholstery weight fabrics.

EBMUD Show

2011-11-01T10:35:00.000-07:00

Off the grid for a couple months, sorry about that! But I'm back on now, and with an announcement about a California Fiber Artist show I'm participating in currently in at the EBMUD gallery in Oakland. This one is exciting to me because a close-up of my piece "Water Word" was chosen as the postcard image! Very Exciting!
If you go check out the show please let me know what you think. I haven't been to see it yet myself, but the pictures I've seen so far seem like it's definitely a show worth seeing.

I Can See Everything From Up Here

2011-08-31T05:45:00.000-07:00

We recently made it up to San Francisco to see a Giants game. It was a beautiful day, alas we lost the game, but it was still a fun trip. AT&T park is so beautiful, even if the game gets boring there is still lots to look at out on the bay. Our seats were one row away from the very top of the stadium, but a good view of the game.

McCovey Cove had a lot of ships coming in and out during the game. At one point they had dueling/jousting paddleboarders up on the big screen which was hilairious.

I had to take a picture of one of the strangest batting stances I've ever seen, Aaron Rowand. I guess it works for him though! Once our tv Giants announcers said he looked like a constipated penguin, which I thought was pretty accurate.

The boys in their borrowed t-shirts with my mom. Going to see the game with everyone was her birthday present from us this year. She taught me to love the Giants and baseball as a kid, so it is really fun to get to go see a game in person now and then with her! Zach was really impressed with how into it Grandma was, he's not too into following baseball unfortunately. One of my failures as a mother, oh well...

Yes it was a chance to wear my orange hat!

Back To School = New Pens

2011-08-30T09:40:00.000-07:00

My version of buying back-to-school supplies for myself these days consists of acquiring New Pens. Specifically ones for mark-making on fabric (at least this time around). Some of these will work on paper and other surfaces too.
I decided I'd test them out all in one place to compare and contrast how each type looks when actually used on fabric. The fabric is a pretty tight woven cotton without a lot of surface texture. I like how this looks and it will be useful to me in deciding which pen to use in what situation. My plan is to keep this piece of fabric and add to it when I find a new type of pen.
Out of these new pens I think I like the look of the fine point Tee Juice. Also, the feel of using the pen was easier than the Zig, maybe the tip material is different somehow? The Tee Juice pens come in lots of yummy colors, so these may become a new addiction, we shall see...

Finally A Chance To Letterpress

2011-08-27T05:56:00.000-07:00

I forgot to post about the letterpress experience I had at Maker Faire this year. I had always wanted to try it every time we went but the booth was always mobbed, this time I lucked out. It was so fun to get to try the machine out, and then they had it all set up so you could make a little book with a simple stab signature binding. How do you like the awesome mix of fonts on that one little print?
Anyways, it was super fun, and now I see what the big deal is, what a handy little machine a letterpress really is. (puts on the exceedingly long and out-of-hand *someday wants list*). Thank you San Francisco Center for the Book for having this fun project to do.

I added to my alphabet stamps collection recently with this lovely set of upper-case cursive.

I tried them out in my newly-made, letter-pressed book. In case you can't read it, I stamped: Do It Anyways and Art Comes To Those Who Wait. Not my best stamping job ever (I need to remember to check the corners of stamps to wipe off the ink), but I like the look of the font a whole lot. Above it you can see the paper I put down to avoid getting ink on my Olfa cutting mat, after using it for a while, this paper looks super cool with all kinds of stamps and paint all over it. Yes of course I save it to use in collage and altered books projects.

Autumn Is In The Air Fabrics

2011-08-26T17:56:00.000-07:00

It must be getting nearer to fall, because these are the recent fat quarters I picked up when stopping in at Sue Dee's (my closest LQS-Local Quilt Shop formerly Judy's) to buy sewing machine needles. Because you can't just buy the needles right? Those tempting fat quarters, they know how irresistible they really are....

Also the iridescent fall colored silky bit at the top is from Bron who assured me I would know what to do with it...So far it is hanging out looking very pretty in my studio. I'm tempted just to hem it with spiky fibery yarn and sparkly glass beads and make a pretty scarf, but I hardly ever end up wearing stuff like that. I suppose I could do that and gift it to someone or maybe something else entirely, suggestions?

I bought the top leafy print fabric to make myself a skirt. The second fabric is a matching border print with birds on phone wires. I bought enough to make into a border for the skirt, but I've changed my mind completely on that now. So what to do with the bird print? It will probably end up as a quilt back since now that I look at it closely, I really don't want to look at it.

And every sewing room needs iron fabric. Shoot, I should have bought more so I could have recovered my nasty and ripped ironing board cover with it. Guess I'll have to go back to SueDee's to see if they still have it in stock.

Really, I Don't Buy Souvenirs

2011-08-24T19:49:00.000-07:00

I really don't buy too many souvenirs when I travel. There are only so many t-shirts or coffee mugs one can use when you get back home. Sometimes I'll buy a fridge magnet, but that's about it.
So I wanted to share some pictures of what I did buy on my recent trip to Washington. First is these two antique clay mold dolls that I picked up in Olympia, Washington. They are about 3 inches high and pretty lightweight. Not in the best of shape, a little rough around the edges, but I thought they were interesting and had character. They feel really nice in my hand too, maybe the coolness of the clay?
There were only two of them left, so of course I had to buy both, couldn't leave one lonely you know. Yes, yes, I know they are maybe a little on the creepy side. (Okay maybe a lot!) But they called to me in a shop full of sparkly crystal doorknobs and crystal balls. Who knows maybe they'll be worked into something for Halloween?

One of them even stands up all by herself, as long as one doesn't jiggle the table too much. Pretty good since she's missing part of her foot....

And one fat quarter to add to my skull fabric collection. This one cracked me up for some reason. Must be all the crowns or maybe the pink background.. I found this in the Victorian Square building in Port Townsend, there was a bead shop, a yarn shop and a fabric arts shop all in one spot. It was hard to leave with only buying this one thing...Wish I'd gotten the name of the place because it was really cool having those three businesses in one spot. I tried looking it up for you, but my google-fu wasn't working.

Gotta Start Somewhere

2011-08-18T11:32:00.000-07:00

Not terribly exciting, but the first thing I've sewn since my hand surgery at the end of May. Gotta start somewhere right? That was a long time to go without sewing (for me anyways!).
This is a block for a lovey quilt that is being made for an online friend. The instructions were to make something bright and cheery. I think this qualifies don't you? No planned pattern just half-square triangles sewn together and then arranged until I liked how it looked.

Doors & Windows

2011-08-05T18:46:00.000-07:00

Here's a whole bunch of pictures from the Fort I talked about yesterday,these are the last ones from vacation I swear! I was obsessed with all the interestingly rusted doors and windows. Not a new thing, I've always had a thing for taking pictures of doors, but there were so many there, all in one place, and each one differently shaped and colored than the next one. So a bit of an overload in this one post, but rather than dragging it out, I thought I'd inflict All of The Doors on you at once.

A Ramble In Fort Worden

2011-08-04T09:33:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite things we did in Port Townsend was to go for a long ramble in Fort Worden State Park. This is a late 19th century fort which was designed to protect the nautical entrance from the Pacific Ocean into where all the shipyards were located further in up the sound from an invading navy. Which navy? I'm not sure at that point in history, but anyways, they left behind a pretty cool place to walk around. This first picture is taken from downhill of one of the bunker/gunsite complexes. In this picture it looks like a modern art piece to me somehow.
And, Yes, that is indeed a perfect lawn to roll down, guess how I know? I have the incriminating video to prove it, but I promised I wouldn't upload it.

Here's what was at the top of that hill, it is where one of the guns was attached. I think this might make a cool rubber stamp image (puts in reminder-to-self file).

Alex and I decided this would be one helluva place for an enormous game of hide-and-go-seek.

Here's the view from the top of the fort, there was about a 240 degree vista. Pretty handy for a fort I suppose.

I noticed these beautiful thistles growing all over the place. They deserved a picture since they're different than the ones I struggle with in my garden at home.

See what I mean about a good hide-and-seek place?

At one point we found this tunnel that went uphill.

I wish I'd taken a movie while I was in it because the sound was just amazing. It was the most sonorous tunnel I've ever been in, such beautiful tones just from us walking.

A rust stalactite! Or something, I don't know what you'd call it.

Walking through some of these tunnels in the old underground living spaces was slightly creepy. There was one like this, but it was dark and closed off but there were open rooms off to one side, completely dark, ooooh that was scary.

Some of the buildings left behind are being reclaimed by the forest.

Beautiful decay.

Port Townsend, Town, Sea and Sky

2011-08-03T13:04:00.000-07:00

Hey, how about some more pictures from our recent road trip to Washington. This is Zach relaxing in Port Townsend. We had many opportunities on our trip to try Bubble Tea as Alex is rather obsessed with it, I like the color combo of these two with the blue sky. I took a lot of photos of the cool old buildings in Port Townsend, but I didn't like how they turned out, too many overhead power lines in the way obscuring everything and breaking up the images, so none of those from me today.

One of the docks in Port Townsend, with gulls perched on the pilings.

This building looked like it was trying to blend in with the sky.

The lighthouse out at the point, horizontal and vertical.

My two boys in the water. Shortly thereafter a huge discussion ensued about whether it was warmer or colder in the ocean at home, and why or why not that would be. It ended with a lot of kelp tossing at each other so I'm not sure they ever resolved it...

Again with the horizontal and vertical views, couldn't decide on which one I liked better. The cloudy sky was so beautiful that day. I'm glad I was able to capture a bit of that expansive feeling in these photos. I love that one glowing line of sunshine on the water before the horizon.

Sunrise on 280

2011-08-02T19:38:00.000-07:00

Sunrise captured at 80 mph on highway 280 coming back from the San Francisco airport. Almost worth getting up at 3:30am to see.
I rarely see a sunrise during the summer, so this was a nice surprise, and worth capturing with a picture.

On the Road Again

2011-07-20T11:03:00.000-07:00

I'm out of the studio and on a road trip with my sons, we're just driving, listening to music, talking, stopping when we feel like it. So with wifi at our hotel, I'm going to inflict some vacation pictures on you, just because they're so different than what I usually post.

On this trip at first it was just my youngest (Alex) and I, because my oldest (Zach) had flown up to Washington a few weeks ago to visit with friends and go to a music festival. So we drove up to Port Townsend to pick him up and then drive back home again. What a treat it is to get to spend this time with just us together, I'm really enjoying it, I love that my boys are so much fun to talk to and be with.

Zach is going to be moving up to Washington for college pretty soon in the fall, so we wanted to spend some time up here getting to know the area a little better. Alex and I were noticing it is a really long drive up from where we are in California, it just takes a loooong time to even get out of our state (about 6 hours!) and across the border.

But I'm reminded from all those many driving family vacations I went on as a kid, that it is fun to take that slower pace instead of flying and see more of our country and talk to people in new places. Alex got to go to Walmart for the very first time, seriously, he'd never been to one, what a concept huh?

On the second day of our trip driving through Olympia, Washington (state capital), we noticed that you keep seeing the capitol dome everywhere, around every corner it seemed. So a picture had to be taken while we were in pursuit of lunch. And note the blue sky, seems that was all we're going to see for a couple days.

Because here is how it looks this morning from our hotel room in Port Townsend. greygreygrey.

With masts appearing over rooftops like bare trees.

The shore is grey, the water reflects the grey fog, the coast in the distance is grey too. Good thing I like grey.

Eggs-actly My Point

2011-07-10T14:48:00.000-07:00

Just because it is a Sunday here is a completely off-topic post all about eggs.
We love keeping chickens, the fresh eggs are the best, so tasty and fresh, the chickens like to eat weeds and kitchen scraps, make regular contributions to the compost pile ingredients, they aren't too much trouble, and I find their antics and noises very entertaining.
There was a big hubbub in the coop recently and I gathered the eggs afterward. I think I figured out what the upset was, look at the size of that egg. It is huge, almost twice the size of the others. Let's just say, that I'd have been squawking extra too!
I had to take this picture to prove it to those who weren't around to see it. Because we then had to open the egg up immediately just to see what was inside. Just a double yolk. With our first chickens we once got a huge egg like this, and inside was another egg (weird!), no picture of that unfortunately. I liked how this picture turned out with the green towel and the shadows.

The lid of the egg carton wouldn't even close!
That reminds me I need to take some pictures of this new group of chickens, one of them is really huge compared to the other two.

The Rest of Maker Faire

2011-07-09T18:46:00.000-07:00

A last day of pictures from Maker Faire. These blow up asparagus inspired sculptures were waving like kelp undersea, made by OhYeahToys. I really love how they looked all lit up, softly waving and so mysteriously yet familiarly shaped.

How about outlining your applique in "neon"? Pretty cool application of new technology.

We got to hear Adam Savage from Mythbusters talk about filming their recent episode at the White House, very interesting, and of course very funny.

My son Alex liked these poseable figures with soda bottle heads, you could buy a kit to assemble one.

One of our favorite vendors was B.Coole Designs, so many great embroidered patches to choose from...This one we got for my son Zach who currently wants to become an organic farmer.

I couldn't stop giggling when I saw this one, so I had to get it for myself.

So much geeky humor in this one booth!

The Lego truck was there, so awesome. An old mail delivery truck covered in Lego board with zillions of Legos to play with.

This moose-ish/mossy creature was about 10' tall and quite elegant and stately as it moved through the crowds.

A gigantic steam-powered contraption, what was it powering this year?

A player piano of course!

I loved the whimsy of this sculpture, using a boat to contain the water.

It really was beautiful, all those old instruments, with the beautiful metal and curves under the splashing water, just lovely.

That's it for this year! Can't wait for next year...

Wood Works

2011-07-05T18:33:00.000-07:00

At the Maker Faire this year there were a lot of cool and unusual wood things. Like this giant Tiki.

Or how about wooden bicycles?

I really appreciated the beautiful wood combination in the seat, and the swoopy curved designs.

They were pretty darned heavy though.

I'm guessing this was wood laid on top of a motorcycle gas tank. At least I hope so! Pretty though..

Robots At Maker Faire

2011-06-29T09:14:00.000-07:00

I forgot to make some posts about all the great stuff I saw at Maker Faire this year. So let's start with some robot looking sculpture used old parts. Some of these moved or lit up, but they weren't truly functional robots.
I love how this head looks, it has so much personality, and then you look at what it is comprised of!

I especially love the fingers on this one, and his bow legs.

This mixer look familiar to anyone? It powered a very cool musical sculpture made of piano keys which you can see in the back and above.

The maniacal grin! The feet made out of shoe trees! Love sculpture like this, where you look at it, and then look again at another level.

This was my favorite though. I had the thought that wouldn't it be easier if people had one of these right on their front where we could see it???
For some reason this is all the pictures I'm able to upload (thankssoverymuchbloggerwhichIcan'tcomplainaboutsinceitisfree!)

Shoreline Series

2011-06-21T15:07:00.000-07:00

Looking through my pictures from our recent trip to Lake Tahoe made me start thinking about working in a series.

From one spot on the deserted beach I took this series of photos while waiting for my family to meet me (they bicycling which I couldn't do because of my still healing finger).
Each of these pictures is so similar when looked at in thumbnail size, the orangey shore contrasting with that blue sky and darker blue water, and the darkness of indistinct mountains. But when seen at normal size like I'm showing you here, all those differences come out and catch my interest and imagination and make me want to turn them into quilts or paintings or collages or.....
This makes me finally get why working in a series is so satisfying to so many people. I've been feeling that pull lately, and maybe this epiphany will help me get over the hump to actually working on it and giving it a try.

All those different views possible from the same spot, the same day, the same camera, the same media, the same person making the image.

Until people show up and introduce even more variables!
Well, at least they were the people I was waiting for, my two sons who were of course immediately set upon digging a hole and changing the whole view.

Lists Being Made, Plans Being Hatched

2011-06-13T09:38:00.000-07:00

My list of what to sew first when my hand is recovered enough is steadily growing. But this is near the top. I'll be making the short version of this tunic top, with the fabric on the right as the main body and the fabric on the right as the contrasting cap sleeves. I'm planning to use the contrast fabric to cover buttons. Yes it buttons in the back (?!).
I chose the main fabric because it reminded me of all those Spirograph designs I used to love to make. You know the relatively uncomplicated one that was the "wrong way" around the outside, making the loopy flower shapes.

I also picked up this strange fabric off the remnant table. (Gotta love the remnant table at Hart's Fabrics!). I believe it is a Japanese print and it is a lovely crisp, rough woven fabric, maybe part linen. I just really dug the designs of the old transistor radios, and the color combinations that were used. I'm thinking of using part of it on a t-shirt as a central patch.

Spring Flowers While Waiting On Summer

2011-06-08T09:26:00.000-07:00

Thought I'd share some spring flower pictures that I took this year. While waiting for summer to arrive. I honestly am not missing it too much. This is a surprise iris, my mom gave me the bulbs last year and I planted them in a new place and poof, there it was a beautiful and surprising iris!
I didn't grow these tiger lilies, they were from a bouquet my husband gave me. I like them a lot, and think I should plant some for next year.

A close up of a pretty small flower, which I can't remember the name of at the moment.

Looks even better with a few raindrops.

The infamous climbing rose that takes over the deck every year. This was taken right before the local deer went on a rampage and pruned them for me. Someone forgot to close the gate, whoops!

Ranunculus? I can't remember the name, but Rexie looks good with it doesn't he?

From Leather to Kaleidoscopes

2011-05-29T15:50:00.000-07:00

Going a little crazy (or bored) recovering from hand surgery, so I made a couple of kaleidoscopes from a recent picture taken on my work table. I'm happy to report that I can now wiggle the tip of my pinky finger, so far that has made the surgery worthwhile.

Can you tell what the source picture might be?

Well it starts out with some leather. Small leather samples from a recent trip to FabMo. I snagged them because of all the great and varying textures.

All the shiva paintstik colors got a try with each of the patterns, but the yellow light pearl didn't show on the white fabric of course.

So here it is on black fabric. And that's the source picture for the kaleidoscopes at the top of this post. Tada!

What The Right Hand Knows

2011-05-23T07:09:00.000-07:00

Wish me luck, as I'm having hand surgery this morning. Hopefully this will bring my pinky finger back into full use. I miss it.

(oh and this figure actually does have all five fingers, just the angle of the photo doesn't show one of them!)

The Primal Green Experience

2011-05-21T11:26:00.000-07:00

Here's a look at CQFA's Primal Green show (through 7/30) that is now showing at the San Francisco Public Library. First up is the official sign announcing the show, isn't it beautiful all lit up? The quilts are scattered around through the whole area, and there is a map showing where to find them.

Here is the view from the table before all the guests for our talk arrived. It was a little nerve-wracking waiting for the panel discussion to start, so I distracted myself by taking pictures. I kind of wish I'd taken one when the audience was there! It was a fun experience being part of the panel and I was really glad I got asked to do it.

Thanks mom for taking this picture of me in front of my piece "Lorabund 3-step"

I really liked the displays of ATC's that were put together, mine is on the lower row second from left.

One of the coolest things in this beautiful new library building is this long curving wall that is covered in the cards from the old card catalog.

I guess they let people write on them and "art" them up. It makes for a beautifully textured wall, just fascinating and a great way to re-use/re-purpose/recycle.

I hope you can go see the exhibit!

A Bag from a Baggo

2011-04-22T05:49:00.000-07:00

A fiber artist's group that I'm part of online (Fiber Pirates) does a fairly regular swap of art making known as a Baggo. We fill a gallon zip bag with "stuff" and send it off to a central person who then anonymously hands them out to the participating artists. We each are to make a quilt and then send the finished quilt to the originator of the Baggo. This is what I got back this year from Dolly, in addition to an absolutely amazing quilt (which I haven't photographed yet, will share it as soon as I do.)
A beautiful bag made with all the extras she didn't need to make the quilt.

It is all kinds of pretty.

With lots of details and pockets everywhere, inside and out.

Counting myself lucky, I'm going to have fun using this bag!

Stylin' Recyclin'

2011-04-21T12:45:00.000-07:00

No I didn't make this myself, I actually bought it recently in San Francisco at the St.Patrick's Day parade art/craft booths. From a company that is set up to produce recycled purses and other things that they design here, using young adults in a rehab center in Mexico City, Eco Fashions.

I was really taken with the effective use of the UPC codes as an overall design.

Plus it had one of my favorite greens on the inside. Most of their products are made out of candy wrappers or magazines.
It is very well made and it looks like it will last for quite a while.

Recent Additions

2011-04-21T05:45:00.000-07:00

All of these were purchased back in January in Half Moon Bay while I was there for the CQFA retreat, at a little shop called Tokenz.
First is a big anti-evil-eye glass charm to hang over the front door. This is about 3" wide. One of my favorite symbols. Never had seen one this large before!

I'd never seen cone shells sliced like this before, thought the shapes were really intriguing. Probably too delicate for quilt embellishing but maybe for printing or stamp carving?

Who doesn't need a lightweight bracelet of skulls? Well not me really, not something I'd wear except maybe in October. I predict that these will end up on the next Dia de los Muertos quilt that I make.

Teeny tiny doodads for embellishments. This store had a wall of big jars of this things, it was fun to go through and pick out a few I thought I might use at some point on a quilt.

A right hand figure, to help me meditate on upcoming re-repair tendon pinky finger surgery. But now that I look at it more closely, maybe not such a great model to use as I'm not planning to have the pinky finger removed. hmmm

A pony-tail holder of felted green woolen spikes. Not so easy to spot against t

green background. So here I am against the more neutral house. Except for the purple window trim of course. Are you surprised I insisted on purple trim when we repainted?

Stars For San Bruno

2011-04-18T19:21:00.000-07:00

My friend Jaye is making quilts for a few of the people who survived the San Bruno gas explosion but lost everything in the fire. She asked for quilt blocks that were yellow stars on dark blue backgrounds.

I hand-drafted these (thanks to the degree angles on my Omnigrid ruler), and cut them out of fused yellow fabric. I just didn't feel like piecing for some reason.

I zig-zagged the edges just to be sure. I never trust fusible completely. Unless of course if it is for sticking something to the ironing board....forever!

I think I liked this one better, the two fabrics combined made me thinking of Van Gogh's Starry Night a little bit.

I can't wait to see how the quilts turn out, she's almost got one whole quilt top put together.

Flowers Inside And Out

2011-04-14T13:57:00.000-07:00

I'm so lucky that I've got a whole lot of flowers these days.

Inside

And

Out.

Primal Green

2011-04-13T11:43:00.000-07:00

You're invited to come to the panel discussion and artist's reception for Primal Green. It is this Sunday, April 17th at 1pm, in San Francisco at the Main Library.
I'm really looking forward to being on the panel with several other CQFA quilters, the discussion will be interesting and informative and hopefully entertaining.

Sun, Clouds, Sea

2011-04-11T18:54:00.000-07:00

The Pacific ocean

on a January afternoon

in-between rainstorms

as seen from the side of Highway 1

near Pescadero

Sketchbook Project Part Three

2011-04-10T06:06:00.000-07:00

The rest of the pages from my sketchbook that is part of The Sketchbook Project. I realize now that I skipped two pages in my photo taking, so I'm really glad I paid the extra $ to have the organizers of this project scan and put images on a DVD. Plus I bet they'll look better than these photos too (hope so!).
This page uses a scrap from an old collage with a magazine picture and watercolor crayons.

An old tissue paper collage with watercolor crayons and pen work.

Writing, tissue paper clothes patterns, cancelled quilty postage stamps. This is one of my favorite pages in this book.

A two page spread that has a paper napkin in a toile pattern, acrylic paint, cigar labels, game cards and a vintage label.

Cheracol, yum...

The whole two page spread.

The last page of the sketchbook! This page was based on the watercolor paper that makes up the pocket, it was a scrap left over from something else, so I painted the background to match it.

I love pockets in altered books so I thought why not on this last page of the sketchbook.

I made one two sided tag to put in the pocket with vintage pictures from ArtChix, gold-leaf pens, acrylic paint.

Why Should? vs. Why Not? sides of the tags.

I'm really glad I did this project and actually finished and submitted it!
I am really looking forward to seeing the exhibit in San Francisco in June. Check the schedule and see where the tour is coming near you so you can riffle through and handle hundreds of artist's sketchbooks!

Sketchbook Project Part Two

2011-04-09T05:44:00.000-07:00

More pages from my submission to The Sketchbook Project. This one has cancelled postage stamps, words from a magazine and a paper napkin.

A cancelled playing card with mulberry paper.

Painting with metallic acrylics.

More of the same painting.

The whole two page spread.

Too much paint on one page leads to this on another page.

A whole bunch of images of this one group of pages. Mulberry papers, Caran d'Arche watercolor crayons, stamped words, and pages cut with fancy scissors. The two page spread is shown here. On the right you can see there are a couple pages that have been cut into three sections.

Words were stamped onto each of the three sections, front and back. I intended them to be able to flip back and forth and say different things.

Some hopeful.

Some not!

Some more angsty.

Some direct.

Some hopeless.

The page underneath that has tarnished copper tape.

More pages tomorrow.

Sketchbook Project Part One

2011-04-08T17:47:00.000-07:00

Back in August last year I shared about starting The Sketchbook Project.
Here are some of the pages (I'll share more over the next couple days) that I completed. Of course I sent it in on the last day possible, and of course the power was out when I was going to scan the pages. So I had to go outside and photograph this on my table on the deck, so sorry for the background.

A lot of the pages are not very "sketchy" at all, but instead multi-media/collage/fiber/journal-ish/etc.
Are you surprised?
Nope, me either.
This page has plastic sushi grass, words from magazines and origami paper.

I continued the lines on the scrap of fabric and liked how it filled the page. Do you happen to recognize this fabric?

A study in white textures, coffee sleeve, white wool felt, white cotton and iridescent fibers.

A leftover piece from Shiva Paintiks fabric surrounded by fortune cookie fortunes.

I sewed the zipper onto the fabric first before the fabric was glued onto the page.

See there is always something hidden if you take the time to look.

Sometimes you just have to draw what is in front of you even if it is just a burned out light bulb.

Yes, this collage was done right before the Giants won the World Series. Ribbon scraps, fabric, raffle coupon, parking stub from Giants parking lot, tissue paper.

Recognize your spinning wheel Bron? This sketch was done during a CQFA "between-meetings-meeting" at Bron's beautiful house. She had this great spinning wheel on her hearth that I sketched and later did the watercolors.

Candy wrappers, tissue paper, words, numbers and pictures from the phone book.

Words from a magazine and fibery tissue paper.

All Together Now

2011-04-07T05:25:00.000-07:00

Here are all 52 of the weekly six-word memoirs from 2010. Somewhat in order, in rows starting up in the upper left corner. A bit hard to arrange clearly in rows due to the irregular (ie crazy) shapes and sizes.

I like seeing these grouped together like this all in one place. Makes it easier to spot all those commonalities through the year and how each one is so very different from the others.

It is interesting to see the similarity in colors depending upon the season, I also like seeing the different shapes they each ended up.

The quiltlets are now residing in a box that I've collaged and I think that's where they will stay, until I can think of a way to make them into a book. If I do, I'll be sure and share it here.
So, what's the project for this year? Well, I haven't picked one and here it is April already, so I guess I'm taking a year off at least until something strikes me as *must-do*.
I posted all the pictures of this project on Flickr so they can all be looked at together. Check it out if you're interested, it might be easier than looking at each post here on my blog.

Here's a video I made on Animoto using all those pictures:

Kept Under Wraps

2011-04-06T06:03:00.000-07:00

Ta-dah! Here it is....the 52nd and final weekly six-word memoir (from last year). And of course the last one has to be rather complicated and will take a lot of pictures to show it to you in its entirety.

The entire thing is comprised of various mesh type materials I've gotten over the last year or so from Fabmo. Each layer has one of the six words written on white ribbon which is sewn on to the grid of the mesh. So here is the first layer that has the word: Kept.

Turn the first layer back and you get to the second layer which says: Under

Here is how it looks so you can see the third layer where the word is:Wraps

All opened up to the fourth layer where the word is: Night

The last layer which says: Day

Extreme closeups of the words on each layer.

The words say: "Kept Under Wraps. Night And Day." There you go, now you've seen all 52 of these weekly quiltlets. Tomorrow I'll show you what they all look like up on the wall.

Fields Of Gold

2011-04-05T18:39:00.000-07:00

Here's the 51st in a year-long, weekly six-word memoir quiltlet series from (last year). This one is yet another crazy/organic shape, made with yellow cottons that were on my worktable from making an additional border for the yellow/purple quilt top from last year.
Gold lame' and gold stretch netting are also used here.

Yet another one with the words of the week covered up somehow. Am I bashful with some of these, wanting to hide them away? (probably, this week's is pretty gooshy and emotional). Or am I just still struggling with making the writing look good with the rest of the quiltlet and still be legible?

Words say: "Fields Of Gold. In My Heart."
Gee, only one more left to show you....

Loveliness Hidden

2011-04-04T10:23:00.000-07:00

For the 50th in the year long weekly six-word memoir series (from last year that is, ahem) I started out with a fairly boring background with colorful silk waste on top.

Addition of a chenille-ish yarn on top in a vaguely spirally shape.

The fibers were stretched and combined until they covered the top. Hard to do if your hands are at all rough, as silk waste is really really fine and floaty. I had to keep stopping and putting hand lotion on!
Next, I sandwiched and contained everything by placing on top this white cotton netting (a Fabmo piece I was thinking of dyeing at some point). Stitched in channels and then around the edge of the piece.

Here is the whole piece completed. I pulled out the threads on the edges to make a fringe. This is one of those that will never be completely flat because of the stretchiness of the white netting. That's ok, it reminds me of one of those woven cotton blankets, all fluffy and cozy.

The words for the week are in the corner under a flap of the white netting. I didn't want to take away too much from the overall look of the piece, so this was an attempt at camoflauge.

Words say:
"Loveliness Hidden, Contained, Kept For Myself".
They were written on a scrap of hand-dye in blue pen which didn't show up too well, so I wrote over in black. I like that double lettered, hazy look.

A horizon shot so you can see the dimensionality of the fibers pushing against the stitching and white netting.

Hey! Only two more of these to show you!

Making Do With Dots

2011-04-01T12:18:00.000-07:00

Happy April! Way back in March, well two days ago I showed the process of making this dotted fabric. I thought you might like to see what I made with it eventually. This time around it turned out to be a few ATC's for possible inclusion in CQFA's show at the San Francisco Public Library - Primal Green.
First I sandwiched the fabric with batting and backing and planned out how I would stitch this up. I decided I didn't want the stitches crossing over the dots, so I settled on a grid with a bright green thread.

After all the stitching was done, time to slice these up into the official ATC size (2.5"x3.5"). It was hard to choose how to select the direction and color combinations I wanted for each individual ATC. But I dove in and started cutting.

I zig-zag stitched twice around the edge of the first one with the same bright green I'd used for the quilting, but I didn't really like how the color looked with the fabric design. I switched over to a more khaki green and liked that better. I also decided I didn't like those big white dots anymore when seen at this smaller ATC size, so I rubber stamped in a small leaf shape into each dot. Stamping on a quilted surface doesn't make a very clear image unfortunately so you can't really tell that it is a leaf. But I know it is, and these ATC's were supposed to be environmentally related somehow.

Here's how all four turned out, you can see I went with a terracotta ink for most of the stamping. I thought that somewhat muted color went really well with the rest of the colors already involved. And yes one of these ATC's is decidedly smaller than the others, must have been because I was paying more attention to fussy cutting to make the fabric look good than getting the exactly correct measurement, oops.

And now some gratuitous gigantic closeups of the individuals.

One of these did end up in the show, which I hope you can go see if you're near San Francisco. There is a really nice display of many ATC's from CQFA in addition to a rather fabulous quilt exhibit.

Made any ATC's lately?

Squares & Circles

2011-03-30T12:25:00.000-07:00

I was given this wood block (wall treatment I think) sample by Bron, from one of the recent FabMo distributions. I thought it would make an interesting surface to do some ShivaPaintStik experiments with. Consider this a bit of a tutorial on playing with PaintStiks.

When working with the paintstiks, I always try to remember to cover up most of the surface I'm working on as they tend to smear and get pretty messy. As an aside: I have been re-using the same white pieces of butcher paper for a while now for this purpose as well as fabric painting and some of them are getting pretty interesting looking all on their own...
So, I started out with ironed flat pieces of plain white pima cotton. I've found that you really want the fabric flat if you want the image you're trying to capture by rubbing to come out clearly. If you don't care, then go for the wrinkly look and see how it looks!

I didn't tape down the fabric to the surface just held the edges taut with two fingers as I ran the first color of paintstik over the surface. If you want to tape the fabric down use that blue painter's tape or cheapie masking tape, both work pretty well for that.
When you first use a paintstik you have to rub off the dried skin that forms on the exposed area, I just use a paper towel for this, twist gently and it peels off very easily. And keep those paper towels around, because you'll need them to wipe your fingertips off on as you keep working.

I found that it was a bit hard to keep the fabric in the exact same place, but I liked how the slight shifts looked with the additional color. If I was aiming for perfectly lined up shapes I would definitely bothered to do some taping down.

Moving the fabric around to get the surface covered with marks and trying out various color combinations. The overlapping colors make great combinations and when the paintstik color hasn't dried you can smear it together with your fingertips to soften the edges of the marks and blend to make new combined colors.

I like the overlapping areas and the not exactly lining up of the squares. As you work with a paintstik and start using it up, you'll have to peel off bits of the paper sleeves (just like with crayons!). Don't do the whole thing or too much because it will just dry out and be unusable.

Flipping over the wood block, hey surprise, surprise, there are circles instead of squares. A two for the price of one tool, gotta love it!

I like how the circles side looks a lot, especially how some of the circles get filled in slightly with color as the fabric gaps down a bit over the larger holes in the surface allowing the paintstik to make a mark.

Changing direction with color to escape the grid.

Two experiments on one piece of fabric. Rows of color and filling in most of the surface with color. That green line down the middle was made with some fingertip smearing of a bit that broke off the green paintstik. Didn't want to throw it out, so I used it up by adding an additional mark of color to the surface.

Instead of a regular grid pattern, I shifted the fabric slightly over the wood block as I went over each column of shapes. I like the more random look and the combination of circles and squares in one piece. I could see a dress made out of this fabric with the circles on the bodice and the squares in the skirt.... With this piece of fabric I guess I could make that dress, for a Barbie doll maybe.

All the fabrics up on the wall together. Very interesting and fun experiments all in all. I think next time I'll try using some already colored fabric to not end up with so much contrast with the white background.
After several months of curing, the smell has finally gone away enough so that the fabrics are usable for me. I don't know if I'm extra sensitive to the smell of the paintstiks, but I have a hard time using fabrics I've done right away, especially if they are in a piece that I'm ironing a lot. Seems to release a lot of the carrier oil smell.
What do you think? Have you tried these Paintstiks yet?

Scraps of Life, Clearly Still Vibrant

2011-03-29T13:56:00.000-07:00

This interesting looking thing above is a block of wood with remnants of glue and fibers, the result of tearing off the sample rainbow colored pieces of linen in the picture below.

All that ripping and tearing of those pieces of rainbow colored linen left me with this:

A pile of colorful, fuzzy, interesting looking linen threads. I bet you can guess where this is heading...

It was time to make the weekly six-word memoir journal quiltlet, the 49th in the series, and I needed to clean up the debris to move onto another project. As I am most certainly not one to throw away a bunch of colorful threads, I had to use them by placing them on a small piece of backing fabric and a scrap of batting.

While working on how to contain the threads, I worked on the words for the piece which I wrote on a clear piece of plastic with a fine black Sharpie pen.

I used a piece of strapping tape over the words to seal them in as they didn't look like they'd ever dry. I did it quickly enough so that they didn't smear at all and trimmed the rectangle down to a small size.

I ended up using the stretchy, knit, plastic-y, possibly nylon covers that I saved from some get-well roses (one was on each bud) that were delivered by FTD. That's me, using up excess packaging since 1973!
I opened up several of the flower protectors so that they were able to be flat and stitched them down with rainbow variegated thread right on top of the mass of linen threads.

Lastly, the plastic rectangle with the words for the week were stitched down. The words are: Scraps of Life. Clearly Still Vibrant.
The result was lumpy and pulling in all directions and very messy around the edges. Just like the week!

Not Interested

2011-03-27T05:41:00.000-07:00

Here is number 48 in the weekly six-word memoir quiltlet series.
Well this one is pretty negative isn't it?
The words say: "Not Interested In Doing The Holidays", from the first week of December.
And I really, truly was not. I had to force myself to get into the holiday spirit this year and get all the holiday stuff going. Understandable I suppose with what was going on for me, but still, unlike my usual M.O.

I used the striped packaging and red satin ribbons from the Ghirardelli holiday chocolates I bought to "get into the mood" for celebrating the holidays. The jaggedy edges came about when I was cutting away the product name and information and I liked how the spiky-ness echoed how I was feeling at the time.

I used a white flannel-ish fabric (actually one of those shoe polishing cloths you get free at some hotels) to stitch the words on with the embroidery stitches on my machine. The words came out jaggedy and a bit strange looking because I was moving them around to try and get a discombobulated look instead of pretty perfection.

Also used some repeated star embroidery stitching to pretty up the corner.

Puddles Filling, Emptying

2011-03-26T06:03:00.000-07:00

Here's one of my favorites of the whole year-long project of making a weekly six-word memoir quiltlet. It is number 47. It may be my favorite even. (Please don't make me choose). But honestly, I think I like it so much because the words are not immediately visible, the 3-d-ness of it, the machine embroidery, the fabrics I used and the beading.

The words say: "Leaves Turning, Falling. Puddles Filling, Emptying." Sums up late November around here.

The words are written with fabric marker on a leftover piece of a t-shirt my son was using to patch his pants (don't ask, he wanted a stretchy knee patch) which was on my worktable. I folded the piece in half and stitched the bottom part down making it stand up.

The beads function as a bit of a physical prop for the knit material to stand up.

I had several colors of these leaf shaped glass beads which I thought suited the words of the week really well.

More gratuitous close-ups of the beading.

I used several of the special embroidery stitches on my machine that had leaves, I think they show up really well on these almost solid brown fabrics.

Fiercely Fighting Forward

2011-03-25T05:50:00.000-07:00

Here's the 46th in the year-long series of weekly six-word memoir quiltlets. Almost to the end! This one is made with the plastic leftover after you've peeled off and used a SalonPas pain patch. I found they really helped with the post-hip surgery pain. There were so many of these oddly textured (ridged stripes!) thin, flexible, strangely colored, plastic pieces lying around, I of course had to use them in one of these quiltlets.

The words say: "Struggle For Recovery, Fiercely Fighting Forward." Sounds way too dramatic to me now, but I suppose it is probably pretty accurate.

The stamping was done with a dye ink which took a while to dry. I used one of my largest sized fonts because I wanted to fill up all the blank space with the words.

I really like how some of the letters are on the fabric and thus are very dark. It looks so random when you look at the overall piece before you see the rest of the words.

This particular plastic was really easy to sew through on my machine and I like how the thread lies on top so nicely.

Thanks Letters

2011-03-24T06:25:00.000-07:00

Here are some closeups of the letters from the Thankful Banner from yesterday.

A Banner Of Thanks

2011-03-23T05:59:00.000-07:00

After a year of looking at a stack of large triangles I cut out last year (right before I had hand surgery) for this banner, it was time to actually make the Thankful Banner.
The size of the triangles I cut out was 10.25" at the base and 13.75" tall.
Since this is to be a double-sided banner, I cut out the number of triangles I needed to spell out GIVE THANKS twice, including one for the space inbetween the two words, which worked out to 22.
Each triangle was cut from a different fall fabric, leaves, greens, browns, corn, trees, pumpkins, etc.
I had to choose some fabrics to use for the letters. I decided to go with oranges and yellows so they would show up against the fall colors

I chose a font that I really liked the look of (Lucida Handwriting) and printed the letters out in a huge size (350pt). About two letter per page printed out. I wanted lots of room around the letter on each triangle. For this type of project you want a fairly simple letter shape that isn't going to kill you cutting it out and sewing it down.

Whoops, I should have printed them out reversed since I was doing the fusible tracing thing.

So instead of wasting paper, I quickly traced around the back of each letter in sharpie pen, so that I could then do the next step. Learn from my mistake if you do this *print in reverse*.

Traced the (now backwards) letters onto fusible web (Steam a Seam 2).

Rough cut out the fusible letters, then fused them to the back of the letter fabrics.

Cut alllll those letters out of the now-fused fabric.

Next step was to fuse the letters down onto each triangle. I decided I wanted them to be in roughly the same spot on each triangle so some measuring was required. Take into account seam allowances and the top inch which will be folding over the ribbon or cord. Also be sure that the letter fabric shows up well enough from your background fabric. I had a few that I had to switch around to make it work well.

I used a tearaway iron-on stabilizer (Tearaway Magic) which I ironed to the back of each triangle covering the area where the letter was to be sewn down.

Stitched in a zig-zag around each letter. I was going to do a satin stitch but decided I liked how this looked, and the banner won't be something that I'm washing all the time, so the edges should hold up pretty well.

Here's how the back of the triangle looks after I've sewn down the letter S.

After all the letters were sewn down I matched each triangle up with their mates. This part can be tricky if you want your banner to be spelled correctly on both sides. So check your work several times.

Sew the two triangles together right sides together starting about an inch down from the top edge.

Cut the tips seam allowances down like the picture above.

Turn the piece right-side out, use a chopstick to poke out the pointy tip and smooth out the seams, press.

Press in the seam allowance on the remaining 1" up the top edge.

Fold in about 1/2" and press the two top edges, to make a casing.

Sew across the top edge and also about 1" down from the top edge.

Do a final press, string onto cord or ribbon. And There it is! Done and hanging in our house!

Too many banners? Yep, adding one to the usual two that are hung in our house did muddy the waters a bit. Maybe next year I'll just have one up there at a time.

Give Thanks

2011-03-22T12:59:00.000-07:00

Here is the 45th six-word memoir from last year (this one was mid-November). I keep trying to get back into the habit of posting daily here and failing utterly, but here I am "try, trying once again." Yes, stubborn would be a word I would use to describe myself.

Words say: "Give Thanks, Thankful Banner Is Done". What is a Thankful Banner you may ask? Tune in tomorrow for an actual how-to post from me.

This quiltlet was made with the scraps from the mysterious Thankful Banner. Which involves triangles. Of fall themed fabrics.

The words were hand-stamped onto a very light yellow solid-ish fabric so they'd be mostly legible.

I like how greyed-out and subtle the letters are, suits the fall colors well instead of a deeper ink black lettering.

Giants Win The Pennant! About Time.

2011-03-02T06:46:00.000-08:00

Continuing on with the six-word memoirs, here is number 44, celebrating the long-anticipated win of my beloved SF Giants in the World Series. The words say with oh-so-much-joy: "Giants Win The Pennant! about time."

Black material is from this woven, anti-static thing that was in the new laptop we purchased this year, the orange "pennant" is just some orange mulberry paper, background is a hand-dyed and batiked fabric, the green is from scraps of my childhood pants, and what is that mysterious little plastic baggie?

Tucked into the pocket and then sewn over at the top is a small plastic baggie containing actual warning track dirt/clay from AT&T Park. I collected it this year when we went to see the SF Opera simulcast (Aida this year, it was awesome!). See I knew it would bring them good luck somehow...

One New House, Better Than None

2011-03-01T07:14:00.000-08:00

Here's the next six word quiltlet, number 43. This was for the week of Halloween, which I was sad to have been too checked-out to participate much in, oh well there is always this year, right?!.

The words say: "One New House. Better Than None." Which refers to the one and only new block that I managed to make for my very long in-process Halloween Houses quilt. The scraps from making that were what made up most of this week's quiltlet.
Also the writing is on this almost satin ribbon material that made up one of the bandages I was sent home with (an unused one!), it was sticky one side and the ribbon surface was easy to write.

Cut Off From Reality

2011-02-28T11:10:00.000-08:00

Time to keep finish up posting last year's project! Back to it with number 42 in the weekly six-word memoir quiltlets.

The words say: "Cut Off From Reality. Busy Healing"

Oh the joys of heavy-duty painkillers, necessary of course to healing, but not the way I want to experience the rest of my life thankyouverymuch.

The overlay is from the wrapping that some get-well flowers arrived in. See I use everything around here eventually! This material feels a little like Lutradur, very lightweight, maybe spun woven. I liked how the subtle pattern looked over the top of the quiltlet. Gave it that "removed from reality" look that I was trying to express.

Great California Snowpocalypse of '11

2011-02-27T21:13:00.000-08:00

For several days this week, all the news and weather people were incessantly talking about snow actually for real, oh my goodness, coming to our area. Fairly rare, not unheard of, but still, they made it out to be a Really. Big. Deal. Slow news week maybe??

This is how much we actually got. Maybe a 1/4" or so. Not much of a "snowpocalypse" as they made it out to be.

What do you expect for this mild part of California though?
Very pretty while it lasted, hilariously confusing to cats, and no one had to shovel anything.

That Was Some Week

2011-01-16T12:39:00.000-08:00

Here is number 41 in the weekly series of six-word memoir quiltlets from last year. Yes, it was surgery week, middle of October. And no, I didn't complete this quiltlet actually in that week (obviously!), but soon thereafter. This one is not too exciting or innovative, as far as materials go, the hospital bracelets are some type of Tyvek-ish material, easy to sew through, and the three circular metallic snap/plastic things are from the EKG.

I wish I'd stolen one of my hospital gowns to use as the background, but I didn't think of it at the time (gee I wonder why?!). The gowns were actually quite raggedy with a lot of fraying and holes which really surprised me. (so were the sheets now that I recall.) I almost used red thread for the stitching, but thought that would be a bit too much since there was already the red-orange allergy tags.

Words say: "Surgery Over Quickly. Sent Home Fast". And thank goodness for that. As anyone knows who has ever spent the night in hospital, it is really hard to get any rest. Even though they've got you on these great mind-wiping drugs, the nurses have to keep waking you up to take your blood pressure, etc. I know, I know that it is necessary and all, but it is really irritating, and a good indicator of when it is time for me to get out of there and get home. I was glad I ended up being there for only two nights, especially since it meant that the biopsy was normal, pshew!). Guess this was a celebration quiltlet in a way.

The sewing machine needle got pretty gummed up as I sewed around the EKG discs, that glue that sticks the disc to your skin is really something. I had to keep stopping and wiping the needle off with some rubbing alcohol. It probably didn't have to be stitched as that glue wasn't going anywhere, but just in case...

Happy New Year!

2011-01-15T14:22:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! Hope your year is off to a great start.

Here is number 40 of last year's weekly six-word memoir quiltlets.

This quiltlet was made with mostly commercial scraps from a Thanksgiving/fall project I was working on, as well as a piece of metallic fabric and some of my hand-dyed scraps. I threw in some glass beads at the top as well.

I made this piece the week before my hip surgery was to take place and found that I wasn't comfortable having the words plainly spelled out. Too hard to confront that closely I suppose, so I hid them with the metallic flocked fabric.

The words read: "Paralyzed By Fear Of What's Ahead". And so I was. Hard to be that honest with yourself really, but I will say that I felt a lot better after I made this piece. Somehow getting it down on the fabric and out of my head was a useful exercise. Looking back a few months now, I'm sure glad to have gotten past the fear I was experiencing.

Just twelve more to show you now!

Trying To Be Sunny Tangled Instead

2010-12-31T13:41:00.000-08:00

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

2010-12-30T18:18:00.000-08:00

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

2010-12-28T17:07:00.000-08:00

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

2010-12-27T15:58:00.000-08:00

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

2010-12-07T17:27:00.000-08:00

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

2010-12-04T06:00:00.000-08:00

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

2010-12-03T06:24:00.000-08:00

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!

2010-12-02T21:31:00.000-08:00

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.

Falling For Inspiration

2010-10-08T10:07:00.000-07:00

Regular inspiration luckily comes in the mail, which is the fun of subscribing to the Equilter's Monthly Stash Club. I'm currently getting the Batik & Bali Hand-Dyes version, but have gotten the Creative Juices before, both are useful and inspiring and useful! Some of these will most likely make it into my long-in-process Halloween Houses quilt.

They also make a nice background for photographing random stuff, like this cool colored glitter. Yes, I know, I know, Martha Stewart, but still, look at these colors!I know I've put this up before, but I like the combination of the fat quarter fabrics, thiis notecard/envelope and my stamped eye.Now to think of some way to combine them all, instead of random happenstance on top of my worktable!

And lastly,of course an October must not be allowed to pass without the purchase of additional Halloween-themed fabric of some kind. This year it is scary and Haunted Wizard of Oz. It just cracked me up and I liked the way the design is done on this one.

I had so much fun last year participating in this blog-tour-Halloween Party, I'll be doing it once again, so be sure to come back on October 16th to see what I come up with. And if you want to also participate (yes, do it!), go sign up at A Fanciful Twist.

A Temporary Circle of Cats

2010-10-07T13:20:00.000-07:00

A Circle of Cats had assembled on my worktable.
They are gone now.
Mostly due to being made of licorice.

This is what happens when I take phone calls in the middle of working, I fiddle with what is around me and make a little tableau, which got photographed this time.

Stack O' Books

2010-10-06T13:25:00.000-07:00

Extra large stack of recent reading material. I just liked all the colors together. Have I read every page and tried every project or technique in all these books and magazines, um no. But all of it goes into the data bank for future use, food for thought, etc.
Should I do some book reviews? I've toyed with the idea and guess that it might be worth a try.

Beading Basics

2010-10-05T19:32:00.000-07:00

I'm a wanna-be beader, mostly I buy beads, and use them by sewing them onto my quilts. I finally read the magazines and books I've been collecting and actually bought some of the tools I needed to make some jewelry for myself. Boy do these ever make a big difference. Wish I had bought them back when I first started trying to make stuff. Yes, the right tools really do make the job easier.

Buying all the components from Fire Mountain Gems and Beads big selection, and then putting them together is pretty easy for a beginner like me. I liked the expressions on these probably supposed to be Buddha faces.

Two pairs of moonstone earrings, haven't decided which are my favorite, but I'm enjoying wearing them and nothing has fallen apart yet.

Fabulous And Free

2010-10-04T18:28:00.000-07:00

The accumulation of interesting fabric items continues thanks to my friends in CQFA! How about these mini zippers? (Note the heart charms on a couple of them).

These jersey bundles are so cool. I am planning to dye a couple of long-sleeved t-shirts in these colors and apply them *somehow*.. These are just layers of jersey, cotton/lycra stacked, stitched and then cut to make the interesting shag look.

Textures, textures, textures. All of these are from FabMo, and I find myself wondering for what real-world decorating applications one would use these weird, yet cool fabrics. Zebra-striped padded vinyl, hmmm, I guess you could cover a padded bench or bar stools. Guess I should check out some home decorating magazines if I really want to know!

Hey, looks like some heat-set fabrics down on the bottom there. These just have the fiber content labeled, but no process info, I have to guess on that.

What will all these end up being? Besides part of my stash? Who knows....stay tuned.

Working In A Series Workshop

2010-10-03T06:55:00.000-07:00

I got to attend a really fun workshop at CQFA last meeting, led by one of our member's Sonja Jeter. She was helping us learn about working in a series. First we water color painted white index cards with colors representing our feelings.

We also did a blind contour drawing of a simple bird shape, filling a page. Then we selected a few we really liked the best (those are circled). We traced those on tracing paper.

Using the watercolored backgrounds we started combing the birds with some other elements from our answers to a short quiz she'd given us at the beginning of the workshop.

Adding three birds to the vertical thing I see all the time (a redwood tree of course!). We added the birds by ripping them off of the tracing paper and gluesticking them down. Then we applied watercolor on top. I really liked how this worked. Plus Sonja noted that this is great for trying out placement, so you don't ruin a background you particularly like!

Three birds added to the horizontal thing I see all the time (a deck railing).Taking an abstract view, which is a closeup of some of the elements of the deck railing card above. I think this is my favorite of all of these.

An abstracted bird shaped head.

The word summing up how I was feeling along with one of the strangest birds from my blind contour drawing.

Four New Lovelies

2010-10-02T06:23:00.000-07:00

The four newest
ATC's I acquired in trade at the last CQFA meeting. Aren't these fun? I love the sense of discovery every time we do this swap, we never know what everyone will come up with. Always a surprise.

First is one from Bron McInerney, this one just cracked me up. I think she said the person was from a singing group she liked as a child. I really liked how she stitched the body, along with the numbered stripe.

Next is one from Caroline Ogg, you can't see it but the kitty picture is a lenticular so it changes as you move it.

A really interesting one from Diane Carver, love all the painted details.

Lastly, one from Nancy Riffle, which is very dimensional, with a complex surface.

Geez, I better start working on my ATC's for the next CQFA meeting coming up in early November, hmmmm, what to do this time?

Stretching For More ATC's

2010-10-01T13:57:00.000-07:00

For the latest round of ATC's I made for the CQFA exchange I started with this fabric I'd made with Shiva Paintsticks and an arched design rubbing plate. I layered it with batting and backing and did a bunch of linear quilting in rainbow rayon thread.

Then I cut out the ATC size (2.5 x 3.5"), focusing on choosing interesting color and texture combinations.

I experimented with which color to satin stitch around the edge. First with the rainbow thread, and then with a darker purple. I liked how the darker purple looked so I did the rest in that color.

They didn't look "done" yet, so I went to one of my boxes of collage stuff to find something interesting.

How about these small colored rubber bands?

They look pretty cool and I like how the colors pop against the background.

Just stitching them down didn't look very good.

Should I add more? No, just one of each color per ATC, I decided. These are from the Container Store by the way, although I bought them a long time ago so I don't know if they are still available. I love finding unusual office supplies don't you?

Going back to my "collage stuff" box, I found the plastic sleeves from slide development (remember those days). Turned out that worked perfectly, like a little clear envelope.

Here's a closeup so you can see how the stitching looks on the plastic. I liked how contained the rubber bands looked now.This time I made labels in Word and printed them out on fabric, adhering them with fusible web.

Proverbial Quilt

2010-10-01T06:03:00.000-07:00

What a thrill and surprise to receive in the mail this scholarly international journal, Proverbium. It is the yearbook of international proverb scholarship published by the University of Vermont.

A while ago, the author of the article my quilt is in, Marsha MacDowell , contacted me to see if she could use the image of my quilt and my artist statement from the quilt challenge I participated in a long time ago. The Proverbial Quilt Challenge has some really excellent and creative quilts, you should check them out.

And here's the quilt in color.