Children Sing for Peace

I just heard a performance of Children Sing for Peace on the radio. You can hear one of the songs on their website. They were wonderful, just look at this song that hundreds of kids helped write, they sing it in 14 languages!

If only the world would listen to it's children. That's my Samhain wish for the upcoming year.

WE ARE CHILDREN OF PEACE
We are the children of the world
We are the children of the world (repeat)

We are the children of love (hope, friendship, compassion, justice, family)
We are the children of the world

We can make a difference
We are the children of the world. (repeat)

We don't want war anymore
We are the children of the world. (repeat)(this verse was suggested by a 7 yr. old boy)

Chorus:Listen people everywhere....hear our song
Come and take somebody's hand....sing along
The choice is ours.....what will we do?
It's up to me....it's up to you.

Simple Still Life: Round Two Announcement

Simple Still Life: Round Two Announcement

October Simple Still Life

For the Simple Still Life, October, here is what I've come up with so far. Using my original picture of a gargoyle that I took on my recent trip to the UK, I used the filters from Filters Unlimited in Irfanview. This is neon watercolor. I love how the texture of the wall is picked up. This could be easily made in the quilt medium, the lines are pretty simple.

This is using the halftone filter. I like the grid effect and the way the shadows translate. This would be good for a grey quilt ,maybe using the grey on grey check linen fabric that I have, hmmm, with a gradated black dye or paint job.

A kaleidoscope version, love how all the eyes are repeated, and the wall texture is stretched. I could play with the kaleidoscope maker all day, too fun.

This is my favorite. It is a filter called difference clouds. You can adjust the gamma and the types of clouds. Tre' dramatique'! (this is my faux French spelling). I could see painting this. Or maybe printing it out and making a t-shirt out of it. Hmmmm, maybe it is time to open a Cafe'Press store???
This was fun this month, I usually don't go for working with shadows in a realistic way (obviously by looking at my work!). But I like this exercise of starting with a dramatically lit photo and abstracting away from it....see you next month with another Simple Still Life.

Friday Night Cat Antics

This series of pics are taken from my studio work chair on Friday night, as I was struggling with my sewing machine :( decided not to work anymore, off to the shop with you then!
My studio cat Pele only comes out late at night when the kids and dog aren't crashing around. She had a serious head injury as a kitten and hasn't been "right" ever since, so everyone kinda leaves her be. She is such a little sweetie, the only way you know she's there is all the hair she contributes to my artworks (heh).
I put the camera on the floor and took some pics of her, at one point she darted out and licked the camera!

Pele's brother is Rexie, who is the floppiest cat I've ever been owned by. He also spends a lot of time taking baths.

Sunday Procrastination Quiz

you are orchid #DA70D6

Your dominant hues are red and blue. You're confident and like showing people new ideas. You play well with others and can be very influential if you want to be. Your saturation level is lower than average - You don't stress out over things and don't understand people who do. Finishing projects may sometimes be a challenge, but you schedule time as you see fit and the important things all happen in the end, even if not everyone sees your grand master plan. Your outlook on life is bright. You see good things in situations where others may not be able to, and it frustrates you to see them get down on everything.

the spacefem.com html color quiz

Last Selfumentary

Take a drive with me today on Self Portrait Tuesday.

Backing up

Don't bug me, I'm driving

Yawn!

Checking my hair before I go into acupunture.

In the shade of the redwoods

Look left, look right, go!

The dark side.

Taking the corners on highway 9.

Finally in Felton, wow look at those clouds over Santa Cruz. Whose old hand is that?

Do I ever smile when I drive? Must have been listening to NPR.

Still following the VW Bug.

What am I hearing now?

Storm getting darker, still behind that Bug!All the way to Santa Cruz...

My reflection blends in with the forest zooming past.

Time to pick a new card for the week from my Sulamith Wulfing Mother's Wisdom deck.

Oooh patience, hmpfh, don't know if I have *time* for that today!

Step on it!

You, yes you in the mirror, keep your hands inside the car at all times!

Thanks for riding along with me today, I enjoyed having you along for company.

Jane Evershed Journals

Here is a Jane Evershed Journal, it is filled with pages that contain inspiring poetry and line drawing frames, with the central area to journal in. They are so beautiful I hate to write in them. I uncovered them when I began tidying up (see next post below).
On the cover the words say:

To read is to empower

To empower is to write

To write is to influence

To influence is to change

To change is to live.
Another Jane's Journal, the words say:

Unlock your heart to yourself

And the world will follow...

Scary Studio Tour

I am emboldened to post these photos of my disaster area (AKA the stew-dee-ooo) because Debra on her blog, A Stitch in Time has taken the up the challenge that Juliane challenged us to do a scary studio picture tour this month. We are to post the "Before" photos of our disaster area now.. and then on the weekend after Thanksgiving, we are to post the photos of our sparkling clean workspaces.


Studio View from doorway looking left.

Studio view from closet. Not much floorspace! This is a very small room. Or it just seems small. The size is 13'long x 8'wide. And I have filled it as full as possible with almost all of my art stuff. The dyeing/surface design supplies are downstairs in the laundry room. Anyways, packed into this teeny tiny room there is a computer table, which I have my machine on,
a work table which has my cutting mat, ruler holder, a lamp and a pile of scraps,
a bookcase, which is filled with quilting books and magazines,
a set of Iris drawers, which have thread, buttons, chocolate, pens, tools, etc.
a big ironing board, with an iron rest on the end,
a set of three stacking baskets filled with scraps and clothes that need fixing,
a foldout sewing organizer, which has most of my clothes making doodads (like zippers and velcro),
a queen size futon couch, since this room is also the "guest room", not too terribly inviting for guests, when the futon is out as a bed it has about a 1 foot space where you can exit on one side of the bed,
two gorilla racks (industrial strength shelves) which hold most of my POTS (plastic organizer thingies)
the rest of my POTS are stacked up under the tables or in two scary tilting stacks in the closet.

I don't know how I'll clean this up.
But I must, it is getting overcrowded and uninviting to being creative and productive.

Draw A Pig

Just for fun.

An interesting personality test, try it, go draw a pig:

You can see mine here. It is hard to draw with a mouse!

Crazy Scraps

Crazy Scraps, a new, smallish (25 x 27") quilt top made out of the scraps on my work table. Making this cut down on my scrap pile by about half. Which is good, since the pile kept falling over onto my cutting mat. A dangerous situation when one is wielding the ever so sharp rotary cutter of doom.

A Baggo Done-o

I don't who this belongs to, but it is done. Another Baggocrap. But this stuff was definitely not crap, hand-dyed and commercial fabrics, including silk, foiling, yarn fibers, Angelina and Tintzl, dyed mulberry rolls. Lots of fun to play around with.
I'm still playing around with a title. Not sure if it is Spiral Source or Source Connection, depends on who claims this as theirs from the group who swapped Baggos.

Crayon Joy

Oh the joy of crayons! The smell, the waxy feel, the crinkly paper wrappers, the softening cardboard box, the sound of them rattling their way out of the box onto the table.
I had a spare moment today and had my new batik stamps out, so I grabbed them and my pearl crayons and started getting some rubbings down on white fabric.
Didn't this turn out pretty? I think I'll paint it tomorrow and see how the colors show up against a background other than white. Then I'll try ironing a section to see if the wax melts away and the design is left as a resist. Fingers crossed..

Time's 100 Best Novels

I was just reading Time magazine's list of the 100 best novels. I thought I'd look to see which I had read and compiled the list below.
It is amazing to see how many of them I HAD to read because of a course requirement (high school or college). Also amazing to me was how many of the books I hadn't read, I HAD seen the movie. Several of the books that I haven't read, I do actually own, or have checked out from the library to try and read (like Neuromancer) but have failed.

Kinda interesting dontcha think?

How about you, have you read many of the TIME100?

Animal FarmGeorge Orwell
Are You There God? It's Me, MargaretJudy Blume
The AssistantBernard Malamud
BelovedToni Morrison
The Big SleepRaymond Chandler
The Blind AssassinMargaret Atwood
Catch-22Joseph Heller
The Catcher in the RyeJ.D. Salinger
The Grapes of WrathJohn Steinbeck
The Great GatsbyF. Scott Fitzgerald
Invisible ManRalph Ellison
The Lion, The Witch and the WardrobeC.S. Lewis
LolitaVladimir Nabokov
Lord of the FliesWilliam Golding
The Lord of the RingsJ.R.R. Tolkien
Naked LunchWilliam Burroughs
Native SonRichard Wright
1984George Orwell
On the RoadJack Kerouac
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's NestKen Kesey
Rabbit, RunJohn Updike
Slaughterhouse-FiveKurt Vonnegut
The Sun Also RisesErnest Hemingway
Their Eyes Were Watching GodZora Neale Hurston
To Kill a MockingbirdHarper Lee
To the LighthouseVirginia Woolf
Tropic of CancerHenry Miller
UbikPhilip K. Dick

Only 28 out of 100. Hmmm.
But c'mon, NO John Irving, Margaret Atwood, Anne Tyler, Umberto Eco, etc...are on the 100.
I can see excluding Anne Rice, Stephen King, Michael Crichton and other "trashy" novelists since the list is compiled by the book critics and all.
Guess these top 100 lists are truly only good for one thing, getting people to read the magazine!

New Software

Oh! Another thing I got at PIQF was the EQ5 add-on software for Karen K. Stone quilts. I've always had a thing for her spiky looking designs, and fabulous use of colour. So I'm excited to have this to plug in to EQ5. It has 10 quilts and a design palette of fabrics which you can play with. I'm thinking it would be a good thing to make some of those spiky blocks with all my scraps. Fun! Confession here, I've never made a quilt from a EQ5 design and hardly know how to use the program. But I'm printing out some blocks for some paper piecing, gotta start somewhere, right?!

Self Portrait Tuesday 0ctober Selfumentary

Another Day in the Studio

Turn on the Lights

Turn On the Music

Start with some chocolate
Pet the Cat
Pet the Cat Some More

What Did I Buy at PIQF?

When I go to PIQF, usually I'm just looking at the quilts since I'm short on time. This time however, I stayed over two nights with a friend who came into town just for the show. Which was really fun, a mini-quilty-vacation, lots of time to chat,eat out, etc. But it ended up being kinda pricy, since we are very bad at egging each other on at shopping. I tried to keep it under control, and did pretty well, um, pretty well. So here is a peek at some of the stuff that came home with me.


Wool for some seasonal pumpkin pins from BirdBrain Designs, interesting silks from JR Flamingo, clover flower head pins and green perle cotton.

Small pieces of fabrics, most from the $1 bin at the charmingly decorated Beyond the Reef.









Two more wearables patterns that I hopefully will use in the near future. Park Bench Patterns are really well done, good instructions, easy to use, easy to size. They have such a good display at quilt shows with all sorts of versions of the patterns which are very interesting and make you want to go home and start making cool stuff to wear.

Bunch of white stuff for my color challenge quilt (I was assigned WHITE, eek!), some fuzzy yarn, Angelina, dupioini silk, cottons with white on white, some alpaca roving. Somehow all this will turn into something all white and fabulous, right. Maybe if I leave it all in the same bag together they'll put themselves together. That would be nice.

Two large batik stamps bought from Treasure, (Treasure(650) 948-9900151 Main StLos Altos, CA 94022) they aren't perfect images which is fine with me, but I love the crisscross action in both of the patterns. No, I won't be using them for batik, since I don't do that (yet, never say never, right?) but probably for paint or dye stamping or texture rubbings. One of them was obviously used with indigo as the wood is soaked with a deep blue.

Oh and inbetween them is a keychain/charm with a sun/moon image I hadn't seen before, kinda different.

PIQF 2005 Been There, Done That, Survived

Pshew! What a lot of walking. Geesh, and talk about visual overload, yikes!
Back from a weekend at PIQF (Pacific International Quilt Festival)in Santa Clara, California. The show was even bigger than last year, and I was thrilled with how many innovative, and interesting quilts there were. I had four quilts there, one in the regular show, and three in special exhibits. For the first time ever, I saw someone taking a picture of MY quilt. What a big thrill that was, wow. It wasn't someone I knew or anything, a complete stranger taking a picture for themselves, of my work. Cool. I hope that doesn't sound strange, but it really was a big deal for me.
The 8th Deadly Sin exhibit was really powerful, most of those quilts need to be seen at more than one venue, they had so much content, delivered in such diverse forms. I was proud to be part of it. Here is how "Pay Attention America" looked On The Pole...













California Fiber Artists had our first show at a Mancuso Brothers event, and exhibit called "In The Abstract". Here is the big sign with Susan Else's work next to it. It was a nice coincidence that several of us had black,red, and white quilts, they look good together.















Here is how my "Tarot: Five of Wands" looked.




















The "Myths and Legends" exhibit was much bigger than I'd expected. It was kind of spread out and not all in one place. But it was fun to see all the quilts that I'd enjoyed online, in person. Here is my "Mystery of Sheela-na-Gig" looked against the white curtains.















I didn't get a picture of "Tarot #11: Justice" hanging in the regular show. Oops.

There was another conference going on right next door to the quilt show, you'll never guess what it was....The Bay Area UFO Meeting. There were really, truly, I'mnotkiddingyou people wearing tin foil hats. These adorable girls who were attending the quilt show (they're in some sort of junior national guard military school) were spoofing the UFO'ers with their version of the tinfoil hats. They thought I was hilarious to want to take their picture. I gave them some sage advice, speaking as an older person (ahem)"Keep Being Silly, your whole life. It will keep you young!" One cool thing I picked up as I passed by the UFO conference was the "Declaration of Human Sovereignty", which is actually interesting, you can go read it here.