Wandering Wednesday - Animal Ark

 One of the side trips we took on our Lake Tahoe trip was to drive a bit north of Reno to check out the Animal Ark Wildlife Sanctuary.  It was well worth the drive.

It was quite dry out there, and the trees were beautifully bare. Turns out there was a terrible fire nearby in 1999, and the land is still recovering ten years later. 

We saw so many animals (tiger, wolf, bobcat, cheetah, etc.), but I didn't take a ton of pictures except for of this bear. Very personable.

 Famous for playing tetherball, it was almost too much to believe until you saw it yourself.

 We were a little hot walking around, but it wasn't unbearable (haha)

Marc giving us a glimpse of his inner bear.

Olive Hyde Art Gallery - 51st Annual Textile Exhibit

 I'm very pleased to be able to share that three of my pieces are being shown at the Olive Hyde Art Gallery in Fremont, California in the 51st annual Textile Exhibit. It's a terrific looking gallery, and based on the artwork I stole some peeks of at drop-off, I can't wait to see the whole exhibit hanging.

This is one exhibit that I've always meant to enter and never managed to remember to, (maybe it's the summertime deadline?) and I've never even had a chance to go and see it. So it's about time, huh? Thanks for the entry deadline reminder, Maureen!

"Listening to the Details" above, and "Triangle Study" are two of my pieces that'll be shown.

51st Annual Textile Exhibit
Exhibition Dates: August 9 – September 21, 2019
Opening Reception: Friday, August 9, 2019 (7-9pm)

And finally, "Uncountable Arils".

I hope if you're local you'll be able to come see the exhibit! I'm planning to be at the opening reception on Friday, August 9th.

Wandering Wednesday - Over the Bridge

It was one of those foggy days on the Golden Gate Bridge last week going over to San Rafael to drop my quilt off with Colleen Granger. I think I take this picture every time I am a passenger going over. But it looks different every time. It's still exciting because I don't go over it all that often.

 Taking side streets back because of traffic we came to a T intersection with this in front of us. We both gasped at the beauty. From far away it looked like a mosaic or mural on a wall and then it became stairs as we got closer.

 It's a fairly new (2015) tiled staircase up to Lincoln Park, also known as the Lincoln Park Steps, next door to Katherine Delmar Burke private girl's school. It's just a gorgeous Beaux Arts design in ceramic tile, beautiful execution. Public works like this are remarkable.

Start Middle End

 I've been working on a piece called Shenzhen Skies, the edges were very irregular once I'd gotten all the quilting done. There were pieces sticking off the edge, and batting showing in some places, very chaotic around the edges, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to keep that chaos in the piece or not.

So I started turning the edges over without first squaring the piece up, just to see if the irregularity would be enough chaos. Here's how it looked after the top and right-hand edge were turned.

 And with all four edges turned. Ahh, so much better. I think I like it even more now, and am still considering the should I square it up or not issue.

A Few New

 I'm going to try hand-stitching with this baker's twine. It's just too cute (maybe it's just the packaging?) not to give it a go. And a new way to glue, so far it's pretty handy, but it's on the drippy side so I'm not sure I prefer it to plain old glue stick.

Some new fabrics, which look like they're up to something all on their own. Always nice to find an Alison Glass print on the clearance rack, it wa quite the deal, I bought the bold end, so it's enough to make a shirt, so who knows.

ICAD - Fifth Ten

Here's the fifth group of ten ICAD. 

 Maybe an obvious question to be asking these days.

The surface of this index card is rather fuzzy, too much scrubbing of the watercolor pencil pigment to mix it around. Sometimes I forget that I'm not working on watercolor paper.

 I love playing with the different sizes of Stabilo pens, those super wispy lines are very hard to get when you have a big tip on your pen.

 Whoops one of those letters is upside down, there's a "W" that's pretending to be a "M"

Daily pithy tea quote" "Only your real friends tell you when your face is dirty." - Sicilian Proverb. Huh, that is very true.

Working the Edges

One of the projects on my FAL this quarter is this piece, Shenzhen Skies. As you can see it has a very very irregular edge. I have a note pinned to the back that reads: "Square Up??"
Instead of doing that, I thought I'd see how it looks by just rolling the edges back a bit on themselves and then stitching them down. Here I've done the top and the right edge, and I think I like how it is looking so far. I think I'll do the other two sides and then decide whether "squaring-up" would be better.

Jacket Reparo

(Yes, the title of this post is a Harry Potter spell reference.)

I had my mother's sweatshirt jacket on my to-do pile. The central motif on the back had deteriorated and she had given me a handkerchief she bought in Australia. The colors matched perfectly and the batik patterns match up pretty well too.

Since the remains of the kitchen towel motif she'd chosen originally had come apart it was a little lumpy. To take care of that uneven surface and to stabilize the kind of insubstantial compared to batik fabrics handkerchief I used some steam-a-seam on the back of it. This seemed to help, it didn't make it too stiff, and after applying I stitched it down with a matching thread to blend it in. It looks a bit newer than the batiks, but I think overall it works pretty well.

I gave it back to my mom yesterday for her birthday, and she was very pleased. A bit of a re-gift I guess, but she was very happy with how it turned out.

Media Before and After

In making an ICAD piece every day I'm starting to notice how much of a difference there is before and after applying water to the watercolor pencil marks on the paper. Now since this isn't watercolor paper, it's acting very differently than you'd expect. The pigment stays put a lot more, sometimes more than you want. Because the index card paper can't stand up to a lot of force like watercolor paper can.

 Sometimes I like the way it looks before more than after, but not usually. And I can always go back over it when it's dried a bit. I guess I'm just noticing that it's fun playing around with media I'm already familiar with, but using it on a different surface.

Wandering Wednesday - King's Beach

 Post-Sunset pictures from King's Beach in North Lake Tahoe. We took a little too long eating our fabulous pizzas at Whitecaps. If you go, try the Arugula Bacon Peach that has:

applewood bacon, summer peaches, fresh arugula, gorgonzola, balsamic drizzle, whole milk mozzarella. OMG was it ever good. You've heard of the Should Pineapples Be On Pizza debate, in my opinion there's No Debate with this peach pizzas.

 After such a crowded day at the beach, it was so lovely and quiet walking along the shore.

 The colors got softer and softer.

 The black sand on the beach was beautiful mixed in with all the other colors.

And at the end of the pier, the love locks have made an appearance.

On The Wall Now

What's on my design wall? A whole lot at the moment. Six out of ten of my finish-a-long Q3 list. In the foreground is another one. It's a lot of color, isn't it? It is a lot better than a blank white space on the wall. I like seeing it all at once, like a visual to-do list. And to me, it looks like it was made by the same person.

Q3 Finish-A-Long

Here's my list of ten (count them, ten!) proposed finishes for the third quarter of 2019 for the Finish-A-Long.

1. When the Weekend Whatever comes back from the quilter it will need the binding sewn down and a label.

 2.Slurpee Squared needs hand-stitching on the added edges, facings, a sleeve and label.

 3. Another 2005 blast-from-the-past, is the Celestial Round Robin. It needs to be basted, quilted, binding and label.

 4. May You Ever Return - This one is the least put together on this list, but I want to have it done in time for the Rosalie Dace class in September.

5. Body Double needs the edges finished in some way that hasn't been determined, and then a sleeve and label.

6. Technology's Spine - needs some hand stitching, binding, sleeve and label.

7. The quilt I'm making for the Sister Artists (that is due in August) that will feature this embroidered piece.

 8. Color Collusion - finish quilting, bind, sleeve, label.

9. Shenzhen Skies -  finish quilting, bind, sleeve, label.

10. A shirt of some kind made out of this fabric.

ICAD - Fourth Ten

 A lot more collage in this group. Sometimes I just get on a roll with that, or the stuff is still out on my worktable so I just dive in instead of putting it away.

This collage is a little free floating, the pieces aren't all glued down completely so it looks even more dimensional in person.

 I thought the back of this card was interesting too.