Crazy for Rockets

Zach is Crazy for his Camera Rocket 

Alex and the Golden Rocket 

Wigwam Burner

Interesting structure, at the San Lorenzo Lumber yard in Felton (near the Roaring Camp steam train and Henry Cowell State Park.) Known as the "wigwam burner", it was used to efficiently burn up all the sawdust produced by the redwood mill in the "old days".

Dangerous Climbing

Marc Climbing up the rickety, rusty structure. Eeek! 

Rockets Away!

Rockets Away! Crisscrossing contrails. 

To the Rescue

Marc climbs up to the top of the "wigwam",to rescue Alex's golden rocket which went slightly askew on its first voyage into the blue yonder. 

Mr.B's Bag

The Mr.B's Fat Quarterly came this week and it had these fabrics and a sheet on how to make a Bag with them. This is a yearly subscription from Benartex, they send these quarterly or something. Not my kind of fabrics, but I thought I'd give making a bag a whirl. Anyways, these were the absolutely worst directions for anything I've ever made. Really bad. Who knows if I did it right? I don't care really, but I kinda like it. It has pocketses inside. I need to make a closure thingie for it though.

Go Bears!

Go Bears! Blocks for a Cal (UC Berkeley) quilt I'm making for a certain someone (shhhh it's a secret!). 

A Calendar Started

Beginnings of calendar piece maybe for the Quilting Arts calendar?? I find it hard to work a landscape in a square sometimes. Hey at least I'm working on something, right!! 

When Are You Gonna Die?

Ok, so Dara wanted me to find out when I'm gonna die according to this silly test. And gulp, I only have 31 years left to blog! Yikes!



This seems too soon to me, but who knows, right?
Better get my sewing and quilting projects done!
Like all of these above!

Tsunami Quilt Blocks and more

From Sharon B's blog, In a Minute ago there is a donate-a-quilt-block effort going on, go here to find out more, I'll post mine when I get it done. A 6" block, surely you have time for that?!

And I had to check on my nerdiness score thanks to Melanie Testa, I was surprised that I scored so high! So what's yours?

Blue Sky Again!

Thank goodness for that! All that grey sky was
getting me down. When the sun comes out and
all the wet wet wet ground starts steaming, you
know the weather has taken a turn for the better.

Sheela-na-Gig

Here's Sheela-na-gig, done done done and on her merry way to tell her story in the Myths and Legends show....

Website Renewal

Wellll, it had been a long while since I'd updated my sadly neglected website so I worked on that a bit today. Had to put a link to this blog after all!
But first I got distracted by an email in a journalling group about polaroid film transfers, and I remembered I have an old polaroid camera somewhere in the closet, so I had to of course instantly drop everything and go see if my camera would do the transfers or not. Well, after some experimentation I discovered that the answer to that is an emphatic and rather smelly no. Oh well, but I did get some cool textures to use in the next altered book that I work in.

Then I remembered that the Daily Show was on at 10am and I'd missed it last night, so I decided to actually turn on the tv during the day. Usually verboten for me! And as I was sitting down in my comfy chair, I realized I was about to sit upon my sewing kit and a quilt. That would have been a rather pointed reminder to watch where you land your arse. Oh yeah, I need to get the sleeve on my Sheela-na-gig quilt to send to the Myths and Legends show. Eeeek. So that was a good thing to do while I watched the antics on the snarkiest show on TV. Then all of a sudden it is time to go play bus driver and go to the post office to mail the quilt off to collect its well-deserved accolades, recognition in lieu of fame and fortune.

Strange Symbols

I painted this card a while ago. This symbol, I don't know where it came from, but I keep doodling it all the time? Kinda like a crop circle in my brain....What does it look like to you? 

Teeny Tiny and MADRR

Teeny Tiny MADRR book plus my fingers, you can tell how teeny it is, this is Rachel's book on the way to Marion all the way round the world... 

Wisdom in an Altered Book

A detail of an altered book I worked in over December, it is on its way to Pamela in Canada to get worked over. Hope that kerris likes it when it comes back to him.  

Starry Row

Round Row Robin for CQFA, my theme is celestial bodies, so stars, starry type fabrics or??? We'll see what I get back at the end, that is what is always fun with these kind of round robins. And I made some new-to-me blocks which is always good for me. 

Teapot to the Sun

Collaborative Fusible Adventure workshop at CQFA on 1/8/05. Every member brought 25 prefused fabric shapes, and we swapped and ironed 'em to our own backgrounds. I like it, maybe a pillow or jacket/vest back? 

Happy 2005!

Hard to believe that we made it through 2004. Some of us had a harder time than others, gulp. *Anyways!* Back to work after the fun of the holidays.
Printing out new Calls for Entries from new and old quilt shows. Getting them organized, making myself a To-Do list, and cleaning up the studio enough to be able to work. So far this year I've made the most of all the rainy days by staying inside and remembering my process. I was a little rusty on it. I really was rusty, after just a month away from not making stuff, I felt like the Tin Man in Oz, somebody oil me so I can get moving again!
So some pictures of recent stuff would be in order, right? After downloading the pictures off the digital camera, I am ashamed that I took so few pictures during our holiday celebrations. Sheesh, some mother I am. Well, we'll just have to *remember* how fun it was, right?!

SpiderWebs in the Redwood Forest

Can you see the spiderweb? What a beautiful day hike this was, with Alex's 4th grade class just up the road in Big Basin State park. Luckily between rainstorms, so it was soggy slogging, only a few kids fell down. Getting the excited pack of 9 year olds I was shepherding to slow down and look was accomplished by taking a lot of pictures. Technology helps them to appreciate being in nature (instead of stuck in school as usual.) 

Treasure Trove Plus Furry Critters

rexie and alex try out the christmas treasure trove swamp quilt top 

Eggs Emerge Everywhere, Enough for Everyone!!

Eggs! We finally have eggs! Now that winter is here, and there isn't anything else to do, the chickens began laying, and show no signs of stopping. We get blue, brown and white eggs, and very cool feathers too. They (the eggs) taste soooo good. I think that I will make a series of quilts featuring each chicken, they have such individual quirky personalities. Oh and we have decided as a family that these are *pets* and will not be eaten if they pass on into that henhouse in the sky. Colour me squeamish, I don't care. But I couldn't eat my dog or cat either, they are pets, that happen to produce something useful and edible (unlike cat or dog hair, ahem) 

Jizos for Peace

This is how my Jizos for Peace panel turned out, I like all the colours and of course SPIRALS ended up in the design, and all of the smiling Jizos.. 

Jizos for Peace

Aerial view of Jizos for Peace, Marc, Alex, Zach, note the number of pens and colours available  

Jizos for Peace

Jizos for Peace being made by Mom, Dad, Zach, Marc and Alex Thanksgiving Day 2004 

Jizos for Peace

On Thanksgiving, my family agreed to participate in a project that June Underwood posted about on the Alternative Quilt list. http://www.jizosforpeace.org all the information on how to participate can be found at that site. So here are some pictures showing us working on our jizos, and our final work products. I still have to print out photos of each of us, sew them on and then send them to the Great Vow Zen Monastery in Oregon.
While we were doing this project, the turkey was cooking, the house was quiet except for some quiet Bob Marley playing in the background, and everyone became very focused and quiet (even the kids!). We kept at it, and as more people arrived we handed them the instructions and some fabric I'd ironed to freezer paper (so that it would be easy to draw on.) I got out all of the markers and crayons, etc. that I've been collecting over the years for working on fabric and they all got used.
Some of the discussions about war, peace, nuclear bombs, etc. were amazing, and they made a big impression on my children for which I am most eternally grateful.
So thanks June for telling me about this project, it was a great experience!

The chuppah blowing in the wind 

The Look 

A Picture, Perhaps?

Just trying this out to see if I can post a picture, does it work???
In case it does: This is the look I give my family when they give me a hard time about quilting alllllll the time.
"are you still quilting?"
"are you ever going to be done?"
"you like quilting more than me!"
and so on and so forth...ad naseum, so I give them this look.

I love listening to Air America radio on the web. So funny, I needed funny as I was getting too depressed listening to NPR where they give the news straight up with no satire. Guess satire and irony are how I like to cope with the depressing news of the day. http://www.airamericaradio.com

This past weekend I did get to go to my guild meeting, CQFA, which is at http://www.cqfa.org
Where we brought UFO's (UnFinished Objects) and asked for advice on finishing them. It was very informal and informative. We have a salad bar lunch which is fun, everyone brings something to throw on a salad. One of the women brings this awesome selection of imported cheese and olives,(her husband is an importer). This time there was a hard cheese almost like a Reggiano which was crusted in a rind of wine pressings (the leftover after making wine), YUM!

I also had the pleasure of attending a family party with the Zaccone side of the family, fun wonderful people. Amazingly enough I'd chose them as friends even if they weren't family, so that makes it all the better to spend time as a group. We're noisy and boisterous and we all were lamenting the election results. Nice to commiserate with people who PAY ATTENTION to what is happening in the world. They also made me show off my quilty stuff, like the triptych I made for my parent's living room wall and the chuppah that I made for Karen and Nir's wedding. That is getting quilted this week, I swear.

Time to go work on my Novel that I am writing for Nanowrimo this month. Set underground, in the post-nuclear-apocalyptic future that I have nightmares about.

Workshop on the Web

I was looking at my Workshop on the Web binder today. The range of ideas presented is really dizzying and almost overwhelming, where to start? What to try first? So many new tools are discussed also, like chiffon scarves, bondaweb, shrink plastic, Angelina fibres,etc. And design articles, using photography to help design a new piece. Reports of various art exhibitions with accompanying photos are really interesting, the fiber artwork is so different in other countries. The interviews with artists are well done and bring up a lot of good questions for me to consider.

***On the whole Really Inspiring and Highly Recommended!***

Maggie Grey creates this workshop on a quarterly basis and you can subscribe (for a fee) the website is: http://www.workshopontheweb.com It is based in the UK, and you are able to pay online.