What's hatching

I got this one sandwiched last night during the (yawn) home run derby. Jake helped me square and smooth it at the kitchen table - work that goes so much better with another pair of hands. After pillowcasing this over W&N, I find the edges are crisp and regular - nothing to distract from the front of the piece. He is a patient and thoughtful assistant who will find himself pressed into service regularly in the future. I may wind up painting and/or appliqueing on this one to recover the intensity of the darks as they were when the fabric was wet. Colin suggested that I quilt the white parts and leave the rest in relief. Sounds promising. It's about 42" square. Working title, Kodamas 1.

Real Fiber Stuff!

Take heart all you dyers. If some of your last batch was just Ho-Hum, don't forget that Cascade and Anti-chlor can come to the rescue! It was a great day at the Lawrenceville Dyeworx undoing the misery of the losers of the last big dye-fest a few weeks back. As you can see, secret formulas and ancient, esoteric practices are involved here. My neighbors think I run a boot camp for clown school dropouts.
I think I'm six for six this time out and having just finished the ironing (and everything is just a great looking dry as it was wet)I figure there's at least four whole cloth pieces in the wings.

While I was away

This came in the mail from Nancy Javier of Banar Designs. That's me, lower right - a Cover Gal! And a nice full shot of a little piece I did last year. One of those journal sized pieces I did just because I needed some handwork to do. . I'm in some great company here: Sue Reno, Lesley Riley Jane La Fazio, Betty Hirsh, Lynn Krawczyk, Connie Rohman and Louise Thompson Schiele. It's a nice overview for people who may have never heard the terms "art" & "quilt" strung together. Here's the image from the inside of the book - better than the one I had left in my files

A New Vice

Yep. That's just what it looks like. Knitting. I paid TWENTY US DOLLARS for a pair of beautiful wooden sticks that I planned putting my hair up with. Then I happened by a vendor who was selling a large bag of sari silk at a very reasonable price. Marcy Petrini took pity on me being stuck in the HGA office and gifted me with her directions on learning to knit and a wicked new habit is born. I have to read further to see how to end these things. This silk is almost as coarse and ungiving as jute but once washed it goes all soft and fluffy. I still have to work hard at getting each stitch right and count them at the end of each row. By the last stitch, I find my tongue all sticking out and dried up. No pictures of that, thanks.

Convergence 2006

It's getaway day in Grand Rapids. I have been working at Convergence '06 for the last eight days (12 hour days) and just have not had time or energy to post anything but now I have an hour to kill before we leave for the airport. It's been quite an experience. Grand Rapids is a beautiful city, what I saw of it and the Amway Grand Plaza is the old school Cool Queen of hotels. I've met some wonderful people, contributed to a hugely successful convention and shopped my buns off. More about all this when I get back to ATL.

New Thoughts on Working Big

Not getting started on this piece (Nook 1) has been bothering me like a blister. There's been some discussion on the QA list about how various artists go about working LARGE - why they do it doesn't interest me, it's the HOW that got me to thinking about how to overcome the reasons I haven't attacked this project yet. That ole "jest so many hours in the day" doesn't matter to me - when I am on a project, everything else goes to hell a day faster than usual around my house, so time is not an excuse. I haven't been able to dye up the "Black Hole of Calcutta" black fabric that I want and can't afford to buy as much as I need so I am going to turn to the paint. I did a little retrospecting and found this little quirk-o-gram that I did while I was still holding down the night-fort for AT&T. Imagine sitting at your desk painting on fabric all night while watching a bank of monitors that never changes. It was the perfect job. Anyway, I'm looking at using space defining stitching and paint on larger pieces like the Nook. So that's one of the new directions once I finish off the blankets - I have decided to hand quilt Sunny Jim - watching the Braves play on TV has become too painful so I am listening while I sew these days.

Fruits

Here are the reapings from my solo dyefest. As I halfway suspected, the muslin came up pale and limp (1-4). 5 & 6 are small pieces of flannel that had been dyed before and 7-11 are overdyes of that great fabric we get from Dye Artists in NC that dyeing seems to improve. The last is a large hunk of commercial fabric that I know I loved when it was hot fuschia and acid green. Looks like there's another Green Monster in my future.

finally, 25

Here is a link to the latest in what was the Bedworx series until I found out that the name is being used by some retail giant. Yeah, gotta scroll up to see it all. 25 x 25 units that are about 12+/- inches each. Ever fond of wacky titles, "Mudpuppies in the Voting Booth" pops to mind. So did "Big Muddy". Having never seen the Mississippi, that one feels fakey. Something will manifest and I will probably change the layout but for now I need to get these sized a bit more uniformly. Sure would be nice if it turned out squarish. Doing the design wall thing on the computer with Dreamweaver is a whole lot easier than sticking pins in the styrofoam wall all afternoon. There's an AC vent right under the computer desk - I have to wear my fuzzy slippers here even in June.

New from the Lawrenceville Frankenstein Dyeworx

Some of you might wonder about that title. What it refers to is my penchant for making things up as I go. Since I don't plan on offering any of my hand-dyes for sale on a regular basis (call me, I can be had) consistency is not something I pine for. To lift a line from one of my most favorite films..."It's a Mystery." And not knowing is half the fun. Since most of this stuff is destined to be backsides I'm not all that concerned with repeatable results so it was a handful of this, a dash of that, stir, spill and slosh. Of course, Murphy's law and the Full Moon in play, this batch will turn out spectacular, begging to be front and center in something and not hidden away. A Confession. I broke that rule about not buying any new stuff. I've pieced one back together for the Green Monster and am not entirely happy with it but I am happy that I am at that stage, making backs, which means these tops are not going to languish with the other UFOs awaiting completion. I just didn't have enough large expanses of anything to make nice backs for the current series so I broke down and bought five yards of 90" Roclon muslin with a discount (thanks, Ryan) from HoAnns. I haven't been thrilled with it in the past but the price was right and I scoured it to death first. Now to leave the stuff alone long enough. It's pool cleaning time - my gills are drying out.

Functionaries?

"You're out of PROCESS HERE!" my manager used to holler back on my corporate days.I keep starting new tops before getting on with the tough stuff - the sandwiches, the quilting, the sleeves. You know, the Moan & Groan part of quiltmaking. This will be fourth in a series of pieces originally intended as bed-ware but complete with sleeves so they can double duty as art and entertainment. I really thought I had plenty of browns - every hand-dyer must have a pile of MUD - but I am running out! Jan says to come over and pick through her stash and I must hold off making any more of these elements before I add new colors into the mix. Of course, you know that if I don't get over there right away, I will be off and running making the Big Blue One, because I have more blues than anything else.

Progress & A Big Birthday

Tada - a sandwich waiting to be quilted. It's finished out to be 42"x58". Not as big as the other two but I was getting besotted with yellow and had to restrain myself from wandering into orange country. Enough for now - we are going out to dinner to celebrate Jake's 21st birthday. My youngest chick.