ocean homes progress

After spending all day building a back by machine cobbling strips of various blues into large spontaneous log cabinish blocks (there's enough for a whole 'nother  top!) I remembered this gigantic cutwork tablecloth that I dyed ages ago.

It was on a hanger in the closet, all pressed and ready for the dance. With a little fussing around holes that I had chopped into it, I fit it to the back of Ocean Homes Since there is no batting I'm now backfilling under the cutwork holes with a little fire.


Sunday afternoon I spent several pleasant hours at a friends house stitching outside in the October sun while we talked. It was a nice way to reconnect with the piece and the friendship- both were languishing.

The decorative edge of the tablecloth has a real water's edge feel where I lapped it over to the frontside and stitched it fast. If I had only thought about putting the glow behind the holes before I stitched the edges all the way around!

blues, we got the raggedy blues...

Not me! It's my birthday and I'm celebrating with a day off, time in the studio, new ideas, burgers with my crew and a new flick later. Thanks for the many kind thoughts and wishes!

The stash has
beaucoup blues and I'm trying to make some sense of them and start something new. Of course the first order of business is piecing a backside for "Ocean Homes" -what else would I use?

The beating back of Chaos (always a temporary state) has freed up the Janome and its been calling me over..."sit here,... that's it, fiddle about.get the feel of it again..".Then there's Little Feather chirping from under the table "Use ME, use ME!"

As an exercise, I made these batted and backed leaves and now can't think of a really practical way of joining them up to make a blanket of leaves without any other stitching showing.

And did I ever show you the Blue Snakes? I can't remember why I made them.
Rayon stuffed tight with poly. If anyone wants them and are willing to pay the postage, drop me a line.

speaking of endings

When I set about photographing this one yesterday I discovered that there was an entire section of paint that was unfinished so I dragged it outside (it's over 7 feet tall) and painted in the final metallic elements.

"Pirate Circus"   







and I finished the hand stitched binding on my own private "Beach" .

Season's End

Thanks to my family and friends who have put up with me during the baseball season. I'm not a fanatic, just a fan. The Atlanta Braves season ended last night with a loss to the Giants and retiring manager Bobby Cox said goodbye to the team and the fans. 

It's a long time until spring training....

morning light

"Frontrunner"

Taking advantage of the newly cleared design wall to photograph the unphotograph-able. Guess I have to photoshop out the backdrop since I can't safely iron it. Sheesh, it never ends!I unearthed some things that have never shot properly before or correctly in the first place.


"Winds on Linen"

"Sunny Jim" (2005)

renovation

The studio upheaval continues with some surprising results when I turned the magic
table just 90 degrees instead of the planned 180.

Lo! FLOOR SPACE! (well,there will be when I box up and redistribute all the crap in the foreground)

I can turn around and scratch at the same time, something Sweetie appreciates too. Sunlight from two sources now, East in the morning and never ending North.

Happy Birthday John

Cusspots

Later on I'll be posting more shots of these little buggers and selling them cheap!
Here they are...

1001 posts

Yep. That's this one, the 1001st post. I wasn't paying attention and don't know why I noticed this morning.

What a LOT of yaddayadda! You would think I was running for office all this time when in reality I was just talking to myself (something I do a lot of) only cleaned up considerably here for public consumption.

In honor of the milestone (or is it millstone?)
I dipped into my private collection and put together four new sets for the store. My brain was dry of titles for things at the moment and I've been watching a lot of AMC & TCM so I copped some movie titles.

The associations may not be immediately apparent though....This one is "Sighs & Whispers"

I love October

Here's the  stitching chair where I've been sitting and rolling cigars of fabric for the giveaway. Some of that green in the foreground is on it's way to many places this morning.












Across the room from the sewing chair is the new workstation. My only wish is that there was 20 steps between them instead of four. But hey! I could be driving an hour to sit at the same set up.

And I am thrilled to announce that my Atlanta Braves have given their beloved manager Bobby Cox the very best retirement gift -  October Baseball. We are going to the Playoffs!!!

Quilt National, not.

Now that I am fairly certain that my three entries to QN11 have been rejected  I can show them- not that they are any mystery to regular readers.  The rejection email was so convoluted and ingratiating it was hard to tell that what they were really saying was "sorry. see ya next time." I mean, really, are people so afraid of wounding one another? If anyone can take a flat out rejection it's an experienced artist. 

I had my doubts about the chances of these pieces getting in but they represent my current work and there's never any telling what the judges are looking for. 

Oh well.... Next!

the Scrap Giveaway - Update

I have three main groupings of fabric. The shelves you see behind sweetie are the MINE! fabrics - the things I design and work with. They are completely full right now.  waiting on me.

Then there is a double closet filled with wire racks holding color sorted (sort of) baskets with the SOMEDAY MAYBE fabrics and there are two huge plastic tubs and a tall bushel basket filled with I'M SICK OF THIS AND WON'T EVER USE IT AGAIN cloth. It was all loved and esteemed at one time.

I've been sitting in my stitching chair building little piles of cloth and rolling them like so many Cuban cigars. It seems like the best way to get the most cloth into the boxes. The fun continues....and for those who worry about such things, Sweetie only sleeps on the back of the stitching chair not in the cloth the way Jinx and Karma used to. Still, you may find a tiger hair. Consider it a good luck charm.

the Scrap Giveaway - Update

The big scrap giveaway continues!
 
Nancy, Jamie & Janett - your priority mail boxed are leaving Lawrenceville today. Stand by!

The process has been refined. If you want a small or medium flat rate priority mail box crammed full of scraps from my studio..all KINDS of scraps, email me for the particulars.

I still have LOTS of cool stuff.  Let me know what your focus is and I'll try to accommodate you, for example one person let me know she was using scraps to make quilts for charity so I stayed with cottons and kept the weird stuff for the postcard makers.