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.

things to be grateful for

-Not getting electrocuted when the CPU from work committed suicide the first time I hooked it up at home.
My telecommuting will be delayed until a replacement arrives or the resurrection, whichever comes first. 

-the Ace of Wands
-Braves sweep the Marlins.
-sweets from my sweetie.
-good sleeping weather.
-time and stuff to stitch on.

take two minutes

fall glory

With Terry's permission I've cropped and reposted her original photo because the colors make me perfectly delirious! I checked my neighbors hydrangea's and they are a nasty, spotted brown and seem to be infested with something so I won't be bringing any home tonight. And see the fan mail I get:

Of course I can Jake.

Lunatic Scrap Giveaway

Want some freebies?  

Step 1

Send me an email and let me know you want to participate..I have a LOT of stuff to give away but the amount is finite!

I have a lot of  scraps from my own cloth production, hand dyes, weird stuff, old stuff, commercial prints -you name it. When has the last time you saw hot pink holographic Lurex? There are  bits and pieces of all kinds of cloth that I will never use and just cannot throw away. Most are very small, less than 4" square, some a little more. I will stuff as much as possible of the interesting and cool stuff into one of these little free flat rate boxes from the PO so it won't be pretty when you get the box open. In fact, it will probably explode! The folks at my PO laugh at how I tape up my bundles..hey, it's their tape which they give me for free!.

2. Get a small, flat rate priority mail box from your local post office. Put your name and address and the correct amount of postage on it, leave it unfolded and send it to me in an envelope:
->>I'VE BEEN ADVISED THAT THESE BOXES ARE SOMETIMES HARD TO COME BY. IF THEY DON'T HAVE ANY BOXES JUST SEND ME THE POSTAGE STICKER AND A PRIORITY MAIL LABEL FILLED OUT WITH YOUR ADDRESS.<<-

Deb Lacativa 
140 Saratoga Drive
Lawrenceville  GA 30044 


(thanks for reminding me to add that tidbit Rosalie)


If you have preferences for a specific kind or color fabric, put in a note and I'll do my best to honor your requests and I may need a little time to pick and choose for you. Best, let me choose wildly for you!

 

Small Flat Rate Box

Domestic Rate: $4.85
International Rate: $10.88 (Mexico/Canada), $12.78 (all other countries check if available and how much)


I'VE BEEN ADVISED THAT THESE BOXES ARE SOMETIMES HARD TO COME BY. IF THEY DON'T HAVE ANY BOXES JUST SEND ME THE POSTAGE STICKER AND A PRIORITY MAIL LABEL FILLED OUT WITH YOUR ADDRESS.


3. Sit by your mailbox and wait. Email me  if you have any questions.

the Bear Story wrap up

Remember this poor unfortunate? While I was digging around in the studio I found a big bag of polyfluff and finished him off. What a great piece of procrastination that was. Here's the back story in order: one,  two,  three,  four. 

 
Here's Jack back in the game even if he looks as if he's under some influence. I decided not to dress or embellish him any further. After the third eye, what else could matter?

home office

I'm busy hanging homemade prayer flags, evil baby faces and other choice pieces for my own entertainment. A small portion of my studio is undergoing conversion to be my day job workstation. I have two design walls in the studio and I will taking over the vertical one to hang an ever changing gallery of "things to eyeball" as I've elected to not move my beloved stitching chair away from the big, east facing window since most of my scheduled working hours will be after dark anyway.

As soon as the Comcast tech can get out here to yank some wires around I can bring the equipment home and get on with the Wild World of Telecommuting and it can't come too soon. Working in the training room has been HELL.

Right now, I'm off to Fry's to price and measure  a slide out tray for my keyboard and buy a couple of my favorite Yankee Candle stinkers - sage + citrus.  If any of my readers have experience with working (for the man) from home, any and all comments and advice would be appreciated.

I've already resolved to get properly dressed each day and even put on a spot of makeup.  I imagine a lot of people envision telecommuters as legless, hairless huge jelly bags stuck to their chairs and unable to function as normal human beings. I did until I met a few. I don't want to slip any further into sloth.  More on all this as I discover it.

Needleplay at Chandler

"Serpent of the Grove" will be going to the show in Chandler, AZ. Seems like the gallery had issues with the other two pieces I submitted which were permanently mounted on canvas. go figger. I expect that I'll be running into these problems if I enter any of the mummies in fiber only venues. Oh well, there's a wider art world out there. Now I have to put a sleeve on this one.

I don't know how 9 to 5 people do it. I've been in a training class all this week and by the time I get home it's all I can do to wash and feed my face and collapse in front of an increasingly disheartening (non) performance by the Braves. Staying awake for the whole nine innings is not a problem. My body still thinks it's "ON" until well past midnight. No dreamtime at all. I think I stitched the last two doors on Ocean Homes last night but at one point I had stitched it to my night gown and had to cut it away. Help me Moon.

link love

Nothing from me but others are basking in the glow of their lives  -

Judy, so beautifully expressed.
Arlee has been churning new waters.
Deidre never lost her way at all.
Heather pleasure in purpose.

percolating

This is the first thing I see when I come in the front door and last night it got me thinking about the Next Big Thing. The long, white lines are a sheer cotton lawn that was spattered with gold metallic fabric paint. The edges and ends were turned under and the doubling of the cloth created a kind of bright glow along all the edges. During the studio dig, I came across some silk sheers and plan to experiment with it on the "devilment" fabrics. 
I also found a perfectly good Rapidograph pen and was scribbling in the dark while watching the game last night.

studio upheaval

I'm preparing to give over a portion of my studio to the day job. 40" of wall space for 15 hours per week given back to my life? More than fair trade off.

So tubs of shreds and "somedays" are making room for a small desk and chair where I will work at a computer. A long overdue deep cleaning is underway.

I'm throwing out a lot of crap and uncovering some amazing starting places. These fabrics were bundled together for some distant notion. I have SIX finished tops, all of them bedware waiting to be batted, backed and quilted. There will be a lot of giveaways in the near future.

haunted places

There was a lot of revisiting the past while I was in NY. I spent a morning with my Dad touring my first hometown, Armonk, NY.  I didn't know there was a private family cemetery for "his people" which included Useteds, Smiths, and Wrights.  Working folk all.

Then I spent a delightful afternoon lunch & tea with my former neighbor Terry as if I hadn't been gone from Carmel since '93. There is never enough time and we never run out of things to talk about.


These four pieces of cloth (which continue to taunt me) were called to mind by this shot of the water under the bridge up the street from my family's house. Layers of light and color. Reflections, memories and reality all in one place at one time.

the Wheel turns

One phone call and everything changes. While I was still in NY, my supervisor called to say that I was being considered for the next telecommuting class and was I still interested?  Being able to do my day job from my home will mean 2+ more hours of each workday coming back to me to use however I want. Could more Art be in my future? Sure as hell won't be house cleaning! And going forward this blog will be the only input I have to FB. Having given up the time vampire Lexulous, I see no need to go there. Google reader let's me know when the people I care about have updates. likewise email notices when someone posts to me in FB.  There's been a lot of background buzz about "disconnecting" and I'm paying attention.

home

I'm home from whirlwind visit to family in NY. I was expecting fall to be well underway but when I arrived I was surprised to find Summer frozen in time - the leaves all still green and in place, the sun still strong and hot. When I mentioned it everyone shushed me strongly - they are hanging on to summer tooth and nail. Given the four gorgeous days I had there, it's all understood.

What with all the visiting around there wasn't much time for stitching but I hung a few doors on "Ocean Homes" and took a lot of pictures all over two counties. Hope to get them posted somewhere for the family to share.

Here's my Monet Moment. My family lives close to the vast NYC watershed reservoir system. Large numbers of mute swans congregate on the upper reaches of the reservoirs and winter over there and then spread out to ponds and rivers in the spring and summer. Getting closer shots of these birds involves a level of risk I am no longer interested in. These fuzzy long views will have to do.

September 11

 Later on this day of remembrance and reflection, I will pick up and finish a novel I've been reading, "Stones From the River" by Ursala Hegi.
It's about a community of regular people who allowed their government to fall into the hands of a charismatic leader and his cronies who snake charmed the people into accepting that any problems they were having, as a country and as individuals, were the fault of others in their society.

This government convinced people to  assign blame on "the others"  and while they looked the other way and abdicated responsibility, members of their community began to be arrested for no reason, their homes destroyed and their property confiscated. The country fell into wars with the rest of the world and was ultimately crushed. 

It really dismays me that there are young people today who do not understand the monstrosity of the expression "Holocaust deniers".  I grew up next door to some elderly neighbors who once had numbers forcibly tattooed onto their forearms and that was probably the highlight of that day. From Max and Ethel Rosenberg and a man I worked with, Joe Weiner,  I learned the stories behind those tattoos from the people who lived those lives and they spoke for those who did not live to tell their own tales.

History should not be a mystery. When are humans world wide going to grow up and stop being enslaved by religious and/or political dogma  and the fear and narrow-mindedness that it breeds?  There are so  many other things we could be doing with our passions, energy and resources. Wonderful things.

I had a dream that a very scary looking alien sat at a table with a big industrial sized blender and piles of scrolls, Bibles, Korans and Torahs. With a manic look on his face he began feeding them into the blender along with a few raw fish - was it Dan Acroyd doing Bass-o-matic?- all the while he's describing how these books appeared to be the source of power of the puny humans. Gleefully, he hits the LIQUEFY button for a minute and then chugs the whole mess, wipes his face with a scaly green forearm and strides away shouting "NOW TO CONQUER THE EARTH!".  Was it the burrito I ate for dinner or too much CNN?

cusspots transformed

What is it about containers that compels us so? Little places of safekeeping?  When I was a teenager I would take the train into Manhattan and head for a store called Takashimaya. It was a department store that sold everything under the sun. Looking back it was probably a Japanese version of Walmart. But I was drawn to a department that sold transparent, colored acrylic plastic container. Hard little brilliant jewel colored rectangles and squares of plastic with tight fitting lids. The magpie brain was always overwhelmed and ever covetous.

 As I got older the compulsion switched to baskets which are everywhere in my studio stuffed to the gills and woefully disorganized. When two dimensional design ideas fail me, I take up the crochet hook and some heavy cotton  string and set to my version of basket making. A memory from some former institutional life no doubt. Here we have some pseudo Boston bean pots and a few wild ones complete with tails. (for scale, those are one quart mason jars they are perched on, drying out)

lost cusspots

While I was rummaging around for things to overdye I came across another bunch of cusspots. These are getting the "Boston Bean Pot" treatment and will be left soft. That's it...no more soda ash, cloth or dye....for awhile at least. 



Now to see if  I can get in one or two more swims. It's gotten chilly at night and there's no enough sun on the pool during the day to warm it again and I'm not the hardy, North Atlantic swimmer I used to be.

wild things

Whoever designed the building and landscaping where I work must have been a Mayan in a former life. This is the last leg of a huge zigzig stepway...to nowhere. It ends right at the street so no one ever uses it except the wildlife. We are a short ride to downtown Atlanta and this office park, easily less than half occupied, is fast becoming a wildlife sanctuary. This bed of flowers was alive with butterflies earlier in the day. Last year a family of geese took over the opposite tower and you could not walk down the steps because they would attack defending their territory.

The other night I watched trio of coyotes stride purposefully  through the parking lot. I've seen the odd one as I drive home but it was startling to see this squad together. Tall adult in the lead, two smaller ones watching the flanks as they went. No doubt they are working the overpopulation of  Canadian geese that live here - and the feral cats.  

A very large owl flew right across my path as I was driving out of the park. It's encouraging that  there are plenty of creatures doing well despite what humans do to their surroundings.

very Labor day

It was a real labor day all day everyday for me this weekend. I divided my time between working at the whine mine (where people seemed to know that we are a 24/7 operation) and doing an about face and scrambling to make two important venue deadlines. 


For a while, I was going to sulk and eat worms and not enter. I got over it.

Rosemary's Dogs

There was little to no loss of color in the washout. I didn't even bother to iron this lot. Just folded them up to stack and gloat over. 

I've called this one Wisteria. Praise to the bugs in the oatmeal!

hatching out splendor!

Although I do not know the meaning of restraint when it comes time to dye, this new take on using granular materials to  carry the dye has returned some amazing results. Those dark flecks in the foreground are oatmeal flakes and some dead bugs that had taken up residence in the large container of oatmeal.

I couldn't wait to finish hosing it off to take this picture.  The best part is ..I know exactly how I did this and could duplicate the effect. 


and the blues, greens and purples are waiting.

Last Dyefest of 2010

Here are just a few of the smaller pieces from what's probably the last dyefest of the season. there are more to do but the sun is still poaching hot out on the deck..I may wait until tomorrow to finish the rest and do some overdyeing.

It's been a long day already. The piece hanging from the rack in the background was a piece that I put down on the table when I was mixing the colors. There are another whole group off camera that have been dyed using buggy oatmeal. Those should be interesting, bugs and all.

work view

We've been recently given permission to "claim" our real estate at the office if we have been there at least six months. Over a year ago I selected a seat that no one else wanted so I've been lucky and comfortable there. My back is to a wall of windows and a door and it's only half a cube, on the corner of Crazy & Main. I like the natural light, the view of the pines and now, I'm free to decorate a bit so I brought "Backyards" to work with me to enjoy it a bit before shipping.


My marigolds are going into fall overdrive. Here's one of the smallest cusspots on my desk.

And a picture of the moon that was worth getting pulled over for. I stopped for a few seconds on an overpass on the way home and shot this out the car window. It was a spot that had the least amount of light pollution and there wasn't another soul on the road except for a police officer who pulled me over to find out what I was up to.

farewell and adieu

"Backyards 1" will be on it's way to a private collection very shortly. I spent some time this morning taking  a lot of good pictures by way of record and memory keeping and right away I was reminded about the value of working loose & relaxed and the enjoyment that came with the making of this one from the gift of the vintage cloth, the experimental dyeing to the quick and dirty designing that fell together without a whole lot of fuss or angst.

so raw

What do you see?  A pile of old sheets?


I see pure potential!

A friend has a naughty dog who raises mayhem with the bedsheets, digging for that ever elusive comfortable place, tearing the fragile 100% cotton fabric in unmendable ways. I hate it for you but I'm thrilled you thought of me before deep sixing  all this fabulous cloth.

This is hands down my most favorite kind of cloth to work with. Vintage, well used sheets take the dye in strange and wonderful ways. Not just into the cloth and the thread, it seems like the very soul and being of the cloth is anxious to absorb the color as if to find, one more time, a way of  being useful and alive in new and wonderful ways.  I am dizzy with the anticipation of color.

.saving Lush Life

I wondered where this one was. It slipped off the back of a chair in the bedroom and was gathering dust bunnies and dead moths. Not shown in this picture, all the mauve areas got over involved with a lot of compulsive looking machine quilting. What was I thinking??  A big mistake that I am determined to undo. Packed my little stitch ripper in the go bag and see how much I can get un-done this evening. Hopefully a gentle soak with reorganize the threads and the stitch tracks will go away. I really want to save this one.

changes afoot

One full moon, one cool night and you can sense Fall waiting in the wings.

There are changes afoot here as well. I'm reviving an old spiritual practice having decided that howling into the wind and stars is better and more productive than talking to myself.

What's the saying? Fortune favors the bold and if you don't buy a ticket, you won't ever win?

R&R

It was a restful weekend even with a few hours of OT on Saturday.

After several heavy thunderstorms the pool is starting to show the turn of the seasons. Dead leaves and debris from the trees are part of the daily chores now.

I got a lot of stitching done on "Ocean Homes" but it's a long way from finished and nothing much to look at now.

 I did spend the cool hours yesterday picking out, ironing and posting several new sets for RAD as promised. Thanks for all the suggestions.

During the "dig" in the studio, I came across these two very small (8"x8") hand stitched pieces. The tiny "T" stitches are the same ones I'm still using. One stitch in one direction just seems unfinished to me. Or lonely. These are both available. Email me if you are interested.

PHEW~!!

We had a bad shock yesterday morning. Awoke to find the water level down almost a foot from the edge.

We thought there was a leaking in the aging hose system that is concealed under the decking all round the pool - a nightmare to service or replace.  The water loss turned out to be from a valve that had stuck not quite closed during a backwash.  Thanks to the Pool Deities and other interested parties.
 Living without air conditioning down here would be brutal if it wasn't for the relief of the pool.  I will be spending the morning preparing new fiber collections some have been clamoring for  to post in the store...and then diving in!  Any colorway requests before I begin? What's the color mood?