I forgot!

To everyone who purchased Fat Baggies last week. Most of them should be arriving today if they haven't already gotten to you.

I forgot to mention the added bonus of how amazing and different the bits of damask will look if you take the trouble to iron them!  Some of the pieces take on an iridescent quality and you will be hard put to choose which side you want facing the world.

Whether you are hand or machine piecing with this cloth, you will get a great stitch definition as the thread sinks into the fabric in a juicy way.

"Lavanderia" my entry in AQE 2013

This is a detail shot from "Roadkill"

high and tight

I snapped this shot of Jim the other day with my cell phone. I think all this Old Dutch Master needed was a white ruffled collar but he thought he looked like one of the dwarves from the Hobbit.

Jake came over this morning to set things right. The last time I used the clippers (on a human) both boys came home and announced they wanted me to shave their heads and I said "sit right here" and gleefully whipped out the cape and clippers. This was back in the days of the fussy  bowl undercuts and I was happy to see them go.

It was over in minutes; bald is easy.
Jake looked like an otter pup and never grew his hair long again.  Colin looked like Knucklehead Smith and there are NO pictures.
The only hair I cut anymore is my own. Jake did a terrific job and Jim looks terrific.

pumpkin moon

I whipped myself into a sweaty frenzy looking for this yesterday so I could pick it up again. No luck.

It's somewhere in a 10x12 room. I hope I didn't stuff it in a baggie and send it off somewhere!

To quell the aggravation, I found these other scraps and started feeling around for the next holiday. Somehow I'll be hooking it up with the wolf/gator head below.

We haven't done Halloween around here since the boys stopped trick or treating. This year, I won't even be hanging up the ghosts because I'll be too busy getting ready for the trip to Big Canoe for Jake and Missy's wedding.

It's been a tough couple of days here. On chemo day Jim woke up with a fever and serious weakness. The clinic told us to come anyway so the doc could assess him. They took blood and gave back a short tank of IV fluids and a scrip for antibiotics. Some random germ brought him low but 24 hours later he's back on an even keel and the blood test showed very happy liver numbers. The chemo was set back by a week but it's all good.

temporary insanity

Thanks to everyone who ordered over the weekend, I'll be at the post office by noon Tomorrow....forgot today was my birthday AND a federal holiday!

I was going to IRON and sort and select and package and yaddayaddayadda?? Quick!! Get the net, she's loose in the studio. {cackle cackle shriek}

I don't think so.     SEE UPDATE!!

What I am going to do is stuff a quart sized ziplock baggie with a little bit of everything here, take it to the post office and weight it...I'll get back to you on the price but it's all here...damask, huck, lawn, sheeting...everything I've been making magic with over the past year or so. Never fear, there's always more.

Let me know if you want to reserve a bag or if you have a particular colorway I'll try to accommodate you once I get to stuffing...

turning them loose

The plan is to revisit this summer's cloth harvest and get a bunch of them into the store. There is so much and I hate to see it just boxed up on the shelves. The rivergrass basket will be churned too.

Select, iron, photograph, measure, document, package, post, Go back and repeat!

With any luck there will be some updates to the store as the day rolls along.

shop local!

Yesterday, on a wild whim, I picked up my friend JK in the next town with the intention of walking in her town park instead of mine.

Instead, we stopped by this little thrift shop and spent an hour looking to complete my mother of the groom outfit. Very trendy but nothing grabbed my fancy. I kept picking up dresses and talking about cutting them up and making owner grow faint.

I was literally walking out the front door when Kim pulled this out for my approval. Ding!

 It's at the dry cleaners right now and if my guess is right, Procion MX dyes will sort out the garish gold and reds. More to come.

waiting wall

Some days there just are no words. The Braves fell to the Dodgers last night and our baseball season is over. I am in withdrawal.

These are all aimless starts, shiftless scraps, hanging on the design wall so they don't get accidentally-on-purpose hacked into, shredded or otherwise kicked to the curb.

Before almost everything else I have to return to some regimen of self-care.
Now that the swimming season is over I have to carve out an hour of  walking each day and I plan on pairing that with with music or an audiobook.


                 It's too early in the fall to feel like a bowl of cold noodles.

feeling for fall

done!

Last night I spent hours chasing my tail in circles while agonizing over which three pieces I should enter in Art Quilt Element 2014.

Of course Voodoo picked this time to be a needy feline codger and kept jumping from my side table to my desktop with a side trip across the laptop every few minutes. I had the distinct impression I was keeping him from an online poker tournament.

 I had my choices by one in the morning, images in a folder on the desktop, ready to go at the crack of dawn after a good night's rest and hot cuppa joe. But first I had to go ten rounds with Comcast.  I won't fry your brain with the details but know that my conversation with the retention sales rep on 10/18 will be one for the books.

Being a little superstitious so here is one of the three contestants, a fan favorite,

Inspired by Grace's little black and white kids last season.

Los Dados Encantada

rewind, backtrack and unpick

My ability to focus has evaporated.

I've had to take the extreme measure of typing my AQE entry into a word doc from which I then cut and pasted the info into the live entry form. Web entry forms are nerve wracking on a good day.

This little piece of hand music was appliqued this past weekend during a frenzy of anxiety and will be unpicked if only because I don't want to be reminded of the emotions.

I need to find my reboot button.

Again, deepest gratitude to the friends who came through with the patches for my little art ark. We will keep bailing and paddling.

it's come to this

Whoa, my dear people.... you are all too kind. I am overwhelmed and my goal
has been met, entry fee and, the fates willing, shipping too!  A mere thank you seems not nearly enough.

Ok my friends, I've given up trying to figure out where any extra money could come from. I'd like to make the final deadline for Art Quilt Elements but the discretionary spending account has cobwebs in it. And baby spiders.

If you can help financially in the smallest way, it would be deeply appreciated.
Here's my PP address.

And if you have an opinion about which of my most recent works should have a shot at AQE, that would be most welcome too.  All of the Karma series are eligible and Cephalopod (center below)  is first on my list.

gratitude

There was no clean out or restocking because this UFO reminded me that all its piece parts are still in the river basket. It was a good day to remind my fingers what they are all about for a little while. No housework on Saturday is my new rule.

There was my goodmans good company,  bright sunshine, cool breezes through the house, and manicotti and meatballs baking in the oven (cooking is not housework).
 Did I mention a gift of pumpkin cupcakes iced with cream cheese frosting and an invite to work with gouache for the first time? Thanks Crystal.

Right now, there's a sage & citrus candle burning in the studio and the Braves on TV in a short while. Life is good and I am grateful.

the comfort of the grid

The intention was to use these small canvases from HL for mounting stitched pieces but there's been nothing from the needle and thread department lately. It's very quiet in the river grass basket which really needs a good seasonal clean out and restocking.

On whim I decided to see how the various water color crayons would take to the canvas.  Nicely, as it turned out. Intense, vibrant. I'll seal this one with a clear matte acrylic later today.

The grid has made me think about pulling the commercial prints out of the closet and maybe starting something blanket-ish. Whats being called these day a Modern Quilt.

the comfort of doing

After a whirlwind morning of a  clinic visit, shopping and cooking, the cool damp weather made for great napping.

I wanted to be doing something with my hands but had no brain driving that train so I took the crochet basket off the shelf and cranked out two of these while we watched a little mindless TV. Sylvester Stallone should leave it alone.

I made sets of these cotton string pot holders or dish scrubbers for myself years ago and still have them. Like 20 years ago.




The vampires were happy with Jim's vintage today which made all of us happy.

sighs, whispers and echoes

As predicted all that flash washed away leaving these shadows of themselves.

You can get a close up look here

Each of these pieces is a little more than a foot square so I'm going to tear each one in two and then make some small sets that include a range of colors over six pieces.

Smaller than my usual cloth burritos but full of potential for hand stitchers, each bundle is magic $13.00 which includes first class postage in the US.

Here's an example of what each set will be like:

A stitching day?

After what feels like weeks of blessedly perfect weather the sky has clouded over and two days of on/off rain has been predicted for the area. Sorry for the folks going to Music Midtown  but the plants and animals seem to be holding their collective breath in anticipation of a good bath and a deep, clean drink.

The river basket is calling me and there will be some time for stitching I hope.

I have been putting off cleaning up the dye deck but I may do what I can with it between the showers.

My tradition of visiting Elizabeth Bartons studio so we can use up each others spent dyestock may have to be put on hold until next fall so I may dig some un-dyed cloth and put it into my tired colors knowing that the results are going to be sighs,  whispers and echoes.  But that's ok, they will all be beautiful.

 I need to do some shop keeping - the cupboards are bare - so whatever comes from the dyedeck this weekend will be available soon over at Random Acts of Dyeness.




All this activity is predicated on what I'm finding is a post chemo pattern in Jim's treatment. This weekend he will be in a resting phase which somehow translates into less anxiety for me even if there's a little more steppin' and fetchin'. 

I think I've recognized that I was born into service in many past lives. This would account for my affinity for the staff of Downton Abbey as opposed to the upstairs folk who seem to spend all their time fretting about how things appear to others. The staff knows in their hearts that the work of their hands matter, to whom or why is not something they dwell on. It's the doing of the thing with pride that gives them a deep sense of purpose. 

more cloak

Thanks for all the kind remarks about my shirt.

I've reconsidered the violent approach of scalping it for the best parts. Instead, I'm going to tailor it a bit, shortening the sleeve, and changing out the over-sized snaps.

Then I'll tackle reworking the parts that need maintenance and replacing the ones that just aren't working.  Just one thought if you are thinking of a project like this...make sure the garment fits and is functional before you begin applying the Art. If you love it before you begin, you'll love it even more later on in the project.

Grace, remember these cocktail napkins?

As the weather cools...

...it's time to break out the magic invisibility cloak 


It needs a lot of TLC. I may even excise the most interesting elements and relocate them onto a newer, more substantial garment.

Starting out with a very worn chambray shirt was a romantic notion that has proven to be the proverbial garden path...

I'll look it over in the morning light before I do anything crazy.

The perfect bliss....

....of being easily delighted is my core treasure. Marigolds, sugar, cats purring, my Goodmans hearty laugh. I am rich.

This came in the mail yesterday. Thanks Judy.    If you have not been following this miracle of creation, the Manitoulin Circle Project ,  you can catch up here

Summer slips gently into fall with cooler nights and low humidity making good sleeping weather. After a long week of anxiety, Jim's blood work was good enough today for his second round of chemo to be a Go this morning. I told the doctor "Light him up!"

back stories

"The Stars out of Place" was finished in the spring of 2010.  It was inspired by a nightmare, the kind that is so real that you wake up in a cold sweat gasping for air.

I was almost nine when Sputnik was launched and we had a neighbor who let us lie on the roof of their screen porch at night and watch that tin star crawl across the night sky while we bounced back and forth between AM radio bands listening to Murry the K or Scott Muni.

It all seemed pretty benign to me and I didn't understand how some adults perceived this to be some kind of threat from the Russians. That all became clear to me after I read "Hiroshima" later that year. That damn book sure took all the fun out of Godzilla.

Still I became a night sky watcher for the beauty of it and became intimately familiar with the locations of the heavenly bodies and the names of all the constellations. Total immersion in the Zodiac soon followed.

In my nightmare, I went outside on a crisp winter evening and looked up to find the stars all jumbled and the moon full and leering, too close, in the wrong quarter of the sky  and shedding wisps of pink poisonous looking gases.  The air was too thin and tasted metallic. I closed my eyes so hard they hurt, woke up in sudden disorientation and willed myself awake for the rest of a long night. Despite my best efforts to forget, it was a keeper.

Alien Innards

Word has come from NY that my Heart has been sold.

 Funny, I didn't even miss it.

A different reality

The deadline for Artquilt Elements 2014 is September 30. I'm thinking, since I have work completed within the last two years, I'll apply. That may be the extent of my studio practice for some time to come. It seems that these days, any passion I have goes into cooking, serving, giving meds - all the things that used to annoy me - are now my only labors of love.

Oh, and making a few bridal garters for Missy. Colin hung out with Jimmy yesterday afternoon giving me some time to nip out to HoAnns and gather up some pretties to work with and then stopped by a friends house to take advantage of the lovely pool at her apartment complex. Heavenly!.

These are a few more full sized prints I pulled back on Sunday. There are two of each, 11x17, available on the prints page.

The originals are "Winter Behind Us",  "Taken by the Night" and "Rising Waters"

Winter Behind Us

Taken by the Night

Rising Waters 

rusty siesta

What are we looking at here (besides my pool slipping back to nature)?

It's Voodoo, doing what he does best; napping in unusual containers. That is my ten inch cast iron rusting pan, usually a birdbath, but it's been dry and I've been busy. Yesterday I caught him cuddled up in my fruit bowl on the kitchen table, hatching out a couple of sorry garlic cloves and an overripe peach. My kitchen getting out of hand too.

Happy Monday!

If I took a picture of my studio right now someone would call the fire department, the board of health and probably "Hoarders".  I have other things on my mind these days and taming chaos was never high on my to-do list.

Yesterday I was making a nuisance of myself at Kinkos draping various pieces of finished artwork across their equipment to add some new selections to the print inventory. 


There may be some studio tiding later...but more likely I will return to hanging stars in the Firmament.

To-do this morning is dashing off to the post office to get all of your orders in the mail. Please email me when your packages arrive, that is always good news.

The best news is that my Goodman is now home with us and was feeling chipper enough to take in a little nice weather yesterday. Thanks for all the love and support - it means a great deal to us both.

A little piece of my art

I finally got some prints up in the store..you can see the whole inventory here.   Each one is different.

You can read more about the process in this post. I encourage any of you who stitch to give this a try. The results are quite amazing.

I had a little email give and take with the president of the American Reprographic Assoc. and he assured me that calling these
reprographs was correct.

Thanks for your patronage! 

take down day

 It seems like a lifetime ago that Jimmy and Colin hung these pieces for me but it's only been a month and now it's time to turn this beautiful space over to the next artist.

 I drove over to the gallery this morning and in a few minutes everything was packed and ready to come home.

It's a little sad but not a real surprise that there were no sales. Despite its pretensions at sophistication, I have always found Atlanta a pretty prosy place.  My work is pretty bold and the appreciation of textiles  takes an even bolder art collector. Just having had the chance to display the work was a great gift.


If anyone has any interest in acquiring any of the pieces from the recent show (or any other work, for that matter)  please know that any reasonable offer will not be refused.

It's no longer a secret that Jimmy is battling cancer and our financial reserves have been stretched to transparency. I'm deeply grateful for the resources we do have and the flexibility my home based job allows for. "Grateful for every golden now" is my in-breath and "survivor" our mantra. 

Email me and be surprised. They say that artists should never lower their prices.  Right now I'd like to get my hands on "they" and show them what I'm feeling about that rule.

tattered garden

My mailbox garden is looking pretty ratty these days. These sunflowers and morning glories soared twelve feet but I won't take them down until everyone has eaten or carried off all that is useful to them.

And we stitch a bit.