Yes, I've been fiddling with fiber a long time. Here's my darling in his prize-winning Mummy costume hand wrapped and spray glued by yers truly. He even went so far as to shave off his mustache so the facial Mudd would crackle properly all over his face.
We won a bottle of champagne for best get-up!
My "Bride of Frankenstein" costume was not quite as successful. There was not enough hair product in the world to get all my hair to stand up like Elsa Lancaster's did in the movie.
Pushing these silk scraps around to my bidding makes me think about pushing paint (again).
I thought about giving them transparent wings but these are walking beings, stalking beings, not flyers by any means.
Voodoo appears to be the soul of Halloween here. In fact, when people start knocking at the front door, he is usually already in hiding.
I haven't really been able to get into the spirit of Halloween since my boys (um, 23 & 27) and the rest of the neighborhood kids have finally figured out that they are too old for trick-or-treating.
Strangers seem to truck into my neighborhood to stand mutely on my doorstep holding out a plastic grocery sack with no clue as to the spirit of holiday. I fully suspect that my candy is being confiscated from them and resold in dollar stores all over the community in the coming year. No one seems to understand or care either "Trick or Treat" or "thanks!".
I'm tired of ten year old girls who look like they will leave my doorstep and spend the rest of the evening hooking on the corner. I'm tired of boys pretending (all too well) to be thugs.
We have a cat door that opens onto the entryway right where the kids stand waiting for me to open the door. I wanted to reach through the cat door and grab them by the leg!! but it was pointed out that more than one dolt would probably fall down the stairs and sue me for instructing them in the spirit of Halloween.
Well, all this griping is moot because this year, I have to work, as in YES! a JOB! and by the time I get home the candles will be out, the candy gone and the spirit flown for another year.
This year even Karma is singularly unimpressed with my efforts.
All that stitching and still there are design flaws. Value issues abound. There's a lack of focus. Something about the figures is annoying me.
You just get your nose down too close to the technique at hand and the big picture gets away from you every time. Something drastic has to happen here and, for the moment,
it's escaping me.
Although half my checked bag was taken up by sewing stuff and things to work on, there has been little time for the luxury of a few handstitches.
Here's a little inspiration from my mother's blue glass collection. She used to be a wildly indiscriminate collector and would even hoard Noxema jars. This one I like a lot.
Sixty years ago today my Mom and Dad were married at the Episcopal Church in Armonk, New York.
Today I heard for the first time that they went to New York City for their honeymoon.
There was dinner at Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe restaurant where a rye whiskey and soda was 11.28 (in 1948!) and Jascha Heifetz serenaded the newlyweds at their table. They went to Radio City Music Hall, saw a Hitchcock movie "Rope" starring Jimmy Stewart and stayed at the Clinton Hotel.
This evening we celebrated together.
The bundles that spent the night in the dye container came out very underwhelming. Looking around you can see I have little taste or patience with pastels so they are on a back burner for the moment.
While rooting around in the stash I found these two hot little numbers that had been mummified with soy wax just waiting for something exciting to happen.
We'll see what transpires tomorrow.
Here are the bundles standing on their heads on a felt pad soaked in soda ash solution and sprinkles with some dye powder. I'll stay out of it for the night.
Jackie thought they looked like bones. Hmmm. Now that I look back on them, they did. I have to roll some more tonight and see what comes of it.
I made this jug in 20o3
at the Painted Potter and for the first time it's going to decant something delicious.
I'm mentally packing some art to take with me on an upcoming trip.
The blocks will be backgrounds for a new piece that will have some very different appliqued things along the lines of the recent sketches.
The little bundles are in for a dye experiment this evening. I'm tired of coming home exhausted, feeding
like a pig and then going to sleep.
Unused to working for a living, I have been putting in very long days and console myself with the knowledge that my schedule won't be like this when I get back from NY. Tonight, some music, some wine and some Arting around.
Remember my cool new tool? I had a day long panic recently because I couldn't put my hands on and was afraid that it had slipped out of my bag and was LOST, but then I found it.
I hate that I haven't been using it but the problem is that I can't find a suitable notebook. A hasty purchase turned out to be a disappointment but now Black Cover has come to the rescue in my search for a Moleskine alternative.
I'll be thrilled if I win the set but if not, there's a Borders just across the parking lot from my new job. I think I'll go take a peek today 'cause I really want to get my hands on the large one. New ideas have been passing by and I've been jotting things down on scraps of paper that more often wind up in the wash.
And thanks to MarieZ for tipping me off to this contest!
My hope won't measure or be confined, my hope is expansive and has a wonder filled full moon today, my birthday.
I got up early because I wanted to steal some studio time from a busy day and make my own HOPE banner. I confess to not having read the rules or the mission or any of that stuff and it looks like something is odd here. I just liked the notion. Having hope means looking to the future beyond any troubles or concerns of the present. Before anything else, one has to have hope. I have a lot of hope for our future but I feel like, at this point in time, I have to protect it like a candle in the wind.
I have to remind myself daily that a lot of people feel the way I do and it's not just the folks who put stickers on their cars or go to rallies and get on TV that get the job done. It's also the people who have HOPE.
The translation from pixels to cloth continues to please me.
As most of my stuff , it's a bit wonky but I thinking about mounting this one somehow so all will true up eventually.
Feeling much better today. Being recently under the weather gives me a good excuse to avoid big issues like pressure washing the pool.
Instead, I spent most of the day working on making this come to life. Unlike Jude, I have no patience for silk's delicate sulkiness and am only too happy to pinch it, stab it into submission and then nail it into place with a million little thrills.
Much related to my new job, I have a new appreciation for my Janome.
I have been knocked flat by some sort of domestic Montezuma's revenge. You don't want the details but there is no good way to lose ten pounds in two days. Now that I can sit up for fifteen minutes on a chair that is not porcelain and have the energy to thread a needle and pull a stitch, I've started work on what will be a very slow cloth.
Something about the scope of my design mind has contracted but things that might have died on paper will get a second chance in cloth and thread.
I've been in a nesting frenzy for a few days, cleaning things that have given up waiting to be cleaned. Wanting to paint ceilings, beating carpets...all the things I should have been doing whilst essentially unemployed. That time is drawing to a close. In the meantime, there's some arting going on.
These are some soft muslins that I dyed yesterday and a piece of cotton batting that did a little clean up work and turned into something quite interesting. Yes, more flings on the horizon and there's a slew of sketches for some smaller work. Seems like there's a market for some smaller, less pricey pieces. I have a pile of them squirreled away but I think they need to be mounted on canvas so they won't be mistaken for potholders. Any advice on mounting small works to canvas would be welcome.
I've decided to upgrade my Trunkt listing to premium and will be listing some of my Flings for sale there. Might as well take advantage of all their marketing efforts.
And here's my sewing chair cushion with the printed photo of Karma on it.
This dyed scrap will be incorporated into it. It's from a long ago find on the public beach on Naragansett, Rhode Island.
The weather here in GA holds perfect and I put a batch of fabric into the soda ash pot yesterday. Once it warms up this afternoon I'm going to be dyeing a small batch of fabrics for some new directions. Got to get that Carnegie entry rounded up too.
...is not something I normally get into but Frank Ze's Scribbler lends itself so nicely to it. I go there from time to time to sketch. Too many times I find that when I put an idea to paper it stays there never to be hatched.
Putting ideas into a computer program seems more like dreaming about something than actually doing it.
Makes you wonder how many pieces get wasted .
A friend has decided that the best way to recruit new members to her particular form of crack is to give lovely gifts and I am oh so joyful!
Thanks so much M. I am hard at work looking for inks and papers.
Today was Senior Citizens Discount day at the local Goodwill and I got carded AND I got my 25% discount.
These are all new and close at hand along with what used to be just sewing glasses. I'm on a mission to get the two sides of my brain talking to one another - maybe for the first time.
I took advantage of the alone time today and spent the entire day stitching on this as yet unnamed piece. It was part of the Mob Scene series.
It was dyed, discharged and later overpainted with metallic acrylic paint over a year ago and lost UFO land until the other day.
I'm glad it was put out of "grab and slash" reach.
39"x52"
Here's my contribution to Team Climax.
12 pans of Cliff's Magic Cornbread, oops make that Yankee Climax Cornbread.
We won first prize for it in 2003. This year, it's the chili's turn to shine. Jim looks forward to this outing from year to year the way some folks do Christmas. It borders on obsession but I remind myself it could always be worse and this year all the planning and anticipation contributed to his recovery.
He left early yesterday to set up camp at Stone Mountain for the 2008 Great Miller Lite Chili Cookoff, which despite the sponsor, is a family venue. You are more likely to get your toes run over by a stroller than you are have a drunk spill beer on you. I got up early to bake and Colin will deliver to the booth shortly. I'll post more pictures and judging results later tonight. Cross your fingers!
To the Anonymous commenter who was concerned that this was cheating. Our entries are prepared in camp according to the rules and regulations under the watchful eye of the judge's observers. The food we generously serve to the public for free is prepared with quality ingredients under hygienic conditions. Please come by next year and watch Chef Jim make magic but you had better be up with the chickens! Although we didn't place this year, a great time was had by all.
People who have to cheat to have fun camp out with cowards who make anonymous posts!
This morning I gave my son Jake a ride to work and as a routine part of most morning commutes, I got to grouse about a tail-gater.
Jake told me he had seen this
bumper sticker on a car and was determined to get one for me.
I laughed to tears and made this up as soon as I got home. Just warming up for a big piece to go under the needle later today.
Of course, studio cleaning is always followed by a good sale.
These quart sized storage bags are stuffed full with everything from hand dyed damasks to satin jacquard with lots of hand dyed cottons in between.
Most pieces are hand sized or smaller, some bigger but not much (I throw out nothing) so there's tons to work with here. Every bag has a nice chunk of something silver and stretchy. I have no idea what the fabric is but it's fun.
$8.00 each includes postage in the US.
Email me for availability first deborah@lacativa.com
Late yesterday I found out that both "Exubera" and "Limbo" have been juried into "Art Quilts XIII: Lucky Break" at the Chandler Center for the Arts, Chandler AZ along with a pretty star-studded roll of contemporary fiber artists.
Congratulations, everyone!
Spiders have been routed from the windowsills, UFOs are being tilled up from the subsoil and archeological societies are camped out in the yard.
All operations are being overseen by one of my ablest studio assistants. Boxes and bags are being filled with snips and scraps that will be on their way to other people's studios keeping in mind that there is really NO trash.
Take my word for it, his eyes are open.
I know pictures like this of art studios turned into public dumps are both common and boring but taking them and looking at them has helped me diagnose my Stall in the Fall, my unwillingness to take up serious design considerations and start something new besides another .....
...comfort piece. The time for patting myself on the hand and tut-tutting has passed. Lots of people have had tough rows to hoe and come out the other side in one piece as I have.
Nope, it did not kill me and therefore, I am stronger.
And so, in between other things that need accomplishing, today is Fold & Sort Day. Throw Crap Out Day. Spray it and Wipe it Off and Vacuum Day.
Thinking about a Change? Lisa Miller cuts it to the bone here.
It's been a busy week. I decided on a nice deep border for the Booby Fling. Love those Cherrywood cottons from A. This one turned out a bit bigger than the others and so will take more time to quilt. As the weather chills down, this one is just enough to keep warm under while I work. I'm going to buy a lingerie bag and wash this one to test my care instructions so I can sell off a few of these. Now that I recognize that making them is an addiction I can not only tolerate but perhaps profit from.
Jim had his final, miserably huge stitches removed on Friday. I kept imagining (and snickering over) an old joke that when the stitches were removed, his ass would fall off. The surgeon was mercifully brisk and almost like magic Jim's smile came back, he stood up straight and his ass did not fall off. I look forward to shedding my Nurse Ratchet in Charge of Pain persona and revert to being Queen of His Realm.
To celebrate, I spent the day with my buddy Jan down in her neck of the woods. We ran amok at Los Bravos with taco salads and decanters of Sangria although they didn't serve it with fresh fruit like at the Columbia in Tampa AND they wouldn't let us take the unfinished decanter with us!
OHCO disappointed me yardage wise - for some unknown reason they have removed all the manufacturer's labels from the bolts on the shelves and what was left seemed dirty and picked over. They were delighted to feature tables piled with simple, hemmed tablecloths and napkins. I only bought just this one to see what I might make of it but it was only $3.
Since my camera is on some kind of Mercury retrograde vacation, I've fallen back on the scanner. The last free pages in the sketchbook are looming but it's taken me since 3/04 to come that far. I'm just not a sketcher. Flipping through the pages, most of them have unintelligible scribblings from meetings, lists of supplies for projects unknown, anything but drawings. Thanks to Susie Monday for posting this quote from Annie Dillard. But here's a doodle that recurs and for once has made it off the page into reality. I wanted these leaves to stay soft, the better to be woven into my own version of Judy Martin's protection blankets, but the batting scraps I used must have had some kind of adhesive on them that activated and hardened when I ironed them. Now they are crisp, stiff ...almost mailable. Watch your mailboxes.
Maybe these are coming in advance of a colder than usual winter here in Georgia? The birdy bodies are vintage damasks from my recent sugar dyed batch.
When this one is finished, it's going to be for sale. I have to start making all this needle flailing pay somehow. Until then, I can look up on the design wall and have a chuckle over this silly gathering.
There was a show on TV last night about a lioness who kept adopting gazelle calves. She was cub-less and confused. It did not turn out well. This bunch look as if they would try to hatch rocks as easily as they would eggs. You can't imagine what I went through to find a nice picture of the Boobies they were modeled after!
Addendum - the border came out wonderful but I used another whole damask tablecloth to back this one and , due to the shifty nature of the stuff, it's proved impossible to hand stitch. Rather than machine stitch it, I'm going to take it apart and reback it with the plain muslin that has been so successful thus far. Live and learn.
I've had some time to think about why these light weight, personal sized utility blankets are all I care to accomplish these days. It's only too obvious to anyone who has ever cared for someone at home who is recovering from a serious illness or injury. It's not that there is no time - between all the little things that are needed by the patient there is too much time. Time waiting. Time planning. Time worrying.
So here's to the small joy of inexpensive fabrics, soft and gentle to the touch, white & cream,
as clean and inviting as any blank canvas, completely ready to shape to my will without struggle or argument.
Hand ripped and unmeasured strips almost ordering themselves without so much as a pin and lying flat, sweet and compliant under the machine's needle never giving a moments birdnest or bunch so much so that I will stitch a foot of inches before I notice the bobbin is empty.
Here's to a simple set of bright colors and simple shapes laid into each block with a few hours of hand applique.Then, once the blocks are joined and the top and back fall into place, a few more days of waiting time hand quilting just enough graceful curves and leaves as they occur to me.
The twelve weight cotton thread flows through the two light layers of muslin as easily as thoughts flow through the mind and time slips from summer to fall and when it's finished I'm holding pure comfort. Just enough cloth and weight to keep off the chill of a waiting room, a treatment room or a rainy afternoon, it was every moment a pleasure to make and I know will someday bring comfort and utility to someone else for years to come. This one was my fourth and last night I started a fifth.
I call the points monkeyteeth.
Now I have to consider writing lesson plans for something like this including everything from dyeing the fabric to hand applique. Too much for beginners?
The month is young and I made two major deadlines. Time to start something new.
This piece has been just what I needed these past few days. Something to hang onto and focus on fiercely.
I've started the quilting that joins front and back and will go on with it for the rest of the week as minutes and moments present themselves.
I keep telling myself "all things for a reason" and heard a movie character say "yesterday is history and tomorrow a mystery". Both sentiments to reflect on for the moment.
