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.