yellow perils

Scanning through the blogroll this morning when I came across an interesting post at Rough Around the Edges. Robin is taking an online class offered by my talented friend Pamela Allen.  The exercise is interpreting a favorite painting in fabric. All unknowing, I've been stumbling along the same path with no guidance and using my own oil pastel cartoon. 

   At some point in the stitching, I put the painting across the room and stopped eyeballing it so closely, mostly because the slow going of hand stitching was so aggravating when compared to the speed and spontaneity of the original.  Here are "Yellow Perils"  after the local school buses.

A different kind of Friday

With a new battery installed in the Honda I ventured out to pick up my Janome from Intown Quilters. I take pride in being able to read a map and follow directions but it's the close in places that will foul you up down here. I got lost and wandered about like the Lost Tribes of Israel until the "give me gas" light came on and I got grumpy and called Jimmy for help. He found where I needed to be  and talked me in like I was landing on an aircraft carrier.

The sewing machine doctor gave me an instructive lecture but promised to call the sewing machine abuse police if I missed my next tune-up and broken fingers if I went under the hood with a screw driver ever again.

Intown Quilters is bursting at the seams with every imaginable tasty bit of commercial cotton. There was a big dose of Kaffee Fassett who seems to be channeling my colors. I was tempted by endless fat quarters of that stripey shot cotton but resisted in favor of a pattern for these Favorite Things Happy Feet!  I can't wait to see them in my own fabric.
How's that for some exciting full moon action?

shopkeeper day

I've spent the morning unwrapping those bundles of hand work cloth, taking pictures, labeling them and posting them for sale over at Random Acts of Dyeness  These bundles were selected for their suitability for hand stitched projects. Vintage hand dyed damasks, a few pieces of silk, some vintage cotton feed sacking, soft handed muslin - all dyed, discharged and painted in my studio except one tiny scrap of printed cotton left over from a bundle made by Miss Melly! I won't tell you where it is, but I'll confirm it if you guess.

And just where the heck are my black Ginghers??? But finding them will have to wait. I have to get dressed and go outside before I disintegrate!

WIP 2.16.2011

Work on this as yet untitled piece continues. My stitch repertoire is limited and I have been carefully considering each one in this piece. Working in this super close focus keeps me mindful of how each technical move impacts the overall impact of the finished work no matter it's size.

Even as I work on this I am planning some very large pieces and have committed to making a piece for a specific upcoming exhibition, something I've never done before. There are no size limitations and the theme is "Taking  Flight", lots of room to move around in that one.

cloth history

The more things change the more they stay the same.


2005 - The cloth was from a set of cotton lawn scarves that didn't come out very stylish when dyed but were delightful once hacked to smaller bits. I loved the way it could be draped and shaped over a fat pad of polyester batting. This one led to a series of 3D pieces, "the Uninformed Innards."