belated thank you and shout out

A bit back artist  Marlene Glickman read here about the gift of Colorhue silk dyes that I received and she graciously sent me a copy of her instructional DVD and her information about getting the best out of the product. Thank you SO much!

(That's Marlene trying to dye my hair purple back at the Focus On Fiber week I attended at the ACA in Florida. Really, way back in '07! That week, organized by my friend Mary McBride,  was  the greatest investment in my art career  since SVA back in the stone ages.)

Truth time - the envelope got mislaid in the studio and I unearthed it this morning and found this exquisite silk scarf folded into the booklet. Mere digital photos can't do justice to its shimmering, iridescent reality. I've got the hair thing down now, Marlene! and again, thanks.

rag rescue

Sometimes you can save them, and sometimes you can't. Of course, it's too soon to tell with this bunch.

Jimmy reminded me that some of my best pieces were the ones that started out as head nasties. I remind myself that nobody pays me to pass judgments and today I will focus on relieving myself of that burden and wipe that sneer off my face when I sit down to take my first call later today.

Idle hands - the devil played here

Call someone!
..she's sewing beads on things again. (there are also some of the world's ugliest fabric being overdyed right now!)

My Dixie Mink

From here straight to the pool! I wish I could convince the cats they would feel better after a dip but then I'd be bitchin' about hair in the filter.

I've been off putting up a quick & dirty website for a client ( I NEED CONTENT DAMMIT!) and am just now getting to sort through all the great fabric I dyed last week. A new box of vintage damasks should be hitting the porch sometime today  and I'll be working on them shortly thereafter.

It's been gruesome, August style hot here in Georgia for several days now. We have become accustomed to living without AC but these past few days it's been tough.  Like many people who work in over air conditioned offices I go back and forth between 95 & humid to 68 and crackling dry. Many of my coworkers sit in their cubes draped in Snuggies looking like monks in a cult of monitor worshipers.

I took advantage of the early morning cool to shoot & post five juicy new sets of fabrics to the store  -about half coming from the latest dyefest.  In case you've wondered about the titles, I keep a running list of beautiful, exotic words - place names mostly - the kinds of words you repeat to yourself two or three times just because of the way they sound.  Here's "Night Queen"

pokes

It was too hot to sleep! This is all I could accomplish while watching the Braves last night.  It's a poke - an outgrowth of the cusspot frenzy. These are just big enough for keys, cell and couple of cards or bills. Hands free shopping.

hot hot hot

There were just a few pieces from the last dye fest that needed rescue so I did a little direct dye over painting today. Real impromtu. The only art operations possible right now are those that can be carried out while wearing a bathing suit.

There were brushes lying on the table, loafing. A tub of soda ash water under the table with all the dye colors in their squirt bottles. I mixed up a few paper cups with some primaries and reverted to the simplicity of spots.

This tasty little morsel recalls these two and might be joining them on the design wall soon.

Loose End Roundup

Loose ends roundup today.  "Demon" is finished and up for sale. You can read some history and get a closer look  here and here.  The 12" x 23" base cloth is vintage cotton feed sack, sugar dyed and everything else (except the red square at the top) is vintage cotton damask rich with woven detail. Hand embroidered and machine quilted, this pieced is backed and ready for framing.

Pricing work that I'm ready to lose hold of is so hard. I don't even want to think about it today so I'm going to do something different.

I'll be taking bids on this piece through 12 noon est on Monday, June 14. Think "The Price is Right" and include dollars and cents. You could win by .01~!          
Send me an email with your bid with the subject DEMON , shipping inside the US will be included, outside the US shipping to be determined and agreed upon.  Have a great weekend..I'll be alternately between the ironing board and the swimming hole!

Dreamflowers at home

She can't decide where she likes it best....

Thanks for this look Cathy! It's fun to see what other people do with my work. This is one of my batt-less summer weight flings

wardrobe wreck

I dashed off to work today and left my big cozy blue sweater at home. Sweaters in Georgia in June you say? Oh yes, if you work at a call center. A never acclimated northern girl, the cold doesn’t usually bother me but lately (could it be happening?) I am freezing by 9pm and falling asleep like they say you will do when you die of the cold lost in a snowstorm…
 
ANYHOW, with no minutes to spare, we wheeled up in front of the big box bargain store which was the only option on my drive to work. The skies opened up just before we pulled into the parking lot and the rain poured down so I dashed through the fat raindrops (I’m really going to need a sweater) knowing full well I would be hard put to find anything with long sleeves inside but I knew where I was going.

I bypassed the womens department because I remembered a gorgeous display of brightly flowered Hawaiian shirts in the mens department. There they were, a bit picked over but rioting on the rack with their flowers and colors and ON SALE!

I snatched up the first color that hollered the loudest, checked the size and ran for the self check out. It's a wonder I wasn't a shoplifting suspect. I was in and out of the store in 6 minutes. Just before Colin dropped me off I pulled the shirt from the bag to find this…I swear, I thought it was flowers like all the rest of them...

Shreds, scraps and glimpses.

Must of us who share the art slice of our lives by blogging use a set of fences and filters as we write because we are mindful that family and loved ones are regular readers, following our online adventures in the context of how they are connected with us in real life. All we reveal are scraps, shreds and coy glimpses of our lives. Deep, dark emotional secrets are rarely spewed out alongside eye-candy images of work's in progress or piles of stitched cloth.

And then there are the writers who share their lives and situations more openly, more bravely, to our delight if not for our entertainment. We follow. We come back, and we think we know and understand the writer. Sometimes personal struggles are hinted at obliquely but more often we can "tell" when someone is struggling with life by the missing posts - the stories untold, the sorrows too deep and personal to share.

Then there comes the time when the story teller simply ends the blog with a cryptic "goodbye". Those of us who work with cloth often rush to see what we can do to help mend the situation, after all we are menders, savers.

I hope that this impulse to fix things does not further dismay the one who has decided to withdraw and stop sharing their story which has turned sad and dark for the time being. I, and many others, hope that she can find her way back to sharing her life and her art sometime in the future. Ciao4now, True Stitches.

results

Everything got a brief natural rinse in a passing rain storm last night. I hand rinse everything through a series of three containers of cold water. This gives me a good idea of which pieces might be casting off dye. I fear the six "flour sacks" (which turned out to have labels stating "Made in Bangladesh") that I picked up at Goodwill, might have a synthetic component which will refuse the dye. All & all there was very little dye in bucket #3...a good sign.

The "hot" load, the reds with fuchsia, are in the washer by themselves right now. I don't predict hours of ironing - That crazy, I am not.

Many of these pieces were cut and dyed for project of my own. After I take first pick, some of these pieces will wind up in groups over at the shop. Eventually.


PS.    As predicted by the magic 3 bucket rinse, the wash loads caused almost no dye down the drain... everthing is nearly as luscious dry as it looked wet!!

Senses be Praised

"Heaven" by the Rolling Stones (Tattoo You)

Dyefest Day 2

I don't know why I was thinking that I needed to run out and use my coupons at Joann's to buy fabric. Short on containers, every single cup, bowl, bucket and the rest of the lunch bags got pressed into service hold all the cloth I had ready to dye.
There's everything here; supergauze, heavy canvas, sheeting, more of that embroidered tablecloth, the Berry Experiment, that Pimatex cotton, a bundle of contemporary flour sacks, and overdyeing a lot of vintage quilting cotton pastels.

Yes, it's quite exhausting. And now to see if Reduran really works...

jelly wonders

Jake & Missy went to the Chattanooga Aquarium last weekend and I loaned Jake my older digital camera without any time for any instructions. These pictures may not be perfect but still, they have their own wonder.

And some pictures you don't need to work hard for at all.

Anniversary Day 2 - Dyefest

All things pale and lifeless prepare to be reborn in a blaze of glory!

Hot & humid makes for a great, if short, day at the Lawrenceville Frankenstein Dyeworx.  I got a late jump on the day so spent the morning prepping the cloth and the work area. Then a long time spent mixing a new set of colors with almost too much to work with. New standards from A. and a flock of "old" bizarre colors from Linda like propeach and Chino that turned purple.

None of these went into the shake bottle by themselves so strange and new colors are batching. This is a swatch of monk's cloth. I'm too hot and tired to sneak a peek rinse so stay tuned.

All this time..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was 33 years ago today & tomorrow.We get to celebrate two days because the judge who came to our house to perform the ceremony discovered he was outside of his jurisdiction and had us meet him at town hall for a do-over very early the next morning....Happy memories ...and Happy Anniversary my darlin'

fresh starts and limitations

Without room or time for much else, the sketchbook has  been put to use. The basic notion is all I will hope to retain - my ideas on paper almost never make it to cloth but this one's soul has legs.

Anyone who buys my fabrics has to know that I keep the juiciest pieces for myself.  Rooting through the "mine" pile has me itching to get this one underway.



Since my adventure in day surgery my left shoulder has been grieving me in ways that make me think about just how in the hell they transferred my comatose self from the operating table to the the recovery area. It feels as if they just dragged me by my left arm which most probably just dislocated. Could I prove it? Hardly. Do I feel it constantly? Yes but it's getting better very slowly. Right now, it' s hard to do al the mundane things right handers leave to the left..the holding, the reaching. Every previously taken for granted movement has to be considered first for the "DONT DO THAT" quotient. This too shall pass.

farewell and adieu

 

Please forgive the over indulgence of eyecandy in this post.

Over the weekend, someone decided that Dreamflowers would look great over the rocking chair on her front porch which is just the sort of use I imagined for these light weight quilts. 

This morning was for the ritual of inspecting the thing for stray threads or cat hair, taking a few photos and being grateful that this labor of joy is getting off it's hangar in the closet and going out into the world. Graduation day! 

I made this one back when I was still working at the local Viking store tucked inside JoAnn's. Surrounded by sewing machines, among them, the Diamond, I sat hand appliqueing this piece. The job was really not for me. Right now, I'm inspired to start a new one. Slow cloth with a mission in mind.

treasures

...like it was my birthday! All these goodies were waiting for me when I got home from work last night!  Shiva paint sticks, D'Uva Watercolor, Tsukineko inks,  Colorhue dyes, ProChem dyes - the first three I have never used. Not shown here - yards of fabulous PFD cloth - Pimatex cotton, silk organza, habitoi silk, sueded silk crepe du chine..all luxury fabrics for me. I spent the evening just reading instructions!

but today I took advantage of a few sunny hours between threatening clouds to continue painting on this piece. Coming into the home stretch now.
I already have notion of an new banner done in silks.    

Thanks again, A!

happy holiday

Standing in the driveway at midnight with no manual is not the time to learn about taking pictures of the moon.Still, we point, shoot, fiddle with dials in the dark and hope. If the clear skies hold, I'll try the tripod tonight. This weekend? Family, Sleep, Reading, Music, Baseball, cooking, swimming, art and I won't be leaving the property! 

ps. I keep trying to forget that a box of Art Sparks should be delivered today. I have no idea what's in it. Something new and wonderful from St. Anne's best Emissary!

travel for the non-traveler

 On reflection about being webless, one of the things I missed was "traveling".  My life is quite circumscribed by my daily duties - the 13 mile drive to work is fraught with  tedium. I allow an hour to get there in the afternoon because of the lunacy of the local traffic,  but the homebound trip spins by in twenty minutes 'round midnight when I get off and where the big excitement will be watching or participating in a police stop.
Ah, the blue lights!


Often, I'll get home on a friday night and my car won't stir until monday afternoon.  I travel by mouse, far and wide. I know it's not the same but it will have to do.
Here are some regular stamps on my imaginary passport:

Dartmoor, UK ,
Edinburgh, Scotland and
Dartmoor, UK (again I've just discovered)
Australia
Spain among many others.

in touch locally

So what did we do with no internet, no landline and no cable TV since last week sometime?

More of many things that have been neglected for too much instant and effortless gratification! Big
revisions about all of this for me.

We piddled about in the studio rescuing many tiny scraps bound for oblivion. They are in the process of "Becoming" to quote Hannibal Lechter but I get the distinct impression that Sweetie has a low opinion of the whole exercise.

The painting on this one has resumed thanks to two consecutive days of glorious weather.  I hope you have all had the experience of resuming work on an old piece that fell short and found a way to make the thing come alive in wonderful and unexpected ways.

After I finish with this one I'm going to take up painting murals on airport runways driving a striping truck!

I was recently captivated by a rebroadcast of an old documentary on PBS about the making of the Cirque du Soleil show LOVE.  I never had a craving to visit Las Vegas - too much desperation in the air - but I'd go just to see this show.
Do you think the colors seeped into my psyche? Nah, they've always been there.

orientation

I'm real happy with the way this one is wrapping up. The machine stitching is just what it was wanting but now I'm torn about the final orientation of the piece. This happens to me a lot. Is it arrogant to think that if a piece is successful, design-wise that it should be as good no matter what the final orientation is?

On the left is where I started. I only named this non representational  piece "Demon" because that piece of black damask was a pure pill to nail down and maintain it's originally intended shape.

Now look..there's a serpent under a tree full of fireflies.

photographing black

Black damask  and black cats are impossible to photograph an get what the eye sees. Today I got lucky twice!

Lucky to even get close enough to Jake's cat Juicy who is extremely wary and elusive (he lives inside a couch downstairs).






He's been venturing  upstairs in the morning to meet our cats but he's never been outdoors so has to be kept from the cat door. I'm sure he's part, if not all, Maine Coon cat. Those are six inch tiles on the floor to give some scale.

back to the machine

Now that my sewing table is uncovered...
Nah, that's not why I decide to go back to machine stitching. This piece threw up the "STOP STITCHING" sign very early. Twice I did some hand work only to pick it all out. But it was still wanting and machine work seem to be the ticket, not to mention getting things done pdq.






While I was rooting around looking for a new needle for the machine I came across this little beaded bag that I made years ago back in some obsessive compulsive frenzy.  Just about I-phone size but it must weigh half a pound!

Pages Update

I've created a whole separate blog called
"Random Acts of Dyeness"  to showcase my hand dyed,painted and discharged cloth. I cannot justify another dye session without getting some of this fun out in to the world!  And if you do buy something please let me know what you make from it. It would be so much fun to share what other artists make from my raw materials.

Instead of selling single pieces, I've decided to put together groupings of fabric that play well together reasoning that this works better for the many artists who work in small formats.
One of these bundles goes a long way.

I 've posted titles from Archer (gone to Arlee) through Zenobia (just posted today) and won't be making any new groups for at least a  week. Once a week is enough already, but my studio is still knee deep in cloth. But of course you know I've kept the tastiest bits for my own.

Ridiculously cheap, always fabulous (well, sometimes there's the red-head step child that some mother, someplace will adore). Always email me for availability as these groups are all one of a kind and it's always first come first served. As they  are sold and shipped, I'll take them down and before you know it there will be something new and tasty.

family

Deedle-Dydle making a break for it.