Full October Moon

This morning, bright sunshine in the studio demanded work in the fiber mines, so there are exciting new sets in the store. Who made this stuff? 

Later tonight, me and the Kat Krew  be taking my Tarot cards for a walk in the moonlight. More about my ongoing Tarot studies in a future post.

seeing the work in print...

...is never a cheap thrill...especially when you didn't know it was coming. Thanks to my friend Mary McBride  "Innocent Bystanders" is in this month's SAQA print journal which is one of my favorite things that arrives by mail. She has written a great and timely article  "Taking the sting out of rejection".  This piece was juried into the show she created last year called "The Skinny Envelope" after it was not accepted at several others. I was in really great company at the Gateway Center for the Arts, in DeBary FL. Thanks again Mary!

ocean homes progress

After spending all day building a back by machine cobbling strips of various blues into large spontaneous log cabinish blocks (there's enough for a whole 'nother  top!) I remembered this gigantic cutwork tablecloth that I dyed ages ago.

It was on a hanger in the closet, all pressed and ready for the dance. With a little fussing around holes that I had chopped into it, I fit it to the back of Ocean Homes Since there is no batting I'm now backfilling under the cutwork holes with a little fire.


Sunday afternoon I spent several pleasant hours at a friends house stitching outside in the October sun while we talked. It was a nice way to reconnect with the piece and the friendship- both were languishing.

The decorative edge of the tablecloth has a real water's edge feel where I lapped it over to the frontside and stitched it fast. If I had only thought about putting the glow behind the holes before I stitched the edges all the way around!

blues, we got the raggedy blues...

Not me! It's my birthday and I'm celebrating with a day off, time in the studio, new ideas, burgers with my crew and a new flick later. Thanks for the many kind thoughts and wishes!

The stash has
beaucoup blues and I'm trying to make some sense of them and start something new. Of course the first order of business is piecing a backside for "Ocean Homes" -what else would I use?

The beating back of Chaos (always a temporary state) has freed up the Janome and its been calling me over..."sit here,... that's it, fiddle about.get the feel of it again..".Then there's Little Feather chirping from under the table "Use ME, use ME!"

As an exercise, I made these batted and backed leaves and now can't think of a really practical way of joining them up to make a blanket of leaves without any other stitching showing.

And did I ever show you the Blue Snakes? I can't remember why I made them.
Rayon stuffed tight with poly. If anyone wants them and are willing to pay the postage, drop me a line.

speaking of endings

When I set about photographing this one yesterday I discovered that there was an entire section of paint that was unfinished so I dragged it outside (it's over 7 feet tall) and painted in the final metallic elements.

"Pirate Circus"   







and I finished the hand stitched binding on my own private "Beach" .

Season's End

Thanks to my family and friends who have put up with me during the baseball season. I'm not a fanatic, just a fan. The Atlanta Braves season ended last night with a loss to the Giants and retiring manager Bobby Cox said goodbye to the team and the fans. 

It's a long time until spring training....

morning light

"Frontrunner"

Taking advantage of the newly cleared design wall to photograph the unphotograph-able. Guess I have to photoshop out the backdrop since I can't safely iron it. Sheesh, it never ends!I unearthed some things that have never shot properly before or correctly in the first place.


"Winds on Linen"

"Sunny Jim" (2005)

renovation

The studio upheaval continues with some surprising results when I turned the magic
table just 90 degrees instead of the planned 180.

Lo! FLOOR SPACE! (well,there will be when I box up and redistribute all the crap in the foreground)

I can turn around and scratch at the same time, something Sweetie appreciates too. Sunlight from two sources now, East in the morning and never ending North.

Happy Birthday John

Cusspots

Later on I'll be posting more shots of these little buggers and selling them cheap!
Here they are...

1001 posts

Yep. That's this one, the 1001st post. I wasn't paying attention and don't know why I noticed this morning.

What a LOT of yaddayadda! You would think I was running for office all this time when in reality I was just talking to myself (something I do a lot of) only cleaned up considerably here for public consumption.

In honor of the milestone (or is it millstone?)
I dipped into my private collection and put together four new sets for the store. My brain was dry of titles for things at the moment and I've been watching a lot of AMC & TCM so I copped some movie titles.

The associations may not be immediately apparent though....This one is "Sighs & Whispers"

I love October

Here's the  stitching chair where I've been sitting and rolling cigars of fabric for the giveaway. Some of that green in the foreground is on it's way to many places this morning.












Across the room from the sewing chair is the new workstation. My only wish is that there was 20 steps between them instead of four. But hey! I could be driving an hour to sit at the same set up.

And I am thrilled to announce that my Atlanta Braves have given their beloved manager Bobby Cox the very best retirement gift -  October Baseball. We are going to the Playoffs!!!

Quilt National, not.

Now that I am fairly certain that my three entries to QN11 have been rejected  I can show them- not that they are any mystery to regular readers.  The rejection email was so convoluted and ingratiating it was hard to tell that what they were really saying was "sorry. see ya next time." I mean, really, are people so afraid of wounding one another? If anyone can take a flat out rejection it's an experienced artist. 

I had my doubts about the chances of these pieces getting in but they represent my current work and there's never any telling what the judges are looking for. 

Oh well.... Next!

the Scrap Giveaway - Update

I have three main groupings of fabric. The shelves you see behind sweetie are the MINE! fabrics - the things I design and work with. They are completely full right now.  waiting on me.

Then there is a double closet filled with wire racks holding color sorted (sort of) baskets with the SOMEDAY MAYBE fabrics and there are two huge plastic tubs and a tall bushel basket filled with I'M SICK OF THIS AND WON'T EVER USE IT AGAIN cloth. It was all loved and esteemed at one time.

I've been sitting in my stitching chair building little piles of cloth and rolling them like so many Cuban cigars. It seems like the best way to get the most cloth into the boxes. The fun continues....and for those who worry about such things, Sweetie only sleeps on the back of the stitching chair not in the cloth the way Jinx and Karma used to. Still, you may find a tiger hair. Consider it a good luck charm.

the Scrap Giveaway - Update

The big scrap giveaway continues!
 
Nancy, Jamie & Janett - your priority mail boxed are leaving Lawrenceville today. Stand by!

The process has been refined. If you want a small or medium flat rate priority mail box crammed full of scraps from my studio..all KINDS of scraps, email me for the particulars.

I still have LOTS of cool stuff.  Let me know what your focus is and I'll try to accommodate you, for example one person let me know she was using scraps to make quilts for charity so I stayed with cottons and kept the weird stuff for the postcard makers.

things to be grateful for

-Not getting electrocuted when the CPU from work committed suicide the first time I hooked it up at home.
My telecommuting will be delayed until a replacement arrives or the resurrection, whichever comes first. 

-the Ace of Wands
-Braves sweep the Marlins.
-sweets from my sweetie.
-good sleeping weather.
-time and stuff to stitch on.

take two minutes

fall glory

With Terry's permission I've cropped and reposted her original photo because the colors make me perfectly delirious! I checked my neighbors hydrangea's and they are a nasty, spotted brown and seem to be infested with something so I won't be bringing any home tonight. And see the fan mail I get:

Of course I can Jake.

Lunatic Scrap Giveaway

Want some freebies?  

Step 1

Send me an email and let me know you want to participate..I have a LOT of stuff to give away but the amount is finite!

I have a lot of  scraps from my own cloth production, hand dyes, weird stuff, old stuff, commercial prints -you name it. When has the last time you saw hot pink holographic Lurex? There are  bits and pieces of all kinds of cloth that I will never use and just cannot throw away. Most are very small, less than 4" square, some a little more. I will stuff as much as possible of the interesting and cool stuff into one of these little free flat rate boxes from the PO so it won't be pretty when you get the box open. In fact, it will probably explode! The folks at my PO laugh at how I tape up my bundles..hey, it's their tape which they give me for free!.

2. Get a small, flat rate priority mail box from your local post office. Put your name and address and the correct amount of postage on it, leave it unfolded and send it to me in an envelope:
->>I'VE BEEN ADVISED THAT THESE BOXES ARE SOMETIMES HARD TO COME BY. IF THEY DON'T HAVE ANY BOXES JUST SEND ME THE POSTAGE STICKER AND A PRIORITY MAIL LABEL FILLED OUT WITH YOUR ADDRESS.<<-

Deb Lacativa 
140 Saratoga Drive
Lawrenceville  GA 30044 


(thanks for reminding me to add that tidbit Rosalie)


If you have preferences for a specific kind or color fabric, put in a note and I'll do my best to honor your requests and I may need a little time to pick and choose for you. Best, let me choose wildly for you!

 

Small Flat Rate Box

Domestic Rate: $4.85
International Rate: $10.88 (Mexico/Canada), $12.78 (all other countries check if available and how much)


I'VE BEEN ADVISED THAT THESE BOXES ARE SOMETIMES HARD TO COME BY. IF THEY DON'T HAVE ANY BOXES JUST SEND ME THE POSTAGE STICKER AND A PRIORITY MAIL LABEL FILLED OUT WITH YOUR ADDRESS.


3. Sit by your mailbox and wait. Email me  if you have any questions.

the Bear Story wrap up

Remember this poor unfortunate? While I was digging around in the studio I found a big bag of polyfluff and finished him off. What a great piece of procrastination that was. Here's the back story in order: one,  two,  three,  four. 

 
Here's Jack back in the game even if he looks as if he's under some influence. I decided not to dress or embellish him any further. After the third eye, what else could matter?

home office

I'm busy hanging homemade prayer flags, evil baby faces and other choice pieces for my own entertainment. A small portion of my studio is undergoing conversion to be my day job workstation. I have two design walls in the studio and I will taking over the vertical one to hang an ever changing gallery of "things to eyeball" as I've elected to not move my beloved stitching chair away from the big, east facing window since most of my scheduled working hours will be after dark anyway.

As soon as the Comcast tech can get out here to yank some wires around I can bring the equipment home and get on with the Wild World of Telecommuting and it can't come too soon. Working in the training room has been HELL.

Right now, I'm off to Fry's to price and measure  a slide out tray for my keyboard and buy a couple of my favorite Yankee Candle stinkers - sage + citrus.  If any of my readers have experience with working (for the man) from home, any and all comments and advice would be appreciated.

I've already resolved to get properly dressed each day and even put on a spot of makeup.  I imagine a lot of people envision telecommuters as legless, hairless huge jelly bags stuck to their chairs and unable to function as normal human beings. I did until I met a few. I don't want to slip any further into sloth.  More on all this as I discover it.

Needleplay at Chandler

"Serpent of the Grove" will be going to the show in Chandler, AZ. Seems like the gallery had issues with the other two pieces I submitted which were permanently mounted on canvas. go figger. I expect that I'll be running into these problems if I enter any of the mummies in fiber only venues. Oh well, there's a wider art world out there. Now I have to put a sleeve on this one.

I don't know how 9 to 5 people do it. I've been in a training class all this week and by the time I get home it's all I can do to wash and feed my face and collapse in front of an increasingly disheartening (non) performance by the Braves. Staying awake for the whole nine innings is not a problem. My body still thinks it's "ON" until well past midnight. No dreamtime at all. I think I stitched the last two doors on Ocean Homes last night but at one point I had stitched it to my night gown and had to cut it away. Help me Moon.

link love

Nothing from me but others are basking in the glow of their lives  -

Judy, so beautifully expressed.
Arlee has been churning new waters.
Deidre never lost her way at all.
Heather pleasure in purpose.

percolating

This is the first thing I see when I come in the front door and last night it got me thinking about the Next Big Thing. The long, white lines are a sheer cotton lawn that was spattered with gold metallic fabric paint. The edges and ends were turned under and the doubling of the cloth created a kind of bright glow along all the edges. During the studio dig, I came across some silk sheers and plan to experiment with it on the "devilment" fabrics. 
I also found a perfectly good Rapidograph pen and was scribbling in the dark while watching the game last night.

studio upheaval

I'm preparing to give over a portion of my studio to the day job. 40" of wall space for 15 hours per week given back to my life? More than fair trade off.

So tubs of shreds and "somedays" are making room for a small desk and chair where I will work at a computer. A long overdue deep cleaning is underway.

I'm throwing out a lot of crap and uncovering some amazing starting places. These fabrics were bundled together for some distant notion. I have SIX finished tops, all of them bedware waiting to be batted, backed and quilted. There will be a lot of giveaways in the near future.

haunted places

There was a lot of revisiting the past while I was in NY. I spent a morning with my Dad touring my first hometown, Armonk, NY.  I didn't know there was a private family cemetery for "his people" which included Useteds, Smiths, and Wrights.  Working folk all.

Then I spent a delightful afternoon lunch & tea with my former neighbor Terry as if I hadn't been gone from Carmel since '93. There is never enough time and we never run out of things to talk about.


These four pieces of cloth (which continue to taunt me) were called to mind by this shot of the water under the bridge up the street from my family's house. Layers of light and color. Reflections, memories and reality all in one place at one time.

the Wheel turns

One phone call and everything changes. While I was still in NY, my supervisor called to say that I was being considered for the next telecommuting class and was I still interested?  Being able to do my day job from my home will mean 2+ more hours of each workday coming back to me to use however I want. Could more Art be in my future? Sure as hell won't be house cleaning! And going forward this blog will be the only input I have to FB. Having given up the time vampire Lexulous, I see no need to go there. Google reader let's me know when the people I care about have updates. likewise email notices when someone posts to me in FB.  There's been a lot of background buzz about "disconnecting" and I'm paying attention.

home

I'm home from whirlwind visit to family in NY. I was expecting fall to be well underway but when I arrived I was surprised to find Summer frozen in time - the leaves all still green and in place, the sun still strong and hot. When I mentioned it everyone shushed me strongly - they are hanging on to summer tooth and nail. Given the four gorgeous days I had there, it's all understood.

What with all the visiting around there wasn't much time for stitching but I hung a few doors on "Ocean Homes" and took a lot of pictures all over two counties. Hope to get them posted somewhere for the family to share.

Here's my Monet Moment. My family lives close to the vast NYC watershed reservoir system. Large numbers of mute swans congregate on the upper reaches of the reservoirs and winter over there and then spread out to ponds and rivers in the spring and summer. Getting closer shots of these birds involves a level of risk I am no longer interested in. These fuzzy long views will have to do.

September 11

 Later on this day of remembrance and reflection, I will pick up and finish a novel I've been reading, "Stones From the River" by Ursala Hegi.
It's about a community of regular people who allowed their government to fall into the hands of a charismatic leader and his cronies who snake charmed the people into accepting that any problems they were having, as a country and as individuals, were the fault of others in their society.

This government convinced people to  assign blame on "the others"  and while they looked the other way and abdicated responsibility, members of their community began to be arrested for no reason, their homes destroyed and their property confiscated. The country fell into wars with the rest of the world and was ultimately crushed. 

It really dismays me that there are young people today who do not understand the monstrosity of the expression "Holocaust deniers".  I grew up next door to some elderly neighbors who once had numbers forcibly tattooed onto their forearms and that was probably the highlight of that day. From Max and Ethel Rosenberg and a man I worked with, Joe Weiner,  I learned the stories behind those tattoos from the people who lived those lives and they spoke for those who did not live to tell their own tales.

History should not be a mystery. When are humans world wide going to grow up and stop being enslaved by religious and/or political dogma  and the fear and narrow-mindedness that it breeds?  There are so  many other things we could be doing with our passions, energy and resources. Wonderful things.

I had a dream that a very scary looking alien sat at a table with a big industrial sized blender and piles of scrolls, Bibles, Korans and Torahs. With a manic look on his face he began feeding them into the blender along with a few raw fish - was it Dan Acroyd doing Bass-o-matic?- all the while he's describing how these books appeared to be the source of power of the puny humans. Gleefully, he hits the LIQUEFY button for a minute and then chugs the whole mess, wipes his face with a scaly green forearm and strides away shouting "NOW TO CONQUER THE EARTH!".  Was it the burrito I ate for dinner or too much CNN?

cusspots transformed

What is it about containers that compels us so? Little places of safekeeping?  When I was a teenager I would take the train into Manhattan and head for a store called Takashimaya. It was a department store that sold everything under the sun. Looking back it was probably a Japanese version of Walmart. But I was drawn to a department that sold transparent, colored acrylic plastic container. Hard little brilliant jewel colored rectangles and squares of plastic with tight fitting lids. The magpie brain was always overwhelmed and ever covetous.

 As I got older the compulsion switched to baskets which are everywhere in my studio stuffed to the gills and woefully disorganized. When two dimensional design ideas fail me, I take up the crochet hook and some heavy cotton  string and set to my version of basket making. A memory from some former institutional life no doubt. Here we have some pseudo Boston bean pots and a few wild ones complete with tails. (for scale, those are one quart mason jars they are perched on, drying out)

lost cusspots

While I was rummaging around for things to overdye I came across another bunch of cusspots. These are getting the "Boston Bean Pot" treatment and will be left soft. That's it...no more soda ash, cloth or dye....for awhile at least. 



Now to see if  I can get in one or two more swims. It's gotten chilly at night and there's no enough sun on the pool during the day to warm it again and I'm not the hardy, North Atlantic swimmer I used to be.