not robot-rabbit buggery!

A good friend has reminded me to keep pushing my art - reaching beyond my comfort zone. Thanks for the prod St. A.

Here's another of the three pieces that I had to keep under wraps all these months.

 "Jazz Takes Over" is 41x40  and was the middle piece in a progression of work moving from all hand stitched to completely machine stitched. This piece is the crossover or hybrid and a jumping off point for all of the things I have in progress right now. It was a lot of fun in the making. This post title was one suggestion from my in-house critic for a title..it was hard to deny him.

detail

calavera

well that was fun but now I'm over it.

facing the work week

It was such a great weekend that I plan to wrap myself in the good feelings and fly them into the next five days. We cooked (chili and home made chicken noodle soup) enough that no one has to monkey around in the kitchen much for a few days. A little laundry and vacuuming out of the way early and I'm already thinking nap.

There was a little picking up (in preparation for the new closet shelves that I have been putting off) which revealed that I four large works in progress and at least two on the mind-shelf.And last night I somehow  convinced myself that I needed to make a calavera since it's been that kind of year.

more help in the studio

I spent 20 minutes organizing these in the basket in order so I could buy some replacements from the web without doubling up. I looked down after staring at the computer screen to catch this performance.

tight focus

I got an early start again today and was alone in the house for most of the morning. Anyone who does free-motion quilting will know that you can become quite oblivious to anything other than sewing your fingers to the piece. (If I do not find a proper FMQ foot for this Janome I'm going to freak). Stitching loosely woven cloth like damask is pesky as hell. The cloth will do every thing in it's power to avoid the needle.

I had stopped sewing to replace an empty bobbin when a hairy paw reached through the harp followed by it's body (who barely made the squeeze) .

Sweetie insisted it was time to stop that noise and do something else with my day. A split second after this shot, I got the gentle face-bite.

with a witness

All this closet digging and retrospection had me asking myself about all the large, machine stitched pieces I was so focused on five years ago - what was the draw? 

I made a point of NOT taking peek back at those pieces and just set about this one before the sun was really up this morning. It's about 5 feet wide and will go under the needle tomorrow with out too much further ado. 

then I went looking and found Roadkill from '08 and remembered why.

out of the loop

Annulus

I was out and about yesterday re-celebrating my birthday with my buddy Janice. We scared them at I-Hop, pillaged the 50% off goods at the Salvation Army (great cloth scores!) and then caught a mid day showing of "Looper" - my idea of a great day on the town!

It's not often that I am lost for words when it comes to a film. I like this one so much that I need to see it again.

Going to the movies in the middle of the day has a way of taking me out of time.

This morning I pulled a box out of the closet and packed it off to NY. Most of the pieces were from 2005. It's weird to think they've never been in public before. I wish them luck.

Leaking Transom

a good days work

I got this one finished by midmorning and gave it a hot water machine thrash and dry  to test the fleece as batting. Very nice result..it has that "been loved and dragged around lots" look to it. Packing it off to Kara tomorrow. Thre are sixteen more blocks waiting to be organized.

Late morning I got outside on the dyedeck to soak up some vitamin D...the sun was blazing but the air was cool and dry..a rare day in Georgia. I was out there so long a group of vultures were circling overhead.

The pool is well on it's way to swampland..these colors are just a little bit lurid. My camera has a "foliage" setting but I wonder on what planet?

fruits of the birthday dyeday

well wouldn't you just know it?

this was the only piece that held my interest while  I was working on it (I really was absorbed by Elizabeth's machinations with calculator and scale, full on mad scientist stuff!) and now I can't find it in the batch that's come out of the washer and dryer.  For all I know it washed away entirely if the rest of the pieces are any measure of the lack of success. Although that dark was EB's Havana brown...ice chips in the dye is not conducive to strong colors, my guess. I think this one needs to be painted on a canvas. *

 My dyes were really played out and just didn't hang on leaving me with a batch of lovely pastel princesses with superwhite where the soy wax was dug in like a tick.

here are a few of them playing around on the design wall..this is going nowhere in a handbasket...

new eyes in the morning.The fun was in the doing.


*flash update! EB found it in a bag and will be sending it off to me when it's dry!!

birthday doings

Great doings for my birthday! Jimmy took me out for a birthday lunch on Saturday so I could spend all day Sunday torturing cloth with Elizabeth Barton at her studio.

Using up our leftover dyes in this way has become an annual event which I wouldn't miss.

Here she is at the magic dye isolation chamber, measuring and mixing dye powder while keeping all of our lungs intact and functioning. Her experiments for the day where about comparing two different yellows from Prochem and included weighing the dye powder and cloth with an electronic scale in an actual stab at following the dye manufacturer's instructions. Lo and behold...they were not just making those inserts up. See her results! 

From the other side of the brain, I was direct dye painting on cloth that already had soy wax applied but no soda ash. That didn't happen until this morning. Don't get too excited - you know how jazzy wet dye can dissappoint especially when it's several months old and has not been stored under optimal conditions. Everything is in the washing machine right now..now pictures until they are dry and ironed.

me and the supervisor

This is where you'll find me most sunny mornings at this time of year. It's a great way to mind the time when the sun gets up and the direct like goes away, it's time to rest my hands and eyes and move on to something else.

We are off to scout pumpkins, doughnuts and cider.

In the meantime...get delightfully lost in the Hermitage.

happy friday

After spending 45 minutes putting those pieced purple blocks together on the machine, it was nice to sit in the sewing chair and be with the sun for an hour. Good to get back to stitching.

There is more than a measure of peace in the making and this one is going to be a long time in the process..I will be dragging it out for my own pleasure.


Then, out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw Karma sleeping in the river grass basket. I knew it wasn't  her of course, but even the imagined shadow was a comfort. Those pieces of black and white cloth are calling me.

in here somewhere

it's kind of nice to walk into the studio and know what must be done.

I lost my cellphone yesterday - it's been turning itself off, going silent - and was ultimately found asleep in the bottom of a basket of scraps. so sensible.

shitfire

I was on my way to a friend's studio for a day of running amok with dye and cloth when my faithful green pony finally succumbed to the leaky radiator that I have been ignoring for a couple of months.

We'll try again later in the month..in the meantime I've gotten two large pieces stabilized and started stitching on this one. Twice I stitched for an hour and twice I picked it all out unhappy with the results. I think I need to sit with a book for while and remind myself of all that be done with needle and thread.

NEXT!

Well, at least the waiting is over and I can get back to "normal" life.

 None of the three pieces that I worked on most of this year and submitted were juried into Quilt National13  and slap me hard if I put myself through that again. Talk about taking the joy of  the process.  Now I am free to follow through with updating my website and posting the work I've had to keep under wraps all these months. Can anyone tell me it's worth it? I passed on two opportunities to exhibit these locally and wonder if I made a huge mistake. This is really not sour grapes just a personal assessment of cost vs. value.  I wonder how many artists have come to the same conclusion? All input is welcome.

and sincere and hearty congratulations to the hardy souls who made the cut!!

"Consolation" 2012  

saturday chores

I'm putting the rest of the dye equipment away for the season. The poly blankets are rinsed clean and dry. I can't bring myself to throw away this ironstone platter and will try one more time to mend it somehow. It's so big and heavy and the break so unbalanced that, so far, no glue has been strong enough. I'm willing to go the duct tape route if I can find white. It's been a good, useful friend.

I took the current utility quilt outside to see just how many chips I'd made and what the overall size would be.  Enought by far!

Now the trick is to sash them up and/or whack away with the rotary cutter until they are all the same dimensions.  Then comes the layout to please the eye and finally, the sandwiching and machine quilting. I am fresh out of purple!

season's end

Oh well damn.

The Braves have lost the wild card game, Chipper got a clutch hit one more time but our season is over. I won't go into the gross controversy because it will be in the news tomorrow and you'll be sick of it. I already am.

Time to turn the hourglass over and let the sands run until opening day next spring. My hat, glove,  and transistor radio go back into the ballpark bag until next year.  I don't know how some people "do" multiple sports. It's emotionally exhausting.

Meanwhile the studio is a hive of industry, if not heavy creativity. I'm just playing for a bit while heavier things brew. I've finally found a use for those little sharpie+alcohol scribblings. But I think I'll toss a few into the washer to confirm that this stuff stains for life.

I wish I knew what words to put into Sweetie's mouth here but basically it's a threat that if I try to sit there again today she's going to make me bleed.

jumping the day

Although I worked late and slept badly, Sweetie wasn't going to let me sleep past seven this morning so I was up and out early taking this basket to the park again. They finished the resurface of the walking trail around the pond so I was able to occupy a bench and stitch in the bright morning sun for while, mental wheels spinning on other things.

There was a new list of artist calls in the email this morning which caught my attention for the first time in ages. Yesterday I spent the morning tuning up both the sewing machines in preparation for turning out a series of small kid quilts that will go up to the new market in NY. It's nice to have a way to use up some of the good quality cotton that I dyed in seasons past but had gotten away from using in my own work. Each of these will be a gem in it's own right poised for years of service and love for some little person. Not just quickie baby blankets..my voice and mark will be on each and every one.   Are those aliens creeping around on your blankie? of course they are.

the resting stitch

After a long day at IKEA and an afternoon of Atlanta traffic in the pouring rain, all I wanted to do was curl up in bed with my sewing basket and a cat.

I had intended to start something new. Something small and stitcherly but instead, I  dug this little false start out of the bottom of the basket, set aside a few weeks back.

After a little picking out and relocating some elements it began to dawn on me how hard I have been fighting against the very nature of cloth, the warp and the weft, always crossing never meeting. I have been working hard at turning cloth into paint and will have to give that some more thought. How that idea might be a signpost, marker or warning.

On the other hand, the real paint arrived today, along with a barrel of new dyes, that will all have to wait until late April or May before the fun can begin again, but I knew all that when I placed the order.

the end of an era

I was never a big baseball fan until we moved from NY to Atlanta.

I was working for AT&T in 1996 when the world series matched the defending champs, the Atlanta Braves, against the New York Yankees. As a forced transplant I felt like I was living in a foreign country. More than one of my coworkers referred to me as "the Yankee" so it was assumed that I would be rooting for my hometown team.

In fact, as a family, we were not big sports fans at all. I was amazed at the rabid intensity that the locals fans attached to this rivalry and when the Braves lost, how determined they were to support the team in the coming season.

Little by little we started to follow the team and get to know them as, unlike the teams in New York, the players made them selves available to their fans by participating in various community functions and contributing their time and energy to local charities which was unheard of  with the celebrities of both the NY teams. They were the A listers who didn't have to wait behind any velvet ropes in Manhattan. Not so the Braves. For the most part, the Braves lived here, they played here and were a part of the community. Jim was doing physical therapy when this tall, scruffy looking dude came in to have his arm worked on. Jim asked me "Do you know who that is?" Blank stare from yours truly."It's John Smoltz". I just wouldn't  recognize them in their street clothes.

 Game by game I became a fan. Smoltz, Maddux, Glavine, Galarraga  and the Jones boys, Andruw and Chipper. After an unheard of nineteen years on the same team, Chipper Jones is retiring this year. Even though the Braves have qualified for post season play, today is his last game of regular season play. And the game is here at Turner field again the arch rival NY Mets..my Dad's team.

 I clearly remember the first time we all went to see the team play. We has seats somewhere in the outfield on the third base side. I had brought binoculars and was seeing what I could see when my son Jake said, loudly enough for several rows of other fans to hear, "Mom, stop looking at Chipper's butt!"

Honest, Jake, it never occurred to me!

I just called Dad to remind him to watch the game but they are all piling in the car to visit Mom's grave for the first time...it continues to be a year of great change. the wheel keeps turning.

thanks for all the thrills Chipper.

restarted

After I got home from the cookoff yesterday (and slept a while)  I took this one apart and started over.
I'm  a lot happier with the overall potential now. The left side looks darker because this was taken with ambient light. There's a lot of ways to take it  now and I'm in no hurry to choose a path, in fact, I'm going to take it off the wall today and set it aside for a while. I like the idea of more than one piece in the works with none of them considered to be a UFO.

Word from NY on my "orphan" sale is encouraging. This summer fling has finally found a home! I am so happy that it's out of the closet and will be loved and used that I am going to start a few more just to keep my machine chops up to speed. Kara tells me that Sunday is the big day at the Brooklyn Flea so my mission for today is ready another box of  goods for shipment. 

chili cookoff 2012

My warriors are home from the chili cookoff.  Apart from the cooking competition, there are live bands, people in strange costumes carrying on , lots of good food and camaraderie, and throngs of appreciative festival goers. A good time was had by all. Still no word about the winners at the time they packed up and came home. You are not imagining the look of love and pride on my husbands face.

 Jake is shaping up as a chef and Colin has the makings of a maitre d'. The logistics of cooking prize winning chili from scratch (and twenty gallons for the masses)  in the field are staggering but Jim has it down to a science. Now if we could only find an efficient and reliable can open for the beans!

thank you #10

Nothing run of the mill about this Friday night.

 Jim, Colin and Jake have set up camp at the site of the annual chili cook off where I'll be joining them tomorrow morning..wait. It's Saturday already, I'll be leaving for Stone Mt. in a couple of hours.  

There was a special tribute on TV for our retiring hometown hero, Chipper Jones, who played his entire illustrious  baseball career here in Atlanta. It would have been nice if the Braves had beaten those nasty NY Mets after all the gushing was over but that's baseball. Round bat, round ball...shit happens. 
I recently heard baseball described as "the game of anticipation" How perfect.

This piece is not doing anything for me so before I take it all apart and start from scratch, I took it up to Karma's grove under the almost full moon for a little change of energy.

Juicy tagged along to guard me from the dark.

My studio  from the grove.

seasons end

Photos like this that make me think about painting. (click for a very close look)

this one also made me think about reworking some of the darker cloths with paint and discharge tomorrow.

I'm waiting on a big delivery from ProChem including some new transparent paints that I'll be using for the first time.

I'll also rescue this poor teapot from the deck where it's been holding brushes all summer. The mason jars and plastic ware will be washed and boxed up with the rest of the tools of the trade as dye season draws to a close.

alien innards redux

I rounded up these Alien Innards - a 3D series I did some years back, with the intention of putting them on the next plane for NY...just checking them over to make sure that the time stuffed in a bag at the back of the closet didn't cause any wear or tear. On the contrary..they look ready to rock.  Handling them reminded me what fun the series was to make.

The "bodies" were machine stitched damask which does such very interesting things when it's stuffed with poly fiber and pulled tight. All the embellishments - layered transparent cloth, stitching and beading in some cases - was done by hand of course..when did I have all this time I wonder?  

excuse me

Some days nothing seems to get done easily. 

Are larger minds at work here?