Summer's End?

In New York summers end was the first day you got up and smelled Fall. Summer's end is a little sneakier here in GA. I had the feeling that yesterday may have been my last pool day for the season - the temperature is supposed to drop and skies cloud over for the rest of this week. Indian Summer? Please.

Stamping? @ the L'ville Frankenstein Dyeworx

Smells like fall today as I use up the last of the 400M from Testfabric. These sponges were packing from some electronic gadget. Makes me wonder just how much dye paste made it onto the fabric. You can see in this next picture that a lot of the vibrancy of these pieces faded away as they dried. That reminds me, I'm going to go upstairs right now and "wet" one of them with acrylic medium to see if the color depth comes back.

Handworking

This piece is machine constructed and quilted, then painted with acrylics and hand quilted. I keep a glass fishbowl on my work table where I hoard exceptional scraps. Every once in a while I will dump the bowl out and puzzle the bits and pieces together. Both of these pieces, each about 10"x10" come from the bowl. My hands have been killing me lately. Of course my solution to that it work 'em harder - and take OTC drugs. Most of the trouble has been brought on by crocheting that recycled silk thread and a lot more than usual keyboarding. DragonSpeak is beginning to look like a worthwhile investment.

Sidetracked on a Sidetrip

I'm rather proud of this little departure. My son Colin makes music with the computer. That's his pseudonym, Izo - his graffiti, my computer alteration of same and the website I built for the whole thing.

An Open Letter to My Bedbugs

Please don't leak when you read this. Pepsi out the nose really smarts!

Last minute art

Jimmy will be home tomorrow for the first time since the beginning of July (he's working in NJ) and I made all sorts of wild promises of lasagna and such. I did the shopping for it this morning but I just had to take a break and make use of this gorgeous day - the first we've had in a week of dreary, rainy weather. The alginate had gotten pretty gloppy in the fridge so I loosened it up with urea water per something I read in Ann Johnston's "Color By Design". Now to keep my mitts off of these pieces until they just dry up on their own - then I'll run a wash load of jeans, heh heh heh. Email brought me good news "Passing Through" was juried into Art Quilts XI: Stages, Cycles & Fits. The snail mail produced my slides created from digital images by G. Armour Van Horn - Stellar service!

UFOs

When I first pulled this one out of the washer I thought "screwed this one up good" and I flung it in the dryer with the rest of the laundry. I have a unique laundry system here. I'll run it through the washer and the dryer but that's were my involvement usually ends, so we have baskets and baskets of laundry all over the upstairs (at least). It's a good day when 5 out of 6 of those baskets are full of Clean things and a cat. This was in one of them and now it's up on the design wall making demands. It's going to need something special, something cohesive and for now I'm just pondering it.

More results

Jan Thompson, my dye partner, came up with some equally exciting results. These pieces are about 42 inches square.

New Hand Dyes

A great dye in the dye-patch. We mixed up a batch of alginate to carry the dye this time and did a bunch of experiments - painting directly onto the fabric and then laying the dye glop down on the vinyl table cover and dropping the fabric down on the paint. Some very strange stuff that will be nagging me from the stash shortly. "Use me, use me". I need to finish a few things before I start anything new.

Hurdles

Entering shows feels like timed trials with hurdles. Hoops of fire sometimes. If it weren't for digital cameras and electronic entries my work might never be seen anywhere. Last night I finally completed all the necessaries around entering three recent pieces in Art Quilts XI: Stages, Cycles & Fits. It's interesting that this show called for "Works that illustrate arrival at a new point in life, whether for better or worse. Pieces that fall together from a fit of passion and evolution." Evolution being inevitable, these new things represent three distinct directions for me. Sunny Jim is a nod to my quilters roots - making blankets out of whatever is a hand, most often stuff that other quilters would turn their noses up at all the while keeping my own storytelling style. Although these quilts are intended to be used, abused, washed and whatever, I got carried away with this one and put in a lot of hours hand quilting it. THAT won't happen again anytime soon. Just the thought of handquilting the other tops in this series feels like a sentence. They will go under big J's needle soon. Passing Through and Atavistic Inclinations both illustrate my delight and interest in finding out what comes of discharging my hand dyes. Deconstructing the color. That circular, cellular design element throws back to something deep and elemental because when I doodle, it's very often "cells". I'm keeping the sly cartoon thing going too - I like a good grin and shudder with my art from time to time. Swooning over beautiful color and design over and over is boring. We'll see what the jury thinks.

Foot Trouble

Thanks to everyone from around the world who responded to my hissy fit - I have a whole slew of fallback options now including a Viking darning foot and the new one from the Janome 6600. In the meantime, I remembered that just before I retired my 30 year old Kenmore, I bought it a gadget. It took a bit of rooting around in the studio but I found it and it turns out that the high shank BigFoot fits the Janome 6500 perfectly. They are even color co-ordinated. Huzzah, the weekend is saved. My Goodman is eternally grateful that I am so easily amused. I miss you darlin'.