rainy Sunday

In addition to leaving the current WIP at the office Friday night, when I tossed my stuff in the car I tore my right thumbnail to the quick and all day Saturday I kept banging it into things making it worse.

Last night it was all I could do to manager seven feet of a simple running stitch joining these two rayons scarves lengthwise. Why didn't I run it up on the machine in 15 seconds instead of taking most of "Lawrence of Arabia" to get this much done? It will be finished when I can cross each of those blue stitches in orange. Maybe later  this evening.

(Something new too)

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      It was so beautiful out yesterday I brewed a new tub of soda ash and submerged a large batch of cloths that I've been collecting all winter in anticipation of the first dye fest of the season. Did I check the weather report? Not.

There were a handful of bottles of dye stock that have been out on the deck since the fall, mostly blues, so I overdyed a cotton sweater that's been too horrible to wear in public (a combination of reds, browns and greens resembling road kill)      to see if the dyes still had some kick. Poor sweater spent today hanging over the deck rail getting rinsed in the rain all day long.

Baseball!

Sixteen days until Opening Day! I've don't bother watching the few spring training games that are broadcast on TV - the commentators seem to be so bored that they will yatter on about anything but what's happening on the field.

I dashed out of the office last night and forgot to take the current WIP off my cube wall. Unless I decide to start something new, there won't be any stitching at all this weekend which might not be a bad idea.
It's 'sposed to be sunny and 70 outside today. Sweetie took her first foray out of the house yesterday while Colin and I watched over her....just a few minutes around the front steps. While I was at work, she helped herself out the cat door and was staring in at Jim from the back deck demanding to be let in!

art rug

Like many people during these economic tough times, our family is "forting up".

The lease on Jake's apartment is up and instead of re-signing it, he's going to be moving home for a while. We have the room and it will be nice to have my favorite mechanic back in residence.

The trick was cramming this 8x11 (well, 7 something by 10 something) rug in a Honda Civic. I love a rug that is the same color as dirt - so sensible, so real. It remains to be seen what Voodoo, Karma and Sweetie will think of Juicy, who is a Maine Coon cat. He (?) looks like a beagle disguised as a black sheep.
Pictures to follow.

WIP languishing

Sometimes things just stall.

I found a little scrap of fire in the bottom of the sewing bag while I was looking aimlessly for something else - anything else, to move this piece along. I'm still shuffling things around.

The triangle is real and the smaller bits are digital. I realize that I could move these pieces around forever. Too many possibilities will keep me from making progress every time. I'm seeing the circle of things shaping up again and it pleases me.

Making way for the new

 I got the new Dharma Trading catalog in the mail the other day. Although the ink is smelly I can't help looking through it and making marks here and there knowing full well I'll be placing the order online and not on paper.

In anticipation of the new dye season, I've slashed all the prices for Raw Materials at Random Acts of Dyeness

lost 24hrs

I've finally taken the step of working beyond the mounted fabric. All that white space around the piece just won't do sometimes - especially when the standard sized canvas is not really right for the piece.  OMG, it's almost a painting.

Doing this made me very anxious - that old "artist faces blank canvas fever" came back like malaria. Then I reminded myself of the gallon of gesso I have languishing under the work table. There are do-overs aplenty in that can.


I did a little stitching on the current WIP last night but I was afraid to go too much further as I was still feeling pretty pointy headed and didn't want any blood on the design.

Yesterday (my day off) was lost to me. Tuesday night around midnight I took a new pill that's supposed to help my back pain and NOT render me deaf. Instead, I was a drooling idiot for most of my waking hours yesterday.

Jim and Colin had great fun mocking my stoned self and I will have have to revisit that tutorial, written heavily under the influence as it was. I know spell checker had a merry time of it. Wordy as hell for  a tutorial. Still, I had been thinking about what I wanted to say for some time so the thoughts were there just needing to be rounded up like so many rabid rabbits by the rancher with cotton candy for brains.

mummy making

As promised, here's my tutorial on making fiber mummies or fiber fossils.
I can't decide which name I like better.

Please read the whole thing through before you dive in and email me if you have any questions.

finishing

"Old Comfort" is mounted and I'm pleased that  none of the bright whites lost their pop.

I took a whole series of photos around this one and the process and will get them published with commentary when I get an hour or so. (click for closeup)








                                            

                                                       I've started work on mounting "Candyland"

which will really benefit from the darkening that comes with this process. It was a pastel disappointment but you can see by the red that it's going to be a color riot. Now if I can just work up the courage to paint in the margins - extend the design beyond the fiber.

Hare & Tortoise

Jude described me in her sidebar as "fast but slow.." Flattered to be mentioned at all,  I wasn't sure I understood it until I spent the entire evening stitching a two square inch area on this only to pick it all out.

I trample all over myself to lay the groundwork, the broad strokes and then revel in the long, drawn out process of modifying that groundwork with the stitch. There's my Slow Cloth philosophy.

If I were in prison I would have no trouble tunneling out with a teaspoon. I have told clients, when they inquire how long it will take to make a report over the phone, "Together, we will be moving a mountain with a teaspoon. One teaspoon at a time and suddenly, the mountain is gone."




Kate of the brilliant Needled is chronicling her way back from a stroke and gave me another shift of vision on fast & slow. Isn't her Hare magnificent?

revision

When I unfurled yesterdays start today I wondered who put acid in the yogurt so I dismembered and cannibalized it right down to the dirt.

One false start after another finally got me to this place by about 10pm.  Now it's working for me and basting is under way.

I really loved that "storm cloud" commercial batik that I wrapped around it yesterday but it was just too busy  and had to go back in the stash for another day.

Ask & ye shall receive..

No kidding. And don't forget to be careful about what you ask for. I wasted an hour this morning cruising the web looking for fresh ideas for my own home made website which is not reflecting my current work or direction . Bored and aggravated by coming up empty, I did a quick run though of the blogs I check in on and lo&behold-  Tracy Helgeson held up the torch and pointed the way.

I'm cross eyed and crazy right now but it looks like OPP has what I'm looking for by way of change. I ain't thrilled with the notion of paying for something I've always had for free but I'm doing that now at the store anyway so I'll have to study the particulars, do the math and maybe split the difference.

"In the dream I woke with a start and rushed outside into the yard. The sky was impossibly huge and black and the porch light was defeated to old butter on the ground  by it's density. The stars were all wrong in the sky for any  time of the year and the air was so cold and bitter that one could not suck any life out of it."






It was a good night at the Whine Mine last night. The Folks must have been exhausted from three straight days of complaining and picked last night to lay low and leave the phone alone. Maybe they were watching American Idol and fell asleep before it was over. TGIF even though I am working this week end.

Robert Genn's twice-weekly newsletter was about the creative flow that can come from the bored place in the brain, "Accessing the default mode network". That was timely for me too.

crocheted calm

I can't remember the last time the sky was clear for the full moon so this will do in it's place. I collect these, sort of, dessert plates in any pattern or white & blue. Long ago I had a full set of Blue Willow dishes. A full set of anything bores me these days.

Crochet was on my mind after reading
 EmilyBs blog.
Nothing inspiring jumped out of the scrap basket last night so rather than force the issue, I took a ball of cotton string and crochet hook and watched the first few contestants massacre music on A.Idol. I'm not caught up in it as in years past since I don't get to see it regularly. This year it looks as if the judges rounded up a lot of pretty faces with voices like howling cats. I kept waiting for Ashton Kutcher to come out on stage and tell the judges that they had been Punked.


This is serious string. You could probably hang yourself with two strands if you're petite. 12 ply I think, can't remember where it came from - not craft store stuff for sure. I used a big K hook and before I knew it there were three large cusspots. Yesterday I uncovered a large batch of the smaller ones.

I don't know what to do with them and they are breeding like rabbits.

I

Lavanderia

The stitching on "Lavanderia" is finished. Now I have to find the right size and shape canvas for it.  Because of the bright white base cloth, this will be the first time that I paint the canvas to extend the fiber design. slowly. slowly. This would be a good piece for the mounting tutorial I've been yattering about.

On the back burner - a redesign for my website so I can feature the things I have been focusing on over the past year. It's long overdue and a good excuse to throw myself into learning CSS for real. A useful brain exercise instead of frittering away my (forced) time on the computer on freecell or solitaire.

new cards

I just ordered a batch of new business cards. I put Firefly on the front this time - it's a pretty clear indicator of what I'm up to these days.

It's been snowing all morning and last week we were hearing the first tree frogs. They must be pretty freaked out.

I'm feeling cranky and fuzzled - could be that I started watching "the Last Winter" when I got in bed last night past midnight and it scared me awake until 2ish.
Ghost devil reindeer indeed.

Sweetie sez "naptime"

Marketing Monday

Almost forgot to add this one!

Winter Solstice is now up and available at Hand Music Fiber Art.



It's good  to get back to the rhythm of the day to day. I have to repack my go-bag for work just in case I feel a little inspiration later in the day. There's a bundle of fabric to go to the post office  and a stop at Goodwill to see what's new and interesting.  At some point I need to get some new sneakers. Today is day one in the Couch to 5K program and I'm not feeling it - maybe sneakers will help.

old comfort

"Old Comfort"




I done stitching on this one. I have an old favorite shirt that's this raggedy and stained - no longer fit for wearing and yet I can't bring myself to take it out of the closet.





It was good seeing everyone up in New York and getting a taste of winter but it's so good to be home again.

I was reminded of how I used to seek refuge from a cramped and overheated home life by being outdoors for hours on end in the wintertime.  The stillness and peace was, and remains, narcotic.

real winter

Seems like the northeast has forgotten what winter is all about. The news media here is having hysterics over 20" just like they do in Georgia for 2". Yawn. It's white and wet and it will be gone in a week.

Although it rained here all day yesterday we did get some snow overnight after all, maybe 10" so far, heavy and wet.Great Snowman making snow. I cleared off the cars and truck with a broom, trudged around in the snow for a while taking pictures and I'm sweaty & exhausted before lunch. Naptime.

making on hold

I crammed half my suitcase with a hastily selected bunch of scraps but there's been no time for creating.

We spent much of yesterday in the hospital with my Dad - he's doing great and may get out soon. I took lunch up to Mom at the nursing home midday and it was great fun surprising both of them.

There seems to be a blizzard going on all around us. It rained slush here all day but we are snug & warm. My brother is cooking up a mexican storm and keeping the fireplace blazing and tonight they throw two more howling cats off of Idol!  Let it Snow!

packing to fly

Thanks to everyone who sent well wishes. The procedure went very well except for a 9 hour headache that really rocked my schedule. After a good night's rest the headache AND the ass-ache are gone.

Dare I speak the words aloud?  To celebrate I've signed up for a program at work called "Couch to 5K in 9 weeks" which will remain to be seen.

I'm leaving for a short visit with family in NY tomorrow. Don't tell my Dad..it's his birthday and my visit a surprise.

Here is "All Unknowing" mounted permanently on a 20"x24" canvas. I've gotten a ton of questions and comments about my "mummification" process. I think the question that folks are reluctant to ask is "Why are you essentially destroying a fiber piece?".

At first, I was afraid of the change myself.  We don't encourage the handling of finished fiber art work but while you are making it the tactile intimacy is total. Can you think of anything thing else inanimate that you have spent so much time handling? Then to take these tactile impressions and irrevocably turn them into something hard and often harsh to the touch strike people as quite bizarre.
My whole purpose was about the visual impact of the piece. This process is more complex than mere decoupage. With practice I have figured out how to enhance values, retain original appearances and manipulate other visual characteristics and plan on continuing the exploration.

Another consideration was a better and different way to present small textile pieces. Nobody is mistaking any of these for potholders or placemats. These are ready to hang, like any painting.

I hope to have all these recent pieces posted here available in the in the store shortly. If you have any interest before then, just let me know.

treatment day

I had an injection in my back this morning that's supposed to cure the problem but now I have a brain breaking headache. 



I wanted to work on this one today but I'd rather not be sewing my fingers together.

And more proof that the nut does not fall far from the tree.

a good days work

Terrible pictures (my fingers are all stuck together)  but these all got processed today. There are three more waiting. Maybe an outdoor photo sessions tomorrow, it's supposed to be a peachy day. It's great to finish things that have been hanging around waiting.

top "Gates of Grace"


"Social Networking"


bottom "Winter Solstice"

mummy making

"As Yet Unbaptized" mounted on a 20"x20" canvas and sealed with diluted, matte acrylic medium.  I wanted to be sure that the bright whites kept their dazzle so I treated them first with a light coat of acrylic straight from the jar and allowed time for those areas to dry before I went ahead and worked the rest of the piece.  I really like the way the value contrast is improved with this method.

I deliberately chose to mount this one on a canvas with almost no border and will have to proceed slowly. The areas of running stitch are going to lose a lot of texture as the medium flattens out all the ridges and bumps, or not, as I go along. From experience, several of these fabrics will darken considerably, again a good thing if I control which ones and how dark.

Persistence in method and material

This is "Skin Keeps Us In" from 2006 and at the bottom, one of my "Ornamental Innards" a foray into soft 3D also in '06.

I've decided to call this compositional process "cat herding" for obvious reasons. Comes as no surprise to me that it's a place I like to go - organizing a group of small and not necessarily compatible elements.

We spend a lot of energy in this household doing just that. Who's in, who's out, who ate or not, who's fighting - and that's only a herd of 3.

Both of these pieces have a lot of a large damask tablecloth that I ripped into quarters and dyed.  I can't recall the larger motifs but the tiny dots woven into the cloth are everywhere in my work.

That little patch of blue on the piece I'm working on now came from that tablecloth and "As Yet Unbaptized" has some of it too.

There is almost nothing left of it.

replacement player

 

I found a tiny scrap of pale blue green  like the one that went into "Memories Feast" and carried it around in my pocket all day until about 10pm when I dismantled that false start and worked with what was at hand, all in support of this little piece of sky. 

Is this a color from nature? some ocean somewhere no doubt. I am possessed by this one. It's past midnight and I spent the afternoon hearing, among other entertaining tidbits,  how someone could crawl under a desk, ostensibly to check on some connections, and wind up sticking his tongue into an electric outlet. That should be fatal but it wasn't . I should be tired but I'm not.

WIP tuesday

As I knew it would as soon as I basted it, and as quickly as it's namesake has disappeared, "Georgia Snow"  has bored me and I'll set it aside rather than trash it for now. If any knows where I can by a spool of Sulky 12wt cotton, Brite White, let me know. The web has let me down. I really like using it for hand work and since Country Quilter in Somers closed I have no source for the solid colors.

  I was craving to use some of the silk scraps that M. sent me so I knew another grid piece was in the wings. This is very prelim. I'll stick it up on the cube wall today and spend a shift eyeballing it and moving things around. So far, it's not saying much beyond "oooo, yummy silk colors".

PS - dark and stinky, I took it all apart and started afresh

It's going to be a long and complicated day. For some of us life is so much simpler. Sweeties only question is "why don't I put out more birdseed so she can sit at the sliding glass doors and watch "the Squirrel Housewives of Lawrenceville".

Georgia Snow

...is quick and dirty and makes you long for summer the day after if falls.

except for this

The Grid Forgets Itself

 "the grid forgets itself"

10"x10" mounted


SOLD












closer

Something made me put down the needle and take this one to the mummification chamber for finishing. The sun is playing peekaboo through late afternoon clouds so this is a quick shot..kinda strong on the blues but I didn't want to tinker with it.

Quick - take a picture

because it will all be gone by lunchtime! Not your everyday business in this part of Georgia. This is the most snow (that's stuck around) that we've had in several years.

All told, maybe three inches but the trees and ground were cold enough to hang on to everything. The second after I shot this one a cloud of falling snow got me.

When I lived in NY, I worked as a telephone operator for AT&T and we were expected to be at work even if it was day one of Armageddon so a little snow on the road was no big deal. You learned to drive safely, brought your jammies & breakfast with you, just in case. More than once, the State Police closed the roads and all I had to do was wave my company badge outside the window to be waved through a police blockade. Power tripper, me and my Honda.

Our turn

The forecast is for 87 flakes. In two years not much has changed regarding winter in Georgia. Except for the cold, it's still just like this except today I have to schlep off to the office for more tales of woe. I'll pack extra scraps and hope for a slow evening. By now, after this weather week, do you think folks will get some sense and STAY THE HELL HOME for a minute?

For this moment, I'm having fun with Blogger's PAGES feature. Up there under the banner. Have to figure a way to insert images instead of type.  Thanks to several web friends for pointing it out. How are you taking advantage? Mine are under construction.

Once you log into Blogger, go to Posting tab...one of the tabs is
Edit Pages..do it right there.

WIP2

These are the parts I'm liking which means 3/4s of this piece is undergoing heavy revision. It's still not working as a whole so I won't bother with an overall look until one actually emerges.







Geez, you would think I was working on the Sistine Chapel and not a 10" square of scraps.


And speaking of spectacular and inspirational, take a look at this
 and this

hearty

It seems in all other hands this shape is sweet and tender. I have never been able to render it to my satisfaction.
This one may get some words if I can stop being snarky for just a minute.

M.Valle over at Instant Poetry is having a deleterious effect on my writing. She says out loud what I have on my mind all day at work.

"I love it when people say stupid things out loud and it's on tape"