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!!