the giveaway winner

After frittering the day away stitching and enjoying a ballgame and the smell of someone else cooking dinner, I remembered today was the day for picking the Magic Burrito giveaway winner. So, ably assisted by my Goodman Jim, here it is...
And the Winner is...

something new and wonderful

My friend Arlee Barr is taking the teaching plunge and sharing her knowledge and experience though the web in an online class "FrankenStitch" . If you are looking for a different perspective on textiles and stitching, I say JUMP RIGHT IN the water is fine....She has been so generous sharing the ups, downs and sideways of her art process and her life and it's been amazing to see how her art has come together over time, post by post and now she's getting down to the nuts and bolts of it all.

and this image, grisly and amazing!....chica, you should make this picture your FB profile shot RIGHT NOW! 

If you are in NYC

I got an email from Clara Fialho announcing a show she'll be having soon along with artist Kuzana Ogg.  The opening is next Thursday at Tria Gallery from 6 to 8 pm through 10/15.  Clara and I have traded art in the past. When I went to Kuzana's site I thought right away about "Limbo" and it made me grin about the many ways that joy can be expressed.

today the Giftie gie us...

Thanks for the share Diane!
the creeping mailman left me another package late yesterday. in it, two wonderful, ancient damask tablecloths all fat and fluffy from a good hard wash and dry. I'm going to heat the soy wax good and hot for these pieces..the openess of the fibers makes for some striking, clear marking come dye time. 

The blue piece is a fine light-weight linen that has been dyed with indigo. It's already been hacked into!


If any of you out there are simply plagued with drifts of old, humble tablecloths made of any natural fiber, etc., before you toss them out or leave them on a church doorstep please email me. Stains? Pshaw..Holes? Who cares! I'll not only give them a good home but I return some of them back to you in glorious color!

paving

 
I'm working out ways to fill in the spaces around the separately stitched elements on my MCD project shirt.
Raw edged "paving" with tiny scraps seems to be the way to go. You can see  more new elements here.

A few days ago I discovered what's been causing the malaise I've been experiencing. Instead of tripping over the bathroom scale, I actually got on it and recognized that there has been waaay too much carbo-indulgence going on around here. Sleepless nights and logy days, aching feet and general crankiness begone! the cure is at hand and I am determined to buy a new pair of sneakers this weekend.

Someone asked to see these three together. At first I was a little unhappy that the third was not the same size as the first two but they were created on a pair of hemmed armrest covers and the third deliberately cut square from a larger cloth. Going forward in the series I will stay with the square...there's another on the cutting table right now.

relief

 
Greatly relieved to talk to Pop this morning. We usually talk every day and I can tell by the sound of his voice just how he is doing.

Their power came back on yesterday afternoon and Nextel in his neighborhood was not working since the hurricane. The house phone worked until a tree took the lines down. 

Everyone is OK and there was no damage and only minor flooding. Blessings on the family and neighbors who kept tabs on him for the duration. I know a lot of family, friends and readers in the NE are still sitting in the dark waiting.

vibrance

I know that a lot of artists who dye their own cloth are experimenting with the natural dyeing process these days but my magpie brain still craves to be gobsmacked by color when I go to the trouble of cooking up my own.

This recent batch delights me on so many levels. Aside from wonderful, rich color there's an array of glorious texture here too.

This is a piece of a woven tablecloth that I picked up for a smile at a yardsale. There was a burned hole on the corner. You can't see it in this photo but the raised cords were colored thread that bled during the dye process.  It shows better in the paler pieces but this cloth loves the dye.

A quick Google  yields a tantalizing clue as to the origin of the owners of these hand towels. There are also several damask napkins with VE embroidered on the corner. 


Do you think they ever imagined what could become of such prosy things?

Even the 79 cent towels I picked up at IKEA the other day didn't disappoint. I wasn't even sure they were cotton.

it's Dutch for "towel" ..it too has the trixie little hanging loop like the one above.

No small wonder that the majority of these treasures came from grace.

monday morning washout

It was a blue Sunday...due in part to a mason jar disaster with a half quart of turquoise (see below). No pictures of my blue ankles, for once I had on shoes. I was just stirring the dye with a spoon when a hole popped out of the glass! Do jars get old?

This piece of woven, gridded cotton picnic cloth is getting discharged right now. Those dots are about 3/8 of an inch and I think I have that out of my system for the day!

making the day count

Family and friends in the NE are still struggling under the lash of Irene so I could not let this hot, clear and beautiful day go to waste.

I've been feeling the need for some vibrant color so I had a mini-dye day and put all the recently collected treasures in for a long soak. 

Today I am besotted with color but yesterday it was furnishing  at IKEA and later, a pitcher of Sangria at On the Border in Buckhead. After tramping all over design heaven nothing ever tasted so good.

It's a good think I don't drive a pickup truck or these would have been coming home with me.  The chair put me in a coma every time I sat in one (they are strategically all over the store) . Did you know that IKEA has a Scratch and Dent room!?  It's destined to be my new office chair and ergonomics be damned.

excursion & giveaway

I'm off to IKEA to see what there is to see. It's been some time since I was there.
 
Don't miss out on a chance to win two of these Magic Cloth Burritos...dive in and leave a smart remark over there and you could get lucky!! I'll post the winner on Monday morning and get it off in the mail that very day!


PS...As most of my family and who knows how many friends and readers are still reeling (without electricity) from hurricane Irene so I've decided to extend the deadline of the drawing to Sunday, 9/4.

happy if anxious Friday

My stitching is taking on a nervous, time passing feeling. I know so many people who are in the path of Hurricane Irene now making it's way up the east coast I feel guilty being under hot blue skies here six hours inland.

Yesterday, the computer track of the storm put the eye of the hurricane passing directly over the Lower Hudson Valley region where my family is and the beach camp at Point Judith, RI. I can only hope the weather pundits are over reacting to cover their collective asses as they seem to be doing regularly.

This is the center back of the shirt I'm working on..no one will be sneaking up on me when I'm wearing it.