Karma 1

Karma 1"    2012    27x36

I didn't have anything to say about this one right away because I was quite taken by surprise when it threw up the checked flag and said “stop..done, finished” and for once, I listened. 

 There is some hand stitching planned that won't really be noted from a few steps away because I intend on matching the thread to the cloth and keeping the stitching low key. It will be faced unobtrusively and I will honor the irregular edges rather than crop the off. It will be nice to have this to occupy the few spare moments I'll have over the next few days. 

The next one in this series is pieces in the closet and will have to wait a few days for the holiday festivities to subside before I start anything new.

I want to be able to give it full focus.
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour

Still shopping? Me too.

Still Christmas shopping? Yeah, me too. I wish it was this easy for me but the family members still on my list don't know which end of the needle to thread; they leave that stuff to me. But if you need a gift for a textile or mixed media artist, I have just the thing!  Come see....  and don't forget to be good to yourself too! Happy Holidays.

B&W Reset

After spending several long sessions of shuffling these pieces around on the bed it began to dawn on me that this method what not going anywhere happy.

Each one is a composition all it's own - I could hardly find two that could work next to one another..just no way to go about designing a cohesive piece. So rather than scrap the whole project I'm going to go back to considering them one at  a time - instant series.

Karma did B&W with such flair, colors paled beside her.

in the Spirit

I left the house before sun-up this morning to spend time in the dentist's chair. After a little Christmas shopping I came home to this delight.  It's good to be the Queen.
Thank you my darlings.





Meanwhile, upstairs, the rest of the subjects ran amok in total disregard of my authority.

the posse

Here we have the cast of characters that we will become intimately acquainted with in weeks to come..love them, hate them, turn them inside out.. this is the bunch I'm rolling with.
There's more of that deep black linen and an expanse of
snowy double napped
 flannel .
I feel a novel coming on.

back in black & white

It's back to the B&W for me. I've stopped all hand work, saving the trixie and precious for later once the ground work falls (or is bulldozed) into place.

There are two more new elements on the design wall this morning and two more are in the process stage. It's getting pretty big, six feet long, so I may be finding the limits.

There will be much more  cutting, swapping and scrapping ahead. There are only two passages here that I am solid with..and, yes, I see that the gator head is back in the picture.

My black velvet wrap in the closet may be pressed into service.

what she wrought...

How's this for spectacular?
 Serena described it like this-
"Grandmother's Fan pattern hand drafted and set in  the Love Rings Orientation. Entirely hand pieced. White Fan pieces all  from my great, great grandmother's (Mary Katherine Ferguson's) linen napkins. Hand dyed blade fabric all hand dyed vintage linens from fiber artist Deb Lacativa...creams all 100% cotton either Kona, broadcloth solid, or shot cotton."

I'm honored and terrified that something so precious has been constructed from cloth that has already lived it's life, been discarded and then resurrected with color. But then I have seen and held one of her finished quilts all hand quilted ..old school all the way. I know it will be spectacular someday!

holiday prep

I was predictably unhappy with the holiday stamps this year, again. I should stop complaining and submit my own designs but lord only knows what hoops the government puts artists through!
 That being said, I decided it was time to stop hoarding the postage stamps I've been hanging on to all these years. Buying whole sheets of new issues is a habit I picked up from my mother but I have been very discriminating about what stamps I purchased. Rosalie had a long career in the Post Office and always purchased full sheets of whatever new issues for her "collection" but I think when you stuff things in various drawers and boxes after acquiring it,  it is really called "a hoard". I have no idea what became of all her stamps, probably still in a box in someones attic. I've decided to put mine to work on envelopes to people who will appreciate the gorgeousness.  You know who you are.

I also found where I put the boxes of lovely Christmas cards that I bought so cheaply the week after the holidays last year but one of the older boxes was filled with pictures. That's a typical hoard in my house; boxes and envelopes of prints are everywhere.

Here's Rosie visiting with us not long after we first put in the pool in '98. She loved nothing better than hanging out in the sun at any pool or beach she could find. Her signature scent: Hawaiian Tropic.
Mom reveled in Christmas and now that she's gone there is a hollowness to the holidays.

Also in the same box, a shot of agriculture workers at harvest time in, COLORADO...Yeah. That's were they were, Colorado. Or was it Washington??

B&W ch.3

This is going to take a lot more time and study. There are four independent elements here just pinned together. And to think I was going to make another four or five before beginning this dance!!
I am not feeling what I was looking for when I first set out. It's always a matter of scale.

Cephalopod 1 finished

Cephalopod 1

That thread I was waiting on came late yesterday afternoon. This morning I finishing the machine quilting on the background and a bit more inside the body.

Although I have it on the design wall horizontally, at 60"x 30"  I like this orientation best.

Next sunny crisp day we have I'll get this one outside and get some better pictures.

If anyone is interested, the base cloth was an expanse of flour sacking that I was able to track back to sometime in the first quarter of the last century, Brooklyn, CT. The burgundy damask was a section of tablecloth from SS Columbia c.1920.

$2700.00 includes shipping and custom hanging bar. email me for availability.

BW continues

I started another one this morning and for a second though about the "quilt as you go" technique where smaller units are completed and then joined. As you can see by the discrepancy in size, that's not the road I'm going down here, but that first test piece turned out so tasty, there's no way I can't include it in the main even especially since I have a good bit more of that velvety black linen to work with. Still waiting on that thread from Superior....