If it looks wrong, it must be right

This is the challenge piece I'm working on. Its current state is the top photo -- the strip on the right is auditioning and not sewn on yet, nor is the ExtravOrganza. In fact I flipped that strip around and now it looks better because the light green continues the motion in the dark piece to the left of it.

Everything is hand dyed except for the dark green/blue around the top and sides. Interestingly this framing of the top and sides is the same as in Ballerina, and even the impression of sideways motion coming from the right of the piece is similar. Wow, a series!

The reason for the title is this is the first piece I've made with curved seams, which has been a learning experience. I finally put the on-line instructions up on my computer screen and reviewed them carefully before sewing each piece. The instructions are at:
www.equilters.com/library/techniques/sewing_curves.html

Soon I will be reaching the point where the top is finished, and since Susan wants to take photos at the next FAD meeting I will need to decide whether to layer and quilt it and have it completed by the 19th or leave it as is and then pick it up after the 19th. Probably I should stick to my motto and complete it.

Swatches are finished!

So that's one thing completed, although they are a tool and stepping stone to silk screening and other projects down the road ...

Embossed Velvet

This is printed rayon acetate stretchy velvet from Gala Fabrics which I embossed by steaming the velvet over a silicon trivet. This was done a few weeks ago and I'm pleased at how it's holding up. It was quick and easy to do.

What I did on my day off

... apart from cutting loose by setting the ironing board up in the living room and getting out an end table so I could sit in my favourite Poang chair by the window and enjoy snack and reading breaks ...

This is a 24 by 24 set of colour mixing samples, in preparation for the silk screening workshop this weekend. I have 24 pots of paint suitable for silkscreening on fabric, viz. Setacolor opaque and shimmer, and Lumiere. The table is supposed to show what happens if you mix each colour with every other colour. It takes longer to do than I expected, so I still have the 24 paint pots lined up in order on my window sill with a note on masking tape warning everyone not to mess with the order!

Not sure how effective it will be because the Setacolor opaque particularly tends to cover the colour underneath instead of blending with it. However blending all those colors would take even longer and be messier and use up a lot more paint. The Lumiere in particular are in tiny bottles. Once they are used up I plan to buy bigger pots, I can just see running out while silkscreening!

In any case the shimmery colours may not be the best on t-shirts, except I've just remembered a sleep top that would look perfect with something or other screened onto it, and that could be shimmery!

Practicing with the x-acto knife just now I cut a zigzag-arat.

Is Two a Series?

This is a 12" block I made for a swap in Arizona using indigo and hand-dyed fabric and following the theme of the first zigurat I made, which is the lower photo. This was made in a Cynthia Corbin workshop and the square blocks were cut with a rotary cutter but without a ruler. The dotted background and the brown dotted fabric used on the top block were originally gray but I hand-dyed those and the dots stayed white.


The Journal quilt class lesson this week includes several journal quilters talking about making things in series, which is something I find hard to do, maybe because I don't have enough time/space to devote to quilting. I see a progression in my work but I tend to have pendulum swings or spiral (many pendulum swings really ARE a spiral motion, by the way!) and come back to something I've tried earlier but with some other creation in between.

I did sketch a zigzag-arat yesterday, just because the play on words is so irresistible!

FACTOID: The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, was a zigurat.

Hour last week: 33

Decluttering

Just added a link to Rhonda Ganz's new blog Get Rid of One Thing a Day, which is pretty self-explanatory. Rhonda has set herself the goal of doing this for a year, blogging about it and showing a picture of everything.

She lives in Victoria so for local people there is extra interest in following because she will accept donations to a girls' school in Africa for stuff she doesn't have a home for.

Last year I just know my average must have been one thing a day at least, but it was all crammed into a three-week fling and pack frenzy in Mesa. No way could I have taken a photo of every item, let alone blogged about it!

What, if anything, have I learned from all of this?

1) Replacement costs here are higher than I expected, even figuring in the exchange rate

2) Rubber stamps are even more expensive than that

3) Despite all the purging I have still given stuff to the Sally Ann here

4) I discovered a man's raincoat which I brought thinking it was a woman's coat that I would need

5) Someone used a really ugly orange crochet cushion as packing material

6) I nearly lost a pack of old, old family photos and did not even miss them until someone mailed them to me

7) I truly believe in baraka and paying it forward -- we have been blessed with more stuff including a baby activity car, a silk blouse in my colours, a Marilyn Brooks "Insane Clown Posse" tunic, really cute fuzzy non-slips socks, and just today some extra teaspoons that are similar to what we have

8) Am learning to minimize knickknacks and have NO, zip, zilch, nada fridge magnets. It would be nice to pretend that the fridge is pristine and elegant a la June Cheever but that would be fibbing. But it's all done with masking tape now, no magnetic fields, no choking hazards, no scratches in the enamel!

Tomorrow is dedicated to creating (and perhaps even completing, who knows!) My camera is going out of town but will post pix early in the week I hope.

Testing, Testing!

My first ever curved seam, believe it or not!

Think this will give me many possibilities for future quilts as well as the current challenge.

Beginning of challenge piece

Here are the front and back of a piece of fabric Susan Purney Mark distributed at our last FAD meeting. The challenge is to create a piece using this fabric that is ready to be photographed by the next FAD meeting in February. Susan CLAIMED that this was originally a really ugly fabric until she did things to it, which is hard to believe.

I scanned both sides of my piece because they are so different. Of course due to all the processes Susan had tried out on the fabric, everyone's piece was significantly different.

Also printed the side at the top on a piece of ExtravOrganza. This will be in the piece somehow, not quite sure exactly how yet.

Have pulled out a bunch of other mottled/dappled fabs (and have not yet been into the green and purple bins!).

My thoughts are running on curved seams so I've made a practice piece using other fabrics because I don't want any flubs using the "good" fabric. Will post a photo or scan of that later.

Off to my green bin I go!

Journal Quilt

This is my first journal quilt that approximates the smaller size for these pieces. It was made as the first exercise in Lily Kerns' Quilt University class on Journal Quilts.

I was trying to express the idea of inner space and outer space by using some of the same elements inside and outside the head.

Space IS the final frontier, and that includes the space inside of us!

The white dots are cut from a home-made brocade skirt I found at a thrift store. Both front and back of the fabric are showing as I fused the right side of some and the wrong side of others.

Other materials/techniques are broderie anglaise, metallic fabric and yarn couched using Super Solvy.




IN OTHER NEWS >>>>

Perhaps because of the helpful telephone coaching I received from Quinn McDonald last week, perhaps because I was out and about interacting more with people than I had for a while, perhaps because the class started and I was looking forward to it, but last week I clocked in an impressive 43 hours and 15 minutes of work, both the bread and butter kind and the fun and creative kind!

Mandala Musings

This is "Enuff on my plate," created for the Mavericks Mandala challenge that we did after Nancy Green presented a workshop on mandalas and how to interpret them. It was one of the first pieces I exhibited, in 2007.

Although it's 25" square, it's really a journal quilt because my whole family is in it. Perhaps the class I'm about to take at www.quiltuniversity.com will enable me to make works on a smaller scale.

Yesterday I was reading Katie Pasquini's 1983 book Mandala for contemporary quilt designs and other mediums. What struck me was how she created beautiful vibrant pieces, yet individually many of those fabrics would be the ones left over after a quilt guild garage sale! Not "uglies" per se, just boring calicoes.

Today we have so many amazing fabrics in glorious colours that were unthought of even 25 years ago. Yet the curious thing is that many art quilters make very little use of commercial fabrics. Curious, isn't it?


PROGRESS REPORT: Did 27 hours of work last week.

Personality Quiz

This is a fun quiz that will tell you what font you are.

www.pbs.org/independentlens/helvetica/quiz.html

I turned out to be Times New Roman, "a class act all round" according to the website!

More on baraka

which is luck or blessings, things that happen at opportune times.

I found Kay Greenlees' book Creating Sketchbooks for Embroiderers and Textile Artists left in our apartment laundry room. What are the odds! Here's a link to the page:


http://www.anovabooks.com/products/product.asp?catid=8&subcatid=114&id=453#

Batsford Books have been going since 1843 and I remember them from my childhood. A lot of the textile books are tied into the City and Guilds courses, and this book is written somewhat from that perspective.

Other recent blessings:

• a perfectly good set of everyday dishes, saving not just money but lugging them home from the store on the bus
• a t-shirt with a slogan on that can be collaged into an art quilt
• dining room chairs that would otherwise have gone to the landfill
• store credit for the Beacon thrift store @ Quadra and Hillside - this gives me permission to pop in from time to time and indulge in collecting textiles. I found a sheer printed scarf (see the photo!) that will make a great layer in a quilt and a home-made brocade skirt which I've deconstructed for a wall hanging.

Progress with work/creation

My total hours for last week was 27 hours and 10 minutes.

Trading Fabric

Yesterday we went to Sidney and I took the opportunity to unload more of my ancient stash at Fabric Traders -- the website is www.fabrictraders.ca

You get store credit in exchange for what you bring in, good for up to a year. Of course that is like those packets of chocolate cookies that say "Best before July 27, 2012 at 7:54 p.m." Does anyone ever put it to the test?

I used my whole credit yesterday and these are two of the fabrics I picked. The one on the right has a thin line of gold in the black, which doesn't show up too well on the scan. BUT if you click for an enlarged image it does show up. I also found a heavy cotton with rattan print, one with a tiny pattern like a parquet floor in soft yellow, blue, and red, and a fat quarter with teddy bears on it.

The bears will be going into a flapbook I'm working on for my grandson. Everything else has a geometric/woven/baskety look to it. This was a huge look in the late 70's and I think it's coming back.

And it's satisfying to think that some of the old, old stuff is gone. Some was conversation prints of the "What was I thinking?" sort, others were calico prints and paisleys. I like paisley but I think I've looked at those particular fabrics for too long, and it's not really in line with what I'm doing now.

Meet Mr. Kitty

This is a tiny (about 5 -1/2" each way)
hand puppet for my grandson, about to turn the big 01!

It's felted wool dyed in Color Hues. The features are inked on with a trust Pigma pen. Not only is it fast, it also poses no choking hazards.

I win a doorcrasher prize!

Well, not exactly, I didn't camp out in front of a store all night or anything, but Quinn McDonald was offering five free creativity coaching sessions and I was one of the lucky first five to respond.

Her page is at http://quinncreative.com

and her newsletters are always a good read.

Will post more about baraka a.k.a. fairy godmother later

Work on Display @ Discovery Cafe

Works on display at Discovery Cafe, 6 Discovery Street, Victoria (how's that for a cool address!)

They will be up for another week or so. The staff were so friendly and helpful and did all the climbing on ladders, thankfully sparing me, thanks Kathleen!

Clockwise from top left: Hundertwasser Light, Purple Millenium, and Ballerina, my newest piece. The bottom is intentionally not parallel with the top, this is not just the angle of the photo.

Marbling - quick and dirty

This is a piece of silk I marbled in a Color Hues session at Satin Moon. Color Hues is a new dye product developed by a Seattle woman. It dyes protein based fabrics, i.e. silk and wool but not cotton (although my dyeing t-shirt kept some splashes!) It is very easy to use and the fabric seems to suck the colour out of the water, unlike Procion dyes where you can rinse and rinse and see wonderful bright colour running down the drain. Also no need to heat set and no powdery chemicals so safer to use in a home setting.

Does blogging about being productive count as BEING productive? If so I could add a half hour onto my time for today.

1. Day one: 4 hours 15 minutes
2. Day two: (today) 5 hours 40 minutes

And spent more time painting color swatches for my next piece - yesterday I used EZ-TintZ and watercolor crayon pencils to get close to what I thought I wanted to do, and today I took that swatch to Michael's to buy acrylics in the colors I picked. Still need to get freezer paper and get a template enlarged -- the printer here won't take a big enough piece of paper so I'll have to go to Staples I guess.

Resolution / Time Management

Taking stock of last year, which in some ways seems like an amnesiac blur, I decided that my slogan/watchword for 2009 is to be

The Time Is Now!!!

and I had what seems like a flash of inspiration, to define productivity as work/art and aim at 8 productive hours per day. Deadlines will doubtless continue to define which takes precedence at any given moment, as well as that annoying need to eat and finance my art habit, but hopefully this will take away the guilt about doing art and help me define it to myself as a serious pursuit.

The photo shows fabric discharged with a powerful fresh bleach pen, from the workshop.

Dyeing Workshop

No longer having a place at home where I can be messy (and I am!) I took a workshop at Satin Moon with Susan Purney Marks where we had days to dye fabrics and permission to be experimental.

Resolution even though it's not New Year

woah Nelly!

I can't believe it's been so long since I blogged, and a lot has happened personally and artistically.

Now I've relocated I need to post more pix of my work.

My resolutions ought to give me pause too, because needless to say I didn't keep up with them ... just showing up and doing SOMETHING is so important and I need to stay focused and not be sidetracked and constrained by circumstances or things will never get done.