Visual Chronicles

Have been reading "Visual Chronicles" and working through some of the exercises, not very systematically.

This collage expresses how I feel today.

For a variety of reasons.

Now I'm thinking about the expression "Huis Clos" which is a legal term in French and was also the title of a Sartre play and I can't remember what it was called in English.

Considering energy and frustration levels it's amazing I can do anything remotely creative!

Better backgrounds are in the future...

I'm proud of the illuminated capital and the floaty moth like infinity symbol on the table created by playing around with twisted brush.

Visual Chronicles -- Life changing book!

I discovered this book by Linda Woods and Karen Dinino.

It's published byNorthlight Books in 2006

The full title is

Visual Chronicles: the no-fear guide to creating art journals, creative manifestos and altered books

They have a non-intimidating approach to art journals and show you how to break it down into little steps and that a journal doesn't have to be like a soap opera narrative. Nor does it necessarily have to be in a bound book. It could be in a box, or tied together with an elastic band or a ribbon.

The website is sistersonsojourn.com
and full of neat stuff from the book and teasers about the next one, due out September 2007.

There is an area with a Yahoo group, which of course I joined.

Find I am seeing things differently and perhaps this will give me an outlet for all the ephemera (aka JUNK according to some!) I accumulate so easily and can't bear to discard.

I now have a large sketchbook which is filling up with collage (mostly) artworks, and a box of index cards with prompts, colors, and notes about supplies.


The index cards aren't mentioned much in the book but I am the index card queen.

I have one old box full of housekeeping prompts from when we had a B&B, with chores detailed room by room, creative ideas (hmm I will have to revisit them, some of them must still be good), quotes from the Qu'ran, etc.

Then from my recent years in school there are thousands of cards with notes about medical terminology, spelling, trivia, steno outlines, etc. It's fun to pull out a random card and discover that the original topic bears some relevance to what I'm writing on it this time.

E.g. I found an ice blue card with

ANWR = Arctic National Wildlife Reserve

written on it, and the prompt I was jotting before it escaped was about the heat.

BTW we finally caved this aft and put the a/c on!

Eye Tiles

Now if I could just remember how to rotate pix.

Challenged myself to a random act of creativity every day for February. This is Feb 1.

Some may not be amenable to taking photos

Craft Book

Sewing Projects in an afternoon
Susan Mickey
Dewey: 646.2 M583S 2004
ISBN 1-4027-0644-8

pillows, purses, etc. including a reversible sling shoulder purse I want to try but don't have time for right now. I could see that coordinating with a caftan for a really sharp outfit!

Puddle!

Puddle!, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

I'm the annoying person that goes "Oooh, look at that puddle!"

But when you live in an area where rain showers are leading local news I guess it's excusable.

Etsy, etc.

Decided to open an Etsy store and try selling craft/art locally at craft fairs and see how that goes and what if anything sells.

Have been researching Etsy to see whose stuff sells and get some ideas. My craft idea will soon be revealed to the world and since this is a fun/business venture I don't feel it falls into the Use What You Have category, since some of the basics are just not in my stash!

Truly life is a spiral and every time I do something new in terms of hobbies or working, I always find I'm drawing upon previous experience which at the time it was being acquired seemed irrelevant. We are in control of our choices but Allah is really in control of the outcomes. So I believe in doing my best to make the right choices and then enjoy whatever happens.

temple_of_heaven

temple_of_heaven, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

Beewax collage made at Maria Lynam's workshop yesterday.

I now realize the Temple of Heaven in the postcard is the same as the picture on the green tea boxes that have been part of my surroundings for most of my adult life!

The postcard is actually a color photocopy. Also tissue paper, specialty yarn, oil pastels, and Chinese writing.

Having played around yesterday I now have a concept I want to try at the next workshop!

foiled fish

foiled fish, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

I realized I was only doing half of the Use What You Have Flickr group commitment, i.e. staying out of bars, er, fabric and craft stores.

But it is half way through the month and I need to actually make some stuff instead of just feeling virtuous that I was able to run into Michael's the other day to tell the cashier that the silk trees outside had blown over and not break stride but head straight for the exit.

Monday I sat and brainstormed, challenging myself to come up with at least 10 non quilting projects that I could do with the supplies I have on hand. I came up with 20-some. Do I want to do all of them? No, but that was not the point!

And I did this one -- now would like to make more but that would mean buying more soapdishes!

bluestar

bluestar, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

This is the first block I made for the Charity Quilts group on Flickr started by Luminous Honey.

It fits in the definition of Use What You Have.

It's so long since I made an Ohio Star and it took a long time to make.

Along came a spider ***

Along came a spider ***, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

Photo is blurry because this critter isn't very big. We think it's a brown recluse. Spider bites can lead to amputation or death so this makes up for the unrelenting near daily carnage our cats inflict on birds and geckos.

NOT THAT I WANT TO STOP ANYONE FROM MOVING To ARIZONA!

The Chameleon has spoken :-)

stash organizer

stash organizer, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

Had a stupiphany the other day!

The tote bag on the door is for fabric whose rightful home is in one of the bottom totes. Until I can get shelving this will have to do. Also I have a box of scraps for making string blocks and as I generate scraps by quilting, they get tossed into the tote until the end of the session.

Tribal pillow cover

Tribal pillow cover, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

This began life as a challenge to make a design using split complementary colors which are yellow, orange and blue.

The blue fabric was discharged with thiox to get the pink tones and white lines.

It is raw edge applique made by folding the fabric and cutting the same way you make paper snowflakes. I see a bird, a fish and figures from a totem pole, but I expect everyone sees their own thing.

Later I wanted to make a very vivid pillowcase to help me get used to carrying a lumbar cushion around with me so I enlarged it into a cushion cover and on the other side my phone number is written in indelible marker.

Early pillow cover

Early pillow cover, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

There's a whole story to this one.

When I made my first quilt it was in a class and I had no stash. Picking the fabric took forever because the teacher was helping me and giving me almost more guidance than I thought I wanted!

When I picked out the blue fabric with the yellow stars she didn't want me to. Most of the other fabrics I picked were tone-on-tone and she had urged me to pick out something with more than one color. But she didn't articulate the real reason not to pick the yellow stars, which was that there was no other yellow at all in the other fabrics. She just said "You're going to MAKE stars" because the Ohio Star block was in the quilt.

Anyway I made a Puss in the corner block, but when it came time to assemble the quilt she again stressed it would not be right for the rest of the quilt (she was right) So I bought more fabric in some other more suitable design/color, and then bought more of this and the tan basketwork fabric and a tan star fabric to make the backing of this.

King of Beasts

King of Beasts, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

There's a Gee's Bend flavor to this, the first quilt I designed myself. I am not, and never will be, a technician! The center is from an English t-shirt, much loved gift from Grandpa, which started falling apart.

I did not know about stablizer, I could only make the quilt fit by working with 2" squares. The blue L round the lion was how I evened the center up to be able to surround with the other squares. i had next to no stash. The blue is deconstructed thrifted capris my DXH made me buy to wear in Florida and the turquoise and yellow is a thrifted dirndl skirt from the 60s I would guess.

Made in 1998.

Part I -- Can't believe I never blogged this ...

... or perhaps I did on my old yahoo blog and never thought to re-post here.

These fabrics were used as prayer rugs at a family marriage contract. They were carefully chosen by a couple of criteria

(1) absolutely could not have any animals or people in the design

(2) had to have enough yardage to spread out flat on the floor and be a decent size

the fact that the resulting choices are quite international is a very happy coincidence!

The one on the left is stars, just stars, which have a universal significance ... at one point this was earmarked for a Blue African quilt -- there are yards and yards of this so even with using some on the back of the wedding quilt there will be leftovers.

The ikat on the right is from Laos. It's too heavy to use in the quilt so I hemmed the ends and presented it to the happy couple (one of whom actually knelt on it at the wedding prayers) as a prayer rug for continued use.

The two in the post below, Japanese and African, will go on the back of the quilt.

Can't believe I never blogged this

Real African fabric from Dakar, Senegal

Japanese inspired Kaufman

Spring colors

Spring colors, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

This is my color picks for March -- previous time I did this exercise was back in December.

I notice that except for the purple and orange, all the colors seem to be grayed down. Today I look at the yellow and I don't like it! yeck!

another yellow rule breaker

quilt VI, originally uploaded by bradrobinson.

Brad Robinson is another quilter who cheerfully ignores that stupid 7 percent rule.

Makes me want to hop a plane to Paris! perhaps they are decorating fabrics rather than quilting fabrics?

In England I was disappointed that the fabric is mostly the same as in the U.S. only more expensive, except for some plastic tablecloth yardage with wavy impressionistic Union Jacks on it -- heavy and space hogging in the suitcase so I never bought any.

It's wonderful to have a world culture but getting things that are unique to the place you visit gets increasingly challenging!

Spring stash

Spring stash, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

I'm in the Stash Sunday flickr group and last week's topic was spring.

The colors are off -- the green is much brighter and the fabric in the background is a custardy creamy yellow.

card

card, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

Did I write about this before?