Labikeet Colors

We are revealing our newest round of 12x12 inch quilts over on Twelve by 12 today!  This time, our color theme was "Lorikeet colors."  Brenda, who lives in Australia, sees these bright birds in her yard all of the time (I've only seen them at the zoo!) and was inspired by their lively colors to choose this palette and see what we'd all do with it.  I love that this challenge involves all of us sharing some of the color in her daily life.    If you've not seen a lorikeet, here's what one looks like.  Imagine, having these fly about your backyard!

I love bright fabrics, and I have lots of brights in my fabric stash.  So my difficulty in approaching the challenge wasn't the color palette, but how to use them.  I have such a literal brain that I kept getting stuck on lorikeets!  I sure looked at a lot of pictures of them!

Coincidentally, I had just gotten Susan Carlson's new book Serendipity Quilts.  In this new book, she's refined the free cutting fabric collage technique from her earlier book (remember all those great fish?) and I was eager to work a bit with that technique.

At some point as I was looking at lorikeets and their colors for inspiration, I started thinking about how funny it would look if other ordinary animals had these flashy markings.  That thought amused me and it was an easy jump to imagine my lab/weimaraner mix Gemma as a "labikeet"!

To accomplish that, I started with a photo of Gemma that I thought had enough profile to allow me to show the colorful markings.  Using that as my guide, I made a muslin base which I marked up with sharpie markers to show where I wanted the colors to go.

Using that as the base, I placed fabric pieces almost mosaic-style to create her markings and (trying to) create the shadows and highlights.  Carlson's technique involves gluing the pieces down loosely using a glue stick or other flexible glue, and then trapping everything under a layer of tulle before stitching.  To be honest, I found that sort of fiddly, as the little bits wanted to move around.  I guess I was too light-handed with the glue!  I'd be inclined to work with fusible next time -- although fusing the WonderUnder to the fabric is a step that takes some time, and this process allows you to jump right in with even tiny scraps that you happen to have lying around, the ease of working with un-adhered bits vs ones you can fuse in place makes the advance work worth it in the end, I think.

I made a heck of a mess while I was doing this -- fabric everywhere!  The quilting was great fun at the end, and then I finished this with a simple facing.

Gemma is now "Labikeet!"

Be sure to hop over to the Twelve by 12 blog to see what the other 11 in the group did!  You won't be disappointed!

Colorful Life

Terry's post today about choosing paints and colors made me think about a new TV commercial that Sherwin Williams is airing. It utterly charms me.



Makes you want to go get some paint strips, doesn't it?

Happy Yarn

Oh dear. I came across this blog and now I have a severe urge to make Granny Bunting.

Women's Equality Day

Today is Women's Equality Day!

The California Commission on the Status of Women joins the Nation in celebrating the 90th Anniversary of Women’s Equality Day. Each year Women's Equality Day is celebrated on August 26th to commemorate the 1920 passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, granting women the right to vote. Congress designated this date in 1971 to honor women's continuing efforts toward full equality. Spearheading the effort was U.S. Representative Bella Abzug (D-NY).

Women winning the right to vote was the culmination of a massive, peaceful civil rights movement by women that had its formal beginnings in 1848 at the world’s first women’s rights convention, in Seneca Falls, New York. In addition to celebrating the voting rights of American women, Women’s Equality Day also symbolizes the continued fight for equality, justice, peace, and development for women from various nationalities, ethnicities, cultures, religions, economic and political backgrounds.

The Commission on the Status of Women encourages you to celebrate and reaffirm women’s right to vote – and honor the heroic suffrage movement that won that right for all women - by making sure you are registered to vote in your next election, and then by going out to vote!

Photowalk in San Diego

When we were in San Diego a few weeks ago, my friend Mel and I found ourselves in a lovely neighborhood of craftsman-style cottages.  We started talking about how we wished we'd brought our cameras, and then it occurred to us that we could dash home, grab our cameras, and have a photography walk through the neighborhood!  We spent a lovely few hours strolling around taking pictures.  Here are some of the photos I took that afternoon:

Troubled and Puzzled

 Warning: political views ahead.

I just do not get the controversy about Americans building an Islamic community center on private property in New York City.  I understand that certain bigoted and politically-motivated people want to stir up a frenzy about it.  But objecting to building a private religious institution on private property – even if it is near Ground Zero – seems fundamentally anti-American to me.  I’ve read what people have to say about it, and I’ve certainly heard a lot of commentary about it on tv and radio, but I still can’t see the objections to the mosque as anything but reflecting ignorance and religious prejudice.

I thought that, despite a lot of original misinformation, it’s pretty clear now that Al Qaeda was responsible for the bombing of the Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001.  The attacks weren’t the acts of muslims following well-accepted and mainstream tenets of their religion; they were made by radical fundamentalists who were motivated by sheer hatred and the desire to inflict damage on the US in return for American’s military actions in their corner of the world.   Even George W. Bush (and lord knows I don’t agree with much from him) noted after 9/11 that it is important to distinguish between radicals committing criminal violent acts and people who happen to be Muslims practicing their faith in a peaceful way.

So why is it offensive or inappropriate or insensitive to build an Islamic cultural center in lower Manhattan?  Don’t we preach freedom of religion, and rebuke other countries when their governments oppress minority religious groups?  Don’t we want to encourage the peaceful understanding of Islamic culture and the muslim religion?  Wasn’t our country founded, in part, on the desire for citizens to be able to worship when, where, and how they choose without oppression from others?  

If having an Islamic community center is somehow inappropriate, then wouldn’t it be similarly inappropriate for Southern Baptist churches to exist in communities with large African-American populations?  The Ku Klux Klan is largely made up of Southern Baptist extremists – so shouldn’t those same folks objecting to the Islamic cultural center in NYC also be concerned at how “insensitive” and “inappropriate” the presence of Southern Baptist churches would be to the black communities around them?

What about the religious fundamentalists who, following their religious beliefs, zealously promote their anti-abortion stance by bombing health clinics and killing doctors?  Should their religious institutions be banned from communities housing doctors and health clinics?

Of course these are ridiculous arguments.  The Baptist religion isn’t responsible for the offensive and often criminal acts of the KKK, just Christian churches can’t be blamed when fundamentalist zealots use their Christian beliefs and biblical interpretations as the reason to kill medical workers.  There are masses of peaceful Southern Baptists, just as there are huge numbers of peaceful people who decry abortion and even based their views on their religious beliefs, but we don't shun them or run them out of communities for the actions of the few crazed criminals who use their beliefs to justify their crimes.

So why is it conceivable to target peaceful muslim Americans and followers of Islam by running them off of a piece of real estate in Manhattan?  It shouldn’t be.  To me it seems  wrong, and ignorant, and deplorable.  That bias flies in the face of the religious tolerance and liberty on which our country was based.  Thomas Jefferson’s words address this:  “From the dissensions among Sects themselves arise necessarily a right of choosing and necessity of deliberating to which we will conform. But if we choose for ourselves, we must allow others to choose also, and so reciprocally, this establishes religious liberty." (Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Religion, 1776. Papers 1:545). 

If there’s a place where a peaceful Islamic cultural center is needed, maybe it’s precisely near the World Trade Center site, so certain people’s misunderstanding about the role of Islam in that national tragedy can be rectified, and the religious rights of peaceful muslim Americans can be respected and honored.

Tahoe Torpor

I am just back from a last-minute trip to Lake Tahoe.  My sister-in-law has a house there, which we visit a few times a year for our breathe-the-amazing-pine-scented-Tahoe-air fix.  Last week, my SIL called and was going to be there alone unexpectedly, so she invited me to join her.  R was getting ready to start school, and Miss C, just having returned from a week in San Diego, was not willing to abandon her cat and friends for another week away.  So, I zipped up my suitcase without unpacking it from San Diego, threw it into the back of the car, and away I went.

I wasn't joking about the incomparable Tahoe air.  There is a scent there that causes my blood pressure to drop and my whole body to flood with a sense of relaxed well-being.  My favorite time of day in Tahoe is early in the morning.  I make coffee, and I sit outside on the back deck in the silence... well, it's not silent for the twittering birds and jabbering blue jays and squirrels skittering across tree branches.  But it's peaceful and sitting out to sip coffee and read my book is the ultimate vacation heaven.  Here's one of my early morning companions:

My SIL Diane and I had a very nice time for all of 24 hours, and then she got a call from home requiring her departure...so there I was all alone.  Usually, we're up there with a full family contingent, so it was distinctly strange to be up there all by myself -- no people, no dogs to keep me company.  Thank goodness I had overpacked my "fun supplies" to a ridiculous extent, so I had my laptop, my Kindle loaded with great reading, a basket full of home-schooling materials with which I planned to organize lesson plans, several magazines, watercolor painting supplies, and my Nintendo DS for game-play.  I made good use of all  of those supplies.

Oh, but before I forget, I had some fun time with Diane's new puppy Cassidy, a rambunctious golden retriever.

One day, I did something I've been wanting to do for ages: I hopped in the car and set off to drive around the entire lake.  Someone told me that if you drive straight along without stopping, it's a 2 1/2 hour trip.  Me, I stopped whenever I felt like it.  One of the most interesting stops was at a gorgeous old mansion right on the edge of the lake.  It's Ehrman Mansion, in a state park, where the grounds and beach and even the house are open to the public for a glimpse of what it would have been like to be up there in the early 1900's.  It was a lovely setting.  I took this shot from the wide, old porch of the house -- it was one of those places I'd love to just sit for a day or three.

Of course I found a quilt shop along the way, Quilting Tahoe, and had a fun time perusing the wares there.  I stumbled onto an arts and crafts festival, and wandered around there for an hour or so.  When I crossed into Nevada (those of you non-Westerners may not know that Lake Tahoe straddles the line between California and Nevada so part of the shoreline is in California and part is in Nevada) I couldn't resist stopping at a casino (Montbleu! So elegant sounding!) where I lost a few dollars but had fun anyway. I even wound through the area of Tahoe my family vacationed in when I was a little kid, and going through there always brings back memories of feeling sunburned and reading Dennis the Menace comic books and licking drippy ice cream cones.

At the end of the week, my BFF Beth arrived to play with me.  As we were getting ready to head out for a hike, we realized it was raining!  Quite unexpected, and especially odd as the sky was predominantly blue!  (It is oddly disconcerting to be standing out in the rain and looking up at blue sky.  Someone there said it's something to do with the mountain effect and coolness somewhere and warmth somewhere else...but whatever the reason, it's weird.)  So, we stayed inside and tried to remind ourselves how to play cribbage.  Hardly exciting, but we had a grand old time.

So that was my last-hurrah vacation, and I have come home to the realities of legal work to get done, school to get started, and all the stuff that goes along with real day to day life.  It feels great to be home... but I do miss those quiet piney mornings...

San Diego

Ah, the summer sunshine of San Diego... We are back from a fun and relaxing time with long-time friends.  Lots of laughter, beach, shopping, and silliness.... the perfect end to summer vacation.  Our very fun times included:

Visiting the San Diego Museum of Photographic Arts and seeing the exhibit of rock and roll photographs curated by Graham Nash

Concocting lemon drop martinis to sip out on the deck

Touring the SAQA exhibit "Transformations: Reflections" at the Quilt Visions gallery

Enjoying a delicious dinner at the Third Corner bistro and wine shop, where we dined among stacks of wine crates

Shoe shopping at Nordstrom in search of just the right flat shoes

Watching episodes of The Choir and Rachel Maddow late at night in our jammies

Eating fish tacos in Ocean Beach

and lots of just hanging out to talk and laugh.  Perfect.  Just Perfect.


So today is about unpacking and doing laundry and sorting out school books.  Boxes of homeschool materials arrived in our absence and I am looking forward to diving in.  (I may be the only one who is, however.)

Summer Scattered

I'm feeling more scattered than usual today, so here's a random assortment of thoughts rolling around in my head:

R and I are celebrating our 17th anniversary today.  Hardly seems like that many years!  We will celebrate in lavish style this week with a nice dinner out with friends in San Diego, but today is the actual day and we have had a lovely time.  Our celebration dinner tonight was take-out Chinese food.  Yum.

I am totally smitten with Gareth Malone.  You don't know him?  Check out BBC America's show "The Choir," in which a young and charmingly enthusiastic choir master sets out to bring choral singing to some of Britain's low-income comprehensive schools.  It's entertaining and fascinating and actually uplifting.    

Aren't puppies the best?  Our nextdoor neighbors have a brand new puppy, a cattle-dog mix from a rescue organization, and she is adorable.  Floppy ears, loose wobbly tail, black freckles on her white muzzle...just adorable.  Makes me want another dog, much to R's chagrin.  Gemma would love it, though.

Miss C and I have had some lovely time this weekend playing with our Nintendo DS's together...Pokemon HeartGold and Pokemon SoulSilver to be precise. Yes, I'm a cool mom with my own Nintendo and an understanding of what makes Pokemon so interesting.  It really is very multi-leveled and amusing.  (I've been wondering whether I can find an original version in Japanese so Miss C can play for Japanese language practice.  Hmmm.)  I'm glad to report that the Nintendo developers must be aging because they've made the new version with a much bigger screen and much clearer visibility.

I just finished a lovely lovely novel, called The Summer We Read Gatsby by Danielle Ganek.  Wonderful reading, makes me want to read The Great Gatsby again.  I loved that book.

We are thinking sad and loving thoughts for our dear friends Diane, Eric and Abby this week as they have had to say goodbye to their beautiful yellow lab Molly.  They are the dog-lovingest family I know, and Molly had a wonderful life with them.  I know she is romping in a big field in dog heaven.

We are packing to head off on a trip to San Diego for a few days.  Another reason I prefer car travel to air travel?  You can take as many pairs of shoes as you like, and then some.  Deciding which shoes to bring is always the hardest.  I have reduced my assortment to 3 pair but I am planning on a shopping excursion to get those perfect flats I don't yet own.

I told you...Random.  Here's hoping the week ahead is full of summery fun for all!  (By the way, if you have applied to the Artful Quilters Blog Ring just lately, I won't be around to deal with it so don't worry.  I'll catch up when I'm back.)

The Walt Disney Family Museum

I have been meaning to write about our visit to the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco a few weeks ago.  This is a rather new museum (opened in October, 2009) and it's located in the Presidio, a former military facility right on the San Francisco bay that is now a national park.  (See in the sign picture above, you can see that you are right near the Golden Gate Bridge.)

We'd read a fair amount about the museum as it was being built.  People worried that the Disney cute thing would invade and destroy the historical look and feel of the Presidio.  But the foundation that built the museum did a beautiful job, simply refurbishing the existing building and making it a seamless part of the area.  It's so discrete that it's almost easy to miss.

Why San Francisco, you ask?  Apparently Walt Disney's daughter Diane lives in San Francisco, and she felt that the SF bay area has become the center of cutting edge animation, what with George Lucas's Industrial Light and Magic and Pixar here already.  I suspect she wanted to separate the man from the whole Disneyland/MickeyMouse thing in Southern California, too.

At any rate, the museum was wonderful.  It followed Walt Disney's life and explains and demonstrates his influence on animation, movies, television, the theme park industry, and popular culture.  What's amazing to realize is that Walt Disney had already made industry-changing inventions and innovations in animation before Disneyland's ground was even broken.

Don't think this will be a dry museum -- which is, I guess, sort of what I expected.  It's done with the usual Disney style panache -- lots of imagery and animations and exhibits that are visually stunning and absorbing.  There is something for everyone, whether you're the sort who likes to read the detailed placards or whether you just like to look at things in exhibit cases.  We found it engrossing.

Photography wasn't allowed in the main part of the museum, but I couldn't resist taking a picture of the floor in one area.  I'd love that in my house!

Even the bathroom was delightful.

A small word of caution: this is not a park for tiny kids, nor is it geared toward people or kids expecting a mini-Disneyland.  There are no rides.  But there are fun things to see, cartoons and animations to watch, and any school-aged child would be entertained there.  I highly recommend visiting it if you are in the area.

Up Close

I love roaming the garden with the macro lens on my camera.  It's a whole new perspective on life.

Stripping

I've been having fun sewing these strip sets together for a new project.  I've had a pattern for a quilt called Charmed Circles (designed by A Graceful Stitch) for some time, and I decided to get to work on it.  You know, new sewing machine, new quilt!

There are times when simple piecing feels so meditative and relaxing.  I've enjoyed the "stripping."  But there is something sort of funny about sewing all the pieces together, and then having to cut them apart again into pumpkin seed shapes.

I wanted meditative and not complex -- so here I am, using a plastic template, tracing in pencil, and cutting with scissors.  I'll be so relaxed I'll be catatonic.

Charming

I've mentioned here before that I've been playing with small quilts that incorporate old photographs.  In part, that is due to family matters presenting me with scads of old photos... and in part, it's because just when the pictures presented themselves to me I was charged with the task of identifying a series I wanted to explore this year in my Practical Design Workshop.  In January, when it came time to designate what my series would be, I didn't want to take on any big series idea.  And the idea of making a small quilt each month as a) my series work and b) an ongoing exploration of how to transfer photos to fabric and use them in a whimsical, non-sentimental way in quilts fit my mood.

My July project involved a photo I fell in love with. 

As I was sorting through a box of photos from my recently deceased mother-in-law, I came across this near the top.  It's my husband's brother Ron when he was about 10 years old.  Their next door neighbor was a professional photographer who did photos for catalogs and magazines, and apparently he enlisted Roger's family members as models from time to time.  This one?  Who knows what the point was -- selling the air-filled plastic snake?

In any event, it needed to be a quilt.  So, here's my piece for this month, titled "Charmer":

It's about 14" x 16".  I had a great time making it.  I printed the photo onto fabric with my inkjet printer, and added color with colored pencils.  I was happy to find the green snakeskin-like fabric in my stash.  I used Markal painstiks to stencil the word "Charmer" onto the background fabric, and then I added square spirals from a stamped I carved.

Here's a detail shot:

I inset a flange of the green fabric -- it needed the inner border to my eye and I liked the raised texture of the flap.  The dense stipple quilting gives a snaky texture to the background, too.

All in all, a fun project.  It's heading off to Ron for his birthday -- I wouldn't be surprised if he has totally forgotten he ever posed for this picture.

Rare Burst of Gardening

I am a sporadic gardener, at best.  I like the IDEA of gardening.  Better, I like being in a well-tended and colorful garden.  When we moved into our house, I was excited about having a garden I could make just the way I wanted it.  And then I discovered the frustration of soil that is more clay and rocks than actual dirt.  Over the years, my enthusiasm for working in the yard has, shall we say, waned.

But every once in a while the urge strikes.  It tends to take the right weather (summery but cool), a day or two when I don't have anything pressing, and the energetic desire to get something done.  And it hit me this week, so I've spent a lot of time out in the garden.  I've not done anything huge, but the improvements are significant.  I'm quite pleased with myself.

First, I rounded up all of the clay flower pots, headed off to the nursery, and came back and potted flowers.

Very satisfying!  Then, having thought that hanging flowers would look nice, I trotted back to the hardware store for brackets and more pots and more flowers.

Ooh, pretty!  Very colorful together!

Now the patio looks rather inviting, if I do say so myself.

Lots of pots!  Four hanging flowerpots!  And comfy chairs for lounging and reading!  The concrete is newly painted, too -- last week's project -- so it all looks fresh.

I spent a day doing serious work on what had been an abandoned flower bed -- turning the soil, adding amendment, starting to plant... It's still in progress (you can see it behind the clump of flower pots there on the left) but I'm very satisfied by how far I got.  I've got to add more flowers and dig up some wooly lambs' ear from the hugely overgrown patch there on the right, to add for the border... But it's well on its way. 

As soon as my back stops aching, I'll be back out there.

Artful Bloggers Ring Moving -- Follow us!

 
Remember the Artful Quilters Blog Ring?

Many of you are members, or were members.  Back when I started blogging, the only other blogging artquilter I knew was Melody Johnson.  We agreed to read each others' blogs, so even if no one else ever found us, we'd be guaranteed of an audience!  Still, as much fun as it was reading Melody's blog, I wondered about the other quilt artists out there... and that led me to start the Artful Quilters Blog Ring, and what an amazing community it is.  I've made so many friends through the ring!

But you may have noticed that the ring host site, Ringsurf, changed its format, and I hate it.  Many of you dislike it too, I know, from your comments to me.  So, in the spirit of a healthy change:

The Artful Quilters Blog Ring is MOVING!  

If you are already a member of the ring, here is what you need to do to move your blog into the new ring:  


1.  Click here to go to submit your blog to the new ring host, alt-webring.com.  You will be asked to provide info about your blog, and you will be asked to create a site id and password for your own site.  (This does not have to be the same as anything you had on ringsurf.  Create an ID name and password you'll remember in case you need to go in and change the site's details for the ring.) Click "submit."
2.   Once you have submitted your blog, you will get a confirmation screen that instructs you on adding the ring code to your blog.  Click on the "Get Code" button in the lefthand sidebar.  That will give you the HTML code for the ring box. Copy the code, go into your blog's code, and insert the code somewhere it will be visible to your blog readers.
3.  Your blog will appear on the ring as soon as I activate it.   

If you are not a member but would like to join, please read the rules below to make sure your blog suits the ring.  If so, we're happy to have you join.  Follow the two steps above. 


Here are the ring rules:

1. The ring is intended for blogs that focus primarily on art and contemporary quilting.  While we enjoy traditional quilts, this ring is not for blogs about traditional quilting.  Your blog can be about other things, too; it's fun to read about what else you are doing in your life.  But if a reader finds your blog and can't tell that you make art or contemporary quilts, then this is not the ring for you.  As a rough guideline, your blog should have some quilt-related content once a month or more.  
2. The blog needs to be regularly updated. Any blogs not updated at least once a month will be moved to the queue. If you have not updated in over three months your site will be removed from the ring. You are welcome to re-join the ring if /when you start posting again. I understand that real life can and does get in the way of blogging, so there is no judgment implied if your blog is moved.  It's just that people stop using the ring if they repeatedly travel to blogs with stale entries.
3. You must include the ring code on the face page of your blog, so that visitors can surf to the blogs of other members more easily. After all, that's the whole point of this ring. At a minimum, the ring code must include a link to the ring's home and the Next and Previous links. Anyone who has not added the code to their site within two weeks of application will be removed from the ring. If you have trouble finding the current ring code, email me at dphock(at)comcast(dot)net and I will help you.
4. This is NOT a commercial site.  This ring is not for commercial sites, general quilt-gallery websites, or other non-blog websites. If your blog is merely a listing of items for sale or advertisement for your shop, this blog ring is not for you. You are welcome to sell things on/through your blog, but for this ring, I ask that your blog have content which is largely non-commercial.
5. You must have at least 5 entries on a new blog (some of which must be about art or contemporary quilting) in order to join.

See you at our new home!

Quiet Time

Listen, can you hear that?

It's quiet.  Very quiet.  I'm here alone in the house, except for a dog who pads around the house after me and two cats who can be found napping in various comfy spots.  Husband and daughter have gone off to Lake Tahoe for the annual stay with R's siblings.  This year, due to work deadlines and a severe need for some time at home alone to just get things done, I've stayed here.

It's not like my little family is rowdy or constantly blaring noise.  But I am so struck by the silence, and how it makes the day stretch out in a lovely, empty way.  I've been getting up early, taking care of the dog and cat needs, and then sitting outside on the patio for a bit with my coffee and a magazine or a book.  Then I discipline myself and head upstairs to work for a few hours.  By lunchtime, I figure I've paid my work dues and I can play.  Or nap.  Or do whatever I darn well please.

I spent one happy afternoon gathering up all of the terra cotta pots I could find around the yard, then  headed off to the nursery and picked out flowers.  In the early evening, I planted flowers and scattered the pots around the patio -- so nice to have some fresh color!  I've watched a silly movie (Leap Year with Amy Adams, which was so-so and predictable but a pleasant accompaniment to sitting and cutting pretty pictures out of magazines.)  I've organized my work files.  I've sorted out some books to donate for the library book sale, and several bags of stuff for the Salvation Army.  Amazing what I can accomplish when there are no interruptions. 

I've made luscious salads for dinner each night, enjoying the freedom to eat when I feel hungry and without worrying about family dinner.  It's funny -- I love having dinner with R and C, and our having dinner together each night is an important family time for all of us -- but it's so nice to have the change.  I can eat while reading, or watching Rachel Maddow, or just sitting outside while watching the hummingbirds at the feeder.

This afternoon might involve some sewing, a new art quilt project in the works.  We'll see.  I'm commitment-free this week, even with myself.

Ta Dah!

Over the last few days, I have undertaken a gargantuan task.  I have rearranged and reorganized my office/studio. 

The hugeness of this job is in direct proportion to the smallness of the room and the vast quantity of stuff I have in there.  It's a 10' by 12' standard bedroom ... not the tiniest studio I've ever seen, but given all the work I do in here and the supplies I have on hand, it's a space that presents a challenge.  The space has worked reasonably well over the 9 years we've lived in the house.  But the way I use the space has changed considerably.  Back then, I worked 20-30 hours a week at my desk, and my sewing machine in the corner was something I used from time to time.  Just having it up full time, in a space where I could close the door and hide the mess, was a luxury.  But these days I'm working far less at my desk, and making art in some fashion or another almost every day.  I not only needed a sewing space --- I needed a work table area where I could spread out and arrange fabrics or fuse stuff or paint or whatever.

So, while I would have liked to knock out a wall or two, or add a lovely Koala cabinet with oodles of storage, or even buy a house with a detached but massive studio, I limited myself to what I could change THIS WEEK, and I rearranged the furniture.  And it actually is an improvement.

I have now dedicated a table (which used to hold a cd player and cds and generally be a catch-all for miscellaneous papers) to the sewing machine.  I pulled a rolling cart out of the garage and it contains threads.  At the Container Store (oh, how I love the Container Store) I found the red metal mini-file drawer thingie, which holds scissors and rotary cutters and supplies, and I got the mini Elfa cart to hold projects in progress so that I could roll them out of the way under the table when I'm not actually working.

This leaves my wonderful office table (which used to be the sewing machine-work table) for spreading out and doing STUFF.  My goal is to keep it clear when I'm not actively working on something.  Hah.  We'll see how that works.  The Container Store also provided the pretty turquoise woven plastic bin, to hold more works in progress and stuff in transit.  (You know how there is always that stuff -- to do something with, to put away later, to remember to give to someone....)   I love this table -- especially how the rounded edges mean that I don't bang my thighs as I move around the room.  It'd be perfect if it were about 6 to 8 inches higher, and maybe one of these days I'll rig it so it is higher -- but for now I'm happy to have the work space.

And here is the desk area.  I like that I've segregated my work area and I still have the lateral files right handy for work purposes.  The downside of this arrangement is that when I sit at my desk, I look straight down the hall into Miss C's bedroom.  As she comes out of her room, I feel like I should say "Can I help you?"  So it's a little insurance-officey, but a small price to pay for getting the open work table.

There's a lot of visual clutter in this room.  I KNOW that, being in here, but it's even more apparent seeing the room in photos.  I may have to take some things down.  Hmmm.  I love the visual inspiration, but maybe it's part of what makes the room feel smaller?  Something to consider.

No wonder my back is sore.  All this tidiness makes me want to get to work on a project -- to mess it all up right away!

Ready for the Fun

I've been continuing in my exploration of using photos in quilts, and this is the most recent in the series.  That photo is me, at maybe age  2 or 3, somewhere in there.  (Looks like it was taken right before a birthday party or some such event.)  I was experimenting with inkjet transfer and for some reason when I transferred a black and white photo onto a pale lavender fabric, got an image that was a lovely shade of blue.

The background fabric is one I painted ages and ages ago, and then I fused organza on and added stitching.  It was a very fun process.

I'm looking forward to playing more with inket transfers... looks like many wonderful effects can result.

Good Reading Alert: The Forgery of Venus

If you're looking for some good summer reading, you might check out this novel: The Forgery of Venus: A Novel by Michael Gruber.  I finished it recently, and found it one of the most interesting novels I've read in a long time.

On the surface, it tells the story of a talented painter who is working as a commercial artist when he is approached with a proposal to restore an old master painting on the damaged ceiling of a Venetian palazzo.  The money is good, the painter needs money, and he's always felt that his talent belongs in an earlier century.  As the story unfolds, the painter starts to question his sanity.  Is he truly crazy? Or is he being manipulated for nefarious purposes?  There is much fascinating reflection on art and painting and history in this -- and lots of twists and turns that leave you uncertain about what will happen next.  Gruber's a very talented writer, and there is a lot of depth to this.

If you're looking for something a little different, a mystery/thriller that goes a little deeper than the typical book, then you might give this a try.  I enjoyed it enormously.

The Newest Addition to the Studio

Some months ago, I started thinking that it might be time to get a new sewing machine.  At the quilting retreat I went to in April, I cruised the room to see what my friends were using, and I even tried out a few machines.  The machine I use for most sewing is an older Bernina, and I didn't realize until I sat down at my friend Pat's Pfaff Creative Expressions machine how far sewing machines have come in recent years.  That got me thinking, and I set out on a research mission.

Gosh, the internet gives us so much access to information.  An overwhelming amount, actually.  Between manufacturer's websites, and blogs with folks raving (or complaining) about their machines, and yahoo groups where machine owners collect to share information and tips and problems, one can explore the subject for a long time!  I finally decided the thing to do was to go out and test some machines.

So off I went to a few dealers in my area, to explore the major brands and see how they felt.  It's also amazing to me how different machines can feel, too.  I guess it's like test driving cars -- on paper they can sound quite similar, but you have to feel them to decide what feels right for you.  I tried Janomes and Pfaffs and Husqvarna Vikings. 

At an area Bernina dealer, I couldn't help looking at the newest of the Bernina lines, the 830 and 820. They're made, I guess, to be the machines that'll do most everything.  They have a huge throat (12"), an extra large bobbin, one has embroidery capacity but both have tons of built-in stitches... and when the saleswoman invited me to give it a try, I sat down knowing I'd never in a million years buy a machine in that price range. 
It's like test driving a Lexus when you're shopping for a midpriced minivan.  Right off, I set myself up for difficult comparisons in later shopping.  Yes, I loved the Berninas.  No question.

But I kept looking, and kept researching, and kept weighing pros and cons, and kept assessing what machines seemed to have which ongoing issues.  As I started following the discussions on various yahoo groups, I was reminded that there is no one perfect machine.

And then an opportunity came out of left field at me.  I encountered a woman in the midwest, a total novice sewer, who was selling her Bernina 830.  Her husband had bought it for her to encourage a new interest in sewing, not realizing that this "computer that sews" is complex enough that it daunts the most experienced seamstresses and quilters.  The woman, Kay, was wildly overwhelmed and was discovering that she didn't enjoy trying to use it because it was too complicated.  She didn't like her local dealer and was unable to get help from them to her satisfaction.  So, in disgust, she put it up for sale at less than half of the retail price.

The short story is that she and I exchanged a lot of emails (with me thinking "this is just too good to be true") and we built in various contingencies for what happened if I identified any undisclosed problems once the machine arrived in California.  After much discussing and nail biting (and a phone call to a friend of a friend who has one of these 830s who told me I'd be insane not to jump on this opportunity), I bought the machine. Hugely exciting, but risky.  And, upon delivery, I did learn that there was an issue with the machine that needed fixing.  Aack.  Kay and I worked that out, I took the machine to my local dealer (Cal Sewing and Vac in San Rafael) where Sharon the Bernina expert and the rest of the staff were welcoming and incredibly helpful and totally willing to advise and help me even though I hadn't bought the machine from them.  The issue with the machine was an odd one which required a trip back to the factory (more nail biting and wondering whether I'd done the right thing) -- but the machine is home, has been cleansed and restored by the fairies at the Bernina Factory Spa, and has been thoroughly tested by Sharon, who assures me that it passed all of the most difficult sewing issues with flying colors.

So here is the new addition to my tiny studio:

I've been sewing on it this week and I am loving loving loving it.  It threads the needle for me!  It has a huge bobbin, holding almost twice as much thread as the typical bobbin, and the machine tells me when it is running low.  It lets me customize all sorts of settings.  The 830 will also embroider, which I've not tried yet -- not something I would have sought were I buying this directly from a store, but I'm thinking it'll be wonderful to have the option to explore some machine embroidery.

So the risky purchase has a happy ending and now sitting down to sew feels like a new adventure.  I feel the urge to make a BIG quilt just to take advantage of that big space on the machine.  I know from what I've read that it'll take me some time to learn this intricacies of this thing, but I'm armed with a thick manual, links to great tutorials online, and my guru Sharon.  Let the sewing begin!

Purple and Yellow together

Using complementary colors together can produce exciting effects -- and that was the seed of our challenge this round in our 12x12 "color play" challenge.  We were charged with using purple and yellow.  Click on over to the 12x2 blog: today is reveal day and it's wonderful to see what everyone did!

Me, I hemmed and hawed for a while as I wasn't coming up with any ideas right away. But eventually I started thinking about the simple #2 yellow pencil, and how much a part of my life it has been -- through school, required for tests, a new batch symbolic of the new school year, etc.  And that's what led to my piece.

What would you do if you had to use purple and yellow in a piece?

What If...

This week, I've been listening to legal education lectures to complete the continuing legal education credits I need annually to keep up my bar association membership.  Today I was listening to a really good program on intellectual property law for non-specialists while I was on a longish drive.  And while I was driving and listening, I was struck by how we lawyers have it deeply ingrained in us from the first day of law school to try to anticipate everything that might go wrong, and then work on planning how to avoid that.

It's that sort of cheerfully pessimistic thinking ("But what if the sellers try to back out of the deal? What if the product is defective? What if the person you hire absconds without doing the work?") that makes us lawyers so fun to be around.  We've gotten a lot of education and experience at imagining the bad side of "What if?"  And it's our professional obligation to anticipate those "what if's" and figure out how to avoid them. 

But it struck me today that the "what if" aspect of anticipating all of the things that could go wrong is not very far from the "what if I try X" creativity that so many quilt artists explore.  For a long time I have loved and followed Jude Hill's "What If" blog, where she explores some question with a bit of stitchy exploration.  It's probably the seed of creativity for a lot of ideas, wondering what would happen if we mixed those paints or combined those fabrics or tried to depict that image in fabric.

It is a more positive approach than the "what if the worst happens" that we lawyers go to automatically -- but I like to think that my "what if" training is helping me on the creative side, too.

* Photo: Neighbor cat bravely illustrating "What if I stick my paw into this hole?"

Self-portrait, with nap

Today was my Practical Design workshop, a monthly workshop that never fails to teach and inspire me.  Today, we showed the work we'd done on our year-long series, and then for the second half, we played with making quick collages.

We were told to do a 15-minute self-portrait -- or really, a portrait of us at the moment somehow -- and this is what resulted.  Go figure.  But it was fun.

On a totally unrelated note, I read this quote recently from Annie Lamott (said when giving a graduation speech): ""On my  last day on earth, I want to have taken a short nap and had dessert.  Since I don't know which day is my last, I can't take any chances."

Dad and the '49 Mercury

We're back from our various family adventures (Miss C at camp, R and me in SF) and we all had fun and are dragging ourselves around here with contented exhaustion.  It was good to get away and have some fun, and now it's good to be home.  I'll post on what we did later.

BUT... seeing as how quilt-related posts have been few and far between here lately, I thought I'd show you something I made a while back and gave to my dad last week for father's day.

I've been wanting to experiment some with different photo transfer methods.  And when I came across a great photo of my dad sitting on a beloved car (his 1949 Mercury, which he lovingly customized), I knew it'd be fun to play with.  When I asked my dad about what the car was -- because, to my dad, what the car IS is a vital piece of information -- he replied with the details about the car, and then went on to say that after my mom gave birth to my sister, he had to sell the car to get her out of the hospital and pay the bill!

So that was the seed of this little collage.  The picture below shows my mom holding up my sister Laura, who has a very funny tongue-sticking-out look on her face.  The text says "He traded the '49 Mercury Custom for the baby ... and never looked back."   My dad tells me he was wearing actual blue suede shoes, with a matching blue suede jacket.  Pretty cute guy, huh?  Not to mention a WONderful dad. 

This was a big hit for father's day and I was delighted.

It's a backpack, baby

Fourteen years ago, when Roger and I were preparing to travel to China to bring our baby daughter home, I looked far and wide for some practical travel diaper bag.  I finally settled on a wonderful black backpack from Eddie Bauer, with zillions of pockets, and it was perfect.  It looked like a backpack, so I didn't have to haul around a cutsie blue and pink bag with ducks and bunnies, and it held all of the requisite baby supplies PLUS all of the gear I'd have had in a purse.  It really was the ideal traveling bag.  (Eddie Bauer doesn't make it any more, and the one above is the closest picture I could find to what I carried.)

In the years since I carried that bag around China, it's doubled as the vacation bag to hold books and magazines and sketchbook on vacations.  It sits with me at the beach at Tahoe every summer.  And the dang things shows virtually no wear.  It's amazing.

I pulled it out of the closet today because Caroline has been packing for her first overnight summer camp, this coming week.  (She's headed off to a week-long camp to learn all about 3-D modeling for computer animation.)  She needed a pack she could carry around to hold her journal and her cell phone and her sketchbook and maybe a beach towel if they're going swimming.  She didn't want to bring a school backpack, and it occurred to me that "the China pack" is the ideal solution.  We've loaded it with her necessities, and it will be ideal.

So everything is perfect, except that Mommy is getting a little teary-eyed at the the thought of my BABY heading off for a week (her first time staying more than a night without mom and dad!), carrying the very bag we hauled around China to hold her diapers and bottles.  She's so grown up.  She'll be there with the other computer graphic obsessed kids, strolling around a university campus and learning new exciting things with other teens and even eating dinner without being burped afterwards.

Roger and I are taking the opportunity to have some kid (oops, I mean TEEN) free fun together with a list of things we've been wanting to do in San Francisco.  But I think the week will be harder on us than on her.  

All directions at once

I'm working on a list of things I'd like to get done, and I seem to be scattered in all directions, working on a bunch of different things at once.

But I thought I'd show you a fun project I ticked off the list.  For my City and Guilds course, I was required to make two box forms and decorate them -- one with lines and one with shapes.  I had a good time painting the papers and developing the patterning.  For the linear one, we were required to use wrapped string as the basis for the pattern -- a very interesting way of developing pattern and not one I'd have thought to use on my own.

There is something so pleasing about the chinese take-out carton shape, isn't there?  I love these little boxes so it was easy for me to choose this as the box shape to work on.  When I was creating the template and making these boxes, I was reminded that the very first time I ever took a watercolor painting class, the very first assignment was to draw and paint a chinese take out carton.  It was all about the shading, working with those angles and planes. 

It's still a pleasing form to me and I'm happy with how they turned out.  Gee, another place to store ribbon bits and empty spools and things!

That sound you don't hear

Shhhh.  Hear that?

That NOTHING sound?  That would be SILENCE.  And I've been basking in it for 24 solid hours.

Roger took Miss C off to the city (as in The City.  San Francisco.) to see Wicked (a second viewing for her, first for him) and to stay overnight.  Ever the thoughtful wife and mother, I encouraged them to stay as long as they wanted.  Another few nights even.  I'd manage here alone..... somehow.

I've been craving solitude.  What with C doing school at home for the last year and a half, and with Roger on school vacation for the summer now, I'm -- shall we say -- crazed.  And that's putting it nicely.  Not getting alone time makes me sort of cranky.

So what have I done?  I've finished THREE City and Guilds activities, which included creating painted papers, creating a box pattern, making two boxes, sketching and coloring an object to give a 3D look, drafting a 3d block design.  I prepared some dye paste base, mixed some dyes, and made a screen in preparation for a screen printing session.  I dyed a graduated batch of fabrics.  I sketched out two quilt designs.  I scanned some old family photos and experimented with inket transfers using inkjet transparencies and gel medium.  I watched a Jane Dunnewold DVD on screen printing.  I sat quietly (uninterrupted!) and leisurely read the newest issues of Studio magazine and Somerset Digital Studio.

And if that mini art-retreat time wasn't enough, I spent an hour sitting on the patio in the early morning with coffee and my current novel (A Tale of Two Sisters by Anna Maxted, quite good).  I blanched asparagus  and made lemon vinaigrette dressing for a fresh salad with field greens and toasted almonds, I made a batch of deviled eggs (Roger's favorite treat), and I did two loads of laundry.

It's amazing what I can do when I'm not interrupted. 

My family is now home, the dog is relaxed now that all of her pack is in sight again, and life is returning to normal.  I love my family -- but a day without them has done me a world of good.

Texture time

I've been working on a module of lessons on texture in my City and Guilds course (in which I make sporadic bursts of progress).  On a City and Guilds board on which I lurk, there has been a discussion about the value of pursuing these C&G courses, which has led to all sorts of people chiming in with the reasons they're doing it.  Me, I find that having assignments to focus on a specific aspect of art composition or fiber art technique does make me pay a bit more attention.  So, while I've been working away on these tasks that involve noticing and creating texture, I'm seeing texture ideas all around me. 

So, one task required me to collect images of interesting textures.  That's been very fun.  I've wandered around with my camera, taking pictures of things just for the texture. I've hunted through texture photos on flickr.com.  So many great textures, which leads to thinking about how to create them on fabric.

Another task involved making rubbings -- and isn't that always fun?  This was the bottom of a plastic strawberry basket.  I see good possibilities for that.

I have this very cool plastic sink protector with a pebble texture, and I used it for a rubbing with paintstiks and then a wash of dilute acrylic paint.  Fun!

But A+ for texture work goes to my friend Terry, who is making her own texture bases for rubbing.  Check out what she's done with lentils and hemp to create gorgeous patterns on fabric!  Makes me want to go dig around my cupboards to see what food I can glue to cardboard to make rubbing plates!