Carving out some time for fun

On Friday, I went up to Bishop's Ranch for a play day with friends. It was the perfect day to be there -- the sky was a soft gray, rain was falling, and the air was full of the fresh scent of autumn. Our friend (and the ranch's artist in residence) Lisa Thorpe gave us a lesson on reduction stamp carving. So we brought our lunches and settled into the cozy art room to play with rubber and ink and paper.

Here's Lisa, demonstrating her carving technique.  We started by drawing, and then carving a simple shape in both positive and negative.

Then we printed, one on top of the other with different colors.

 It's trickier than you'd think, figuring out which lines should be on which stamp!  We all agreed that the ones that weren't registered had the best, wonky energy.

Then Lisa showed us the reduction carving.  She did a great article on this in the Sept/Oct issue of Cloth, Paper, Scissors, by the way.  She calls it stamping back to front, color by color.  So we started with carving little bits away, printing, and then carving more.  We experimented with one simple design, figuring out what to leave and what to cut away with each print.  Here's my final print, which had four layers stamped on it:

By the last layer, you've cut away most of your stamp -- so my remaining stamp looks like this:

Lisa, of course, has a lot of experience and has figured out just how much to leave to get those wonderful woodblock carving lines.  The answer -- as with a lot of art -- is to just keep doing it!

I also did a tiny nest stamp.

I really wish this had the background carved away with the positive egg and line shapes remaining... but that's probably harder to do.  And really, I didn't realize that until I printed what I had carved.

I brought my camera with me, and took the opportunity to take some pictures along the way.  I'm getting to know a new lens (Nikkor 50mm/1.8) and I'm determined to just keep it on the camera until I get better with it.  It has a VERY shallow depth of field to which I've not quite adjusted yet, which explains why there are so many out-of-focus parts in the following pictures!  But still, you get a sense of the day.

Here is Ancella, concentrating as she prepares to stamp a first layer.

Pat M was having a good time (sorry for the lack of focus there, Pat!)

Sydne works on her sketch...

I actually love this shot of Pat's hands as she carves, although I wish I'd adjusted things to get more in focus. This is one of "my other" Pats, as Miss C would say. I have two close friends named Pat and often do things with both together.  So in case you need to know, this is Pat D.

And of course, I had to shoot our tools...

 It was a very fun and relaxing day.  Lisa has done some great banners, stamping images on fabric and then stringing the pieces together artfully.  Well, Lisa does everything artfully. 

 It was a lovely way to spend a rainy day.

Houston, 2011 in pictures

I am still basking in the happy glow of my experience at the International Quilt Festival in Houston last week. It's impossible to explain how stimulating and inspiring it was -- but maybe these photos will give you a taste of it all!

Flashback to Birmingham, England

I am still catching up from Houston, but in the meantime I see that our exhibit from the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, England was recently featured on Ricky Tims' and Alex Anderson's "The Quilt Show."

Thanks to Pam Holland for interviewing us and featuring our quilts so beautifully! And just so you know, I did not do all of the talking that day ... Helen Conway had a lot to say but her witty words are on a digital cutting room floor somewhere.

Houston Adventure

I have spent the past four days at the International Quilt Festival in Houston, Texas, having a marvelous time. The full set of 288 Twelve by Twelve quilts have been on exhibit, and nine out of the twelve of us were able to attend and meet each other. Before I fly home tomorrow, I thought I'd post a few pictures to give you a taste of the excitement.

The adventure was made possible by Del Thomas and the Thomas Contemporary Quilt Collection, and I can't begin to express how grateful we are to Del for supporting our exhibit.

The exhibit looked beautiful and our quilts glowed like jewels.

We sold and signed lots of books.

We posed for a lot of photos ...

And felt like rock stars with paparazzi shooting our pictures.

We dined and celebrated the fun of being together (complete with cardboard faces of the three Twelves who couldn'tbe in Houston) and seeing our project accepted and appreciated so enthusiastically.

Now we are headed back to our respective homes, full of appreciation for how far we have come together and the surprising enormity of what we have created.

Come see us in Houston!

I am headed today to Houston where I will be at the International Quilt Festival for the next four days!  All 288 of our quilts will be on exhibit, plus nine of the twelve of us will be on the premises to meet everyone and sign books and sell postcards and generally share in the excitement.

If you are at Houston, please do come by and say hello!

If you are not going to Houston, you might share the fun by going to our website and Twelveby12.org and walking through the challenge sets again.  It's astonishing to realize we've made almost 300 quilts together!

Free To Be....Unbullied from MarloThomas .com on Vimeo.

Sweet Dumpling

I am continuing to draw and I'm getting braver with my watercolors. At the grocery store I find myself choosing fruits and vegetables as much for their appeal as art subjects as for taste! I couldn't resist some autumn pumpkins and gourds this week.

Happy Fall!

Photoshop's Cutout Filter

Renate asked how I use Photoshop to help me define areas of color (which I mentioned when I described how I made my "Midsomer Tomato" quilt above, so I thought I'd demonstrate here. 

First, you start with a photo.  Here's one of some hydrangea florets that I took a few summers ago.

I open it in Photoshop, and go to the "filters" menu, then under the "Artistic" filter options, choose "cut out."  It selects color areas for you. One click, and voila:

When you choose the "cut out" filter,  a menu will pop up that will allow you to slide bars to select edge fidelity, color complexity, and the like.  You can slide them back and forth to see what they do, but they provide various ways of adding or subtracting detail.  If you bear in mind that you're going to try to use the color areas you see as pieces of fabric, you'll remember that keeping it simple while including just the detail you need is the goal.  Here's a simpler version of the same image:

Remember, you can add back detail with thread wok.  So maybe all you want is a fabric base on which to thread paint more color and detail?  Or maybe you want the fabric to do the work, so you'll want more detail?  It's up to you. 

Once I get to this point, I print out the image at what I want the finished size to be.  (I often have to do this by taping 8 x 11 sheets together because that's all my printer will do.)  Then, with a black relatively heavy-line black sharpy, I trace the color areas.

Here's a shot of the tomato one:

You can see that I take each color (in the tomato case, I had reds, blues, and greens) and I assign Dark, Light and Medium value labels. 

Then I trace the whole thing onto tracing paper, and then I trace pattern shapes and assemble from there using the marked image as my guide.  It's sort of tedious but it's really fun to see the picture taking shape.  I don't follow this slavishly -- it's meant to be a fabric painting, after all, not a paint-by-number project. So use your artistic judgment and have fun.

I should add that I never use Photoshop Elements so I don't know if Elements as a "cutout" filter.  Sometimes there is a filter called Posterize that can do similar things. 

Twelve by Twelve on the radio!

Yesterday, Gerrie Congdon (one  of the Twelve by Twelve "twelves") was interviewed by Pat  Sloan on her online radio show at American Patchwork and Quilting Radio.  I wasn't around to listen to the show live, but it's available on the APQ website to listen any time you want!

Here's the link:

http://www.allpeoplequilt.com/radio/

And Gerrie talks about Twelve by Twelve on the Oct. 17 show (which shows up as the episode with LeeAnn Decker.)  It's a great overview of the project and it's a nice way to get to know another of the twelves!

Midsomer Tomatoes

When I was at the Festival of Quilts in the UK this past summer, I met Chris and De, the delightful owners of Midsomer Quilting in Bath.  They have been early and enthusiastic supporters of the Twelve by Twelve challenge, and were the first to ask if they could exhibit the full set of quilts.  And when I met them, Christ told me about how visitors to the exhibit were so excited at the thought of making small quilts on a theme that he announced a shop challenge on the theme of fruit.  He asked if I'd submit something, and I gladly agreed.  Here's the piece I just sent off.

I remember my puzzlement at learning, when I was a kid, that tomatoes are considered fruit because (according to the Oxford Dictionary) true fruits are developed from the ovary in the base of the flower, and contain the seeds of the plant.  We eat cherry tomatoes all summer long around here -- so that led me to picture them for this challenge.  And it's doubly fruity!  Cherry! Tomatoes!  Brilliant, yes?!





I started with a photo of a carton of cherry tomatoes, then used Photoshop to identify color areas.  From there, I used batiks to "paint" the tomatoes and machine quilting to add more color and dimension and texture. (It's 12x12 inches square.)  I realized I really like working this way -- gosh, I should do it more!

Chris and De at Midsomer Quilting have been amazing supporters for Twelve by Twelve, and I'm happy to contribute something to their challenge.  I only wish I could be there to see all of the entries when they are exhibited.  

Hand me that pen...

I'm one of those people who grew up thinking she couldn't draw.  I think it was partly because my sister Laura was a dedicated and talented artist who drew beautifully and I thought I just didn't have her talent.  But over the years I've come to realize that drawing is one of those things that can be learned.  I took some watercolor painting classes years ago and loved them but work and family pulled me in a different direction, and I've not done much actual drawing since.  But recently, I've been working on drawing -- well, a loose sketching, really.  And I'm having SO much fun.

I started participating in the drawing lessons Miss C is doing as part of her curriculum this semester, and we're watching lessons online by an art teacher in New York City.  It's pencil drawing so it's learning about how to shade and shape using value and line. It's a whole different thing than I've ever done, and I'm finding it quite interesting. 

And then, on a whim, I signed up for a short online sketching and watercolor class from Jane LaFazio, whose colorful and breezy sketch style I adore.  During the first week, we drew "every day objects" -- hence the rotary cutter, below...

 

  and this week, we're drawing things from nature -- today, for example, I worked with leaves and seed pods from a maple tree on my street.

I'm sort of surprised at my reaction to this.  I love the peacefulness and meditative sense while really studying something to draw it.  It's an intense concentration but restful at the same time.  But mostly I'm feeling that this is doing wonders for my confidence.  I'm not aiming for anything fancy, mind you, but I feel good at what I'm doing and I'm learning each time I try something new. So each time I finish an assignment, I think to myself with some surprise, "Hey!  I  can draw!"

Yep, I'm still sewing and working on the various projects I have going around here -- but now I can stop for 15-30 minutes and do a small drawing and I feel as refreshed as if I'd taken a nap.  It's amazing. 

Do you Travel in a Straight Line?

I have posted some big thoughts on the zig-zag nature of my creative process over on the Tea and Talk for Two blog (where Helen Conway and I have an ongoing conversation about art and creativity going).  Do pop over and comment on what YOU think about your creative process!

Improvising

Here's a project I started working on at retreat last week.  I'd been wanting to do some improvisational piecing, and had in mind a video I'd watched on Design Matters TV where Edwina Mackinnon demonstrated her "cut and come again" technique for making a whole bunch of small pieced blocks.  A while back, I stumbled onto a bin of Hoffman solid cottons on sale, so I selected some colors for this purpose.  I don't think I've sewn with solid colors since the 1980s when I was making Amish quilts.  But what can I say -- they called to me.  A retreat day to piece while chatting with friends seemed the perfect setting for this project.

So away I went.  And I must say, I really enjoyed doing these.  It was very fun, developing each little composition in a 4.5 inch block.  No surprise -- the blocks I liked the best were usually the simplest ones.  Some of them would be great larger quilts -- maybe you'll see that in the future!

In any event, by the end of the day I'd sewn over 100 blocks and I figured that was enough.  I've been arranging and rearranging them on my design wall-- such fun possibilities -- but I liked the look of aligning the striped lines and I keep thinking about the San Andreas fault as I work on this so it will probably end up with some sort of earthquakey title!

The blocks are now sewn together, I know what I want the borders to look like, and I'll incorporate some hand-stitching in this, too.  

Considering that this is all improvising -- moving forward without a plan or mental vision of where I want it to go, this process has felt good. 

Friends to left of me, friends to the right

I have spent the last 3 1/2 days away at my twice-yearly quilt retreat. What you see above was the view from my sewing table, and I loved looking up and out on a busy, happy, creative swarm of activity. But most of all I am once again struck by the inspiration and energy and joy I get from spending time with these women.

Here is Eleanor, who sits on my right. Usually, she comes to retreat prepared with tiny piles of cut pieces, which she then lays out in tidy piles for sewing. This year, she was sewing Freddy Moran style houses from her scraps, and what started as an organized bin of strips became an exploding pile of fabric. For those of us who always end up with a fabric mess, it was very satisfying to see.

Here is Pat, who sits to my left. Pat is usually working on a bunch of different projects at retreats, changing from one to another as the mood hits her. This time, she worked steadily on one major quilt, dong a lot of finishing details and hand work. As she has been working on her project for several years intermittently, it was exciting for all of us tom see it in the home stretch.

Retreats always end up generating lots of input and creative cooperation. I snapped this picture when I saw Eleanor, Ancella and Vicky huddling together to check the block arrangements on Ancella's batik quilt. I also figure I should record Ancella working with a brown and gray palette, as that is a rare event. She usually works in a "Put on your sunglasses" bright palette and we still tease her about the time she tried to make a pastel quilt that ended up with a lot of gorgeously vivid fuchsia pinks.

I could show lots more pictures of beautiful women working on delightful projects. But what I can never quite capture on film is the feeling of warmth and contentment and energy in the room, and that's what keeps me coming back time after time. It reminds me that quilting has always had a communal aspect, and the ritual of coming together to sew, even if we are not all gathered around the same quilting frame, is a powerful one.

I feel so lucky, and I know that the feeling of being with these ladies will carry me a long way.

What is this?

Does this look like a teabag to you?

I've been starting to experiment with digitizing my own machine embroidery designs.  And this is my very first one.  Why a teabag, you wonder?  Well, I have set myself the task of exploring the theme of tea in a series of small art quilts, and that led me to thinking about tea bags, which set me on a course of drawing them... and then I decided to turn a little sketch into something that could be embroidered repeatedly. 

It has some wonky aspects to it that need adjusting in terms of stitch density ... but does this say teabag to you?  Or does it just look odd? 

(My husband thought it was an iron.)

Inquiring minds want to know.

A new paradigm for education

It is way past time to change our thinking about education. This is really worth the 10 minutes it'll take to watch:

My Cornwall Escape

One of these days, I'm going to get to Cornwall. I've had a fascination with it since, I think, I first read The Shellseekers by Rosamunde Pilcher years ago. And I love watching British tv series. So imagine my delight when I discovered "Doc Martin," a BBC television series set in Cornwall in the charming fictional village of Portwenn.

The premise is that Dr. Martin Ellingham, a surgeon from London, has recently developed a revulsion to blood and can no longer do surgery. He retreats to his childhood village to be the general village doctor, where his daily life is populated by quirky people and curious medical mysteries. Interestingly, the brusque nature and social ineptitude of Doc Martin is obviously Asperger's Syndrome. But even while his dreadful bedside manner is a key aspect of the show, the story is not about a doctor with Asperger's -- it's an unfolding story of a withdrawn individual who slowly comes to life and becomes a vital member of a small community.

The first four seasons are available on Netflix via live-streaming. (it looks like some are available on Hulu.com, too.) I was sad to realize that last night I watched the last episode of the show. But today, thanks to IMDB, I discovered that the series has recently resumed after a two year break, taking off where the last 2009 episode left off, and there are some 6 episodes that have aired on British tv so far. I'm not sure when Netflix will have them, but I will look forward to returning to Portwenn in the future!

Azalea Encore

So here is where I am with this piece.  I'm still listening for the quilt to tell me whether it is done or not.  Apparently it's speaking too quietly or I'm not paying attention closely enough -- so for now, this is where it sits.

If you click on the photo, you can see that I added a lot of machine quilting.  My friend Loretta commented on how painterly this looks, which was gratifying as I'd been thinking of that fabric texture as impressionistic paint strokes.  I'd sketched and doodled and tried to figure out how to add stitch to emphasize that.  My conclusion was that it'd be best to suggest flowers and leaves and let the fabric texture create the brushstrokes.

But once I got the quilting on, it just sat there on all of that texture and seemed to compete in a confused sort of way.  So I pulled out my new Inktense pencils and started highlighting petals and leaves with more color.  I tried to add color while flowing with the direction of the fabric texture, again to use the fabric but also define the shapes more.

I think I'm venturing into the "Stop torturing this poor fabric" territory so I will put this away for a bit.  I tend to like it more when I first see it walking into the room -- and maybe that sense of jumbled color and the suggestion of flowers and foliage is the best this can do.  I'm not sure.

I still feel like it NEEDS something.  But it won't tell me what just yet.

I tend to get stuck in my head when I'm making a new quilt, so this week I thought I'd try something different and just experiment, without having a meaning or image or plan in my head.

It started with this streaky fabric, which was the result of an ice dying experiment last week.

I wanted to try to exploit the linear designs, so in  an experimental mood I cut it up into bias squares, so that the linear design ran diagonally across each block.  And then I started putting the blocks up on my design wall. 

This was the result of just putting the blocks up randomly.  I liked the texture, but I was feeling that there was no focal point.  So I moved them around a bit more, thinking to put the lights in the center and work out into darker tones.

Um, no.

Then I thought, well, I'll just group the colors together in  columns and see how that looks.  (Of course, it occurred to me that the original fabric had colors in lines so why did I cut it up, then?)  But I liked how this looked sort of landscapey, if you turn your head sideways to the left.

See what I mean?  I actually like that, so I sewed the squares together.

And then I sat and stared.  What to do next?  How to quilt?  I started in yesterday, stitching and trying to keep the streaky elements I like, and trying to respond to what I thought the quilt was saying it wanted to be.

There was a big period of time where I think the quilt was telling me it wanted to be wadded up and stuffed into the trash.

So, it's in the works.  I'm not sure whether what I'm doing is making it worse or better.  I realize that without a specific intent about the quilt to begin with, it's harder to decide where to go.  I guess I just need to trust the process. 

Seasonally Challenged

Because it is September, I've shifted into autumn mode.  I've put flannel sheets on the bed, and when I dress in the morning I put on a cozy shirt and jeans and slip my feet into my fleece-lined clogs.  I make myself a cup of tea and contemplate whether to put the fixings for chili or soup in the slow cooker.  Then, I open the door to the garden and realize that it's going to be another Indian Summer day over 80 degrees, and more likely over 90.

I could tell you that this is an aberration, but truth be told, I've always been a bit out of synch with the weather.  Even though I was born and raised in California, I think I'm a New Englander at some deep core level, and I'm living with their seasons no matter where I am.  Which explains why, when I was in college in Southern California, I showed up at my friend's house for Thanksgiving dinner wearing a turtleneck sweater and wool skirt and knit tights -- when it was 75 degrees out.

I do not know what mental climate zone my daughter lives in.  All she wants to wear are tank top, shorts and bare feet.  All year round.  I am frequently accused of over-using the motherly "Aren't you cold?" comment.


At any rate, I'm feeling decidedly Septemberish.  Perhaps I'll go outside and look for some leaves to rake.

Blocks of love

I've been making quilt blocks this week for a commissioned quilt. Well, maybe that's a stretch.  My daughter is the client, and she had very specific requests for a new quilt for her bed.  In fact, when we first started talking about what sort of quilt she wanted, her descriptions were so specific that we got onto Equilter.com and she chose the fabric, she sketched out for me how she envisioned it going to gether, and then we laid it out on Electric Quilt software so I could make sure that she was going to like the look of what she was describing.

I do love technology. 

I have to confess that before I started sewing these, I had a general reluctance about it.  I returned from Festival of Quilts with so many ideas in my head that I want to explore -- but I felt that I had to get this done before I can explore any of those.  This just didn't feel like any reflection of my own creativity.

But I started cutting and sewing, and at some point it dawned on me that I was really enjoying it.  I was thinking about Miss C, and how much fun it had been to see her choose fabrics, and how excited she was about seeing what she envisioned become real.  And so even while this isn't reflective of MY creativity exactly, it's reflecting hers, and that makes me quite happy. 

So this has really become a labor of love.  Funny how easy it is to lose sight of the joy of doing something for someone you love.

Ice Dyeing (or the dyeing you can do during hot flash season)

In the current issue of Quilting Arts magazine (Aug/Sept 2011, #52) there's an article by Lynda Heines about "ice dyeing."  When I read the issue, I read the article and thought, "That looks fun, I'll have to try that some day."  And I promptly forgot all about it.

But then about a week later, I went to my monthly Practical Design group, and two of the women there showed fabric they'd dyed using the Ice Dyeing technique.  It was gorgeous, just gorgeous.  And they bubbled on about how easy it was -- so I was inspired to go home and get it going the very next day.

Here's the thing about this method:  you don't have to mix dye solution ahead of time.  Now, I know that's not a huge task, and of course once you mix the dyes they keep for a while.  Still, when I'm in the mood to play with dyeing, I want to get to the dyeing and having to do all that advance preparation discourages me some.  Silly, I know, but there you have it.

At any rate, the beauty of this method is that you don't pre-mix dyes. (It also means that you have to be MORE careful about wearing a mask and not exposing yourself to dye powder carelessly.)  But basically, the method is this:  You set up a rack over a tray or tub, put soda-soaked fabric in a flattened wad (or folded bundle) on the rack, put ice cubes on the fabric, and then sprinkle a bit of dye powder onto the ice.  As the ice melts, the dye powder dissolves and contacts the fabric.  You let it sit for 24 hours, then wash it all out. The specific details and instructions are illustrated beautifully Lynda Heines' article.

So away I went.  And the results have been exciting and very fun.

In fact, this is so fun and easy it's hard to stop.

So far I've dyed half-yard pieces.  Today I'm going to try a bigger piece and see what happens.  But I highly recommend experimenting with this -- it's very  fun.

Swift Success

Last night was the long-awaited Taylor Swift concert. The Teen adores her and last winter, when she indicated she might be willing to brave the noise and crowds to try a concert, we obtained tickets for the one concert in our area. At Miss C's request , it was a girls only night, so our party consisted of Miss C, me, and our dear friend Beth.

Beth and I were in college together and are both in our 50s now. So although we attended many a concert in our young and adventurous days, it has been some time since each of us had been to a concert other than the reunion tour of some middle-aged guys singing to a nostalgic middle aged audience. So, that explains why last night was surprising and fun for us -- ahem -- more mature ladies, too.

The Teen knew what to expect. She's been working for the past week on a heavily glittered sign to wave at key moments. Unlike us, she was not at all astounded by the masses of pre- teen and teenaged girls with their hair artfully ringleted like Taylor Swift's and wearing country girl dresses and cowboy boots. Beth and I, however, were amazed at the number of girls dressed alike and/or adorned with Taylor- inspired sayings and images and glitter. Lots and lots of glitter. Were we just not sufficiently motivated groupies back when we went to see Kenny Loggins and Neil Young and John Denver? Dressing alike and waving signs just didn't occur to us back then.

Of course, part of Taylor Swift's appeal is the ordinary-girl-who- created-a-fairy-tale-for-herself thing. She sings about being outside of the popular crowd in high school, the importance of being true to yourself, of finding a love who will love you for who you are. They are messages any mom would approve of and messages, it is heartening to see, that many girls seem to heart. The fact that Taylor sings them while dressed like Cinderella doesn't hurt either.

The most surprising thing, to me and Beth, at least, was how for the 12,000 teens in attendance anyway, being at the concert seemed to be less about listening to Taylor Swift sing and more about screaming and shrieking and singing along with every song. Really, we could hardly hear Taylor. It made me wonder if that's what those early Beatles concerts were like, with so much screaming that you couldn't hear the actual music.

As far as Miss C was concerned , the event surpassed every expectation and she came out with a beaming smile and eyes glowing and talking a mile a minute. For me, seeing Miss C happy and singing along and clearly enthralled was truly wonderful. (And, I couldn't help thinking, it was a testament to the power of willing participation and focus, for if surely there was ever an event designed to bring on a migraine or Aspie brain overload, it would be an arena full of screaming teenagers, loud music, and bright flashing lights.)

So, it was a success all around. But it did make me feel old, or certainly rather sedate. Maybe I need more glitter in my life.

Meeting the Beatles

While we were in England, one of our "must-do" items was going to Liverpool to see the Beatles sights there.  Roger is a hardcore Beatles fan from way back, and I was happy to see what there was to see.  For Beatles fans, Liverpool is pretty much Beatle Mecca.

So off we went to Mathew Street, an alley of a bunch of small bars and pubs and clubs. Here, at The Cavern, was where the Beatles first played regularly and were "discovered."  By the way, I think I took this shot at about noon.  By 4pm, there was music blaring out of most doorways, the strong smell of beer permeating the place, people spilling out of every doorway with drinks in hand and cigarette smoke clouds above their heads, and mobs of people passing through.

Here's the entrance to the actual Cavern --

but wait, we learn that it has been rebuilt, albeit with the ORIGINAL Beatles-soaked bricks.

Everywhere you look on that street has a Beatles reference.

 

There were some funky artistic tributes...

And of course there were shops for Beatles merchandise...

(Disclosure:  Certain T-shirts may have been purchased.)

Around the corner, out of the alley, was The Hard Day's Night Hotel which took the Beatles theme from funky/seedy to posh and expensive.  We roamed through, looking at the photograph-covered walls inside, but to my mind the best thing about that place was its logo:

It was said to be an image of the guitar frets and finger positions for the first, great chord of "Hard Day's Night" AND also the position that the Beatles stood in when performing.  (That'd be Ringo, back there.)  A clean and appealing logo, don't you think?  Not obviously Beatlesy but referential nonetheless. 

Our day in Liverpool inspired my response to the current Twelve by Twelve challenge, which is "Orange."  It will be revealed on Thursday, Sept. 1 on that blog, so you'll have to pop over there to see how!  

Print Play

I'm rather a novice in the surface design department.  Sure, I've bought a lot of books, and I've got a lot of supplies -- but I don't get in there and actually DO it all that often. I chalk that up to laziness, really:  I don't have a convenient set up, so I have to store everything in the garage, then pull it all through the house outside to the back patio when I want to experiment.  So the spontaneous "I'll just print up a quick piece of cloth" doesn't happen around here.

(And yes, I KNOW there are industrious artists who are making exquisite pieces of cloth in their bathroom sinks with 4 square inches of counter space.  So I am glad to have the patio, even if it means that a few garden plants take on the cast of whatever colors I'm working with for a few days.)

So.  Last week at Festival of Quilts (just last week!) I bought a few thermofax screens for screen printing.  I've done that once, and it was, as they say, dead easy.  And I've got this orange quilt to make for Twelve by Twelve, and I'd been thinking about background fabric, and it dawned on me that I could PRINT the background fabric... et, voila!

I was experimenting with printing a big-textured screen and then over printing with a small textured screen.  It looks weird here as a piece of cloth but I think it could have interesting possibilities cut up.

My happiest surprises involved printing on fabric I'd dyed previously and hadn't liked all that much.  I had a batch of weird maroon-ish shades and I screened some Decolourant on that, then set it out in the sun for the afternoon ... and I really like the result.

They are still not colors I'd be inclined to use, but at least they are now in the category of "might use" instead of "Yuck - never." 

I even discharged onto some old dye prints I'd done last summer, and they turned out well, too.  (The only one I photographed looks a little weird, but you get the idea....)

All in all, it was worth the hauling stuff back and forth.  And it might even make me want to do it again.

Introducing Alice Fox

I can hardly believe that I was at Festival of Quilts a week ago ... give or take some hours that I gained flying back to California.  I'm still dazed from the whole wonderful experience.

One of the things that was quite different from American quilt shows was the existence of gallery stalls for artists and fiber art students.  They were about the size of vendor stalls, but they were constructed of clean white walls which defined the art gallery space beautifully, and in each stall an artist displayed work, showed sketchbooks or sold books, and was available to chat with visitors.

One of the galleries I couldn't stop staring at belonged to a fiber artist named Alice Fox.  Mark that name, because she is amazingly talented and her pieces were unusual and stunning.  I think the work that she was showing in her gallery space was the work shown on her website as "Fabric of the Building."  The pieces there were mostly in neutral colors -- soft creams and whites and greys with touches of black, and they incorporated stitch in a lovely, restrained but always necessary way.  The work was understated but compelling.  I just loved it. 

I didn't realize until I was reading Alice's blog after Festival that Alice had a miniature quilt which was awarded a "Highly Commended" rating in the show, and that she also won (as co-winner with another student) the Graduate Showcase bursary.  She won a hunk of money to further her work and a space at next year's Festival.  I am not surprised.

I wish I could be there to see what she shows then.  I still can't stop thinking of the elegance of her fiber work.