Planet Textile Threads

Christine brought it to my attention that yesterday was the Festival of Broken Needles in Japan. Although I have seen mention of this in Japaneses news I have never seen the festival myself so maybe it is not celebrated everywhere in Japan. Of course I rarely get to a shrine or temple except if I'm sightseeing so it may be a big thing that I just don't come across.

On February 8th, women bring broken and bent needles to the shrine and place them in a block of tofu as part of a ceremony to thank the needles for their hard work. Christine sent a very interesting link if you would like to read about the custom... One sentence stood out for me...

"...women have many secret sorrows in life. These sorrows are often passed to the needles during the long hours of stitching and the needles are thought to take on the burden of some of these sorrows thus taking them away with the stitching that they do." (picture from the Internet)

What do you do with your needles when they break or get bent? Mine go in a piece of tinfoil to be thrown out with the "dangerous trash" once a month. Compared to most people I have a lot of unusable needles and pins. Let's see... I go through numerous hand sewing needles when I'm quilting just because they seem to bend so easily. Sometimes they remind of me of a doctor's curved suturing needle! I must credit the manufacturing companies because they can bend pretty far before they actually break! Of course a bent quilting needle doesn't make for even quilting so I end up putting another needle to work.

And then there is the problem of dull quilting needles. When I start to hear "plunk-plunk" or have trouble pushing the needle through the fabric I can assume I need a new needle. These needles never "look" dull. I always think I can squeeze a few more stitches from them but sooner or later my needle finds it's way to the tinfoil pouch.

Experts suggest that sewing machine needles should be changed after every quilt that's been quilted. I work my needles far much longer than that and occasionally they actually do break! I have a feeling a dull needle may be some of the problem of skipping stitches or thread breaking but I'm not sure about that. Usually I'll change my machine needle if I start to run into problems (and then clear away the lint, and then oil the machine, and then go eat chocolate.)

Unfortunately I have absolutely NO idea what the numbers on the packages of needles mean. For one reason the Japanese packages and American packages are different (but I can still get Milward needles) so it is really hit and miss with buying needles. Short are better for me (higher number right?) but I don't understand sewing machine needles at all. The last package I bought had various sized needles in it and I've gone through them all without noticing a difference... yes I really am a quilter...

And pins... My pins get ravaged by laziness when I sew over them on the sewing machine, and also because I use them to tack things up on the wall... They temporarily hold things to the wall paper. Ooops. Pushed a little too hard there and another pin goes into the tinfoil pouch. And for some reason my pins seem to rust very easily. It must be the dampness in the air... A pin that's left unused in a pin-cushion or a piece of felt gets a rim of rust around it pretty quickly.

Well, I'm not pushing my broken needles into any block of tofu... But even so I am thankful to them for adding pleasure everyday to my life. And if I may say so, I'm not just sewing secret sorrows into my work. My needles are picking up a lot of joy and happiness and FUN (okay... sewing machine needles get some of my frustration when I'm quilting.)

Say thank you to your needle and give it a hug! Gently... please, gently!

Okay, this is what I ended up doing with my burgundy shibori. I selected the best 15" square from each fat quarter, and sewed them together (tha bit is fine). Then I dyed some green fabric in a shade (Leaf Green) that was the opposite to Burgundy on the colour wheel. That's also fine. I wanted to give the quilt some zing, seeing as it was so monochromatic.

However, I can't decide whether I like the result. So here's the choices:

• leave it with the contrasting 6" green border
• cut this down to say 2" tops and add a Burgundy outer border.
  

What do you think, blog readers?

 I had a very disturbing experience yesterday: I found a photo I had taken in January on somebody else's blog -- posted without attribution and without having asked my permission.

I had no idea where she had found it because it is not posted it to my blog -- and if I had posted it, I had thought better of it and removed it because I wanted to use it for my own artwork.

When I contacted the blogger, she insisted it was sent to her by someone else.  NOT true.

I finally tracked down my original photo in a Picassa web album I didn't even know existed, thanks to Blogger, which apparently uploads into Picassa every photo you upload to your blog, whether or not you end up posting it.  Apparently, this artist had taken my photo from Picassa and used it on her blog.  I am NOT happy and have let her know she should remove it ASAP.

Once I discovered the PIcassa album I think I changed the privacy options to having to sign in to see the pix.
I hope it works.

This is a warning to all of you that if you are on Blogger, your pix are out there waiting to be stolen.

When I come up for air again, I will post. Don't know when that will be.

This one is by Carl Meffert (Clement Moreau) who I encountered at the Roar China! exhibition in Ghent -Ancient ruins -

Entering Death Valley — Jer

It’s Monday.  SuperBowl is over. Yeh. I haven’t been doing all that much and I don’t really know all that much either.  I am in the process of reading Art and Fear, a present from my friend, Robin Koehler.  You can tell I’m reading it because I posted a quote I liked from it in my sidebar.  I have also been perusing the new Quilting Arts and the recent Cloth Paper Scissors magazines.

I guess the reason I don’t have much to report is because I am doing all the “boring” stuff, since I am preparing to vend at the Indiana Heritage Quilt Show in Bloomington, IN.  This requires thinking and planning.  I do well to write notes to myself on a piece of paper about what I’m thinking, let along write it on a blog.  You probably wouldn’t want to read about it anyway. Planning what to stock and placing the orders…see it’s the boring stuff.

But this week I plan on dyeing some fabrics.  Even though it’s still cold here, I am going to crank up the heater in the garage because I just can’t wait til it warms up.  When I have a free week, I need to get cracking on dyeing.  I guess there’s enough snow here, I could try snow dyeing.  It seems to be all the rage right now on the quiltart list.  And we are supposed to get more this week…

Logo by Jeanelle McCall

The preview of ToteTuesday 2 is now up here.  Please bookmark this webpage as it is also the site of tomorrow’s ToteTuesday’s auction.

Warm up that charge card for the good cause that also lets you have a great time shopping.  There will be 13 themed totes (custom totes, artwork, gift certificates, books, DVDs, beads, hand-dyed fabrics, more, more, more) AND three very special individual artworks.

The donors/sponsors have been busy adding bonus items such as special art.  For example, Natalya Aikens has a tote based on her DVD, Texture Transformation.

You can imagine the fun materials she has pulled together for your own experiments in Texture Transformation.  BUT she has also added to the tote the cover artwork shown on the left side of the DVD above.  And Natalya’s not alone in her generosity.  Enjoy the preview and I will see you tomorrow when the bidding opens at 11 a.m. CST.

Christine asked how I made the vine on the heart piece. I'm glad she asked! It is cut from black fabric and fused and I figured out a pretty neat way to do it, so I thought I'd show you with another little piece I was working on today
.

Logo by Jeanelle McCall

A preview of all thirteen totes and three individual artworks for ToteTuesday #2 will be up tomorrow on my website.  Stop by here on my blog for the link. The url for the preview and the auction will be the same.  So once you bookmark the preview webpage tomorrow, you will be good to go for the auction on Tuesday.

This is typical of the sponsor/donor generosity.  Larkin Van Horn has added this incredible beaded button to her tote and refused to raise the opening bid!

Everything will appear on the preview webpage exactly as it will for the auction except the Opening Bid, etc. will not be filled in.  It’s not that that is a big secret; it’s merely to avoid a premature bidding war. The opening bids will be posted at 10:50 a.m. CST with the auction opening at 11 a.m. CST and closing at 2 p.m. CST.  (Ready to bid on Tuesday?  Here is a checklist.)

Karla Overland of Cherrywood Fabrics has created this “Good To The Last Drop” tote. You don’t have to wait for the Preview tomorrow to find out the story behind the title of this gorgeous tote bag – check out Karla’s blog.

The totes this week have opening bids ranging from $49 – $199. Please remember that these totes contain unique artworks, custom-made totes, hand-dyed fabrics, items from artist’s personal stashes, creative packaging, little bonus treasures, etc.  The themed totes are as special as our FUNDRAISING cause.  100% of the proceeds from ToteTuesday are donated directly to the American Cancer Society through Fiberart For A Cause.

Thanks again to all the wonderful, creative, and generous donors.  And I truly appreciate everyone who makes the commitment to support ToteTuesday as a bidder.

Of course, I had to some more shibori today. I liked the effect of folding fabric into triangles so I did this with the surplus dye from the top (see below). I put Turquoise on the triangle tips, and faux Indigo on the rest of it.
Here's the result which I really like. Now I have to think what to do with it.....
The main project was to dye a plain white cotton tunic-type top. Here it is all bound up - I tied the sleeves first, with little puff-balls on the shoulders; then the yoke which is tied with soft stretchy cotton tape. Then I ironed accordion pleats on the body, and rolled them up.
In the dye, it looks like some horrible alien insect!
..but I really love the end result! This is the back.

Harrumph!   January escaped, and I still haven’t shared pictures!  In my defense, Deborah’s birthday was this past month, and our activities were her birthday present, so I couldn’t blog about it until AFTER the date!  Since it is now February (SHEEESH!), I am safe….

We met at Hannah’s house on a snowy January day, shared a bit, then headed down to Hannah’s walk-out basement studio, with many lovely built-in goodies thanks to her hubby, and made some art cloth for Deborah, which we then mailed all together.  In a small miracle, we actually got it done, in the mail, and to her in Texas BEFORE her birthday (with a note on the envelope not to open until the birthday).

Here’s some of the cloth…the red with grid is (believe it or not) the before!  It got even better, the purple in the lower left is from Hannah and her daughter.  Alas, I didn’t get pics with everyone busily at work, as I was too busy at work too… then when I snapped these the others were upstairs starting lunch….

We had fabric hanging all over the place drying:

I took it home, ironed it after the paint dried completely to help set the paint, then pinned it up on my design wall for a photo–see how good we are?  We actually let these delectables GO and didn’t keep them!

The pieces here are by me (the green one), Kathy (orange, on the right), and it was either Kathy or Kate for the blue (bottom right):

Everyone LOVED this stamp Kate had carved ages ago.  See what good friends we are…we used it, but actually let her take it home with her LOL! (Laugh out Loud for those of for whom English isn’t your first language and who may not know some of our internet abbreviations.)

Those round dots, by the way, are the end of a wine cork.  I like that way of acquiring art materials….

Here’s the orange piece on a pile of fabric to go home with me (better picture below); Kathy dyed the base cloth this  past summer at my house, then added to it at Hannah’s:

And here are green (by me, the bottom part of it), the bottom part of the Kate-or-Kathy blue, the purple by Kathy (boy do I hope I am getting the right names on the cloth… if not, someone correct me Kate and Kath!), a lime green by Kate, and that salmon-y one by me.  We liberally used each others’ hand-made stamps!

And then:

top row: upper left purple (small) by Kathy, red by Hannah, blue-purple-plum by Sarah (on a commercial batik),

next row:  lighter purple by Kathy, darker purple by Hannah and daughter Nina

And finally–the top row is a repeat (duh) of the ones just above; the second row is a piece by Hannah and Nina on the left, and a lovely sheer piece by Kathy–she dyed this one at my house this past summer, too, then added to it–it its first life it was a sheer white curtain:

Here are some close ups….Kathy’s finished orange-ish piece…. heavenly–Kath used a stamp of mine and sequin waste as a stencil (to get those perfect circles):

I’m pretty sure Kate made this one using her hand-dyed and various stamps…the grassy bit is Kathy’s stamp made from adhesive-backed foam cut into wisps and mounted on cardboard (cheap, easy, useful, beautiful!):

Here’s a detail of that stamp we all wanted to swipe/copy:

And finally, part of my green one.  It began with hand-dyed by me fabric.  A bit over a year ago I did a demonstration at the Make It University section of the big IQA quilt show in Houston, showing leaf printing.  At Hannah’s I added the green squares (another foam-on-cardboard stamp, this one by me), and made swoopies of gold through sequins waste and printed with plastic needlepoint canvas.  I really like how this one turned out.

It’ll be fun over the next few  years to see bits of these cloths show up in Deborah’s work!  Clearly, we had fun (and missed having Deborah WITH us in body, tho she was certainly there in our hearts).

I enjoyed doing the burgundy shibori so much that I did a couple more half-metre pieces in the evening, in ProChem's Blue Violet, which has lovely pinkish undertones. The piece on the left was accordian folded along the short side, then spiralled; while the one on the right was accorian folded along the long edge, with the pleats changing direction in the middle and creating the pretty webbed area - you may need to ckick on the photos to enlarge them to see this more clearly.

Now, what shall I dye today?

I ended up housebound yesterday because of snow. Fine with me! More excuses to sew! It sure was cold though! Choco and I went out for a short walk and she really looked like a bird dog. Choco is still dirty but I decided to show pictures of her anyway since she usually gets gypped out of appearing on my blog. The cats are just cuter (and cleaner) for photographing. So here is Choco in all her doggy glory!

"Hurry up Mom! I want to see what's out in the forest!"











Choco wishes (and I wish) that I would let her off the leash to run. With all this space out here it would be nice but she takes off and won't come back. Here she is trying to be very good on a "Sit! Stay!" She will behave while I am still in sight.

See, with that black around her eyes Choco really isn't very photogenic.

Paw prints in the snow. Even cat paw prints are cuter!!







These are Mi's prints because she got out when I was putting kerosene in the heater. Why do my animals want to run away when I love them so much! You would think they were escaping from jail or something. Mi was across the street and up a tree before I caught her.

And here is a rare picture of Velvet. Look what he is sitting on. A cat hot water bottle! My friend Mrs. Nakazawa visited this week bearing gifts of pound cakes and a cat heater! This neat little gadget gets put in the microwave for 5 minutes and then slipped into a furry pouch to set in a cat box or in this case Tetsu's cat shelter. Vel likes to go out into the shelter (and freeze) but he's keeping his rear end warm.

Mi says she wants to try it too!

Thank you Mrs. Nakazawa!

I will be in England the week of the 16th of february to the 24th of February. I am staying with my friend Sandy and we  have organised a workshop on Saturday the 20th of February in the Village where Sandy lives ( not far from Haverhill, Suffolk). If you are interested contact either Sandy ro me.
We will be doing Transfer Printing on  Lutradur and Stitching.
Transfer Printing is a method of getting permanent colour onto synthetic materials such as lutradur (a polyester non-woven fibre), polyester and polyester organza. The process allows you to get three prints so that a series can be created. We also explore methods of melting back and free machine stitching to embellish your printed fabric. Using Polyester fabrics such as organza allows you to build layers and play with transparency and overlays and still create your own distinctive fabrics and pieces.

You will need your machine with darning foot


Price will be £40 including materials.

A supply list will be provided on sign up.




The two photos are of the linocuts which i have hadn stitched. I particularly like the red one as the gold textile paint shines through the red stitching which gives a really nice effect. I must admit i liked the lino-cuts as stand alone ( see my previous post) and I really wondered what on earth stitching would add  to the printed image.But i am pleased with  how the stitching transformed the linocut. I have to stitch the edges and then they will be finished!

And here they are. Numbers 1, 2 and 3 above....
..4, 5 and 6 ...
..7, 8 and 9....
..10, 11, 12.

All different. Some were folded, some were ironed, some were scrunched or bunched. A couple were rolled around dowels. Some are definitely more striking than others, but most I would do again.

These were dyed with Jacquard's Burgundy which has a lovely light brown shadow to it that makes for interesting shapes. You can click on the photos to see them in more detail.

As usual with dyeing, you can't really appreciate the patterns you've made until you're ironing the fabric.

I had so much fun that I'm going back to do some more.

I am finding my present job sucks out my energy and shrivels my soul. Today, despite the call of the garden and other "shoulds", I decided to nourish my spirit and do some shibori. I tore 3 metres (yards) of fabric into a dozen fat quarters, and soaked 6 of them in warm soda ash (dye fixative) while I folded and tied the other 6. I have numbered all the pieces, and made notes so I can compare the results.

The designs were all out of my head - I wasn't following patterns in a book. This was quite a complicated one that i dubbed "The Scorpion". First, I tied knots around 3 small peach stones. Then I folded and tied the rest of the fabric. It came out looking like this:
Below are the 6 dry pieces after folding and tieing. Then I removed the wet fabric from the soda ash and put the tied pieces in the bucket to soak while I worked on the wet pieces.
See the numbers attached by safety pins?
Here are the wet pieces. All 12 are different. I've just poured burgundy dye on, and I'll wait a couple of hours for it to batch before I remove all the tied bundles, untie them, rinse and then wash them.

It took me around 2 hours to fold and tie the 12 fat quarters - shibori is a slow craft, not a "fast food" type of activity.

I've been sewing. Woohoo! I'm ignoring all the UFOs and playing with this quilt for the Liberated Amish class just because I want to. Feels good. I'm working on an Ocean Waves (although it may morph)


I've been doing that rather than the desperately needed house cleaning. I am in the mood to sew and feel an almost compulsive need to do it. The rest of this post is about kitties, feel free to skip.

I have been fitting in trips to the vet. Lily cat had to go in to the vet Thursday night so she wouldn't eat any food or drink water in preparation for a teeth cleaning the next day. There was no way we could lock Lily away in a separate room all night. First off she'd have been scratching at the door and cheeping madly and then Habibi would undoubtedly have crashed at the door all night, throwing all his weight at the door handle - he does it enough times and he will eventually get that door open.

So it was good that Lily had the teeth cleaning. She had a vile condition and yet another bit of nastiness... Two of her teeth had to be extracted. If they'd been left in there the ickiness would have continued to spread throughout her teeth - just like happened to Howler who also suffered from this and is now down to three teeth.

Lily would have been in a lot of pain but showed absolutely no sign of it. And weight loss or signs of trouble eating? Not a bit of that - the girl gained four pounds over the last year. That must be down to the special high-carb/low protein diet all the cats are on because of Pokey's health. It's the anti-Atkins Diet or as my vet called it, The Fatkins Diet.

Anyway, Lily bounced back really quickly and is doing great. I'm hoping she's going to be sweeter now to the rest of the cats.

Feeling like a baaad kitty parent. Had no idea about all this. Habibi is the next kitty scheduled for a vet visit and teeth cleaning...

The reason I can actually get Habibi to the vet is that my husband is home for an all too brief visit - I can't manage the big cats on my own. Anyway, husband is at the beach - not to make everyone in the SNOW states jealous.

Today must be a good day because I received a sunshine blog award from Tracy at narkeymarkey. Thank you!

The sunshine award is awarded to bloggers whose positivity & creativity inspires others in the blog world.

The rules for accepting the sunshine award are:

- put the logo on your blog or within your post
- pass the award onto 12 bloggers
- link the nominees within your post
- let the nominees know they have received this award by commenting on their blog
- share the love and link to the person from whom you received this award

My 12 nominees are:

Neki
Sara
Linda
Gunnel
Carolyn
Jackie
Gina
Pamela
Judy
Lani
Maya
Jude

If you prefer not to participate please feel free to ignore the rules and just enjoy the award.

Have a nice weekend!

My Nine-Patch baby quilt got finished yesterday. I really wasn't making a race of it but this quilt basically was done in three days. I spent Tuesday morning sewing together the nine patches and making a flimsy and then I spent most of Thursday machine quilting it. Yesterday I put on the binding and it is done!

I always feel that my machine quilting is inferior to what I could do by hand quilting, but the many comments about a baby quilt being washed often and used regularly convinced me that this quilt should be machine quilted. I still wanted a soft feel though so I quilted the center very sparsely with a few "roses".

I decided to try "Sashiko" quilting in the squares and that worked out better than I thought it would. I just made waves down one seam between squares and then went back up making waves on the other side of the seams (making an 8 figure) and then did the same horizontally. The "circles" seemed very lopsided and misshapen when I was making them but overall they don't look too bad.

A few small flowers in the last border and the quilting was done! I managed to get a couple wrinkles in the backing which happens a lot no matter how careful I am. I'm thinking that using bonding spray on the backing would help that problem next time I do this.

So another small quilt done and on to other things!

I am doing very simple straight line quilting on this, using variegated thread in the colors of the quilt. I think it is looking good.

When I have time, I have been hand stitching the silk circles. Here are a couple of peeks.

It is interesting to see these together. They both use the same pattern, but very different styles. The shibori piece is crisp and graphic. The silk piece is soft and ethereal.

Tonight, Mr C and I went to see Avatar in 3D. It was a visual feast. So amazing to think how that movie was created. Really beautiful. More violent than I like, but the beauty was worth sitting through the violence.

When I complain that my studio is a mess, there are those who would say “How can you tell?”

Believe me, I can tell (although I grant you that others may beg off ). As I was messing with walnut oil and splotching with acrylic paints, and the fan was being installed and decisions were being made about the storage of the big linen canvases, things got a bit chaotic.

When I’m in the middle of a project, I don’t mind a bit of chaos. But when I am trying to re-establish some sense of what I want to do and where I’m going, I need control. I need (my own version of) tidiness.

Luckily, the fan got installed. You know what a fan looks like. But better yet, I reconnected with some old comrades at the Portland Store Fixtures, down the road a piece near the tracks on Southeast Main. Kat and Penney showed up to check out what I wanted them to take away, introduced me to their new “puppy,” and sent their young worker and his truck and strong back to take away a pile of cabinet pieces and a big hunk of furniture.

The rack had been useful when I was working on paper, but it had become a catch-all for things I didn’t know what to do with. Part of tidying for me is putting The Thing in the Thing place — and the rack had nothing but Things that needed placed elsewhere. So off it went. And as you can see in the background, the exhibit panels were being installed against my long wall, where I can put up the linen canvases to keep me company. I can also store the canvases on the back of the panels and use the front for different exhibits.

I’m still touching the panels up, painting the edges and working the skies. With walnut oil it will be August before they are dry. But I have also cleared out a nook in which to do some acrylic painting (some of which are lying on the floor, which signifies that they haven’t yet been declared finished.)

My retail therapy for the week was to order a great batch of Golden Open acrylics, which don’t dry quite as fast as regular acrylics do and, so they say, are a bit more like working with oils.

So I have lost most of my excuses for not painting. It generally does come to that point, the point where I can brag about how tidy the studio is. I’m bragging. This means I’m about to set to working. –June

The Tender Bar by JR Moehringer - a memoir that reads like a novel. Beautifully written, it's a poignant, moving, funny coming of age story -- and it's real.  Jessica gave it to me after she had finished it and she was right when she said it was terrific.  Actually, I was up till midnight reading it last night and finally finished it tonight.

Not a lot. Ran to the market this morning to avoid the buying panic based on storm predictions (that may or may not happen). Got home and unpacked groceries to find a copy of (snort) Soap Opera Digest in my bag, for which I was charged $3.99. Can you imagine?!! Even if I watched TV, which I don't, I don't believe I have ever watched a soap and this would hardly be on my must-read list. I threw it into the recycling and then fished it out so I could bring it back, but I was too tired. It was the last item on my receipt, so I imagine it belonged to the woman behind me who must have been pretty annoyed not to have this literary gem when she got home.  Soap Opera Digest, indeed.

I cooked and baked this afternoon, finished the book and spent the rest of tonight doing therapy sewing.
That's the news from the front. Still feeling bleh like so many others in Blogland. Do you think it is contagious through cyberspace? In any case,to bed to sleep it off and see what tomorrow brings.
At least I have food in the house and don't have to go anywhere - snow or no snow.

Writing down what you are setting out to do during the day is one way to get nearer to achieving it.

My first task was to "unravel the stair metaphor" by writing in my notebook. I've done a lot of research on the internet, both pictorial and in terms of associations, superstitions, etc to do with stairs.

For instance, If you stumble down the stairs, it is unlucky, but if you stumble up the stairs, it is a sign of good fortune or a wedding. If two people cross on the stairs it is considered bad luck, if the two people cannot avoid meeting on the stairs, they should cross their fingers to avoid the bad luck.

Matthew had, in his sketchbook, what looked like toppled stairs - but was actually the Gaza wall when it was breached. This reminded me to think of a fence as an "in between" -- I'd been thinking of voids, but in-between things can be barriers too. In fact, sometimes a void is a barrier -- and sometimes a barrier is a tough, high, imposed kind of thing.
Other people brought other stair-like structures to my attention - these steel girders, looking like toppling nightmare stairs, by Richard Serra -
And this object made of glass by Robert Smithson (similar to his Mirror Stratum) -
Also, I went backwards through my recent sketchbooks to see what "spoke to me" -Another item on my "list for today" was to make samples of stair treads, based on some shadowy images -
There wasn't time to dip them in the wax pot, so I did that part at home, with these results -
which looked like this with a light shining through -
While playing around with the effects of the light, I found some bits of foamcore lying about, and also some bamboo slats liberated from a paper blind. Oh, the serendipity of having strange materials lying around! Within minutes, these rickety steps -- just like in my rickety-step dreams/nightmares -- appeared -

With a few adjustments, these could become my Final Major Project, set up in a way inspired by this Mayan pyramid -
There might even be a way to have one of the ceramic "buildings" in the display, without detracting from the sculptural steps ....

No need to fiddle around with the first item on the list -- that fishing line was too curly anyway!

neki desu


view CCLicense

Logo by Jeanelle McCall

There will be thirteen themed totes and three individual artworks up for bid for ToteTuesday on Tuesday, February 9.

A Preview will be posted on Monday, February 8 on my website.  Check back here on my blog for a link.  That same webpage will also be the Auction on Tuesday, February 9 from 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. CST.

Why the change? So MANY great totes — time to move to my website so you don’t acquire carpal tunnel from scrolling, scrolling, scrolling on my blog.

I’m working on the Preview page right now and, believe me, you are going to need some time studying the Preview on Monday to map out your strategy for bidding Tuesday.  The Opening Bids/Go For Gold bids won’t be listed on Monday to avoid a premature bidding war.

Of course, 100% of the proceed are donated directly to the American Cancer Society. The first five totes raised $1518 for the American Cancer Society; how high can we go this Tuesday?

What can I tell you about the totes that will be up?  Some have custom-made totes which are worth the opening bid all by themselves.  But then the generous donors have stepped right up and stocked their tote with special items to inspire your creativity.  Perhaps an example is in order:

This is the Thread Calligraphy tote sponsored by Sue Kelly:

Lined tote bag made by Sue Kelly with hand painted canvas and hand painted canvas straps. The background is a colorwash of acrylic fabric paints. Paintstik rubbings add interest with more visual texture and color. Thread lettering done by Nancy Kazlauckas with metallic thread. The word ‘imagine’ appears on one side of the bag, ‘create’ appears on the other side.

Detail from Thread Calligraphy tote

The contents of the bag include a book, Thread Calligraphy by Nancy Kazlauckas, a pattern called Coneflower also by Nancy which includes instructions and stencils, four fat quarters of hand-dyed fabric by Brooke Strassburg, and a package of micro brushes which have an amazing number of uses.

What a beautiful combination of form and function.

The other twelve totes up for bid on Tuesday will remain a secret until Monday, but here are mini-previews of ALL the totes to be offered Tuesdays in February. There will only be two more ToteTuesdays after this one!

More tales of English classes.

When you were a child and it was a rainy day and the class couldn't go out for recess what did your teacher do? In sunny California there weren't too many of those days but I remember playing indoor games like 7-Up (I still can't remember how that one goes... Something about putting your head down on the desk and holding your thumb up in the air...) and Hangman. Do you remember Hangman?

A few years ago when there was a little time leftover after an English lesson I decided to teach my children Hangman.

"I am going to choose a word and put spaces on the whiteboard for each letter. I want each of you to guess a letter. If you guess a correct letter I will put it in the space. If your letter isn't in my word then it goes to the bottom and each time I will draw in another part of a little man on a little scaffold. See if you can guess the word before the little man is all drawn! (My little man had fingers and toes so that he never got hung...)

So we started the game and the kids seemed to be having fun. Except for one little girl. She got more and more restless as more and more of the little man appeared and then she started saying that she didn't like this game and wanted us to quit.

"It's okay. This little man has fingers and toes. He isn't going to get hung."

Nope. My student was standing up, hiding her eyes and covering her ears and getting very upset. Since the other kids were enjoying themselves I suggested that the little girl sit and wait in the next room which she did but by that time she was crying. The rest of the class quickly finished our game and started something else.

"Teacher, let's do it again!"

Not while I've got a child in the living room crying about the poor Hangman! Anything but Hangman!

My student was so distressed and traumatized by Hangman that she couldn't join in any more activities that day. I could just imagine her going home upset and telling her mother that the English teacher was into occult or something and was terrorizing the students with gruesome stories of dead people hanging from the rafters.

Did I do something amiss? Was it all my imagination that this was a FUN word game for elementary school students? Wasn't this part of my American education? I even went to the Internet to make sure that there really was such a game! I was beginning to doubt my memory!
That night I told Tetsu about my class and the game (he'd never heard of it) and the reaction of the little girl. And Tetsu thought I was WAY~~ out of line bringing something like that into my classroom.

"What is the MATTER with you, Tanya? Why would you want to subject little children to scaffolds and hanging people? That is so unlike you. I can't understand what you were thinking. That child has every right to be upset and you need to go and apologize to her parents as soon as possible!"

Which I did. I went to the family, explained my position and how this was an English word game in America that it could be found on practically any children's website dealing with language. Nevertheless, there was no excuse for upsetting their daughter and I hoped that the girl would return to English where I promised NEVER AGAIN to play Hangman in the classroom.

Just an example of what is and is not common sense in different cultures. When I think about it, Hangman really is a gruesome game...

This morning, I got to have change my routine and try something new. One of my Trinity friends has fallen in love with felting and taken some classes. She taught a workshop at the cathedral this morning. We did wet felting, known as nuno. We used a silk chiffon as a base and felted wool fibers to it. I took a scarf that I had dyed with citron and black.

Here is it with black, yellow and green fibers and spritzed with water on bubble wrap.

The first step is to lay a synthetic fabric over it and start massaging it to meld the fibers.

Once the fibers are attached…

and coming through the back…

the next step is to wrap the whole thing around  section of swim noodle and rock and roll it several times.

(By now, I want to take of my long sleeved shirt and take a cold shower. This is a very aerobic activity.)

The final torture for the scarf is to fold it and place it in a plastic bag and start whacking it on the table or floor. Then, take it out, refold it and whack it again!!

After rinsing in hot and cold water. It gets wrapped in a thirsty towel to remove the moisture.

Here is a detail of mine:

I really like the possibilities of this type of felting, but my hands and wrists really hurt tonight. I am not sure that I could do very much of this.

This afternoon, I finished the fusing of my shibori circle piece. I hope to get the back on and start quilting tomorrow. I spent a lot of time this evening stitching on the silk circles.

I had some good news. I noticed that my Panasonic iron was slightly unplugged which was the reason it was not working!!

Well not yet, but I will get out my book soon. A real book, not a Kindle book.

I spent this afternoon at my studio, sewing, and of course, left the camera there. I am not going back till who knows when, but happily, I have my good camera at home (my creaky 8 year old Canon S-40 with 4 megapixels that takes better pictures than my newer Nikon with 8 megapixels). Of course, there is nothing to photograph at the moment...

Last week's cold left me with a cough and enough tiredness to just put my feet up tonight.  I was going to go to bed at 8:00 but was afraid I'd be up in the middle of the night.  Would rather stay up and sleep in.  Tomorrow is a day for catching up on business.

So for now, thanks for your wonderful and fun comments this morning (was it only this morning???) but I am going to read.
xo
R.

The 200,000th person stayed for 0 seconds and did not leave a trail or a comment.  So much for THAT idea.  Neither the several people after that -- so Tie-Dye Judy, you may have been the 200,004th but you were the first one after 200,000 to leave a comment!

I'm out the door shortly to a doctor's appointment but will check back later tonight.  You are all great!

 

Photo from Bamberger Ranch website.

Art and leadership. Leadership through art. Artful leadership. Of my out-of-the-studio hats, I'm wearing one of them the next three days, teaching with a group of colleagues. The students are Central American highschoolers who are attending a two week leadership symposium, the first week in Washington, D.C; the second week here in Texas. We are spending the next three days together at Selah, the ranch/ecology and environmental center founded by David Bamburger.

David and his work was featured on NPR a couple of days ago, you can hear more about the ranch here. And check out the website, here.

As to our activities, I'll be working with my colleagues from Alamo College's International Program -- Julia Jarrell, Daniel Gonzalez and others (including the "hosts" for the meals, logistics and amenities, the ILS program participants who are 20 young professionals and community organizers from South America). We will spend some of our time touring the ranch (hopefully the rain will stop!) and part of the time in creative arts activities.  San Antonio highshool students will host the Central Americans in their homes over the weekend and take them to their highschools on Monday. Next Tuesday we'll go to Say Si, a wonderful arts education and pre-professional training center for young artists, and continue working to create a multimedia presentation for the hosts, community leaders and peers. The Leadership participants will be exploring the roles, voices and actions that their world needs in the future. Here's a excerpt from our activity outline:

ROUND ROBIN of three activities with group divided into three teams, ILS participants sign up to work with one activity, being trained to help and then taking over some of the leadership with subsequent groups. Each activity takes about 50 minutes  including sharing at the end of each. Facilitators and staff will take photos as the activities are done and at the end, take pictures of each of the Leadership student participants with their products, as time allows.  I will also have a flip video camera and try to take some short action videos clips, too.. All our staff who have cameras need to bring them.

A. Leaders of the Future Badges

Badge making in pairs. Students and participants interview each other about their concerns, hopes and dreams for their future and the the future of the planet. What kind of important roles and careers and viewpoints and values are needed (environmentalist, activist, balancer, peacemaker, visionary, inventor, etc) The partners learn a bit about each other in the present, too. Then make colorful badges with magazine pictures and words (ENGLISH LABELS ON LABELS.doc attached. Please reproduce about 10 copies per page on colored paper if possible. Translate or do similar labels in Spanish and make copies of those too. Cut apart ahead of time if someone has time to do so, other wise we can do at the ranch)

B. Voices from the Future Masks

Students will think about who could be the “spokespersons” of the future – animals, plants, natural phenomena (like the earth or the ocean or reefs) and people. They will design and make strong graphic masks with paper bags, black construction paper, newspaper and white paper cutouts. If time, students will in small groups do some improvisation of what these voices from the future will say. Possibly make cartoon bubbles that go with the masks.

C. Recipes, Remedies and Cures

Starting with some brainstorming, create skits and write about the problems they see that must be solved to have a peaceful, sustainable, healthy future. Students will write, individually, then adding in groups, about the recipes, remedies and cures for these current ails. They will be in the form of recipes, etc. (ex. Recipe for Safe Cities: add  3 parts healthy sustainable infrastructure to 2 parts excellent schools, mix well with imagination, invention and technology. Do not forget to add concern, equality and love for one’s neighbors. Mix well, Let season. Do not put in too large a pan. Smaller batches may be more successful.) Begin work to make these into small group skits that could be part of presentations.

Dinner

Star Party if weather permits

Continue nature program with Bamberger staff and ILS

 

Wow. I am really busy right now. I have seen it coming for a couple of months and now everything is due at once it seems. Deadlines. There are deadlines for my parts of the Twelve by Twelve book, deadlines for quilts that are promised for shows, and here is some news that I haven't shared here yet—I am going to tape two segments for Quilting Arts TV next month in Cleveland. I will be demonstrating two different projects/techniques and I need to put together samples in different stages that I can work with. Life has its own deadlines as well. Valentine's Day is when I send cards and letters, instead of Christmas, so I need to create the image for the cards and write the letters. Blah, blah, blah. I know—this is boring. Everybody is busy. The thing is, I like to share what I am working on here on the blog and not all of it can be shown. After all, I want you to buy the book and watch the TV shows, not see it all here first!

I occurred to me this week that if there was a way to make one thing work for at least two purposes that would help. Above you can see my Valentine image that I am working away on. I think it is going to help me out on a couple more projects as well.


A couple days ago when I showed Jane Davila's new book, Barbara left a comment asking if it was a book that a beginner could easily work with. It is a book of techniques and the instructions are very clear and easy to follow. For beginners I would tell you that techniques are only part, and the least important part, of what you want to learn. Fortunately, Jane's first book, written with Elin Waterston and titled Art Quilt Workshop, is a great place to start. It has great information about design principles and color and basic techniques, with exercises to practice. There is a wonderful preview of this book available online here. With this book, and her new book you can definitely get started. Then you may want to move on to even more fun stuff and get Rayna's book! You know there is no end to it.

Logo by Jeanelle McCall

Peggy Schroder received such a great response from fiber artists for her Have A Heart tote that we just couldn’t bear combine the artwork in an actual tote.  Owning artwork is so personal that I felt you should have the choice to bid only on the pieces that speak to you.

So each Tuesday, the magical “HeART” tote will open and several individual pieces of artwork will be available bid during ToteTuesday.  Please note that the Preview and actual sale will now be held on my website. The urls will be posted here on my blog Monday.  Trying to showcase 12+ totes and these great artworks on a blog would lead to massive carpal tunnel outbreaks from scrolling.

Starting us off on Tuesday, February 9 will be these two artworks:

This is Ellen Lindner’s Emerging Hope.  It is an  8×10″ fabric collage and, yes, it is finished.  If you would like to see what it would look like mounted and frame, visit Ellen’s blog.  This artwork was custom made for ToteTuesday; you can read more about Ellen’s creation of this artwork here.

Karen Stiehl Osborn created Aurora especially for ToteTuesday and held strong when a gallery wanted to buy it. The dedication of artists to the cause is inspiring!  The artwork is inspired by the colors of a Winter sunrise.  Materials:  Canvas and Kona cotton cloth, hand painted and printed by the artist.  Approximately 10.5″hx6.5″w, mounted on 14″x11″ watercolor paper.  (I recently interviewed Karen about the change in her artwork to using canvas).

And that’s not all.

Marti Lew has organized a number of cancer survivors and their friends from the Quiltart list to donate art also for a special Celebrate Life tote.  Again, the artwork is just too wonderful not to be displayed and put up for bid individually.  The first of the Celebrate Life tote artwork to be up for bid on February 9 is Marti’s own Celebrate With Lupines in Winter. I had to leave this photo as Marti shot it as it’s perfect for the title.

Marti’s artwork was created by using hand painted fabric for the background, french knots, free motion stitching.  Measuring 4×4″, it was mounted on a 5×5″ canvas which was covered with hand painted fabric by Mickey Lawler.

All donations for ToteTuesday are made directly to the American Cancer Society through Fiberart For A Cause.  I thank the generous fiber artists and businesses who have so generously donated to ToteTuesday.  See you on Tuesday, February 9 starting at 11 a.m. when these wonderful artworks AND more than a dozen themed totes will be up for bid.

I LOVE woodblock prints, etchings, lino-prints…. I love and am always inspired by Dijanne Cevaal’s work, which you can see on her blog, here (and then follow the links there to more eye-candy).  Well, last year when I was beyond over-busy, I learned she was teaching an online lino-cutting class.  I promptly wrote and asked her to let me know when the next one began.  She did, and on Monday we received our first lesson.  Here are my first rudimentary attempts…

I have cut easier-to-cut surfaces than linoleum, such as MasterCarve (the Rolls Royce of rubbery media) and Speedy-Cut.  But I knew I could learn from Dijanne, and just reading the first lesson was a wonderful tour of antique textiles, textile printing history (did you know that Fauve artist Raoul Dufy also designed couture textiles?  I hadn’t!), and lots of useful tips.

I also learned while working on the first exercise that my Speedball lino-cutting tools are VERY SHARP, and how deep is too deep to cut safely (thereby causing the blade to skitter out of control into my left index finger…OUCH!).  Yes, Dijanne warned us, but I –as usual– appear to have had to learn the hard way that THAT was TOO deep!

The picture at the top is four efforts at printing on cloth.  I used one of three different types of linoleum (wanting to try out each one before buying a bunch) I ordered from Dick Blick, a major discount art supply house here in the US.  I actually don’t much like the one I used here… it is like sawdust plasticized.  I hope I like the other, but harder to carve (?) lino better… the other yellowish one certainly feels smoother, and the quite hard gray even better.  Anyway, here I decided to be uncharacteristically methodical, and tried all 8 of my blades (I have two different carving tools, and luckily each one came with a slightly different assortment of blades, giving me four “V” and four “U” shapes/sizes).

I did a test-print (I used Jacquard textile paint in blue on a piece of aqua hand-dyed) on paper first.  Clearly, I need to refine how much paint I get on the lino-cut and how well.  My sponge roller is in need of a new sponge, since the last time I used it it accidentally dried with paint in it.  Ooops.

I’ve got two more exercises to do for this lesson, and I’m really looking forward to the next two lessons!  However, I’ll wait for my sliced finger to heal and also work on a MAJOR project that is due and needs massive amounts of work NOW… back in a bit with more lino-cutting!

neki desu


view CCLicense

I have a flimsy!

I spent most of Tuesday morning flag sewing 2 inch squares into nine-patches and then put it all together to make a scrappy baby quilt. There is supposed to be one more border on this but I'm leaving it as is. On the docket today is quilting.

Every single time I make a quilt I go through the agonizing process of deciding whether to quilt it by machine or by hand. I wish I could just get set a policy in my head.

"All baby quilts will be by hand. All tapestry quilts will be by machine.' Or"All gift quilts will be by machine. All family quilts will be by hand."

Or something similar to that. But at each and every quilt I stop and think and at night even DREAM about which way to go.

"Hand quilting is so much softer for a baby quilt."

"No non-quilter would appreciate the time that goes into hand quilting."

"With machine quilting I might really get some cute designs in this and I do need the practice."

"That baby is born. This needs to be done quickly! Machine is the way to go!"

I'm still deciding...

I also have the Mini-Round Robin ready to quilt and that will definitely be done by machine. (Small and the recipient is a fan of machine quilting.) Now to agonize over WHAT to quilt. I need to stop thinking and start doing.

I finished putting all the pieces on the design wall today. I kept standing back and checking  how my eyes moved around the piece and then I would rearrange or change a fabric. I love the colors in this. It makes me happy to work on this during this dreary month of February.

I took a photo and changed it to gray scale to check the values. Looks pretty good.

So, I carefully pulled it off the design wall and placed it on my ironing table and started fusing it. I dropped  my Panasonic iron  too many times and it has died. So, I was only able to tack the pieces with my sealing iron.

Tomorrow, I am heading down to Trinity early in the morning for a nuno felting class. So more fusing will have to wait until tomorrow afternoon.

I am feeling much better today. I had trouble getting out of bed, but I got dressed in leaving the house clothes instead of my sweats. I was talking to my wise daughter on the phone about how punky I was feeling. She reminded me that every one in Portland feels that way in February!! So I got out early and did food shopping for the rest of the week. I took a walk with Scooter and Mr C. And, then, I enjoyed a great afternoon in the studio.

This piece has been sitting on my wall for a few weeks and this afternoon, taking a break from something that required too much concentration, I finally stitched it.  It is mounted on black cotton, which you probably won't see because I am going to stretch this piece around a 12" gallery wrapped canvas.  I've used them all up so have to go to Jerry's tomorrow and buy more in this size. I have to admit it looks different, stitched. And as I sit in my chair and look at it from across the room I am pleased with it.  Not only did it make itself, I was able to use up some of that pink fabric I dislike so much. It conjures up any number of things to me -- but I have to wait till it tells me its name.

Rifling around looking for green fabric, I found this piece which I shall not cut up. Thiox through screens, which took out some - but not all -- of the color underneath.  I suspect there was too much turq. in that base color.  Needs another layer, but I'm not printing these days. OTOH - I plan to spend a couple of hours in the studio tomorrow, so I will at least take it with me and leave it there till I am ready to deal with it. There are too many other things in line ahead of it.


P.S. - as of my bedtime, only 49 more people to get to the 200,000th.  Leave a comment and an e-mail contact just in case it's you.

I am always interested in how natural features are placed vis-à-vis human structures, and the Berry Botanical Garden offers some nice companions.

The walkway through the Ravine, for example, places horizontals, in appropriate muted grays and greens, across the lines of the trees:

A gazebo is covered with moss as if it had grown in place. This is one of those advantages of living in sw Oregon; covered with moss happens very quickly.

The main house (built in 1939) at the Berry Garden appears to be a modified prairie style building, modest in comparison to other houses in the Dunthorpe neighborhood, but comfortable and well-suited to it surrounds. Parts of it seem to have been changed, perhaps to better accomodate gardening and office workers.

Photo from Wikipedia

–June

Well, I love showing people how to make "little books". Three-hole pamphlet stitch can be a revelation (and so easy once you know how) --- even for people who "don't sew".

And if anyone shows the least bit of interest in learning how to make a simple book, I'll drop everything to show them. It's a pleasure.

So, yesterday, in the course of events, I showed Glenda how to make a book with three-hole pamphlet stitch, and then got back to doing whatever...

Today, to my surprise and, well, stupefaction, I was presented with the second-ever book she made - which I will treasure - and some yummmmmmmy chocolates -It's made me think about two things: how we take "the things that come easily to us" for granted, and how we really do need to stop and say thank you to our friends more often.

Following on from the cardboard "architectural quotes", I made some freeform facades from crank clay, creasing them after embossing and cutting the doors/windows, or adding a bit of slip once they were standing there nakedly. The creasing process led to this "nightmare stair" (and another smaller once, which was not worth firing*) - this is the back view -
As you can see by comparison with the stairs that were bisque fired since last week, the nightmare stair is steep - and weighty - and yet could crumble at any moment -
Amid all this making, and a bit of rearranging of storage shelves to give us more room for our "accumulations", we were aiming to have a group crit at 3pm - leaving each of us about 10 minutes to say what we're aiming at, and for the others to give their reactions. Everyone had an "I'm not sure what I'm aiming at" or "I don't know how to integrate these" or "not sure quite where it's going" story to tell! On explaining my plan (such as it is), I felt more at sea than ever. But salvation lies in the making - of more ceramics, of models of the projected life-size stairway -- and in the editing. (Which led me to muse on how visual editing might differ from literary or technical editing - but that's another story for another time.)

Getting out "everything" yet again led to people moving pieces around to make "rooms" - perhaps that could be a part of the final piece, letting people move the elements around? There are still many possible aspects to think about -- and although it's confusing and anxiety-producing, I do like the "mulling" and the sense of yet-unexplored possibilities. I just need to be making, making ... thinking with my hands ...
Here's the bigger picture, with several streams of thought - corners of rooms and "just corners" and the stairs and the opening doors...
What I realised later is that the "display" was set out in my usual orientation, and that everyone else was looking at it from the back - like this -
"Behind" - yet another aspect of "inside, outside, in between"!

Gathered together - a collection of corners -
and the items for bisque firing this week, glazing next week, and eventual editing. Uh-oh, the one in the front still needs scraping back - it has inlays of black slip, and I wanted to scrape the surface smooth ... but does it matter? The rolls of slip (which were dried on plaster) look like vines growing through the wall, or snakes (The Speckled Band - ?) entering the old house...
Finally, photos of the almost-finished pieces from a week or two ago. Click on the picture to see them properly.
Yes I dropped one and it broke. Never mind, make another...

At the end of the day I was exhausted (a crit, however friendly, will do that ...) and felt I'd moved backward rather than forward. Some old "bits" went into the bin - storage space is a problem - and a few others came home. I need to figure out what to concentrate on - which means I need to know "where" all this is going ... so, to bed, with book and pen, to muse some more on this ....

Here's a note that Jane Dunnewold, my friend and mentor, put on out on one of the online lists this week. If you plan to order Jane's new book ART CLOTH -- an update and reworking of what is certainly one of the classic resources of the surface design field, COMPLEX CLOTH -- then do her the favor of ordering from her Art Cloth website. I certainly will. And, even better, add my name to the drawing for one of Jane's wonderful pieces of art.

"I was dismayed to go to Amazon and see how deeply discounted my new book will be - even before it has been released. I know that's the way of the world, but it led me to some serious thinking about how to compete with discounting while offering value to those who are committed to sticking with and supporting artists by spending a bit more - rather than going for the discount. With that in mind, I've decided to host a "raffle" of sorts - to thank those of you who are willing to support artists first hand - without the middle person, like Amazon, involved.

Anyone who pre-orders my new book on my website - complexcloth.com - will automatically be entered in a drawing for two of my larger works of art. The pieces are yet to be determined - I need to get some work back from Interweave before I can make the decision about what to offer, but they will be GOOD pieces. The drawing will occur on June 1, 2010. Anyone who has already pre-ordered from my website is automatically "in."

Please feel free to pass this on to other lists and friends. I am not
against Amazon at all, but am interested in leveling the playing field so that I might actually be able to hold my own against big business! And may I say, while engaging in a little fun with an outcome a couple of people will really enjoy!

(Is Amazon the equivalent of an on-line big box store? Am I the local corner artist?)

Cheers,
Jane

and yes, every copy ordered on the website will be personally signed."