Monday, December 24, 2012

Merry Christmas 2012


Happy winter holidays to everyone and may 2013 bless us all with peace and joy.

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Get Your Art On - Day Twenty-One



So, apparently I'm not so good at this making art on a regular basis thing.  I have completely lost track of the days and have definitely not gotten my art on everyday.  Today I met with some friends who are knitters and did some beading on the embellishment piece while they clickity-clacked away.  At the end of the afternoon, they had made some progress while I decided I hated the beads and took them all off.  Going to do some hand stitching and then re-evaluate the bead situation.



Last weekend I went to Pacific International Quilt Festival in Santa Clara and, among other things, took a class with Janice Gunner. It was a free form piecing class and I brought a picture of an autumn forest in Virginia for inspiration.  This is as far as I got so far, will be adding something to represent birch trees soon. I've got a great piece of Mickey Lawler fabric that I have been saving for years that should just do the trick.  So, something else to work on this month. I'll try to post a better picture for the next step. And, by the way, Janice Gunner is a great teacher, lots of fun and very encouraging.  She demonstrated the technique and then let us all loose and no two students had pieces that looked anything alike.  As far as I'm concerned, the best measurement of a good teacher.

Sunday, October 7, 2012

Get Your Art On - Day Seven


I am not getting my art on on a daily basis, but I am checking in now and then!  The top photo is a bike I saw on State Street today and it fascinated me with the colors, shapes, and textures.  It's an old rusty bike and a work of art. 

This morning I did some quilting on Dyed Roads and this afternoon I added borders to the piece I started on Wednesday.  Our Fibervision group has an embellishment challenge - we're to create a 12"x 12" piece with surface embellishment of our choice.  I think I am going to add some fused appliqué and beads. And whatever else comes to mind.

 Oh! And I threw an a white tee-shirt that got stained with taco sauce in to be ice-dyed.  So, I've already started getting my art on for tomorrow!

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Get Your Art On - Day Three




Okay,  it is much cooler today and I actually spent an hour Getting My Art On!  I collaged some scraps from my last three projects by fusing them on to a base fabric with Wonder Under.  I don't know what the next step is. Could be some surface design, could collage more fabric on to it, might cut it up and use the pieces in another project, it's all under consideration for tomorrow's hour.

Monday, October 1, 2012

Get Your Art On - Day One



This is not a very auspicious beginning for 30 Days of Get Your Art On.  Too danged hot in my work area for me to do anything besides melt over there!  I had to do something, so I chose the threads I'll be using for the Dyed Roads quilt.  May not be much, but I touched fabric and looked at colors and that's as arty as I'm getting tonight.

Sunday, September 30, 2012

Back of Dyed Roads


So, here's the fabric I chose for the back of Dyed Roads.  I guess I am determined to challenge myself - it will be an interesting experiment since the front is make of African batik, which is very loosely woven, and hand-dyed sateens, which are tighter but very soft and now the back, commercial batik, which is very tightly woven. Thank goodness I'm a machine quilter.  This could be a torment for a hand-quilter.

Making this backing was tough and funny at the same time.  I had to piece it and had to take a run at it three times!  The first two errors were math mistakes and then then a sewing mistake.  Jeez, I know it's been a long time since I made something other than a wall quilt, but this is crazy. 

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Dyed Roads


A couple of years ago a good friend gave me a wonderful piece of African hand-dyed fabric as a thank-you for cat sitting.  I've looked at the fabric and patted it and hadn't been able to decide what to do with it because the fabric is very loosely woven, so wouldn't lend itself to accurate piecing for a block-based quilt.  The other "problem" was that it was so beautiful that I did not want to cut it into small pieces.

One day I was cruising the Interweb looking at quilts and came across a piece by Alissa Carlton that she entitled Crossroads and knew exactly what to do with my African fabric (go click on her name for a link to the original quilt).  So, today I made this top for a lap quilt for myself.  And it's a good thing I'm keeping this since I put the center fabric in upside down but didn't have enough fabric to correct my error!  Customization in design, don't you know?

Not a great photo and quilting this is going to be a challenge since it really wants to go wonky, but I'm pleased with the results so far and am looking forward to using this when winter drafts are swirling around this old house.

Friday, June 22, 2012

ATC for Ruth Walters

Not the best photo ever, but I wanted to share this ATC made as a good-bye token for friend and fellow Fibervision member, Ruth Walters.  It is 2.5" x 3.5" and working at that size is a challenge!  I started with a piece of red hand-dyed fabric and printed from a Thermofax screen featuring art by Judy Coates Perez called Floribunda.  I then fused some greeny-yellow hand-dyed waves on to it and added some beads.

Ruth has moved to Santa Fe to be closer to her family as her health has become a challenge and she will certainly be missed.  She's a delightful woman and an extremely talented artist and it has been a pleasure and privilege to know her.  When I first moved to Santa Barbara in 1985, Ruth had a store in the downtown area that featured beautiful hand-made objects.  You could buy locally made art in price ranges from $10 to $5,000.  It was a wonderful store and, being mostly broke at the time, I loved that I could go there when it was time to buy a gift for some occasion and be sure to find something fantastic in my price range.  The quality and creativity of the merchandise was a direct reflection of Ruth's artist eye.

I didn't know Ruth then, but was fortunate to get to know her later in her fiber-arts years and have always been in awe of her talent.  I can remember several well-know art quilt teachers who would wander by her table during a workshop and make suggestions, not knowing that she had her own clear vision and would end up with a work that would blow the rest of us out of the water.

Happy trails, Ruth!  Your unique energy and talent will be missed around here.

Baby Quilt In Progress


A friend is having a new baby granddaughter and asked me to make a quilt for the little one.  I always enjoy making a quick trip around the world a la Blanche Young's Tradition With A Twist because it gets me rooting through my stash for those perfect six fabrics.  Usually I don't have quite the right combination of fabrics and end up buying two or three to add to my stash pieces, but this time I had all but one on hand.  I bought the gray-green with yellow and pink circles and am glad to have some left to add to my stash.  Here's the quilting in progress, I'll post a picture of the completed quilt soon.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Buddha Abides 2012

Today I was fortunate to have this piece, Everyday Kwan Yin II,  accepted in the annual Buddha Abides exhibit here in Santa Barbara.  As usual, I was working on this right up to the very last second and so failed to get a picture before the ingathering.  After this photo was taken I trimmed it to straighten it out some and put a binding on it.  

The center area is a paper collage that I backed with Wunder Under so that I could sew through it without the paper tearing and falling apart.  There is a tissue paper collage that is painted, stamped and drawn on, then I printed a photo of my piece Everyday Kwan Yin and fused that on to the tissue paper with more Wunder Under.  The whole thing was fused to a piece of hand-painted fabric and machine quilted.  Sequins and beads were added to represent some of the bright shiny objects that distract us on our paths to becoming an everyday Kwan Yin.

Monday, January 2, 2012

Times Flies

Today I was messing around with paint and pens and discovered that my thoughts about time seemed to be showing up on the paper.  Recently someone I know died way too young, I've been trying to catch up with a backlog at work, had to be on interminable hold taking care of unavoidable personal business, losing track of time while reading or watching television, enjoying relaxing, unstructured days off from work,  and pondering what I'd like to accomplish in the new year. Too little, too much, rarely does time seem just right to me lately.