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Archive for the ‘Spiritual Life’ Category

Grieving

Friday, December 14th, 2012

 

yellow-green 14

 

“Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o-er wrought heart and bids it break.” 
― William Shakespeare, Macbeth

It has been a difficult week, hasn’t it? Grief mixed in with the celebration of this special season. The shooting here in Oregon was at the mall where I do most of my shopping. It was shattering to think of the unspeakable happening in a spot that I have often walked through. Then, today. I can barely fathom the enormous sadness for the little hamlet in Connecticut. Mental illness and semi-automatic guns are a lethal mixture. I wish that I could wake up in the morning and find it was all a bad dream.

There must be something we can do to ameliorate the gun violence in this country. It is way out of control. Will the deaths of 20 innocent young children finally wake up the politicians.? I pray so.

I thought I would share the back of my jazz quilt. I love the backs of quilts that show the quilting.

jazzback

 

And here are the two things I garnered at the CFG silent auction. Hand-dyed fabric.

silentauctionfabric

 

A beautiful felted purse.

 

feltedpurse

 

Hold your loved ones close and pray for the grieving.

Second Breath

Thursday, February 23rd, 2012

This is today’s 3 x 3 – a bit of indigo shibori, machine stitched. Here is yesterday’s –

Robert Genn’s newsletter popped up in my e-mail just a bit ago as I was downloading photos and getting read to write this post. It is titled, “Second Breath”

A “second breath” is a restart of a work after getting a second opinion from yourself. I made up that line while I was walking this morning–so it’s my lead-in to an overdue letter on methods of reworking half-finished or unsatisfactory paintings–and what dangers may be lurking.

You need not consider the time you’ve already wasted, the cloud of your ego, or the riveting need to keep some particular part. This is business and you need to make the business better. You need to ask yourself, “What could be?” Remember the part about not being hung up on keeping something? It’s when you remove that aircraft carrier from the foreground and replace it with an albatross that you start to get somewhere.

I have posted just two of the paragraphs. This was meaningful to me because I took a second breath today. After I printed my blended photos on organza, I was not happy with how they looked on the fabric background that I painted. Truth be told, I didn’t like the background after I started adding more stuff to it.

I want to evoke the feeling of the four seasons in our neighborhood as Scooter, Mr C and I walk it each day. I decided to do a fused patchwork background, using colors that I see in the four seasons. It did not take me as long as I thought to cut and arrange the pieces. I put Mistyfuse on the batting. I will fuse down the pieces and then stich the edges in place. It was too long to photograph the whole piece so here are the sections.

Winter:

Spring:

Summer:

Fall:

This will be a lot more work for me to pull off, but will make for a richer piece. After stitching, I will screenprint the images that I have used to make thermofax screens. Then I will fuse the organza photos.

I have large heavy duty freezer paper sheets that I iron to organza and print in my large Epson 2200.

I spent most of yesterday fighting the printer, cleaning the print heads, adding new ink cartridges. I was still getting horizontal lines when I printed on plain paper. After consulting my expert friend, Gloria Hansen, I found I needed to set the printing for high resolution and it worked perfectly.

Lent started yesterday. I don’t like to give up anything so I am doing something. I am wearing my pedometer and attempting to walk 10,000 steps a day. I set a goal of 8000 for the first week and will work up to 10,000 by next week, I hope.

 

Busy, Busy Week-end

Sunday, January 15th, 2012

I have been a busy woman this week-end. I spent a lot of time on Saturday working on homework for the class I am taking on Quilt University with Elizabeth Barton. I am way outside my comfort zone, but I think it is a good thing for me. Eventually, I will feel comfortable enough to blog about it, but for now, I am just working and sketching and thinking.

I got out some silk charmeuse for the 3 X 3s this week-end. The first piece that I did with the turquoise elements was free motion quilted and it was terrible. I have to figure out what I am doing wrong.

Last night, we went to the Oregon Symphony to hear Joshua Bell play Brahms. It was simply fantastic, and he is such a cutie patootie, to boot. This morning, I spent an hour decoupaging candles with grade school kids at church. That was a lot of fun. Then I worked the arts table during coffee hour. This afternoon, we went back to Trinity for a glorious organ concert by our church organist who is very accomplished. Our organ is considered one of the best in the country.

Here is another nice gift that I received recently. When the 9 twelves were in Houston, we exchanged gifts of things we had made. I gave every one a shibori scarf that I had dyed. Kristin gave us these beautifully embroidered and beaded house icons.

 

 

My Exciting Life

Tuesday, June 28th, 2011

I am feeling so much better that I have been spending the last two days doing some much needed cleaning. As many of you know, Mr C prefers to do our cleaning rather than have someone come in to do it. I hate regular housekeeping — dusting, vacuuming, etc. However, I can really get into scrubbing and purging various locations in the house. In the last two days, I have done the kitchen cabinets, the master bathroom cabinets, the pantry and the fridge. I also helped Mr C do some purging of the garage and it got power washed.

So, I have not done much studio work. I have done lots of hand stitching on the gray piece. I have to say that I love the piece so much. I am not sure if the value is working, but I don’t care because I love exploring the elements that I have included. I am looking forward to sharing it on July 12th.

I have enjoyed taking Scooter to the Rhodie Garden in the afternoons.

Today, Scooter went to visit the groomer and got his summer do.

A couple of days ago, he looked much chunkier!!

Tonight, we attended a dinner and lecture by Bishop Gene Robinson. He was the first openly gay priest to be elected a Bishop in the Episcopal Church. He is an incredibly gifted speaker and a man full of grace who is not afraid to speak the truth. Tonight he said he was going to do something his mother told him not to do — mix religion and politics. He spoke about his growing concern about the political climate in this country and how he wants the church to step up and speak out about the inequality — the concern that the poor are bearing the biggest burden of the downturn of our economy. I had just told Mr C this morning that I was so depressed with the crap that is happening in the Supreme Court and in Congress that I felt I was almost ready to pack up and leave for another country. Of course, I won’t. I will stick it out and hope the pendulum starts to swing back.

Sorry for the downer. Here is the gorgeous peony that was the centerpiece for our table tonight.

And, here are Jayme and Mark, kayaking in the San Juan Islands. Love this!!

Random Stuff

Monday, December 6th, 2010

Today, Mr C and I took Scooter out to the country to cut down our Christmas tree. We love Noble Firs and we have a favorite place to find them. This is our third year to go back to the Allen Tree Farm. We started out to search for the perfect tree, armed with the hand saw.

It is a bit hard to see the trees for the forest!

Mr C does a height check.

A young kid working there offered to take it down with a chain saw. Mr C went to find him. Meanwhile, I found a tree I liked better. This could have gone on for hours.

Scooter had a good time off leash running around the tree farm.

And so, we headed back to the front of the farm.

Seen on the path.

After a good shaking, the tree was wrapped in plastic and loaded on to the roof of the Jeep and home we went. It probably won’t get brought in the house and decorated until later in the week. Mia asked to come and help me.

I had a busy week-end. On Saturday, we prepared the house and a meal for our church dinner group. Groups of 8 are randomly organized in the fall and the group meets together in each other’s homes through out the year. We were so excited to get to know six people we had not known before. Several are new to the area.

Yesterday, I went to church early with Mr C as he was auditioning to be a reader. I went to an advent talk and discussion. Then, last night we went back for Lessons and Carols, a very Anglican Advent service. The music and readings were beautiful.

This morning, I had a chat with the SDA conference chair and agreed to handle the housing reservations for the University of Minn dorms. I have to set up a web page with information before the end of the year.

Tonight, I finally got down to my studio and cut out the felt that I bought for the base of my coasters. I really like the touch of the felt around the edges.

Tonight, I made a batch with indigo shibori and a linen napkin that I dyed orange. I used orange felt for the base.

I am finally feeling pretty good again. I was beginning to feel my age, and that is not a good thing. I have a busy week, socially, so am not sure how much studio time I will have. I have to get moving on the deadlines that are looming.