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Archive for the ‘Good mail’ Category

This and That

Wednesday, June 15th, 2011

I missed attending the SDA conference in Minneapolis last week for various reasons. One of the state reps that I work with sent me a goody bag of stuff attendees received. This is a pin with the SDA logo.

This is the official goody bag.

There were several magazines, but no Fiberarts. I was disappointed to hear that the summer issue is the last one to be published.

There was a small bottle of PROsapol – Prochem’s version of synthrapol. There are fabric samples from Exotic silks and Spoonflower. It is nice to see the quality of the fabric that Spoonflower uses. The little bag contains lavender scented wool scraps – smells delightful.

I also received the Quilt National book from Amazon today.  I have to spend some time with it later.

I think I have finally kicked the virus. I am tired tonight, but it is a good tired, not a sick tired.

Wednesday Whatever

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

beatecritters

Look at what arrived in the mail today! These were made by my friend Beate who lives in Dusseldorf, Germany. Her beloved beagle, Jeanie, was hit by a car and had to have surgery on two legs. It cost a lot of money so several of her FB and QA friends pitched in to help her get some quick cash. I bought these adorable critters and the door hanger below, from her Etsy shop.

beatedoorhanger

I was rather tired and achy today. Lugging a trunk show of  quilts to and from the house gave me a nasty back ache. I did get my to do list done in spite of it. I took an Aleve and kept on going. The biggest job was getting all the quilts back in their places.

Tonight, I got some work done on a couple of postcards.

postcardwips

A Very Busy Day

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

celestialblackhole

This morning, I got myself down to the studio so that I could finish this, now named Celestial Black Hole. Last night at my theology class, I unquilted the black areas. It really was a mess and the wrong thread — a metallic silver and black — which kept shredding in the needle. I sometimes like pulling out quilting threads. I don’t know why. Maybe it is because I am fixing something and that is satisfying.

I requilted it with a wavy line using an understated black, copper and gold. I then added some celestial glitz with some gold mica chips in gel medium. I am not all that thrilled with this piece. I am hoping that I can do a better job of finishing the other piece. I have this problem of not wanting to do work that is too perfect (probably because I can’t!), but really, even if I could, I like a more organic look to my work, but this piece is a little more sloppy than I like to show.

Here is a detail:

celestialblackholedetail

I took the photos using my new lighting system that arrived today. There are two of these lights with fancy carrying cases. Not sure  where I would take them. Anyway, I got my piece uploaded to the Fast Friday Fabric Challenge (not fast for me) Yahoo site and Blog.

newphotolights

Yesterday, I received a sweet little package from Kirsty in Australia who is part of the 12 X 12 group. She just opened a shop called PomPom Rouge. She had these gorgeous hand-dyed embroidery threads that I loved. She sent some to me. Can’t wait to use these.

kirstyembroiderythread

Tonight, I got to have 15 minutes of fame at High Fiber Diet meeting. So I packed up a selection of my quilts. It was fun to show some of my early work.

I had leftover lamb from the week-end, and I made the best lamb and lentil soup which we had with feta cheese garnish and pita bread. We had to eat early so that I could rush off to my 6:30 meeting.

During the meeting, we made Momigami paper. This is a way of treating paper so that if looks and behaves like fabric. I used some magazine pages. You start crumpling the paper.

crumpledpage

It is a great way tor relieve stress. You just keep kneading it in your hand and then add a drop of oil to your hand and continue then add another drop of oil and keep this up until you have added 5 – 7 drops of oil. Then, you iron the paper between paper towels or brown paper. Here are my two sheets,

momigami1

momigami2

These can be cut up and used in collages. Depending upon what you start with, you can get very different results.

So that was my very busy day. I wish I had had time for some Expressive Drawing. I am feeling so much better and have a lot more energy. I was afraid that I was going to start acting my age!! Not yet.

Good Things

Saturday, October 17th, 2009

silkpinecone

Isn’t this gorgeous? It is a one of a kind copper silk pine cone made for me by my daughter,  Stephanie. She fuses silk to wool and cuts strips and then cuts the little pine cone pieces and stitches them to a wool core. Click on the photo to see it larger. We had a great family dinner tonight.

I got some good mail today. I purchased the following pair from the Art Now for Autism auction. I gave them to M & M.

chuygustavo

The artist is Georgina Lopez from El Paso. I was touched by her artist statement:

I enjoy making funny and at times, macabre pieces of art, but it’s still considered whimsical. The reason for donating this work is that I’m a parent of an autistic adult child. He was the 3rd and last of my children and our lives changed dramatically after his birth, as those who have gone through it know. Since then, he’s taught us about being more compassionate, especially to young mothers who look as if they’re ready to eat their child in public…who knows what their story is, love in a way that can sometimes be impossible physically and mentally, learn to say no to the small stuff and yes to new adventures, think outside the box…way outside the box, and has brought out the best in all of us.

As for my little pieces of art, I’ll introduce you the “the boys.” Chuy and Gustavo are brothers lying side by side. As you can see from Chuy’s little grin, he’s the prankster. He likes to play jokes on his brother and older cousin and the other dolls that surround him on the wall.

I also ordered an Art Now for Autism t-shirt which arrived today. The art work is by Karen Friday. It makes a great logo for the shirts.

artnowtshirt

I did some more stitching on the black hole piece. I did some bobbin stitching with some gold yarn and couched some copper Perle cotton. I quilted the background with a black/silver metallic which gave me fits. I still want to do some embellishing on this.

warmcolorsblackhole

This is another black hole that I painted which I didn’t like at first, but it has grown on me. It has cooler colors. I painted the background with some mica chips.

coolcolorblackhole

I finished chapter two of the Expressive Drawing book which has the first workshop in it. I had to go out and buy some more black acrylic paint and a large pad of paper and some proper brushes. I am gonna love drawing with paint and a brush.

So far I have learned the difference between descriptive drawing and expressive drawing. As you can imagine, descriptive is the kind that most of us think of when we say we can’t draw and is the default approach in Western culture. Those of you who know me probably understand, now, why I am so excited about this book’s process. I hope to have my first drawings to share, tomorrow.

Scooter in the Sky with Diamonds

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009

scooterinthesky

How cute is this? it arrived today from my BFF in Georgia, Judy. Scooter is fluffy and soft, just like in real life.  I hope he is up there playing and not leaving me!! Thank you, Judy. Mr C and I both love this.

I thought I would show you what I did to the black hole. I was foiling with Bo Nash, trying to get an overall glowing effect in my space thingy. First the Bo Nash didn’t melt and then it just smooshed. Maybe with some stitching, I could save this, but I would rather start over.

foiledblackhole

Today, I took off and went shopping for some things to fill out my fall/winter wardrobe. It was my reward for cleaning my closet and making more room!! I found some great bargains.

Tomorrow  is STASH at Gale’s house. We are going to carve rubber stamps. I think it will be fun. Terry has carved some cool stamps and will show us the ropes.