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Archive for February, 2008

The Bishop’s Close

Sunday, February 17th, 2008

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Today, Mr C and I took a short drive to The Bishop’s Close. It is a beautiful estate on the Willamette River. It was bequeathed to the Bishop of the diocese of Oregon. The current bishop has his office there. The gardens are open to the public. It has a beautiful walking trail which meanders through a rock garden and by several water features, with views of the river and the vistas to the East. This was the view of Mt. Hood on this sunny afternoon.

Purple Crocuses were everywhere. Daphne was starting to bloom and gave off a wonderful scent.

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I loved this mossy rock garden.

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I think these are Manzanita which were on the trail closest to the river.

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Here is the actual building that the garden’s surround.

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All of the photos can be seen on my Flickr site.

I finished my homework for Lizzie’s class, week 4, on Saturday. I’m having so much fun doing these exercises. Otherwise, I have spent a lovely week-end off. Tomorrow, I have a meeting in the morning, homework to do for my EFM church history class and the class in the evening. Tuesday, I will be back at work, creating.

Got Hope?

Friday, February 15th, 2008

I had a good mail day. I have been waiting patiently for these.

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I found this wonderful blog post (Huffington Post) about Obama, titled “Unstoppable Obama.” I encourage you to read it for understanding the Obama momentum.

Then, just for fun, check out this video.

I have spent the day relaxing and putting things back in order after my Art Cloth week. It was so nice to get up this morning and not have to hit the ground running to get things done or leave the house for some reason. I took a leisurely walk with Maggie, in the sunshine. Tonight we went out for dinner since we opted to stay in last night.

Hope you all have a great week-end.

Wednesday Potpourri

Wednesday, February 13th, 2008

First, some eye candy. Look at this gorgeous fabric that has been arriving. I am working on a commission piece that will be a collage of vintage Japanese fabrics with reds and yellows as the main color theme.

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Next, I just had to share this delightful e-mail that I received through my website contact form. It really made my day!! I disguised her name, but she is from Scotland.

Just found your blog and website whilst trying to find a reason why after 10 years doing a proper job I can’t get my procien dyes beyond the level of wishy washy! I’m not a blogger-haven’t got any idea what its about, but thought this woman thinks a bit like me when I meandered facsinated around your website-I hope I haven’t got completely lost here-I am talking to the lady who has a bottle of pinot gringio in amongst the threads-aren’t I?
Anyway, I’ll work the recipe out, I always work stuff out or remember in the end, I’ll have multi coloured fingers for a while but I’ll get there. I just wanted to e-mail you and say its nice to know that I’m not the only middle aged woman who finds fibre, colour, and cotton wrapped round the vacuum cleaner exciting, in fact more exciting than most things except homeless people, running, chocolate, cats and maybe that other thing that people do when they’ve got time!

Be interesting to hear from you-great site.

Rxxxxx

P.s I’m a lapsed textile designer, batik in particular, but the ex-husband wanted ‘stuff’ and I meekly responded by getting a proper job. I’m now divorced-yeehaa! Liberated and making my way back to my creative soul-and for the first time in over ten years re-discovering textile, colour, design, dyes, cloth, beads and art! What a relief, I thought I’d lost not only passion but even interest forever-but its back!

Fatima, on the other hand, is making our lives a living nightmare. Someone, or some robotic Internet form filler, is using the name Fatima and our phone number to apply for every loan and mortgage available on line. In fact, I got one message that she was pre-approved for a business loan of $270,000. The calls have been coming about once an hour on average for two days. A live person that I talked to says that people often use a fictitious phone number so that they won’t get phone calls. I have taken to answering the phone with, ” Fatima does not live here. Don’t ever call here again!”

On the weight loss front, I lost almost 2 pounds today. I am at a new low weight. I think it is because I gave up cheese for Lent. I can’t wait for Sundays, when I can break my fast and have a little cheese, yum!

The big news is that I finished the Art Cloth. I produced a computer journal of my process with photos — it was burned to a CD and all will be overnighted to San Antonio tomorrow. I am really happy with my final result.

Tomorrow is STASH meeting. We are going to meet at Terry’s new house and get a tour of the estate, then out to lunch. It will be a lovely day. Mr C is taking me out for Lover’s Day tomorrow night. If I am not careful, I will gain the 2 pounds back!

And Liz, if you are reading this, I am so behind on my week 4 homework!!

Happy Heart’s Day to all my blogger friends. I really do love you!

I Love Creating Complex Cloth

Monday, February 11th, 2008

Complex cloth is created by building up layers of surface design on fabric. It requires having a vision of where you are going, but the willingness to go with the flow because surface design is not an exact science — at least the way I do it!!

I must have the art cloth (that I can’t show you) done and shipped to Jane Dunnewold in Texas by Friday. So far I have overdyed, discharged and screen printed two central images – very abstract. I was not thrilled with my results as they were not as crisp as I would have liked. but as I said, there is nothing exact. So I started on my next layer this morning, first practicing on other fabric. I even e-mailed Rayna Gilman in a panic because I was feeling so insecure about printing on the silk. She reminded me that it is a process that you go through and the results will vary. So I forged ahead. I wanted to do some overall printing with found objects, like the vinyl mesh potato bags and bubble wrap. Here is the result on another piece of silk that I had in my stash. This is little blurry. You can see the bubble wrap print, but the mesh is more subtle. The circles are a thermofax screen that I made. I will print those on the art cloth tomorrow. I also want to create an image that I will foil.

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So, after doing this sample, I took a deep breath and started working on the large silk piece. Wow, this is addictive. The printing that I did today helped to integrate yesterday’s images and the parts that I didn’t like took on this amorphous and lovely appearance. That is why I love creating complex cloth.

I am falling behind in my homework for Liz’s class. I have skimmed the material that I downloaded this week-end. I think it is going to be lots of fun. Here is the workspace for the class that I have set up in my office next to my computer and scanner. I have to scan my work and post it on the yahoo site.

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I bet you are wondering how I get anything done! Here are some pages from my journal for the class to prove that I am getting work done.

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The last one is a composition using lots of different textures.

I must get some work done on the SDA website. Good night.

Discharging Results

Sunday, February 10th, 2008

I had a good time yesterday, discovering the results of my discharging on Friday. I found that the turquoise does not take as well on silk. Here is another piece that I discharged with turquoise dye added.

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Here are the two pieces hanging to dry (I had a nice sunny day to put my work outside to dry – yeah!) The scarf had no turquoise left after the washout, but isn’t it gorgeous? The piece on the left has lovely turquoise lines.

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Here is the soy wax batik piece after steaming out the wax and washing it. I am loving this. I am going to continue building up some layers with screen printing and perhaps some shiva paint sticks.

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So, because of my experimenting, I did not use turquoise dye on the art cloth. I had some trouble with the discharge paste and my result was not as crisp as I would like. I screen printed over the discharged area with burnt orange metallic paint. It looks pretty good. I am a little intimidated with the size of this – two yard. I printed out an 11 X 14 image and have drawn out my complete plan so that I have a road map of how to proceed.

I am so happy with the results of the primaries and caucuses this week-end. The Obama campaign has great momentum. Yes, we can!!