Month: July 2009 | Crazy for Fiber

July 2009
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Archive for July, 2009

Working Passionately

Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

I made lots of progress on my next Twelve X 12 piece. Our theme is Passion. This is my color palette. These are all silks. I have the background done and am now working on the embellishment.

I have loved doing these challenges because I often get out of my box and try something new. This theme has been giving most of us fits. Now that I have decided on how to portray passion, I am just having fun.

I also ironed all my girly fabrics in preparation for making a quilt for my almost one year old great niece. It will be fun. I think I will start cutting tomorrow.

I had to get up early and get going this morning. Mr C was on a teleconference for 5 hours today, starting at 7 am. They took breaks, but it was a grueling day going through something he has been doing for GE. It is all Greek to me.

I walked the dogs, made coffee and headed for the Dr’s office to have fasting blood work done. I had coffee and a granola bar with me so that I wouldn’t fade away before I got home. Three hours later, I had my results on my Kaiser- Permenente web page. Total cholesterol 174 and HLD 59. Pretty good. I still have some results to come in that must take longer. Next I have to schedule the dreaded colonoscopy.

It was a great day with lots of Scooter play time and walks.

Posted in 12X12 challenge, This and that | 1 Comment »

A Garden Tour

Sunday, July 12th, 2009

We have lived in our home in Portland for a little over 3 years. Last fall, my son designed triangular raised beds to fit into an odd shaped spot on the side of our house. This is my first Portand veggie garden. It is beginning to look like a jungle.

Here is some of the bounty that we are enjoying or will soon enjoy.

Yellow zucchini:

Broccoli:

Tomatoes:

Bush beans:

Roma tomatoes:

Heirloom tomatoes:

I have always loved hydrangeas, but never have had any in my garden until now. I have several bushes. This is the big mother of all hydrangeas. It is totally covered with lavender blossoms.

This is our newest acquistion which we bought for the reddish hues in the leaves and it also has a slight pink hue in the blossom.

Last year, I found this plant in the reduced for quick sale. I paid $5 for it. It is my favorite. It is on the patio outside my studio.

This hot pink hydrangea was in the front yard. We transplanted it to the back of the house. It is finally taking off this year, but is still on the wimpy side.

My friend, Karen Miller, did a blog post recently about hydrangeas in Japanese textile design. You can read it here.

I was going to start my passion piece for the 12 X 12 challenge, but I had to clean up the detritus from the aspens. Tomorrow, I will be finding passion in my studio.

Posted in The Farm | 8 Comments »

Satisfaction

Saturday, July 11th, 2009

This is finished. I quite like it and I hope the new owner will like it. Should I send it to her now or enter it in a couple of shows? (heh) I think she has been waiting long enough. I used the blanket stitch on my Janome to stitch the aspens. I varied the width and length so that it wouldn’t look too matchy. Here is a detail. I think the stitching fits the overall design of the piece.

I am feeling so much better and getting more energy every day. This morning I roasted some eggplant, Roma tomatoes and red onion to make a spread for a potluck dinner party tonight.

I also vacuum packed 8 pints of berries for the freezer – raspberries and blueberries.

One of my biggest accomplishments was ironing all of my cotton and linen summer clothes. They were piling up on my dresser and I had nothing to wear, seriously.

Tonight we drove north over the Columbia river to Vancouver, WA to have dinner with friends from Trinity Cathedral. We set the GPS (Reva) to take us to our destination. She wanted to go on I-5; we wanted to take 205. She would not give up. We thought that once we got on 205, she would get a clue, but no. Fortunately, the GPS on my iPhone was more astute and so we followed those directions and got to our destination. Mr C and I were laughing hysterically by the time we got there.

I have a great idea for the Passion piece for the next 12 X 12 theme. I am going with the sexy interpretation, but tongue in cheek. Can’t wait to work on that. Then, I am going to have fun making a quilt for my great niece and I get to work with girly fabrics – can’ wait.

Hope you are having a good week-end, too.

Posted in 12X12 challenge, Cooking and Recipes, My creations, This and that | 13 Comments »

Painting Fabric — Instant Gratification

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

Today, the STASH group painted fabric at Terry’s home. She has a blog post with some photos, too. This piece is my favorite of the day. I didn’t try to do sun printing with this. I painted a base of turquoise and then sponged on some royal blue. After that, I splatterd with a variety of other colors that were available.

My sun printing attempts fell flat. I think the paint was drying to fast because it was rather mild and breezy with no sun. Here are my attempts. My first was this green piece. Before:

After – nada.

This is a silk dupioni that I painted red. I did lots of reddish pieces that I might be able to use for the Passion theme for the next Twelve X 12 challenge. I put washers and jar lids on this.

After, with the companion piece which was painted and sprinkled with salt. I added some spatters of black. You can see a couple of faint circles on the piece on the left.

Here is a detail of the spatter piece.

I also painted some cheese cloth in reds and black. Looks quite passionate, don’t you think?

I had one semi-successful sun print. It was my last piece.

The next piece was painted with orange and blue. I wanted to get a brown color where they mixed. I sprinkled it with coral Setacolor. I like both sides of this piece.

Here is the nice setup in the back yard. We were under a canopy. That is Beth, Terry and Reva. Terry prepared a great lunch. The best part was spending the day with friends.

Posted in 12X12 challenge, painting fabric, Quilting Friends | 8 Comments »

Good News and More Good News

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

The good news is that I feel as if I am getting back into a creative groove and feeling more confident about what I am doing. I was really stymied and about how to do the aspens. I cut some paper pieces to try out some options. I got brave and started cutting from my shibori stash, using some linen, first. It just was not working. I got on the computer and googled aspens and just looked at photos of how aspens appear in the natural landscape. Very often, you just see a stand of them sort of in a row and I decided that was what I needed to do, but abstracted. After several trials, I am quite happy with this. I haven’t stitched them yet. They are lightly fused. I ended up using a silk charmeuse shibori piece because there was more contrast in the markings. I was a little worried about the value change in this piece, but was pleasantly surprised when I changed it to black and white.

The other good news is that I saw my oncologist today for my annual visit. He says I am fine and do not need to come back unless I want to. He is such a fine man that I might go back just to visit with him. We always find lots to talk about.

M and M arrived after lunch to spend the day. We didn’t do much. Miles watched Muppets in Space. Mia kept me company in my studio and played with Scooter. Tonight, we headed over to the Farmer’s Market to shop and have dinner. They didn’t see anything that appealed to them so we went to the never fail Stickers Asian restaurant down the street.

Here is Miles enjoying a sticker. Mia loved the new vinyl lime green and gold flecked upholstery on the booths!!

We walked back to the Farmer’s Market to do some shopping and the kids enjoyed gourmet ice cream sandwiches.

I call this photo Doing the man walk in tandem.

Mmmm! Brought home berries to eat and freeze.

Tonight, I found the two munchkins staring with intense interest as they watched Mythbusters, one of their favorite shows.

Tomorrow is a play day with STASH at Terry’s house. I have my supplies all packed. We are going to do sun printing and maybe some monoprints. I will take my camera.

Posted in Eating out, Fusing, indigo, M & M, My creations, shibori | 9 Comments »

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