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Archive for February, 2010

Tote Tuesday

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

I donated a small fiber collage to Virginia’s Tote Tuesday fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. I thought it was going into a tote with other small work’s, but she is now offering the art work individually.

So, you can bid on my little indigo piece, Once in a Blue Moon.

The next Tote Tuesday is February 16th. I will be reminding you!!

On the bad news side, I just realized that the silk irrigation circle piece is too small to meet the show requirements. So I am trying to come up with another piece before Tuesday. I love a challenge!!

Coming in for a Landing

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

My irrigation circles are almost finished. Today, I worked on the edges for the silk circles. I cut one inch wide strips of the various fabrics I had used in the quilt top.

I then fused them to the edge of the quilt in random order.

Now I am hand stitching embroidery thread over the binding so that it blends with the hand-stitched top.

Tonight, I did my talk about becoming an artist at an older age for the group at church that is working through the Artist’s Way book. I hope I didn’t blather on too long, but this is something I love to talk about  — my passion for what I do. I also bragged a lot about my artsy kids.

Tomorrow is STASH— I’m looking forward to some girl talk while I stitch the binding on my quilt.

Gasp; I’m Coming Up for Air

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

I was honored to have been invited to become one of the first members of this new presence on the web. Click on the logo and go on over to the new site developed by Rachel Biel. Her other blog is Fiber Focus.

While gathering information to be posted on the blog, I found out how to make a slide show from a Flickr set. But, I don’t know how to embed it in a blog post. One thing at a time!!

I have had to check things off a list today, but I forgot to put mail the racism block to Maria in Alaska on my list. I will do that tomorrow. I had to write the president’s letter for the guild newsletter. I spent an hour this morning doing work on the SDA website. I had to write my sidebar article on the Thermofax for the Twelve X Twelve book. I had to select some images for the post card for the Artist’s Among Us show and sale at Trinity where I will be the featured artist. That is in May and I need to get some new work done. Tonight, I had arts committee meeting at Trinity, but I didn’t have to cook as all the commission members have a meal together before our meetings. Nice!!

After I got home from the meeting, I did an outline for a talk that I am giving tomorrow night for a group at Trinity who are working through Julia Cameron’s, The Artist’s Way. I am talking about “Unleashing the Inner Artist at Any Age.”

So, I have now caught my breath. I’m watching The Daily Show and then off to sleep perchance to dream…

You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist

Monday, February 8th, 2010

…Indira Gandhi

I am part of a group, Fiber Artists for Obama. We made this group quilt when he was running for president. It has been appraised for over $5000. It is now traveling in a show with other Obama quilts and is in a book edited by Carolyn Mazloomi which will be available soon.

We are now launching a show about racism and are doing a group quilt with this theme. I made the above block for the quilt. We  have an amazing quilter in Alaska, Maria Shell, who put together our last quilt and did all the quilting.

You may remember that Diane Hock made a quilt for the Twelve X Twelve quilt using organza hands — twelve of them to represent the twelve of us. You can see it here. I loved it and filed the idea away and thought it would work well for what I wanted to do for the racism quilt – a positive graphic of hands of all colors outstretched.

I did about 3 of these and they just didn’t look right. Once they were fused, they were really wonky.  I finally realized that I needed a six pointed pattern to help me line them up. So I drew this with my trusty compass.

See, high school geometry can come in handy.

Some Stitching Peeks

Friday, February 5th, 2010

I am doing very simple straight line quilting on this, using variegated thread in the colors of the quilt. I think it is looking good.

When I have time, I have been hand stitching the silk circles. Here are a couple of peeks.

It is interesting to see these together. They both use the same pattern, but very different styles. The shibori piece is crisp and graphic. The silk piece is soft and ethereal.

Tonight, Mr C and I went to see Avatar in 3D. It was a visual feast. So amazing to think how that movie was created. Really beautiful. More violent than I like, but the beauty was worth sitting through the violence.