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Archive for March, 2011

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Changing Direction

Tuesday, March 15th, 2011

Before the triple disasters hit Japan,  I pretty much had the next 3 1/2 weeks reserved for getting ready to travel there and two weeks there and a few days to get back in the swing here at home.

Yesterday, I was pretty much useless. I couldn’t get my mind around doing much and I was glued to the TV. I finally went to my studio late in the day and started putting away the fabrics I had used in the river piece. It was a big job because I had used lots and lots of fabrics. I finally finished that today.

Tonight, I made 4 fiber post cards to send to those who are buying books through my website. One is up at the beginning. Here are the others. I repurposed an older piece that was not working as a larger piece. They are all silk.

This morning, I went to Fabric Depot, the mega fabric store in Portland, to see a demonstration of the fairly new product deColourant. It is a product which discharges dye as it deposits a new color and it is relatively non-toxic. I had used the product and had some problems with the color washing out. The demonstrator was Nick Coman, a fiber artist from LA.

Here are some of the samples he brought with him. I was very impressed with the brightness of the colors in these pieces. He said they had all been washed.

This is a neat t-shirt.

 

This was a batik rayon scarf. The ginkgo leaves were added with de Colourant.

Here is Nick at work. The t-shirt he is wearing was done with de Colourant and had survived many washings.

OK, here is the secret. See that heat gun? It is very important to get the de Colourant very dry and then heat set at a high temperature. The heat gun does that very quickly for small areas. We watched that green de Colourant become brighter and more vibrant as he hit it with the heat gun.

And so, I had a pretty good and creative day. We had buckets of rain and thunderstorms and a brief tornado warning. I had to go out to pick up my organic veggies and I got soaked.

I want to do something for earthquake relief. I am planning on putting some work on Ebay. You can designate that some or all of the proceeds go to the Japan Earthquake Relief. I will let you know when I do that.

 

 

Posted in Discharging fabric, Japan, Postcards, This and that | 7 Comments »

The Right Thing

Sunday, March 13th, 2011

Our trip to Japan was canceled as of this morning, pending refunds from airline and hotels, etc. We did not have trip insurance, sadly. In light of the circumstances in Japan, this should not be  a problem. The US government is advising against travel there until April. Several people in our group have already canceled. It was a small group to begin with. We are sad, but mostly sad for the suffering of the people of Japan. It seems surreal.

I find myself with 3 weeks of time for who knows what!

I finally got the bridge piece done.  You know how I get these love/hate things going with work like this.  Up above is a detail shot of the Fremont Bridge.

Here is the Sellwood Bridge which in reality is old and crumbling and held together with epoxy glue. It is due to be replaced, soon. It is the bridge to which we live the closest.

This is the Burnside Bridge which we use the most when we go over the river to the west side.

The red bridge is the prettiest of our bridges, the St. John’s Bridge.

I am off to get a good night’s sleep.

Posted in Japan, My creations, Travels | 5 Comments »

STRESS

Friday, March 11th, 2011

What next?, I wondered last night. The earthquake and tsunami in Japan has added to my stress level. Our tour leader says he would like to make the trip as scheduled, even though the US government is advising against travel there. I feel a bit uncomfortable going on holiday in a country that is reeling with devastation and grief. It is true that Kyoto, where we will spend our first week, is not affected that much. Jerry, our leader, says he will reassess on Monday or Tuesday.

(Breathe)

Going to Pilates this morning was so helpful for dealing with my angst.

I have spent part of the last two days, removing the lutradur bridges from my river piece. They were not working. The colors were too dull and there was no value change. I picked up the solid batiks, above, yesterday. I decided I need a lime green bridge. (ha!) I have redrawn the bridges on freezer paper and have almost finished cutting them. The fabric is Mistyfused and tomorrow, I will fuse them to the quilt and stitch them, add a binding and be done with it. Yay!

 

Posted in Japan, My creations, Travels | 2 Comments »

A Two Meeting Day

Wednesday, March 9th, 2011

This morning I attended the quarterly Columbia Fiberarts Guild meeting which included demos by four members and nice catered lunch. It is one of my favorite meetings of the year because we get to socialize and chat and share. In the afternoon, the SAQA area meeting met in the same place. It was almost meeting overload, but I do get energized when I spend time with other creative souls.

I am going to share some photos of the meeting today because I haven’t accomplished much except to unsew the bridges as I plan to start over with them.

This is Maris, our treasurer and felter, extraordinaire. Isn’t that a gorgeous piece of felted silk?

She did the bowls up above. Here is another shot.

Here are some other shots of her table.

Maris called this nebs. They are little loose pieces of wool that she adds to the felting.

Here she demonstrates how she makes a vessel by felting over a ball.

Carla makes amazing scrappy quilts by first stitching all of her scraps into a long strip. You can see a coil of sewn fabric on the table in front of her.

Betty demonstrated how she creates these gorgeous beaded bracelets.

 

At lunch, we were given a plain white paper placemat that we could decorate with these crayons. I should have taken a photo of the very creative work done at my table.

And, now to close, here are the adorable two guys that I live with. Scooter got a hair cut yesterday. He seems to feel more energetic without all that fur.

Posted in Columbia FiberArts Guild, Felting, Quilting Friends, SAQA | 6 Comments »

Check Off One

Monday, March 7th, 2011

Today was the postmark deadline for the Alliance for American Quilt’s annual contest. The theme this year was “Alliances: People, Patterns, Passion”.  When I heard the theme, I thought of the Pearls of Wisdom piece that I made for the Quilt Art’s 15th birthday. It fit the theme so well, but it was 15 inches square and needed to be 16 inches square. So, I trimmed it to 14 inches and added an inch of batting on each side. I then pulled out some of the batiks used in the hands and fused a border. I don’t usually like borders, but I think this looks ok.

I got to the post office at 4:45 pm. But, I made it!!

On Saturday night, we had a collaborative dinner with some friends. I made dessert. It was so yummy — a gingerbread and pear upside down cake.

In between baking and other quilting, I am plugging away at the river piece. Stitching the bridges in place is very tedious.

I hope you are checking in on the Twelve by Twelve blog. We are taking turns talking about our chapters and asking questions. The answers left in the comments section will give you a chance for winning our book, which keeps getting wonderful reviews. We discovered today that Target is carrying the book and we are #4 on Amazon’s quilting books.

Posted in 12X12 challenge, Alliance for American Quilts, Cooking and Recipes, My creations | 4 Comments »

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