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Archive for May, 2012

How Depressing

Thursday, May 31st, 2012

I wanted to do a piece on depression for the SAQA I’m Not Crazy juried show. I have periodic bouts of depression and other members of my immediate family have also suffered from this mental dis-ease. I started with discharged letters that read Can You Hear Me Now, repeated. I used gold deColourant and a stencil.

I then printed depression self-talk on silk organza.

I used Mistyfuse on the back of the organza and then cut out “thought bubbles.” I wonder if we could hear the self talk of victims of depression, could we intervene and help sooner?

I know when I am depressed, I have two personalities. I can put on a smiley face for people, but when I am alone, I fall into the depression self talk mode.

I digress. I fused the thought bubbles to the discharged background and zigzagged the edges.

Here is a detail.

Tonight, Mr C and I went to a harpsichord concert at the Reed College Art Gallery. The harpsichord was played for the first time. It was a work of art built by a Reed Alum who also taught physics there. Then, we went out to dinner. Now, we are watching more The Killing episodes.

The last of the green 3 x 3s. This is what I do when I am out of time and out of ideas!!

Making a Deadline

Wednesday, May 30th, 2012

I have been working to finish a piece for the SAQA juried show, I’m Not Crazy. It is a piece that I started a while ago. I used de Colourant to create some letters on a hand-dyed background. I wanted to stitch around each letter and found that a special clearview foot that came with my Janome 7700 was perfect for the job. I had much more control than I normally do and was able to free motion quilt around the letters.

This is a piece about depression which has plagued many in my family, including myself. The deadline is tomorrow evening, EST, but I am close to finishing!!

I have 3 more green 3 x 3s. Only one more to go.

I lost this little Aspen leaf thermofax screen, but found it today so was able to do some foiling for this piece.

Mr C gave in and hired someone to work on the landscaping. Today, a delightful young man was here most of the day and cleared out the copious weeds on the side yard where I have the garden beds that are too shady for growing much of anything. It looks so much better. He also worked on the little garden outside my studio.

I took this photo from one of the bedroom windows with the iPhone. Hope he doesn’t mind.

Wordless Wednesday

Wednesday, May 30th, 2012

An Exercise in Futility?

Tuesday, May 29th, 2012

This is my Alternate Universe quilt which I created by using a freezer paper template and Softscrub to discharge. I originally used beads in gel medium in the rings, but it looked really bad. I was able to remove them and spent some time over the last month or so embellishing the rings with Perle cotton. I finished today and looked at the area opposite the rainbow ring and there seemed to be crocking from the rainbow thread. It may have gotten damp while I have been hauling around.

You can sort of see it where I put the red arrow. What to do?

I figured I had nothing to lose so I spritzed it with stain remover and threw it in the washing machine with a dye magnet and washed it.

Here is a detail shot of that area after the washing. I haven’t had a chance to steam press it, but I am very happy with the result. There is natural color change from the discharge, but the crocking is gone.

I started this quilt when things started going crazy with politics a coupe of years ago. It is not a very pretty quilt, but it was not meant to be. It was to portray my angst of waking up and hearing the news and wondering what universe I was in. With the events of today — it certainly has not gotten any better.

We had a nice meal with the Portland family yesterday. I grilled a half a salmon and made a scrumptious berry/rhubarb crisp.

Today, I had tons of SDA e-mails to generate and a meeting with Diane, one of the Artists Among Us co-chairs. We reconciled all of the financial stuff with my database so that I can now generate requests for checks for the artists.

So, no 3 x 3s today. Mr C and I are having an evening marathon of catching up with Season 2 of The Killing.

Easy Being Green

Sunday, May 27th, 2012

I have spent the week-end working outside, doing laundry, shopping for staples and being a bit lazy. I am having a bad arthritis flare-up and so I am not pushing myself. The new planters came. Mr C lined them with plastic and filled them with soil. Yesterday morning we went to the Portland nursery and I bought herbs and veggie and tomato starts. I really like how these look. I put some nasturtiums in the  for some color and adding to salads. For now, I have some lettuce starts in with the herbs. When they are larger, I will not need to fill in the space.

Here is the new veggie garden sans the overgrown herbs.

It is a nice sunny spot on the side of the garage. Last night we had a mighty thunder storm and it gully washed up several of my plants. We got them back in the soil and I hope they will get some strong roots before we get a rain like that again. I have room to plant a few more things.

Here is a recent photo of Paige. She is now 2 months old!! What a special little baby she is!

Here are the recent green 3 x 3s.

This one is in honor of Pentecost Sunday. I guess tomorrow is a holiday. The family is coming over for dinner. I am going to make a rhubarb and berry crisp, but I don’t know what else.