remember this?

A few years ago, many of you watched as I posted a piece of new artwork every day for a year, birthday to birthday. These pieces are now for sale: $50 each, unmounted and unframed. Please go to this link to see them all again and, if you’d like to, choose your favorite. Send me an email to reserve it, receive instructions on how to pay for it (paypal or check), and it will be yours! To all of you, thank you for viewing my art.

red crows

Red Crows: Work in Progress

about 6 inches high x 11 inches wide

fiber

Every fourth friday of each month, there is a challenge issued for those of us who had signed up for it. The point is to make us think about the elements of art and to create something from fabric/fiber to fulfill a particular theme. The last two themes have been about recycling, the latest using denim. I don't like working with denim. It's heavy and bulky; it frays and spills lint everywhere. This piece is made of lightweight denim, stamped and sewn. The thing isn't finished; I'm deciding on how to bring in grass-like something so that the crows are standing on or in it. And the middle is too much in the middle, pulling the eye nowhere or off the piece completely. More of my fiber creations are at the Fast Friday site here, as are pieces made by the other participants (you'll need to click on "show all posts" to see everyone else's.

yikes!

When the Fast Friday challenge came out last Friday, I don't know what came over me, but I just HAD to put pieces of two strange fabrics together. And this is the result. The challenge was to use some piece of spam email that we had seen as inspiration. The spam subject line that grabbed me was when ordinary just won't do, and I immediately thought of these women, looking down on one of their own kind who happens to have befriended some really unordinary creatures. (Maybe that's not what is happening at all...I just don't know.)

Maybe it's because I have been making paper collages each week. Maybe it's being annoyed at some recent events in which a woman friend of mine has been treated by her (male) supervisor as though it is the 1950s and women were expected to stay home and men thought they were kings. Maybe it's because my sock monkeys and silly critters evoke all that the world should be like. Maybe it's none of these and just my mind working to clear itself.

Whatever it is, here is a near-duplicate of what I had posted at Fast Friday.

critters need homes

These and other critters need homes. They are looking to move away, hoping to find warmth and sunshine. I say, good luck on that count, but am supporting their initiative.







They are up for sale at MakeThingsWorkshop.etsy.com or see the thing over there on the right. Check it out, let me know if it works.

a small piece

Fall into Winter Spring into Summer
18" high x 5 " wide

I made this piece in May of 2006, when spring was already in place, but winter was still a firm memory. It was fun to do: pieces of fabric fused to the batting; lots of thread work; embroidered and otherwise embellished joins.

I looked at it today and thought, "I still like this piece." I like when that happens. When I finish a piece and after a few weeks I think, "Oh, my, how embarrassing!", I remember my 7th grade art teacher (who, it was rumoured, ran off with our 7th grade science teacher; they both disappeared in the middle of the year) telling me that, if I was not happy with a piece of work when I was done with it, then I most definitely could do better. But she never told me what I'm supposed to think when I still like a piece after some time has passed.

art quilts

I participate in a monthly art quilt challenge called Fast Friday Quilts (the link is below and always in the sidebar on this page). On the last Friday of the Monday, we are given a challenge and have a week to produce our pieces. The challenges are meant to expand our thinking about our work, and they do that well. We might be instructed to do the theme of movement, for example, and then use some embellishment technique that is new to us to help express that theme. The results are posted on a blog on which we explain what we have done and can receive comments on the results. It's a wonderful, stimulating monthly exercise.

I realized this morning, however, that I post my art quilts there and not here, and that I should re-post some of them here because I'm thinking that many folks who read this blog don't go to the Fast Friday Quilts link to see what there is there and so are missing out on my art quilts.

So. . .I will post some of my work from there here periodically. I encourage all, though, to go to Fast Fridays to see what other members of the challenge group are doing. It's quite a creative bunch, I tell you!
* * *
Here is the challenge from October that involved movement and embellishments:

Solar Wind

When the challenge was first announced, I saw this image in my mind's eye. And it's taken me days and days to execute it. The movement part was fairly easy to put down. The embellishments were to be things that I hadn't done before. I explored different stitches on my machine and then used a couching/beading foot to put the strings of beads down. And I did that using invisible thread. Whew! That stuff is really, really invisible, both the clear and the smoke. I finished the piece with a satin stitch edge and a hanging sleeve on the back.

sock

I've been knitting socks for years, now, but always from the top. This is my first toe-up sock. I'm using instructions by Ann Budd; she advocates the Figure-8 or Eastern Cast-on and a short-row heel. The toe is great; the heel, not so much. I don't like the extra yarn-overs which are used to form the fold. There are other ways of doing this, and I will find another one for the second sock. This yarn is Lorna's Laces; it's not hand-dyed, though it sort of looks like it might have been.

The major advantage to knitting socks from the toe up is that the foot will always have enough yarn and both sock feet will match. The leg section can then be knitted until the yarn runs out. When knitting from the top down, I often have yarn left over because I am too conservative on the leg section (unlike in other parts of my life!) so that I won't run out of yarn on the foot. I would like to have longer leg sections and the toe-up method should give me that. However, I will have to make sure that the top of the sock is wide enough, then, to go around my calf. Sigh. There's always something, eh?

rosie, another silly creature

This is Rosie, made out of old socks with—drum roll!—roses embroidered on them. This act of creation offsets the destruction that is often what I hear about on the news while I work on these creatures. Whew! Just give me these sock critters any day! They make me smile.

And now, if any of you out there would like to have one of your own, you can. I am willing to sell my creatures to anyone who needs something to giggle about as an antidote to whatever things are bothering you. Email me and we'll talk. In the meantime, take a look at the rest of the stupid sock creatures that I have made (click on the label "stupid creatures" off on the right here somewhere and they will all pop up) and see if they don't make you smile, too.

christmas lump

Lumpy, the Cat, was gracious enough to model his Santa hat in front of the nine-foot Christmas tree. Yup, nine feet. Hard to see, but it's all there. However, you can see how happy Lumpy is about the tree. And the hat.
Peace to all.

the power of the washing machine

The winter issue of CRAFT Magazine has a simple pattern for felted slippers. I needed a new pair of winter slippers, so I thought, "Wow! I can use up some of my yarn stash!" So, I set to work. This is what the end of the first step looked like:

Then came the sewing together of the long scarf-like thing. Putting this together involved labeling the sides of the squares, folding two of them on their diagonals, then sewing them together. Notice how LARGE this is.


And then comes the Magic Machine. I washed the slippers for 26 minutes in hot water, rinsed, spun, and air-dried the things. Now look at their size. They fit my feet perfectly.

I put sheepskin insoles inside for cushioning and suede soles on the outside to keep from slipping all over the floor. Yeah, I know, they're called "slippers," but I do not like to end up at the bottom of the stairs too quickly.

blue: in memory of marjorie

Back in 2002, I made this quilt in memory of a woman who loved the color blue and loved me, too. It now lives in North Carolina with her son, whom she loved very, very much and who shows her influence in everything he does. Marjorie died in 1992. And I didn't realize until just this moment, writing this, that it was a 10th anniversary of her death that this quilt marked. Sigh.

She had been a school librarian with an adventurous streak. The rail fence quilt block forms the way she hoped the world would see her, but the tumbling blocks at the bottom are how she really interacted with those she loved: passionate, active, and just a little bit wacky.

doppleganger

Somewhere on my travels in the last few weeks, I noticed this Tin Man attached to the front of a middle-sized truck—not a semi, but the size down with the box attached to the cab, not hinged. And then I saw the driver; he looked EXACTLY like the doll. He was walking across the parking lot too fast to get a photo, and how would I explain wanting to post his photo on my blog, eh? I would probably have to have him fill out a permissions form and all that. Whew! And then I realized that I didn't need to take a picture of the guy. The doll looked EXACTLY like him. Well, except that the doll looks much wackier than the guy did. He looked pretty normal. The doll looks like the guy most likely feels when in traffic with cars cutting in front of him and getting in his way.

Come to think of it, the Tin Man looks the way I feel when in traffic.

stupid creatures

At a recent quilting retreat with a group of the most delightful people, I made these two fellows: Watson on the left; Campbell on the right. They are based on John Murphy's book, Stupid Sock Creatures. If ever one is stuck creatively, these are great for getting into that flow of no-thinking-just-making. Now, not everything is always perfect in that river of non-thought. There is a third creature, Matilda, who I just couldn't get right, no matter what I did. Or so I thought. The rest of the group thought that she was just fine, so she has gone home with one of them and has a support group through them. I was ready to dismantle her, but she was saved. Here she is with one of my handknitted sock monkeys. (I like the sock monkey better, even though he looks demented, I admit. Sigh.)

suitable for valentine's day

"How NOT to Mend a Broken Heart" was given 2nd honors in the Breaking Traditions exhibit at the American Sewing Expo in Michigan at the end of September. It was an experiment on the theme of "Connections," and I felt good when I finished it.

17"W x 24"H
commercial fabrics and findings; machine quilted; hand embellished.

Statement: Chocolate is buttons, flowers are safety pins, jewelry is a zipper, a trip to new places tries to lace the pieces. More gifts provide snaps and clips, the connections mechanical and uncertain. What can truly restore the fabric of a heart pierced and broken by another heart, disconnected from what it loves?
$500