Wabi~Sabi

Just a quick post and a purging art quilt so my 'Art Quilter' card won't get revoked.

One of the quilt art groups that I belong to "Quilts on the Wall Fiber Artists" presented a challenge entitled 'Beauty in Imperfection'. This was my entry. Wabi~Sabi is the Japanese philosophy that 'Nothing is perfect, Nothing is finished & Nothing lasts" It's just returned home from it's journey that began back in 2007.



I painted the planets on muslin. then cut them out & appliqued them onto the velvet. The stars & detritus are made of Swarovsky crystals; seed beads & various other 'bead soup' as it were. I simply 'cast' them onto the velvet to see what would happen & really liked it so I painstakingly tacked them in place without moving the piece off my table and then attached them firmly with Silamide (double strand of course). The 'orbital lines' were done again just using holographic silver thread. I was amazed at how a couple added lines simply set the entire piece in motion.

'

You'll notice that Venus is the planet closest to you; she is full of pock marks and striations from all the abuse she endures. She is the ONLY planet that runs counter clockwise. Some other quick facts: Venus is the second planet from the Sun and the sixth largest; Venus has the most nearly circular orbit of any planet. Venus' surface is actually hotter than Mercury's despite being nearly twice as far from the Sun. Venus has no magnetic field.

And in case I forget; this piece is for sale. Piece is 33"H x 18 1/2" W.

What I made today~

Well, it's only taken two years to get back to this idea. I saw this in a friends book all about the nine patch. Fell in love with those tiny squares in the middle. Love how they just float there. So; I had just moved into the master bedroom; painted it; put up drapes, decorated it and wanted something for the bed. Cut all these as 2 1/2 strips two years ago; made 21 blocks & when they all turned out the wrong size I put it all away. The strips all hung on a pants hangar in the closet. There were LOTS of strips. There are still LOTS of strips left over but I'm not making this any bigger. Right now it will finish at 54" x 54". (Can you hear me say 'HOLY CRAP'! not another big one!) Anyhow; here are the blocks I made today; I'll start sewing rows tomorrow.

Would love to hear ideas for a border if necessary & binding.

Double Irish Chain

It is March after all, I'm Irish after all, and there's green in there... after all.
Posting this for Miss Lynn to see :) It measures 72" x 72". I remember why I don't do big ones now.

A view from my sketchbook...

in which we find the artist trying to grow...

Fair Warning: I am the first to admit that I can't draw. With that in mind I was really apprehensive about the thought of doing a sketchbook but all the fiber artists I admire so all have them; and swear by them: so... I bought one (ok; it was last year but I've been busy) and it terrified me. I mean really; all that white blank paper. I would sit with a pencil in hand (that was my first mistake) and try to think of something to draw (second mistake; of many so I'll stop counting now).

When I would try to draw in pencil it meant that I could erase. And I did; frequently, because any tiny stray line that was not utterly perfect would drive me crazy and thus; I could never 'commit' to the entire drawing because of many million mistakes. So I'd quit and reconfirm my belief that 'I can't draw'. I realized I needed a paradigm shift. So I went shopping... blogger shopping. Looking for tips & eye candy I desperately needed.

I was reading Pam Rubert's blog and would see that she only uses ink pens to draw. "Of course she does! She can DRAW!' I would lament. I checked out my friend Jamie Fingal's blog & she had sketch called 'doodling' and hers was all in pen. It looked immensely fun and the idea that you can just start with one shape (in her case a leaf) and then just do variations on that one thing somehow gave me the step up that I needed. Then I thought of something I hadn't before. What if I used a pen. What is the big deal? If I screw it up; then so what? It's my own sketch book; no one has to see my atrocites... So I started on night, very quietly in front of the fire place; to 'doodle'. I vowed that no matter what I wouldn't stop until the page was filled and if there was a 'mistake' or 'mistroke' then I would somehow turn it into something else or simply move on...

And I did;

Here's my first page 'a la Jamie Fingal' in doodling. I call this lovingly, 'Catnip Dreams'.



Couple nights later; some flowers; not happy w/Hummer but like the flower chain.



Later in the week; was really stumped & so went with a possible beading pattern.



This was two nights ago; I was sitting in my bed in my pj's & caught a silohouette of myself in the mirror (the far away mirror!) and I felt the need to accept my body as it is right now; no fretting over diets; excersize undone; blah blah blah. Apparently I'm not ready for the 'full frontal view' LOL but here was my thought & affirmation to myself.




Night before last; some fun with letters & my own handwriting ideas:



And then last night; inspired by my 'Big Birds of Prey Book' that is lovingly referred to as 'Bird Porn' by birders; my 'little owl'. I tried to sketch this tiny guy as a practice run for attempting larger things. My daughter Ellen encouraged me to put it up saying it was "something I want to use on deviant art". Wow! I made a deviant's page; how cool will that be?



Certainly it's not done; but I am confident that using a pen (a pilot 'needle' micro) is the way to go for me. I was trying to do the 'light/dark' thing and so he's a bit lopsided; but I think it has promise and it's recognizable as an owl and I'm really amazed that I drew it.

Thanks for stopping by & feel free to leave any comments; even critiques as I really don't know the first thing about drawing except that it comes from a different side of the brain that I don't live in.

Fun with the Family Corvidae

This piece was an off shoot of some play involving tyvek; ink; paper; and mixing textures like paper, velvet; beading; calligraphy; silk; cotton. Measurements are 19 1/2" H x 17 3/4 " W. I never get sick of working with complimentary colors. Incidentally, all the facts listed are true! Crows and the corvid family are a passion of mine.



The background fabric is a hand dye from two gals in my art group (Quilts on the Wall). They have amazing things it's fun to go out to the parking lot after our meetings & shop out of their trunk! Orange fabric by Emily Wallace & Carol Henke!

Quietly working

sneak peeks: thus far; aside from the branches; this piece is all done by hand.



shhhh....here he comes!

I'm 4 years old!

I just realized that my blog is celebrating it's 4th year. Thank you to everyone who's commented such nice things! And thank you to those who just thought nice things too:)!

Here's some Valentines Day Love from LOLCats! (no, I do not have a new kitten)



New kitten: adoption fee $50.00
Cat food and litter box: $30.00
Cat toys : Several Million dollars (annually)


100% unconditional love: priceless

Thank you LOLCats for always making my day brighter!

What's Not To Love?

Totally OT!

Here is who has come to live with us for awhile. His name is Aspen. He is a Snowleopard Bengal. A bit ago as many of you know (all my fiend friends from Fablo's blog); I went barking mad and decided to become a foster mother for the Bengal Rescue Society. After much encouragement from Lorraine; I decided I could do this.

I wish you could see his fur in real life; it's silver (literally shiny like tiny silver threads throughout) He is gorgeous and loving as all get out. He will head butt you so hard and meow and purr and chirp the entire time you are with him. He's just met us; but you'd think we'd had him since he was a baby. He's the most wondeful animal! He came with two beds and his own blankie. Anyone want to take him to their forever home???

Moondance part II

The gal that commissioned Moondance liked it so well she had me design a quilt for her neice. Very simple design incorporating the flag t-shirt that she wore to all this neice's softball games.



The quilt measures 4'H x 43"W. The quilt back was made entirely from a fleece jacket the woman wore on camping trips. It had special sigificance for this family member so I wanted to keep it tact as much as possible. I had to use fusible interfacing on each peice and resew it back together leaving the buttoned up sections joined.



She also requested 4 separate pillows 20" each. for additional family members. The Scooby fabric was required so for each pillow I tried to make them somewhat color coordiated. On the back she requested I write a saying for each person & include their name and use the 'tye dye' flag material we had left over from the back of her quilt.

Latest Commission

In September of last year; I received a contact through a mutual friend. A lady she had met at a quilt camp was looking for someone who would take her families six wedding dresses and turn them into something else. I contacted the lady and we agreed to meet up and discuss what she wanted and what she had.

For the purposes of this blog; I won't go into lengthy detail about the planning stages & so forth. Suffice it to say I created a few designs & she picked one. I was to make 4 separate wall hangings using the materials from each of the dresses.

The deconstruction of those dresses took the longest and I will remember that should more commissions like this one come about (which would be wonderfully fun!)

The dress materials then had to be prepared using either (and most often both) fusible interfacing and wonder under. Due to the nature of the fabrics this was imperative I assure you. I felt rather like Charlie Chaplin when I was trying to iron on the fusible interfacing as I'd get one section held down with the iron the rest of the material rush off the other end of the ironing board and puddle unmercifully onto the floor mocking my attempts to be neat.

I had to enlarge my design onto freezer paper, then create a pattern off of it using tissue paper. I then cut out each bird section. I had six pieces of fabric (one section from each dress) and would then cut sections of each bird from each piece of material ensuring that each wall hanging would incorporate parts of each dress.

Once it was all fused down to the grey silk; I stitched it all down and added the background quilting. The sections that looks like trees is actually the bodice lace from one of the gowns. I removed it from it's backing; tea stained it and cut it in sections that I then couched down. Lastly, I took the assorted pearls; beads and satin covered buttons (there were 43 on one dress!)and added the embellishments.

On the backs(sorry for the bad picture); there is a pocket on each one; enclosed in it is the 'legend' which has the wedding pictures of each couple, their names and their wedding dates. I had them laminated on vellum.

I'm only sharing the photos of one whole one and not all 4 to eliminate the repetition(though they are each different in subtle ways).

I only wish I was better at photography, the silk reflection really is hard to deal with when trying to get nice shots. Even with my daughters new Canon Rebel EOS, blah, blah, blah, it was so much camera! I mean really; I try to aspire to be good at one thing, quilting... Do I need to be a professional photographer too? Obviously not; I will gladly pay someone next time.

Finished size was 24" x 36" roughly.

Lady of the House...

This is the calligraphy piece I made for the back of the frame.



In the box



Out of the box

Here is the gift for my boss' 60th birthday. Shehas many birds and keeps Lady Gouldian Finches. I hope she likes it. I've mounted it in a shadow box (size 8x10) the piece itself is more like 6"x8". It was fun; It's hand beaded & I painted the 'tree' as well. Originally; I was going to fuse fabric on for the tree; but in my haste; I had all ready beaded the leg & foot so trying to fuse fabric around that was out... The painting didn't turn out awful though I'm a self admitted 'non-painterly' person. (too messy for me)

Hope she likes it!

"Moondance"

This memory quilt was commissioned by a gal for her best friend. The mom passed away October 1 of this year. Our mutual hairdresser put her in touch with me to make a quilt out of the mom's clothing. After meeting with the daughter and learning more about the mom; I came up with this design. It's still a memory quilt in the sense that the border was created out of the fabrics from her clothes with a few brighter scraps from my stash. But it turned more into an art quilt in the middle :) She was a hippie of the 60's; loved dragonflies; flowers and frogs along with peace signs.

The dragonfly on the front was created out of the dress she wore to her daughter's wedding. I stitched the wing membranes in metallic opalescent threads & couched the silver frizze yarn as well as the multii-colored frizze yarns on the dragonfly. The frog is out of some great batik. The size is 56"long x 45"wide. The backing fabric was cut from a large backdrop fabric that was used at her 60th birthday. I quilted it from the back so the dragonfly appears to be crossing the moon of the peace sign from the front. The song "Moondance" kept playing in my head so that's what I've entitled it.

The poem that the family shared was 'I wish you enough' and I wrote the versus of that poem on the denim strips around the border in sharpie marker.

Her friend picked up the quilt tonight and was thrilled. I can't wait to hear how the daughter likes it. I agreed to keep the clothing for a couple months in case any of her family members want one also.

Finished Dragon Head

Still have to get him into the quilt but here's the final shot of his head with finished mouth.