The ultimate MS State joke

and unfortunately, it isn't a joke. This is a picture we took of the jumbotron during my oldest daughter's college graduation a couple of weeks ago. Six years of tuition to send her to a school where they can't spell "exercises." Sort of sad, isn't it?

As far as I'm concerned, State deserves every bad joke Ole Miss can come up with.

Gumbo and Jake

Gumbo (coolest cat in the world) and Jake the dog. It's pretty amazing these two get along as well as they do since they were introduced to each other when they were both a couple of years old. We got Gumbo (coolest cat in the world) as a kitten and didn't get Jake until a couple of years later, and he was already about 3 years old when we got him. Gumbo (coolest cat in the world) doesn't make any sound, he just makes the mouth movements that look like he should be meowing. He can also open the front door by himself, which totally wigs people out when they're sitting there and the door flings open and in walks the cat. We're working on teaching him to close it behind him but he's apparently a slow learner. We also have a black lab and 2 other cats. They're all pretty laid back and fight less than the kids ever did. One of the funniest things they do is that (my sweet baby) Boo Radley (kitty) will grab Jake around the snout with his little kitty arms and Jake flips his head up with Boo hanging on. That's great sport for them to do that, at least until they start knocking stuff over wrestling around. Boo is pretty entertaining all by himself, racing through the house and flopping around. He also comes on command, but none of that wussy "here, kitty, kitty" crap for him. I just holler "Boo Radley" at him and he comes flying and talking. If it weren't for the fact that he had long, jet black fur you'd think he had some Siamese in him for all the talking he does. He's very skittish around people, but very affectionate towards me. He also loves being a cat more than any other cat I've ever seen. The whole running and jumping and swatting and playing thing is great fun for him. He races me through the house (skidding on the wood floors) leaping over things on the way from my work room to the kitchen, and when he beats me into the kitchen, he flops (that's not an exaggeration either...you can actually hear him hit the floor) down in front of me like he's accomplished something special. He also spends about half his time on his back legs, like a squirrel. He comes to the side of my chair and sits up to be petted, sits up to swat at stuff, and sits up to play with his fox and rabbit. A real fox and rabbit, both from vintage stoles, that look pretty freaky to see him toting them around like trophies until you get used to it.

Ignore the fact that the rug needs vacuuming too.

Finally!

Some actual fabric-related content. Two finished tops that have to be quilted, but at least the tops are done. No idea what possessed me to make these, since I don't usually do fussy, pieced, precise measurement quilts, but they are what they are.

The one with the red is about 45x45 and uses a variety of commercial prints and a square of an African print on a background of Osnaburg. I'm thinking they'll both have very heavy quilting in a matching color and straight lines. Of course, that may change once I start quilting them, but for right now that's my intention. Lots of straight lines and angles for the quilting. You probably can't see it, but the WIDE borders are mitered at the corners, so at least the borders will probably be channel quilted in squares around the outside.

The one with the shiny insets is the Osnaburg again, with a beautiful gold/black block printed ribbon. Each piece of ribbon is surrounded by small black piping, and the small stripes on the left are more piping. The heavier vertical line is an even thicker piping. Top and left edges will have Osnaburg binding, bottom and right edges will have black binding. This one looks MUCH better in person than it does in the picture. It is about 36x45.

Merry Christmas!

HO HO HO! Or whatever sound flamingos make.

Life is........

"Good" is usually the end of that phrase and for the most part that's true, but occasionally, well, "life" interferes and other adjectives take the place of good. Interesting, expensive (in an emergency-visit-to-the-vet sort of way), funny, expensive (in a truck-that-crapped-out sort of way), exhausting, expensive (in a more-was-wrong-with-the-truck-than-they-originally-thought sort of way), exciting and expensive (in a daughter's-broken-tooth sort of way) are all appropriate adjectives this week.



My oldest daughter (not of aforementioned broken tooth fame) graduated from college Friday night in Starkville. She's not actually through with school, but she walked across the stage in the long black dress and got the empty diploma holder. I have no idea why they "walk" before they actually finish school, but I'm not complaining. I'm definitely pushing for the others to time their graduations for the Dec ceremony rather than the May one. Fewer people parading across the stage, less traffic to fight to get to the auditorium and plenty of seats. We got the obligatory pictures of her holding up the empty diploma folder (to be photoshopped at will later) with the tape measure and shots of full face and profile. Yeah, mugshot was the scenario on those. I'm just hoping my parents or sister got real photos instead of the silly ones we were taking. Not hoping for our sake, we're perfectly happy with the mugshots, but down the road somewhere she'll probably be glad to have nice pics of it too. Or not, knowing her. She wanted to dye her hair fuchsia to graduate but my mom stroked out so I caught the daughter and stopped her. Fortunately, I got to her before application of the neon dye, but unfortunately, I didn't get to her until after she'd already stripped and bleached the front of it preparing to dye it. She didn't look horrible with the bright yellow stripes on the sides of her face. Or maybe it wasn't horrible because the hat covered it up.



If she had decided to get a 3-toed sloth tattoo on her right cheek I'd have been OK with that too. She deserves it after all her hard work over the years. Way to go, baby!!!!!

Let it snow....and sleet, and rain, and get nasty....

Another reason I love the Kroger

This is a wall hanging I made for my mother yesterday. You'll notice that the red burlap backing is a different color in the second picture. Once I got it to her house and we decided where to hang it, the red was way too harsh so I mixed up a concoction of instant coffee and some wine colored Rit liquid dye and just sponged it on the exposed edges. A HUGE improvement on it. Of course, the original picture is pure crap since I just shot it on the way out the door and didn't look at it before leaving.

The piece is made with a paper grocery bag from the Kroger that I wet, wadded up and ironed dry. Then I used acrylics to paint on it, fused interfacing to the back and then sprayed with water, wadded and ironed again. I ironed from the front side this time to get the crackly looking effect on the paint. The whole thing was then painted with a brown poly wood stain and fused to the burlap.

Jute hanger, wooden clothespins at the top and 3 rust-colored bells with a little piece of greenery and a tiny plaid bow finish off the hanging loop.

She loves it and I'm happy with it, so it's all good. And I had so much fun playing with it that I think I'm going to do one for myself. Maybe a snowman so I can work some blue into it.

mystery solved!

The pattern is apparently called "peony" (some slight variations, i.e. pineys, paeony) and it is a variation of a Lemoyne Star block. Thanks to everyone who responded to my plea for help. It set me off on the right path to identify the block.

The Carolina Lily pattern that was suggested is very close, but it lacks the last 2 petals/leaves of a true Lemoyne Star/peony. The setting with the stems and vase are typical of the Carolina Lily, but the piecing is different. The leaves on the antique quilt are also pieced diamonds, not applique as most Carolina Lily patterns seem to be.

Antique quilt

The Craftsmen's guild had three antique (I'm using 'antique' in the generally accepted definition as signifying 100+ years old) quilts donated recently, and I'm trying to identify the specific pattern used on this one. It's obviously a tulip pattern of some description set on point and is hand pieced, with machine applique stems. Those are the tiniest machine stitches I've ever seen, too. Hand quilted in a Baptist fan pattern, and only one small area about 2x4 inches is missing the quilting stitches.

The green has faded a tremendous amount, based on the non-faded seam allowances, but the red shows very little change in color. The single-fold green print binding is completely worn through all the way around, but as a whole the quilt is in surprisingly good condition. The backing is maybe a homespun? So thin, with a such a loose weave, it almost looks like cheesecloth or drapery scrim at this point. There are areas of quilting where green thread was used but the vast majority of it was done with matching off-white. A couple of mends on the backing, a big round applique and a couple of smaller darned areas, but they are quilted with the original quilting so I'm assuming the fabric was repaired before being used. One pretty bad mildew-y looking spot towards the middle of it and some smaller rusty looking stains but all in all, a very pretty quilt. Total size is 78"x82".

Any information on the block pattern or fabrics or anything else about this quilt or time period would be greatly appreciated.

Finally! Pictures!

I finally got around to (finding the camera) (charging the batteries) (getting stuff together) taking some pictures of current stuff. These are 2 postcards and a quilt that I've done in the last few days. The first postcard is thread painting on batik, with tiny little Christmas ornament musical instruments. I love when Christmas rolls around so I can find all the cool music stuff. Miniatures and larger ones, although I don't ever really have a need for harps, lyres and French horns.

The second postcard is commercial print fabric with guitar strings and a pick. Both are 4"x6" and are intended as thank you gifts for friends.

The quilt is 28"x40" and I used a Loni Rossi commercial print and black. I'll win the lottery one day and buy a couple of bolts of the Michael Miller black too. I go through that stuff like toilet paper. You can still see the chalk quilting lines but I haven't washed it yet. This one has a facing rather than a binding because I wasn't happy with any configuration of any color binding showing at all. I'm using the facing more and more on my stuff and it's no longer the last option I consider. I don't like the pillowcase method at all and the facing gives the same effect with a different technique. 'Gye Nyame' got counted off for binding technique at the quilt show the year she won the big honking prize even though she also has a facing. Just one of those confusing comments that make you wonder if the judges are even looking at what they're grading. Or maybe if the scribes are a couple of quilts behind in the notes. My favorite comment this past show was "border needs more quilting." On a quilt that has no border. I've always thought it interesting that judges make comments like that to begin with, since it's a judgement call by the quilter for what effect they want to produce. It's about on a par with "I don't like that color" as far as useful critique. That partly explains why I tend to submit to art shows more and more rather than quilt shows.

Happy Birthday!

To me! Monday was my 49th birthday and I spent 3 absolutely wonderful days in New Orleans with no plans other than to enjoy myself. And I did! Spent some time in the quarter doing pretty much nothing, then ate, then hanging with one of my best friends and catching up on life and stuff. An incredibly relaxing, rejuvenating evening. Got up the next morning and checked out some of the prospect.1 stuff then off to the Rosetree glass blowing studio over in Algiers. Mark (the owner) was working on some large vases so I got to watch him blow glass for an hour or so, then visited with his wife for a while in the showroom. He does the most gorgeous work and I wanted one of each. http://www.rosetreeglass.com/ One of the best things is the studio itself. It's in an old movie theatre and it is so freaking cool. Go read his story (history link on the website) about getting through the storm too.



Katy and I spent the rest of the day screwing around on Magazine street window shopping in the rain, no less, and then a grabbed a bite to eat. Headed out to a bar eventually and avoided a fight with the pool league players then off to Frenchmen st to finish up the evening (morning?) before heading back to her place. I can't remember the last time I laughed that much either.



The weather was perfect, the company was perfect, and my batteries got recharged. Good to know that my muse still lives there. I came home with several ideas for designs and I'll let them sit in the back of my mind until they develop, but the NO inspired pieces are usually some of my favorites when they finally come to fruition. Something about the colors and line and movement really seem to wind up being good pieces. Everyone should have a specific 'trigger' like that for designing. It's my guaranteed cure for artist's block.



Now that I got the minication out of my system, it's time to get some work produced! I have to have new stuff to hang at New Stage in Jan and I mostly have pieces of pieces right now. Maybe getting a plan as to what to do next would help. Cut the fabric for a new piece or finish some of what I've already started, or quilt what I've already finished? Decisions, decisions.

Maybe at least one picture later today of a piece that's almost finished.

And more than 10 days!

I have no idea how time gets away from me like it does. I look back and think "where did the time go, and why don't I have anything to show for it?" I did manage to crank out a bunch of non-fiber Christmas ornaments to put at ARTichoke this week, and I got a quilt top done today, along with 2 more designs in my head. The ornaments were cute and I had fun taking a bunch of light bulbs apart to make them. Other than that, I've been pretty useless. We headed down to see Cassandra Wilson last weekend but after just a couple of hours it got a bit chilly so we headed home. I love her music so I hated wimping out like that.

When I took the quilt over to the casino, I stopped in at the Attic Gallery in Vicksburg and wound up leaving 4 pieces with them. One sold within just a couple of days so that was good. The gallery itself is so very cool too! I could spend hours in there just poking around at all the great art they have. Stacked, piled, leaned, puddled everywhere. I was in heaven for the 2 or so hours I spent just looking. Lots of local and regional artists and folk art, craft, outsider, all kinds of cool stuff.

My oldest child is so sick of the incompetence at MS State that she now says she's ashamed it will even have that name on her degree. For a child who loves learning and is going into the education field, it says a lot that they are so bad she feels that way about them. At least they haven't turned her off of teaching (yet) just student-ing. Who knows how the other 2 are doing. Our usual conversations go something like this:

ME: How are you doing in your classes?

THEM: OK as far as I know

ME: How do you not know what your grades are?

THEM: Well, I had a test a couple of weeks ago and I passed it.

ME: What about the rest of your classes?

THEM: Can you deposit some money in my account please?

Occasionally, there is some variation in the first 5 lines of that conversation, but the 6th always rolls around eventually. I'll just be happy for the day that one of them, any one of them, finally graduates.

If there is anyone in existence with a more mundane life than mine, I'm glad I don't know them. They're probably the most boring person on the planet.

10 days!

Time flies! I've been busy painting fabric and more fabric. I started out doing my own thing and then I was invited to an artist demo at ARTichoke next Saturday. I wanted to do a make it and take it thing so I asked if I could do some fabric painting with the visitors. Of course, that means I have to get a bunch of samples (and small things to sell!) ready. Hence my awakeness at 4:00 am. It takes a while for the paint to dry so I do a piece, set it aside to dry and start on another piece. I have 3 or 4 pieces in varying stages of paint/dry all over the house and as soon as I deem them done, I'll get started on the construction. I'm thinking checkbook covers, placemats, table runners and journal covers. We'll have small pieces of fabric and plenty of house paint available for the visitors to create their own masterpieces on this Saturday. If anyone is in Jackson and wants to come play with us, it's from 10-2 at ARTichoke on Fortification St, between Jitney 14 and New Stage.

I have to deliver 'Piano Tornado' to the casino in Vicksburg tomorrow so it will be hanging when the casino opens. I'm not sure when the grand opening is though. The weather has been so nice the last couple of days I'm sort of looking forward to the short roadtrip. I hope it stays nice through the weekend too, since I'll be working outside for the demo.

Another post!

Can y'all believe it? Two posts in three days! I've been having fun with the fabric painting stuff that (hopefully) will eventually become whole-cloth pieces. Or maybe I'll just keep painting fabric and then have a stack of painted fabric and no quilts. I'm sort of stuck on the graphic stuff right now, but I can feel the Jackson Pollack coming soon. I like the geometrics but I have to restrain myself from getting more and more non-geometric as I'm working on them. When I get to the point that I want to just do it freehand, I stop and call it finished. It's a bit hard to force myself to keep it graphic looking, but I think it's good practice to work on pure abstracts. Line and shape and color are much more important. Maybe another 1 or 2 of these, then it's off to the freeform abstracts. I'm looking forward to the comparison between the 2 styles when I get enough to compare.

I added a little more red to the first one, and did the second one this morning. I like the second one much better.

"Don't feel bad" I tell myself

Nobody else is updating their blog with any frequency either. But I do have pics today! My youngest daughter on the cover of a local magazine and a whole cloth piece that I just HAD to do. It's been rattling around in my head for a a couple of weeks and I finally just bit the bullet and did it. I like the process so well I'll probably do some more of them. No idea where the abstract, graphic sort of feel to it came from but I see great possibilities for different designs. I had originally intended to use some text on these, until the subject came up on the QuiltArt list and then it sort of felt like I'd be jumping on the bandwagon with it, so that idea may have to wait, although the lyrics and words I want to use are still there and still an option. White PFD fabric with acrylic and rust staining. Stamps, stencils, templates and masking tape shapes. The rust stained stripes are from the piano sound board in my front yard. Most people have garden decorations. I have a 400 lb chunk of a piano. I also rust stained stripes on a white linen dress with it the other day. Totally cool, and the dress only cost a quarter at the Salvation Army.


The cover shot is for a new magazine called Metro Teen and it's published by the same people who did the other magazine she was on the cover of. There are several pictures of her throughout the magazine too and they all look great! I might be biased.

like a bee

My poor blog looks so neglected! Maybe because it is. Too much drama and crisis in my life lately. 3 funerals in less than 2 weeks, all sudden and newsworthy, and nothing I want to talk about. Just say it's been a couple of weeks of rough going, so I sort of have an excuse for not updating.
Now that I am updating, I have news! I submitted for a corporate art exhibit at a casino being built in Vicksburg and I am officially one of their "inaugural artists" as of yesterday! The stuff hangs in Oct, reception in Jan, and hopefully sold! I've also got to get stuff made for the show at the New Stage Theatre in Jan and Feb. Trying to develop an outline for 2 classes, and I'm the new incoming VP of my 'home' quilt guild! I'm really excited about that, and will write more on it later. My brain is still sort of scattered from the last week or so.
My oldest daughter is on the cover of another magazine and we just got a stack of copies of it so I'll have to scan that and post it.
7 quilts off to the Pinebelt show next week and then a quilt/wallhanging/crib set thing for the sis-in-law's baby, which is expected soon!! Maybe after that I can take a break.

busy, busy

Hung a bunch of my quilts at Cups, a local coffee shop chain (better than Starsucks!) yesterday with my friend Chris. I wish she lived a bit closer to my regular orbit so I could see her more often, but it was fun spending some time with her, and meeting the owner at Cups. The work will be hanging through the end of Sept, then some of them are off to the show in Hattiesburg, and hopefully some will be off to the casino in Vicksburg shortly after that. No word on acceptances for that yet though.

An email the other day about putting together an exhibit at the local community theatre at the end of January in conjunction with their performance of the Gee's Bend play. No, before you ask, the exhibit won't be Gee's Bend-ish quilts created for the production but a variety of quilts to tie in with the quilting theme. I have to go down next week to see the space and how to hang them and that sort of thing. I love that the theatre has related art exhibits for each play too. They had an invitational for the current "Sherlock Holmes" and local artists created SH related work. The next production is To Kill a Mockingbird, so much a favorite that my cat is named Boo Radley.

Some other stuff coming up or already happened, but I've been up, glued to Ike reports since about 2:30 and my thinking is a little fractured, so you're getting stream of consciousness more than any real thoughtful posting. Hey! At least I'm putting a post up!

I had big plans to post a picture too, but I'm on the laptop so I can watch the weather channel so the pic will have to wait.

I'm off to a sew day today with a group of other quilters and I am inordinately excited about it. I know a couple of them, but not as well as I'd like to, am acquainted with a couple others and don't know a couple of them at all. Judging from the ones I do know, I'm sure I'll like all of them and would love to get to know them better. No idea why it's so hard for me to reach out and do the work involved to make friends, but I'm always grateful when others make the effort to include me. There's probably some deep psychological reason for that, or maybe it's just because I'm in the habit of being solitary and a bit isolated in my daily life. I do try to get involved with stuff, and don't mind volunteering and being active, but that's different than making friends.

Speaking of being active, another surprise the other day when I was asked to be one of the committee chairs for the upcoming quilt show this fall. I scribed last year and absolutely loved it! I can still scribe this year since my duties won't overlap the days of judging. We've also put together a very basic crit group and I'm hoping my scribe duties will expose me to some real critiques from the judges. I'd love to be able to apply some of that to my own work also.

After much angst (and laughter with Cindy) we have finally gotten the October gathering put together I think. We even got the info together for the newsletter, which Leslie got out even though she was in the middle of Gustav! The gathering is on the coast, and I'm hoping to get word on a training seminar in Ocean Springs I've applied for through the Arts Alliance that will be held the 3 days following the seminar. One trip to the coast instead of 2 would be nice since the following weekend is the Hattiesburg show, and that's halfway to the coast. Lots of driving (and gas!!) in a week and a half if I have to go down and back for each.

Big prayers for everyone in the path of Ike, and I am dreading the aftermath with so many people deciding to ride it out. I can't help but think of the hurricane party at the apartment complex on the coast during Camille, and the result of that.

"The Storm"

It's been a week of unbelievable tragedy and crisis for someone I love very much, so my posting and working has suffered. I've done some mindless piecing on a quilt sort of loosely based on one I saw earlier in the week (thanks Rosemary!) that was loosely based on one she saw in a magazine. It is morphing from what I started with to something a little more involved, but the base idea is still there.

The only piece I have actually finished this week is the one I did for the Breaking Traditions show. It's another Katrina piece using some more of my debris, and it was another one that was hard to work through. The storm pieces are getting easier, but still not (maybe never) easy. And now we're all on edge with Gus wandering around. This piece is 12"x12" and constructed on a commercial print cotton base using blue tarp, a scrap of Army fatigue, reverse appliqued Red Cross, scraps and bits and orts of MRE packaging, nails, a chunk of roofing, and a bunch of other stuff. A paint-covered screwdriver, a beaded cross, and some Mardi Gras doubloons from the 70s. Between working on this piece, the personal crisis and the nerves from Gus, I'm about wiped out emotionally this week.

OK, enough whining and on to the picture!

We're gonna give it a shot

Me and my big ideas! We're getting an on-line art quilt crit group together. So far, we have 7 people participating, and once the fog clears from my brain I'll be putting together the "official" guidelines and rules. Right now, I'm just sending out links to existing crit forms and info so everyone will have an idea of the direction we're trying to go. I'm actually sort of looking forward to it too. I've discovered that I can learn as much about my own work by analyzing other people's as I do by analyzing my own. It's almost easier to define and verbalize the elements of someone else's quilt. Maybe I just "know" in my head how I want to do something without having to put much more thought into it than "it looks better at the bottom than it does at the side" when I'm working on my own stuff. Looking at someone else's, I have to decide specifically WHY it looks better at the bottom and be able to put that into words.

Concentrating on the art aspect can only help and it's never a bad thing to be able to get some insight into how others perceive your strengths and weaknesses in design, color, etc.

A post!

Not an important one, or an informative one, and probably not even an interesting one. But a post nonetheless, which is more than I can claim from the last 2 weeks or so. Deadlines for three really big things that have all fallen at the same time. 2 show submissions with the gobs of inherent paperwork, and a newsletter deadline with a bunch of information and phone calls back and forth and emails flying to get complete and accurate info.

Both show submissions are going out today, then a couple of quilts to finish up for one of the shows and I'll get a break. I think. At least the kids are all back at school so I have the time for my own work. Having the energy and motivation is a different story.

My oldest daughter started her practice teaching yesterday to finish her degree to be a high school English teacher and she is SOOO excited. She's assigned to a school less than 2 blocks from her apartment so she plans to walk as often as possible. Her original assignment was 41 miles away and we were sweating the gas costs for an entire semester of that commute. She's thrilled with the teacher she's assigned to, and she has only Jrs and Srs and at least one AP class to work with. She's in hog heaven and can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel! We're incredibly proud of her.

Good vibrations

I sort of had a lapse there with the chronological steps on this one. It's ready for quilting now though. I added some notes, a black and white flange between the background and the narrow black inner border, and then finished off with a wider print border. The outside border is the same fabric as what's behind the notes, and the colors were perfect with the hand painted background, although I painted the background over a year ago and the fabric was a gift last month. Worked perfectly though. Not sure yet what the quilting pattern is going to be but I'm leaning towards some big sweeping curves sort of echoing the lines of the staff and the keyboard.

the Satchmo piece

It didn't even occur to me to re-post the Satchmo piece that was in the show! This is "Primarily Jazz" and it's 35"x35", hand painted and commercial cottons, pieced, appliqued and thread painted.

Satchmo art show

The reception was great! Wall to wall people, open bar upstairs and 3 buffet tables of food. The only glitch was the fact that, because of the lay out of the exhibit, it was hard to hang out by my piece to eavesdrop on the viewers and there was no way to identify the artists from the visitors. I did pass out a bunch of cards and talked to a few people and just enjoyed the experience of being in an art show in New Orleans. The president of the City Council (her name escapes me, unfortunately) spoke, and we were all given fancy certificates signed by the Mayor. They were worded strangely and it sort of looked like the kind of thing politicians do so they look like they're doing something, but at least they went to the trouble of doing it. I'll stick it up on my wall with the ribbons from local shows and call it a souvenir, although I actually like the poster better. It was pretty cool to see my name on the list of artists though. No prize, but I didn't expect one. I was just happy my work was accepted for the show to begin with, considering the caliber of the local artists. The 46 pieces of art are on exhibit until September 1.

I didn't realize until the speech that this is the first year back since the storm, and the 25th anniversary of the Satchmo art show, so maybe it's an even bigger deal than I thought it was. At any rate, I'm happy and proud and excited to have been included in it.

36 hours I won't soon forget

Bear with me here. Wed evening I headed down to Biloxi to spend the night with my uncle before heading over to NOLA Thurs to deliver the quilt for the art show. Nice drive down, pleasant evening with my uncle and a good night's sleep. Up and out around 10:30 the next morning for the hour drive to NOLA. Plenty of time, since I had to be there between 10-4. 20 minutes down I-10 and the car died. Crap. Call Rickey and he comes over with his truck and towed me maybe 2 miles to a repair shop in Diamondhead. So far, so good. It's now about noon so I have time to take him back home and still get to the gallery by 4:00 with plenty of time to spare. Drop him off and head back down I-10. Beautiful day, nice drive and not a lot of westbound traffic. Everything going great until about the state line, then it came a flood. Literally. I was in his big, heavy pickup and I was STILL hydroplaning occasionally. The 1 hour drive took over 2 hours since we were lucky to be hitting 35 mph for the last half of the trip. Nerve wracking doesn't begin to describe driving across the bridge in an unfamiliar vehicle that's much larger than my Honda, with about 10 feet of visibility through the rain, and half the morons driving without their lights on. Apparently, God was just washing the city down for my arrival though, because about the time I pulled on Canal St. the sun broke through and the weather was gorgeous! Thank goodness, too, since I didn't have plastic over the quilt, just a fabric wrap on it. I found a free parking space literally at the door of the gallery. One of the secretaries squealed with delight when she saw my work too. After dropping it off I hooked up with my friend Charles for a beer at Ryan's and then down the street for lunch at Maspero's. It was great chatting with him and catching up on stuff. The only hitch was the call from the repair shop that the bill would be $950 for a blown radiator and head gasket.

Friday morning I took off in Rickey's extra car to go put the deposit on the car repairs. Great trip over to Diamondhead and back until I got ONE BLOCK away from being back at the trailer (yeah, he's still in a FEMA trailer) and the car overheated. Cracked radiator housing. Crap. Good thing the truck is in great condition, huh? Meanwhile, I'm looking at an overnight trip turning into a 6 day saga on the coast. Quick trip to the Family Dollar to at least get something to change into since I only had 2 shirts and a pair of jeans with me. Another meeting with the powers-that-be about his grant from the IRD at 1:30. He didn't qualify for that grant, and they knew it the instant they looked at the paperwork. They SHOULD have known it 3 months ago when he submitted the paperwork and told him then. It would have cut out all the worrying he's done in that time. Drop the car off on Pass Rd. to be repaired and get another call from the people fixing my car. Once they got into the engine, they magically discovered there was an additional $400 of necessary repairs needed that they "missed" in the estimate. Um, no. We'll be by tomorrow to pick the car up so figure out what I owe you for what's already been done. An hour later, another call, this time from the owner of the shop. "Gee, we're real sorry we screwed up your estimate, so we'll make it right by eating the extra cost and fixing your car for the original quote." Yay! Something finally going right in this comedy of errors!! Back to the trailer about 5:00 for a nap.

We napped until about 9:00 then decided a run to the Waffle House was a good idea. That's one reason I love my uncle Rickey so much. His sleeping and eating patterns are as weird as mine, and he thinks a run to the Waffle House is a good idea any time it's suggested. So off we go in the one remaining vehicle that still runs. The aforementioned honking big-ass pick up truck. The WH is maybe 3 miles from his house. We made it 2.99 miles of that distance before we were broadsided pulling into the WH and the truck rolled. Not a lot of detail about the wreck, other than the fact that we (I) had now gone through THREE vehicles in about 36 hours. Well, that and the fact that we were now trapped in the truck in the middle of Hwy 49. The cops and firemen were great, and neither of us sustained any real physical injuries, although the wreck was pretty impressive looking strewn all over three lanes of traffic. The truck looked remarkably good for being turned over in the middle of the road too. Rickey's ex-step-daughter's ex-husband came and picked us up (after we ate, of course) and offered us the use of his spare truck to get back to Jackson yesterday. We'll take it back down on Wed when I go to pick my car up and then head over to NOLA for the artists' reception that evening. If any of you have any special pull, could you see about having the rain hold off this time?

The cops who worked the wreck said ours was the 4th wreck they'd had in the last hour and a half on about a 1/4 stretch of highway right there.

My dodo chair

Another of those phrases (like "make groceries") that has crept into my vocabulary from grandparents. This one from my maternal grandmother. A dodo chair is basically that soft, comfortable chair that you sink into that seems to have the magical ability to make your eyes heavy within minutes. It refers to sleep, not the bird. One of my kids thought for years that it meant it turned you into a dodo. Not too far off the mark if you have a really good dodo chair. Think Sunday afternoon football games snoozing in the chair.

From Wiki: Fais do-do is a name for a Cajun dance party, originating before World War II. According to Mark Humphrey's notes from the Roots n' Blues CD "Cajun Dance Party - Fais Do-Do", the parties were named for "the gentle command ('go to sleep') young mothers offered bawling infants." He quotes early Cajun musician Edwin Duhon of the Hackberry Ramblers, "She'd go to the cry room, give the baby a nipple and say, 'Fais do-do.' She'd want the baby to go to sleep fast, 'cause she's worried about her husband dancing with somebody else out there."
'Do-do' itself is a shortening of the French verb dormir (to sleep), used primarily in speaking to small children. Comparable to the American English "beddy-bye", it is still commonly used by French-speaking people.

Que'?

Fairly early Saturday morning, my husband came in here and said something weird had just happened to him. He was trying to watch a movie in the bedroom and was having trouble understanding what they were saying so he kept turning the tv up louder and louder. Nothing strange about that since none of us can hear very well to begin with, but he realized after he'd turned it ALL the way up that the movie was in Spanish! Seems like he would have noticed that sooner.

A couple of days later, he came in the living room and asked me to flip over to another channel for a minute. He was again watching a movie and it was in Spanish. When I changed channels in the living room, it was in English. He went back and forth for a couple of minutes, looking very confused. After much discussion and playing with the settings on the remote, we discovered you can actually set the movie channels to broadcast in Spanish. It took forever to dig through all the settings to find it, but eventually we did. That might also explain why the NWS alerts come across the screen in Spanish on that tv. Mystery solved!

I'm off to New Orleans next week to deliver my Satchmo piece for the art show, and then back down there a week later for the artists' reception. I hear Crescent City Brewpub has great oysters! I'll go armed (discreetly, of course) with plenty of business cards and a portfolio. I mean, ya know, just in case someone wants to see more of my work. After being so productive last week, I wrecked my back cleaning house...a lovely reason to NOT do housework...so sitting at the machine or computer is a touch and go proposition. I haven't forgotten about the updates on the piece I was posting pics of so religiously for a few days! I just haven't done any more to it yet. I did find some absolutely gorgeous gold metallic fabrics at Hobby Lobby and Hancocks (I almost typed "Kilgore" just then. Old habits die hard.) on the coast that will probably find their way into the gold and black piece. Most likely, those pics won't show up any time soon since I intend on submitting that one to a show in Hattiesburg this fall.

Since sitting in my dodo chair is more comfortable than sitting in a computer chair, I did manage to get some beading done this week though. I finished another piece for Dorinda and did a peyote stitch bracelet and the beginnings of a necklace for myself. Still dithering about exactly how I want the necklace to look but at least I have the rope part of it made. It's all copper and bronze and metallics with some black glass cubes and seed beads. I love the look of the flat peyote bracelet but I'm thinking of putting some danglies on it too. We'll see.

And a gratuitous quilt photo. The topic of bad hanging at quilt shows came up on the quiltart list the other day, and we had just discussed that very thing the day before. This piece is mounted on black fiberglass window screening, intended to disappear into the black drapes at the show. For some unknown reason, they decided to go round up a white background to pin to the black drape, which they then pinned my quilt to. Hanging sleeves be damned! It looked like crap I hear, and I was very surprised it took a ribbon.

WOOOOOOO freakin' HOOOOOOOOO

Got this in email this morning! Any of you who will be in New Orleans for Satchmofest are invited to drop by and see it. I am SO excited about this!
Talk about doing a happy dance, I'm dancing so hard I think I pulled something.

Good morning Rhonda,
Congratulation, we are delighted to have “PRIMARILY JAZZ” as part of the Sixth Annual Satchmo juried art Show. Please plan on delivering it on July 24/25/26 (10am to 4pm) at French Quarter Festival office@ 400 North Peters St in the French Quarter. (522-5730 or 957-3540). If you need directions let us know. Call or e-mail your time choice or if you need other arrangements. Joann

Oh! And one more

I completely forgot about adding the info on this one. It's going back to my original idea for the gold and black with the same horn pattern. (I really, really like that graphic.) I figured I better use it before I lost the already prepared pieces of the Liquid Gold fabric I'd originally started with. (Is "originally started" redundant? Probably is.) I grabbed this piece of Michael Miller fabric yesterday on my daily jaunt to the quilt shop, and it's working perfectly for the image in my head. I know it's sort of hard to see the effect in the picute since the gold has such a reflection and the little confetti pieces (in gold and copper) don't show well on the picture, but you can take my word for it that it really does look just like I wanted it to. Eventually it will involve narrow gold ribbons, gold mesh and probably gold sparkle organza.

on blogging and comments

Thank you all for the comments you've left. I love getting comments, but I don't really expect them. I rarely leave them on other blogs. Not for lack of thoughts on the work or posts on the blogs, just some sort of weird reluctance to say something to someone I don't know.

During this hemorrhage of thoughts and pictures throughout the process on this quilt, Mary Ann commented that this is what blogs are all about. The next comment by Michelle made me think "this is what blogging is all about!" She said she agreed with my thought on enhancing the horn since she hadn't even noticed it. If left to my own eye I might never have gone back and outlined it, or maybe I would have dithered around indefinitely about if I should or not. I truly appreciate a well-thought-out comment about a design or color or placement question. A good comment about a problem spot, or the way a viewer sees something that I might have missed or overlooked is always welcome. I love getting true critiques and opinions on a piece as I'm working on it and have several friends I shoot pics in progress off to for that very reason. I'm just as likely to verbally describe something to them too, and sort of let my mind go with the back and forth that stems from those conversations. It's not that I feel my designs need any 'help' from other people, it's just that I appreciate hearing how something comes off visually to others. Sometimes I listen, sometimes I don't.

So, without further ado, here is the horn, enhanced.

...and then the staff

The lines for the staff have been making me crazy! The black lines are just under 1/4" wide, so it was a lot of little fiddly stuff to try to get it even and a soft curve and not fray into nothing. After several starts and stops and regrouping, I finally landed on a workable solution. The black is cut double width, as is the teal behind it. A line of liquid fusible (thanks, Terry Grant!) down the middle of the teal, fuse the black down the center, zig zag the outside edges of the black and THEN cut it apart! The black is already stitched to the teal and I'm not working with something so narrow it stretches out of shape. Another line of liquid fusible on the face of the quilt and fuse the strips down. All that's left is to do the narrow zig zags on the edges now, but at least it's secure while I'm stitching. And yes, the 'shadow' on the top line is intentionally wider than the others. The staff will ultimately have some music notes on it, probably with the multi-print from a previous pic. Again, subject to change!

Is anybody but Mary Ann even reading this? I've made more posts today than I usually do in a week. I'd like to get this one finished (at least the top finished) by Thursday since we're heading out Friday morning for the coast. Long weekend with my uncle in Biloxi and a side trip over to New Orleans just to play. My uncle has already laid in some shrimp and oysters (sto' bought since it's the wrong season) for us, and I'm planning on cooking stuff for him that he can freeze.

progress....again

The more I look at this, the more I think I need a stronger outline around the horn itself.

or maybe I'll use lime green

and more....

The next couple of steps ion putting this one together.

I've been wanting to do this keyboard for a while but never had a piece that it worked with. It's sort of fiddly to do but I like the overall effect of it. Not sure if I'm going to use the orange behind the bass clef or switch it to a bright teal blue. That decision will come after I get a bit further into it. The keyboard and clef will ultimately be sewn down with a black satin stitch.

and next comes....

Some of the details. Tissue patterns (sort of....mostly just the shape and size I'm aiming for more than a lay-it-out-and-cut-from-it pattern) for 2 of the 3 main elements. The second pic is of some of the possible fabrics I'll use. Or not. I never can tell until I'm actually assembling it which ones will make the final cut.

I think of my friend Sunny Mayeaux every time I use some of that tissue too. It originally came from an entire roll of vinyl that we used to make tablecloth covers with for her daughter's restaurant. That was probably 10 years ago and I'm still ripping off hunks of the tissue. She thought I was insane when I rolled it back up on the bolt to save, just in case.

In the beginning....

...there was a horn. And that horn made music. Or it will once I finish this piece. So far I have the background and the horn done. Maybe this will be one I actually follow through with the procedure as I go along. I keep saying I'm going to do that, but so far I never have.

The original plan for this one was the 'Liquid Gold' fabric on a black background (see previous post.) But as usual, things changed drastically. I even have the gold one cut out and fused to WU. Maybe it will show up in something else later. Maybe not. I'll probably lose the pieces before something comes to me to use it for. The horn has now become a tangerine cotton lame' that came in a mis-ordered bundle of fat quarters from Fabric.com several years ago. I thought I was ordering the primaries but I actually ordered the sherbets. Not my usual color choice, but it worked well for this. Fused to the background (more Sonji-class hand-painted stuff) and then a narrow zig-zag in a weird orange-y metallic. Maybe I can use one more hyphen in this paragraph!

I have a plan! It involves some lines and some curves and some shapes and some more color! I'll try to get pictures at each step to document the progress.

Any of you have any great suggestions for using soutache braid that doesn't require hand sewing and doesn't make it lump up and stretch under the foot as you're sewing? Preferably suggestions for standard feet that don't require buying a cording foot. I'd rather spend my money on more fabric but I may have no choice. Fuse it down and then stitch? I may just wind up buying an extra package of it and playing until I get the technique down. The lines have to be VERY smooth so I don't want any pulling or stretching.

flotsam and jetsam

My blog is listed on the new Quiltinggallery.com website and it has generated a bajillion hits. No complaints from this end about it since it will most likely motivate me to post more regularly. I occasionally ("occasionally"....hahahahaha....I crack myself up) need a little structure to keep the procrastination at bay. Maybe that's why I work so well under deadlines. Anyway, check out the website. You can search for quilting blogs by state or country to find like-minded souls in your area, or other areas if you're traveling. I've also run across some fun blogs just mucking around with no real purpose.

"Primarily Jazz", the Louis Armstrong piece, is finished and pics were submitted last Friday for the show. No official word from the review committee yet on acceptance, but I did get an email from the owner of the gallery and she liked it. I felt like Sally Field. Even if he doesn't get in, I'm happy to have a piece that I really like and the fact that the gallery owner likes it too will soften the blow if it's declined for exhibit. I was especially happy with the use of the hand-painted fabric and the thread painting for his face.

This is a piece of fabric painted last year at Art Colony in Sonji Hunt's class. I can't believe how many yards of painted fabric I ended up with and how often I use it. I've even gone back and added more painting to some that were OK to begin with but just needed that something extra. I've also taken what I learned that week and started from scratch painting pieces for specific purposes. And of course, I've screwed around just to see what I came up with with no real destination in mind. I think of Thelma Smith every time I pull out the tubes of acrylics too.

I got started on a new piece yesterday using 'Liquid Gold' fabric. Damn, I love that stuff! Of course, right off the bat I screwed up my fusing and had to cut it all apart and fuse it to more WU. It'll be fine though, since I'd fused it to black and I just cut the shapes out. It'll never show when I fuse it back onto black and stitch it down. I'm in a quandary now for the next step although I know the shapes and design I want. Just not sure of the colors. Definitely a keyboard, a bass clef and a staff, but that's about as far as I've gotten. Strangely enough, it's the size that's throwing me off, not the actual design. I may need to re-think the black background too. Arrrggghhhhh.....I hate when I get an idea but it only comes to me half finished. Maybe my muse is on a coffee break!

And I have been sewing clothing! Yes, actual stuff to wear. It's been several years since I've sewn any wearables, and many more years since I've sewn anything for myself. I picked up 5 or 6 colors of linen last week and drafted a pattern for crop pants and tank tops. I'm having too much fun playing with my vast assortment of fancy variegated threads and the specialty stitches on my machine. The best art is, the first time I wore one out in public someone asked where I had gotten it. WOOT! And my penchant for creating a piece of jewelry at the last instant to go with my outfit is apparently intact. I made a necklace, practically on the way out the door, to go with the oatmeal colored set.

If I get a flash of genius on the new piece, I'll get pics posted later. It's a relatively simple design so it shouldn't take long to assemble once I get a clear picture of it in my head. It's just that whole 'clear picture' thing that's throwing me right now.

We are supposed to hear today about acceptance for the artist book exhibit at the Abecedarian Gallery in Denver. I don't have high hopes for that one getting in, considering the competition I'm up against, but it's an intensely personal piece that I just had to make, so it wasn't wasted effort.

just playing around

These are two thread bowls I've been playing with. Neither will go any further than this probably, but they were good practice for one I have in my head. They are stitched on a base of water-soluble stabilizer, so once that is rinsed out, the entire bowl consists of nothing but the thread from stitching. I totally get in the zone doing these since it's very much like thread painting or free-motion quilting. I do have a timer set for 15 minute increments though so my back and shoulders don't get wrecked for a week by losing track of time. And if I push my machine too hard it overheats too. I usually work for 15 minutes, take a short break, and after 45 minutes I turn the machine off completely and take a longer break. For the 'real, true' bowl I have in my head, I'm thinking maybe solid black rayon (sort of shiny) for the bowl with lots of beading. I like the effect of the fringe on the edge but I'm not sure how that would look with beads mixed into it. I do want a pile of beads in the center, maybe spilling out of the bowl somehow. We'll see. It'll probably turn out nothing like I envision it anyway. And I have another idea for a quilt that's percolating in my brain too. A trumpet/piano combo design. What a surprise, huh? It's a relatively simple overall design, but pretty fiddly so we'll see when it actually gets made.

No pictures today

At least not yet. I got "Primarily Jazz" finished yesterday and wonder of wonders, it lies perfectly flat and perfectly straight and is apparently perfectly square. Of course I decided to use a technique that I've never used before when I quilted it, so I was worried I'd screw it up. And I used that evil monofilament thread too. Between sewing through the painted fabric, using the mono, different color top and bobbin threads and the double layer of felt for the batting I was expecting the perfect storm of bird nests, bad tension, lots of frogging and a back full of pleats and tucks. I got none of those! NONE! Do you hear me? I was in the zone with the stitch in the ditch, the tension stayed right where I put it, the back was smooth as glass and the only frogging I had to do was about 6" where the excess backing got folded back and I stitched through it while quilting. I even remembered to put the sleeve on it! I'm hoping and praying that the relative ease of getting it assembled and quilted is a good omen for it getting accepted to the show. A label, good photos and off goes the submission. Wish me luck!

Now, on to some other ideas I have in mind for the next one. And the next one after that.

This is a test

Do you recognize this man? This is a quilt I'm submitting for an art show in New Orleans. Hopefully, I'll have the binding on this evening or tomorrow and then I'll get good pictures of it and off it goes for jurying. Think really good thoughts, really hard, for me to get in. I'll invite everyone to the reception if it's accepted! (Any excuse for a party in New Orleans!)

Another weekend of Blues

We spent the day Saturday at the Bentonia Blues Festival at the historic Blue Front Cafe' and had a blast. Only in the Deep South can Wonderbread, fried catfish and mayo be considered a meal. With a side of boiled peanuts and a cold beer. The heat wasn't so unbearable as it was at Leland either. Only a few degrees cooler on the thermometer, but it was on grass this time instead of dirt. At one point, the clouds moved in carrying rain and it got downright cool even though we never got any of the actual rain. The trains passing on the very busy tracks directly behind us were a nice touch, and it was funny how people all turned and waved at the City of New Orleans when it came through. The musicians jamming in the cafe' never stopped even though they were about 10 feet from the stage and every time there was a break between songs you could hear the music coming from the cafe'. Nobody seemed to mind either. Duck Holmes' 91 year-old aunt spent the entire day on the stage dancing and nobody seemed to mind that either.

It's great living in a place where we're only 2 or 3 hours away from all these festivals that celebrate the birthplace of so many types of music. A 3 hour drive in any direction gives us Blues, New Orleans jazz, hill country music, cajun, pretty much anything we want to hear on any given weekend is a day trip for us. Our kids think it's "cute" that we go to all these festivals now too. We would have been going to them all along except that we started having kids practically the minute we got married so we never had the time/money/freedom to do much of it until we got them out of the house. My youngest daughter has expressed an interest in going with us and my son already hits the festivals he's interested in. It's pretty cool to be able to talk music with the kids and know that we have a lot of the same tastes. It's also nice to swap CDs with them (except their definition of "swap" is to go shopping in my CDs and then report back how much they love the most recently lifted CD of mine) and to suggest new artists to each other.

No art quilting in this post other than to say I'm really struggling with a piece right now but it's not ready for me to show yet. I have done a lot of the detail work on it and I've started piecing it, but it's a very organic sort of piecing. Add a strip here, a square there, a border around that and then hold it all up and hope it works together at each stage. So far, so good, but it's slow going for some reason.

Congratulations Amy and Gregg!

We missed the wedding, but we'll be around for the marriage! I think I can safely post a pic of their quilt since I intend to deliver it before they see the blog. At least that's the plan. Upholstery fabrics in tapestry, chenille and silk. It will be hung by brass rings on a decorative brass rod.

"The Storm" redux

The pictures I sent in for the submission are much better than these, but the files are freaking huge so I'm not posting them. Use your imagination for color adjustment and cropping.

The Storm

I took down the pictures of the artist book in case they have an objection to it being posted somewhere. If it isn't accepted I'll re-post the pics or add them to the photobucket.

My brain really isn't hitting on all cylinders apparently. I sent all the submission info and files they asked for, and promptly forgot to add phone number or email addy to the contact information, and I doubt they'll be sending me anything through snail mail. Hopefully, I didn't hose things up badly enough for them to refuse the submission.

the mechanics of art

Whew...my mind has been racing with all the combinations and permutations of assembling an idea I have for an art project. I have stacks of little test samples pinned all over my work space and 3 pages of notes on what I want to include on the actual project once I get the technical details worked out. I'm actually taking notes for this one since every time I make a new sample I have to wait...and wait...and wait...for it to dry so I can see the final effect. o any of you have any idea if I can add acrylic paint to polyurethane to give it color? I may wind up just buying a can of tinted poly wood stain or something. I'll apparently be investing in yardage of wonder under too. And probably a new printer that will take fabric sheets without totally hosing up everything on my computer. MY fabric sheets, not the commercial ones. The commercial ones are never the right fabric, or the right size, or the right color, or the right texture, or the right price. I have a very specific design that I want to TRY to achieve with this particular piece, so all of the pre-prep work is necessary. Unfortunately, it also has a very short deadline, and a very personal message, but I want to get it right. We'll see. If nothing else, I'm learning the properties of several different techniques for surface design. That's never a bad thing.

Oh yeah, and my dumb ass decided to make a quilt for a gift.....that's due NEXT SATURDAY! Thank goodness I seem to work best under pressure. I would post some pictures today, but one project can't be revealed until the middle of the month, one is in the planning stage and I don't even have the fabric yet for the other one.

artist's book

Like I need to take on ANOTHER project! At least I'm down to the quilting and embellishing on the quart bag quilt that is due June 13 so I have a bit of breathing room. The new project was inspired by a call for submissions from the Abecedarian Gallery for textile related artist books. http://www.abecedariangallery.com/ It feels like a good fit for my current experimentation with the journals I'm making. They have been well received by people who have seen them and I really enjoy working on them too. As soon as I saw the prospectus an idea came full-blown to me from something that's been on my mind for a while now. Of course, I have a feeling it's going to be VERY labor intensive but better to spend the time working on it than leaving it in my head to distract me from everything else. As long as I resist actually creating something from the idea, my brain won't let me do anything else other than think about it. It's almost like it fills up all the creative cells so no other ideas have any room to exist. Maybe if I get it out of my head and onto fabric I can move on to something else. I hope, anyway.

These are all hand stitched pages and beaded, embroidered pieced, embellished, etc. The one at top left with the batiks and rust stained fabrics is my own personal notebook and is made to take a standard size spiral bound book. The rest have 96 page sewn signatures. You can see the different signature treatments on the shot of the spines. All but one of them has a bookmark sewn into the cover. Several of them use pieces of my rust stained fabrics on the inside. Dupioni silk, commercial print, mud cloth and batik covers. 9"x6"