Thank you for your patience.

I know you were all sitting around waiting with bated breath for my next post. My mind is still reeling from Sonji's class and the entire Tougaloo Art Colony experience. My mind reels anyway, just more now that it's crammed full of an entire week spent with real artists though. I felt like an absolute fraud being surrounded by MFAs all week, but I just sat back and laughed at the appropriate (and frequently inappropriate) times and nodded sagely at their pearls of art wisdom. The food was incredibly bad (and expensive) and the classes and interaction were incredibly good. My "Bird" Parker quilt sold almost immediately at the auction and I was SO excited! My biggest fear was that it would just get Vanna'ed around the room and then have to slink off quietly to sit in the corner by itself with no takers. Fortunately, Isaac Byrd showed up and he collects bird related stuff. I'll sit here in the early morning quiet and believe that he just loved the piece so much he HAD to have it for his own, and ignore the fact that he was probably as taken with the fact that there was a bird on it as he was with the actual artistic merit of it. Artists tend to be a bit self-delusional anyway I think. I did catch a glimpse of him at one point talking to another auction goer and gently stroking the quilt as he talked. He wasn't doing that with the other non-textile pieces either!

Surprisingly (at least for me) was what a big hit my rust dyed stuff made. I had a lot of interest in the pieces I brought and some inquiries about doing some workshops on it. I also sold a few pieces (along with a canvas drop cloth I went all Jackson Pollock on and then polyurethaned for a floor cloth) at the open studio on Friday. The attention the rust stuff got made me sort of look at it in a new light too. There may be more of it in my future, in more ways than me just deciding I need a certain piece for my own work. The good thing is that rust dying is something I actually enjoy doing, and it's not terribly labor intensive so maybe I won't get tired of doing it right away. I finally broke down yesterday and ordered a book on compost dying (don't hate me Rissa!) even though I fully expect it to be a battle royale with the author to get the damn thing in this lifetime. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find any other source for the info I'm looking for than her book. At least I used PayPal so maybe they'll get on her ass if she doesn't follow through as agreed.

What to say about Tougaloo? Too much stuff and not enough brain-organization to think coherently yet. The instructors and students were unbelievable. I could natter on at great length about what an experience it was to meet Sonji, but suffice it to say we connected immediately. That connection held throughout the week, and I wanted to cry when she finally left. Thelma Smith was another student in our class and that was a HOOT! I think I spent more time with her last week than I did my own husband. And I didn't have to cook for her! Margaret brought in some gorgeous, luscious yarns she hand dyes through her company heritageyarns.com and I had to get a table as far away from Debbie as I could. No WAY I wanted to be in a position for people to be able to compare her work to mine. We were all begging/bribing/pleading/bartering trying to get a piece of her fabric to bring home with us. I'd have just hung it up on my wall as is and danced around laughing maniacally saying "Mine. All mine!" if I'd been successful in talking her out of the big piece I coveted. Alas, the silly woman actually followed directions and cut it up! Of course, the stuff she made with the cut up pieces was gorgeous too. There's not much she could have done to make it anything other than beautiful. I haven't even mentioned Gwen Magee and her independent study studio, where I spent half my time simply absorbing her working process and chatting (at great length, of course) about this and that and politics and Katrina and whirled peas and anything else that flitted across our brains.

OK....I'm tired of typing now, so I'll just call this Installment One of the Art Colony Report and come back to it after your eyes have healed. Lots more to report on but it will have to wait.

Y'all just wait!

Class is incredible. Sonji is incredible. The whole atmosphere is incredible. I'll have pictures and commentary (you knew I would) as soon as I can catch my breath and absorb it all. Well, that might take months, so I'll rephrase that to say I'll post about it as soon as I have a few minutes to sit down and get my thoughts together. I'll try to have pictures too, although I've taken the camera every single day and so far have taken a big ZERO pictures. Too much other stuff going on to distract me and I just never think to grab the camera. I promise I'll try to get some shots tomorrow, at least of all the fabric hanging around the room. I am in awe of some of what the other students are turning out. And they seem to do it so effortlessly too! I build colors and shapes and ideas in my head all night long, and once I get to class and have the paint in my hand (literally, in and on my hand....it's like finger painting for adults for me) the ideas just zoom out of my ears or something. I just start laying down colors that I like, or am curious about, or that Thelma has mixed too much of, or whatever is handy to slap on there next. I just go with the flow, and see where my inner Jackson Pollock takes me next.

Back up to the college tonight for the instructor's talks, and I'm still covered in paint. Wish me luck that I don't come home tomorrow night covered in fusible and burn marks. I am NOT a neat worker.

Paying it Forward

From Terry Grant's blog (http://www.andsewitgoes.blogspot.com/)
For the first 3 people who leave me a comment, I'll send a hand-made something-or-other. I've done a couple of these in the past and they are a lot of fun. I got the cutest postcard and a felted wrist pin cushion from JenClair at http://bayouquilts.blogspot.com/ and a couple of other postcards from other people.

EDIT: And you have to post the same offer on your own blog! I forgot that part of the deal.

Of course, now my worry is that there aren't 3 people who read the blog who want something made by me!

"Bird" Parker

Elvis lives!

This quilt was originally made for the "Why is the Sky Blue" challenge from the quiltart list. I didn't really have anything in mind for it once it was made, and it just sort of languished around for a while, occasionally being dragged out for a presentation or something, including a show and tell in my living room to a friend who came by to pick through some fabric fairy stash I had no need for. That was probably a year or more ago, and I recently got a call from her asking if I still had it. I did, and she asked about the possibility of acquiring it for the Embroiderers Guild of America for their convention next June in Memphis. We worked out the details and they now are the proud owner of the quilt, and it was officially unveiled last week at their regional meeting, to be used? Shown? whatever, for the next year until the actual meeting in June '08. It was well-received enough for the local chapter to be interested in purchasing another one for the silent 'tea cup' auction, and possibly one for their "Chicago national this Labor day." I'm putting all this stuff in quotes because I'm not exactly sure what it all is, I'm just pulling it verbatim from the emails back and forth working out the details. Some other discussion about doing a presentation to their group and possibly a class if they have enough interest. I'm actually pretty excited about the opportunity to work with another group and crazy quilters seem like a good fit for my style of embellishing.

Hardy Orange

We have a volunteer tree/shrub/hedge/bush along one side of the fence in the back yard that has thorns longer than my index finger. We've let it get out of hand the last couple of years, and since it's a fast-growing thing it's gotten about 12' tall. We HAD to get in there and trim it back before it took over the entire right half of the yard. It was already impinging on the grotesquely over-sized nandina the dog uses as a scratching post. It's one of the few plants that are surviving the drought this year so I almost hated to whack it back. Almost.



It's green and springy so we can't burn it (ignoring for a moment the burn ban we've been under for months) and with those thorns it's a major ordeal even considering trimming it to 3' or less pieces so the garbage will pick it up. Even if we trimmed it to size and bundled it, I don't think they get paid enough to actually pick it up once they see the size of the stickers. It looks like something from the walls of Cinderella's castle. Was she the one with the castle fortified with brambles?



Anyway, we got it cut back with a minimum of injury and only a little blood, but we now have a 10' wide, shoulder-high tangle of the stuff just sort of lying there threatening us. No idea how we're going to get rid of it short of buying U-Haul boxes and packing it up so we can put it out for the garbage. Maybe we'll just leave it there until it composts back into the earth. It would be just my luck it would re-seed right there though and then we'd have a million of them to deal with instead of just three. I was considering intentionally planting some along the other fence line though where the really ugly fence is but I'd rather have wisteria. Too bad it's only the scary, dangerous stuff that roots so easily and grows so fast. The hardy orange took root and thrived in way less time than it took the mock orange right next to it to even set blooms.


By the way, in case there was any doubt that Southerners were strange, this plant is commonly called a gumdrop tree, and people actually use it as a centerpiece with gumdrops stuck on the thorns. "Hey honey, it's Little Becky's third birthday! What say we chop off a hunk of that deadly weapon plant in the back and stick bright colored candy on it to camouflage the thorns for the kiddies!"


At least it has too many off-shoots to make a good switch.

For a reasonably good picture of the whole thing, check out http://www.nccpg.com/gloucestershire/plantweek6c.html

RJ and the Bird

Ignoring the crappy photography, I'm very pleased with these 2 pieces. The Robert Johnson is destined (most likely) to be donated to Tougaloo College for their art auction, and Bird will be one of my three for exhibit and sale. Robert Johnson is done with commercial batiks, photo printed fabric and real guitar parts and picks. I also used annealed brass corners on it.

Charlie "Bird" Parker is commercial batik (the black stripe-y looking stuff bottom right) and some of my rust dyed fabric. Photo printed fabric, and commercial prints for the staff. The bird applique is done with a pinwale corduroy so there is a bit of texture to it. I also spent 2 days with a microscopic screw driver, taking the saxophone apart to get the keys and thumb hook. A HUGE thank you to Chris at Morrison Brothers Music for taking the time to locate an old sax for me, along with some very cool cases and spare parts for future use. He also had some really good suggestions for other pieces of instruments I may be able to use.

Scout and the guitar bits

First things first, Boo Radley is a she, not a he, so her name is now Scout. That'll show me about trying to sex a kitten when they're so young.

And I hit the motherlode at the music store. I went in for a dozen 35 cent picks for the Robert Johnson piece and came out with 10 assorted tuning keys and 3 ....ummmm......decorative metal things with the keys still attached, whatever those are called. The guy I was dealing with was VERY interested in what I was doing with broken guitar pieces and took a lot of time going through his boxes of repair parts looking for other stuff I might be able to use. He also had some good ideas of how to use pieces of a guitar and told me which parts of it were veneer and which weren't. I love the look of the keys and the key sets (for lack of a better name for it) and I think they'll definitely find a home on some of my work. Big thanks to Stephen (of Kokojazzman fame) for suggesting the keys.

Robert and the art cloth

Of which I only have pics of Robert so far. I sort of went off on a tangent with him after I got back from Vicksburg and had all my fabrics laid out together (translation: dumped into a pile on top of another pile on the table) and saw the blue and brown batiks playing so nicely together. I printed off the picture of Robert Johnson, after changing it to a sepia sort of color instead of the original gray/black tones. The lighter blue strip at the bottom will have tortoiseshell guitar picks and if I can buy some unattached tuning pegs they will wind up at the edge of the picture. A coil of rusty guitar strings (which reminds me I need to get out there and put the acid on them so they'll rust today) below the pic, then some quilting. I'm also considering "roughing up" the seam between the blue and brown by overlapping and lacing or something, instead of having the sharp line. We'll see. I have the patterns printed off for the next one, a Charlie "Bird" Parker piece, and the fabrics chosen and dyed for it. It's lying on the ironing board as we speak as I re-dye some rust stuff a bit darker to use with it.

The art cloth came out pretty well. A couple of pieces I absolutely love, a couple that I'm already using as wiping rags when I'm working on others. I really like the look of the shaving cream dyed pieces when they get done, but I'm obviously doing something wrong with the setting process since I'm losing most of the color once they're washed. The yard of gelatin plate printed fabric is going to be very hard to turn loose of, but maybe I'll get a couple more pieces made and will have a choice of which one to donate. This session of gelatin dying went much better than the last, and I'm actually happy with the result. I'll try to get a pic of that up sometime today. I'm also liking the effect of simply sprinkling dry Rit dye on the pieces as I'm doing something else to them. I need to add some salt filler to the shakers of dye though to control the amount a little better. A really pretty piece of rust dyed stuff with teal Rit dye will wind up in the Bird Parker piece. I also played with rust dying some colored fabric. I'll report back on that experiment once they dry and set and get washed. So far I like the effect though. They have more of an orange color too, since I dyed them in the rusty wheelbarrow.

The pain of art

Boo Radley and I have been playing together. A lot. And as a result, my arms and legs look like I've been flogged with barbed wire (which reminds me......) from where his little pointed cat fingers snag me a thousand times a day. So, I'm wide awake at 5:00 am and looking for something to do. My bright idea is to get started on some art cloth stuff, so off I go to my stash for some fabric appropriate for rust dying and gelatin printing and rubbing plates and shaving cream dying and other fun stuff. Pour the vinegar into the bowl and stick it in the microwave. Start cutting the fabric to size. The microwave dings. Add the salt to the vinegar. Load everything up and haul it out to the work table on the deck. So far, so good. Stick the fabric in the bowl to prep it for dying. DAMN! Open wounds and salt/vinegar at the crack of dawn is NOT a good idea. Too late to do anything about it now though so I just keep muddling through until I can get inside and rinse my arms. Of course I also now have pretty little hand prints across the seat of my pajama pants from where I snatched my hands out of the vinegar in reflex to the pain. The fabric is now cooking in the rusty pan, wrapped around various rusty objects.

Cross your fingers that I get some good pieces that were worth, literally, salt in the wound.

Meet Boo Radley

This is my new kitten, who already thinks he needs to help at every opportunity.

He's very vocal and demanding about getting attention too. But he's also a sweet kitten who loves to be petted and held more than any cat we've ever had. He sleeps in my lap while I'm working at the machine (at least he sleeps when he's not "helping" guide the fabric through the machine) and he apparently loves the sound of the Janome since he promptly climbs up and sticks his head through the harp to sleep. That position should be interesting the first time I try to quilt a big piece.

He's "helping" me iron that quilt top, by the way. Since this is a quilt blog, I guess I should mention the actual quilt and not just the quilt kitty. It uses about 75 of the almost 200 music print fabrics I have and is a sort of non-measured ....ummmmm....strip pieced sort of thing. I basically just cut a bunch of strips and started sewing them together then cut them up into triangles and sewed them back together randomly. Absolutely no thought to pattern or design, other than making sure I didn't get the same pieces together most of the time. I added the inner and outer border to stabilize all the bias edges and even then, added interfacing to make SURE it stayed square. So far so good on that. It's probably due to all the help I got from Boo.

Lazy Sunday afternoon

Ah yes, nothing like a lazy Sunday afternoon. Two middle-aged women with hatchets and crow bars, an abandoned piano, high-humidity 90 degree weather, a pick up truck and a plan. What could be any more entertaining than that? It look us under an hour to dismantle the whole thing and get the pieces parts hauled out to the street. I now have a relatively unlimited supply of piano guts to do with as I please. An interesting note (at least to me) is that the hammers of pianos have different colored felt. The one I already had has red, the one I got yesterday has green, and Dorinda's has grey. I have a whole bunch of keys and the whole strip of the part where the hammers and other stuff connect. If I can talk the boys into doing it, I may try to send them back out there to get the big metal piece the piano wires connect to. I would make a VERY cool rust dying form. That part of it (I think she called it the sound board) was too heavy for us to lift into the back of the truck, but maybe if the boys unscrew it from the wood part the 2 of them can get it home.

We also did some gelatin plate printing yesterday and that was pretty cool. We were just playing, so I don't really have anything that I'm willing to show, but at least I got some ideas for the situations where it might be the appropriate technique for a particular effect. It did strike me as very project-specific though. One more weapon in my war chest to be used as needed. I also got the deck cleaned off and replaced the weird shaped piece of tarp covered plywood with a great solid wood exterior door to use as a work surface. If the rain holds off today (that's a joke, y'all....we're crying for rain) I'm going to try to get a couple of coats of polyurethane on it "just in case" the thick painted surface needs some extra help. I can already tell it's going to be a huge improvement. I can actually get to the cabinets it sits on, it's perfectly flat and level, the top is white so I can see what I'm doing, and it doesn't have an irregular shape. I also raised it about 3" higher than it was and my back didn't bother me at all, even after an hour or so of standing there working. My daughter came out on the deck and asked why I had plastic lizards and snakes and spare body parts lying around. After I told her what we'd used them for her comment was "Oh, so it was arts and crafts day at the B house this morning. You should run your own summer camp." I think I'm going to invite Mike Rowe to come paint and dye and discharge with me for his Dirty Jobs show. Or maybe I'll invite him over to just stand there and let me look at him.

MQA June gathering

The MQA (Mississippi Quilt Ass'n) June gathering was this weekend and it came off without a hitch. I was one of the speakers Friday night (I took my timer this time so I knew when to shut up too!) and my talk and quilts seemed to be very well-received. Lots of interest and questions after the program and a bunch of people took pictures of me and the quilts. That surprised me. I've done several of those talks and I don't remember anyone doing that before. As I expected, "Sing" made a big hit and I intentionally saved it for last during my talk. Surprisingly, I think the second crowd favorite was the "Simplicity" quilt with all the sewing supplies on it, and it wasn't just because the women are quilters. Most everyone commented on having a lot of the old things at home themselves, and how much they loved them without using them, but couldn't bring themselves to throw out. I could see the gears clicking in their heads by the time some of them got through asking questions and checking out the assembly techniques.

I taught a beading and embellishment class all day Saturday and that was a ton of fun. I had a really good group of students, and we got a lot accomplished. I intentionally made the supplies list sort of vague so people would show up with a variety of fabrics and embellishments. It apparently worked too, since we had everything from a huge printed panel to a journal sized micro print. We looked at every piece and discussed scale and proportion of each. I think we solved every problem too, including the cute micro print. She just added a big applique of the same tiny motif and it was off to the races for her. Strangely enough, she was the only student who left class to buy more fabric this time. We had every type of fabric imaginable, from bright novelty prints to pastel watercolor fabric to a beautiful, rich looking blue and brown upholstery fabric. It was fun for me to see how the fabric choices "matched" the personalities of the women I knew. The enhancements we ultimately used ran the gamut from basic beading, with some fancy stitches thrown in, all the way through couched yarns and fibers to fabric paint and gel pens and dimensional overlays and bead encrusting to embroidery. I would LOVE to see all of the finished pieces. I did have 2 students from other classes stop by during the day to ask me for suggestions on their own work. I had to giggle at how they looked almost furtive about asking though. Maybe one day embellishment will be a universally accepted addition to a quilt. And in my own defense, "embellishment" doesn't always mean "stick more crap on it" either. Both suggestions I gave were very minor. One was simply a change in thread color, the other was to add a grand total of about a dozen color-coordinated seed beads. Embellishment isn't always about more-is-better, sometimes it's just about enhancing an existing element.

I'm hoping everyone left the class with a better idea of what can be done, when it's called for on their quilt, and that they are a little more open to considering the possibilities. I'm not advocating that everyone always embellish. I'm just hoping people who are very traditional will begin to see it as another tool in their arsenal of techniques. We have DEFINITELY come a long way in the last five years with that. They let us read our instructor critiques before we left yesterday and the one I liked best was the comment from a woman who said she was totally out of her box with embellishment when she signed up for the class, but left at the end of the day comfortable with going home and doing it on her own. I also got an email from a student last night who said she'd dragged out her beads after she got home, even before she unpacked her suitcase! THAT is the kind of motivation that keeps me coming back. I got so excited about the progress they made during the day, and how enthusiastic they were about doing more of it that I challenged them to a Bag O' Stuff round (limited to a quart bag and 25 people though) and I already had 4 signed up by 6:00 last night. I'll probably be a raving lunatic before we finish it up at the end of the summer, but I'm really looking forward to it. The cut-off for signing up is next Sunday, so if any of my 4 regular readers are interested, leave me a comment and I'll put you on the list.

Sing While You're Working

I have finally found the right fabric for the quilt design I've had in my head ever since I got the piano pieces, and it was a gift from a friend.
The instant I saw it, I knew it was what I had been waiting for too. The quilt was very well-received at the guild meeting show and tell this morning (the same guild that turned their noses up at my work 5 years ago) so I was happy. I can't say it's all their fault though. They have made strides in being more accepting of non-traditional work, but my work has also improved and been refined over the last 5 years. At any rate, I re-upped my membership today for the first time in several years. I also had 3 people approach me about the price of it before I got out of the parking lot. Friends admire your work, true friends hop out of a car in the middle of the street and help you bust up a piano with a tire iron. Finished size is 20x22, unless you count the hammers that it hangs by, which makes it 22x22. Commercial cottons, rust dyed keyboard and stripe print, pages torn from a children's song book and piano keys and internal pieces. The titles of the 2 songs are "Sing While You're Working" and "Something Happy", both of which I thought were appropriate. The paper is stabilized on fusible interfacing and coated with polymer medium. The piano pieces are sealed with a spray varnish. The binding is a very narrow gold and ecru stripe.

A GRADUATE!

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Avis=D0&Dato=20070524&Kategori=CLASS02&Lopenr=705240801&Ref=PH

Click to the second picture. 3 of the 5 of those girls started kindergarten together. The other 2 came in 7th grade.

UPDATE: She received 5 awards at graduation. Recognition for 85 service hours this year. (I think they're required to do 40.) She was a member of the athlete scholar softball team, which means the entire team had a 3.0 or better GPA. She was recognized as a stellar star student for her grades Junior and Senior year, and second honors for this past semester. She also won a national Danforth "I Dare You" award for "recognition for personal integrity, balanced living and motivation for leadership." She was apparently nominated for that one by the Principal.

All that and sweet too!

My baby!

Aidan (on the right) and her bestest buddy Amanda after the Baccalaurate Mass Tuesday night. They're practicing their "I'm a high school graduate" smiles.

Aidan

(on the left) and Leslie, the recipient of the ballet shoes quilt.

The Dancer

This will be a graduation gift for a girl I've been sewing for ever since she's been old enough for her own costumes practically. She sings! She dances! She acts! And she's very good at all of them. She's off to college this fall to study drama and we'll see her name in lights on Broadway one day. She's also just a sweet kid, and very easy to work with. I've known her mother since high school, and her brother and my son are very close friends (hence the bajillion miles on the cars going from Hattiesburg to Memphis) and my son works for her dad during the summer. Her mom bought the batik Mardi Gras mask quilt for Leslie's birthday last year, but it's hanging on the wall at their house so I don't think she's going to take it off to school with her. This one is just for her, to be USED and it won't even have a sleeve! The background behind the shoes has small black musical notes and the middle border has sheet music and purple, blue and orange roses. The outside border has white, blue and purple on the pink. The narrow frames are blue and purple. The shoes and the outside border are both polished cotton. I'll get on the quilting tomorrow and get a close up shot after I finish it. And yes, those ARE mitered corners on the last border. I was sort of proud about them coming out right the very first time I sewed them together too. Didn't have to frog a single stitch!
Finished size will be about 52x68.

Progress of a sort

The top is done and half the quilting is completed. I should finish it up today and get it bound so it can go in the washer this afternoon and be delivered tomorrow. This one went VERY fast piecing it and quilting it. Funny how some just get in the groove and zip right along, while others are a struggle at every step. I bought the cross fabric a while back just because I knew it would be useful at some point. It's perfect for this project since it's a gift for the principal at the Catholic school my kids all graduated from (the youngest graduates next Wed.) and it just seemed appropriate for him, especially considering his favorite colors are blue and brown and the school colors are blue and gold. The shot of the quilted top is only the top half that I've finished quilting already. The whole thing is actually 60"x75" finished size. For the first time in a long time I had trouble deciding on the quilting thread and pattern. I tried several different threads and was happy with none of them. Sort of by default, I tried the invisible thread and was actually very pleased with the effect. After several stops and starts on the quilting pattern I reverted to the free motion meander too as the best choice for the look I was after. The meander is a bit bigger than I normally do, but I wanted the specific look of it after it comes out of the washer for this one. I was careful to only stitch around the crosses rather than through them, so they'll have a bit of puff to them after washing. I really like this piecing pattern and I'll have to remember to write down the dimensions for the pieces and how I put it together so I can use it again. There are several novelty theme fabrics in my stash I've accumulated for specific people and this would be a good pattern to use for those.

I'm back!

Whew, tons of stuff to catch up on (not the least of which is sleep!) but I'll eventually get to it all. My doc has me on a bunch of new meds and I happened to catch some sort of epikazootie about the time I started taking them and it took us a few days to realize it wasn't the meds making me sick. Several wasted prescriptions trying different stuff and different dosages before I got over whatever it was and back on the original meds. Good timing has never been one of my strong points.

My youngest daughter, my baby, graduates this month so it's been a whirl of things to do for and with her. She had her senior luncheon a couple of weeks ago and it went off really well. Most of the other girls seemed to opt for slumber parties and pizza this year but mine went straight for the high tea thing. She even specifically requested the girls wear dresses. She had her hand in every decision, from the invitations and place cards to a trip to the wholesale florist to pick out her flowers. I think she did a beautiful job too. The other girls really seemed to enjoy it and the weather was perfect for an outside tea party. It was held in my parent's backyard with the lake as a backdrop. I can't believe these are the same little girls that were in kindergarten with her yesterday!

I also can't believe how tall she is! Or how grown up and beautiful. She starts college this fall (on scholarship, to boot) and even though she's staying close she'll be living in the dorm. [This would normally be the place to insert a comment about how strange it's going to feel with her out of the house, but since she's never home anyway we probably won't notice any difference.] She's off to Myrtle Beach a few days after graduation for a week and a half, back home for a few days and then off to Maryland for 2 weeks. When she gets back from there she'll be looking for a job.

The week after her senior luncheon was the prom. They all looked so elegant and beautiful.

These are her two best friends and the reason she's going to Maryland. The red head is from there and all 3 girls are driving up for a visit.

WOOOO HOOOO!

My DH walked in last night with a bag of Krystals and 2 special treats for me, as if the Krystals weren't enough. He had 1 gig of memory for my computer, and a check for tuition to Sonji Hunt's http://sonjisays.blogspot.com/ week-long class at the Tougaloo Art Colony this July!! You wouldn't believe how excited I am about this. My oldest daughter has attended for 3 years but this is the first time I've had a chance to go myself. I've followed, and admired, Sonji's work for several years now and the opportunity to actually take a whole class from her is unbelievable. I have until the middle of July to get my machine tuned up and start gathering fabrics and supplies. There are a lot of quilt artists out there doing fabric painting and surface design, but none quite like Sonji. I love the additional texture she incorporates with the grommets and heavy stitching and her famous bundles. Visual texture and depth is good, but I really look forward to the physical texture lessons. It goes so far beyond my weak attempts with the Mardi Gras beads and embellishments and beading and just plain 'stuff' I tend to use. She also has that fantastic graphic color sense that I strive so hard for. Maybe a week with her will improve my ratio of "getting it right" on my own work.

And my computer is FLYING now with the added memory. Maybe I can actually get patterns to print out in less than 94 hours now.

Gettin' it in gear

"Quarter Note" is going to the art show with me Friday if I get it finished in time. I feel like I will once I can decide on a quilting pattern for it. It's anchored now in the ditch on the vertical seams but I need to do something else with it too. Not sure what, but at least I have this much of it done. That's progress at any rate.

"Good Wishes" is also going. I have no doubt it will be finished since there's very little left to do on it. The print at the top is the backing and I intentionally left it showing in the pic because the pins at the bottom right sort of show the placement of one of the groups of flowers on the back. My intention is to do some bobbin work with the gold thread to outline the cluster of flowers so they show on the front. The backing fabric won't actually be visible from the front unless I decide to use it for the binding though.

The round piece is a felt tree skirt I got at Dollar Tree back around Christmas and then forgot about. I added some foiling, painting, stenciling and thread work to the original felt in several different golds and stamped the small black symbols. I'll have to get better pictures of the details in a close-up shot and get them posted once I'm through with it. The gold mesh is quilted in flowing, wavy vertical lines with the gold thread. Not sure yet what sort of quilting I'll do inside the circle or on the black, but I'm sure I'll have some flash of inspiration soon enough.

Happy Easter!

This is my contribution to Easter food this year. Eggs dyed with silk ties. There were some really cool silk boxers I could have used, but it would have felt too much like that commercial about colon polyps where the guy eats the lima bean.

I've been thinking through the assembly on a new design and that's taken up all my time and energy for the last couple of days. I finally decided on the construction, although I'm SURE there's an easier way to do it. Or maybe not. It's a pieced background with a big applique over it, except that there are 'blank' spots in the applique that are only stitched lines across some of the background pieces. Hard to describe and even harder to figure out technically. I finally wound up basting the background pieces together, stitching the outline for the applique on the whole thing, then taking it apart so I can do the applique on the pieces that have it and the outline stitches on the pieces that have that. Then I'll sew all the background pieces back together. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the background pieces off-set at the seams so the outlines and applique don't line up. I just finished a very simple 4-patch for a friend so I think my Muse is punishing me.

So I lied

about getting pictures posted yesterday. These 6 hour days at the school working on costumes is more than I'm used to. The play opens day after tomorrow though, so today and tomorrow and then I'm done and I promise to get pictures up then. I may even break down and post an in-progress of an Egyptian thing I'm playing with.

progress of a sort

Finished off the quilting, such as it is, on the weird batik this morning. Finally decided on a simple bisecting line quilting pattern to leave as much of the raw edge free as possible. It's in the washer now with some jeans and then into the dryer for a couple of hours to fray the edges. It's only lap size but it was originally a test piece for using the small strips exposed between the piecing. So far so good, and pictures later today I think. I'll also get a picture up of the bird mobile. At least it's hanging now and not stuck in a bag somewhere. It's funny how sometimes the simplest thing is the one that gets the most response from people. Everyone who has seen the birds loves them, including my husband!

Life and kids and other stuff

My youngest daughter hit a milestone this week. Straight As on her report card and it got her on the Principal's Honor Roll! That's the first time any of my kids ever did that. First and Second honors multiple times, but NEVER Principal's honors! My son did the sweetest thing too. He called yesterday morning and asked if I'd call the school and get her dismissed so he could take her out to lunch if he drove up. Of course I'd do that. He drove up yesterday morning, took her for Mexican and then had to race back for a 5:00 class. We didn't tell her he was coming either, and when they called her down to the office and she saw him standing there her face split into the hugest grin. And she got a chance to show him off a little bit to her friends too. Life was good for her yesterday I think.

Quiltsquiltsquilts running through my head, but for right now that's where they have to stay. I'd REALLY like to get at least a couple of small embellished pieces done this week to submit to GSQA for the circuit teacher vetting, but I have to hurry and I'm not sure I have enough time anyway. But the designs are good and they'll wind up being quilts at some point.

I have to get into high gear to completely finish the pieces that are going to the art show the middle of April also. I have finished pieces I can use if I have to, but I also have some tops that I really want to take (and 2 to make!) but they have to be quilted and bound. Free-motion is my salvation. I love doing it, I'm good at it, and it goes extremely fast. I can quilt an entire full sized quilt in a single day with no problem. Well, no problem other than time and motivation. Once I sit down at the machine it goes quickly. It's the sitting down at the machine part I seem to have trouble with.

We are babysitting my "spare" son's dog this weekend and Rowdy is the cutest thing! Everyone who sees him says he's such a "Nick dog" too. He's shaped like a Corgi but has long curly fur like a Yorkie or something. And he's having the best time playing with my HUGE Labs too. Jake and dOg think they have their own self-propelled play toy. The cats aren't impressed much but they tolerate him. Maybe they know he's just visiting.

Off to the school at 7:00 this morning to work on the stage set. We're doing Anything Goes and this is my last year for working on the plays. Full-cast costume call Monday night. That should be interesting, for a lot of reasons I'm not going to get into. Let's just say I have my fingers crossed that the set/music/dancing/props/acting carry the play this time. ALL my fingers. And toes. And eyes.

Very interesting

Occasionally (when I remember) I look at the stats from my site meter. It gives all sorts of pretty useless information but it's a kick to see where people visit from and how they stumble accidentally (very few find it intentionally I think) on my blog. If you get a hit from a search it tells you what terms were being searched when the blog showed up. I think the most interesting ever came today from a visitor in Elgin, IL. They searched google for "surgical suture cutters quilt" and got me. I shit you not. That is a direct copy and paste of the search field. Now, why exactly someone would combine those particular words is beyond me, but there it is. They are either A) looking for a gift for a VERY specialized nurse, B) seeking a pattern for a damned weird quilt (did they look for "16 oz Estwing hammer quilt," too?) or C) ran across a reference to my post of months back referencing my use of suture scissors as a seam ripper. Pleasepleaseplease let it be C) and if you're in Elgin, IL looking for a surgical suture cutters quilt I'd love to hear the final answer, Regis.

Oh yeah. HI STEPHEN!!!

He's the other half of the award-winning (God, I get goose bumps just saying that. I think I might have actually murmered it out loud just a little that time.) Ebony & Ivory Blues. Not only did he draw the hands, but they are drawings of his actual hands. And just how cool is that?

Long time no see

Whew! Lots to catch up on. My youngest daughter got back from the Nicaragua mission trip last night. Can't wait to get the details from her today about the trip. Maybe she brought me something. My son should be back in Hattiesburg some time today from his Spring Break trip to Destin (at least I think it was Destin....someplace warm and sandy in FL at any rate) and my oldest daughter has been home all week. The St. Paddy's parade was yesterday and there were 50,000 people here for it. The krewe I belong to won $600 for the Show me the Money award and a picture of my brother made the front page of the on-line newspaper. The oldest had an absolute blast walking in the parade too. Her first year to actually participate.

My Ebony and Ivory Blues quilt (the one with the hands drawn by my friend) won a ribbon at the GSQA quilt show in Baton Rouge too, so that was a nice little piece of news this week. I also woke up with a full-blown idea in my head for a new fiber piece that will need some definite tweaking and playing with the mechanics of it, and it isn't even a quilted piece! Well, it might be if that's the only way I can stabilize it, but for right now, I'm leaning away from quilting it. I've made some progress on the Japanese shadow box quilt but my machine is acting horsey about free-motion so the progress is mostly hand work. What in the hell possessed me to think I needed to do needle turn applique on the thing? I'm liking the effect a lot but it's definitely not my cup of tea for any length of time. Fortunately, I picked something that only has leaves that have to be needle-turned and the rest of it is just handwork that's attached afterwards. I'm doing the bush clover from Fabled Fibers and so far, I'm happy with the effect. It's been YEARS since I've done any embroidery, too. Spent several days looking at various Sashiko patterns and nothing really jumps out at me so I may wind up just making my own with Sashiko stitching and leave it at that. I picked up Larkin Van Horn's book this week too and have some ideas in my head for beading that I'd like to work on. I need to get together some small samples of my embellishment stuff anyway to apply as a circuit teacher for the GSQA. I have most of the written material to submit I think, maybe with some minor refinements, but nothing really small enough to ship off for the jurying process involved. I may break down and do some postcards with the different techniques on them, and submit classes for both postcards AND embellishments. I reallyreallyreally love teaching and this is probably my best bet for getting into an organized method of doing it. As it stands now, I just go when someone hunts me down and calls me. No promotion or advertising myself, just doing the simple programs at the guilds and getting calls periodically from people who see me speak.

The True Gentleman

Here it is ready for the first coat of poly. Fingers crossed that I'll finish the poly by tomorrow and it will be ready to go down to Hattiesburg for him. I'm sort of proud of this.

It's hard to get a good picture since it's so big and there's nothing on the deck to stand on. I'll hang it up or something once it's finished and get a good picture. Maybe.

How to make a painted floor cloth.

Gather your materials. Or do like I do and start working before it dawns on you that half the stuff you need you don't have. I used a $5 cotton duck drop cloth from Big Lots. I originally made the trip up there looking for the cool little storage things that karoda posted about but they didn't have any so I had to settle for the 3-section picture hanger/nails/nuts and bolts containers. They're pretty cool because you can screw them all together in a stack as high as you want and only use one top for it. And it has a cute little handle. But that has nothing to do with painting the floor cloth, so we'll move on.

I washed and dried the drop cloth on hot with no fabric softener and sort of threatened it with the iron when it came out of the dryer. It draws up some from the paint anyway so ironing it isn't imperative. Ironing has never been imperative to anything in my life up to this point. Mark the center if you're transferring a pattern to it or just lay it out and start painting if you have any actual artistic talent (which I don't) and feel like winging it. Tanya, have the offspring walk around on it with paint-y feet! Start transferring the pattern in whatever way you do it. Overhead projector (which I had until my daughter the virgin bumped it while it was on and blew the bulb) or those monster print-outs that have to be taped together.

If you use a pencil to mark on it, they don't show when you paint over it. If you use a Sharpie the lines show through the paint. I'm going back and outlining the whole thing in a black paint pen when I'm done so the lines were necessary, hence the Sharpies. Paint. Any color, any method, any design. It's up to you. It's not even necessary to get a thick coat on it....you'll see some of those little white spots showing through and unless you're anal and have more time/patience/budget than I do, just keep going. Do try to get even coverage if possible but you don't have to be perfect. If you have a tiny area to paint or a narrow point or something, it's easier to do a light coat in that area, let it dry and come back to it a few minutes later. Pick the dog and cat hair out as you go. Or leave it in, paint over it and call it a design element. You can also do a base white flash coat on the whole rug before painting but that takes gobs of paint and forever to dry. It also gets all over your floor underneath it.

Once you've done all the painting and have gone back with the Sharpie or paint pen for the details (don't forget to sign it!) THEN you have to iron. It's probably not necessary, but I do heat-set the acrylic paints before finishing it. Once that's all done, just put at least 2 coats on the front and one coat on the back back with the poly to seal it and make it mop-able. You can use any kind of paint you want as far as I know, as long as it doesn't run or bleed when you put the poly on it, it's good. I've used house paint, craft acrylics, markers, fingernail polish and enamels. Several thin coats of poly are better than one big blob of it smeared around, but you all knew that anyway.

I use the paper plates as palettes so I can throw them away. The spray baste is to stick the netting on the pattern, then I trace the pattern, remove the netting and stick it to the cloth. Then you trace it again, peel the netting off and VOILA! you have a transferred pattern without using that carbon paper stuff. If you look closely, I think you can see the netting stuck back over the pattern on the left.

I'm sure I'm forgetting something so feel free to ask questions.

Progress

Yeah! All the detail work except the fleur de lis is done and I'm making great progress. Some more fairly large areas of gold and purple, but they're easy and go fast. Today or tomorrow I'll finish up and have a couple of days of really nice weather to get it out back on the deck and get several coats of polyurethane on it, front AND back. This is for a frat house after all.

Isn't it amazing.....

what lengths we'll go to for our kids when they ask nicely? This is a 6x9 canvas floorcloth for his room at the frat house. It has the SAE crest on it, and he was so sweet asking me about passing it along to the next frat brother who gets his room when he graduates in 2 years (we fervently hope.) Ummm....son, this is a $5 canvas drop cloth from Big Lots, with 2/$1 acrylic paints on it. Just how long do you think the thing is going to last? I do have to say he's one of the most generous kids I have ever had the pleasure of knowing so it didn't surprise me a bit that he asked though. If nothing else, it'll keep spilled stuff off the floor and I have greater faith in him sweeping a rug than I do him actually mopping the tile floor. I am having a lot of fun working on it though, at least until I get to the polyurethane part.


You can see the original image at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:SAE.jpg

Neither bamboo nor solid.

It took a while to decide, but I finally landed on an Oriental floral print (why, oh why, couldn't they have that great companion print for it in the right color?) and a brown mottled looking thing for the wide borders and a sweet little goldenrod geometric for the narrow frame part. They all have gold metallic detailing printed on them so I can use my gold paint pen for some additional embellishing in the blocks. Sashiko stitching in the brown border and some of those origami flowers from Fabled Flowers. I've pretty much decided on doing the bush clover at the top right since it hangs like wisteria does and I can make the stems go off the edge and not have to worry about anchoring them to anything. The sashiko will be across the top and at the bottom of the right side. Lots of gold metallic quilting in the body of the quilt and probably outline quilting in the floral border. After that, I get to drag out the beads and tassels and "stuff" for the decoration. Total size is 43x55.

I am more than open to any suggestions on how to transfer the sashiko design onto the border so I can stitch it. I use chalk a lot to mark lines on the face of a quilt but it comes off relatively easy and I don't want to have to keep re-marking the lines. Any ideas? Anybody used the tracing stuff? Is it easy to remove? The only other option that comes to mind is using the water soluble stuff and then rinsing it out, but that would require forethought to get the stuff off before I add non-washable stuff to the quilt.

No Title Yet

But here is the top, completed except for the border. I'm waffling between a bamboo-y sort of print and a plain border that I can do some detailing in. But it has to wait because I'm going curl up in the bed with my Japanese quilting books and eventually take a nap. I've accomplished a good bit this morning though so I won't feel guilty about it either. I had a very clear idea in my head about this one when I started it so it went pretty fast. Cutting the greens took the longest of anything, but I had the fabric rectangles all bordered last night and just got up this morning and assembled the top and then did the applique pieces. Every time I look at it I get a new idea for embellishing too, so I'm looking forward to that part of it. Total size right now is 33x45.

My sweet DH brought me some of the best avacados I've had in ages. Fresh guacomole with chips for lunch it is! And he has red beans and rice on for supper. Mmmmmmmm......

Azalea City Quilter's Guild

I did a program in Mobile the other day for the Azalea City Guild and had an absolute BLAST! Many, many thanks to Donna B. for hunting me down to invite me to teach and for putting me up in her home while I was there. If I lived in her house, I'd never go anywhere. Beautiful home in a beautiful setting. She's also a really good cook. I thoroughly enjoyed myself with both the visit and the class. I certainly hope it's true what they say about teaching gigs begetting more teaching gigs, because that's what I love to do. I was so busy and having so much fun I totally forgot to take any pictures of the class, although I did get some pictures from the show and tell. Unfortunately, I forgot to get either the women's names or their permission to post the photos of their work so you'll just have to trust me when I say they were beautiful.

Stop me before I piece again!

My friend Dorinda has corrupted me. She got me started on the One-Block-Wonder pieced quilts and I did a few of those, then she showed me the Northwind block and I came home with a copy of those instructions, and now I'm dreaming in pieced blocks! Arrrgggghhhhh......doesn't my brain know I don't piece!??!! And since NOTHING can ever be easy, or simple, or straightforward with me, I'm dreaming Y-SEAMS. Not just sewing stuff together but having to do little fiddly precise stuff! Oh well, once it gets in my head it will either make me crazy by not leaving enough room for anything else, or I have to just suck it up and make the damn thing. This one is sort of an attic window/shadow box thing (whichever one uses the contrast sashing) but of course I had to make the sizes of the boxes varied so I spent about 3 hours graphing the thing off so the blocks all fit together. And then I chose a scrap of fabric from my friend Vicki in Miami without giving any thought to how much I needed. I just cut it in half and over-dyed half of it for the contrast. Top that off with the fact that it frays VERY badly (give thanks to the god of fusible interfacing) and is slippery and was already cut in a weird shape since it was a scrap to begin with. Can you see where this is going yet? I got down to the last three 2.5"x2.5" pieces I needed and guess what? ALL I had left were the little ears I cut off making the mitered corner strips. Vicki almost got the panicked fabric emergency call about 5:00 this morning, but I rummaged around in my own scrap basket and found one last piece of it that had originally been the facing of the blouse she was originally going to use it for. I had to fussy cut the last 3 pieces, but I managed to eke out EXACTLY as much as I needed. This one will most likely have a bunch of embellishing on it to be used as a sample for the program I'm doing in June. Unless I sell it first. Um, yeah. Like that's gonna happen. I may even break down and do some sashiko quilting on it. Fancy threads count as embellishing don't they? OH GOD! Did I just mention hand quilting in the same breath as piecing? Good lord I must be regressing. Don't most people start with patterns and then move on to art quilts?

This is about 1/3 of the total quilt and no two fabrics in the boxes are the same. Still have no clue what I'll do for borders yet but there's time for that later. Probably something plain if I decide to do the sashiko.

And this month's Fast Friday challenge was fun. The theme was monochromatic, based on a color from a song. I used Sonny Landreth's South of I-10, which has the line "...grew up on Clifton and Cleveland and the Red Hot Louisiana Band" in it, so I did a dancer in red. It's all done with thread painting on cotton fabrics and I'm probably going to add a black border on the right side and at the bottom. But I was happy with the movement I got from the stitching and shape of the woman. I think this is only the second mono piece I've ever done, too. The other one was In the Ghetto, which I also liked, but I have to have color 99% of the time.

It's getting there

In between doing a whole bunch of other stuff, I've been working on this one. My machine is being horsey (it KNOWS I'm going out of town and have a ton of stuff to do.....it hates not being the center of attention) so any sewing I've been doing is taking twice as long. Even doing those thick satin stitch edges I'm usually rocking along at rabbit speed, but not this time. My Janome baby starts making this weird clattering noise when I run it wide open but it works perfectly if I slow down. I do NOT want to have to up-grade my machine simply because I sew too fast. I like what I have and it's always done exactly what I wanted it to. No idea why it's protesting so loudly now.

Anyway, I haven't settled on the final layout for the doubloons and there are no strings of beads on it yet. I'll probably add some more doubloons too. But for now, this is what progress I've made on it. I'll be back by Wed so maybe I can get it finished this week some time. I still need to replace the final border on the garden one-block-wonder quilt and get both of those quilted. Binding on the Japanese wall hanging. Some bits and pieces of other stuff to do/finish to make sure I have enough to show at the arts in action thing in April.

Long time, no see

It's been a while since I updated the blog, but I had good reason for my lapse. I've been working like a madwoman to get written material, samples, and supplies ready to go to Mobile next week. Most (some, a little bit) of it is done and I am SO excited about being asked to do the workshop. The woman who contacted me is a very nice woman and I'm looking forward to spending some time with her also. I'll be staying in her home Monday night so I'll be bright eyed and bushy tailed for Tuesday morning.

I've also been working on some new Link and Lap (thanks, mom!) quiltlet pieces. None of them are ready for their debut yet, but I do have one to the point I can show what I have. Of course, it will have many more pieces than the 2 shown, but I haven't finished them to the point of adding them yet. Look for a sax (Imagine that! Me using a saxophone in a quilt!) and probably some sequined dubloons. I have an idea for some music across the front too but I'm still wrestling with the mechanics of it. Based solely on the demands of the construction techniques some things that I'd add to a normal quilt with a background fabric can't be done on the Link and Laps because the physical balance (as opposed to the visual balance of the design itself) is so critical. Thank goodness my husband is so understanding of pin and tack holes in all the walls.

Right now the piece is about 30x18. The mask is white bridal satin and everything else is Dupioni silk. The mask itself is 14x18.

The birds for the mobile are on the work table ready for assembly too, so maybe in the next day or so I'll have a mobile to post.

Big In Japan

This one is ready for the quilting now too. The small hexagons in the border will have black silk tassels on them and probably the green for the binding.

Look closely for the faces.

And another one.....

This is from one yard of an Alexander Henry I had. It made 15 hexagons so I'm filling in with those totally cool hollow cube blocks. This one may get some small hexagons in the border with black tassels in the center of them.

And for my next trick.....

About half of the blocks from the black and red kanji fabric. I'll get the hexagon blocks done on this one and then set it aside until I pick up the pattern for the hollow cubes from Dorinda Tuesday and then finish it off after I get those made. Up next: a very bright, very busy wildflower floral. It's interesting the patterns in patterns you can make by assembling each individual hexagon as either a circle (around) or as spokes (out) and I'm wondering how it would change the look of the finished quilt to only use one or the other. I'm guessing you would get a more suble pattern using only spokes since there would be no hard visual "stop" between the blocks. They would tend to blend a little better from block to block.

Peppermint Twist

Are y'all tired of looking at this one yet? So the top is done. I'm out of batt or I'd at least have it sandwiched, if not some of the quilting done. This has been a quick, easy and fun piece to do, and the damn thing just kept GROWING! It's 52x64 finished size. I really like the very wide borders on it, but I would have made them different widths if I had a do-over on it. I'd have also made the inner border seams across instead of up, but habit took over when I put the top and bottom on first without thinking about it. Oh well, it's done now and nobody is going to die because my seams are in the wrong place. It's a beautility quilt anyway, and sort of a practice piece. Doesn't everyone make full-size practice pieces? I'd have also probably made the hexagons a little smaller to avoid the full flowers in the blocks, but my daughter likes them so I'm happy with it. Besides, I have plenty of other fabrics to play with different sizes on.

really REALLY retro

A narrow frame of hot pink chintz and a wide border of the original fabric and I'm done with this one.

really retro

in more ways than one. Retro fabric, and retro technique for me to go back to piecing after all these years of avoiding it, but I couldn't resist this pattern. I was out at my friend Dorinda's house the other day and we were playing with the placement of hers from this same pattern (done in gorgeous fall colors of orange and rust and green) and it just got stuck in my head. Now, the fact that I have no angle rulers, and really no idea what I'm doing, has no bearing on anything, so off I go to Hobby Lobby this morning to buy enough fabric for 4 (yes, I said FOUR) quilt tops using this pattern. Different size hexs of course, since I'm just printing the hex shape off the computer and then cutting it into 6 pieces, and different settings and colors and such. But the same basic pattern. I'm pretty sure she called it "one block wonder" but don't get me to lying since I'm not positive. Anyway, here is the fabric I'm using and the result of cutting it up and making the blocks.

The Garden Granny takes her bow

One more block under the flamingo and then the sashing with the kudzu and the Christmas light border. Those are little watermelons at Granny's feet by the way.

Song of the South

...sweet potato pie and shut my mouth.

I've finally gotten started on the Southern kitsch quilt, and it's turning out to be more Southern kitsch yard art than anything. As everyone who knows me can attest to, I have a long-standing love of pink plastic flamingos (Happy Birthday!) and junk in my yard. I aspire to an old bed frame with a raised flower garden in the middle of it. Get it? A flower bed? Hardeharhar. I searched for 3 years for an old rusty bicycle to stand on end and train my wisteria over, but the wisteria got too big before I found one so it's growing on a cast-off clothing rack from a store that went out of business. Not fancy, but functional. The 6 foot pink wrought iron flamingo and the concrete gargoyles provide the fancy. Fancy is as fancy does? Fancy is in the eye of the beholder? Anyway, I have the pink flamingo and the bottle tree sections done for the quilt. Still to come (I know you're all the edge of your seats wanting to know how else I can tacky this up) is the kudzu, pinwheels and Christmas lights. It will probably have a garden granny on it too. Oh come on, doesn't everyone know what garden grannies are? They are those wooden things that look like the ass end of a fat woman bending over. The panties always seem to be polka dot with lace and she has legs like telephone poles. But she'll fit nicely in that empty space. Kudzu leaf pattern cut out and the appropriate hideous green fabrics picked. The pattern for the strings of Christmas lights are ready too, although the size of those may change before all is said and done. A SEE ROCK CITY birdhouse is another possibility. Too bad I haven't come up with a way to incorporate the 3 crosses you see in the fields yet, but I'm not done either.

One thing I have learned about myself and my design process (mostly from blogging, actually, because it makes me think through what I want to describe) is that I am constitutionally incapable of designing an entire quilt and then just making the damn thing. I do much better and am much happier with the pieces that I start with an overall idea and get one element of it solidly in mind first. Do that part of it and then just sort of intuitively begin adding elements to it. I never realized I designed like that either. The only exceptions are the designs that just come to me full-blown in sleep or something.

Thank goodness this is a quilting blog and not a photography blog.

Random musings

Whew. The Draw Down quilt is finished and delivered and gathering accolades far and wide. Well at least as far as Madison County, where it's hanging in the hall at the school, and as wide as the fat mouth in the front office. Hey, I'll take what I can get and call it a compliment. I've had some terrific feedback on the two collaboration pieces also. I think this is something that both of us are willing to let take its course. If he keeps drawing, I'll keep sewing. (Heeheeee, don't tell him, but I have the easy part of that deal.) No crises with any of the kids this week (so far) so I feel sort of at loose ends. Not that I'm wishing them broken bones or anything, but hey, just how painful can a sprain be?

Speaking of strange conversations with your children (it's my blog, I can abruptly change the subject if I want to) this is one I had last night with my youngest daughter, who is 17.

Her: I'm a virgin.
Me: That's good. What brought that on?
Her: I'd probably be happier if I was having sex.
Me: Um, having sex doesn't make you happy.
Her: No, but if I was having sex it would mean that I was in love and THAT would make me happy. OMG Mother! Do you think I'm a total fool to even think about having sex if I wasn't in love. I'm not some sort of sleazy slut, you know. Give me a little credit.
Me: Do you want some garlic toast with that casserole?

No toast, but she wanted extra cheese. I guess I probably should have sounded a little more....ummmmmm......involved? in that conversation. It's not like we don't have those little heart to heart, mother/daughter stream of consciousness conversations regularly so it's hard for me to work up a lot of angst over that one.

My son called last night, at like 11 pm, to tell me this absolutely incredible story about how his girlfriend had never read The Aeneid (and hell yeah I had to go look up the spelling) and he wasn't accusing her of being stupid or anything, but how did somebody go all the way through school and never read it? Wasn't it on the required reading list for EVERYBODY? Um, no son, that's why we eat casseroles and garlic toast. Because we're broke from all the years of sending you to parochial school so they could make you read The Aeneid. And what are you doing up at 11:00 anyway? And talking on the cell while you're driving? And don't get drunk in New Orleans this weekend either. So, I guess I made up the daily quota of mothering that I missed with the whole virgin conversation earlier.

Interesting assortment of people in my house today. I posted about lebentyhundred things on the FreeCycle list and fielded calls and emails most of the day. But the closet in the boy's room is now clean. Onward ho to the rest of the room. Why does everyone feel it necessary to tell you who they want the stuff for and how they'll use it and why they need it? I honestly don't give a rat's ass as long as they haul it away from MY house and worry about where to store it at THEIR house. Honey, if you want to take ALL the shirts, knock yourself out. You have no need to "leave a few for the next person" to pick over. Take them. Here's a bag. I'll help carry them to your car. I'll hold your baby while you gather stuff up. I'll keep my house horses from sniffing your butt and licking your feet. I'll hunt up a box for you to pack your 'treasures' in. I'll stand in the drive and smile as wave as you haul off my useless crap, even. But DON'T make me listen to stories about why your husband won't wear plaid, or why your mother now has all your Tupperware. I don't care! I want you to come in and act like a burglar, not my best friend. Throw that stuff in a sack willy-nilly and get the hell out of my house. I didn't bother to fold it, why should you?

Anybody need 2 broken laundry baskets and a pair of hockey skates?

Oh yeah, I almost forgot the quilt stuff. Little egg shapes drawn off on the WU for what (I hope) is going to be a fish mobile. Wait. Not fish. Birds. I'm getting my ovates mixed up. Birds with wings and beaks and tails and little dangly legs with big ugly beads on the ends. The fish mobile is something completely different. And some rudimentary patterns in mind for the pink flamingo/bottle tree/something/something/something quilt with a Christmas light border. Hey! I said it was rudimentary. I could get all quilt art speak-y and say it was "percolating in my creative subconscious", or that I was "auditioning fabrics" and waiting for them to "tell me what they want to be", but actually, my sewing area looks like the second coming of Katrina and I can't find what I need to actually get started on doing anything. Which brings us back to the the boy's room. WHITE WALLS! Big unbroken expanses of white walls. That I can reach! And no furniture in there now either. Yes, before you ask, both chests were broken beyond repair and the side table was dangerously wobbly, and that other thing in there with the magazines piled on it....well, I make it a habit to never keep a piece of furniture that I don't know what to call it. My big shelf unit with the nice heavy-duty tubs of fabric should fit nicely along that wall. And oh look! The perfect corner for one of my sewing machine cabinets. Exactly enough width next to the closet for the double stack drawer unit too! Isn't it amazing what a coincidence that is?

My husband will thank me for getting my stuff out of the dining room I'm sure. And the living room. And the kitchen. And the bedroom. The bathroom storage and the linen closet in the hall have long since been overtaken with my stuff so that isn't an issue. And he never truly believed that just this one room would be enough anyway. I call it my middle age spread.