about that cake...

looks like I might not have to feed it to the dogs after all. When I got up this morning I noticed there's about 1/4 of it gone already. Nick (our "spare" son) apparently has no problem at all with carrot cake or pecans. He came in from work about midnight and the rest of us were already in bed so I'm assuming he's the one who ate it. Either that, or the dogs have learned how to use a knife. He's a sweet kid and straight A student in the honors college at a local college so I can't complain. My son called last night too and he starts a job on Tuesday. Whew! It's about time. My oldest daughter also called, and yet once again, MS State has screwed something up. We have our fingers crossed for it to get fixed before she has to waste another semester up there. She's already one semester behind, with a bunch of useless classes under her belt, because of bad advice from the school 2 years ago. This time, they neglected to record her PRAXIS math score so they didn't enroll her in the education dept, although they had told her she was already in.

November 10 is Forget-me-not day

and my birthday too. The list of bizarre American holidays is pretty funny and it says today is Forget-me-not day. http://library.thinkquest.org/2886/INDEX.HTM

My DH and youngest daughter took me out to eat tonight and I filled up on sushi with wasabi that was so fresh it was clearing the sinuses of the guy sitting behind me. Won ton, sesame meatballs and coconut shrimp, duck, and egg drop soup. My daughter and my sister spent the afternoon making a homemade carrot cake for me because they called DH and asked what kind I wanted. I have absolutely NO idea why he thought that was it. Maybe the same reason that after 23 years of marriage he forgets that I don't eat chicken. It's not that I MIND carrot cake, it's just not way up there on my favorites list. And my sister absolutely LOADS it with pecans, which I avoid whenever possible. Growing up, when I stayed with my grandmother, her sister owned a pecan farm so they put pecans in everything but spaghetti. It got to the point where I loathed gathering, cracking, shelling, picking, chopping and eating pecans. That dislike has eased a bit over the years and I cook with them occasionally, but rarely eat them. But my daughter spent the time and the energy on doing it. so I will eat it. She even made the cute little orange and green carrots in icing on the top. Or maybe I'll feed a slice or two to the dogs while they're gone during the day and tell her how wonderful it was as it slowly dwindles.

Now, the box of chocolate covered cherries on the other hand, will be gone within an hour of opening them. Those I WILL savor.

Jumping on the bandwagon

Technorati Profile
I have claimed my blog on the incredibly rare chance that someone else would want it. Now they can't have it.

I feel like this should have involved horses and foot-races and Tom Cruse, but it was much easier than that. Any moron can cut and paste code, even if I can't write it.

Daily

Post.

Just so I don't break my promise within the first two weeks of the NaBloPoMo thing. Maybe more later, but I'm feeling sort of puny right now, and pitiful because tomorrow is my birthday and I don't want to be sick. I guess the advantage to that would be maybe it would head off the guaranteed Thanksgiving/Christmas illness this year. Go ahead and get it out of the way so I don't have to stress out over which holiday I'll be missing this season. It's a family tradition. My mother gets one holiday to be sick, I get the other.

Hit-and-run

Just a quick "good morning" today before I head out. I'm off to the coast with a dear friend for a couple of days. She's moving back to South Dakota so it will most likely be my last chance to spend some time with her. I also MAY get a chance to at least say hello to my son down at USM. If not him, at least the girlfriend. He's destroyed yet another cell phone and it makes me (and everybody else, especially my mother) batso to be out of contact with him so I'm dropping one off to him. Of course, since he doesn't have a cell phone, I have no way to make arrangements with him to drop it off, hence the girlfriend thing. At least I have a way to get in touch with her.

I'm sort of liking this daily blog thing too. It's a habit I'll probably continue with long after the month is over. Well, maybe not DAILY, but more often than monthly.

Jabberwocky

I belong to a group that does one "quick fire" challenge a month. We have one week from the time we get the theme until we post pictures of the finished piece. I was the challenge hostess this time and my theme was "Jabberwocky." I spent several days and got halfway through with the original one before I chucked it and did this one in a short period. My daughter has always called the Nigerian scam letters and the insane subject lines and sender names jabberwocky, so what could be more appropriate? I really like this little piece.

I played around with some free-hand writing on the background, and the letter and junk mail ads are intentionally printed on thin fabric so the words underneath show. The individual computer keys on the body of the quilt are the ESC and DEL keys.

Time to get busy

We're headed to the coast tomorrow for a couple of days and I have some loose ends I need to tie up around here first. It's been raining for 2 days but I have to get out in it anyway and run some errands. First up, some exercise. In the voting booth of course. I seem to have the REALLY bad mojo for electronic stuff the last day or so too. Two brand new cell phones, straight out of the box, and neither one works. I also spent over an hour on the phone last night with the morons at Comcast because one of our new cable boxes bit the dust less than a week after installation. I'm still angry over their crappy attitude and customer service and inability to actually communicate with reasonably intelligent responses, so it will have to suffice to say that I am NOT a fan, and they have a ways to go to convince me they are anything but a cadre of idiots.

On the other hand, I've finally gotten the inspiration needed for my most recent quilt, which has been hanging practically in front of my face for a couple of weeks now and getting NOTHING done to it while I spend my time working on OPS (other people's stuff) and none of my own. Periodically I HAVE to do some of my own work, regardless of deadlines or anything else for OPS. If I didn't, their stuff would never get done. It's almost like recharging myself. A couple of hours doing what I want to do and I'm energized to get back to what other people want me to do.

The new piece will have circles on it (I already used a bunch of polka dot fabrics, but I'm adding bigger applique circles) that I intend to make out of cotton cosmetic pads. I'm thinking Heat-N-Bond for the fabric onto the pads and then trim around the pads. Voila! Perfect circles and the cotton will give them some dimension without having to batt each one of them individually. I hope it works like I think it will, but even if it doesn't, I'm sure I'll learn something from the experiment. Still waiting on delivery from some ephemera I ordered from eBay the other day but it will probably come while I'm gone.

Another idea in the back of my mind is to use gloves in a similar manner to the cosmetic pads. Quilt the fabrics directly to the gloves and then applique the whole thing to a quilt. Sort of a trapunto cheat if you will. No idea where my current obsession with hands has come from either. I guess I'll just go with it until something else comes along. I even have a friend of mine doing some beautiful drawings of his own hands for me to use. He sent me the first one last night and his talent just blows me away. We're also collaborating on a quilt for him and I'm looking SO forward to actually getting the piece in my hands to work on it. He's piddling around with inconsequential stuff, like his job, instead of working on it though.

On looking back

Today is my youngest daughter's senior retreat. Each year, the school has us secretly (or not, if they have older siblings they know about it) write letters to the kids about how much we love them and how special they are. It's hard to boil down 17 years into one letter, so we just hit the high points usually. Maybe it's because she is my last one to graduate and I'm sort of looking back at my own last 10 years at that same school, with the same kids they started kindergarten with, and it's harder to let go and realize that THIS IS IT for the kids. The others are already in college, and in 8 more months she will be too. It has been a joy to watch her finally come into her own this year and see her blossom. She's made the honor roll for the first time, and is widening her circle of friends. She also has a lot of the do-her-own-thing attitude her older sister has.

She's a beautiful young lady, and as sweet and compassionate as she is pretty. We are so proud of her and look to forward to seeing what good things she has coming in her life.

Sunday morning coming down

Since blogger seems cooperative this morning, I'll take a shot at re-doing yesterday's post. Rissa asked about the toenail clippers specifically, so I'll start with that. I use the big ones with the flat, rather than curved, cutting edge to trim off shanks on buttons (metal and plastic), to cut jump rings off, to cut off loops on charms if I'm gluing rather than sewing them, and pretty much anything that's small enough to fit between the blades. I use them as wire cutters and to clip those infernal plastic tag hangers too. They're cheap, strong and you can really get some good pressure behind them because of the handles. And they're smaller than a pair of wire cutters or pliers so I can put a pair close to each place where I use them. They work pretty well as tweezers to pick up little bitty things too. I also use baby safety nail clippers to clip threads with when I take handwork to sit in the doctor's office or where ever. They give a very clean cut edge, they're small and they don't take them away from you at the airport. You're also not in much danger of clipping anything besides the thread. It's REALLY handy if you put one of those tiny eyeglass repair magnifying glasses on the chain of the clippers too. I never realized how handy they were, or how much I would use a magnifying glass until I actually had one available.

I keep my needles in an empty TicTac box in my "mobile" handwork kit. I like the tight-fitting lid on it, I can see what I'm going after, and again, it's small. I also keep a very small, brightly colored feather in the kit so when I have to thread the needle again, I can stick the point of it up through the shaft of the feather and not worry about where I put the damn thing. I'm the world's worst about sticking it in the corner of the piece I'm working on while I cut a new piece of thread then spending 5 minutes looking for the needle. Another advantage is that the feather sort of clings to the fabric so I don't drop it as often, and it gives me something substantial to hang onto when trying to thread it.

I keep the spool(s) of thread I'm using in old spice bottles. Depending on the spools and the bottles, I either have one per spool or 2 spools in one. I usually have a spool of regular sewing thread and one of a beading thread. I just run the end through the holes in the top and I'm good to go when I need more thread in the needle. Pull just enough thread out for the top of the spice bottle to catch it and it won't fall back into the bottle either. And when I drop it, thread doesn't unspool all over the floor. On the days I'm really organized and thinking ahead, I thread 3 or 4 needles onto the spool in good light at home so I don't have to try to thread them in questionable light somewhere else. When I need the next length of thread, I just pick up the first needle in line and unspool the thread, letting the additional needles fall below the cut line. One more advantage is that you can knot the cut end coming off the spool so the spare needles stay on the thread too. It takes a little getting used to knotting the "wrong" side of the cut, but the needles are already on it. It's really handy for bad eyesighted people like me, and surprisingly easy. Every time I forget to do it beforehand, I kick myself and SWEAR I'll remember the next time. Yeah, right.

For bead storage and convenience for individual projects, I use the pill stackers that screw bottom to top to each other. I just pick which beads I need for each piece and reconfigure the stacks to only take the ones I need. No holes in little plastic bags, no big clunky bead trays, and if you ever spill one, it's only that one. Can you tell that dropping things seems to be a major consideration in my choice of tools? And they don't get mixed in with the ones in the adjoining compartment either. You can get them at the Dollar Tree or you can pay $3.50 for the same thing at Michael's.

As for the kit itself, I think that's purely personal preference and depends on the size of the work being hauled around as much as it does what's in the kit itself. I personally prefer an old purse or bag with a flat, stiff bottom, even if I have to put a piece of cardboard in it myself. Purses tend to have pockets and I like that. Purses also tend to have top closures and as much as I love canvas bags, they generally have neither. The one absolute for me is a shoulder strap, backpack style if possible. I don't normally carry a purse so my hands are full of car keys and cell phone and credit card/ID case. And if you get a bag (of any description) that you really, really like you can always do some of your own work on it. You'd be surprised at the number of people who will ask about it. It's a good way to showcase some of your own stuff without having to drag out the project du jour for every interested stranger.

Spoiler alert for the First Five recipients

If you're one of the First Five recipients for a little piece of art (SombraKnight, Moon Stars and Paper, Groggy Froggy, Vodka and Diet coke and Rissa), skip this post unless you want details on what they MIGHT be. Ideas still flying around, but they are quickly coalescing in my head so some or all of them will ultimately wind up in a frame. Yes, I decided to actually mount and frame them since I have NO desire to do more fabric postcards. I love the ones I have and I love teaching how to make them, but actually making them on my own is not something I willingly spend time doing unless forced to.

So here are the ideas I have so far. Go away now if you want to be surprised when they arrive in the mail. I picked up a bunch of small frames the other day, some 4x6, some 5x7 and 2 really nice 8x8 square ones. The square ones are hard to find, but I love the way they look so I grab whatever they have in stock. Only 2 this time. I also got a few black and white shadowbox frames that will be nice with the thick frame so there's room for the 3D elements. I won't use glass (monoprints, anyone?) on the finished pieces so the frame depth is important. I hit the $1 placemat table and found some really nice stuff that can be used as backgrounds to work on. One very flat bamboo, one crimson red with tiny sticks woven through it, and a green and an orange that have a nice woven design on the border. I also picked up some very detailed, albeit very cheap, "Japanese kimono" wine bottle dresses. The fabric is obviously poly, but the colors and patterns and tiny little piping and frogs can be individual elements without looking so cheap. They go nicely with the joss paper and bone dominos and wooden tiles and all the other Oriental ephemera I have.

I've also gathered up a bunch of different sizes and shapes of cheap necklace chains (from the 90 lbs of costume jewelry I inherited from the M-I-L) and other junk with interesting shapes. I'll be out on the deck with the acid today to remove the finishes, a sprinkle of salt, and tomorrow I'll arrange them and start rust dying some fabric. I'm hoping to get some good patterns on the fabrics so I can use that for the backing on one of the pieces. Maybe rusty washers and old skeleton keys with it? Still thinking through that one. I may try to overdye the rust dyed fabric with a hint of color too. We'll see.

The one that came to me pretty much full-blown is a music-themed one. Who knew? I have some of those rubber molds for Sculpey with faces and hands and I have a saxophone made from layers of gold and silver metallic cardstock. I'm pretty sure it's a scrapbooking thing, but it's the perfect size for the face and hands. That one might actually get a quilted background for it. Or not. Anyway, it's the one I'm most looking forward to working on.

I have a few other ideas (African themed is always a favorite of mine and I'd like to use the thread painted window screen plains tree again) for these little pieces too. They may wind up as gifts if I make more than the initial 5, and I'm pretty sure there will be more than 5. This is a slightly larger size than the 4x6 postcards, and I'm liking the idea of the frames, so I think I may take this and run with it. I could probably do at least 5 with nothing but the Asian stuff I have accumulated.

One last try

I've posted twice today already, but blogger is apparently being horsey about it. At one point, they both showed up even though the first time I typed a looooooong post and it said it never published and to save it to my computer. I tried to. I really, really did, but the first time I hit the enter key, I got the dreaded white screen and the whole thing locked up. It's probably published on someone else's blog now. Look for a post raving about the great uses for toenail clippers and buttons and thread and you'll know you've found my errant post.

Maybe I'll come back tomorrow and try to re-create it, or maybe I'll just come back tomorrow and natter on about nothing. Either way, I'll come back tomorrow.

favorite (non)tools for quilting

I've been noticing the last few days that I use an awful lot of stuff for my quilting that isn't actually made for quilting. I don't mean the stuff like fiberglass window screen that's actually an element on the quilt either. I mean the stuff I use to make the quilt. Things like the little mesh tubes from the flower shop that the spider mums come covered with. They're about 4" long and stretch REALLY big. I use them to store my cone threads in so I don't wind up with a rat's nest of loose threads in the drawer and bins. Did I mention I probably have 100 cones of thread? The thread fairy periodically drops off 5 gallon buckets of thread cones on my front porch. I have some truly weird colors too. Anyway, the little stretchy mesh things are perfect for storing it and they're FREE from the florist.

Another thing I use constantly is my carpenter's sheet rock ruler. No, not the metal kind but a thick plastic one with inset levels. The edge of it is exactly the right height to run the rotary cutter down and the center is deeper than the edge so my fingers are out of the way. Being 48" long is great too so I don't have to keep moving it and lining it up to cut borders and binding. It's also EXACTLY 2" wide so you'll see a lot of that width in my sashings and borders and such. It's SOOOOO handy.

Another must-have for me is a new discovery. It's Reynolds Wrap Release non-stick foil. And it truly IS non-stick. I played around with it when I got it and fused everything I could find and NOTHING stuck to it. Let it cool for a second and even straight fusible just peels off like it does on the teflon sheets. And you can throw this away and buy more! I can quit worrying about creases or cuts or ink marks on the expensive teflon now.

And my DH gave me a B&D laser level for Christmas. I'm on probably my third or fourth set of batteries I use it so much. I mark cutting lines, use it for blocking, hang the pieces straight on the wall to take pics, use it to get more accurate than 'eyeballing' from one element to another on a quilt top. All sorts of uses for it, including messing with the cats and dogs, but that's just lagniappe.

Last but not least, my favorite seam ripping tool is a pair of suture scissors from the medical supply place. They are the ones with the little hook on the bottom blade right at the end. Half the time, the hook itself breaks the thread before I ever snip it and it gets those tinytight stitches beautifully without catching the threads of the fabric.

Some other things that are handy to have are push pins for sticking stuff up on the wall for in-progress pics. Small bulldog clips for the same reason....they hang on the push pins too and are great for displaying the fabric art postcards. I get them in all different colors. Cafe curtain hooks are another option and I usually have a handful of those around. I've also used the bulldog clips and cafe curtain clips as the actual hanging mechanism on quilts. I'm fairly sure I used some painted ones on Jen's "Alice's Restaurant" piece.

Day 2

Some loose ends first....being as how I'm the smertist woman in the world, my big plans for a follow-along tutorial were for the piece I have planned for Lisa over at groggyfroggy so maybe that idea needs to go on the back burner for a bit. I'll keep the pictures and stuff and just post it later than originally planned.

I am doing several piecemeal (notice I didn't say I was PIECING) quilts for other people right now so I'm forcing myself to not start on any of my own stuff just yet or I'll never get these finished. 2 of them are Aunt Grace fabrics which I loathe beyond words, but they're for the brother of a very good friend. He's developed some serious health problems and was unable to finish the quilts, and not only is his sister my friend, but he sent me absolute MOUNDS of every sort of sewing thing you can imagine. From (several thousand) pins to huge storage tubs of fabrics. It was wonderful and well worth the trade of doing some quilting for him to get the tops finished. Another one is some absolutely beautiful carousel horses in cross-stitch to be assembled for a Christmas present. The gift recipient is actually a friend of my daughter's from high school so I'm happy to do this one too. It will ultimately have a yellow binding and I'm waiting to hear if she is going to let me do a tab top instead of a sleeve. I hope she does since I think it will look better. I notice the colors are crappy on here too. They really aren't in real life. I'll get a better picture and a close up once it's finished.

Side note to blogger: I think there should be a button at the top to automatically insert the "crappy color/picture" disclaimer. Seems like most every blog I read that uses a lot of pictures winds up saying that at some point. Sure would save a lot of typing.

So, once I get these 3 quilts finished (one is completely done and waiting to ship, one still needs to be sandwiched and quilted, but I'm waiting on the name/date block to be embroidered and the one above is down to the final quilting and binding) I have designs in my head for 3 more. For some weird reason, they all involve pianos too. I have no idea what my obsession with pianos is. I don't play, I don't particularly like piano music, I know nothing about them other than what they look like, and yet they keep forcing their way into my work. Maybe I was frightened by a piano as a child. Who knows?

NaBloPoMo

I've signed up for the National Blog Posting Month thingy. www.fussy.org/nablopomo.html in hopes that it will get me in the habit of posting daily. Well, maybe not daily, but more often than monthly at any rate. I have no clue what I'll post about 30 times this month. Maybe I'll finally get off my duff and do one of those "follow along" tutorials for the next quilt I make. Or maybe I'll just make up crap or natter on about my kids and dogs. We'll see as the month goes along.

Art-gift update - 3 takers so far

Vodka&DietCoke, Lisa, and Rissa are on the art gift list so far, so there are at least 3 people who read the blog! Yes, you count Rissa, since I posted first! Not my fault you were out of town and lagged behind 2 days. It's not too often that I get excited about being FORCED to create art to GIVE away to (mostly) strangers, but this one has really captured my interest. And since it's not limited to only quilting blogs, I feel a certain sense of freedom I don't usually have. And I LOVE to stick random stuff on what starts out as a quilt but rarely have the chance to do that so I'm looking forward to being able to wade in the collage pool a bit with this.
If you will send me your snail mail addresses to DeltaMoon95 at Yahoo dot com I'll get the pieces in the mail by the end of November. Probably much sooner than that, but I built in a little flex-time justincase. You all know how that goes!

assignment from the teacher

Finally! A random post from someone I don't know, and it involves a question that has been wrestled with through the ages. What is an art quilt? For every person who is asked that question, there is a different answer, but since it's my question this time, you get my answer. Traditional quilting to me involves a lot of 'rules' about the type of fabric (100% cotton) and the type of thread, and some basic piecing techniques, using specific shapes. You can cut a bunch of precise squares and triangles and combine them into traditional, named patterns and make a quilt.

To me, traditional quilting requires a lot of futzing around with templates and point matching and all sorts of other fussy details to basically reproduce the same block over and over. Then you sew enough of them together to make something big enough to cover a bed with.

On the other hand, art quilting has very few rules. It's generally accepted that they have three layers and are sewn together. That's about it. It can be any fabric (or plastic or metal or found object or geegaw or anything else that you can glue/sew/staple/weld/bolt/rivet onto the background)that advances the effect you're looking for. I've used cotton, velvet, burlap, plastic FEMA tarps, linen, old clothing, new clothing, fiberglass window screen and who-knows-what-else on my quilts. I've added beads and buttons and toys and hardware and sticks and stones and guitar picks and doll hats and sea shells and who-knows-what-else as embellishments. I've painted, dyed, discharged, stamped, drawn, printed, rusted, stained and who-knows-what-else to the fabric itself.

Traditional applique involves some very tedious hand-work usually, but mine involve fusible adhesive, glue sticks, liquid fusible, spray adhesive, school paste or anything else (besides pins, I rarely use pins for anything) that holds the applique in place until I stitch it down. Sometimes I stitch it with a satin stitch, wide or narrow, to cover all the cut edges, sometimes a decorative stitch, sometimes a straight stitch at the edge and sometimes I just make my quilting lines all over everything and leave any raw edges to fray as they will. I don't really have any quilting plan on most of mine, unless "move it around while I'm talking or dealing with the dogs or watching tv and hope it comes out ok" counts as a plan. Sometimes my quilting lines follow the shape of something on the quilt, sometimes they don't.

This has been a good exercise because it's forced me to think what the actual differences are, not just be able to recognize one on sight. It is hard for me to define though, since my work is very....I almost said haphazard, but that isn't right....intuitive! That's the word. I rarely have a plan in mind when I start, other than something really basic. The title of a quilt (almost always song titles in my case) or a piece of fabric or a specific element may be the genesis of a design. I have 2 in progress and at least 2 more in my head that involve hands. I use a lot of musical references and themes too. My pieces tend to have great gaps of negative space, with lots of solid color and background fabric showing.

With my own work, I try to evoke a specific "feel" to each piece. The elements aren't always accurate (mixing kokopellis with hieroglyphs isn't accurate) but the final effect is cohesive. At least I hope it is. Other people work towards mastering a specific technique or a specific theme, and some just seem to make the same quilt over and over and over and over.

First Fast Friday, now First Five get Free Fiber

I saw this over at JenClair's blog (http://bayouquilts.blogspot.com/) and really liked the idea of it. The first five people to respond in the comments section will get a piece of original fiber art from me. The interesting part will be seeing if there are actually five people who know this blog exists.

What the cat dragged in

Aidan and homecoming

My youngest daughter and her brother's best friend and roommate on their way to the homecoming dance. The dog was trying to help by offering them the lid to a shoebox. We're not sure why he thought they needed it though, since it didn't match her dress at all.

This and That

"Orphans of the Motherland" and "Miles Davis" will be showing at Augsburg College through October 8. They are the 2 that didn't sell at Hennepin County but they were chosen to go to this exhibit so there's still a chance. We got a copy of the public comment cards from the Hennepin exhibit and my work is "off the chain" according to one visitor. I had to go ask my kids what that meant, but it's a compliment so it's all good. (Brag warning: My name is the only one mentioned specifically on the comment cards!)
I started on a new piece this weekend out of sheer boredom and it's working up pretty well. More music, but with polka dots this time. I don't work with a lot of dots so I was sort of surprised that's what I reached for. I had originally planned to do a step-by-step of the process for the blog, but this one is totally intuitive with no plan so it was sort of hard to follow though on the idea to post about it. Maybe next time, if I start with a real design I can figure out a way to walk through it in words and pictures. I would have felt bad to just say "I picked this fabric up because I liked it, and cut it 4" wide because I wanted to." That doesn't really tell you anything, but it's sometimes how I work. My son and his roommate like it well enough that it may go live in their apartment at college to "impress the girls." They seem to think it shows their sensitive and artistic sides or something. If nothing else, my work is usually so bright and striking that maybe it will draw attention away from their terrible furniture.
Next up is turning out a bunch of postcards for an up-scale craft fair in KC the first week in December. I can work on them this week in FL with my friend Vicki. Six whole days of making art! She is an incredible artist herself and I can't wait to see all of her work. I have one gorgeous piece in my living room already. She does mixed media and painting (and a little of everything else) and has the most wonderful color sense. Not the colors I tend to go towards, but that's how you learn. Look at what others do and file the combinations away for use later.