Almost Spring

Although you couldn't tell by looking outside. The nasty storm that hit the Northeast last Friday left us without about 2 inches of sleety snow on top of ice and lots of rain. Thank heavens it wasn't cold enough for it to be totally snow because we had more than 2 inches of rain. Right now it's sunny but cold (28 degrees) and there is still snow on the ground. Later in the week it's supposed to be in the 60's and maybe I will get the first daffodil bloom.

The International Quilt Study Center at the University of Nebraska has an interesting web site. Last month they held their biennial symposium where people from all over the world gather to hear lectures and panel presentations about quilts and also visit exhibitions. The goal of the symposium is to "celebrate quilts and quiltmaking." Michael James, who is the Ardis James Professor of Texiles, Clothing and Design at UNL and also the Chair of the department, delivered this lecture at the opening of the exhibition "Give and Take". This exhibition featured quilts created by artists who have been instructors, students or both at the Quilt Surface Design Symposium (QSDS). You can listen (and watch) the lecture, along with images taken at QSDS over the years. And if you're very patient and get all the way to the end, you will hear him quote from an email I sent him about my experience at my first QSDS in 1993. I sound very wise and profound. The gist of my statement was that 'you are where you are' and everybody is working together to become better artists.

I have finished the fifth (and last) in the series I'm preparing for the QSDI Invitational and now have to photograph it. This time I will be taking the slides to the local processing shop because I don't want to risk not having them back in time to send them off by April 1.

I've enjoyed doing this color series with its heavily stitched surface and want to continue with it. I'm thinking the next two will be black and white. That is, a black one and a white one, both of which will be challenges to me. The only white fabric I have is PFD, still in its raw state. I'm going to color them very slightly, something I have extreme difficulty in doing. The black will be black and grey, maybe with some discharge. Or not.

And I put in another order for more thread. I haven't ordered from Madeira in a long time, but I really like their 30wt rayon and wanted to order from them. I always start to hyperventilate when confronted with making decisions on which colors to order, so this time I just avoided that and ordered all of them. 180 spools of thread. One was out of stock, so I only got 179. Then I needed another set of drawers for storing thread, and a new algorithm for sorting. I used to store the cottons and rayons of the same color together, but that wasn't going to work any more. So now each each its own drawer, and I'm embarrassed by the amount of thread I have.