Finishing off the dyes

I still had some dye pastes left but I was done mentally with doing screen printing. I hate wasting dyes so I thought that I would just add water and do some low water dyeing and that would use up what was left.

These first two pieces are some green that I had mixed up and some gold/yellow/brown that I combined. The green looked pretty awful when wet but got much better when it was dry. Usually I like the colors better when they're wet, so this was a surprise.

The one on the right is fuchsia (no surprise); the one on the left is scarlet. I love red.

This was the surprise. The dye color is Deep Cherry and in the dye pot it looked nearly black. The wet fabric looked very very dark purpley-red and rich. The dry result is less so and is destined to be the base for something else. I don't much care for this color.  The light grey piece was dyed in the same container but added after about 15 minutes had passed (like Ann Johnston's parfait method). It looked lilac when wet, but all of the red washed out and the fabric is a lovely grey. (Eat your heart out, Linda in Belgium!) This was a reminder that red always fixes very quickly and isn't be available in subsequent layers of parfait dyeing.

I had 4 different blues left over: navy, intense blue, turquoise, and I don't remember the name of the 4th one. I always have lots of blue left over because it's the color I use least when dyeing. So why do I mix up so much? Can't resist having a selection. And blue is necessary for green and gold and purple; I just have to remember that I need relatively less blue than I need red and yellow.

These last two pieces were done with screen printing, using 3 different screens. I cut stencils from newsprint. The first one was the outline of the connecting squares. The other two were the squares that were slightly offset from the outlines and also sized and positioned so that they didn't quite fit inside the boxes.  I like how these turned out, but I did them on white fabric and there was too much white. I put each of them in a very dilute yellow solution just to take the edge off the white. 

I'm thinking that I will make some thermofax screens of these boxes and outlines. This kind of stuff is quicker to do with paints because there isn't the batching time that's needed with dyes. Also, doing these designs with dyes meant I had to wait to let the dye paste dry enough that it wouldn't blur when more layers were added, a step that isn't necessary with paints because they dry so fast.

The real surprise was in one of my dye containers. I have a collection of 1/2 gallon sized plastic milk containers with the tops cut off that are terrific for the layered dye method. They're stored in the closet, which is next to the crawl space, home to various and sundry uninvited wildlife. Imagine my delight when I found a mummified mouse in the bottom of one of the containers. Must have fallen in and couldn't get out.  At least it wasn't a snake. Yuck.

What the turquoise did

Thanks for the great comments! Sometimes it takes me a while to appreciate what I've done and I know that each of these fabrics will be perfect somewhere sometime.

Linda asked what the turquoise on the blotter fabric went into. This is the piece. It's turquoise and also another deep blue, either Intense Blue or Navy Blue. With some pale yellow to soften the white. It's very difficult for me to leave white areas. Even a little bit of color is better than pure white.



This morning I took all the dye pastes that were mixed and used on soda soaked fabric and slopped them onto a piece of fabric. It looked very very dark. It's batching right now and it will be interesting to see just how much color was left in those pastes. Stay tuned.

Deconstructed Screen Printing once again

I've been working on some deconstructed screen printing again, hoping it will provide some inspiration for new work. I have to pull out my notes from previous sessions so that I don't spend days relearning what I already know but have sort of forgotten. In spite of that, I still did some things that produced less than satisfactory results. So here are some of my new fabrics. You can click on the images for a larger view.


I like this one. The dot images are from some kind of tape that I got at Home Depot. I have no clue what it's supposed to be used for but it makes a great screen image. I used a Deep Cherry Red to make the screen and then used a yellow print paste for the release. Or maybe two yellows.


Torn paper for one image and a design I drew on the screen for the cross hatch lines.


Furnace filter screens for the big circles, bubble wrap for the small circles, and hand drawn circles for the medium sizes red circles.


Torn paper striping, a thermofax screen made from a previous session with torn paper, and some squares made with regular screen printing and torn paper.


This was from a screen made with big bubble wrap and it didn't work too well because the print paste covered the entire screen. So not much of the bubble wrap design showed through. And the red was an experiment in doing a monoprint by putting the dye paste on some plexiglas, pulling a striping tool through, then putting the fabric on top. It smushed the dye paste so that the stripes disappeared, so I tried putting the dye paste directly on the fabric and using the striping tool. Which sort of worked but not very well.


Blotting fabric - when making the screens I used this piece of fabric to blot up the dye paste that goes through the screen. What I find so interesting (besides the fact that it's a pretty cool piece of fabric) is that this fabric doesn't get the special batching treatment that the printed fabric gets: wrapping in plastic and sitting in a warm spot. It just sits by the side of the work table, drying out, not covered, not warm. Obviously, it's humid enough that the dye is reacting with the soda ash that is in the fabric.


One of the first pieces I did. I had an idea for these overlapping rectangles with intersecting blue rectangles (which of course turn green on the yellow dye). Not sure this worked out all that well, but I can always cut it up.


This is construction fencing and it deconstructed really well. The first pulls started at the bottom and there is a good image of the fencing. By the time I got to the top of the fabric it's only a small portion of the original image left.


Not exactly sure what I did here, but I think it involved some direct application of the dye paste.


More dotted paper and torn paper. This turned out alot lighter in color than I expected it to. I violated one of the cardinal rules of screen printing with thickened dyes. Once the dyes in the print paste come in contact with the soda ash soaked fabric they begin to react and lose their strength. Any used print paste put back into the unused print paste will begin to react. So even though the color still looks good and strong, in actuality there is not much dye left to react. I was putting the used print paste back instead of segregating it. Live and learn.


Another blotting fabric, given the same treatment as the first one. Some really interesting sections on this one also.


Good color, the way it's supposed to be.


I might have gotten carried away with the dotted paper.



Very pale background. I thought it was coming out much darker but this was using spent print paste.


I thought I was screening with a gold color but only the yellow I added to the spent paste showed up.


This is the color it is supposed to be. The dye paste on the screen was medium blue and green and the print paste was clear. So the background color is what was released from the color on the screen.


Another one where the background was supposed to be a lot more golden. I guess I won't be making that mistake again.

I still have some good print paste left, but I think I'm going to finish it off with some direct dye painting onto the fabric. And using some thermofax screens also.

The End of March

This month has gone by in a blur. And I'm glad to see it nearly over because April is such a wonderful time in Baltimore. Every day something new is blooming. While I was in Chicago over the weekend (where it had the audacity to snow) my daffodils began blooming. I can see blooms on the new hydrangea bush I bought last year, day lilies are poking up, and buds are swelling on all the trees. Another winter has bit the dust. Hooray!

I've been doing something I haven't done in a very long time - sewing clothes. I want to wear something arty to the Quilt National opening so I thought that a shirt made out of some hand painted fabrics would be perfect. But since I haven't sewn for myself in so long, it would be a good idea to test out the pattern (and my garment sewing skills) on some not-so-precious fabric first. In my stash was some batik fish fabric that I bought years ago and would be perfect and with only a little bit of searching I found it. There was more than enough to make a shirt so I pinned, cut, and sewed and finished it in only a few hours. Originally it was not going to have buttons because I've never been very good at doing buttonholes, but at my retreat in mid-March I learned how to use the automatic buttonhole maker on my Janome. OMG it's so easy, why didn't I try it out before? So the shirt has buttonholes. And cute little fish buttons that you can't see in this picture.


The pattern has a collar but that got left out. So now I'm ready to paint fabric and make the shirt again. I have an end cut of fabric that I got from a shirt factory and decided this would be perfect for making a shirt. Painted several yards with yellow/peach/orange paint over some soy wax batik designs. Then screened a spiral shape with gold metallic paint. I was so impatient that I couldn't wait long enough for the paint to cure and washed it. Well, bad move, most of the metallic paint rubbed off. I had heat set it but really didn't give it enough time to cure. And I think the shirt fabric might have some kind of finish on it. Pulled out more fabric and paint and did it again, along with the metallic gold. Except I went ahead and made the shirt without washing the fabric and I've let it cure for 10 days now. This is the shirt before it's been washed. I'm going to wash it by hand and hope that the gold metallic paint stays put.

There is a carrier for a belt and I have a twisted fabric belt that Elizabeth helped me make while on our retreat. Not sure what I'm going to do if all the gold washes off again. Maybe I'll go with the antique look.

EXPO 2009

This weekend is my local quilting guild's biennial show. The membership in the Baltimore Heritage Quilter's Guild runs the gamut from very traditional workers who only do handwork to people like me who do all their own surface design and only use machines. This weekend we have more than 270 on display at Goucher College, Towson, Maryland. I've always volunteered to help with this show and this year I planned and oversaw the layout and hanging of the quilts. It's a very detail-oriented job that involves alot of blood, sweat, and tears trying to fit everything into the limited space that we have and also trying to make a pleasing presentation. It takes a lot of time to plan, but the plan only works when there are alot of volunteers who help make it happen. Yesterday the poles and standards arrived at the venue around 3:30pm.

This is what the gym looked like at 3:30pm. Empty.



This is the lobby area, nearly empty.


Here is the gym at 9:30pm, looking down one of the aisles. Show quilts are on the left and vendor booths are on the right.


Looking down the central aisle with all show quilts. I think that getting this put up in 6 hours is a tribute to organization, cooperation, and volunteerism.



This is part of the lobby area. These quilts are part of the Buy It or Bid event. Visitors can put down a silent bid on a piece or they can purchase it outright for a pre-set price. No waiting, take it home now.



This is the Guild's Raffle Quilt, titled Chesapeake Bay Treasures. You can read more about the design and execution of this original design here. I can't sell raffle tickets online but if you contact me directly we can arrange it. The quilt measures 107" L by 97" W. The drawing is next December; tickets are $1 each or 6 for $5. Email me

SAQA Auction 2009

I shipped off my donation to the SAQA Benefit Auction for 2009 the other day. I'm hoping it's one of the early bird donations and will be displayed at the IQF show in Chicago next month. The first 32 will have that honor and on the SAQA Auction page, mine is number 29, so chances are pretty good, I think.

Ventanas #17 ©2009

I am really taken by how the thread color can change the color of the fabric beneath it and have been playing with that on this one and the other 5 I did.

And I've been painting some cotton duck fabric to make purses these past few days and it's not quite as successful as I would have liked. First off, the paint on the duck is resulting in some very stiff fabric, which I don't like. Also, the pattern I used turns out to have a shape that isn't pleasing to me - it's too wide for its length. Picky, I know, but purses are very personal. I'll finish the stitching on the first one and then wash it to see if it softens up some. Then I might take some tucks in the side to decrease the width. It needs a big button for the closure and I'm thinking I'll get out the Fimo clay and make one.

Skunked

By the weather, that is. I'm looking out the window at 6-8 inches of snow that as far as I'm concerned, has no business being here. It can't melt fast enough for me.

But I have finished dyeing my sweater and here it is. This is pretty much what I had in mind, so I'm happy with the result. The colors are a little more intense in real life, but not too much.

This is the back.

And this is the front.


I spent at least an hour last night and this morning looking for some instructions for knitting childrens' sweaters that I have. I know where they are - they're with the size 8 double pointed needles that I was looking for in January. And there is probably a pair of size 6 double pointed needles along with them. After I finished knitting the kids' sweaters, I must not have put the stuff away and it's been shuffled around and is now at the bottom of something or has fallen behind something. My heirs will probably find it when they dismantle my studio.

UPDATE: Bingo! I found them. The stuff was in a basket that was in my bedroom. I've moved that basket around a gazillion times but never bothered to look inside it. Not only were the instructions and the needles there but also some scissors, a tape measure, and a pen and paper. And in the searching process I found a ton of stuff that I should toss. I would have a whole lot more room if I got rid of this stuff. Of course, the day after it gets hauled away, I will realize that I need it.

Goodbye February

I can hardly believe February is almost over. It has really flown by and I'm not the least bit unhappy about that. I spent all last week putting together a "puzzle" as it were. I'm in charge of devising the hanging plan for my local guild's biennial quilt show. I did it 2 years ago and the whole process of hanging the show was completed in record time with a minimal amount of anguish. It was a major accomplishment of organization, if I do say so myself. Of course, the problem with being really good at something is that you get persuaded into doing it again. So I ended up with a database of 270 quilts, pictures of 270 quilts, and a layout of the gym. The rate limiting factor is the number of hanging rods and standards. I tried to group things so that logical groups hung together and was mostly successful. So now what's left is to print up the plan, complete with what's hanging where, labels, etc, etc. The show is next month and I'm very happy that the difficult part of the project is finished and I can return to art.

In the winter I always get the urge to knit. Several years ago I saw a sweater that looked like it had been dyed after it was totally knitted and that has been on my mind every since. I order yarn from DharmaTrading and used a top down method to knit a sweater (I hate sewing up the seams). Here is the sweater:



The plan was to dye the whole thing a golden yellow, then add in some blue, and finally a bit of red, which results in a gold-green-brown combination. So here is the golden yellow. I used the parfait technique that Ann Johnston describes in her book, except that she's stuffing fabric into tall containers. So the sweater soaked in the golden yellow for about 10 minutes, then I added soda ash.



After about 10 minutes I added the blue dye, let it soak for a short bit, then added the soda ash. I wanted the green to only cover the bottom half of the sweater so I tilted the pan to keep the blue dye at that end.


Lastly I added the very dilute red dye, waited a bit, then added the soda ash. I forgot to take a picture. After letting it batch for several hours next to the hot air heating duct I rinsed out the dye. For some reason all the blue dye went down the drain. (It might have something to do with the fact that it's pretty old). So I mixed up a different blue, poured it on, and it's batching again. We'll see what happens.

I've also finished 6 more 12" squares but haven't photographed them yet. Tomorrow I'm planning on going to the American Craft Council's Show in Baltimore. It's an amazing display of very high end crafts and I could easily spend big bucks there. My favorite crafter is the man who upholsters chairs with different pieces of colorful upholstery fabric. They are just beautiful and I know if I bought one it would immediately be christened with a hairball from my cat.

Upcoming Show

Last summer at QSDS I had the good luck to sit next to Anita Kaplan and Leslie Rego. These two were long time friends but I had never met them. They were fascinated with the surface design stuff that I was doing and asked many questions. I gave them a paint flinging demonstration, showed them the thermofax screens I had made, and talked about deconstructed screen printing. They were like sponges and soaked up everything and wanted more. Later on that summer I flew out to Sun Valley, Idaho and to share the how-tos of these techniques. I blogged about it here.

Last Fall Anita had a brainstorm and contacted Leslie, me, and Carol Larson for an invitational exhibit in the town where she lives. With alot of work on Anita's part, the show is going to happen starting next month. Here is the postcard.



The show is at The Sea Ranch Lodge and runs from March 6 through April 1. Opening Reception is Friday, March 6 from 5pm to 7pm. The Sea Ranch is located about 100 miles north of San Francisco, right on the ocean. (Did you know that Google Maps is now showing ocean floor stuff? Very cool.) I would love to attend the opening, but I'm afraid that a cross country airplane ride is not in my future. But I hope that lots of you who live nearby will take the time to visit.

New Work

The past few days I've working on my entry for the Surface Design Association Members' Show. It's not juried; they hang everything that is sent in. In the past the size requirements have been 52" long and 18" wide, and the piece had to be 2-sided. They were hung so people could walk around and see both sides. I've entered at least 3 times (and my last entry Fandangle is with the SDA traveling exhibit and is featured on the brochure) and each time I have struggled with the size requirement. That is, I always had to add on some length to meet the requirement. You would think that by this time I'd have it figured out. Guess again. This time the size requirement is 18"x18", and not two sided. I cut my fabric big enough but by the time I added all the quilting, one side was barely long enough. I wanted to finish it by sewing a facing but didn't have enough of a seam allowance to allow that. So it's zig-zagged around the edges.

Temple of the Sun
©2009

As I was cutting the fabrics it seemed to go into a temple shape on its own accord and so I went with that. I think the positive/negative effect in the orange-y fabric is really interesting. It's en extension of the Windows theme I've been working on. The spiral is screenprinted on using a thermofax screen. I spent several hours on the computer trying to get a shape I liked and also have spaces where the background can show through the paint. I think it worked out well.

Current news: Yellow Brick Road has been accepted for the show "Tribute to Fiber Art" to be held at the BlackRock Center for the Arts, Germantown, Maryland. The show runs March 4 through April 9.

And now I'm preparing my entry for Images 2009, at the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts. I know I talked about entering fewer shows, but I just don't seem to be able to control myself. Actually, I'm trying to focus on more general interest type shows and that's my excuse.

Exhibit News

Last summer I wrote about a piece I had planned to enter into Quilt National. I didn't enter it because it was too big. You can read more about that here. This is the piece, it's 11 feet wide.



I hung it at my solo show in October and had little hope of it being displayed any place else because it's just so big. When filling out the entry form for the Quilt Surface Design International exhibitions, I added it as my afterthought piece. You know, the throw-in because you can enter X number of pieces, so why not enter something just to get your money's worth? Well, I received notification yesterday that it has been chosen to hang at the Columbus Cultural Arts Center starting in May. Graffiti aka "Too Big for Quilt National" will be seen by the Quilt National audience, or at least a lot of them.

I've been getting alot of mail lately. I volunteered to be the collection point for entries for SAQA's A Sense of Humor show. Yesterday the mailman knocked on my door to get a signature for a piece that came all the way from Japan. And he had a bunch more packages. I expect to get lots more today and into next week. Today (correction - yesterday January 30) is the postmark deadline and February 6 is the receipt deadline. It's been interesting to see the different methods people use to send their stuff. Most have come by US Mail, with first class postage ($1.51). Some add a delivery confirmation to that. Some send via Priority Mail, with or without delivery confirmations. Some come by UPS. So far nothing has come via FedEx. Myself, I always go for the cheapest method, especially when it's a postmark deadline. Anyhow, I told the mailman this would continue for a few more days...

Fabric - more soy wax

Thanks for the birthday wishes.

More results from soy wax batik sessions. This design was done using a tjap that I got from DharmaTrading. I always start off with too much wax and my first impressions are a little blobby and then they get more delicate, sort of. The original color on this fabric was green and I painted over it with red. Idaho Beauty asked about the fabric paint I use. I'm not real particular so I use whatever I have available. Mostly it's Setacolor and paint from ProChem (I think they call it textile ink). I dilute it with water until it's about the consistency of milk. I want to be able to spread it easily and not have it change the hand of the fabric. I also always wipe any excess off the wax impressions because the paint will work its way through the wax and into the fabric. This water solubility of the wax is both a plus and a minus.


A combination of odd things from Home Depot and a kitchen utensil were used to make these impressions. The fabric was orange-ish and the paint green-ish.


A kitchen utensil that looks like a sieve with a handle, I would guess it's for scooping solid stuff out of liquids. It's bowl shaped so that I don't get a clear impression, which I like alot. The small grid is a drain cover from the hardware store made out of pvc. You can use any material that will hold heat long enough to keep the wax melted.


And this is the drop cloth that was underneath the fabrics. These always turn out to be so cool!


Yesterday was my family birthday celebration. My daughter made me this Kitty Litter cake and I think it's pretty funny. The brown things are Tootsie Rolls. When they're heated they get pliable and can be shaped. The cake is a combination of white cake and yellow cake and some green food coloring. It involves baking the cake, crumbling it up, and putting it into the (new and unused) pan. And supplying a scoop (also new and unused). The kids thought it was so cool to be eating this gross thing, especially my almost 8 year old grandson. Must have been thought up by the mother of a little boy.



Today I created a Facebook page. I'm not sure whether it will turn out to be a good networking device or a gigantic time sink. Come visit.

What a Day!

Yesterday, of course! I watched the inauguration on TV with friends. Even though DC is only 45 miles away I do not have the fortitude to stand out in 20 degree weather for hours and hours. And with all the reports on the expected traffic and crowds, well, that's why TV was invented. Kudos to all those who went and braved the elements and stood for hours just to be there and be a part of history.

It was a great feeling to be rid of the leadership of the last 8 years. I cannot think of anything the previous administration did that I thought was a good idea. Enough said.

I've been playing with soy wax batik for that past few days. It always takes a bit of warm up to get back into the swing of things and remember all the things that work and don't work. I forgot that metallic paints don't work very well at all, and I think it's because of the opacity. Somehow, opaque paints seem to sit more on the top of the fabric and the paints need to sink in. This piece of fabric had teal blue metallic paint all over it and as you can see, none of it remains. It all came off in the wash.



Which is okay, because it looks better without it. I have some more ready to be laundered and of course there is the drop cloth which is always the most interesting piece.

Wish me Happy Birthday! Today is the day, cold and wintry. I think I was born in the wrong hemisphere, because I would have preferred a summer birthday.

Vote for me please!

This is a blatant plea for votes:


The Baker Artists Awards celebrate Baltimore's artists on the Web with an ongoing exhibition of its diverse artistic practice, and the Mary Sawyer Baker Prize will establish Baltimore’s reputation as a creatively rich and vital place to live with a civic commitment to value its individual artists.
Please take a minute to visit my work on the Baker Artist Awards web site. As a Baltimore artist, I am eligible to win the significant Mary Sawyers Baker Prize or maybe bragging rights as Baltimore’s Choice. Either way, please follow the link and vote for me... and, if you live in Baltimore, you could also Nominate your own work! Now GO sign-up and vote www.bakerartistawards.org

Visit my nomination, register, and cast your vote!

Thanks!

After posting my list of achievements for 2008 I remembered one more, duh. A solo show at the Glenview Mansion Art Gallery in Rockville, MD. It was only last October, you would think that I could have remembered something that only happened two months ago....

And look at what has finally returned home - my journal quilt that has been traveling with "A Page from My Book", the Journal Quilt Project book. I never got the email checking my address and so the Quilts, Inc. people never sent it back. It wasn't until I emailed them to ask where it was that they asked me to verify my address and it showed up a few days later. I'm adding it to the Art For Sale page.

And good news, another purchase order from Artful Home from the Studio Sale.

In Review

Remembering what when on in 2008 is difficult. I can pull up official things like shows and suchlike but other less obvious things sort of fall by the wayside. Probably ought to write this stuff down.

So, the major stuff:
Juried Shows:
Amazing Art Quilts, Staunton, VA
Central Penn Festival of the Arts, Penn State U, State College, PA
Maryland Art Place Critics' Residency, Baltimore, MD
Materials Hard and Soft, Denton, TX
Quilts=Art=Quilts, Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center, Auburn, NY
SAQA Transformations 08
Threadlines, Missouri State Univeristy, Springfield, MO

Group Shows:
New Image: Marymount Hardware, Alexandria, VA
New Image: Rehoboth Art League, Rehoboth, DE
Fiber Artists of Baltimore: Columbia Art Center, Columbia, MD
Acceptance into Quilt National 2009 (I'm going to milk this one for quite a while)

Sales:
2 sales and 1 commission, all through ArtFul Home, maybe I ought to consider putting an ad into one of their publications

Donations:
QSDS Scholarship Auction (sold for $300, thanks, Teri!)
SAQA One Foot Square Auction (sold for $250, thanks, Gerrie!)

Teaching
2 teaching stints and 1 lecture

Award:
Amazing Art Quilts, Juror's choice

Publications:
Critics' Residency Catalog
SAQA Transformations 08 Catalog
SAQA PAM Portfolio

Going over the books for the past year, I figure that it cost approximately $70 per show that I was juried into, this includes entry fees and shipping. Does not include the time spent on photography and preparing entries. I have drastically reduced the number of shows that I enter for several reasons - it's expensive, it doesn't seem to work very well as a venue for sales, and I'm not sure it's worth the effort. If my goal is to sell my work, the money spent might be better spent in some other style, perhaps advertising. And I can explore other methods of getting my work in front of the buying public.

Which leads me right into the reminder to visit my Art for Sale blog. I've put up two different series of works:

	A selection of quilts from the Journal series, which I started as part of the Journal Quilt Project. I've only included a few of the pieces as some of them are better off stored in the closet.
	The Ventanas Series is the starting point for the series I'm currently revisiting. These are the first 5 pieces I did and some became the image sources for thermofax screens.

Happy New Year!

A New Year's Resolution

The end of year reckoning is upon us and it's time to look back at what I've accomplished over the past year. Which I will do real soon, but first I want to introduce my new blog site

fiberstudio Art for Sale

I have resolved to be more proactive in selling my work. Letting the world discover me has just not worked out all that well and it's very hit or miss. I need to get out there, at least figuratively, and make myself better known.

I've made small works that just never seemed to be eligible for the shows I enter but it's a shame to let them languish in the closet. So, following the lead of others, like Lisa Call and Jeanne Williamson I'm putting up small works at affordable prices. I've started with 5 pieces that are the beginnings of my Ventanas/Windows series and will be adding more works in the coming weeks.

It's time to get moving!

The Lull

The week between Christmas and New Year's has always been a time to relax. If it hasn't been done for Christmas, it's too late now. We can just kick back, sit in front of the fire and work crossword puzzles. Of course, now it's time to get back into the art mode, and it's not easy. I just finished a piece and was not very happy with it. Took it to one of my groups, and they were quite underwhelmed by it also (although it was expressed much more nicely than that.) So the question is, what to do with it? I might try adding some paint to lighten it up. Or maybe cut it into pieces and have a bunch of small works. In any case, I've put it aside and started on something else.

Yesterday was the first day of the Studio Sale on The Artful Home. Somebody was shopping early because I've already sold a piece.



This is titled 'Ode to a Stove' and is one of my favorites, even though it's sort of old. I made it in honor of my old Jenn-Aire stove that worked for 15 years before it gave up. I stood on the counter top with a camera and aimed it straight down at the stove to take a picture that I could use as a template. I used the curved seam technique I learned in a Nancy Crow class and abstracted the stove image. I entered it into the Quilter's Heritage Celebration show one year in the Pictorial Category (even though it was a real stretch to classify it as pictorial, at least by that show's standards.) Not only did it not win anything, but I received several scathing remarks from the judges: "Not pictorial enough for category" and "wavy edges." The wavy edges comment really made me laugh because the edges are supposed to be wavy. She is a very traditional judge and obviously didn't get it.

So that makes a nice start to the new year. And let's hope for more sales!

Africa Journal

While on our safari in Tanzania I kept a daily journal. I'm really glad I did that because we did so much it would have been difficult to remember it all and to remember what we did when. I transcribed it and added pictures and uploaded it to lulu.com, which is a print-on-demand site.



Several days ago I received the latest copy of American Style magazine. This issue is showcasing fiber with several fiber artists highlighted. I put in a display ad along with lots of other Surface Design Association members, so I have a small part of a full page. Many other members took advantage of the same deal, so it may be lost in there. I hope at least a few people take the time to cruise all the links. Anyhow, the interesting thing to me is that the art quilt on the cover is a piece by Marianne Burr, the artist that captured my attention at Quilts=Art=Quilts and who I wrote about in my previous post. I love her take on circles.

Carol Larson nominated me for the Kreativ Blogger Award. Thanks, Carol, I haven't won many things lately, having received at least 2 or maybe 3 rejections since my Quilt National acceptance. I'm happy that somebody likes what I'm doing. Carol and I share opinions on many things and are of about the same age. We live on opposite coasts and see the world from different heights. If I were to follow her blog naming convention, this would be Short Girl Tales.

For the rest of this reward, here's what I'm to do:
1. Put the logo on my blog.
2. Link to the person who nominated me.
3. Nominate 5 blogs.
4. Put links to those blogs here.
5. Leave a message for my nominees.

I've done the first two but will have to work on the other 3. That post will come soon.

This past weekend my husband and I drove up to Syracuse for a weekend with my sister and a visit to the Schweinfurth to see Quilts=Art=Quilts. They don't allow pictures but you can download a pdf file of the show.

My piece was in the last room we came to (by that time my sister was asking if I was sure I was in the show.) Standing right in front of my quilt were two couples and they were discussing what they saw in the piece. Not wanting to miss an opportunity, I introduced myself and offered to answer any questions. We talked about my piece for a minute and then they were interested in hearing what I thought about other pieces in the show. I talked about surface design, explaining to them what that was by pointing out Helene's Davis' works. In addition to winning the Surface Design Award at this show, one of Helene's entries had been sold.

I was fascinated by the work of Marianne Burr. I don't remember ever hearing of her before, but her work uses circles, hundreds of circles, which have always attracted me. Doing a little googling on her name, it appears that my head has been in the sand because Marianne is an award winner. She is in the current Visions show, and is also in Quilt National, so I hope I can meet her at the opening.

Another artist whose work captures me is Terry Jarrad-Dimond I first saw her work at ArtQuilts Elements last spring. She has two pieces in Q=A=Q. They are very simple, large color blocks of her hand dyed fabrics. It is her use of thread that makes the work so special. She quilts the piece heavily in closely spaced parallel lines, but uses the thread to change the underlying color of the fabric. So a piece of red fabric might be quilted with an area of red, another area in white, and a third area in purple. Each thread change subtly changes the fabric color. It's the kind of work that merits close inspection to see the threadwork, but also merits viewing from a distance to see the subtle changes.