Well, I did manage to sew for about six hours today ... but did not work on my 'obligation' sewing. Finished up this flimsy instead. Needs to be washed and ironed now. :P
:) Linda
Sunday Afternoon Fun
stamped with sliced oranges and carved sweet potato leaves
overlaid with a sheer that was also stamped with the oranges
stamped with sliced lemons and limes
stamped with mushrooms
carved sweet potatos
This afternoon I got to play a bit at my store. The MetroThreads Mixed Media special interest group was scheduled to meet for the second session of a Shadowbox creating activity. The only member (besides me:) to show up was my friend Sandy S. - Sandy is an enormously talented woman who is intensely creative and I was very happy to get a chance to chat with her and see what she has been working on recently.
The photos above are fabrics that Sandy stamped earlier this spring. She organizes and runs a beach retreat for creative fiber people every spring and fall (info below**). This spring, among other things, they did stamping with real veggies and fruits - using textile paints on cotton fabric. I have done a tiny bit of 'food' stamping - mostly carving white potato stamps and making celery roses. The idea of using a cross-cut orange slice surprised me - I think the results are great! :)
I also managed to work on my shadowbox some more - I _think_ it might be done (once it finishes drying and 'curing' the adhesives). I like the way it turned out - features sewing tools and motifs. The color scheme was intended to be turquoise and pink - some green and yellow snuck in, too, somehow. (grin)
I spent most of Thursday this past week doing administrative catch-up at my store - and then taught class that evening from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday I ended up sleeping most of the day away. :P Saturday I spent at the shop working on administrivia - well, including creating the June work schedules which is definitely _not_ trivial.
Skip and I are planning to come to the shop tomorrow, too. I need to sew - I have a few bee blocks to finish up and I need to put a border on the last round robin piece for Baltimore Modern Quilt Guild. Maybe I'll even be able to clean off my sewing table and get back to working on the shop's Quest quilt? A girl can dream, eh? :)
Linda
**Sandy Sapienza, retreats in spring and fall in Ocean City, MD; email Sandy Sapienza <sandraATannapolisDOTnet> for info.
Preparations
I've been trying to tie up loose ends all week long this week. I'm leaving tomorrow morning on a long-ish driving trip - first to Ohio and then on to Kansas with my Mom. Among other bits that needed tieing up is my work on Tammy's crazy quilt block.
The Crazy Quilting International group on Yahoo hosts lots of various swaps, exchanges and round robins. I joined the group a while ago and mostly have been lurking until I decided to step out of the closet and interact back in March. I am part of the Fabulous First Timer's group #21 and Tammy's block is the second one I've worked on.
The photo above shows one of the areas I embroidered - adding feather stitched greenery in a light colored block that echoes some of the work that Bonnie had done before me. I apologize if the photos are so-so - all I had to take pics was my iPhone. :) I did two other seam treatments and one motif on Tammy's block:
This seam already had the nice white gimp braid on it so I added stitching to both sides of the braid.
I liked the bold stripe in this taffeta area so I added a double herringbone stitch seam treatment with flowers on each side.
The end of that gimp braid I embroidered stopped abruptly so I made a woven spiderweb motif at the end with metallic lavendar thread and then used an eyelash yarn to weave the web - kind of dashing, I think. :)
You can just see the lavender glittery spoked in the middle of this picture.
I hope Tammy likes her block when it gets back to her! Tomorrow morning, on my way out of town, I'll stop and mail it off to the next embroider in the group, Lorraine.
:) Linda
Prepping to Travel
This is going to be a busy, busy week. I am planning to leave on Saturday morning to drive across country - first to Ohio to pick up my Mom, then onward to Kansas to see my sister and her families. (She has four kids with associated spouses and grandchildren near KC.)
I taught a class on Sunday afternoon (yesterday) - making fabric postcards. As my students played with fabrics and ideas, I made the bookmark shown above. It is about 2.5"x8" and has Peltex (stiff interfacing somewhat like Fast2Fust or Timtex) inside it for stability. I am planning to mail it off this evening as a small gift to one of my favorite aunts whose birthday was recently.
I am busily sewing on a round robin piece tonight - putting a border made with triangles on it. Here's a small peek for you (taken with my phone's camera):
I worked on my shop's Quest quilt on Saturday. I'm _really_ happy with the way that project is going! I won't do any more sewing on it until I get back from the midwest since I'm still waiting on fabrics. :)
Somehow I have to find time to pack - the hardest things to pack are the hand work projects I want to take along, I think. :) I am going to be gone almost two weeks and don't want to get 'bored hands' syndrome. LOL!
:) Linda
Thread Therapy
Yesterday I went to see the Faithful Circle Quilters' show - this is my (first) guild and one that I always enjoy. FCQ has been in existence since 1971 and is filled with friendly, able quilt makers. The show is always wonderful and this year's show was no exception. :) It has been a while since I've been to a quilt show (too long, probably) and I really enjoyed myself. :)
The photo above is a closeup shot of a panel I bought from The Dyer's Edge (Cathy Beckwith) in the vendor's area at the show. It is a piece of lutrador with hand painted figure that I just love. I'm not sure exactly what is going on with my color preferences right now - usually I go straight for the bright ka-pow colors ... but lately I am selecting more subtle tones and tints. (hmmm)
I think this panel will become the seed for a scroll-style wall hanging in the old Oriental style. Since the ground is lutradur (and I won't want to wash it), I might do some heat tool work on it to make lace-y places in the negative space. Here is a photo of the whole panel:
It was wonderful to be able to take my time yesterday and really look at all the quilts in the show - not to mention saying hello to guild members I haven't seen for a while. :) I also bought a (regular cotton) panel from Cottonseed Glory who were vending with a Goodnight, Moon print on it - that was my daughter's favorite book as a tiny girlie. I expect this piece will be made into some kind of baby quilt. :)
The other thing I purchased from The Dyer's Edge was an indigo-dyed scarf made from cheesecloth. I have no intention of using it as a scarf - I want to use it in my slowly developing indigo collage quilt. :) I did some experimenting this afternoon with free hand embroidery on it in a sort of landscape-y fields and hills way...I doubt you can really see much of it on this pic but this is what I got with my iPhone for now. I think I'll have to layer it over something much lighter or darker to really see the pattern:
Maybe if you click and look at the large size you can see the details I put in? I started off thinking I would embroider it a la Karen Ruane of Contemporary Embroidery but the cloth had a mind of its own. :) I think there will be more embroidery to emphasize the direction of plowing on the tilled field sections ... and maybe some mountains in the distance beyond the fence before I'm done.
Nothing like some thread therapy to lift up my spirits! :)
:) Linda
Last Difficult Week
Well, this is a pain - Typepad just 'ate' my entire post as I was composing it. Never had _that_ happen before. (sigh) Try number 2 - this post is important to me or I'd just hang it up right now. :P
This past week was eventful in some ways and kinda too quiet in others. I only worked on Monday. I spent Tuesday and Wednesday 'cleansing' in preparation for a colonoscoy. :P I had one only a year ago but the cleaning of my intestines did not work so it was a bust.
This time the doctor put me on _two_ days of clear-liquids-only eating. I spent most of the time I was not 'cleansing' asleep to pass the agony. :P I had the colonoscopy on Thursday afternoon so the day was gone by the time I woke up when the procedure was finished (went fine, I was told; will see the dr. again in three weeks for biopsy report). I did not go to the visitation for Arlene on Thursday evening as I was still way too wonky from the anaesthetic. :P
Originally the event was scheduled for Friday afternoon but the doctor's office called late on Monday afternoon and moved it up to Thursday. That turned out to be a good thing as my friend Arlene's funeral was Friday morning. Since I was not allowed to drive for a day after the procedure (anaesthesia concerns), I went with my friends Patty S. and Barbara B. The funeral was held at Vaughn Green Funeral Home near the shop in Baltimore County, on Route 40 (Baltimore National Pike).
I've been to about a dozen funerals in my life-to-date, most for family members but three for friends. I must say that Arlene's funeral was actually enjoyable for me, compared to many. Seems odd to say that ... but ... Arlene came from a closely knit family with a brother, half-brothers and sisters, mother and god daughter along with all their associated spouses and offspring (including many people whose names I knew from talking to Arlene but had never met:).
It was clearly a family that enjoyed one another's company, that cared for one another. Also I caught a glimpse of the same kind of eye twinkle that Arlene had in her mother's face (now I know where she got it:), once. Spirit and toughness along with good heart seemed to be the entire family's common trait. The forty-something couple that operate the funeral home were very much in evidence and very kind (much less ... mmm .... smarmy than others of their kind I've met).
The minister who led the service and offered the eulogy was a good preacher, I thought. The southern black tradition of 'church' behaviour was much in evidence (spontaneous comments of support during speech delivery - 'amen', 'hallaleuijah', etc - clapping, etc.) but I found that comforting, truthfully. My friend Patty thought he spent too much time 'talking about Jesus' - I expect she would have suffered through my Father's funeral just like I did. :P The music was wonderful - a gifted piano player and talented young female vocalist (whose name/relationship to Arlene I never caught).
The only odd note, for me, was that the 'remains' did not look like Arlene to me. Without her twinkle, her soul was definitely gone. (sniff)
We followed in the procession to the cemetary in Arubutus, MD and stayed for the internment ... then went to a family luncheon afterwards at the nearby Cowdensville AME Church. I had never heard of Cowdensville before so I had to go look up the history of the area later. The church was the smallest chapel I have every personally been inside - the cornerstone said the original building was erected in 1857. Apparently the Cowdensville area has been a black farming community for over 200 years - so long that no one knows for sure when it started, just that it has been continuously occupied for a _long_ time by American standards.
The church ladies laid on a wonderful luncheon with a generous spread of what I think of as southern Sunday Dinner comfort foods. I haven't eaten so well since the last time my Mom made Thanksgiving dinner for me - this was the kind of 'home cooking' that filled my childhood. (salivating at the thought) Lima beans (not fresh, dried and resoaked) in ham-hock broth, string beans with bacon, North Carolina style barbecue (rice and beans with gentle spices), real macaroni and cheese, sliced sweet country ham, fried chicken and a spread of cakes and sweets that I carefully avoided (I _am_ supposed to be dieting). The ladies were gracious hostesses, too. (Note to self - write a thank you note!).
One the way home Barbara, who has lived in the Catonsville area for many, many years, drove Patty and I around downtown Arbutus. The weather was glorious - warm and sunny, flowers everywhere. I hope I can remember how beautiful it was later - Arlene would have enjoyed the whole thing, had she been able to attend in person.
Linda
How Do You ....
... use your seam ripper?
Yesterday the Baltimore Modern Quilt Guild met here at the store and had a sew-in. As a soon-to-be dues paying member, I decided to take advantage and sew on a sort-of-sample project during the sew-in. :) What is best for mourning but some serious sewing, eh?
Unfortunately for my project, I got a number of phone calls during the afternoon, each one of them important enough that I needed to stop sewing and deal with the call (the perils of trying to work at _work_!:). Somewhere along about the middle of the third call I lost track of what I was sewing and made horrible (but correctable:) mistakes. (sigh)
I am working with a group of fairly new prints we have in the store that feature soft grays and yellows (see messy pile above:). This afternoon as I was trying to rip out my mistakes and restart the project, I started pondering seam rippers and techniques (the things my mind wanders off to think about while my hands are occupied:)
I know of at least four different ways to use a seam ripper to take out machine stitching - maybe you know another one? :) The first (and newest to me) is too scary for me to try - some astute sewists use a razor sharp cutter (I _think_ they are actually eyebrow shavers) to run down the line of stitching between the two layers of fabric and quickly cut every stitch apart.
The way I used a seam ripper when I was a little girl (I started learning to sew by machine when I was 8), was to pick out stitches one by one:
I'm not very good at this method - I tend to catch the threads of the fabric as I slice the sewing thread and often end up with holes in my ground. :P
The second method, that I became more familar with in my teens and early twenties, is to pull apart the two layers of fabric and cut out several stitches at once from the still-stitched joined fabric areas:
In order to really make this method work, you have to keep a fair bit of tension on at least one of the two fabric layers, but it is definitely faster than one-stitch-at-a-time! I still have problems with cutting the fabric threads sometimes, though.
The third method and the one I use most often now is to cut every third to fifth stitch along one of the sides of the sewn line ...
... and then turn the work over to pull away the thread on the opposite (uncut) side of the seam line. Zipppp ... away the stitches go:
I've seen demonstrators use making tape to pull off the little bits of thread left behind ... but I usually do it the hard way (of course!) and pick them off by hand. (wry smile)
How do you use a seam ripper? Maybe there is a better way I could learn? I've almost worked my way through half of the mis-sewn seams I did yesterday. Patience required!
Linda
Gratitude
Today is beautiful (though muggy) outside and I want to say some words of gratitude for the beauty of natural things. Even such beauty as you can find in my more-or-less-overgrown front yard. The season of Azalea Blooming is upon us here in MD - this is a photo of the only azalea left in our front yard.
The first spring after we moved into our current home (in '87) our front yard was full to overflowing with blooming azaleas. The previous owners had set out a beautiful array of the small bushes before we bought the house. Somewhere amongst my print photos there is one picture of the house floating in azalea flowers. :)
Unfortunately the soils in our neighborhood are infested with nematodes and fusarium wilt, both of which kill off azaleas and dogwoods. Over the years since we moved in all but one of our azaleas has died - maybe that one is resistant? No knowing as I am unwilling to tamper with the poor little greenery. Each spring it manages to put out a dozen or so flowers and I enjoy every one. :)
The first spring we moved in I also planted a slew of tulip bulbs in our front ... little did I know that I was setting out a scrumptious brunch for the squirrels. (sigh) This year I only found one little white tulip that had escaped their jaws.
The thing we _really_ have a lot of in our front yard it TREES ... and shade, of course. :) We have a beautiful bloodleaf Japanese maple tree that stays red all year long - this little baby tree growing in the middle of the pachysandra ground cover grew from a seed of that big tree. We have transplanted four of the various offspring over the years. Some stay red all year and have deeply 'fingered' leaves, some go green in summer. I think there is a great deal of genetic variation in this tree's bloodstock. :)
Anything that grows in my yard must be hardy - tough enough to compete with the six tall trees that guzzle most of the rain water - and to deal with the shade. That makes me no less grateful for the greenery, flowers and beauty that the growing world provides - especially this weekend as I continue to mourn for Arlene (who passed away on Friday afternoon, not long after I visited).
Linda
Despite the Sunshine ...
... I am feeling very mournful today. I took a mostly unpleasant adventure into Baltimore city today to visit a friend (and former employee) who is gravely ill. I just found out about this yesterday, very like a bolt out of the blue (as the saying goes). :( She has a very aggressive cancer and is on palliative care, not expected to live long. I just saw her Monday evening a week ago, so this was a huge surprise. (sigh)
She is being sedated for pain so I only visited for a few minutes. At 62, she has a strong heart so who knows how long she will linger. (tears) Her personal favorite 'neutral' color is bright orange and her personality has always been rather lively, to match.
I am missing her already and she hasn't even passed, yet. :( Some of the beautiful color has gone out of the world for me today.
Linda
PS If you have not had a GYN checkup this year, please go!!
