Day: April 27, 2008

Organization

It is very hard for me to accomplish anything if I am not organized. The first thing I do on any project is organize the pieces. I get a lot done, I think, because I am organized. It drives a lot of people close to me insane.

The fabric closet in my workroom had dropped off the organization list sometime in the last century. I have been flinging things into it randomly for some time. There was no space for me to get into to do anything. I knew I had to take everything out [EVERYTHING!!] and start over. There was no possible way I could face such an endeavor alone. TFQ mentioned it last year when she was here for PIQF. It had gotten so bad between times that this trip she convinced me it was time. I also asked her to help me clean it out.

I threw out, recycled, and organized, for Goodwill and Freecycle, a ton of stuff. It felt good. I have been on that binge for awhile in other parts of the house, but this was a major quilt/fabric related effort.

Sadly (or perhaps not), I didn’t take before pictures. I think that is, at least, partially a good thing. I do have the after pictures.

Closet Right Side: Quilts are on pants hangers and hung in the corner. File cabinet was moved closer to the door so I can file paperwork easier. Fabric bins that I use a lot were brought down, so I don’t have to crawl up to get at my fabric quite as much. We didn’t do much with the fabric bins, but have gone through them together in the past. I have also been going through them recently as I work through the bag project. I will go through them again in the future, I am sure.

Closet Left Side: The new drawer thingy is full of dots. Closest to the left side of the photo is a continuing part of the project. I have to get some crates to replace the bankers boxes for ‘current’ fabric. In the middle on that upper shelf is a weird bin (the style of the bin is weird) full of projects in process. They are organized, so I can find them, which is a good thing, because I would like to move through some of the projects that have been lingering. I also went through a lot of of my projects that were going nowhere and got rid of them. No point in keeping something that never even made it to my UFO list. A number of them were block exchanges from the early 1990s. Lots of teal went to people I hope will make great quilts for others.

We really needed one more day to get the project completely finished. We didn’t have it, so TFQ sent me to the Container Store with a list of items to buy. Above are the containers I bought to fill with stuff. The clear plastic garbage can is full of rulers now and I want to get another. After I filled it up, and amazingly all of my rulers fit, I decided that I didn’t like the rulers with instructions and packaging in the same container as the regular rulers. The other frosted garbage can was a ruler possibility, but the shape is wrong. I may actually replace one of my garbage cans around he house with it. I am definitely going to get another one of the clear plastic ones.

PS. I surpassed 450 posts yesterday. Thanks for reading!

Another One Night Stand, Part 2

At the end of the Nance O’Banion class today, we had to talk about what set us off in the direction we went and the themes we saw emerging our work. Both of my pieces were driven by the beginning of the class when Nance said to be open to serendipity and surprise. Because of the “personal pieces” I chose, the themes that emerged were themes that I had worked with in the past: One Night Stand and the Goddesses.

Nance’s class was full of different types of supplies and things to inspire us.

Rubber stamps lined up and ready to use in the books.

The book on the bottom is full of wonderful bits of embroidery and quilted books.

I was intrigued by the way she lined up everything.

This was waxed linen thread that she offered for our use. I used my own hand dyed thread.

We were supposed to bring three meaningful things with us. I wasn’t quite sure if she meant things we could use in our work or just things in general. I chose the former definition and these are the items I came up with.

Dots, of course.

The little woman figure is very like Desiree and I like her shape.

I am really into taking time for tea right now, thus the cup.


Cover: Here is the cover of the finished piece. I made this one MUCH smaller. We had less time for this second book and I wanted to accomplish a lot, if not finish the piece.
Page 1 and Page 2: First I went through and drew all of the figures. I alternated between the shape from the bead and the Desiree shape. The little figure on page 1 said that her name was Paulina. Not sure why or what her goddess responsibilities are, but there you have it.

After I was done drawing the figures, I went back and modified colors, sewed a bit, added beads. I think I want to stiffen the pages on this book as well.

Page 3 and Page 4: I merged the two shapes in the figure on page 3.

Page 5 and Page 6: Page 5 may be Referencia, but may be someone else. She did not reveal herself. The wings are a flash of brilliance, I think. The house in the Little Mother’s tummy is supposed to be a Gwen Marston house.

This is the end. I used a rubber stamp that I bought from Karenlee (finally!). You can also see the binding very well. It is called a stab binding. I still need to sign and date it.

Another One Night Stand

Today I made fast art again, which, on this blog, is called a One Night Stand. Start to finish is all one session. A One Night Stand here has nothing to do with sex.

EBHQ, the East Bay Heritage Quilters, had a workshop with with Nance O’Banion. She is the head of the printmaking department at CCA (formerly the California College of Arts & Crafts) and teaches, among other classes, book making. I mentioned, earlier in the week, that I thought this class would be interesting in the visual journaling department. I was correct.

Nance O’ Banion doesn’t teach many workshops, as she is a full time faculty member at CCA and doesn’t really have the time. She taught this workshop for EBHQ as a special favor and it was fantastic!!! First, of all, we worked quickly. I finished two books today.

Second, we worked with a limited “palette.” It wasn’t a palette in the sense of colors, but a palette in the sense of materials. She gave a us a group of materials and our job was to make something out of the materials she gave us and what we brought. Since I couldn’t bring my entire sewing room, this limited what I had to work with, but it was fine. It was actually great. I think working with rules, even if they are self imposed, makes for more interesting projects/pieces.

Third, Nance was a very nurturing instructor. Not in a gooby, “I want to be your best friend forever” kind of way, but in a “you can do great work and I will support you” kind of way. I would love to take a semester long class with her. She normally teaches bookmaking with paper and I don’t think I would mind taking that with her.

Fourth, she was really organized. She had a packet of stuff that she had prepared for us (magazine pictures, pages ripped from books, blank paper, etc. She also had a schedule, let us k now what it was and stuck to it. I really enjoy working in that kind of environment. I am good with deadlines. I am not bothered by deadlines unless I don’t know what they are.

Cover. My book came out a little big for the first exercise, but I used it anyway. I wanted to play a bit with the double meaning of One Night Stand. Remember, I didn’t have much time, so I did what I could. I could always add more to the piece. I think I will shore up the pages with some interfacing as they are very floopy.

Page 1 (left) and page 2 (right): The red and white motifs on page 1 are on the back of the fortune card (Nance’s words) that was in my prepared packet. I didn’t want to lose them by gluing the card onto the page, so I sewed it on with Laura Wasilowski hand-dyed Perl cotton and cut the back out so the motfs would show through. Page 2 just plays more with the meaning of One Night Stand.

Page 3: Here I wanted to get the reader’s mind out of the gutter and tell them that a One Night Stand is about creating quickly. It allows things to happen with my work that wouldn’t happen if I thought too much about it. I also tried to incorporate a piece of the motif of the iron grille with the shadows I saw in Seattle. I was a also trying to reintroduce the woman shape I used for Desiree. This was the first attempt of the day and she looks a bit wonky. This page had a bit of a problem, because I had cut a piece out of the yardage and didn’t realize it was in the middle of my book until I was well into. I had planned to have the camera peek through, but I didn’t line it up properly. I may leave it but I may fix it somehow (door? sewed on ‘patch’?) . We’ll see.

Page 4: At this point, things started to pop into my head and I would write them down. I was feeling like the piece was a bit word heavy, but just went with the flow. The pink card with the compass came in my prepared packet.

Page 5: Here I am back to a little bit of wordplay with the double meaning.

Page 6: The ‘think,’ ‘try,’ ‘do’ are relevant to creativity, I think, but they are also a take off on something that Yoda says to Luke in Star Wars, Episode 6: Return of the Jedi.

Page 7: While you see this page in the same orientation as the other pages it is actually oriented 90 degrees to the right, so you have to turn the book. This is one of my favorite pages, because it just told me what to put on it and I like the layering of the leaves.

Page 8: I wanted to have a closing credit, so I started on a “The End” page. They I thought of the phoenix rising from the ashes and new beginnings came to mind.

I’ll write about the second book later.

I stopped at New Pieces to see if they had interfacing for the bags and bought, in addition to the interfacing, the following:


The turquoise dots on the bottom will be a bag outside and the pink flowers with the black will be a bag inside for the white dots that I bought from fabric.com.