Commentary about works in progress, design & creativity
We all know, now, that not all wizards look like the wizard in Fantasia. Wizards look as much like Cornelius Fudge as they do like Harry Potter and Hermione Granger. Witches and wizards look normal. Still this wizards looks like he is spreading the magic up and down the street.
My brain is full, so this is going to be another catch up kind of post.
1. Bonnie McCaffrey – Bonnie did an vidcast interview with Paula Nadelstern around Paula’s exhibit at the American Folk Art Museum in New York City. The devil part of my brain is plotting ways to get to see that exhibit before it closes on September 13. A visit doesn’t seem likely from where I am sitting, though you never know and hopes springs eternal, but there is a catalog, Paula Nadelstern’s Kaleidoscope Quilts, which is a must have on my list. I like Paula’s two previous books. They spoke to the smart quiltmaker in me.
2. Kelly Rae Roberts – Kelly Rae Roberts wrote a book called Taking Flight, which I reserved at the Library, but hasn’t come in yet. You can read about the book on her website in the book section. She is more of a painter and collage artist than quiltmaker. I took some time with her site this week (minutes here and there) and love the fresh feeling. I am trying to find the right look/feeling for ArtQuiltmaker.com so looking at the colors and embellishments on blogs is a continuing task. One of the things I like about her blog is the house tour. She shows all the nooks and crannies of her Seattle home. My mind boggles at the cleaning that must have gone on beforehand!
3. Picking out Paint – I am famous for picking out the most expensive and hardest to get item in any category regardless of how much I know about the topic or category. We have been trying to find the right shade of red for our dining room. Currently we have Lowe’s Valspar Cherry Divine, and Tibetan Red from Lowe’s Waverly Collection. The Cherry Divine is ok, but very pink and the Tibetan Red was absolutely a deal breaker, because it was much too brown. My friend Jessica talks about the ‘taupefication of America.’ My general principles of advocating cheerfulness, and Jessica’s comments make me refuse to participate in anything smacking of brown in my house. This place in the process meant a trip to Benjamin Moore yesterday where we found the perfect red, Red Statement from Pratt & Lambert. Perfect. Absolutely the right red and $60 a gallon AND it comes in only one product. No samples and you have to order the gallon from the Benjamin Moore store in the sky or somewhere and no returns. Sigh. My knack strikes, and burns, again. We checked out several other reds, most of which were in the same category as the Red Statement. We finally ended up with B.M.’s Poppy and Rapture. We’ll see. You never know, we may end up with paint that costs $60/gallon on one corner of our dining room. Doubtful, but it could happen.
4. Beefing up the CPP – I really want more people to participate in the Creative Prompt Project (CPP). I love the artwork that comes every week from the current participants, but I want more!!! I thought that some people may not have a place to post their work, so I created a Flickr group where members of the group can upload their drawings. I hope you will take the time to join and upload your photos. I have also heard that publishers troll Flickr for emerging artists.
5. Good News on the Tarts – Finally some progress on the last bit of the Tarts. As you know, I have been toying with replacing the Flying Geese with something. I have drawing some larger cups, a stack of small cups, tried some mini-cupcakes, a whole variety of things. Nothing was quite right. I felt stumped.
I lean my rulers up against the wall and rest them in the hinged area of my sewing table. This isn’t a great location when I am sewing something that pushes against them. They tend to fall behind the sewing cabinet, which means I have to haul the thing away from the wall and hope that I haven’t broken a ruler. When I was working on the latest tote bag, I had moved them to prevent this situation.
This plus the 9K being on vacation allowed me to have a virtually unobstructed view of the lower right hand corner of the Tarts.
Those cups jumped out at me. I pulled the block off the wall and traced the cup. The pattern is long gone. I also flipped it so the handle will be pointing right instead of left. After a bit of fiddling with lines, I put the preliminary drawing up on the wall. Perfect. It is perfect in tracing paper, so I will need to audition some fabrics. I finally feel like I am back in business with this piece.
6. Vicki Welsh’s Field Trips in Fiber – I made her latest FFiF list again with the latest tote bag! What a thrill. The great thing about Vicki’s list is that it is a great pointer to other fabulous quilts and fiber projects. It showcases a lot of work that I might not otherwise see. Thanks, Vicki.
7. Glass Fusing – I am a big fan of those pottery places where you can paint the cup or plate of your choice. You might remember that such an outing was what I did for my birthday. A visitor at the recent CQFA meeting talked about a place, Create It where you could not only paint pottery, but also fuse glass. A small group of us are going there tomorrow to try it out.
For those of you without a place to post, and for those of you want to see all the creative prompt responses together, I have created a Flickr Group for this project. You need to join. You can do so at http://www.flickr.com/groups/aqcpp. Hope this is helpful.
Please continue to to post the deep link or URL to the comments section of the prompt. Thanks.
Magic is everywhere.
The Magic Kingdom.
Harry Potter and his magical adventures.
Wizards, witches, warlocks, fairies, fairy tales.
See the Creative Prompt page if you have questions about this project.
Post the direct URL where your drawing, doodle, artwork is posted (e.g. your blog, Flickr) in the comments area of this post. It will keep all the artwork together.
There is more information on the recently updated Creative Prompt Page.
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This is the Leopard Tote I made for my sister back in February. I am not sure why I never posted it. Here it is now.
It came back with me after my trip down south in June, because she ripped it along the spot on the inside where I turned the whole piece and then sewed it up by hand. This time, I sewed a bit, made a knot, sewed a bit and made a knot. I also warned the fast moving sis to not load it with heavy stuff.
Hopefully those strategies will keep it closed.
One of the great things about looking at new blogs for me is that my mind opens up and I look at things in a new way. Or I see the same things in a way that inspires me to think about them in a new way.
Thanks to Leah for stopping by and for updating her blog!
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You might think that this is the same tote I posted last week. It is, however, the opposite of the one I posted last week. I used the stripe for the main part of the fabric as opposed to the flower fabric, which I used for the accents this time.
I think that this may be the best tote that I have ever made. I don’t think that I made any mistakes (knock wood). One thing I did with this tote was sew on the button before I sewed all the pieces together. It was a lot easier!
I guess it is time to move on to another pattern. We’ll see.
I have come across some interesting websites lately. Also, many things have been running through my mind. As a result, today is Catch Up Saturday! That means that you get a bunch of random links, some photos that have been hanging around, and other miscellaneous stuff.
1. In my post, Caring for Tools, I talked about taking my Janome 9000 into be repaired. Cost=$$$$$. The monster needs a new screen; apparently it could not be recalibrated. What a shocker; I need to find a consulting job to cover the cost. Anyone want to buy a quilt? 😉
The cost notwithstanding, I have more good things to say about Lafayette Sewing Center. Before they started the work, they called me and went over the estimate with me very carefully. I spoke with Audrey who said that she wanted to make sure I wanted the work done and understood the costs so I wouldn’t get sticker shock. No assumptions there! Great service.
2. Suzanne Cabrera did a series of drawings of her home, which I really like. They are simple in an architectural kind of way. She has added comments about various pieces of furniture, which satisfies my need for words. She also has a sense of humor in her drawings, which I appreciated in her post about learning to cook with her husband. See them at her blog, An Open [Sketch] Book.
3. Felt Food (FF). I love felt food. It makes me smile. I first got interested in felt food when I heard CraftSanity podcast episode #66 (what else? My one source of craft information!) with the owner of Lilly Bean Market, Hillary Seabolt. Her sandwich is still my favorite. I saw some pictures of felt food somewhere recently and that has reinvigorated my Felt Food Mania and led me on a multi-day Felt Food Flickr Journey (F3J).
Flickr has tons of FF to show. There is a group called Handmade Felt Food with such fabulous creations as elaborate birthday cakes, cups of coffee and espresso, sushi, shrimp stir fry and a pancake breakfast and ice cream treats and I am also quite fond of Sam McLean’s full on turkey dinner and …. The list goes on and on. . I am going to save up for the felt gingerbread house. That is much more up my alley than making a real gingerbread house – or perhaps I’ll sew a felt one. I could put some of the decorations on with Velcro and change them. Or, perhaps I’ll buy one. You can also make your own FF from patterns created by Umecrafts or you can make a Lilly Bean Market cherry pie from the pattern on Martha Stewart website.
The F3J led me to general felt creations such as softies (we called them stuffed animals back in the day; apparently that term is no longer PC), including a journey around London by Lumpy Bear (made/arranged? by GiantButton), felt sea creatures including a Hammerhead Shark and squid and an unzippable ocean complete with islands by Lizette Greco.
You have to look at this stuff to believe it!
4. Stewart, Tabori & Chang and Melanie Falick: Once again, I was listening to CraftSanity podcast #30 the other day (I really do do other things besides listen to CraftSanity, I promise). Melanie wrote Knitting in America, seminal book on the state of knitting in the US. She is the craft editor at STC AND has her own imprint. WOW! I have heard of her before, because I love STC books and she is the editor who acquires them. I really loved hearing about her journey to that job and found a lot of similarities to my life (you can stop laughing now, thanks). She gave really practical ideas about getting a book published, especially in the area of writing a book proposal. Thanks, I needed that! That was really food for thought for me, since I have a dream…..
You can follow Melanie on Twitter at STC_Craft or take a look at her website.
5. Beth sent me this image when she lived in England. I had asked her to take photos of mosaics and tile. This is a particularly good design for quiltmaking, because it would just be squares and rectangles. Yes, you would have to plan a bit, if you were doing anything more than a 2 color quilt, but it would be quite stunning once finished. Note the L shape at the top.
6. Toy-a-Day: This project is definitely like the Creative Prompt (which you should join) but much more intense. The Wild Things characters, KISS, Pikachu, the Mario Bros, Michael Jackson and Michael Gorbachev are all included in this project. I noticed that the author has PDF downloads of some of his toys so you can make your own.
What do you remember?
Memory albums and scrapbooks help you remember.
Flash cards help you remember for tests.
Remember when?
See the Creative Prompt page if you have questions about this project.
Post the direct URL where your drawing, doodle, artwork is posted (e.g. your blog, Flickr) in the comments area of this post. It will keep all the artwork together.
There is more information on the recently updated Creative Prompt Page.
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As you may remember, I bought some fabric at Always Quilting on the day I went to longarm.
After finishing the Clear tote, I looked around for my next project. I had tote bags on the mind, so out came the fabric and off I went.
I cut out two totes. This is the one where the main outside part of the bag is made with the flower print from the Ginger Blossom line by Sandi Henderson. I have used the stripe fabric from the same line for the accents and the lining [inside].
One GREAT thing about this project, aside from geting a new tote bag out of the work, was that I learned to use the button hole function on the Jem. It is much easier to use than the button hole function on the 9000. Now I don’t have to go to Seattle in order to make button holes! TFQ’s machine makes GREAT button holes. The Jem button holes will be a suitable facsimile, not as good as going to Seattle, but suitable.
I have enough of the stripe to make another bag. It is already cut out, but I didn’t do very well making two bags at once, so I just cut both out and lined them. Once that was done I limited myself to sewing one at a time. I’ll sew the other one this weekend.
I also have some blue flowery fabric that I bought for a tote. Perhaps I will get that done as well. It feels like a good time to make tote bags. TFQ asked me if I was still using the Favorite Things Eco Market tote pattern. I am, but she made me think that, perhaps, I should dig out those other tote patterns I have purchased over the past year and try one of them out. I really want to try the Liesel tote. I am a really big chicken when it comes to 3D things, so I’ll have to gear up.
I have been thinking about big, thick, gold, French-Louvre type frames lately as we work on refreshing our living room project. I want to frame an old beveled mirror in that type of frame. This fits right into my thought patterns.
Laume also has some thoughts about inspiration. If you have someone who has inspired you, I would love to hear about it. Post your thoughts to the comments section and I may write about those comments later.
I come from a long line of needlewomen, some of whom I have written about before. One of my great grandmothers would crochet bread bags into little rugs. These rugs were pretty sturdy and we could wipe our feet on them when we came in from outdoors. They just got hosed off when became too dirty.
My mom tried the technique with plastic grocery bags and they worked ok, but weren’t as sturdy. Still it is a good recycling tip, don’t you think?
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