every-single-day

GONE PROTESTIN'

Me and my Man are protesting the Republican Convention in NYC. We want W to know we don't like him, his policies, or his cronies. We are not intimidated by him and his administration and will not be deterred from voicing our opinions of him.
Check out what Starhawk has to say.
Hope I see you there!

A Little Bit

This is a close up of one of the Gee's Bend baby quilts I am making. At first I thought the choice of thread was too colorful (I may still think it is), but it is growing on me. I think maybe it over shadows the hand-print fabric.

But having done almost all the quilting, I am not about to rip it out. These are baby quilts, you know. Spit, pee, dirt are all a part of growing up and these things are going to be used not hung on a wall to be admired.
I did give one baby quilt to a woman who hung the thing of her wall. I visited her one day, took it down, folded it up (it was a quillow) and gave it to her two year old daughter. The little girl didn't even know it was hers, didn't know it was a quillow, nothing! Geez.
Having received the last payment on a certain comissioned work of art, I promptly called a traveling sewing machine repair man to come and give the newest member of the family a tune up.

She has the ability to run at 5400 RPM, but is set to go at about 3400. Geez, sewing machine talk can really get me going. I bought her a gallon of oil, two new feet and had a light and bobbin winder attatched. After the sewing repair minstrel left I even had my Man apply some sassy stickers to her shiney lil' bod.
Doesn't she look purdy?

My Favorite Quilting B!+@h!

Elizabeth's Three Graces gets high honors in its placement at Art Quilts at the Whistler! And I must say, I love seeing our butts in a major showing of art!

News Flash!

It seems a certain gremlin has taken some pictures:

and:

hmmm... highly suspect!

Baby Gee News!
I have completed two Gee's Bend inspired quilt tops and basted them too.

One is for my cousins new son Jack, and the other is for our newest nephew Cameron.
I am taking a short break and am about to go up and begin quilting one of them. Stay tuned for further updates and thanks to everyone on the QuiltArt list for help with soft curve piecing.

Picnic, Meeting Fellow Travelers and Eating Fantastic Hummus.

Yesterday a few dozen of us gathered on Pier 45 in Manhattan for the first ever Everyday Matters New York City Chapter picnic. It was great fun. We looked at each others journals, traded tips, encouragement, and ideas.
Scott Clugstone showed me his beautiful handmade books, I wish I were more focused and was able to really read/see them! He made great black bean hummus too!
I met a soon to be import from Atlanta Georgia, Cynthia. She has landed her first job in Manhattan at a textile house! She is wearing a pink cowl neck shirt in the above photo. She has enticed me with descriptions of her felted bird nests, which I would love to see.
Julia Judge with her vibrant red hair and laughing eyes shared her self portrait which can be seen on Danny Gregory's site. She also showed me her Peerless watercolor sheets, which seem like a great idea for traveling with paint! I want to try them.

Here is a photo of Michael and David (my Man).
I was very happy that Joanna and Michael came- all the way from Hartford Connecticut to meet Danny and hang out with all of us.
Unfortunately, upon leaving, we discovered that their car had been towed and for no good reason! You would have had to be a detective to see the "No Standing" sign posted about 20 feet above eye level and parallel to the street they parked on!

Sharing Journals.
This is a photo of the fabulous Patti Gregory looking through my own journal.

After the event Patti, my Man and I went for about three too many glasses of wine at a small bistro in the village. We talked about marriage, meeting our spouses, watched people walk by and laughed from deep down in the belly.
Patti has a great spirit and falls in love with life and people easily, always a great attribute.
Danny and I are planning to do this again in 6 months so stay tuned!
And I should say, these photos were taken from Danny's web site with permission. My camera conked off at the most inopportune moment! See the rest of Danny's photos here.

The What and Where of it.

This is a basic idea of what I would like the two baby quilts to look like. It is a pop-up image because I am not so great at using photoshop as a paint program.

Here is a test run of curved piecing:

Now does that grey cat in the lower right corner have wonky eyes or what?

In these colors:

It looks like lots of color washed out of the red hand fabric. I am going to sit with it until the weekend and decide then weather or not I need to mix up a new color and put one more layer on.
I am a member of the QuiltArt email list, and when I have questions I post them to the list. The list is chatty but excitedly enthuiastic, it often carries info about Calls for Entry, challenges and much more. I delete more than I read but when I have a question it is answered tenfold and happily by very interesting and often internationally based folk.
Here are some of the links pertaining to curved pieceing that I received off the list:
Basic Instructions for Freehand Rotary Cut Piecing.
A Presser Foot Suited to the Job
and a link to an artist who uses curved pieceing in her work.

Up Next

This is some fabric I am making for two baby quilts that are on the agenda.
I am wanting to do them in the style of Gee's Bend Quilts seen here:
Click on this link (Blocks and Strips are pretty awesome) or this one (I like the 3rd one down on the left-click on it!). I may have to get the book from the library. I went to the show and am unable to find images of the pieces I fell in love with.
Something slightly off kilter, strong and more on the simple side. My colors will be much more vibrant than any of the quilts pictured in the above links. But hey, my name is Melanie.
This fabric was dyed, bleach discharged, overdyed and stencil/stamped upon. I got the technique from Colorquilts Studio.
The hands are from tracings I took of my two older nephews, one of the two quilts is for thier new brother. The other is for my cousins' son.
It seems that I won't actually be making quilts but quillows, which if you didn't know is waaaay better than a quilt.

In Other News

Odd tid bits today...

I didn't tell you that my Man and I went to see Festival Express at the AMC movie theater in Manhattan last Monday. If you scroll down on the last link you'll see a photo of the place. We needed to go up 5, count them: 1,2,3,4,5 escalators to get to our theater, and they spanned about 10 floors of the building.

The movie was fun but not great. The escalators were better.

Today we chose new wedding bands. We are coming up to our 10 year anniversary and we would like narrower bands, so we visited Wendy Lewis.
I am super excited: we are having a diamond that I inherited from my Guys mom remounted to suit our tastes! The rings we chose are not shown on the site... I promise some photos when the rings are complete and we have them in our possession!

Some of you may notice that I have stopped talking about any knitting. I was happily knitting the Must Have Cardigan, when I figured out my gauge was off. I lost steam for the project and am considering a change in my course of action! I feel the need to simplify.
I love the Boob Cozy, impractical but immensely fun. And come on, who does not need or want a boob cozy?
This project would also leave me with enough yarn to knit a hat...like this, or this, the later being one I could see myself wearing daily, the former would reinforce the feeling of being the savvy b!tch that we all know I am.
I love the Shimmer Shrug and think a shrug would be great for me at work.
Or the BPT, which would be the most practical and universally used item in the lot.
Suggestions are welcomed.

When I posted about Jewel, I also uploaded a recently finished piece I am now calling Connect to my gallery. This was a piece that I traded with the sassy Miss Shobhana from My Life in Stitches fame.

And as an update to my Boot Camp commitments? I am beginning to enjoy my band and weights workout, it is a tough workout! BUT my bod feels so good afterward AND I don't need to pay a monthly fee to do it. My daily walks are turning out to be 5 to 7 days a week walks, which considering how busy life is, I think is purdy darn good!

Completion

Sunday was my birthday, so this entire weekend was a party!
My mother and father made Dinner for my Man and I on Saturday: Linguini with canolini beans, spinach and shrimp paired with savory herb bread and salad, followed by a plum and blueberry tart.
Eating at my folks house is always a five star, better than any restaurant type event.
*****YUM*****
My Man and I went to see The Manchurian Candidate and then had dinner at the Lime here in town. Their food is always good. The movie was good, I would like to see the original and then see this version once again.
Bootcamp was my gift this year, and I am still seeing the results of that fantastic retreat come to fruition.
I was given a small and wonderfully exciting little thing. I now want to collect them. The packaging calls them erasers, I know better to think it such a humble thing!
Yesterday (where the above picture was taken) I hung out in the city and delivered a piece of art to Miss Andree! It was a nerve wracking but incredibly fun and liberating thing to do. Andree commissioned this work of art in April (I think). We worked together to create the imagery and we both grew into and through the experience. It certainly helped me to grow as an artist!
The original sketches were done in paint and then interpreted into textile art, Andree never saw the textile art as I made it. So I was nervous that she wouldn't like what I had done, would think the color choices too brash, something-anything. Never having hand delivered a sold work of art, I was nervous but I think she quite likes it.
So...

Click on the image to see the entire piece.