every-single-day

JJ makes my desk!

JJ sassy, talented, wench that she is, made this lamp for me.

I told her I wanted to make a shade for it and voila! She got an oiled paper shade for me to gussy up.
JJ can make a lamp of anything! She said she found the glass bottle at a resale shop and she drilled a hole into it, in order to wire it as a lamp. She says I can take the buttons out and fill it with whatever I want, shells, stones, seaglass, whatever! I just might but for now I am smitten with by I've got.

Because she filled the bottle with buttons, I decoupaged a sewing pattern onto the shade. I used both the pattern paper and the outside envelope (the white paper in the photo). Then I painted it using acrylics, paint pens and markers.
I love it. It gives a soft warm glow to the room as I use the computer.
I get to think about JJ and get warm fuzzies too.

He Threads My Needle...

I don't even know how many times I heard this song but it made an impression! Thank you Helen Humes.

Of course, when one person in the family gets sick, you both get it. Hacking, sneezing and coughing, we sat on the back porch drinking coffee Sunday morning. I looked at my Man and said, "I need to go to the crappy-crap (I mean CRAFT)-store and get some embroidery floss." I won't even mention the name of the store.
My Guy looks at me and says, "I'll go! What do you need?" He has done this before and I am always totally happy with his choices. He chooses colors that I would not have thought of, and more often than not his color choices give my ideas flair. He pushes me to think outside of my 'known'.

Remember; we are both sick.
This is what he brought home:

He also brought home two new pairs of socks but that could be a post all in itself. You should see my sock drawer.

So I got to work:

I do have a table, but it is covered in painting supplies right now. I like to paint in my journal, bead, embroider, sew and dye and surface design fabrics. It is a wonder that I do all these things and still obsessively maintain a web site and blog. So I embroider at my sewing machine.
I know this photo is a teaser but I am not ready to show more. It needs something more and I am not ready for outside influence quite yet.

Needless to say, sick or not, I have been having fun.
Thank you NS!!

My mom has been at it again. She is the Queen of Bread! Go see.

On My Wall Right Now.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. My family and I had a great day yesterday. We ate way too much and enjoyed one anothers company.
Today has been a quiet day. I have a slight cold, which I don't think is fair because I just had a cold about a month ago. These things happen.
Luckily my energy has not been sapped.

My design wall is full.
The Man is waiting for me to buy some new thread.
To the top and right of The Man are two of Elizabeth Poole's postcards, neither of which have been posted on her site. To my delight, one has a full page in Quilting Arts magazine under the Self Portrait challenge on page 64. Yeah for EJP!!!
Then you'll see a piece I recently made for my good friend JJ. Click it!! JJ has not seen this piece. I sent her an email asking her not to come here if she doesn't want to see it. I wonder about her will power... can she wait?

When I made this piece

for my mom, she couldn't wait! I bet JJ won't look.
I am going to have to photograph and uplaod it to my gallery because this is a crappy photo. What can I say? I want to post to my blog too!

Then there is this little gem:

I am working on making the tree pop. This piece was originally screenprinted in Jane Dunnewold's class. You can see me printing it here, click! Jane will ever be my hero. Thank you Jane!

Then, this piece, came out as a result of Jody's blog.

Jody is in grad school and is pumping out some awesome work! I went over to her site and bonded with the wood cut lines and the resulting pools of ink where her lines meet up. I have been quilting close fitting lines in my own work that speak to her lines.
This piece is not finished. It needs more layers. I don't know what it needs right now, only that it does.

Left Oeuvers!

Deb Lacativa came north and while up here visted my guild meeting this week. This was an event for me. Deb has helped me and had internet fun with me in the last year. She is the first person I truely bonded with after beginning to blog. Her emails make me laugh out loud. She was the carrot at the end of my day on tuesday and not only that but she made my day!
She gave me this fantastic hand dyed rayon and silk scarf!!! The nap is luxurious and holds color like nobodies bizness. It shines and shimmers and reminds me how rich I am. Rich to have such fabulous friends and to own such a beautiful thing.
She sells her stuff too!
Not only that but my love of fabric started with a rust colored hand made wide wale corduroy doll. This doll firmly cemented my love of nap in a life long way. I have worn this thing everyday since I got it and bragged about it too. If you don't see any scarves at her selling site, email her and ask! Her prices are just right for the holidays!

This is a photo of Deb with Jeri Riggs, who, being the queeen of the quilt world already knew Deb! I know it is a small world but I thought I had the corner on the Deb market!

Now I would like to talk about what comes to mind.
I am sitting and drinking a fabulous zinfindel: Eberle. Buy it and drink it while reading this post!
This weekend I went with my Man and had dinner with my mom and dad. Click on the word mom and you will see photos of some bread that I devoured!! My mom and dad could open a restaurant! I wonder why they don't, thier small town needs one!

I have been totally jazzed by these web sites:
Pencil Revolution. Now I marvel at the type of brain that would start a blog solely relating to pencils. But hey! I must be crazy too! You are reading this, right? But still. Do I want a pencil collection? Yes! Am I thinking abut the reviews found on this site? Yes. Did I stop in a store to see what pencils they have this week? Yes.
Insane.

Moleskine Art. Last week my Man bought me a new journal, now I want to see what everybody else is up to!

Tom Judd Everday. Again, I wish I had it in me! Perhaps I should sew a one hour thingie-is-it every-single-day. That is the name of my blog is it not?
Perhaps this is a self challenge. I am going to ponder it this week.

I guess that is all for now, though I want to post more. Dinnner is ready, you see...

Page 2

I am a wimp. When I begin a new journal, I start on the second page. There was one journal that I started painting on the first page and I still don't like my results. So page two it is.

I use collage techniques, gouache paints and patience. This painting took lots of patience. I kept messing up and forcing myself to stay with it. I like it now, though I was bummed out about it several times in the course of painting it.
All of this is done in a new Moleskine sketchbook, which has become my journal of choice. It has stiff Bristol Board like paper, a pocket in the back of the book to hold found objects and needed information, and an elastic band to keep it all tidy and neat.

I love to go on internet jaunts. And this one is going to make me get my credit card out...
Pencils.
All of this was after a day of painting in my journal which is addictive in itself. But really if you think about it, it makes sense that I would fall in love with pencils after a day of painting. Here is the blog that started it, Pencil Revolution. As I was reading a post by the seemingly crazy Humdog, I began to think what a good idea it would be to go pencil shopping today.
On
my
day
off, when I usually sew, all-day-long.
I don't like to shop, don't like the thought of going out either.
It is probably a good thing though. Good that I found these pencils online, that is...

Click on the photo to find an online store that sells them.

This whole jaunt started off because I had to see what the folks over at the Moleskinerie were doing. I don't think I like them anymore. They are a bad influence.

Now I am shutting off my computer entirely (if I don't I will venture down here to check email and get lost in distraction). and am going up to my studio to sew all-day-long.
No shopping, no distraction.

Ssh!

This is some of the cloth that I have made recently. I will be updating my textile gallery over the next month or so, so keep a look out!

My questions to those of you who also make cloth:
Do you use your cloth as soon as it is finished?
Do you make cloth as art and not "use" it?
Do you hoard it?
Is it difficult to cut into?
If you use your cloth, do you feature it in your work or does it become another color in your palette?

These are my answers to these questions:

Do you use your cloth as soon as it is finished? I use my cloth as soon as I finish it.
Do you make cloth as art and not "use" it? See above.
Do you hoard it? I don't hoard so much as I use my cloth and continue to make more.
Is it difficult to cut into? No it is not difficult to cut into. it is just cloth and I do have 60 yards of it in white if I need to make more.
If you use your cloth, do you feature it in your work or does it become another color in your palette? My cloth becomes a color in the pallette of the work. I don't feature cloth.

Geeky Excitement!

60 Yards of #419 Bleached Mercerized Combed Broadcloth is coming my way! Last time I bought #453 Bleached Mercerized Combed Broadcloth SANFORIZED, which is more expensive- but decided that it is not worth it to me. The #453 is tougher on my hands when I embellish. It holds color wonderfully, but is is like iron stitch through! So #419 it is!
I love that I can get excited about purchasing 60 yards of white cloth. They will also be sending me a sample of thier silk organza. Yum!

I have also been working on The Man:

No, he has not become Frankenstein. But he does have a bolt and some hex nut tools now. All good men need some loose screws to tool around with.

I just wanted to put another update up on the blog.
Now that I have played with this post and seen some snapshots of The Man, I think I am ready to go work on the upper left hand corner of the piece. Sometimes it just takes courage and a break.
When I first started sewing OVER my quilt stitches, that took couarge. I kept thinking, what happens if I don't like it? I couldn't rip out what I had done. I am over that fear, but I have to figure out how to do what I want next!
NO FEAR!

New Work Posted

I recently decided to finish this 4x6" piece. I made it years ago and didn't like it. I knew I might still like it sometime in the future and it seems, the time is now!

This is an entirely new piece. It is based on a photograph of Nina Simone, one of my favorite jazz singers. I can just hear her belt it out while gesturing like this.
Thank you Nina! You've made me sing, laugh and cry. Good job.

If you want to see this one larger and with a detail shot, you will need to check out my gallery. This is finished.
I had a bunch of fun doing it and can see some further explorations with some of the images within this one. I named it Thanks Andy because of Andy Goldworthy, who inspired the embroidery in the top right corner. Rent the documantary Rivers and Tides, you'll see what I am talking about. Fabulous movie.
So all of these are up in my gallery pages.

My Man and I went to an art show today. I just have to say that I love the work of Baptiste Ibar.