every-single-day

My Mom did this

My mom found this site, organized and perhaps even wrote this promotional piece about me! PLEASE scroll down and then click "read more" at the bottom left of that text box.

Can I just say how excited I am and how grateful that my mom is looking out for me?

Work it, Baby!

I have been working like a mad woman! I am still trying to get this blog in tip-top shape. If you want to tell me your opinion about the look, please do. Holly H. told me that perhaps I need to put some color in the borders or over in the right hand side. I am trying to figure that out. So things might change up in the next few days and your say may well influence what we will look at in the months to come.

One of the things I plan to do surrounding the book is to have Video Prompt Challenges. I will ask you to purchase my book and get your head around the techniques described. Then every few weeks, I will post a video, prompting you to complete a challenge. We might make and use stamps, work with monoprinting thickened dyes, I don't know-but we will have fun! But here is the intro I am working on:

Believe me! I am no video editing diva! I struggled to figure this out! It took several hours and much swearing. Then I had to find a copyright free piece of music! This is no easy task, let me tell you! To find upbeat generally suitable music that won't offend or give the wrong impression? A piece of music that has good timing too? Then learn a new program on top of it? Oooof. Ouch. But all is well.

I have Kevin MacLeod to thank for the musical intro.

So. I have been back from Chicago for 4 days.

Chicago Quilt Fest was A LOT of fun.

Holly Holloway was there and she told the most adorable story about watching Quilting Arts TV, her daughter and 'Hanging out with Pokey'. So I had to take this picture to commemorate the event.

I got to hang out with Kelli Perkins whose art, I love! She, too, is coming out with a book; Stitch Alchemy (don't you love this name?), and we need it. Her voice is strong.

And then, a kindred spirit and sister in Tiara Famous-ness, Cheryl Sleboda.

I know this photo is blurry but Cheryl is just plain happy. And it captures her...ness. I fell head over heels for Cheryl. She is my best new Festival Friend Forever (if I were texting she would be my FFF).

And, well. Pokey made great fun! We had a Surviving the Runway, Tiara making party. There was a Prom King, there were prizes. Pokey is my FFF too. I love her. So... Long Beach Anyone? Is there a Video Prompt Challenge in this? I think so!

Sample

This is not my simple sample.

This is my, you can get real fancy with this technique on your own, sample.

In true Melly Testa fashion, I completed my Chicago Quilt Festival samples today. I was given quite a bit of fabric (thankfully!), and figured I should show folks how to enhance and utilize the cloth and colors available. By the end of the day, I had five samples. I thought i'd done three and wondered if I had enough.

I usually do too much.

I like seeing lots of samples. I like seeing what works, or doesn't and being able to analyze why and what is happening to make me like the work (or dislike it). So my style is to inundate. Some folks like being told exactly what to do to achieve a particular result. I am wishy-washy on this point because the final analysis on this point is experimentation and making mistakes.

Luckily, paint is a very forgiving media to work in! If you mess up, the opaque nature of this paint will cover and hide your flubs.

I love flubs.

I need a t-shirt that says, 'I love flubs'.

I need to say, one more time, it feels great to make stuff and be able to post about it!

Slow but...

Today, Arrow and I started the day in the studio together. Working in an open sewing room with Arrow is not easy. He likes to eat thread, so I need to learn to be fastidious and clean up as I go. But he sure is pretty, isn't he? And this an interesting city street, isn't it?

This is the first piece of art made in our new home. It feels good not to have to keep it secret, as I did when I wrote the book. I will embellish this at the Chicago Quilt Show for Open Studios next week.

I have been gathering supplies to teach the Freezer Paper Resist technique at MIU. Thankfully Jacquard Products has given me some Neopaque Paints to use, these are my favorite paints and I am happy to be able to offer them to my students and fellow quilt artists to try out!

Then I contacted Marcus Brothers Fabrics and they kindly donated some fabrics to paint on! Some prints are From Nature Batiks and the Softeak Batik line. Both are perfect and painterly for the technique I will teach.

Now I just have to get a few other easily found items.
Almost ready!

Try and try alike

Hi.

Here is my first effort of art making in my new life, apartment, town and lifestyle,

and here is the hungry little devil welcoming spring and change and the mere fact of being. All will be well.
It is a work in process!

So much is happening right now. Have you seen this?
Or how about...
I will be in Chicago in two short weeks, and I will be teaching at Make It University.
FUN STUFF.
If you plan to go, I want to meet you!

Then, there is a thing I love to depict in both my journal and in my quilt art. And while I am finding very interesting things on the street and along side trash cans and stoops, there is a great opportunity in this city life to take photographs of chairs...

Can I say that I am now on a mission to collect photographs of chairs?

This is a full living room set! Shabbily chic by even the best of standards, but, really! I nabbed an errant piece of cloth off this display of sidewalk debauchery. I am not proud. It is silk and has images of pomegranates on it. And, well, because of Persephone, I love the symbolism of pomegranates.

So. Sew buttons on your underwear.