every-single-day

Blog tour, please join.

Studios magazine is hosting a blog tour, you don't have to have a nice studio, a clean studio, or a dedicated space at all. Here are the rules.

I know I have already shown you my sewing room, but a few new things have gone up and I can't resist something like this so, you will be able to see that and my dye space (in the middle of my 750 square foot Brooklyn apartment) on Saturday October 3.

And because it will be such a great event, I am going to host a give-away on October 3 too. Perhaps a piece of cloth of my own making. So stay tuned.

And I have one more request. If you are a regular reader and plan to participate. Please leave a comment here so I can virtually tour your studio too.

And because I joined this contest, I ask you, please go vote for my piece called Happiness in the small projects category? Pretty Please.

Welcome back!

Arrow is a little ginger favored sweet meat. I love him. Because baseball season is in full swing, I now call him A Row. A little New York City humor for you.

Can we all take a deep sigh of relief on my behalf? Thank you.

My creative mojo is back. Do you know when you create a large piece, the edges are bound, the hanging sleeve is attached, the rod is even bought, cut and drilled. Everything is complete. The next day you wake up and...
...crickets.

What next?

...crickets.

That is how I have been feeling since I completed writing my book. I had even begun to think, maybe this is the end. Maybe I am an opus sort of person and quilting is finished for me. My goal is achieved and I need to start moving on. Sad thoughts, those.

About a month and a half ago, I started wondering how to move, push and knead myself back into the center of my creative picture. Journaling works for me. Knitting has been working too. At least it gives me quiet focus, which can be good.

The tanager from the last post sparked creative interest and I have begun a large wall hanging in cloth inspired by it. It is too formative to show though.

David and I went away this week and I promised myself to create at least three drawings in my journal when I was away. Two really good drawings came from this promise. I am not finished with this painting, but I am happy with it so far.

Today I am off to teach at the City Quilter. Wish me luck!

Those Tanagers

It is no surprise that I am a bird geek. I love 'em. Birder's World magazine is my drug of choice. I get a new issue and closet myself in quietude until I have turned every page and looked for the best bird photo, checked out my must-read articles and sneaked a peek at birding tour advertisements.

Drawing from photographs is so much easier than from life when it comes to birds. They have a way of flitting and moving about that is not conducive to getting them on the page! This drawing was inspired by a photo taken by Glenn Bartley

So anyway, my latest issue is here and I have been pouring over it. It turns out Tanagers have been reclassified and now reside in the Cardinal family. This Tanager is a Western Tanager and I am lucky enough to have seen this bird in person back in Flagstaff. Well, maybe not this exact bird.
((I hope the above link works; it may be that you need a subscription to the site, I hope not--It would be fun if you could do a side by side comparison to the photo-to see where I have deviated from the original))

My scanner is too narrow to show the entire piece in a single image, I gradated the background and the bird is perched in the middle right of the page. I didn't get the eyes quite right, mine are rounder than the photo and I could stand to make my darks darker. But I love the spirit of what I was able to catch in the painting. I used transparent watercolor on the ground and the bird and opaque watercolor on the branch.

If any of you have read my most recent journaling article in Cloth, Paper, Scissors, you might want to know that I used paper frisket to first resist out the bird, and paint the background. I then removed the Frisket and painted the bird.

I may continue to work this page... I sorta think line drawings from the botanical garden would compliment the bird quite nicely. Time to pen shop... I need new pens (devil grin).

That's how we sing.

David and I were walking to Fairway last week and David gave me a lesson on street talk. He told me of the phrase, "That's how we roll". He'd heard our neighbor say the phrase and apparently it wasn't the first time he'd heard it. So, I come home and look it up on Urban Dictionary. As I am poking around at the site, I find the phrase, 'That's how we sing'. Which fits this post quite well, I think.

A few weeks ago I was contacted through email by a woman I do not know. Apparently, she knows Kathy York, a facebook friend, whom I am unsure I have met in person. Though I do frequent her blog. Kathy told her friend that I might be a likely recipient for a boat load of dyes. Mostly unopened, in colors I have never used! (Dye was bought, then a pregnancy put a hold on their use).

Has the dye faerie descended? It feels like it. I mean, these things are NIB. (You have the tools, look it up!)

I have a growing collection of bird planters. The robin on the right is my third and most recent acquisition. There is also an as yet UN-photographed pelican.

As my pheasant and robin seem to be high on friendships, I thought it might be fitting to say that I am finally feeling comfortable here in Brooklyn. I am making friends with the place. The struggle has left me and I feel as though I am now able to relax into and see what Brooklyn has to offer and how I might contribute.

The gift of dye has made me want to see if I could rent studio space for a day and gather some knitters and spinners together for a Dye Studio Day.

While I still have a few deadline pieces to wrap up, I am planning to get out and explore some too. Prospect Park is not all that far from where I live and they have an Audobon Center. I guess it is supposed to rain for the next few days though. So, I should go. Quickly.

I wanna win.

Mimi is having a give away, you can get in on it too. Even though, I want to win, fair is fair.

I like to Dye.

These little things are what I have been so crazed about. I have been making them by the armful and am preparing to sell them along with dyed embroidery flosses, Pretty Purses and other yummies over at my new Etsy account. Keep checking back as I learn how to use it and update it with more items later in the week.

Last week I went to Southside Coffee and drew, well, the street sign outside the joint. Now I have to say. I have never taken a drawing class about perspective and truly wish I had. I have learned to draw by evaluating relationships between objects. I tend to look at and draw negative space. Now that I live in a city where everything is angles and perspective I feel the challenge to learn a more regimented approach to perspective.

I was sitting over a different cup of coffee with David and thinking abouyt this challenge and decided that what I need to do is take a photo of the thing I would like to draw and play with rulers and tracing paper. I need to give myself a visual idea of what I am looking at. I am a visual person, after all.

Today is a video Prompt day. I uploaded this challenge last week, and perhaps you have noticed it in the widget over to the right. Bad blogger! Lazy blogger! Oh well.

Today I began playing around with dye and noticed I have no soda ash soaked fabrics in storage. So I unrolled 4 yards, cut them into 1 yard pieces, I find that is my most manageable size.

I scrunch each piece of cloth separate of one another, to make it easier to separate once they are sodden. Then I stack them one atop the other in a 2 gallon bucket.

Once that is complete, I pour the soda water over the cloth and allow it to soak for a 1/2 hour.

Then I hang them to drip dry for as long as it takes.

Now My Man and I just moved from a seven room house to the three room apartment. I dye in 1/3 of what any normal person would call their living room. And because we do not have access to outdoor space, I drip dry on the tub. The caveat to this system is that I am diligent about cleaning drips and spills. The tub gets washed after each drip dry session because I do not want to find out what soda ash can do to porcelain if left to its own device.

I tell you all of this for several reasons. One because I want you to know that working in no-space-at-all is possible! Where there is a will, there is a way. I love working with dye. I love its luminosity, the soft hand, the color. I love they way thickened dye lays down when painted with a watercolor brush.

Some folks hold themselves back from working with dye because there is a skill set and knowledge base involved. It also requires an investment. It also... takes space. But, not too much. just a 1/3 of a room, if you can manage it.

Heck I started dyeing in an apartment and I bought myself a plastic box and stored everything I needed at the time in that box.

The investment part can be handled over time, a few dyes, three primaries, if need be. Soda ash, thickener and some cloth. Get the smallest amounts if that makes you feel better! You will soon be cursing me for starting you down a slippery slope, but that is my job!

And while I am at it. A good reader has alerted me to a misprint on Page 17 of Inspired to Quilt. (BooHoo!!!!Waaaa!)
In the paragraph entitled:

Mixing Dye Concentrate:

IT SHOULD READ
To mix dye concentrate, you'll need a funnel, a jar, water, and urea pellets. Using a funnel, put 2 tablespoons of urea pellets in a 16 oz jar. Add 1/2 cup hot water, cover, and shake until dissolved.

The 1/2 is missing in that second sentence.

Go mark up your book and kiss the page for me. Tell your copy that I said, I am sorry. :)

And here is your next challenge.

The next challenge will be even more interesting. I will put you up to playing with and mixing color! I have started the next vid prompt already.