Because I love hand sewing, I fired up a project prior to leaving for Spain. I packed my bags with paints, my journal, this project, clothing and a camera. Unlike any previous trip, I hardly took my journal out.

Instead, it was a race to the next coffee shop, a need to photograph inspiration at every turn and lovey moments of reprieve with a needle and thread.

I love the sound of the needle piercing the cloth. It is a tiny violence, a quiet sigh, the security of fiber attached to fiber.

And when the piece is complete, the texture of the sewn cloth is amazing. I fell so deeply in love with this project, I threatened to continue on with it, even after I knew it was complete.

I didn't expect this project or this idea to take on any extra meaning or force, perhaps being taken out of my comfort zone, country, listening to Spanish, looking at all things foreign gave this bag significance beyond measure. This left like a story in the sewing, exciting and liberating too.

I am reconfiguring my hand dyed thread class to have this project as the end result. I will need a pattern tester. Any takers?

The title of this post is apropos to none of its content. Rather I think it would be a great name for a band and it seems band names are getting longer.

My Journal Study Group has created a tradition where we make tags for one another. These can be based on anything, a fleeting inspiration, a class taken, a technique tried out as a group. Because we have a mutual addiction to fun foam, I created a tag based on Barcelona inspiration using one of my newly made fun foam stamps. I tried to make the tags look graffiti-ish, because that is part of the deal (for me right now). The string is made of a fragment of map from the trip.

I was able to meet Pat's imaginary-friend-made-real Scott, he got a tag too. I hope I get to hang out with him again.

New tiny camera=mission to document things that inspire! All arrows point to goodness! Some point to play dates with pals, some are soft and furry.

We drew in three sessions. Each session lasted about forty-five minutes, after which we would each put our sketchbooks into a central spot and admire and talk about each one.

Shirley even shows off her awesome paint box, which is small and very portable.

I am really proud of Shirley. Or, well? I am happy for her. Hm. I met Shirley 11 months ago in Houston. In the 11 months I have known her, she has grown creatively by leaps and bounds. She has been applying herself to her art, drawing often, daily I bet, painting, trying new things. She is alive and ready, willing and able. I stood behind her today and watched her draw, knowing I could learn from her.

I am not great with perspective, but there is no time like the present to start learning.

While at Create Retreat a few weeks back I visited Alisa Burke's classroom. It was filled with great art supplies and you know how shiny other people's art supplies can look, right? So I used her headphone stencil and her city skyline stencil (you can see reference to Alisa's Swag in this video). So I had a page started when I began this page.

And here it is. I think it is done.

And you know? When I returned from Barcelona. Walked the streets on my little town within a city? I felt happy, proud, at home. I love it here. This feeling has made itself known and is blossoming. But this return? This was IT.

Today I went to a local quilt guild meeting and was waiting for some gals to gather and grab a bite (I am truly a spoiled New Yorker!). I stood outside warming up (air conditioning) and looked down at the corner between the church and the pavement. There were many red paint drops and a few grey. I almost took a photo when I stopped myself, wondering what I saw in the little tableau.

Yesterday I went to the Book Arts Center and distracted my friend Shanna from printing up a storm. Perhaps she printed up a gale instead. I took photos and this is the least of them.

I love the odd geometrics that can be found in the city.

And now I want to take a class in letterpress. Shanna says it is fussy and that I will need to take a class from a loosey-goosey teacher. She should know and I won't fight her on this.

After distracting my gal pal, I went to Kinokuniya Books, a fab place for a rice sandwich and a 'carrot biscuit' otherwise known as a carrot cake cookie filled with cream cheese frosting, Japanese sewing books and office supplies!

I ate the cookie in Bryant park....um. YUM

Which is where I saw this great reflection.

And this Yellow Throat Warbler, female, juvenile. She whipped past my ear, chirped and flitted through the grass in search of bugs! I fumbled and got a photo. All this photography? Thanks for the encouragement to purchase a tiny camera, Pat

And, ever a lover of carrousels, I visited this one for this first time.

This week, I went to see Emily Wells in concert. As I sat in the audience and watched her, really looked at the stuff she was doing, I was amazed. She is so young and so 'in it'. I am really happy to hear she will have a new album out soon.

Then I listened to this podcast again, where Robert Krulwich and Malcolm Gladwell talk about 'The Secrets os Success'. What I got from it was that successful people remain committed in almost a romantic way to their focus, and they do the 10,000 hours of work that it takes to become successful. This time or this commitment of time, will then make connections that would otherwise be impossible.

And I have been working on my pouch, or fanny pack, to give it an antiquated name. I started this project in order to have hand work during my trip. Then it morphed and became a project of inspired connectedness. I started to document my trip and incorporate graffiti, place names, telephone numbers and ideas related to the trip into the embroidery work.

I am about to finish this wonder-filled project. I will stop in a notions store and find the proper belt or cord, and I will show completed photos soon.

But in the meantime. How do you remain inspired? What makes you alight in wonder, what makes you stop and think? How do you incorporate those moments into your work and art?

A few months ago Iris from Mistyfuse asked me to create a project for an ad to be launched in the 2010/2011 Quilting Arts Gifts magazine. I was happy to do so.

And well, I also have an article in Quilting Arts Gifts called Wee Memories! So not only do you get a freebie tutorial here on my blog, I do hope you will go purchase your copy of the mag today! Here is a Wee Memory teaser!

And here is the Pinbook Tutorial. Pinbook.pdf <------Click it!

I taught a class at The Ink Pad, in the city today. We covered stamp and stenciling making while creating papers to be used in scrap booking, mail art and collage.

In keeping with my new found obsession of (vacation inspired) street art, I kept focused on the goose image. The paper shown above is particularly fun because it tells the story of the man and boy (the hand image), with the Goose (the stenciled image of the bird), visually at least.

This paper shows the goose, stamped this time, along side my rendition of the heart/eye image seen below.

The heart/eye image is a lot of fun. This graffiti is really making me think. I get tired of my reliance on wanting to draw to perfection. I would like to embrace a more intuitive and loose approach to drawing, I would like to draw like a 4 year old and be OK with it. So working with and interpreting the graffiti is helping me think this through. Good stuff.

We are back, re-entering slowly and with love and care, tea, naps, and a lil making.

Barcelona, Spain, I suppose, though I can't say I have been to anything other than Barcelona and Bilbao, seems to have a rich tradition of street art. I fell in love. For as many museums and cultural institutions we visited, I had my eyes peeled for interesting scrawls, stencils, stickers and murals.

And the thing I like best about all these scribbles, scrawls and daubs was the layered, random effect they had as a whole. As I was hand sewing some ideas and connections began to form, I was reminded of this year's words and focus. Street Art and Graffiti are random. One person scribbles and writes over another's work. Almost as if a spirited conversation.

So, upon returning home I began looking through my photos and reminiscing. In this post you see the goose, up close. A man and his son were feeding the goose, the man reached out and grabbed the goose's beak. The goose hissed but didn't move away. I loved this. So I took the goose scrawl out of the mix and began making stamps and embroidering the image.

I am not finished with this yet, but I am working on it. This will be a fanny pack, of sorts. I was thinking perhaps I would reconfigure my hand dyed embroidery thread class with this project in mind... and give the class directly off my own site... would you take it?

Oh! The sea glass! Some is for you Mom!

Tomorrow we return home, bittersweet and filled with good times. I will hug and pet a certain white and black wonder and we will settle back in. This time with My Man has been so much fun, I am a lucky woman.

Casa Mila

Bar Mut

I will be Teaching "Let's Exchange some Art" through The Ink Pad in New York City, Sunday, September 19 (scroll down). I would LOVE to see you there.

But... I am sewing.

My Man and I prepare to vacate, to take a much needed break. Our first vacation in at least five years. Luckily for me, a cash haul came through the mail which neatly covered the cost of a small pocket camera. It is amazing how cheap cameras have become. I think I could have gotten a slightly better camera, but that is nit picking.

So I came home and made a quick and dirty bag for the lil guy, it is made from a class quilt I made at least ten years ago. This is basically the same pattern I used to make the Pencil Case. The dangling threads make me want to whip stitch the edges, but.

Instead of focusing on that, I have created a trip sewing project!

I see this as a cargo pocket, Boro style fanny pack. I will design as I go, I am not sure the black plastic clip will remain in the mix, but we will see.

I had to put the traditional quilting aside until my return. I made so many mistakes! Geez. It became stressful.

Now, it is time to slow the world down and enjoy ourselves.

I was going to title this post something to the effect of 'Artist Goes Traditional', but then this title came to mind and here it goes...

When I was asked to participate in a quilt block challenge, I jumped on the opportunity because I like the women who are running it, they are local, I want quilt friends and well, traditional quilting is a Challenge to me. For me. Let's also put aside the fact that I can do this in an artful way...but that isn't a challenge, so I won't be doing that.

Do you like:

This one? With the orange blocks.

Or this one? With the red blocks?

And if you want me to show you the wonki-torial trial version, I will upload phhotos of that too. But I am hoping not. Because. It. Is. That. Bad.

Oh my goodness, that was fun! This was a very exciting and excited retreat. I am amazed at the energy. I felt like I was surrounded by my people. It was invigorating, inspiring, tiring and wonder full. I would love to do it again!

I took Judy Coates Perez's Tea and Ephemera class, I taught three of my own classes, the Freezer Paper, Paint, Oh my! class got gypped in the video department. But it all went really well.

Check out Pat Gaignat's blog for further tales on our exploits.

And purchase or open your copy of the Sept/Oct issue of Cloth Paper Scissors if you want to know the stamp making technique that Pat taught me! Geez! There are alot of links in this paragraph.

If you were a student and would like to share your art with me and my blog, I would love to post your photos and comments.