No Photos :(

Alas, the USB ports are all broken, so although there has been much activity here, I cannot show you any of it :(

Nor can I show you the three new cats. Yes, three. I am becoming a batty old cat lady. We adopted two kittens, one from the local PicknPay notice board and one from the SPCA, and then while we were at the SPCA an adult tomcat SEDUCED us. I kid you not. He was ALL over us and so loving that we caved. He was neutered yesterday before we brought him home and he has been very grumpy ever since, and, I suspect, sore. Poor Matthew.

Mickey and Snape are the cutest and can't understand why the adult (cats) are so grumpy with them...

I have cut a gazillion strips and sorted through numerous old boxes of scraps, turfed out 5 bags, which will go out with the rubbish on Monday, and ironed all the ones that will be cut. A GOOD cleanout. The other fabric is stowed in the 3 lockers I bought at an auction once. They are open-mesh lockers, and my long-term goal is to reduce my fabrics to fit into these 3 only. I have way too much "junky" fabric (i.e. fabric I don't much like) and want to move it out of the way by making some scrap/charm quilts (possibly to sell).

At least that's the plan.

I have also made a few other things, but they will (sadly) have to wait until I can post pics. But I am Having Fun, which is a Good Thing.

Great fibre art blogs I've found

Fembellish Journal by N. Rene West

Layers of meaning by Serena Fenton

A bed quilt....??

I'm fond of reading the blog of Melody Johnson and she is currently busy PIECING a quilt. Suddenly this idea appeals to me too! (Sorry, I'm being such a copycat) The idea of cutting reams of strips and just sewing strips together sounds sooooooo soothing. And it would be fun to sort lights and darks again and work with tonal values. Melody, you may just have started something.... :)

The last one I did was with solid colours, but I have tons of printed scraps. Uh-oh.

Melody mentions Pie in the Sky Quilts which have some very yummy designs. I've also enjoyed this site, for designs: FreeSpirit although I've never made any of them. And for free quilt patterns you can't beat Free Quilt Patterns.

the reason why

I have been cleaning up, clearing old debris and organising papers, I found this piece I wrote about 12 years ago and since it relates to my art, I thought I'd post it here. It was written during my very long recovery from post-natal depression.

~~~~

I wandered around the exhibitions of art at the Arts Festival, reeling from the awe in my heart. The "high" art, the everyday art, the art that is a tribute to beauty and endeavour. I fearfully tried to let the beauty permeate; I tried to allow it inside, to feel it. I struggled with the fear; I wanted to run from it; I wanted to shut out the beauty and the light but I could not close myself, and then, at one moment...

... the beauty, the joy broke through my defences and touched my soul. At that point the tears arose and I felt pain. I stood, my heart tearing, joy and pain, fire and rain, mingled in a searing instant. I wanted pain, the familiar pain, not joy, but joy was not to be denied. And joy, once it came, did not come alone, there was no escape in the beauty, nowhere to hide from the pain.

... and I knew... the was the very heart of my life, the essence of my being, my reason why. The reason the cold tears run down my face while the warm blood runs through my veins. The reason why both must keep flowing...

... and I knew pain was not less than joy and joy not less than pain and that choosing life was to allow both, for in that, there is no choice.

Could it be...?

I do believe I am starting to feel better.... (she says cautiously and hopefully!) This is the time when I sing the praises of science, research and yes, pharmaceutical products! As much as I dislike the big profit-making machines of Big Pharma, I am grateful for medicines that enable us to have quality of life.
I have managed to make a few new things in the past few weeks, and at the end of the week I will get out the camera and get some pictures to post (and re-take some of the poorer shots that I posted).
Just two more days of work and then a 10-day Xmas break! Now that is one part of this "silly-season" that I CAN enjoy! :)

December

Halfway through the month already... have been cleaning the house, unpacking old boxes and throwing away junk. Not much to post, and not much to say :(
One of our cats was killed by the dog next door, and another went missing the following day, so we are not feeling very cheerful. I dislike this time of year, a time of seemingly enforced merriment, which is a challenge at the best of times, so the less said, the better...
Sorry about that.

wrapped threads

I've been unravelling. This is such a spectacular metaphor that it tickles me pink! I've unravelled a ton of fabric and am busy wrapping all the threads on my sewing machine. It's somewhat tedious and well suited to my current state of mind - at least when I feel better I will have a bunch of wrapped threads with which to create something.

Thread nests all over the place.

... and some of the wrapped threads:

Handdyes

I also did some dyeing while I was in hospital (lots of black humour associated with that verb, but let's not go there). The vessel in my previous post made up of hands, was made from one of those cloths and here are more: I used sun paints, mixed lots of colours, scrunched up the fabric to make lots of creases and submerged it in the dye, instead of pouring the dye on top, as I think one normally does with sun paints (since they're actually fabric paint, as opposed to fabric dye). When dried in the sun, all the cracks show up because of how the sun paint migrates to the areas which dry first. I just love this effect.

Back, with Vessels

Thank you, so much, Diane and Caitlin. I was touched by your kind comments on my previous post. I'm back again. I wish I could say I'm "all better", but it wouldn't be true, so let's move onto some on-topic content.
While I was in hospital, I received the latest issue of FiberArts, in which there were several vessels, which really inspired me. So here's what I produced:

Best practice in psychiatric treatment is recognised to be a multi-disciplinary approach - and so it was here too. Many hands, each with their own focus, joined together to catch and contain each person's issues.
I apologise again for my photography. Early dawn insomniac photography. One day, when I feel like I can face it, I'll learn how to take some better photos...

But don't hold your breath, please.

I'm away for a while

Not exactly a quilting post: but after much soul-searching, I've decided to follow the recommendation of the psydoc and go into hospital to sort out the treatment for my current depression. He estimates 2-3 weeks. I've packed fabrics, threads and will take my sewing machine. Hopefully, there are better days ahead...

Awesomely talented Fibre Artists

Outside our clinic is a huge tree in which a community of weaver birds have made their nests. They were not happy about me snapping pictures of them, and protested loudly. One even flew down and did a close fly-by in an attempt to frighten me off. (I retreated after that. Gotta show artists their due respect.)
Weaver birds are the most awesome birds - they weave these nests you can see in the pictures, that are really secure and very intricate. Once the babies have hatched and flown, the nests blow down and I have carried many of them home. I consider each one an absolute work of art.
Spring is so beautiful, I wish I felt happier.

Computers...

... can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em! I'm trying to upload photos, but none of the USB ports are responding.

Ok, I admit it. I am a digital dumbo. I have gone from Computer Literacy Teacher (I kid you not; this was back in 1989-92) to Clueless Computer Dunce. I used to be able to open the cover and point out the various bits to students and trouble-shoot problems. Now the USB port doesn't work and I don't have a clue what to check. I also don't know how my digital camera operates. I used to have a manual camera where I had to set the f-stops, shutter speed and focus before every shot - I managed an entire year in Israel with lots of great shots back in 1981, but now I cannot even take a photo that is in focus, because the damned technology has gone beyond where even a reasonably intelligent person can keep up unless they paddle like the dickens.

Phew. Sorry about that. Didn't realise there was such a rant in me this morning. {Deep Breath}

The USB port at work, works. I'll upload the photos later. (such as they are!)
----

It's later. I'm at work and here are the pictures: It's been a long time since I did a traditional bed quilt... but I'm enjoying the quilting of it. I had to wait 4 hours to see the doctor, and it seemed much shorter, as I had this with me. I chose colours and a pattern that my mother likes, as it's for her.
I stuck bits of paper label (the leftover bits after we printed labels for the blood tubes for the clinical trial) onto the quilt as guidelines for the straight line quilting. It helped a lot, they were easy to remove and left no stickiness on the quilt.
The backing is a Da Gama fabric I found some time back. Called "The Little Five", it has images of the Big Five as babies - very cute and my mom loved it.

Exhaustion

Having just finished another clinical trial (at work), I am ready to just fall over. It's funny how one paces oneself, holding out to make sure everything gets done, but then when it's all over, one just crashes. And I've crashed. Saw the psydoc this morning and he wants me to go to the "hopsital"(my daughter's pronunciation when she was little) for "2-3 weeks". Very big sigh. I muttered and muttered, so he said, "ok, think about it".

I'm quilting a huge double-bed quilt for my mother that I pieced several years ago, but didn't get any further with. It's great for my current state of mind, as it is just long straight hand-quilted lines, over and over. Will take pic and post it here soon.

Inchies

I was very excited to receive in the mail a pack of NINE inchies all the way from England! How did this happen? I was blog-surfing one day and came upon the blog of Kate North with a post about Paying It Forward. If you're wondering what this is, see my own PIF Post. I was very excited to see there was still a chance to reply to Kate's challenge, so I leapt in. And then the inchies arrived!

{Edited 24 Oct 2007, to add blurry picture, sorry about this, Kate}

THANK YOU, Kate! {happy dance} They are just GORGEOUS. I first read about inchies in a recent Quilting Arts magazine (I have a subscription); I had never heard of them before. Now I have these CUTE ones and want to mount them onto something - will probably use a fabric postcard - I have dozens of incomplete ones, so I'm sure I can find a suitable background.

It was SUCH a thrill to receive these in the post - I don't get many gifts anymore and have become pretty used to always being the provider, so it was a great thrill to receive an art-quilting-related gift, just for nothing. Do take me up on my own PIF challenge, if you happen upon this post, so I can perhaps pass on this great feeling.

An auspicious occasion

I have been accepted into the Artful Quilters Web Ring :) Thanks Diane! I now really need some html knowledge as I pasted in the code for the ring, but I'd like it formatted a bit nicer.

I feel honoured to be in such illustrious company. This is just fantastic.

Slow Progress

I am making some progress, although it feels like trying to exercise in a pool filled with syrup. I ordered 20 metres of "Magic Applique" (fuse) from MGE in PE and they are posting it to me. It should get here in the next few days, which means I can continue with the Protea quilt, since I found (and dyed) the rest of the various reds and pinks I will need.

I am going to a specialist clinic at the hospital today to see about my current depression. I'm a bit nervous, since I don't know the doctor I'll be seeing and it's a vulnerable feeling, to go and spill your guts. It's not as if I haven't done it before, but it is a very disempowering situation and the depression means I project judgment onto everyone I talk to. But I do need this. I have to go and sit in a queue for at least two hours - and there is a bit of humour in this, as I thought "I will HAVE to take something to sit and work on during that time" (much as Melody Johnson says whenever she has to go on a plane trip "What will I knit?"). So, since Friday I have been planning what I will take to work on at the clinic. Couldn't help smiling at that, so things are not all bad.

Finally I settled on this: which I put together after listening to Leonard Cohen and kd lang, two of my favourite musicians. Interestingly enough, it's all the same black fabric, but the green has been discharge-dyed with Jik (bleach). I didn't know how much to add, so I just poured, and then forgot it while I was soaking it in the bleach. Oops. It ate through a lot of the fabric and I ended up with some tatters, but just enough intact fabric for this. Isn't it amazing that beneath the black lies this green?

A slightly closer shot:

And right after I took this, a spool of thread whizzed across the camera screen, followed by a cat in hot pursuit. Serves me right for trying to photograph work on the floor...

I also tried a bit of painting. Paint has this attraction of being so immediate, which has great appeal, since fabric work is so labour-intensive. A while back I bought some prepared canvases (who knows, one day I might be a REAL artist who actually works on CANVAS, gee whizz...) which were on special at R20 for an 8 by 8 inch. It was a LOT of fun - I sloshed paint on it, mixed some colours, since I only have primaries. Once it had dried, the mixed-media urge grabbed me and I sewed on some beads. I'm quite pleased with the result and will definitely try it again:

Celestial bodies in my head

Tuesday 18 Sept: I had the text for this post all written and saved, or so I thought, but I must have been mistaken. Not sure I can remember what I wrote, but I'll just get on with explaining the pictures, shall I? I had some swirling lines and big dots swimming around in my head and sat down with a huge piece of paper and this is the picture that I got down. I fabric-painted it in two colourways: a warm one and a cool one. Now they look like celestial bodies to me.

It was fun to do. A bit like colouring-in when I was a child. I tried shading some of the areas, but I guess I will need to work on that. But then again, I suppose most things are about practice. "All things are difficult before they are easy" - can't remember who said that.

I don't yet know what I'll do next to these two, but I've put them aside until it occurs to me.

The Protea (see a few posts back) has also had to be put aside as I've run out of fuse. Luckily I found the shop I usually buy it from on the Net and they have email! So I emailed them and they are going to post me 20 metres of fuse - should keep me out of mischief for a while.

Today two books arrived that I ordered about a month ago from kalahari.net:

Fabric Art Journals by Pam Sussman and

Collage Unleashed by Traci Bautista.

I've given the amazon.com links as they contain more info that the kalahari.net pages. I just CANNOT WAIT to get home and dive into these (work, work, work...grrr)

and speaking of which, I'm now feeling guilty, so I'd better get back there...

Protea Quilt

You may be excused if you don't think this looks much like a protea. Alas, I cannot even guarantee that it will look like a protea when it is finished, though that is the intention.

I've read the blog of Emily Parson for quite a while and gazed admiringly at her Nature quilts. Just SO beautiful! And I've wanted to do that sort of thing with our own South African flora. I finally worked out a way to get from a photo to a quilt (I suppose I could have tried asking her!) and 3 days ago, I actually began.
I began by 'posterising' my photo in MS Photo Editor. I then printed it out in both black and white and in colour in A4 size.

The following step had put me off doing it for so long, because I thought there *must* be an easier way (with all the computer power we have these days!) But in the end, I couldn't figure out what that easier way was and just settled for doing it the hard way. I placed a clear overhead projector slide over it and began to trace the main outlines of each colour (easier to see distinctions when you posterise). I'm still convinced there must be an easier way!
Next I had to get this slide blown up to poster (full) size. I luckily obtained the services of a kind computer scientist to do this and also print it out for me, onto 25 separate A4 pages, which I then sticky-taped together.
{can't put photo of full-size version in here as it is currently taped to the back of my backing, and likely to remain there for quite a while. You'll have to imagine the slide blown up much larger}

I then realised that I should have asked for TWO copies of the printout, as I'd need one to put behind the backing fabric, for the placement of all the pieces and one to cut up for each individual pattern piece. Argh. But there was nothing for it, but to tape another 25 pieces of paper together and trace another copy onto that.

I then taped the original copy to the back of a piece of lightweight, see-through cotton. Hooray. The other copy was to be cut up into pattern pieces. I decided (very wisely, in retrospect!) not to sit and cut apart all the pieces, as it would have been a total nightmare of a jigsaw puzzle!

Then I looked at the photo again and wondered how I was going to separate all the colours from each other. Surely there must be an easier way, than the hard, manual way! I still haven't found it, so I settled for the hard way. After staring at the picture for some time, I worked out that there were 7 different reds and 7 different greens, plus white. I gave each grade of colour a code and a name and then with my master list of made-up colours, I sat and worked out what colour each individual piece had to be. (See why I spent so much time trying to work out an easier way?)

I'm now at the point where I know where each colour has to go. And I've begun to fuse the individual pieces onto the background. I will probably satin stitch around the edges as I'm not that confident the fusing will hold without unravelling. *Hopefully* I will have, at the end a "painterly" picture of a protea. At the moment it just looks like a very large, crazy, paint-by-numbers!

But now.... I don't *have* all the colours in the specific shades I want! And I have absolutely NO idea how to dye to 'spec' to get a particular shade (and I do want hand-dyed, for the mottled effect) Nor do I have enough fuse to complete it all, a non-trivial issue, since I can only get the fuse in the next town, 1.5 hours drive from here.

Double argh. It is only the very intense desire to see this through and have an end result which looks even vaguely like Emily's flowers (translated into a South African context) that keeps me going. But it may end up looking like a mass of random splotches of colour. That's the downside of working 'blind', with a technique I've made up (when the wheel has probably already been invented!)

---

My first sewn garment was hilarious. I've long since tossed it in the bin, to save myself much embarrassment. At the time I thought cutting out the pieces according to the grain of the fabric was silly, since I could fit all the pattern pieces on a MUCH smaller piece of fabric, if I ignored that part. I sewed the entire thing, then held it up, put it on.... and realised why the grain was actually quite relevant.

My first knitted garment was equally hilarious. I thought it was silly to first knit a 'tension square' since I wanted to get straight to it. I knitted the entire thing, over many, many hours, then sewed it all together and then tried it on. Or rather, tried to try it on, except it wouldn't go on.... Because. It. Was. Way. Too. Small. I undid it all, rather than be confronted with lasting testimony to my own idiocy.

My ability to work hard was exceeded only by my stupidity. Okay, I've got a bit wiser since then, but this current project has me wondering if it will look even remotely like a real flower. I might do ALL this work and in the end it might just look awful. Perhaps I should make my intention a bit more obscure, so that if it flops horribly, I can claim I was trying to 'abstract' the general impression of a protea... to illustrate the 'essence' of protea-ness, the 'ethereal spirit' of the hardy protea as it survives under harsh conditions...

Yeah right.

Argh

I am immensely frustrated with Blogger. *Often* I try to update something on the template and it just won't let me save edits to the 'widgets'. Then a few days go by and it works fine again. Then it doesn't work again.
I won't belabour the point. More when I have photos of my current madness (what have I done???)

Silly quiz thing...

You Are 77% Creative

You are beyond creative. You are a true artist - even if it's not in the conventional sense of the word. You love creating for its own sake, and you find yourself quite inspired at times.

How Creative Are You?

WABing - could I cover my own couch?

So I was stumbling around the internet and stumbled upon this. Wow! Long ago I idly wondered if I could make my own slipcover for my old couch, but quickly decided it would be way beyond me and way too much work. This makes me think that perhaps it is feasible...?

The couch is beyond shabby. It might once have been shabby-chic (just after I bought it at an auction for R600) but now it's just shabby-tattered and shabby-awful. I have a piece of cloth thrown over it, but the cloth is now almost as shabby.

I'm super-impressed with what this lady did, and even more so with the step-by-step photos and instructions.

Great Fibre Art Blog :)

Just have to mention a Fibre Art blog I found, which I am totally impressed with. Love the work she does, love the cats and love her style :)

She is Deb of More Whiffs, Glimmers and Left Oevres. You go girl, awesome stuff!

Spring

Knot what I planned!

About 40 x 40 cm. It really is NOT what I planned to make with these strips... but then we often have to get out of the way of the work that wants to be made.

Jealousy is so unattractive

... and it's much worse when it's you yourself who is feeling it. Sigh.

I went to see an exhibition of some work done by a former friend of mine. (The "former" part is a long story, but not one I will go into here). It was amazing. It was the sort of stuff I wished I had done. And as I stood at looked at it, I realised I was jealous...

Of course my Critic came out in force and told me I had no talent, at least nothing like THIS and I'd never be able to do anything like it, etc etc. You know the story. And much as I tried to talk back to it, saying "I could do this, not exactly like that, but that wouldn't be the point, I would want to do *my* stuff", it came back with, "well you haven't got much done yet, have you? and you are nowhere near an exhibition and all your stuff is amateur anyway, who would pay money for it? it would just be embarrassing for you to have an exhibition...." and so forth.

Then on top of everything, I felt bad for feeling so jealous and I was thinking all these horrible thoughts about this person, and again realised I was just jealous, and to let her have her victory in the beautiful work.

All in all, I just felt totally lousy. I know that I am going through another bout of depression at the moment and this didn't help, but still...

I am trying to use it as inspiration for my own work, as in "if she can do it, so can you; you just have to DO it".

Horrible. Know the feeling?

Art Journal pages

I've left off the "Fabric" in front of "Art Journals" as I've not got to doing any fabric work at all, but instead went a bit mad with paper collage. I cut out and collect interesting, pretty and/or striking pictures whenever I see them and have boxes full, so I hauled those out and collaged some pages. I LOVE doing this.

Thread holders

I've StumbledUpon :)

I've joined StumbleUpon. Can you tell we are not too busy at work and I have time to surf the web a bit? My page is here. Would love to meet fellow arty, quilty types there! :)

Covering boxes

My girls were surprisingly impressed with this, so I thought I would post it. I'm a box-oholic. I have so many collected bits and pieces that I have to order them in some way, and as I have "More Sense than Money", I collect any nice boxes that I see. Sometimes I cover them nicely and elevate their status. Here's a bit of how-to.

Use found boxes that are sturdy to make your efforts worthwhile.
Little dividers inside are useful, so everything isn't all in a pile, depending on what you are storing, of course. I use scrap cardboard cut into strips and cut little slits halfway into it, along its length.
You get the idea. (?)

I wanted to be able to see into the box without having to open it, as I have a lot of similar boxes so I cut windows into the lid. Mark windows in pencil:

Cut them out with a craft/Stanley knife.

When it comes to decoration, I tend to cave as far as the recycling thing goes, and use new materials. I like using sticky-backed vinyl paper (called Contact here in South Africa) because it's easy to wipe, stays clean, sticks by itself and is long-wearing.

Cut out a piece of Contact big enough to go over all sides and into the lid. Stick it on top.

Make holes in the windows and cut out enough to it can be folded over. Fold over every flap.

Cut out a piece of clear, stiff platic or acetate. I use laminating waste from our Graphic Services Unit - they have a big box they throw their waste into, which people are welcome to come and pick from. I collect rolls of the stuff: it's clear, very strong and a fantastic craft material. It's also a good book cover to protect school books that get re-used every year and get VERY worn. It is VERY transparent in the photo below and you can only see it because the light from the flash reflects off it.
Glue the laminate onto the inside of the lid, covering all the joins. I use Bostik clear glue for this, as I find glue sticks aren't generally strong enough for this.

Weigh it down for a short while, to make sure the glue touches everywhere. Not too long, as there may be unwanted glue seepage!

And there you are - a beautiful box in which to keep your treasures, for the cost of the Contact and a bit of glue.

Making a stationery caddy (from old boxes)

Here I am again with another of my re-use passions. Collect little boxes eg groceries and medicines and the insides of toilet rolls and sticky tapes. Cut all the tops off.
Find a sturdy box that will hold them all.

Experiment with how the little boxes will fit inside the big box, taller ones at the back. Height and width depends on what you will want to store in each compartment.

It looks a little drab in the picture above, but watch it brighten as soon as you put the things in:

Of course, the most fun is in the decorating. An easy way is to paint it all, but you can also cover each box with a pretty gift wrap glued on with wallpaper paste (messy and a bit of a fuss to make initially, but once you have a batch, you can do them all and it's water soluble and dries clear. Here's the one I use at work; made many years ago, from tubes of different diameter only: