It was a hazy late afternoon yesterday when I looked out my patio door and saw these Eastern Bluebirds. They seem a bit small, but they always do show up around here in the spring…looking for a place to nest. I love their interesting peri-blue and orange colors.
Here is the piece I started the other day. The quilt is red orange and blue green. So I used blue green rayon thread on the red orange part and red orange thread on the blue green part. I quilted a pattern and left parts of it unquilted, which, in the end, made another design, because the unquilted parts “pouf” a bit. Can you see the “stripes” in the red part?
They are very subtle… if you click to enlarge, you might see it better.
I’m not sure that it’s done…I was thinking of doing something in those “poufs” but I don’t think I want big contrast, so I may just let it be.
On another note, I am working on a lecture/demo on Journal Quilt techniques. This is a sample I did today using painted fusible web and dryer sheets on a gessoed quilt block. The two metal pieces aren’t attached, but I like the looks of them. I may use them…I may not. I’ve been hoarding them because I couldn’t get any more.
I shut the phone off today. I can’t stand it when it rings while I am trying to concentrate. And I only have two weeks left to plan this lecture and workshop. I have to be able to think. So I left a very polite message that I was working very hard on a class and wouldn’t be able to answer the phone today…it was heaven.
New thermofax screens arrived in the mail today…then I remembered…I forgot to send her toner copies. Well…they still worked…printed on my Epson inkjet printer. I guess there is carbon in that there black ink. Lucky day for me indeed.
This is probably my most favorite dessert ever. It’s a Fudge Brownie Trifle, but I take it a step further and make it a Black Forest Brownie Trifle with the addition of cherry pie filling. There is more whipped cream to go on top but since I need to be able to put a cover on the bowl, I will put that on when I get to the ladies meeting tonight.
On working…Ever have one of those days where, you want to work, you know you need to work, to make art, you push yourself to do it…and the magic just isn’t there? You wander from idea to idea…and nothing comes together. That happened to me yesterday. I sorta kinda didn’t feel real well, so I gave up and curled up on the couch for the afternoon. But later…
On the art front, there is an arts council members exhibit coming up. I have a piece I thought I could put in the exhibit…but upon reading the guidelines, they are limiting size to 30″ x 32″, so that means I have to make something new because almost everything else I have, has been in an arts council exhibit. AND it can’t take a long time to make, so “minimal” will be my theme. I like big blocks of color and came up with this last night. I am going to use the full size allowance (I decided why not?), so it will be exactly 30″ x 32″. Quilting lines in thick black thread to come. So basically, it will be about color and lines. The black and white stripe fabric is a screenprint from a soy wax design. The colors should shake things up a bit in the exhibit. There are a lot of painters in the arts council who do very nice representational landscapes and still lifes.
Does anyone else have one of these?
Let me explain to you what this is. Every time I make cloth, I sort the pieces afterwards. Into this pile goes my very favorite pieces that I want to use to make art. But this pile never goes down…it only goes up…(wish the stock market did the same). Why is that? BECAUSE…I am so enamored of surface design…that I can make the cloth faster than I can the art. The other day, the pile fell over, but I just put it back up. Some of the pieces in this pile have been here for years and never gotten made into anything, but I can’t bear to move them from this pile and into the pile of things I will sell…at least not yet.
I have put it off for too long. Last night I messed around with some ideas for Thermofax screens. I am mostly drawn to, 1. buildings, structures, or architectural elements, and 2. patterns, grids and the like.
Here is a pattern I like…it is plastic mesh from a potato bag.
Here is a building I want to use.
This is from a piece of dye painted cloth. I like the pattern of it.
I don’t have my own Thermofax machine…yet…so I work on a group of designs and send them off to have screens made for me.
Not much else going on. I didn’t get any dyeing done this weekend, but watch out tomorrow! We are having some early spring-like weather… terrific for getting some dyeing done. I’m ready to do some serious work.
Friday/Saturday I sorted through a pile of unfinished small projects. I get inspired with ideas as I go through stuff like this, and made notes for a lecture I will be giving in March. There are other computer-related jobs to do too, but sometimes I just don’t want to sit down and do those!
The temperature was in the teens yesterday, so I found it necessary to make another pot of hot soup. This time is was hamburger-vegetable (with a bit of leftover chili thrown in for good measure).
Cold weather tends to make me very domestic at times, so….to round out the evening meal, I made some garlic cheese rolls and, since I had a hankering for some french bread, I made that too, with the breadmaker’s help. A pan of hot water in the bottom of the oven makes a nice chewy crust on the loaf.
As for art, I am piddling around thinking about things. I have scheduled my first solo show at a gallery in New Harmony, IN. It’s set for late 2011. My theme is already decided, so now I know what I’m doing. I am preparing for March quilt shows (what to order, how much, etc.) and a lecture and workshop. I hear the weather will be warming the end of this week, so maybe I will get some dyeing done; that would be nice since it has been awhile. I need to keep working on silk scarves since they seem to be selling well. My sewing room is a wreck right now and there is nowhere to work; I had to clear out a table of stuff so my husband can get to the window…he is finishing and putting the trim back up. These are jobs he does in the winter when his work is slow. Ah well, spring is coming and it won’t be long.
Art Journal---A Creative Journey 