Young Artists At Work

What a whirlwind month. Recitals, school performances, holiday parties and gift preparations. Not to mention a deep cleaning for the house and holiday decorating. The month flew by. Yesterday morning I woke up and looked at the clock. 6:00 am. We told the girls they had to wait until 7:30 to wake us up. Darn. An hour and a half. I was eagerly awaiting their wake up squeals. At 6:45 I wondered why my girls were not up yet! Then at 7:00, only a half hour early, they came into our room and exclaimed: "It's time It's time! Let's see if Santa came."

Of course, Santa had come and left a passel of presents by the fireplace. Each girl went through their stocking and opened their Santa gifts. Then came the family gifts. I gave each girl a Hello Kitty sewing machine made by Janome. These are not the toy machines you see at major retailers. These are actual sewing machines, which make nice stitches and are easy to operate. The larger machine uses the feet and accessories from my Janome 6500. I was not expecting much from the girls. Perhaps a quick playing around with them, and then on to the toys they got for Christmas.

Well I was wrong. The girls sewed for hours. This morning, they woke up and near first thing wanted to sew again. Sarah is well on her way to finishing her first wall hanging. A scrappy strip pieced block with quilting lines throughout.

One of the greatest gifts of my lifetime is the time, instruction, and encouragement given to me by my mom and my aunt. I hope to pass those gifts on to my children.

New Studio Space

I am married to a musician. His day gig is working as a creative director for a creative marketing agency which does a lot of work on the internet. He writes music all day long. Then he comes home, greets our girls and sits down at the piano and plays more music.

It's great to be married to a creative guy. He gets it. He understands when I am fixated on something and cannot get it out of my head. He understands my need to stay up all night and finish. He understands the need to have the right tools for the job. He understands my need for the right space to work in.

He understands enough to give up the 15 x 15 foot room off my old studio. This room held the baby grand piano he plays every night when he comes home. A few weeks ago we began the process of finding a new space for the piano. No small task. It's huge. And heavy. Moving it means you have to know exactly where you want it to go. It's not like shoving a couch around a room until you've found just the right spot. So off I went with my graph paper and a tape measure and figured out where the piano could go.

This was not an easy decision. You have to take all kinds of things into consideration. Like where the floor joists are, where doors to the outside are, how close to a fire place and how many important football games are on television (which will prevent any friends and/or neighbors form helping you). After considering the possibilities, we settled on the family room. Joel and I hauled the piano across the house to its new home. It's the perfect place for it. You can sit and play the piano and look out the window. I think it is very happy there.

Here's Joel trying to move the piano by himself.

And moving that piano left a big hole in the corner of that 15 x 15 foot room which I think the builder considered the formal living room. Our house was built in the mid 80's and is a formal layout with the formal dining and living areas separate from the family room. I previously had my studio in the formal dining room space.

So now I've branched out and am in the formal living room as well. I have two big rooms. One for storage and "messy" work. And the new larger room for my sewing machines, drawing table and computer space.

New studio space.

Old studio space.

While cleaning and sorting through piles I found all kinds of drawings and notes on projects I'd like to do. I had to stop working on the studio space last night to flush out one of those ideas. I would show it, but you know Christmas is right around the corner and the recipient is a reader of this blog and I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise!

It is amazing how much stuff I have. I did sort through and get rid of a tremendous amount of junk, but so much of the things I hang on to are relevant to what I do and want to do.

Tonight is Saturday night so my hubby will be playing some rock and roll on his weekend gig. It inspires him throughout the week when he's working his corporate gig.

Me? I'm back to the studio to sort through more stuff and work on that Christmas project.

Journal Quilt

This is my 2007 Journal Quilt for IQF at Houston.

Thanks to Kristin of Fiber on a Whim for taking the picture for me!

Costumes

We made it through some pretty scary yards. One of our neighbors had a grave yard and a car accident. Our neighbor was sprawled out on the ground next to a car accident scene. He waited until the children walked by and began to moan. S-C-A-R-Y.

But not quite a terrifying as the teenage boys in vampire costumes perched in the trees. They waited until the kids walked by and jumped out of the trees.

Yet Sophie (age 4) braved it all quite well. Until we got home. Joel and I have a Happy Halloween house with pumpkins and happy skeletons. The only scary thing we have is a horror sounds CD, which we put on the stereo and blasted with windows opened. When we arrived home from trick or treating Sophie heard the scary sounds coming from our house and broke out in hysterics. Poor baby.

Thankfully Mummy Sarah was there to give the little ghost a big hug.

Boo!

Halloween cupcakes for Sarah's class.

I love Halloween. I like that you can decorate your house, dress up in a costume, hand out candy and enjoy things that are scary. No presents, no stress, just fun. As a child my mother would make us fabulous costumes. My dad would hand out candy and wear a scary glove on the hand that reached out the door.

I used to make fabulous costumes -- until my eldest child kept changing her mind. Now I make ONE costume per child and wait until close to Halloween. Tonight I'll take pictures of the girls in their costumes.

This year the girls were old enough to significantly help with carving their pumpkins. First you have to scoop out all that goop.

They were totally grossed out -- but I give them credit for sticking with it!

Sophie's preschool had a pumpkin carving party for children and their dads. She had a great time. Both girls designed their faces and drew them on the pumpkins. Sarah carved the mouth on hers.

Sophie put three faces on hers. I love the crazy eyes Sarah drew.

And the latest Altered Couture is now on the newsstand. Here is Sophie in the dress featured on page 105!


Happy Halloween!

New Altered Couture!

My artist's preview copy of the new Altered Couture arrived in the mail yesterday. It will be on the newsstands on November 1st.


I have three pieces featured on pages 105, 108 and 109.




It's very exciting to see my work in print -- almost as exciting as it was to see my darling little girls wearing it. Here is Sarah wearing her Ahoy Matey overalls. (And Sophie in the background wearing a pair of her birthday overalls, which I did not submit. Maybe next time. . .)

Keeping it Art Related

Life has been hectic as usual. But I have a new dedication and commitment to blogging more regularly and trying to keep it art related.

In addition to the pictures (below) of things I've been working on, Joel and I have been making a free video tutorial for Shiva Paint Stiks to put on-line (probably on You Tube). It's been great fun and we hope to have it done in another few weeks.

Halloween is just around the corner so I needed a few fabric bead bracelets
and this owl charm bracelet. These go with. . .

. . .my fabric bead necklace. I got the skeleton in a 25 cent candy machine.

I wish I had bought more.

Playing around with needle felting.

And being the "arty mom," I've been pegged for all the crafty projects for our Brownie Troop. Here is our troop flag. We're waiting for our troop number. Can you guess the name of our troop? The name and troop number will go into the white space to the left of the Trefoil.

Now back to the studio.

Possibility Number Two

Busy. Busy. Busy. So this past month goes into Possibilities Category Number Two -- not enough time to post.

On September 4th, Jan, Carmen Sharon, Heidi and I hung an exhibit of art from members of our group Fiber Art Fusion. The Exhibit Opening Reception was September 6th and about 100 people came. We had tons of food and a photographer! It was very exciting. To see your work hanging in a gallery is very rewarding. To see other people looking at your work is exhilarating. The curator told me today that there was very heavy traffic through the exhibit. Many people came specifically to see it and it was very well received.

Then I spent six days at the East Cobb Quilt Guild Show. Three of those days were on the judging team. We took the quilts which had been dropped off by their owners, sorted them by category, labeled them with a pre-assigned number, stacked them with the same corner lined up (for ease of judging) and in general watched over these precious babies until the judging started. The judges arrived and worked their tails off to judge the nearly-400 quilts in two and a half days. The head of the judging team did a spectacular job of organizing and holding it all together. It's fascinating to be behind the scenes.

I especially like hearing the comments about the work being judged. First, lest you think I remember anything about your quilt, I don't. It all blurs together by the end. I can't even tell you what they said about mine! But in general there is a consistent base of comments. And in the one area most of us rush through -- finishing. That means bindings. For goodness sake, make nice bindings. Practice if you are not good at it. And one other comment of interest is on the pillowcase method of finishing. If you are entering a traditional show, then you need to quilt your piece so the quilting lines can be seen from the back. And don't forget to trim loose threads and pick all the animal hair off your quilt. These are basic things which many overlook.

Oops, back to the East Cobb Quilt Guild Show. . . then I spent the next two and a half days demo-ing at Fiber on a Whim's booth. I love to do product demos, especially when it is a product that I like to play with. I think I'm pretty good at it since Kristin kept giving me big smiles!
Okay, so she was giving those big smiles because she won a ribbon for this awesome piece! Way to go Kristin!

Fiber Art Fusion members won lots of ribbons at the East Cobb Quilt Guild show. It was thrilling. I won third prize for my What's Up Tiger Lily? coat.
It started out as scraps for the trash can. Then was resurrected and made into this coat. I have a matching pair of Donald Pliner Zebra shoes -- similar ones which can be seen here on Manolo's Shoe Blog. One day I'll be brazen enough to wear the ensemble in public!

For the past few weeks, Sharon and I laughed every time we got together because we had not yet finished our Journal Quilts for Houston. Lunch, coffee, shopping. We are good are helping each other procrastinate. But in the end we both finished and shipped in time for the deadline. I only finished because Sharon came over and helped me whipstitch the binding in place.

Why do I always wait until the last minute? I knew about this Journal Quilt for months and months, yet I kept putting it off. I guess other things come up and fill the time. I do budget time for things like this, but not until the week or two before it's due. And although I budgeted two weeks for my Journal Quilt the first week was eaten up by school volunteer activities and cleaning the house from my absence, and the second week, my in-laws came to visit. We took the girls to the Georgia Aquarium. An incredible site to see.
So I worked in the little spare time I had. On the eve of my shipping deadline the water main in front of our house broke. Remember back a year ago? Well another section of main blew out and millions and millions of gallons of water poured out through this break. The water gushed all night -- and here we are in the middle of an all out watering ban. The crew who first came just turned the pressure down and decided to let the morning crew fix it. But by midnight the break had worsened and we could hear the water roaring from inside the house. The fix-it crew came in the morning.
They had to cut down a tree, pull out bushes and dig a hole big enough for a swimming pool.

Meanwhile, inside my studio, I was quilting and doing my best not to totally freak out. The name of my Journal Quilt is "Peace" so it is someone ironic that this was all happening. In the end I finished. But the stress of possibly not finishing was overwhelming. Stress is not a good way to get your aerobic workout!

Today, Jan and I took down the Hope Exhibit. It was sad to see the empty gallery space. But joyfully, the curator invited us back for next year. Transformations will be the theme. And since it is an election year I'm delighted by that theme and have ideas swimming around in my head.

And now, back to the studio.

Possibilities

There are two possibilities for a lack of blog posts. Number one: Nothing is going on. Number two: So much is going on that one does not have time to post.

I am coping to number two. In the past month I've taken two Pamela Allen workshops, organized a special meeting of Fiber Art Fusion which featured a lecture from Pamela and a showing of her work, I went to the AQS Show in Nashville, and last weekend I participated in Fiber on a Whim's new "block of the month" which is called Clandestine bag of the month. We spent four hours in the studio working on our bags. Each month we make a new bag/purse. It was wonderful.

And for the past month, I have been pulling together pieces and artist statements for Fiber Art Fusion's upcoming exhibit at The Art Place at Mountain View. Today we hung the exhibit and I am very excited for the opening on Thursday night.

I have three pieces in the East Cobb Quilt Guild show and all three pieces needed work, so I have been "finishing." Why do we wait until our work is accepted to do the boring and tedious finishing work? Come on, you know you do it to!

And since pictures are worth a thousand words, here are some pictures of what's been going on around here.


Here are a few pictures of me, Carmen, Jan, Sharon and Heidi as we decided where each piece in the upcoming exhibit should go.



Sophie started pre-kindergarden. This is her last year of half day school.
"All right Mom, enough with the pictures" says Sophie.

This was my favorite quilt in the Guild Challenge at AQS in Nashville. It is of Harriet Tubman. I love the use of buttons. It makes me think of Aminah Robinson's work, which if you have never seen, check it out.

Ever wonder where Santa goes in August? Why to Gaylord Opryland Resort in Nashville, Tennessee. He said I was being nice (as opposed to naughty).
Here is Heidi test driving a Gammill. Heidi, Sharon and I tried all the long arm quilting machines in Nashville. But really, where would we put it? And how about a new car first? Or an addition to the house? A semester in college? Retirement?

This is Ziggy, our garden spider. She has built her web right next to the front door. A neighbor came by the other day and told me it a little early for Halloween decorations. But this is a beautiful spider, and look at that web! Today she has spun a large egg sac with its own protective web. From inside the house looking out you can see it. The girls enjoy looking at the web each day, seeing what she's eaten and now we're watching for those eggs to hatch. We're leaving this spider right where she is and watching her daily.

And now, back to the studio.

It has been a very busy summer

The summer went by very fast. Daily trips to the pool with my two girls (they just have to get that energy out), a trip to San Diego and then school started. And now deadlines loom and four pieces are screaming at me to finish them in order to meet those deadlines!

This past week was crazy. Sarah started school on Monday, then Tuesday night, Fiber Art Fusion met and 18 artists turned in their pieces for our upcoming show at The Art Place at Mountainview. Friday and Saturday I took a workshop taught by Pamela Allen at Fiber on a Whim and Friday night Fiber Art Fusion had a happy hour and lecture with Pamela Allen -- it was absolutely fabulous. I am inspired and anxious to make more work. Fiber on a Whim posted a few pictures on their blog.

I am always talking about the You Tube video called Mom my Ride. I mentioned it again this weekend when Pamela Allen had to carefully tuck her feet around the pile of school supplies on the floor of my van -- and the two passengers in the back seat had to sit on a sheet because the seats were covered with kid crumbs. I pride myself on a relatively neat car, but it happens to the best of us. For a good laugh, this video is worth a look.

And here are a few pictures to go with this post. Here is Sarah on her first day of school.
We went for a hair cut the weekend before school started. Sarah and Sophia both donated their hair to Locks of Love, an organization who provides hair pieces to disadvantaged children who have long term medical hair loss.

And here is lovely Sophia with her beloved Julian. "I'm going to marry Julian someday" says Sophia.


Now back to the studio.

Summer Shoes

Sarah needed new tennis shoes. And, with only 4 weeks left until school starts I didn't want to buy school shoes yet. The shoes I was looking for would be used for jumping in puddles, playing in the park and wading through streams. Play shoes.

Surely shoes like this could be found at Target or Kmart (I do not shop Walmart). Surprise surprise. The only shoes we found were camoflauge print. So, with the help of a little fabric paint and some rubber stamps we transformed them into peace and love shoes.

Happy Birthday Sarah!

Every other year the girls have a birthday party. Here in East Cobb I am always shocked and amazed by the amount of money parents spend on birthday parties. Especially for parties for pre-schoolers. I was guilty of having huge parties for my girls when they were small and two years ago it dawned on me that I could never keep up with the expectation I was setting. That is when we decided to have a party every other year, and keep it small.

But before telling you about Sarah's party, I must admit I am not a good shopper. I do not like to shop. I do not like shopping malls. And for Father's Day I actually went to a major department store located at a mall. When we pulled up to the mall Sarah looked out the window and asked: "Is this a Mall? The sign says this is Town Center Mall. Are we at a Mall? Are we mom? Really? Are we?" The girls were so excited to be at an actual shopping mall.

After finding dad a few Father's Day gifts, the girls and I took a tour of the mall. There are many who enjoy the sights and sounds of a shopping mall. Not me. I am overwhelmed by merchandise and background noise and am distracted by the kiosks in the center. All of which is designed to entice you to consume. I am just not interested in this level of consumption. And around the corner and at the end of the main corridor is where Sarah discovered the Build A Bear Workshop. And for her birthday, she asked to go to the Build a Bear Workshop. She invited three friends.


We were the first to arrive and thankfully we arrived before a large party was scheduled. We had the entire store (and employees) to ourselves. The girls picked out their pals, had them stuffed, fluffed and brushed, registered for birth certificates, selected an outfit and we were out the door.

On the 12-hour drive to Ohio a few weeks ago, we gave Sarah an early birthday present -- a CD recording of a story called Stink and the Incredible Super-Galactic Jawbreaker. In the story, the main character, Stink visits a candy store and buys a jawbreaker which is not all it is promoted to be. His sister, Judy Moody asks him to buy her one piece of penny candy and then goes on to describe the multitude of candies she would like to have. Sarah asked if there was such a thing as a candy store like the one in the story! So after Build A Bear, we went to the Sweet Factory where each girl picked out a couple of pieces of candy.


Then off to the pool for some pizza and swimming and fun.


And the cake? Our favorite Hello Kitty! Easy enough to make, the girls helped. Take a 9 x 13 pan, and bake a cake. Cut the corners off and save for the ears. Shape the remaining piece into an oval, put the triangles on for ears, frost and decorate. I used a Peanut M&M for the nose and cherry shoelace licorice for the whiskers. It was hard to cut into her adorable face.

Summer Vacation

We packed up the girls for a trip to Atwood Lake in Ohio. Atwood Lake is located in the beautiful rolling hills of Eastern Ohio.

We took a detour through Athens, Ohio and visited the Dairy Barn and Quilt National '07. My favorite quilt was Chinese Characters by Robin Schwalb. This piece really draws you in, and as you get closer you find a message on the background. You have to stand and decipher the message as some of the letters fade in and out. But it is an interesting message and it compels you to spend the time to discover it.


Quilt National will be at the Dairy Barn through September 3, 2007. It was worth every moment of the 12 hours it took us to get there.

After Athens, we headed on to Atwood Lake to see Grandma and Grandpa and their two doggies Hagar and Captain.


The girls had a great time with Grandma and Grandpa. Sarah especially enjoys fishing with Grandpa. She caught quite a few fish -- a Catfish, some Blue Gill and a good sized Bass.


Learning to row a boat is an important thing to a 7 year old. By the end of the week Sarah could successfully negotiate the pond. We let her take Sophia and Captain out for a tour.

The weather was glorious. Cool at night and warm during the day. The baby birds were everywhere. Here is a sparrow's nest in a juniper bush.

The girls enjoyed tubing on the lake.


Leaving is always hard. The girls had a great time. The memories of visiting grandparents are the kind that last. I still remember visiting family when I was a child. I can remember the trips to Disneyland, Knotts Berry Farm, and Colonial Williamsburg -- but what I remember is that we went. But the memories I have as a child are ones of the things we did when we visited cousins and aunts and uncles. Digging up worms, catching fireflies, fishing and swimming in the pond. I can actually remember those specific events.

I hope that our girls will fondly look back at this trip to Grandma and Grandpa's and remember playing with the doggies, catching fish, learning to row a boat, tubing, watching fireworks on the lake and roasting marshmallows with their grandparents.

Summer Camp was a huge hit!

When I arrived at camp to bring Sarah home, she hugged her bunk bed and said: "Nooooo, I'm not ready to go. I want to stay a week!"

The Girl Scouts do an excellent job of keeping their campers busy with fun activities. Sarah went canoing, roasted marshmallows, sang camp songs, hiked and swam. Mixed in between were fun games and crafts.

I suppose I have a year to prepare myself for a week of sleep-over camp.

Sleep-over Camp for the first time.

Today I delivered my darling eldest daughter to the Girl Scouts for her first ever sleep-over camp. She was nervous and scared -- until she saw the bunk bed assignments and climbed up to where her name was posted. She made her bed, unrolled her sleeping bag, tucked her flashlight under her pillow and turned to me and said:

"You're right Mommy, there's nothing to be scared about."

There were weeks of planning for this summer camp excursion. Making sure the camping list was complete, does she have enough towels, was that enough shampoo? Will she be able to brush the tangles out of her hair? Will the food be okay? Will she be able to sleep without her beloved lullabies?

Ah, but will I be able to sleep?

And then I conjure up the memory of Sarah's words. She's right. There's nothing to be scared about. She'll be okay. She'll have a great time. I'll sleep a bit less without her in the house. I'll be a bit worried. But She will be occupied with swimming, crafts, roasting marshmallows, singing around the campfire and giggling with girlfriends.

Testing Watercolor Media on Fabric

Our group, Fiber Art Fusion (formerly known as the Contemporary Quilt and Fiber Art Alliance but nobody liked the acronym for our website -- caqa or the formality of the name so we changed it a few months ago) met a few weeks ago. Our workshop was led by an incredible artist named Heidi Miracle-McMahill. She does wonderful work with watercolor crayons and utilizes her art on fabric. We all experimented with watercolor crayons on paper and then on fabric.

I decided to test different methods of using watercolor crayons on fabric and then to test colorfastness.

I gathered my supplies: Twinkling H2O's from LuminArte Inc.. a bottle of Delta Textile Medium and a set of watercolor crayons. I used 100% PFD cotton from Dharma. I mixed 1 Tablespoon of Textile Medium and 1 Cup of water.

WATERCOLOR CRAYON EXPERIMENT:

For my first experiment I colored on dry fabric,
then I used a brush and brushed on the Textile Medium/Water solution.

I let the piece air dry, then ironed for 30 seconds with a hot iron and pressing cloth.
I cut the piece in two and washed one piece in the washing machine in hot water.
You can see the color remained virtually the same. This was the most successful test.

For my second experiment I soaked the fabric in the Textile Medium/Water solution. Then I colored with watercolor crayons.
then I used a brush and brushed on the Textile Medium/Water solution.
I let the piece air dry, then ironed for 30 seconds with a hot iron and pressing cloth.
I cut the piece in two and washed one piece in the washing machine in hot water.
You can see the color almost the same, with the right side fading just slightly.

TWINKLING H2O's EXPERIMENT
Twinkling H2O's are little pots of watercolors which when used on paper give you great color and a lovely glittery shine.

For my first test, I painted the Twinkling H2O's on dry fabric, using the Textile Medium/Water solution as my water. (1 Tablespoon Textile Medium and 1 Cup water.)
I let the piece air dry, then ironed for 30 seconds with a hot iron and pressing cloth.
I cut the piece in two and washed one piece in the washing machine in hot water.
The color faded significantly but the sparkles were remaining. This was the most successful test.


For my second experiment I soaked the fabric in the Textile Medium/Water solution. Then I painted the Twinkling H2O's on using the Textile Medium/Water solution as my water.
I let the piece air dry, then ironed for 30 seconds with a hot iron and pressing cloth.
I cut the piece in two and washed one piece in the washing machine in hot water.
Not only did the color fade, but there seemed to be a total lack of sparkle.