Promised rain is not coming

A couple of days ago, the forecast for this area was 3 days of rain. That would have been very welcome, especially after a week in the 30s, up to 36 one day. However, now it has been changed to cloud only, though the temperatures are lower. So I will have to water my trees after all, and maybe a few other stressed looking plants. And I was so hoping nature would do it for me!

I am prevaricating on the neutrals, so should JUST DO IT! Until I've done the sample of fabrics, I won't know if the idea will fly or not. If that background doesn't work, I may try a solid background with printed poppies, or layered poppies. I know poppies are very much used by artists, but they are a stunning plant - colour, shape and texture - it's all there. Plus the shapes of the buds and the seed heads are so different, yet very characteristic.

I had a couple of interesting conversations with friends yesterday about directing our lives and not letting past events or feelings cloud our future. It is one of the benefits of my having lost all my belongings in the fire, I have so few memorabilia to trigger regrets.

Bark fusion

I bought a cheap picture, just a plastic printed sheet over this wooden frame yesterday, as the framers were not yet back at work. I coated it with gel medium, then some fabric paints. I was trying for a dull ginger, but try as I might with the mixing, I could not get it dark enough. Adding black just made it go more khaki. Anyway, it is good enough, with a bit of violet sponged on lightly. I stapled a strip of mat behind the bark and stitched through it. Not entirely satisfactory - not long lasting - but OK for now.

This is a closeup of the beading, the threads and the fissures I got from drying it over a log. The wide threads are sari silk, and the others are various knitting yarns. I washed and unwound the sari silk to make it softer for stitching.

It's such a hot day here - it's been about 36 before lunch and now cooling slightly down to 32. The Fohn wind has dropped, and the ground doesn't burn your feet now. Definitely a day for a siesta and then cocktails.

My friend Judith cycled over at midday, looking very hot and uncomfortable, to bring me a Christmas card that had gone to her house. It turned out to be from my ex-landlady in Brescia, who I haven't heard from for about 6 years. Like all those kind of random contacts, she told me nothing about herself, apart from the fact that she was going to Buenos Aires. No email address, so I guess I'll have to send a letter in Italian, since she doesn't speak English.

Finished and moving on

After I couched the rayon yarn, I felt the stems and leaves were too out of proportion, so used my cropping mat to work out that the only really interesting part was the flowers. So I lopped off the lower third, played around with pink and green borders and bindings, and went for a narrow emerald green.

I left the colour as it was on the photo, since the previous one that I 'enhanced' came out very lurid on my desk top monitor, and on a few websites where I posted it. Not sure if this monitor needs calibrating, or if the photoshop is not so reliable.

I just started assembling the neutrals I want to try out for the poppy project. But time for bed.

A hot day for surfing

I found a link on the quiltart list this morning to a bead sale at http://www.craft4me.com/, who are apparently going out of beads. There were 24 pages of 1214 lots of beads, so it must have taken me at least an hour to check through them all and purchase what appealed. As always some of the more unusual lots were already out of stock. But I feel happy with the choices I made, some light, some dark, some pinks, and yellows, which I have none of in my stash.

I continued with the FMQ piece yesterday, adding some bright green chiffon with the embellisher for the stems and leaves. The colour isn't perfect, but I think it will do. I could overlay with a yellower colour but it might get a bit heavy. I did the beads in the centre of one pansy, and have the second one to do. Then I will couch a rayon thread over the outline of the flowers to make it stand out. I'd like to stop there!

The embellisher did a great job of pinching in the wavy outside edges of the piece. That often is the problem if your stitching doesn't go off the edge at regular intervals. I'm loving my new toy!

Shirley and Lyn got on fine, and we are talking about meeting once a month for sharing of new ideas and techniques. Will have to see if we can make the commitment, since we are all pretty busy.

A very hot, but dry air day here. Good for swimming - yay!

creative play

I gave myself permission to play with FMQ yesterday on a piece of hand-dye that I used for the previous piece. Partly inspired by Bonnie McCaffery's vidcast of Larkin Van Horn, I let my stitching waffle about where it wanted. First separating the larger areas of colour division, then infilling with what seemed a good idea. I did garnet stitch in 3 different threads, and prefer the flat, darker thread top left to the variegated and the lighter one bottom left of right pansy. I did a candle flame fill on the light area to the left bottom, and that worked well. Had some problems with a 30 wt cotton thread. Did not do well with a 90 topstitch needle, but better with a microtex. Also bottom line in the bobbin was too fine and a cheap linty white thread worked better. After I did a few amoeba in some green areas, I 'saw' some pansies in the lighter yellow, so did them with a few lines of straight stitch and then zigzag in two colours and widths. They are quite puffy, like they want some trapunto. I didn't like the large blobs of light grey, so mixed up some shiva paintsticks and daubed very lightly with various greens. Shadowed in some stems. Not sure that was a good idea, but hard to undo. So now what? Add some sheer ribbon for the stems? Add some French knots for the centres? Beads? Or just file it as a learning piece?

I have Shirley Goodwin and Lyn Winter coming to meet each other at coffee time. They are both tutors from Rangiora going to Symposium in March. Very different styles and different ladies. Wonder how they will get on?

Trying not to go back to normal

I am trying to develop new habits, and I feel that might be easier if I am trying to change a whole lot of things at once. Otherwise it seems too easy to slip back into how things used to be.

I am trying to change my mouse hand from right to left. Can't do it all day yet, as makes my arm sore, but it should get easier. The biggest problem so far seems to be how to eat meals alone without watching TV.

Yesterday I finished the calligraphy piece. Let's think of a title. How about "Only Truth"?

I am happy with it. I did as usual spend a long time auditioning fabrics and techniques only to come back to the simplest quilting with beads. It reminds me of a medieval castle door with studs, and the border quilting is inspired by the flourishes that come after old signatures. The transfer print was fairly firm, and wouldn't have suited a lot of stitching. I bought a silk necklace ribbon that was the perfect colour to make the border edging. I really like the two colours together. Actually I really like the hand dye that I did at Jane's a while ago. I have another piece a similar size on the table and am tempted to have a go at just quilting it free flow. But must focus on the poppy project and not get side tracked.

There are a couple of study and class options coming up in the next couple of weeks as well, so I should spend this week on the poppy project (are you listening, brain?).

Glorious day - sunny and with lots of air - gives a buoyant feel. The perfect summer weather.

I am human

Yes, well, it's Jan 3rd, and already after 9.30 and I have not yet switched off the computer to start on my focus for the day. However, in my defence it is the weekend, and therefore semi-OK.

Had a typical distraction day yesterday, but not entirely unfruitful. I was stumped as usual with a stitching design for the border of the calligraphy piece. Wanted a scroll type of thing, so went through some old Q magazines looking for inspiration. Checked online. Nothing. So ended up doing a simple meandering figure of 8, which worked well enough. As usual spent some time pondering whether to bind or zigzag, and went with zigzag. It does tend to make the edges wavy, though. In the past I have had to do 3 or 4 passes to tighten it up. This time I even did the first two passes before I trimmed, hoping to make a difference, but apart from the fact that is was easier to sew, it made no difference. Just have the coached silk tubing to add and some beads, and I will call it done, as in resolution number whatever.

Did find some old QArts mags, that could do with a re-read, since my interests have moved on. It's only a week till the embellisher class starts, which I'm looking forward to. But that will only increase my repertoire, and playtime, and not contribute to my two immediate projects. Tomorrow I will have to get back to my day job, but I also hope to start with the neutrals background to see if the project that is so alive in my imagination will actually draw breath.

I am a bit irritated that I constantly run up against this border stitching problem, but if I am letting a piece evolve and I don't have a structural plan at the beginning, I don't see an easy answer. Well, no border, or a pieced border, would make things more straightforward. Maybe that will be my mission this year - work out several border options for those cases where nothing is clear.

Off with the computer and on with the sewing machine!

Immediate art aims

There are two ideas that are in the early stages of development.

The big forest project has made a small amount of progress. Time at Jane's working on textured effects using distressed pellon, silk fusion and netting led to me working up the bark piece of silk fusion with threads and beads. At this stage I have not decided if the two trees will be similar (Jane thinks they should be to aid the viewer to enter the picture), and also if each tree will be made of a homogeneous batch of textures, or if there will be separate areas of different textures. This needs to be decided in the next week.

Also in the next week or two, I need to paint the pellon to be distressed in various blotches of suitable colours. To do that, I need to play with colour mixing, or go to Jane's for her paints or dyes.

Later, the back layers will need drafting for both structure, composition and contrast. I have not decided if there will be focal objects, or if the composition will lead the eye up a vanishing path.

The second project is the neutral palette idea with printed and stitched poppies. I have practised drawing poppies, and printing others using transfer paper. I like the idea of a base fabric made from rectangles of neutrals with texture. The poppies could be in a foreground layer, either separate or semi-attached. The whole thing could be behind glass. The glass could even be etched. Next stage will be trying out fabrics and textures for the background. Have been in touch with Sue Snell about using her line drawings.

Meanwhile, I have to find a frame or structure for the bark sample.

Also finish the calligraphy journal piece. Aim for next 2 days.

The time to start is now.

Goal setting

It's New Year's Day, and there's no escaping the fact that now is the time to set out the goals for 2009, and make a start on reaching them.

Areas that I would like to be improved by this time next year:

Tidier, more organised house
Warmer and increased number of friendships
A special man in my life
Fitter, more toned body
Focused development of art life.

Areas that I want to diminish
Distraction, mess, clutter, in both house and head
'non-attentive' time, e.g. mindless TV, crosswords, reading blogs and group mail.

Goal 1: Daily routine
On days I don't have to go into school for the day: read email while having breakfast. Do not answer any except urgent mails. Do not answer any group mails or go off into links etc. Do not write blog. Get dressed. Do 20 minutes Pilates, or 40 minutes walking plus swimming later in day where appropriate. The aim is - ready to start work or creative endeavour by 9 am or earlier.

Do outside work where appropriate from 9 to 11 (unless spraying at 6 am). i.e. before wind gets up and spoils the day.

One hour to do either work or play until lunchtime. Eat lunch and do all the mail stuff. Do not watch meal-time TV. Write blog

Work, study or do creative work for afternoon.

Try to eat at 6.30, and then won't be tempted to watch rubbish TV.

Go out maybe 3 nights, choir, photography, dancing, movies.

Do all this for 4 weeks and then review.

Goal 2:
Work towards specific body of work. Write in creative journal what the aims are for each piece. If the piece is just to finish up an experimental sample, do not spend a lot of time making it perfect. That is time to be spent on development. When doing classes or studying books, make a written plan for how this is leading to the B of W. Rather than doing things that just appeal, find the gaps in skill base or development and work to fill those.

Goal 3:
One day a month (the first or nearest to first suitable day), do some de-cluttering of office, or wardrobe, or garage. At least 2 hours.

Goal 4:
Develop better social networks. Ask people who have the life I want, what is their secret?
Invite 5 or 6 people to dinner at least every 8 weeks.

Goal 5:
Ring up all men on CC lists by January 12th.

Goal 6:
One day a month (last or nearest to last suitable day) review life plan and do at least 2 hours writing life script, visualisation or other training.

Goal 7:
Allocate one workbook of Japanese to every 2 week period. Aim to work consistently through year.


This evolved into much more of a life list than an art list, but I am happy with my choices.

Art goals in next post.

Creative production, August-December

Not surprisingly I came back from that trip revved up and ready to stitch! I had signed up with Debbie Babin to work through Jane and Elin's AQWorkbook with a group. We had a target of a chapter a week, which was a heavy schedule, but I had the advantage of it being winter here. I made 6 journal size quilts, mostly in a series to do with discourse, but also 2 others that utilised a hand stamped piece I had made at Judy's and another UFO from a quilt class in Elba in 2006.

Following on from that I did Debbie' s Floral Pizzazz class. I found the exercises on value really helpful, but I lost the momentum to complete the actual class project. The slightly seaweedy look of the flower didn't really speak to me. In October I did the Joggles class on tyvek. The main thing I learnt from the class was that all tyvek and all paint is not equal. The samples I had in the kits from Distractions refused to melt, but the hand painted bits of envelope that I used, would shrivel in a blink of an eye. I was pleased with the two works I completed - the grid with tyvek beads on skewers, and the maple leaves. The class was not well supported, the forum almost non-functional, and the teacher not very present. Another time it could be quite different.

My friends Jane and Sandra were getting fed up with my lack of commitment to my big forest project, so I went and had a half day with Jane, playing with silk fusion and torn painted pellon, to make bark samples. When I got back, I remoulded the silk fusion over a real log, and then embellished it with couched threads, beads and felted fibre. It was amazing how many colours you could add to the basic grey-blue and it still look like a real log!

Two other dalliances at the end of the year - transfer paper for printing onto things other than inkjet sheets, and a new embellisher machine. Hardly got to grips with either, but that's for the future.