Idaho Beauty's Creative Journey

Palouse Progress

2012-01-31T21:19:00.000-08:00

Last day of the month and I had hoped to have another quilt completed. However, I'm still fighting a bug which has slowed me down. Still, I am pretty close to having my Palouse hills piece done. I finally gave up on the hand quilting, and as machine quilting, my original thread choice (a Valdani hand-dyed thread) worked pretty well. But I could not eye-ball the contour lines to my satisfaction. As I threatened early on, I pinned my tracing paper pattern to the front and stitched along the penciled lines. Really takes the pressure off for me. Downside of course is the time it takes to remove all that paper.

And did I say I was going to put more stitch in my work this year? Yes I did and this piece has it! All those thread tails had to be pulled to the back and tied off though, a time consuming job but it simply would not look good doing the pull the bobbin thread to the top and take tiny stitches to lock. This is a slightly heavier thread for one thing and I've tried that method with it on another quilt - not a good look. Once that was done, I couched an Oliver Twist hand-dyed rayon braid along the outline of the hills.

Because I will be attaching this to a pre-made "mount" all those thread tails pulled to the back did not have to be buried, than goodness. I'd still probably be working on that! Rather than regular batting, I used a synthetic felt made from recycled pop bottles (which made me feel slightly better about not using a natural fiber). I was afraid that regular batting might beard through the weave of the silk. I thought I would get a little dimension, especially with the machine quilting, but the surface of the quilt is very flat. Not really an issue with this piece and its atypical fabric choice.

Today I carefully folded back the top so I could trim up the felt to square and trimmed the top fabric about half an inch larger. That extra was turned to the back and glue basted in place to create a clean edge finish. The mounting fabrics and decor bond that will stabilize them are cut, so with any luck, I can put the finishing touches on this piece tomorrow.

First Quilt of the Year

2012-01-25T22:06:00.000-08:00

"Brilliance of the Night Sky"
Hand-beaded Art Quilt
8" x 10" framed
Sheila Mahanke Barnes 2012

Fever be damned, I was determined to finish beading this little quilt with the found pin yesterday. I ended up putting more on than originally planned but I am pleased with the results. Feeling better this afternoon and I couldn't resist getting it stretched over canvas and mounted in the floater frame. I guess running across blog after blog showing "my first finished quilt of the year" has had a motivational effect on me. It feels good to have another quilt from my list for exhibits done, and it amuses me that completing it was not one of my January goals. It apparently took the place of the discharge quilt, still waiting for its final touches.

This is hard to get a good picture of - don't know if you can tell I used two different bugle beads, the bright silver-lined kind and a gunmetal grey twisted one (click on the picture for a larger view). Each arc has a different configuration of beads. I like the center one the best - it looks the most art deco to me. I'm not sure I'm not sure I like the silver-faced floater frame as much as I'd anticipated, but it may grow on me. I think part of my problem is that it needs something other than a white wall behind it to be effective. The dark around the outside of the picture is not part of the frame, although I wish it was. I should have taken an angled shot so you could get a better idea - it's a deeper gallery frame than I've used before. It almost works like a shadow box since the canvas the quilt is mounted on is 3/4" and the frame is 1-1/2" deep - perfect since the pin and beads raise off the surface.

These frames come in a gold facing too but I don't think I'd buy them again. I only tried them because they were the only floater frames on deep discount. I think I paid less for these than the narrower plain black ones so it was a reasonable risk to take. But in the future, I think I'll stick to plain black.

Another troubled week

2012-01-22T14:52:00.000-08:00

Emerging design.

Non-emerging design.

For all my optimism, it was another week of stumbles and restarts. The good news is, after another round of trial beading that was removed because it did not work, I think I have resolved the patterning in the arcs on the found pin piece and have only a few scattered seed beads to apply in the space between the arcs to be done. My floater frames arrived and as near as I can tell (barring more vision gaps), the silver-faced floater will be the perfect complement to this quilt. So near done I can taste it.

The bad news is, after trying several more thread choices, I have come to the conclusion that hand quilting simply will not give me the look I want on the Palouse piece. I should have reasoned that with the heavier weave of the silk fabric, hand stitches would have to be large and out of proportion on this small piece (but might work just fine on a larger version). The thread you see in the picture that looks so much like the doubled basting thread is a buttonhole weight silk thread. If it were variegated, I might be able to live with the big stitches, but it is definitely not the look I had in mind. I'll do a trial of my original variegated thread which may very well show up fine in machine stitching, and if that too is a failure, well, I'll just be reassessing my options again.

In the meantime, I've been laid up this weekend with some sort of a bug. Lots of sleep, lots of fluids, a bit more upright this afternoon. Taking it easy.

Bright Ideas vs Reality

2012-01-16T19:05:00.000-08:00

The vision gap that kicked off last week continued no matter what I picked up to work on. Compared to the previous week when I felt I was making great progress, in week 2 most everything I tried had to be taken out, redone, and maybe that taken out too. I redrew my guidelines on the beaded piece, tried different spacings and colors of beads, unbeaded and rebeaded until it was time to set it aside for more thought. I happily switched to the idea from the Palouse sketch which I didn't think should pose any problems - I even had the thread picked out. I basted the main lines as you can see in the above picture, quilted two lines of quilting and pulled them out. The thread simply disappeared on that heavy-weave silk, even though it was heavier than traditional quilting thread. It took some clever mind games to keep me from feeling defeated and convincing myself I'd wasted the week. But in truth, I think I've hit upon a plan that will work for the beading (after three tries) that is better than my original idea.. And I've picked out a new set of threads in a darker color that I think will work on the Palouse piece. I think I've learned a lot through this process, things I would not have learned if not forced to assess and reassess. The week begins with optimism (fingers crossed).

This gap between what the mind sees and how that plays out in the real world is not unlike the gap that often exists between the goals and resolutions we set and what we actually accomplish, I've decided. The notebook where I jot down my monthly goals has other things recorded throughout it, including a list of quilt ideas a page and a half long. I think that list was made before I moved to Idaho which would make it about 6 years old. Yes, I've completed some of the quilts on it, and others are in process so have a chance of being finished some day. But I fear for the rest, quilts I still think I want to make, ideas I still want to pursue, but the problem is, new ideas don't just stop materializing because I've started a list. It's a handy thing to have around though, for those rare times between projects when I'm wondering what I should work on next. The reality may be, though, that I will never get to them all, mostly because the newer ideas intrigue more and are fresh in my mind.

Also in the back of this notebook is a list of "book recommendations" which I see includes some dvd titles as well. I've even paperclipped reviews cut from magazines to this page. Frankly, I'd forgotten it was there, and while some of the titles still intrigue, I've changed my mind about the need for some of them, even on a lending basis. My book shelves have no room for more books & I have quite a few purchases from the last couple of years still waiting for me to read through them. I think I would be better off saving my money for thread & batting & frames. The gap between books I thought I needed and what I actually need to add to my collection is pretty big.

Finally, I was very surprised to come across my Goals/Resolutions for 2007. This would have been just a few months after I made the big move to Idaho which also signaled my big move to focusing on art quilting. I guess then, I shouldn't be surprised that this list takes up an entire page. It includes everything from "process & organize new fabric" and "finish putting up design wall fabric", to "contact local art quilters/art organizations, follow-up and GET INVOLVED" and "have studio open house". As I scan the list, I can see it is very focused on ways to become more professional with my art quilting - making contacts, identifying juried shows, beefing up blog content, revamping my documentation filing system. Only a couple of items refer to the actual making of art: This was the year I made monthly journals quilts with friend Judi & that shows up near the top of the list. There are references to upping my hours spent creating and how to schedule that, and an admonition to continue exploration of surface design techniques.

The check marks tell me I didn't do too well reaching those goals in 2007. I didn't actually do much with the "contact local art people" until 2008 (and a note in the margin indicates that was only somewhat accomplished). Many things are still waiting for me to complete (and I just may someday), while others, like the identifying juried shows to enter aren't on my radar anymore. Yes, my vision that year certainly exceeded reality. Yet look at what has happened with that GETTING INVOLVED goal. Several years down the road, I started exhibiting more frequently with the local arts council, and eventually was invited to join the visual arts committee at a time that was much better than if it had happened in 2007.

Wasted effort then, these lists and goals and resolutions we make? I don't think so. There's something about getting an idea out of your head and into this visible reality that is useful, even if it is off. Just like my beading, or my quilting that I thought was set and ready to go, these lofty thoughts once written out and considered can be revised and reworked and much learned during that process. New connections can be made leading to a better set of goals, a process that may not happen while the thoughts are just floating around in your head. And rather than remaining in the ether of our imaginations to be forgotten or blown out of proportion, here they are, a record of our thoughts to be revisited, smiled over, considered again, because these thoughts are where we thought we wanted to go and where we may still want to journey now that we are reminded. If not, realizing that helps clarify the direction we need to take, want to take. The trick, I suppose, is to remember to use lists and goals and resolutions as a tool, not to let them use and rule us.

Vision Gap

2012-01-10T19:05:00.000-08:00

Ah, beading...you are so addictive. What starts out simple begins to build, more ideas, more beads... This is what I worked on today, thinking that as long as the 8 x 10 background was quilted, I could quickly add the beads I had in mind to enhance the pin and play out my idea. Alas, it is not taking shape as envisioned, not moving quickly either, and I fear the beads added today will be removed and redone tomorrow. I would despair if not for my beading mentor, Mary Stori, who also sometimes beads with optimism only to unbead and try something different. I think I've identified the problem and there's not too much to undo. In the picture above, I've set out the beads I bought for the project, shoving them around in approximation of how they will be positioned - too closely it has turned out. I've marked some guidelines with the white Clover pen that disappears with either dry heat or steam. I may be redrawing them as well.

I'm still operating a bit disjointedly, but when I get an uncontrollable urge after so many months of no uncontrollable urges, I feel I must act. Since the beading needed to stop while I pondered what was going on with it, and there was still time to fill, I took the first steps on my Palouse contours idea. I'd done a drawing from memory in my bigger sketchbook (above) and have been thinking of ways I could transfer the design for quilting. Remembering Mary Stori's trick of basting along the main lines to provide a guide for beading, I thought I could do the same for the quilting. So I spent some time with tracing paper over the sketchbook page to transfer the design. I'll scan it into the computer for future reference (I'm thinking I may want to play with it in a larger size), then pin it to the back to do the basting. All along I've intended this to be a hand quilted piece, but I may change my mind and machine quilt from the back. Yes, I can see I may need to do some samples.

Direction

2012-01-06T19:21:00.001-08:00

Today was pretty grey but yesterday the sun made a stunning appearance, lighting up the willows I can see from the front porch with a shimmer I couldn't explain. Beautiful, unexpected, difficult to capture. A lot of life is like that.

With all my mutterings over the last few posts, I haven't talked much about artistic direction, although I hinted that I thought I might see a common thread amongst the quilts I want to work on this year. That common thread is thread, and mostly applied by hand. I find that interesting, primarily because I love hand quilting and other hand stitching, but often deny myself the pleasure because of time constraints. Here I am, definitely dealing with time constraints, and all my thoughts lead to projects requiring the slowness of hand work. It makes me smile.

At the beginning of last year, I was doing very minimalist work with very little stitch of any kind. I'd closed in on myself and it was all I could do. With only a few exceptions, I couldn't muster the energy or patience for much handwork, was unconvinced of my ability to do good machine work. As the year progressed, I sensed I needed to start working larger and put more quilting in my work but it was slow in coming. That need for expansion and complexity was confirmed as I viewed the quilts at the APWQ show in Tacoma back in August, and mirrored the personal expansion I was feeling in my life. As I stood before one incredible quilt after another, I knew that was where I wanted to go with my work, a return to a type of expression that would be more demanding but also more rewarding. A few tentative steps have been taken, and now that I have begun the hand quilting on Masks, I feel myself getting comfortable again, setting doubts and nay-saying aside. Yes, my direction this year is definitely toward more stitch, and I'm hoping to up the size too. Some of my ideas definitely need to find expression in a larger format.

I've also realized that I want to create some art that will surprise those that have gotten comfortable with my nature-themed art quilts. Masks will be one of them, I think, the discharge piece another. I've always had the odd quilt that has caused those who know my work to doubt it really came from me. But those ideas are in there too, with the leaves and the birches and the mountain landscapes. They perhaps challenge me most of all and are the most rewarding...when they work.

I'm counting on my resolution phrase, "balance and harmony", to help guide me in these old but neglected directions.

Settle down - or not

2012-01-05T19:24:00.000-08:00

My last post talked about the scattered feeling I had as I assessed my progress toward the upcoming exhibits. I've thought a bit more about that, knowing that part of the scattering is just the way I work. I try my best to focus on one idea and project at a time. But as I work, other ideas and variations and possibilities suddenly flood my mind and before I know it, I'm off on another tangent. Yesterday was a darn good example. I'm stuck a bit on the 3 x 3 discharge piece (Fading & Forgotten may be its new title), unsure how to proceed with quilting around the outside. It is slated for an exhibit with a "found object" theme. But long before I picked up that metal plate from the side of the road, I'd picked up the costume jewelry pin above, also from the side of a road. I've had the idea for using it in a quilt since I held it in my hand 7 years ago. I would love to have it done too for this exhibit, but if I don't, it can be in a different one later.

But out it has come because it occurred to me that the quilting motif I'm contemplating for the discharge piece would make a great quilting motif for the pin to rest on - something I had not resolved in my contemplation of its design. Since the background is the same fabric as in the discharge piece, maybe I could get a better idea how this garnet stitch might look without actually doing it on the other piece. I have spent several happy hours stitching round and round and marveling as the texture emerged.

But wouldn't you know it, this exercise presented an option to use in the future that never would have occurred to me either. Since I will be wrapping the finished pin quilt over canvas to mount in a floater frame, I decided I did not need a layer of backing under the batting. That's Hobb's 80/20 black batting (on the right), and when I'd done a bit of quilting and flipped it over, I was quite taken with the look and feel of the batting so heavily quilted. Sigh...see? there's no end to the ideas that present themselves and I need to be a better manager of my time if I'm to get to even a small percentage of them!

So creative idea generation that sends me off in different directions aside, I've targeted why it has become more of an issue at the moment. This is perhaps the first time that I have had so many exhibits all converging at approximately the same time. They are all sponsored by my local arts council, and all are giving opportunity to get going on quilts that have been in the planning stage for a long time. Not all are themed, but of the ones that are, I am not trying to come up with an idea to fit the theme, the theme is conveniently fitting an idea I already have. And I have long used themed exhibits just that way - I seem to need that deadline or excuse to bring an idea to fruition. If this causes me to jump from one type of design to another, it doesn't usually pose a problem when exhibiting opportunities come one at a time months apart. I work on one or two quilts, hang them in the show, take a little breather, then start on the next. Fresh start, fresh direction perhaps.

I went into this round knowing I wanted to be involved in all of them, but also knowing if I didn't get something made for one or two of them, it would be ok. ArtWalk is my main focus, a place where I feel I can shine and show off my latest direction. Now that I have taken a more reasoned look at my original (and I'll admit a bit panicked) plan, my direction is becoming more clear. I can do this, and enjoy the process, explore away but know when to rein that in as well. Frankly, it feels good to be working like this, and bit by bit, I see common threads, how some may work together, how things may shuffle, what needs to be set aside for another time. The important thing is, I'm working - with enthusiasm.

Brainstorming for 2012

2012-01-04T11:09:00.000-08:00

I have not been able to coalesce my thoughts as to where I want to go with my art this year and other aspects of my life. Instead, I've been leaving bits and pieces of ideas and perhaps longings all around the internet on other sites. My focus for months has been these up-coming exhibits and it's difficult to think beyond that. As day 3 of the new year arrived, and I continued to run across my favorite bloggers lining out their goals for the year, I knew I needed to sit quietly in the studio, sketchbooks and notebook at hand, and organize my thoughts a bit better, scoping out not only "the plan" for this month, but the peripherals that also must be addressed in the next three months.

Earlier in the day, I'd checked out the sale on aswexpress.com and discovered they had some of the floater frames I fell in love with on deep reduction. I was sitting at the library using its high speed connection so couldn't do my usual check and ponder here at home. I decided to make a few quick decisions, casting about in my memory to recall what designs I have pending that would look good in these frames, and then what sizes I might need. It forced me into decisions I otherwise might have put off until too late to take advantage of these prices, but it did something else too that surprised me. It made me pick a size for a quilt idea barely fleshed out, and by doing so, I suddenly felt I could confidently move forward with the idea. That's pretty much backwards to how I usually work but by doing so I felt it propel the idea forward. That's when I knew it was time to gather my thoughts, brainstorm a bit and clarify my direction.

What I found was that each of the exhibits are so different that the quilts for them are scattering my focus. No wonder I feel like I'm jumping from one thing to another, no continuity in what I'm doing. I don't think that is totally bad, but it is, I realized, keeping me from pursuing several ideas that exploded in my head as options for a series. I'm not sure I can do anything about that at this point, but it is a reminder how quickly I can become distracted from exploring an idea and really developing it.

I became the most concerned about my ArtWalk exhibit. I only need two pieces done and photographed by April to submit with the application, but need additional pieces to display by the opening at the end of June. I'm planning on Masks to be the centerpiece of my exhibit and suddenly questioned whether the quilts I'd jotted down as possible ArtWalk ones, especially the ones for the application, work with that quilt. During my time exhibiting with POAC, I've learned the value of a cohesive grouping, works that follow a theme however loosely. I need to give this more thought in order to set my priorities over the next few months.

So instead of getting any actual sewing done yesterday as I had planned, I worked on a plan, keeping in mind my resolution phrase of balance and harmony. I'll be needing both as I work towards these exhibits and keep on top of the rest of the daily activities. I did better than I thought I would addressing the goals on my December list. It has given me courage to come up with a list for January equally as ambitious:

Finish quilting the 3 x 3 discharge piece. Resolve cutout/suspension detail.
Quilt background for found jewelry piece (as tryout for motif to complete above quilting.
Stitch/threadpaint purple seedheads.
Consider companion pieces for Masks.
Sketch and/or mark quilting pattern for Palouse on silk over felt.
Continue developing abstract willow. Test runs on pieced background?
Continue hand quilting on Masks.

A New Year

2012-01-01T18:37:00.000-08:00

Gotta tell ya, seeing this movie in the theater today was a great start to the year! Kinda made up for the fact that The Rose Parade, which I faithfully watch each New Year's morning snuggled under a quilt and sipping champagne-spiked orange juice, is postponed until tomorrow. I always forget they do that when the New Year kicks off on a Sunday. I haven't done much else today, except lose myself in a new novel and sit down with my calendars to transfer birthdays/anniversaries and note any meetings and appointments already clamoring for my attention in the days to come. As always, I also use this exercise as a chance to review what transpired during the year - trips I took, visits from friends, exhibit openings, dental traumas. For the most part, the memories are excellent.

As I've been reading others' blogs, I was reminded that I now do the resolution word to keep me on track throughout the year. Geez, I realized I couldn't remember what I'd picked for this year and had to look it up. Oh, yes: refocus, because in 2010 my word was "focus" and I'd gotten totally derailed by medical issues, anger and resentment (see this post which manages to put a positive spin on 2010 anyway). I'd gone into survival mode and not only struggled with my art, but struggled with relationships, essentially shutting myself off and throwing up defenses. But before the year was over, I knew I couldn't keep living like that, didn't want to keep living like that. So in addition to refocusing in 2011, I soon added a second resolution word: engage. The only way out of my hole, I realized, was to engage with life again, and not let opportunities slip through my fingers out of fear, laziness, inattentiveness or the other myriad ways we allow life to pass us by. Engage I did, and what a difference taking on that word made. Slowly but surely, I started taking risks, opened myself to others, tested various waters, healed both physically and emotionally, and began to reap the benefits of that openness in the response of others. So many wonderful experiences came my way in 2011 and as the year came to a close, I could see how far I'd come from where I started at the beginning of the year. It was months of hard work, actually, realizing just how much I'd lost myself that bad year, and lost my passion for quilting, what a mighty struggle it was not only to reclaim either but even remember what either had been like. But eventually, I got my feet under me once more, partly due to the engaging with life again, and the people I engaged with that helped me along the way. Not sure the passion has come back totally, but at least by the close of the year I again felt enthusiasm for my work. Throughout the year, few more ancient projects got finished, a couple of "problem" quilts got fixed, a few old ideas finally made there way to the "let's get started on this" phase, and new ideas kept bubbling up.

So what to choose for this year's word? That took about 2 seconds to decide and is actually a pairing of words: balance & harmony. It was the focus of my last yoga class of 2011 and I immediately realized what a perfect emphasis that would be for my life right now. Who doesn't want harmony in their life, especially the internal kind and balance is always something I've struggled to maintain, being such an "all or nothing" person. Balance and harmony are also elements I struggled to attain in my designing. So balance & harmony it is!

Happy New Year to you all, and may you too find balance and harmony in 2012.

New Year's Eve

2011-12-31T18:01:00.000-08:00

Here it is the last day of the year, and I am still in a cheerful mood. The year is going out on a high of sorts, at least my mood is high. The sun made an appearance, weak through the thin clouds but sun all the same, brightening all rooms of the house. Thank goodness for lists, by the way. In the aftermath of the mostly pleasant distractions of the holiday, I could not think beyond one thing what it was I wanted to address as December's contribution to "the plan". I unearthed the list and...oh my. Quite a bit and not many days left. It was a happy discovery though, as "continue quilting on Masks" was one of the items, and I had not touched it all month. I picked it up as I watched a little tv this morning and it was like a treat.

Later, I continued yesterday's work on the 3 x 3 discharge piece (really gotta come up with a better name for it). Still puzzling how to flatten the circle centers (didn't like either attempt yesterday) and what else to do around the outside.

I've also returned to a thought which followed the making of Willow. I thought I'd done at least one sketch of a possible layout but couldn't find it. This is frustrating me a lot because the idea was very clear in my head, but I can't seem to make it happen on paper. I ran across something yesterday which gave me an idea for a border and did a rough sketch. Today, the thinking is progressing, curves coming to mind, and I spent a little time paging through a book for ideas.

I'm needing to get creative because of a shortage of fabric. When I got the fabric out that had sparked the idea, I instantly remembered why I'd set it aside for so long. That blue on the left is what I want as background for rectangles of the leaf batiks. But it is only 9 inches wide and not the full width of the cut anymore. The other fabrics are a few I pulled which are similar but not as perfect, and equally small in quantity. I'm trying to think of a way I might piece a background, and that is what led me to the thought of curves. Part of me mourns the inability to capture and execute the original idea, another part of me thinks that inability is leading to a more interesting design. So much for what I thought might be a quick quilt to throw together. But I like that my mind is working again, not blocked for solutions as it has been much of the year. All in all, it's been a delightful day.

So this is a different ending to the year than I often have. No rush to get the last stitches in something to say I finished it in 2011. No feeling of disappointment or failure because I did not do everything I thought to do. No "the year can't end soon enough" nor a "I don't want to see it go" - the year had its ups and downs but overall it was a good one, with lots of growth and healing, and ending in pleasant peace. I can't help but think the new year will only build on this, a slow and steady progression to more good things so I face it without qualms. I hope you are feeling the same sense of satisfaction and hope.

Can't wait to crack open the champagne and toast the New Year!

Cheerfulness a deterrent?

2011-12-29T16:44:00.000-08:00

"Eggplant ala Albars"
12" x 12" Art Quilt
Gerrie Condon 2011

"Being cheerful is really no recipe to get down to work: nothing happens until paranoia, jealousy, competitiveness and guilt arrive."
Alain de Botton

Oh dear, could this be my problem this week? I had envisioned quiet, carefree days between Christmas and New Years in which to spend some quality time in the studio. But here it is Thursday already and I am just getting in there this afternoon to finish up that 4th Mountain Ash Berries postcard that I am keeping for myself, and pull fabric for a new art piece. I find I am still surrounded by a lovely bubble of warmth and love from the holiday preparations as well as cards, greetings and gifts from friends and family. In other words, I am very cheery as I write my thank you notes and go about the ordinary business of my life. Well, guilt does lie just around the corner, I feel it. But as for paranoia, jealousy and competitiveness, those don't factor into my creativity much anymore, nor when they do, do they really help in getting me "down to work." I don't subscribe to the angst philosophy of producing art. What may motivate most is admiration, not jealousy, which then makes me want to elevate my own work in response, but not in a competitive way.

Contributing to my glowing well-being is the little quilt above. I won it in a drawing on Gerrie Congdon's blog, and as if it were one more Christmas gift, it arrived just a few days before that holiday. It is one of several that she did for the Twelve by Twelve "eggplant" color challenge and it is lovely. Made from silk, it is quilted in a grid with various colors of thread. I love that effect and how the thread color plays tricks on the eye to make it believe the fabric underneath varies in color as well. I want to do more of this sort of thing myself in the new year.

But for now, off to cheerfully finish up my postcard...

Merry Christmas

2011-12-24T13:04:00.000-08:00

Greetings of the season regardless of your beliefs. It's that warm fuzzy time of the year, and I hope that you are enjoying it in some way with the special people in your life, and also remembering those who have made past Christmases a sweet memory. I don't do much in the way of decorating anymore, finding I am quite satisfied with this little tree surrounded by the cards & presents that have been coming in. A bonus was waking this morning to softly falling snow. I was sure the weatherman said last night not to expect any until later in the day, and then not much, followed by snow/rain mix after dark. An ugly thought with people going out to services this evening - including me although I don't have far to go. Instead, this steady light snow has already left a couple of inches making it definitely feel like Christmas.

Also making it feel like Christmas was the arrival of Mr. FedEx with this package. I instantly knew what waited within since I got a similar one for my birthday - chocolate covered strawberries. I lost no time doing as the box instructed...yum! In addition to the fruit, that's a very large chocolate wreath loaded with half a dozen different kinds of nuts. That's my kind of chocolate.

Lest this all be about me, I'm also taking time today to bake cookies for some last minute gifts and write a few checks to charitable causes. I had an unexpected number of art sales this year (the most recent just a few days ago) after a discouraging 3 years of none. It appeared that once I gave up on the idea that my work would sell in an economy where many struggled to meet their basic financial obligations, that letting go allowed it to happen - in its own time I'm thinking. Whatever the reason for my success this year, I am grateful for the patronage of not only a few friends, but also a total stranger. I'm not sure why I needed the validation of that total stranger more than validation from friends, but I thought I did. Further reflection makes me realize I should not discount the importance of anyone wishing to put forth money for my art, whether they know me or not. Perhaps that should be the most important validation of all, that coming from friends. At any rate, it reminded me that in the past I've always donated a percentage of my quilting income to charity, and I needed to figure out where to send this delightfully large sum of money. I'm thinking The Heifer Project may be just the thing - looking at shares of a llama that would provide wool and income to a Peruvian family and shares of a sheep that would provide wool & income to an Arizona family - fiber being a nice tie-in. May you too find a way to share whatever bit of abundance that has come to you this year.

Mountain Ash Snow Berries Fabric Postcards

2011-12-21T16:48:00.000-08:00

I put the finishing touches on these around midnight last night. A last row of red stitching next to the satin stitched edges. (Click on photo for larger view.) They are now tucked in Christmas cards and on on their way...

Yes, I started with four, but that fourth one became a "prototype" of experimentation, trying to hit upon a thread color that pleased me. My meager collection of reds were all similar in value to each other and to the fabric they were to lie on. The rayon just didn't give the effect of berries that I had in mind, a dark brown was simply not right. If you look closely at mountain ash berries, you will see they are more orange then red, so I thought, aha! that orange polylite thread that has come in so handy lately will surely do the trick. But no, it too wasn't what I had in mind. (It's the lower three in the picture above and the center finished postcard in the top picture. You can see how it makes the red fabric look more orange than the same fabric stitched with reds.) I actually picked out the stitching on one semi-circle, no mean feat when you have double-stitched a circle with tiny stitches. It was a bad day at the office.

Then in conversation with a friend, two things happened. I was reminded of the technique of blending your own color by passing two different threads through the eye of the needle. And I remembered I had some red silk thread stashed away with my supplies for Baltimore Album blocks. There was a darker, almost reddish brown thread in there that on its own was too dark, but which toned down the red rayon just enough when paired with it to give more definition against the red fabric. (You can see in the previous pictures several of those blending trials with other thread colors.) The difference is subtle, but what I was looking for.

So what do you think? Is this a design idea worthy of further exploration in a larger format? I'm thinking yes. Got ideas or comments? Please share!

Mountain Ash Berries

2011-12-16T15:31:00.000-08:00

Priorities scolded "no", the muses encouraged "yes". You can see who won out. Just had an overwhelming urge to start playing with this idea inspired by the mountain ash berries covered with snow. Too often I put off moving ahead with something so long that I lose the idea. Not this time. Besides, it's on my list of goals for the month.

And now I'm off to the reception for "Cabin Fever."

POAC Exhibit "Cabin Fever"

2011-12-15T19:09:00.000-08:00

"Poppies & Peonies"
23" x 18" Art Quilt
Sheila Mahanke Barnes 2011

We hung the latest POAC exhibit yesterday, and yes, I got my quilt finished for it. "Poppies & Peonies" is my response to the theme of Cabin Fever - I always look forward to them blooming next to the house once winter is over and the weather warms again. On their face, they are not particularly tropical in nature, but using their orange and red palette in this piece does make me think a bit tropically.

Remember me saying I felt the need to work both larger and with more stitching? As I quilted away on the ferns in the background batik, I began thinking of this piece as my "return to stitch" - this is so much more heavily quilted than my other pieces this year. An unexpected (or perhaps just unremembered) advantage of such dense stitching is that it produced a very stable and flat piece once steamed. No stretching along the sides when I applied binding and couched that bit of yarn along the binding seam.

We have such a great crew at POAC. It made it a little less intimidating for my first time co-coordinating an exhibit. Still, with 37 artists submitting up to 3 pieces each, it takes about 5 hours to group and hang the art.

We've started asking artists to submit a framed artist bio or statement to hang with their art. Still, each piece of art gets its own hand-written gallery card. Karen & I were comparing notes as to which was worse - muscle cramps from wrestling large framed paintings up high or muscle cramps from filling out those cards.

Here's just a tiny sampling of the creative responses to our theme. I'll post better pictures later.

If you're in the area, please stop by - either for the reception tomorrow night or before the exhibit comes down in February. Details below:

“Cabin Fever” Exhibit opens December 16

The opening reception for the Pend Oreille Arts Council’s provocative new art exhibit will be Friday, December 16, from 5:30-7 p.m. in the POAC Gallery, in the Power House, 120 Lake Street in Sandpoint. Entitled Cabin Fever, the exhibit features exceptional new works from more than 30 of POAC’s member artists.

"Cabin Fever seemed the perfect theme for our exhibit that falls during the dead of winter,” says Sheila Barnes, one of the co-coordinators of Cabin Fever. “We envisioned our gallery creating a cozy respite, full of colorful art sweeping viewers away to exotic places or warm seasons. We all get cabin fever from time to time, and we all deal with it differently. We hope you will join us and see how our artists deal with it, escaping with them for awhile.”

The diversity of media and subject matter in this exhibit is extraordinary, and offers a great opportunity to enjoy a wonderful trip into some interesting perspectives, ideas, and beauty. Oil, acrylic, watercolor, photography, ceramics, jewelry, fiber and sculpture will be represented, and most of the work will be for sale to the public – just in time for the holidays! The reception is free and the public is encouraged to attend. Cabin Fever will remain on display through February 17, 2012.

The Pend Oreille Arts Council exists to facilitate and present the finest quality experiences in the arts for the people of the Sandpoint area and beyond. POAC hosts performing arts events and visual arts events throughout the year. For more information, contact POAC at 263-6139, e-mail at poac@sandpoint.net, become a ‘Fan’ on Facebook, or visit the website at www.artinsandpoint.org.

Ahhhhhh

2011-12-08T19:25:00.000-08:00

Back in business...

The Part

2011-12-07T18:30:00.000-08:00

At last, the part for my sewing machine has arrived and has now replaced the troublesome one above. Tomorrow, machine quilting can begin in earnest. It had better, as I have just under a week to finish Poppies & Peonies for the next exhibit. Who would think it would take over a month to get a simple part like this for a machine that is still in production?

My repairman was surprisingly indignant at the cost of this part. It's just a molded piece of plastic that slips over the end of the metal shaft that moves up and down, held in place by an Allen screw (top). It has a wee bit of metal wire to keep the thread from swinging wild and a smaller hole in the bottom to insert the needle, held by another screw (lower). If you look closely you can see how that lower screw broke off below the surface of this part, inaccessible and thus causing the purchase of the replacement part at $30. If I had not had an extra screw, that would have cost me another $7. Thank goodness, my repairman did not also tack on labor for switching the parts out.

Thankful for the Sun

2011-12-04T19:20:00.000-08:00

Yes, the sun made an appearance today, taking the edge off an otherwise chill day. As I stood by the lake, soaking it in, I chanced to look up at the big willow, that sun lighting up its branches. So often, I see it only as a silhouette.

I'm guessing you gray naysayers like this juxtaposition of yellow better.

There was red too. I never remember the name of the bush that produces such a thick array of red berries each fall.

Out on the lake, the water was setting up interesting lines and angles, driven by the uneven bed below.

And up in the sky, the moon shared space with some clouds.

Couldn't help it - that jet trailing contrails looking all in the world like it was headed directly for the moon reminded me of scenes in old sci-fi movies.

Just when I thought I was done shooting pictures, I chanced to take one more look back as I passed by the willow tree. Framed within the branches was the moon, and I got some great shots using the zoom, even without a tripod. Some decidedly artsy ones below.

Playing Telephone

2011-12-03T20:01:00.000-08:00

My cousin, Laura, sent me a little challenge, a box that is making the rounds in a game of Telephone. To be honest, this is not a game I played when young, except for once at a youth group where it totally fell flat. The idea is that whatever is whispered to the first person will become totally distorted by the time it is whispered to the last. In my case, it was faithfully repeated the entire way around, much to the consternation of the adult leading the activity. I've seen the quilter's version of telephone in one of the popular magazines, and frankly, I thought most of the participants took huge liberties in interpreting what was "whispered" to them. In many cases, I could not see the connection at all.

So here it is my turn and I can now see how easy it is to take a big leap. Above is what my cousin "whispered" to me. I thought all week about it, mostly sussing out the meaning of the quotation from Shakespeare. I'm not sure the casual observer can see the connection between her piece and mine, but in my mind, it is there. By the way, this is not a fiber specific challenge as participants are to respond on supplied 5-1/2" by 8" cardstock, but my cousin thought it might be interesting to add that dimension so sent it my way. I used bits and pieces of leftovers from the Strawberry Moon series and eyes I'd printed on TAP and transferred to fabric for use on Masks. Those eyes did not turn out at all as I'd envisioned so they were looking for a home. The poem is one I wrote earlier in the year. It's not great art but this was a nice little diversion today while I continue to wait for my sewing machine part to arrive.

December Goals

2011-12-02T19:39:00.000-08:00

I get a big kick out of Austin Kleon's newspaper blackout horoscopes. Above is mine for December - something to think about and it makes me smile. You can see all of December's horoscopes here. As for what I think I'll really do in terms of "The Plan", looks like December will be more of the same in terms of goals - having to move a lot of November forward. Actually, I know that setting these goals won't necessarily result in everything on the list each month getting done. Life happens, priorities change, and one must always be open to following the muse who does not always like what's on the list. However, it is very helpful to me to have a basic framework, something I can go to on those days when I can't think what to do. And past experience tells me that by setting frequent goals, I'll be less likely to look back with regret and more likely to be able to work at a sane pace to complete work for events I want to be a part of. It's part organizer, part motivator. So at the risk of sounding redundant plus overly ambitious, here's what I hope to work on this month:

Quilt and bind Poppies & Peonies for December exhibit
Quilt 3x3 discharge piece. Possibly experiment with cutout and suspending plate
Sketch full-size patterns for shadow grass & fall furrows
Play with mountain ash berries idea (in postcard format)
Work up abstract willow idea
Work up free-motion stitched seed head idea
Continue hand quilting on Masks

November Wrap-up

2011-12-01T17:34:00.000-08:00

November went more quickly than I expected, and I am still waiting for the part for my sewing machine. Thus, I have a somewhat legitimate excuse for not completing the average two-a-month quilts as set forth in The Plan. The back-ordered part is on its way now, I'm assured, so maybe by the weekend, I'll be quilting away on Poppies & Peonies, and then tackling the 3 x 3 discharge piece. As for the other items on my to-do list for November, there's really no excuse for not getting some of my new ideas sketched out. Guilt sent me to the computer yesterday to pull up some reference photos to get started on that. But instead, I got sucked in by my photo manipulation program. Not an altogether bad thing, as it turned out. What happened there got my mind thinking in a different direction, a bit "aha" in nature, and my simple idea for grass silhouettes could turn into a series.

Variations include negative images as well as reducing to 2 colors and kicking in a diffusion filter.

I also finally made some headway in manipulating photos of eyes into black and white images for use on Masks - these are my mother's eyes when she was in her 20's. Masks, but the way, has been the real winner in this saga of "life interrupted" by the machine waiting for a part. No way would I have put this much time into the hand quilting of it this far in advance of needing it done. Whereas I was a bit tentative in where to begin the stitching, I have finally gained some confidence in the "let it happen" nature of picking out the design left by the resist painting method.

I did get the sleeve on "Falling Leaves" and the rest of the inking done so it is ready for exhibit. But I don't really count that as a quilt done for November, as it was primarily finished in October and counts towards that month. I did not work up a quick version of "Southwest Fantasy" since the machine was down (lame excuse since I could have pulled fabric, cut shapes and generally gotten to a point of needing that machine), but I did do a color sketch of an idea rising out of the mountain ash berries topped with snow. Right now I'm just thinking fabric postcards to try out the idea - maybe it will go on the December list...after the November items left undone.

Ah December - I really don't have much hope for stellar productivity, although maybe I'll surprise myself. The holidays always bring major distractions, but perhaps I can stay ahead of it this year. Then again, I couldn't keep myself from starting this knitting project on Thanksgiving Day. I have fond memories of knitting during the holidays - something I could do when my presence was required in the family room. So naturally, Thanksgiving and Christmas brings the urge to the fore. In this case, I've wanted to start these fingerless gloves for months, and now's the time to be wearing them. I'm using a free pattern rated easy, but that I am finding a bit confusing. I was totally unaware of knitting in the round on anything but circular needles or a set of 4 double pointed needle. But this pattern calls for tiny #2's in a set of 5. I feel like I'm knitting on skewers. Oh wait - I essentially am! The yarn is a merino wool spun by internet friend Connie Rose and as you can see, it is a winner!

Documenting My November

2011-11-30T14:21:00.002-08:00

As hard as it is to believe, this is the last day of November and so the last day of the Document Your Life challenge. They wrapped up the month with the task of documenting the sky. I thought it would probably be more of the featureless grey cloud overcast but I was wrong - there was lots of variety as the clouds swirled and broke to blue sky. I can't seem to get away from these references to sky and clouds lately.

I thought it would be fun to put together a collage of the entire month's documentation. Each picture is labeled with that day's task. Some days were surprisingly difficult while others were efforts to come up with something other than the obvious - well, any decent challenge should challenge. Some of them may puzzle you but I really can tie each image to its task. Click on the picture for a larger view.

Shopping...

2011-11-27T13:15:00.000-08:00

I did my part yesterday in shopping locally at small businesses. I've been waiting months for the alpaca rancher to dye up some alpaca yarn like this - at last she had a wonderful selection in her store. Also succumbed to some wool/silk hand-dyed yarns at a new weaving shop in town. I look forward to knitting these yarns into wonderful scarves.

Cyber Monday gives us more opportunities to patronize small businesses and artisans. Don't forget, I have calendars of my work as well as notecards and gift items available in my cafepress shop:

2012 Fiberart Wall Calendar
2012 Quilted Birches Calendar

And if you shop on Monday, November 28, Cafepress is offering this one day only coupon special:

Cyber Monday Only! Free shipping on orders over $40*. Coupon Code SHOPNOV28. Details: http://www.cafepress.com/content/si/promo/details.html

Inspiration on a Blustery Day

2011-11-25T14:35:00.000-08:00

I'm saving my shopping for tomorrow (shop local independent business, not big box) but still felt the need to get out of the house today. I've been meaning to check out Lakeview Cemetery for a long time. I think it's oldest one in town, with familiar names of the early movers & shakers such as the first headstone below - a park is named for him. With my "Document your life" task for today being document a stranger, I thought, why not document the strangers in this cemetery and finally get a look? And yes, it does have a beautiful view of the lake. Enjoy some of the unusual detail on these headstones, some of which just might end up in a quilt.

In Praise of Gray (or is that Grey?)

2011-11-23T12:24:00.000-08:00

Well! I see from the comments on my last post's question (What do you see outside your window today that inspires a particular palette for your art? ), gray is getting a bit of a bad rap. Wow, nothing inspirational there, seemed to be the sentiment. I feel compelled to come to its defense. And on a day where I myself am mostly looking at gray, fog and rain. So let's consider for starters, how gray can make a dramatic backdrop such as in the bucolic scene above.

Colors placed over a gray background get an extra bit of pop, like these autumn leaves seen outside my studio. No competing here with brilliant blue.

I've used the lovely neutral gray as background for some of my quilts, like this Willow Leaves II. Was not thinking of cloudy skies, but of leaves on pavement...

...such as this leaf I found lying on the grass. Totally boring and hard to see against the green, it becomes a star when placed on grey as its supporting actor.

But even without any color, grey in all its values can be stunningly dramatic. I'm no Ansel Adams, but my photo of a December view across the lake is reminiscent of his stark black and white nature photos. He may not have been looking at totally grey landscapes, but that is how he rendered them in his art.

But I also ask you to look beyond the general dreariness of a gray rainy day. I'm betting there is some color there somewhere if you just shift your focus a bit. Here was the scene outside my studio window not long ago. Yes, there's still green grass and leaves on the trees, but yuck - it was a wet dreary day.

And yet, my eye kept straying out to that grass - what was it exactly? Oh - I see. It's NOT just green. It's not just different shades of green. There are other colors mixed in there too.

Run through a color analyzer, this is the resulting palette that I could use in my art. Granted, not the zippiest set of colors, but still, not totally boring either. At least not to me.

Here's the photo run through the pixelator filter of Paint Shop Pro. One could easily ramp up the contrast and values for a less neutral look.

Still not convinced that there's anything of interest out there on a rainy grey day? Then consider what this AP photographer captured in the midst of Portland, Oregon's heavy rain yesterday. I'm inspired!

Enjoying the snow

2011-11-21T19:53:00.000-08:00

This is our third measurable snowfall in a week, and finally the crew is out plowing the driveways. No matter, I've been snug inside hand quilting away. Sorry I've got nothing to show - in spite of steady time put in, it doesn't look like I've made much progress. I think it's because I'm jumping from area to area trying to get some basic lines in rather than concentrate on finishing an area before moving on.

I was quite taken with these snowcaps on the mountain ash berries and thought, huh - maybe that's what inspired some of the antique red and white quilts. It certainly makes ME want to make something so simple yet striking.

What do you see outside your window today that inspires a particular palette for your art?

Slow & Steady

2011-11-16T19:59:00.000-08:00

As I wait for the part to arrive, I quilt some each day on "Masks" while catching up on recorded Masterpiece Theater episodes - quite pleasant. And as I study my cloth, searching out where to place my stitching lines, I consider that this process is not unlike my life right now: thinking I see a pattern, then losing it; diving in even though unsure, because it is the only way to make progress; focusing on an area until I can go no farther because of a barrier, then stepping back to see the larger picture; sometimes satisfied, sometimes seeing an error to be fixed. Sometimes I feel in charge, then just as quickly the job at hand takes on a life of its own. It's slow going, this hand stitching, this negotiating of life. Both take a lot of imagination, a lot of trust.

An Unexpected Gift

2011-11-15T13:37:00.000-08:00

A lovely surprise was waiting in my mailbox when I got home last night. It's the niece again, such a lovely, thoughtful young woman. I'd gushed over the wrapping paper she'd used on her last gift to me, so she has picked up these hand-made papers that she spotted at an art store. I'm to have fun playing with them "for various bookbinding or other creative projects." I love that permission given to strike out and try something outside my usual purview.

I can also feel somewhat good about using these papers - they have an interesting origin.

November Skies

2011-11-14T16:56:00.000-08:00

Not today's November skies, but recent November skies. The streakiness of these clouds made me think of colored pencil strokes or strokes of a fine brush.

We've been having some stunning sunsets too. These were actually taken at the end of October, as I endeavored to catch that lovely crescent moon over sherbet skies.

Minor Setback

2011-11-13T16:08:00.000-08:00

I'm surprised I did not view what happened as the gods conspiring against me. Above you see the type of screw that holds the needle of my sewing machine in place. Next to it you see what came off in my hand when I went to loosen that screw to change needles in preparation for a major round of machine quilting. The stem broke far enough down the shaft that there is no way to back it out. Not even my trusty repairman could help, save to order a replacement part which is small and easy to switch out. This would not be quite such the game stopper were it not for the fact that the needle stuck in the machine is the smallest size, suitable only for monofilament or 100 wt silk thread, neither of which I'd be using on the two pieces ready to quilt. Oddly, this turn of events did not even elicit a disgusted sigh from me.

Instead, not being able to proceed with machine quilting has merely freed me up to start the hand quilting on "Masks". It's been basted ready to go for weeks, but I've put it low on priorities because it IS hand work and the machine work always takes undue importance when considering what's next on my list. I've also been putting it off because of the confusion I experienced when pulling out the thread I thought I knew I'd be using. Suddenly it didn't look right, maybe I wasn't remembering properly and before I knew it, I had 5 options laid in front of me. I always dread making that final decision, which is in fact the first step. Today, I just said, open up the quilt and don't think about it. Just grab that lighter thread that you instinctively know is right. And also don't think too much about how you will be quilting, where best to start. Just put the needle in and go! So far so good.

And quite amazing the sensation that quickly comes over me once I start plying that needle in and out of the fabric.That's why I was so interested in this off of Austin Kleon's Tumblr:

When you do meaningful work with your hands, a kind of neurochemical feedback floods your brain with dopamine and serotonin. These happy brain chemicals are natural antidepressants, and we've evolved to release them both to reward ourselves for working with our hands and to motivate ourselves to do it some more.

How could I forget??? Now go get happy!

By the way, thank you to those who gave input about my orientation dilemma regarding the poppies and peonies piece. Just like with the thread choice for "Masks", I instinctively knew which was best but allowed myself to doubt that instinct. I guess I'm more comfortable with safety in numbers.

Connecting the Dots

2011-11-10T12:14:00.000-08:00

I've had two days now of sun streaming into my studio - very uplifting! I've been getting the 3 x 3 discharge piece and the poppies and peonies piece ready for quilting. I've added Decor Bond interfacing to the backing for the discharge piece, hoping it will provide the extra stability I'll need for suspending the found metal plate within a cutout. Unknown territory here. Still pondering exactly how it will be quilted as I audition threads and try to envision the look I want in the finished piece.

Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they've had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people. Unfortunately, that's too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven't had very diverse experiences. So they don't have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one's understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.

- Steve Jobs in a 1995 Wired interview

I really do agree with this quotation and have experienced that sense of guilt when producing something that just seemed obvious to me but others seem blown away by. Be that as it may, lately I've been struggling to connect the dots, beginning to feel very linear and not sure how I've come to this place. I don't seem to be getting the same sort of stimulation from experiences, or the gap between the dot nearest me and the next one is too far to bridge. But I keep trying, like with poppies and peonies. I now need to decide orientation before beginning the quilting - how I quilt it definitely depends on which way is up.

So I need your help, need your opinion. Which orientation makes the more interesting quilt, is perhaps less predictable, is a less linear way to connect the dots? You should know I plan to couch a variegated orange yarn along the edge of each of the pieced strips which will set them off a little more.

A Fiber Twist on Newspaper Blackouts

2011-11-06T12:31:00.001-08:00

I'm still doing the weekly exercise of Newspaper Blackout using the Sunday obituaries and posting them on my own blackout blog here as well as following others' efforts. I was quite surprised to see some fiber-related interpretations such as Patch Poem by Jenny McCabe. You'll have to follow the link to see it, but essentially she has overlain printed text with a gauzy fabric and cut portions out to reveal certain words - the fabric provides the blackout rather than marker. She's also added stitch to hold the gauze in place, and similar stitching to the fabric that abuts it - actually, the photo is just a close-up of one section of a larger piece. It reminded me of a journal quilt I did where I stamped words on muslin, layered tyvek over it and then burned away spots of tyvek to reveal some of the words underneath (see this post).

Another extraordinary fiber blackout is The Desert by Jen Bervin. Here a poem has been created "...by sewing row by row, line by line, across 130 pages of John Van Dyke's, The Desert: Further Studies in Natural Appearances (1901). I used atmospheric fields of pale blue zigzag stitching to construct a poem “narrated by the air”— “so clear that one can see the breaks.”" Again, follow the link as I do not have permission to post pictures of these works. Maybe you will be inspired to try your own version of newspaper blackout.

Document Something Old

2011-11-04T18:17:00.000-07:00

As in so much of life, "old" depends on your perspective. So when I read that today's task for the Document Your Life challenge dealt with something old, my first thought was old buildings. But I didn't plan on going anywhere where there would be truly old buildings. Then again, turn of the 20th century buildings are definitely old, but so too are turn of the 21st century buildings when compared to something completed in the last few years. Furniture is similar - I have antiques, the definition being over 100 years old. But I also have furniture I bought less than 10 years ago that is striking me as old. For that matter, I could take a picture of myself - I'm old compared to a lot of people I know, but to my older friends, I'm still young. I settled on photographing "Falling Leaves" above, newly finished as of today, but old because of how long it has been in the works. It's that perspective thing, and you can't imagine how glad I am to have this "old" quilt resolved so that I can move on to the next "old" quilt. I wish it were a better picture - I was working under uneven lighting and my camera balks at that background batik color.

When last I reported on this quilt (see this post), I was inking in backgrounds and my pen had run out of ink. With fresh pen in hand, I finished up the inking yesterday. The photo above shows one square in progress and how the green ink darkens the fabric just enough for the inked leaves to stand out more.

I like this effect - an echo of the two main squares of hand-dyed fabric, not equaling or overpowering them. As one moves closer to the quilt, the other quilted leaves can be detected - I'm thinking it's that thing they tell you about leaving some of the details only discernible upon close inspection. I'm wondering though if they too should be inked in red. Any thoughts? I still think there are balance issues with it that are somewhat mitigated by changing the orientation to landscape, but other than that, there's nothing more I can do about that. Except remember what I've learned the next time I'm confronted with a similar design.

It's been a soggy day, but at one point as I sat stitching the sleeve on this quilt, I realized the room was lightening. I looked out the window to see Mr. Sun doing his best to make an appearance. Ahhh, I thought, now THERE"S something old!

Document Happiness

2011-11-03T19:21:00.000-07:00

My niece has done it again - sent me an interesting link to intrigue and perhaps inspire me. It's the website GOOD.is which runs monthly challenges. This month it is Document Your Life, and each day you are given a task to capture in a photo, documenting your day. I already feel I photo document more of my life than the average person, but it was difficult to pass up this challenge. It reminds me of the "Sketch a day" or "Quilt a day" challenges which I know can be a very good incentive yielding positive results. So today's task is to document happiness. I was scheduled to attend this program at my public library today, and decided that public libraries really make me happy - books, videos and cds to borrow, magazines and newspapers to peruse, computers for those who have none, internet wi-fi access for my new laptop until I manage to arrange for something at home, rotating displays in the lobby and educational programs - my tax dollars at work and no additional charge for the services. How can that NOT be happiness!

Some of you may be familiar with Rosalie Dace, today's speaker. I met her last year through a local fiberartist who provides a place for Rosalie to stay in between her various teaching gigs in the United States. I missed her presentation to the local guild, though, so didn't get a chance to see much of her work. I very much enjoyed her slide presentation, showing not only her quilts and what influenced them, but also a bit of her homeland in the Republic of South Africa. She also had a few of her quilts with her, to better see her use of color, fabric, stitching and embellishment. She shared many things I've heard before but needed to hear again, especially the thing about not including every detail in your work but leaving something for the viewer to fill in from their own experience. And the bit about serious artists putting in serious time because it is our job. She spoke of the meditative healing nature of hand stitching (but that she was not a purist about it, mixing in machine stitching when appropriate), designing from a small sketch indicating values but then working organically to let the piece evolve (so happy she did not use the tired terms "intuitively" & "serendipitously"), and using a mix of fabric types (velvets, cottons, silks, barkcloth, synthetics) because she thinks it creates interesting contrasts and effects, and why not since "these are not going into the washer."

I remember this necklace from last year - perhaps because I marveled that she would travel with such a chunky piece of jewelry. Someone asked if she had made it and she confirmed that she had. She also shared she has not seen her husband since July (or her two little dogs) and so includes photos of them in her slideshow - hello there, I'll be home soon! As you can imagine, it is not cost effective for her to fly back and forth even if there is a sizable gap in her teaching schedule. I can only think, that's dedication.

Back to the "Document Your Life" Challenge, November 1 task was documenting street style. Mmm, I didn't really make it out onto the street as I was busy finishing my leaf bagging. But because I stack the bags for pick-up at the end of the sidewalk that only leads farther up the driveway, it was a perfect documentation of my day. If you check out the website, you can view slideshows of selected photos for each day as submitted by participants. Just as artists interpret themes in radically different ways, you may find these photographers interpreting tasks in unexpected ways as well.

New Calendar on CafePress

2011-11-02T19:26:00.000-07:00

I've just added a new calendar to my CafePress shop. It features some of my more recent art quilts. My "Quilted Birches" calendar is still available, updated for 2012. Scroll down towards the bottom of the page to find them, listed along with cards & prints. Or follow the links below to go directly to each calendar. If you're in the market for a calendar for next year, maybe one of these will fit the bill.

Idaho Beauty's FiberArt Calendar

Idaho Beauty's Quilted Birches Calendar

The Plan for November

2011-11-01T21:21:00.000-07:00

I've been busy raking and bagging leaves from my two huge maple trees, so no progress to show since the last post. But I did take a quick look at my timeline page and think about what I should do in November. I suspected I might be moving items from October's list to November's, and sure enough, even with my rather general goals, there are some loose ends that didn't quite get wrapped up and one glaring item not done at all. I planned to sketch out formats and/or full size designs for three new ideas. Instead of working on any of those three, I took off in a different direction by sketching and creating full-size patterns using that metal plate. I'm glad I allowed myself the flexibility to work on an idea that held more immediate interest, and there's always this month for those other three. I have a better idea of what I should try to accomplish this month than I did last month, so maybe there will be less of the inability to settle, more ability to focus on seeing things through to completion. So in no particular order, here's what you can expect to see me working on over the next 30 days:

Falling Leaves: purchase pen and finish inking in background, sew on sleeve, label and photograph
Poppies & Peonies: finish quilt and photograph (for December Cabin Fever exhibit)
Masks: start hand quilting
3x3 discharge cloth: layer & quilt, resolve technical issues re: suspending plate in cutout and edge finish/framing
Sketch out new ideas: working format for abstract willow; full-size pattern for fall furrows; design for seed heads
Southwest Fantasy: journal quilt-size quick rendition of simple drawing from October

That last one has a question mark after it in my mind. It might be something that would work for the Cabin Fever exhibit and is my response to a friend's description of a southwest palette. I have specific colors in mind but not sure I have those in fabric. It's low on the priority list so we'll see if I find time to check my stash and give it a go. Looking at the list, it impresses me as a lot to get done, but some of it will probably go faster than I think. I sure hope so.

Happy Accidents

2011-10-29T18:34:00.000-07:00

So here I was in the studio straightening up a bit before taking the plunge on one of two quilts (read: procrastinating). I'd washed some fabric a few days before, including the batik I bought on my trip to Gig Harbor. You know, when you travel you stop at quilt shops and convince yourself you HAVE to buy something, for a souvenir if nothing else. Batiks are always a safe bet - who cares if you have something in mind for what you end up buying? Go with your gut, buy what speaks to you. It may turn out to be just what you need. But for now, this batik was in my way as it lay draped over the ironing board. Time to fold it up and put it away. So I lined up the selvages, laid it on the table to smooth it out for the first fold and...wait a minute. Didn't I just say the poppies and peonies piece might benefit just from adding another fabric? Wow - I think this is the one!

Tamping down my usual hesitation, I immediately made the section cuts in poppies and peonies, even though evil left brain thought I should leave well enough alone. Yes, I'm really liking this now and am already moving the thought process to the technical side of finishing it out. And wondering which orientation to use.

But never one to be satisfied with a good thing, I also spotted another batik that's been lying on the table forever. Yes, the colors are right but this is a bit too much for the eye to handle! I'll be using the green fern batik and continuing the mulling about adding photo transfers of actual poppies and peonies.

I'm still unable to settle, especially after hitting upon an idea concerning Falling Leaves while on my walk. I have an inherent fear of paints, but not pens. I was thinking about the paints and brushes I have on hand, which would work to highlight the quilted leaves without painting over thread when I remembered the inked designs I'd seen at the quilt show in Tacoma. Riding the positive vibes of success, I tested my idea on a sample and forged ahead. I'm using a fine point micron pen with red ink to shade in just the quilted leaves that are within the couched squares. I was pretty sure this still would not be enough so also tested a green pen to shade in the background around the leaves - in essence creating a fainter version of the two stamped hand-dyed squares that are the centerpiece of this design. I was having such a tough time getting accurate colors with the camera in the close-up of the leaf shading that I didn't try to capture the other yet. Besides, with three squares to go, the pen started pooping out on me. But I can tell that this inking is really making this piece work so much better.

By the way, have any of you tried this new tool call the Thread Pic? Hope springs eternal as I search for products to make my quilting life easier and to speed up some jobs. Is anything more tedious than burying threads on the back of the quilt? I'm doing that an awful lot these days and from the description, this tool sounded like it would be just the thing. Honestly, it did not work for this, although I've no doubt it would snag those stray threads that sometimes get trapped between batting and the lightest fabric in the top. The hook that grabs the thread is extremely small, which was ok for the lightweight Aurofil thread I'd used in the bobbin. But I can't imagine it being able to snag a heavier weight thread. It merely caught part of the rayon thread, more snagging it than anything and only pulling through 1 ply, or shredding the thread altogether. At best, it was really tricky to keep the thread on the hook until it passed out of the backing. And because of how quickly the shaft thickens up, I couldn't pull as long of a length through to the back as I normally like. Even so, I must have been putting it through the fabric farther away from the thread tail than the manufacturer planned for; It left quite a hole in the fabric at the exit point, in spite of the package touting that it left no holes. I did find it excellent for sliding under the loop to pull the top thread to the back, and I suspect it would work similarly well for taking out stitches. But for burying threads? I found my formerly tedious and time consuming method of threading tails through the eye of a needle was much faster and left no holes.

The Plan: Step 4

2011-10-28T19:23:00.000-07:00

I put four things on my October timeline which is part of The Plan to get enough art made in the next 6 months for all the exhibits I plan to participate in. This list was a shot in the dark, something to get me moving, not really set up to definitely say I would finish one thing or another. And it is a good thing, because I haven't been able to settle really - feeling the need to move from one thing to another and back again, just to get the juices flowing. Flow they have, although I haven't put in as much time as consistently as I had hoped. And here it is, nearly the end of October already, as my keeper reminded me this week. So before it totally slips away, I am addressing the one untouched item: "work on poppies & peonies."

You may remember this experiment, using the poppies and peonies palette that resulted in the very derivative and unsatisfying piece at the top. I've been contemplating ever since what I can do to "save" it, thinking some cutting and pasting might be in order. I've had these draft copies printed out on paper for a long time but they have just now made it into the studio.

I'm considering printing some actual photos of poppies and peonies on fabric which could be used as borders or spacers but how I would do that - arrange the images, etc - is pretty fuzzy, especially as an insert if I were to make diagonal cuts. I think the vertical cuts have more promise - I think just inserting strips of some other fabric between the sections would be an improvement.

However, my original thought on the vertical cuts was just to sew the two outer segments together and rearrange the pieces. Of course, there are multiple ways you can combine the cut segments, including flipping some of them. I really think this has potential.

It's That Time Again

2011-10-27T18:59:00.000-07:00

The leaves have all come down in a tumble these last few days.

I looked out my office window and was surprised at how the leaves had stacked up on the big limbs of the maple.

I know I said I had plenty of reference photos already, but I had to go out in the chill to capture it as I don't recall seeing this before.

I guess I got a little obsessive, capturing different angles.

And marveling at the way the leaves filled nooks and crannies.

Not marveling so much at the way they do the same with my car.

We've had our first freezing temperatures of the season, which appears to be what spurred the maples to abandon their leisurely dropping of leaves for this all-out shedding. I'll start gathering them up over the weekend.

In the meantime, I worked on my own falling leaves, couching decorative cording around two more quilted leaves. I still think those quilted leaves within the couched squares need some highlighting and plan to get brave with some paint soon. Then I will call it done. And I think this landscape orientation works better than the original portrait one. I've been mulling it for some time, and now I am sure. The balance is just better somehow.

And after the exhibits...

2011-10-25T19:24:00.000-07:00

What would a road trip be without lunch and some sightseeing? The museum is located in the historic Browne's Addition neighborhood not far from Italia Trattoria. I've driven by it several times, not realizing that the unassuming exterior housed such wonderful food. Small, but delightful, with a menu emphasizing "sustainable, local and nourishing regionally inspired Italian cuisine." It even had some local art on the walls.

These are the fun gals I work with on the Visual Arts Committee of POAC. Well, except for Marjorie on the left in the top photo - a friend of one of them who was equally fun. Pat and Connie complete the trio. Pat usually works the sign-in table on hanging day for every exhibit. Connie is our fearless leader. Then there's me with Karen who paints stunning watercolors of our area. Finally, me with Joanie who is a fiber artist like me, but working in a waaaay different style.

After lunch, it was nice enough for a stroll through the neighborhood.

Like I don't have enough maple leaves of my own, I couldn't resist picking these up. They are a different shape than the ones falling from my own trees at the moment, and much redder.

I have so many reference photos of colorful maples, I wasn't compelled to take many more. But I am always ready to snap more shots of tree trunks in contortion. These were in Coeur d'Alene Park.

And the last bit of inspiration was from this pine tree that had these wispy branches swaying in the breeze. I don't know what kind of pine tree this is but those branches sure reminded me of my willow tree inspiration.

And that's it - my day out with the girls. Now back to working on my own art.

The Rest of the Road Trip: Need/Want & Territory

2011-10-24T18:17:00.000-07:00

In conjunction with the Impressionists exhibit, the Northwest Museum of Art and Culture has mounted two additional exhibits with no apparent relationship to the first - which simply means, a really broad experience with hopefully a little something for everyone. I wasn't so sure about this Want/Need theme, assuming it would be all about environmentalism & recycling. There was quite a bit of that, but there were other very thought-provoking works having nothing to do with the environment.

One of those would be "Ask" by Ara Lyman-Gregg, an encaustic painting with photo transfer. That center portion really did radiate brightly between the more muted side panels. Her artist statement lent no clue as to what she's expressing here, just that her work begins with "emotion from a single event or idea" and ends with self-discovery.

It was hard not to notice this large piece, looking all the world like a giant mat for placing hot dishes on - at least that was my initial reaction. But I love its mandala-like flow and the earthy colors. Just how did artist Tim Oberst do that?

It's called "A Sand County Almanac" and it is made from strips of corrugated cardboard layered to expose that corrugation. It gives the feel of a cross-section of a tree trunk, now that I think of it. I want to use it like a giant stamp or throw a piece of fabric over it and use it as a rubbing to transfer that wonderful patterning. Not what the artist had in mind though. From his statement: "To portray meaningful relationships for a complete world, reality must be distorted and recontextualized. As a model, the dissection of nature must offer a selective, hyperfocused and incomplete view of its ephemeral scenarios."

In light of the recent oil spill along a river in Montana, there wasn't much head scratching about what Tamara Stephas was trying to get across in her oil and acrylic "Spill." She creates this lovely, almost impressionistic landscape which morphs into the spill itself. What interested me was the way she extended the canvas below the underlying stretcher frame and then twisted it, as if to wring out the oil. Hard to see that in the photo.

As a final thought on this theme, I was particularly intrigued with this sentiment (although not so much with the art that went with it). It turns on its head that saying that I grew up with: waste not, want not. My parents, having lived through the Great Depression, were very big on making do. On the other hand, there were things my dad in particular did not want to do without because he HAD been subjected to no other choice but making do. He'd just smile at me when I'd chide him for what seemed like unnecessary wastefulness. He'd paid his dues, he knew what he wanted, and he didn't care if it was wasteful. Yes, the ecology movement was not one he joined although he didn't mind the challenge of seeing if he could solve a problem with what he had on hand. Just don't ask him to give up his paper plates and Styrofoam cups.

The last exhibit held lots of promise, but I was disappointed with the offerings. You'd think that the collaboration of an older, established artist with a young emerging artist would produce interesting, if not truly exciting art. I liked a lot of the artists individual works, but there wasn't a single collaboration that worked for me. (I should note, this was not true for the gals with me.) So I am just sharing some of the individual work that caught my interest.

If you are into puns and irony, you would probably like the work of young artist Brenna Helm. All of her pieces were minimalist oil on white background. This one is named "The Perfect Plan."

She was paired with her father, Robert Helm. We stood there asking, "How did he DO that?" This one is called "September Wall" and is oil on panel, although you would swear it has to be oil on stone.

Equally impressive for its realistic rendering is "Untitled". You would not believe that wood grain to be painted.

Nor that this was not three-dimensional.

In a totally different vein, we were delighted by the humor in Daniel DeSiga's acrylics. "Alien Invasion" has a very Salvidor Dali flavor to it.

And I'll let "Latino Space Parade" speak for itself.

Finally, for a couple of my Internet friends who dabble in altered books, these "Altared Books" by Emily Sooter.

Remember that you can get a larger more detailed view by clicking on any picture.

Road trip to Impressionism

2011-10-23T18:54:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I had the good fortune to join with 4 of my fellow arts council members to trek on over to the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture for its latest exhibits: "Seeing Impressionism", "Need/Want", and "Territory". I doubt we would have made the trip if not for the Impressionism exhibit, but the other two exhibits were quite interesting too. It was a blustery day, mostly overcast with off and on rain, so a good day to be inside a cozy museum. This is the sight that greeted once we arrived.

If you look closely at the right hand side of first photo, you can see a sculpture perched high. A close-up of "The Navigators" by Brad Rude reveals some interesting detail. There's quite a bit of outdoor sculpture here but we hustled inside for the main attraction.

Bandied about in the promotion for the exhibit were such names as Renoir and Degas, and promises of more depth than the Museum's own collection could provide on its own by partnering with The Tacoma Art Museum and private collectors. Yes, I could tell the Renoirs were to be the main draw.

But for my money, these Glackens were more exciting to see. You may recognize the one on the right - I've shared this painting before (see this post for why this painting is so important to me). It is in the collection of the Tacoma Art Museum and I dared not hope it would be included in this exhibit. I was thrilled to see "Natalie in a Blue Skirt" again after all these years. It was fascinating to compare her to the "Lady in the Wicker Chair" - two totally different personalities! They were right next to the Renoirs so I could see how the artists' styles compared.

The exhibit itself was curated to show paintings from the very first hints of impressionism and as the movement progressed, finally including its influence on Northwest artists. I've cropped the frame off this one by Ralph A. Blakelock called "The Black Opal." It was quite dark and small, but captivating, included for the way it shows how impressionism began to flatten the perspective of landscapes. I was drawn to it for the subject matter - one I've played with a lot. The moon in this one is fantastic.

Another darkish painting but coming later in the movement was "Mixed Flowers in a Vase" by Henri Fantin-Latour. The fascination for me was the way that white flower just glows off the canvas, drawing you from anywhere in the room for a closer look. And as you get closer, there's the sense that the flowers are rendered in much more detail than the actual brushstrokes bear out. Just beautiful.

The last painting I'll share is this lovely seascape called "Sunset" by the American painter Edward Lincoln Espey. It's those lavenders that captivated me. I don't associate that color with sunsets, which makes this unusual and intriguing to me.

I'll cover the other two exhibits in the next post. Remember you can click on any photo for a larger image.

Discharging Dye With Bleach

2011-10-19T19:07:00.002-07:00

Today was a hit and a miss. I had a window of opportunity to do some bleach discharging outside before several days of rain settle in. I ironed my freezer paper stencils to some solid black cotton fabric (it may be Kona cotton but I'm not sure - it has the weight of a Kona) and set them out on the porch. Here you can see how the center circles have to be added one by one. While I like precision, I was not concerned about these being perfectly centered.

It's been years since I've done discharge this way. I pulled out a notebook with info on discharging to refresh my memory on the procedure and was surprised to find a note indicating that the bleach is to be mixed with HOT water. I wonder if this explains some of my problems with very slow discharging in the past. Rather than measure out a new solution, I just grabbed the spray bottle of diluted bleach from under the kitchen counter. No idea of the proportions of bleach to water, but as long as you keep an eye on your fabric, it really doesn't matter too much. I set it in hot water to warm it up while I got the neutralizing bath prepared: 1 cup vinegar to 1 gallon of water. I know, I know. There are those out there who insist vinegar doesn't stop the bleaching action, but my source doesn't agree with that, and I too have not had any trouble with discharged fabrics neutralized this way. I think the key is in the thorough rinsing and washing in detergent that follows the dip in the vinegar solution.

At any rate, I sprayed quite a lot of bleach solution on the bigger stencil as the first few sprays didn't seem to be saturating the fabric. Before moving on to the smaller one, I suddenly realized I should NOT be spraying so much bleach on because, although the freezer paper acts as a resist, if the exposed fabric gets too wet, the moisture will wick under it. Stencil 2, then got a light spray and a wait. Even so, you can see areas that must have a higher concentration of moisture because of their quick discharging. After a bit when no additional discharging seemed to be happening compared to the larger piece beside it, I lightly sprayed a little more bleach solution over it. When the discharge looked to match my found piece of metal (and perhaps a bit too late remembering that wet fabric is always darker than dry), I removed the stencil and dunked the fabric in the vinegar neutralizer.

Swish, rinse, suds, rinse, damp dry and iron. Yes, I could tell as soon as I removed the first few circles of the stencil, my super saturated cloth was a miss. At least for my intended purpose. It may work for something else, but not this particular project.

Ahhh, but my 3 x 3 is definitely a hit!

Designing to Scale

2011-10-17T20:23:00.001-07:00

I never got back in the studio last week after sketching out some options for a new piece based on a metal plate found along the side of the road. Today I tried to make up for that by taking the next step - translating one of the sketches into a full-size working drawing. In this case, it is drawn directly onto freezer paper which I then cut to make a stencil. You can see the guidelines for positioning the plate which I then drew around in pencil. It doesn't have the same compact feel as the sketch, but I felt I needed the extra room if I am to have a cutout in the middle. I can try a closer orientation later.

I don't know why I like meticulous work so much but I do. Once I had the design drawn, I pulled out an x-acto knife and cut out all 25 rectangles, then cut the circles out of each rectangle. This type of slow precise work puts me in the zone, becomes almost meditative. I first discovered how much I love this kind of activity back in the 6th grade. Our teacher decided to brave an art project that required each student to wield a single edge razor blade. With that blade we were to cut out the silhouette of a train from black construction paper. I still remember how I enjoyed cutting the tiny windows and the spaces between spokes away. Now I've graduated from razor blades to x-acto knives.

As so often happens, once I had this 5 x 5 layout drawn, I wondered if 3 x 3 would have been better. So I overlaid the stencil over a smaller piece of freezer paper, traced nine of the cutouts, and created a second stencil. And by virtue of misaligning the plate at one point, I then wondered about staggering every other row. I want to create a stencil with that idea too. Then it will be on to the next step of ironing the stencils to fabric and discharging the exposed areas. Oh, and don't forget - I have the shapes that were cut out of the stencils to use to create a negative discharge image. This truly is one thing leads to another.

Beauty in Graphic Arts

2011-10-12T16:05:00.000-07:00

I am in awe of graphic artists. There's some wonderful work being done out there. This is a postcard from my niece, once again. Living in New York City, she seems to have no end to interesting ones to send me as she and her husband explore the eateries and arts that abound there. This one is from Five Leaves Cafe, Bar & Oysters.

The Plan: Step 3

2011-10-11T19:35:00.000-07:00

I suppose I should note that these "plan" steps are ones I jotted down as goals for October. Not necessarily to finish any one thing in October (although that would be nice), but that these were things I should start addressing now. There are the "unfinished business" projects, always lurking in the back of my consciousness, but there are also new ideas that haven't gotten beyond the muddle in my mind. Time to start fleshing out some of those by sketching and perhaps even drawing out designs to size.

I think most of us imagine that these ideas floating around in our heads are fairly well formed, but in my experience, I'm only deluding myself that they are. To prove that, I only need to take pencil in hand to realize I don't really know where I'm going with it. In this case, I want to use the shape of this piece of metal, picked up by the side of the road, in the design, and also incorporate the piece itself. The fuzzy idea in my head is to suspend it within a cutout in the finished quilt. The second fuzzy idea includes stamping or discharging that shape on the fabric surrounding the cutout. I'm thinking random placement...until I actually sketch that out.

The random arrangement was actually my second sketch. The first one was ordered but not good, which was why I immediately went to random. But I wasn't too keen on that one either. Well, lets just line up rows of the shape and see what I think. And that was it - I could immediately feel my interest increase and unbidden brainstorming start regarding technique, variations on a theme, embellishing. To thine own self be true, I thought. I keep going back to randomness in my quilting, not so much because I am drawn to it as I am being influenced by whispers that I am not spontaneous, that I need to loosen up, it would be so much more interesting if I'd ditch my need for order and balance. There's definitely room for all of that in my journey, but there's no denying where my heart lies when it comes to design. And that is where I will start my exploration with this particular idea.

The Plan: Step 2

2011-10-08T18:42:00.000-07:00

You may remember that I gave up on finishing this to my satisfaction to add to my ArtWalk exhibit back in June. It has been on the design wall ever since, bugging the heck out of me. I had a thought, something I thought might improve it, but lacked the desire to give it a go at the time - other things on my mind once the deadline passed. Also doing my usual mulling as to how best to approach it. I do not visualize well, and couldn't figure out how to mark squares around some of the quilted leaves in such a way I could see them for auditioning, yet still remove them if not working. I've been revisiting this thought pattern all week and suddenly hit upon this idea - pulling some of my pre-cut squares in various sizes and laying them over some of the leaves. Bear in mind, my intention is NOT to actually sew down squares of fabric, just give myself a visual and something to use as a guide. Although I must admit, I kind of like the idea of adding fabric squares, just not these particular ones.

The method worked fairly well - I could get a sense of size and balance, and with a couple of pins to secure them, the squares of fabric were easy to stitch around with a dark thread. That line of stitching would serve as my guide for couching down more of the Oliver Twist hand-dyed decorative cording.

I think I am on the right track, but it still isn't enough. I'm thinking I may need to carefully add some paint to the quilted leaves within the couched squares, or perhaps some beading, or both. I think I need to add a couple more squares too, so this is back up on the design wall while I mull some more.

The Plan: Step 1

2011-10-04T19:28:00.000-07:00

This is a piece of cotton that I folded and dabbed with paint back in 2006 (see this post). I can see faces in the resulting design and have been planning to hand quilt it such that I pull those faces out more clearly. That's not all I think I'll be doing to it but that has to be done first. I meant to get it basted up last year - I even found it on a list of possible quilts to finish for ArtWalk a couple of years back. This is its year to come down off the design wall and as good a place as any to start with "my plan" for preparing new work for upcoming exhibits. I'll alternate handwork on it with machine work on other quilts. There's an intimidation factor here, which is why it has taken me so long to start on it. So I'm screwing up my courage and not at all happy to discover I'm not sure which of the Oliver Twist threads I thought would be so perfect for the quilting. I foresee some trial and error in my future.

In Need of a Plan

2011-10-02T19:26:00.000-07:00

Indeed I am as I consider the exhibits coming up and the new work they will require. Could not get myself out of vacation mode all September and would prefer to whine a bit more about how I want to do nothing. But a friend refuses to listen to my "oh my God I have so much work to do in the next 6 months" routine while making excuses for not darkening the studio door. "Start a list!" he intones. "Figure out how many new pieces you need and start doodling your designs," he insists. "Make a plan and get to work!" he nags. Gee, why does he have to be so practical? It's MUCH easier to sit around complaining...

So thank you dear friend for scaring me into action. For making me estimate how many pieces I'll need, dividing the number by how many months until they are due and announcing I need to complete two pieces a month. Yikes! Can I actually work on a schedule like that? Well I can try. But first, I needed to make that list, formulate a plan, actually look up the due dates on the exhibits, jot down potential quilt ideas, get everything out of my head and down on paper (see progress above). For the most part, it's all happening next April and there's some comfort in that. However, my usual MO would be to put off until January to panic and start work in earnest, just wing it until then. Fortunately, I now have a nagger who will keep prodding me to make progress NOW. How practical. How reasonable. And why didn't I just figure that out myself? Oh yeah, because THAT'S what friends are for. Thanks!

Greta's Segway Hike

2011-10-01T18:47:00.000-07:00

Every time we are led to believe say goodbye to summer-like weather, Mother Nature throws a few more beautifully warm days at us. Such was yesterday, the last day of September, and I was geared up for a hike. I have not hiked at all this year, even though I bought myself some decent hiking shoes at the beginning of summer. Lots of lame excuses. And then, I was gifted that nifty walking stick at the beginning of the month, and it has sat by the door making me feel guilty for not trying it out. With time running out, I needed to pick a trail and go walk it.

And this is the one I chose - Greta's Segway. I'd looked for the trailhead last year and couldn't find it. Perhaps others couldn't either, because it apparently has been moved to this location (according to a sign farther up the trail). That would explain why I only now spotted it on my way to the transfer station last week. It's less than 2 miles from my house - really like not having to drive 15 to 30 minutes to get to a trail. Click on the photo for a larger view to read the details of this trail.

There's parking for 6 or so vehicles off to the left. I looked at this road rising steeply up through the trees and thought the bulk of the elevation change might come in the first bit of hike.

So I huffed and puffed up the steep incline, not questioning the route past the backside of private property since the sign stated that the trail traversed private property. As the road leveled a bit, I got this stunning view looking more or less east towards the lake.

But it wasn't long until there was nothing but "private property, keep out" signs and I couldn't figure out where the trail had gone. Back down that steep road I went and pretty disappointed.

As I put my things back in the car, I had a thought - remembering a narrow beaten path in front of that sign, and could it be that the trail heads up the hill the other way? Yes indeed! This is looking back down the trail - the parking area to the left and Pine street curving around the hill. I'd already killed about 40 minutes, but I couldn't resist heading up the real trail anyway.

This route is a very gentle incline, perfect for my out of shape status. And knowing that houses aren't too far away gave me a sense of security that being further out in the woods does not.

It wasn't long before it crossed a paved road and continued into cool shady woods. I didn't make it the whole 1.2 miles to where it joins up with other trails, so I don't know if it eventually opens to clear vistas. I was running out of time, and I knew there were a few shots I wanted to get on the way down, so I reluctantly left that for another day.

Part of my reluctance was the retracing of my steps. To be able to walk a loop is my preference, but this trail doesn't allow for that. But in fact, the return trip was not a repeat of what I'd seen on the way up. A different angle, a different viewpoint, a different focus turned up some surprises. How did I, who am so atuned to white tree trunks, miss these white trunks lying by the side of the trail?

I had noticed a group of trees on the way up that I thought held potential - sinuous shapes - so I now sized them up from several angles to frame a shot when I suddenly noticed several huge mushrooms clinging to them. Even though they were fairly high up, I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed them first time through.

And just across the trail, another one I'd walked right past, only a few feet up on the trunk and easily 8-10 inches across.

Again, how did I not see this bright yellow splotch right next to the trail? Looking at my feet, I suppose, as my dad always accused. It was about 3 inches across.

Here are two views of a hollow stump with a new tree growing out of it near this same spot in the trail.

Through this spit you can see some strange things going on - looks like more than one tree was growing in there and eventually grew together.

I did notice this downed tree though, its swirls all the more interesting for the cut coming just below where the tree split off into two branches.

As I walked along the trail, it occurred to me that what I was seeing was not that different from other trails I've walked in the area. And yet, I always seem to find something of interest to record for future inspiration. Thus, when I ran across this quotation from Marcel Proust, I could not help but shake my head in perfect agreement:

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."

Oh, and those new shoes and that walking stick worked great!

Making the Useful Beautiful

2011-09-25T17:59:00.000-07:00

"Democratic nations...will therefore cultivate the arts that serve to render life easy in preference to those whose object is to adorn it. They will habitually prefer the useful to the beautiful, and they will require that the beautiful should be useful."

This is something Alexis de Tocqueville wrote circa 1835 in his book "Democracy in America." I ran across it as I was working on my padfolios, which sort of fit into the "beautiful should be useful" thing. Do you think it is still true (if indeed de Tocqueville was correct in his observations) that democracies prefer the useful? And is that why there are so many struggling artists? Have you been seduced into offering "useful" art in the hope of sales?

A Peek at "All Creatures Great & Small"

2011-09-24T19:03:00.000-07:00

The opening reception last night for POAC's exhibit "All Creatures Great & Small" was so much fun. A good crowd came out, and we also had some adoptable animals from the local shelter wandering about. Well behaved dogs (and yes, one that had me rethinking my "no dog yet" policy) and a kitten doing what kittens do best - looking adorable. I took a few pictures after the crowds dispersed so you could see some of the variety a theme like this generates.

There are my padfolios in the case and Bill Klein's "chiken" watercolors: "A Bunch of Chikens," "One Big Chiken," and "A Chiken Chorus Line." Somebody's having too much fun.

Also submitting watercolors is Karen Robinson with "Airborne,"Toucan Can Too!" and "After the Bath."

This is acrylic on stone by Jan Welle. The copper and turquoise table that it rests on is called "Southwestern Table."

I absolutely love these photos by Rod Thompson. The top two feature sand dollars while the bottom one shows a starfish. You just can't see how wonderful they are from my picture.

More watercolors, and some natural salt lick stones shaped by the tongues of deer and elk.

There were several pastel artists, including JoAnn Sandifur with her cat portraits.

Oh my goodness, did we all get a laugh from Randy Wilhelm's mixed media offering, "Beer Fish." The one on top is adorned with beer bottle caps.

And the body made from flattened beer cans.

Here are some watercolor paintings by Jean Spinosa.

I believe these are acrylics by Dan Carpenter, and in the case, jewelry by Darlene Pfahl.

A closeup of Darlene's jewelry.

Acrylics/Mixed Media by Connie Spurgeon. The one on the lower right is called "Cereal Killers."

On the right are acrylics by Jim Furlong. On the left are acrylics by Mary Alderete.

These are perhaps my favorites - soft pastels by Teresa Fisher. I'm not really a cat person, but the variety of colors she used in the cat fur is a lesson in itself. Remember to click on any picture for a larger view.

"All Creatures Great & Small" Exhibit

2011-09-21T17:16:00.000-07:00

I've had my head down since Friday, getting a couple of padfolios ready for POAC's next exhibit at the Power House in Sandpoint. Artwork was due today, and somehow, the deadline snuck up on me (i.e. - I had way too much fun in August and am still in vacation mode). I don't normally put creatures in my quilts, but I did have a couple of photos I'd taken this year that I thought would work well as padfolio covers. This exhibit theme, "All creatures great and small," is the first to come along that I thought my padfolios might be acceptable for. I didn't want to miss the chance to get them out there to see how they would sell.

I'm very pleased with how the "Summer Frog" turned out. It uses several shots I took of a little frog hanging out amongst my daylilies. Using my Corel Paint Shop Pro program, I did some cut and paste and collaging, but other than that, no real manipulation of images. (Click on any image for a larger view.)

I printed on a Kona pdf cotton instead of the muslin I'd used in the past - a little more heft and hopefully, durability. I am just stunned at the clarity and color matching I get with my Epson WorkForce 1100 inkjet printer and its pigment inks. I very nearly didn't add any stitch because of that, but didn't I say I needed to start adding more stitch to my work? I only needed to stitch a few lines to see I wasn't going to "ruin" it but in fact enhance it. Leaves are quilted with an Oliver Twist variegated hand-dyed cotton while the satin stitching is a King Tut variegated.

I always spend an inordinate amount of time choosing coordinating fabric for the inside and thread for quilting and edge finish. This batik won out over an equally good green that was perhaps a little too "quilt fabric traditional" for the outside. I'd still like to get away from the velcro closures, but I didn't leave myself enough time to experiment.

I really like working with the placement of images so that they show up on the flap.

The moose was a bit more problematic. I went back to the drawing board after printing off the single big moose shown at the top. When I folded the fabric as it would be with the padfolio closed, I wasn't sure that I liked turning it over to see a big moose butt on the back! So I mocked up another version sizing the moose down and flipping one image so that it would wrap around onto the flap. Mmm, now I had a cover with two moose butts on the back. The arrangement you see above came to me as I was drifting off to sleep Saturday night. Didn't feel I had the time for more computer designing, but I wasn't happy with what I already had. I like this better.

But alas, no moose poking a head around the flap.

And it left me with background space to fill. I tried a feature of my software program that removes a selected object and replaces it with your choice of a section of the photo. So I just removed the moose and filled in with what was above his back. Very cool, giving me an almost granite look. This print is not as sharp as the frog one, mainly because the original photo was not sharp - hey, it's a moose in a snow storm! Again, I was a bit concerned about how to quilt it, until I remembered my recent desire to get back to straight parallel lines. Echoing around the offset rectangles containing the moose gave a nice geometric effect. Or a meandering moose in a maze?

Again, a lot of digging through the stash transpired to find appropriate lining fabric. I found several but this was my favorite - reading a bit dark here. Same goes for the thread. The quilting is a King Tut variegated while the edge satin stitching is an Oliver Twist. Not sure I like the brown around the outside and almost wish I'd stuck with the dark grey ready to go on the machine.

Opening reception for "All Creatures Great and Small" is this Friday, September 23, 5:30 - 7:p.m. at the Power House. Below is the press release for the exhibit. Would love to see you there!

“All Creatures Great and Small” Exhibit opens September 23

The opening reception for the Pend Oreille Arts Council’s provocative new art exhibit will be Friday, September 23rd, from 5:30-7 p.m. in the POAC Gallery, in the Power House, 120 Lake Street in Sandpoint. Entitled All Creatures Great and Small, the exhibit features exceptional new works from more than 30 of POAC’s member artists.

“The theme of this exhibit is meant to get the creative juices flowing because it allows our exhibiting artists so much flexibility,” Connie Taylor, one of the co-coordinators of All Creatures, says with a grin. “The only restriction we placed on the artwork was that it not contain humans as a primary subject. Creatures can be imaginary, abstract, Fido, just about anything. There are some amazing, maybe even startling, creations here.”

The diversity in this exhibit is amazing. The artists’ interpretations of “creature” will astound you and give you many opportunities to contemplate your own definition of the word. This exhibit is a great opportunity for you to enjoy a wonderful trip into some interesting perspectives, ideas, and beauty.

The opening reception will include some special guests, courtesy of the Panhandle Animal Shelter. The reception is free and the public is encouraged to attend. All Creatures Great and Small will remain on display through December 2, 2011.

The Pend Oreille Arts Council exists to facilitate and present the finest quality experiences in the arts for the people of the Sandpoint area and beyond. POAC hosts performing arts events and visual arts events throughout the year. For more information, contact POAC at 263-6139, e-mail at poac@sandpoint.net, become a ‘Fan’ on Facebook, or visit the website at www.artinsandpoint.org.

Celtic Lone Star

2011-09-13T17:47:00.001-07:00

As promised, here are some decent pictures of the big quilt for my nephew (click on any pic for a much larger view.). I used the Radiating Lone Star pattern from Template-Free Stars by Jo Parrott, and 4 different applique patterns from Philamena Durkan's book Celtic Spirals. I think some of the quilting designs are from her first book of interlocking Celtic designs. The fabrics represent pretty much every phase of my quilting journey, from pre-1900 reproduction prints to commercial batiks to my own hand-dyed fabric. The border fabric is an African cotton - something I collected for awhile - and the white is a millennium fabric printed with "2000". That fabric was a must as my nephew married in April of 2000, and this is his wedding quilt. It finished to about 87" x 87".

I really did start to plan this in 2000, and bought that millennium fabric that year, but life very much got in the way of me actually starting it until 2004. Then I worked on it in fits and starts, letting more life sidetrack me. My nephew and his beautiful bride have been so patient.

I actually made good progress on it, though, until I moved from Wisconsin to Idaho in 2006. At that point, I'd completed the top and begun the quilting - first some machine stitching to stabilize it, then moving on to the hand quilting with blue Oliver Twist hand-dyed thread. That hand quilting turned out to be a bear what with the batting I chose and some of the quilting done through an extra layer of fabric in the applique sections. Where once I had dreams of sending this off to a quilt show where it might win I prize, now I knew the quality of the quilting would never allow it to be a winner.

No wonder it took me a year to get it out again but only quilted a few days on it in 2007. The same happened in 2008, and in 2009 I didn't work on it at all. Guilt weighed heavy and I determined 2010 was the year I would finish it - for the 10 year anniversary. Ah, but good ol' life said otherwise, and although I did finish the hand quilting (or at least thought I had) and added more machine quilting, there was even more machine quilting to be done (and hand quilting too, it turned out).

Finally this year, it rose to the top of my priority list. Finally life calmed down and let me face the final stitching that had to be done. Finally, after 11 years of promises, the quilt is finished and on its way to my nephew.

Final tallies: I spent parts of 213 days on the design, construction, quilting and binding of this quilt. The various machine construction parts took up 13 days while that hand applique sucked up 76 days. The machine quilting took about 18 days (which includes several days just burying thread tails) while the hand quilting took 87 days. Granted, we are not talking 8 hour days here, but typically, a day of machine work would be 3-4 hrs while hand applique or quilting would be 2-3 hours. Are there a few things I might do differently if I were to make this again? Of course, but overall, I am very pleased with this quilt, and so relieved that it doesn't look dated after all these years. Also relieved to have another piece of unfinished business wrapped up.

Another Birthday Block

2011-09-12T19:11:00.000-07:00

My nephew's birthday is Sunday, so it's time for another block for the Freedom Quilt. This pattern is from J. Michelle Watts' The Quilted Cross book and is called Celtic Cross. I've made it before in its original 15 inch size, but I only need a 12 inch block. Since the pattern in the book is not full-size to begin with, it wasn't much of a trick to enlarge it only as big as I needed. I took the quick way out, fusing all the pieces in place rather than hand or machine appliqueing. I plan to stitch along the edges of the applique during the quilting process. This is block 15 which means I am 3/4 of the way through this project. After the 20th block, all the blocks will be returned to me and I will have a year to arrange them into a finished top and quilt it for presentation on his 21st birthday.

The gold pieces are slightly smaller than the openings in the black piece, so the background shows through a little bit like grouting. I love the way this turned out. It's been so long since I've worked in the studio at all, this felt really good - even though I originally had planned a pieced block and was looking forward to the hum of the sewing machine.

Vacation Trip - The People

2011-09-08T15:19:00.000-07:00

Sometimes vacations are just about getting away, and thus about place. Others revolve around specific events or activities. And sometimes, it's about getting together with certain people. My vacation was a bit of all three, with the people being as important if not more so than the places and activities I so enjoyed. They represent so many stages of my life and though I've been in contact with them all via mail & phone & Facebook, it has been anywhere from a couple of years to over 40 years since I'd seen them. So here's to the people (and some of their pets) who made my trip so special!

I'll start with distant cousin, Laura. There was no one around to snap a pic of us together, so I asked, "How long are your arms?" Just long enough to get this cell phone snap. Our mothers were very close but by the time we came along, there weren't many visits between families. Laura thinks the last time we saw it other we were in our teens. We reconnected about 8 years ago when her sister contacted me for old family photos. We discovered we had quilting in common and the three of us did a block exchange (that's my "Cousins Quilt" ufo). It was wonderful to finally talk with Laura face to face and remember, this is family.

Debbie and I went to High School together, were in Latin Club, Honor Society and Booster Club. We'd had no contact since graduation until a year or so ago when we found each other on Facebook. To our mutual surprise, we now have quilting in common not to mention the fact that she lives in the Tacoma area as I once did. Debbie couldn't make it to our 40th high school reunion, but we had a little reunion of our own at the quilt show in Tacoma. It was so much fun viewing the quilt show with her, discovering we had the same tastes and opinions about the quilts. Having taught quilting classes in the area for many years, Debbie could use her local knowledge of the entrants to point out things to me I otherwise would have missed.

Larry and I met in 1975 at the Episcopal church camp on Coeur d'Alene Lake. I was freshly graduated from college and weeks from getting married when my future husband and I were asked to counsel at senior high camp. Oh well, what the heck? I had no experience with this sort of thing, so they paired me up with Larry who shared his vast experience and instilled confidence in me that I could pull this off. We've been close friends ever since, even as he stayed on "the west side" and we gallivanted around the country. 2001 was the last time we'd been together, and I must say, he's hardly changed a bit.

Then there's Donna. I can't believe I failed to get a picture of us together, but I love this one of her with Mr. Fishhead. Donna and I worked together for about 7 years in the '80's at Ted Brown Music in Tacoma and became like sisters. She's another friend who stayed put while I kept moving from place to place. We've never lost touch, but I was shocked to realize we haven't seen each other for probably 15 years. We had no trouble picking up where we left off.

A few years ago, I sent Donna one of my older quilts, an original design with hearts. I'd enjoyed it on my wall for many years and at that time I felt Donna needed a hug. Since I couldn't do it in person, I sent the quilt along to do it for me. She'd told me how it matched perfectly a red wall in their living room and that she planned to hang it there. It was the first thing I spotted when I entered the house. She has a smaller quilt of mine, made especially for her and it was a pleasure to see it again too.

I was amused to find Donna now has chickens and is contemplating starting a "backyard barnyard" business. The rooster's name is Arturo and his harem of hens are named after the Andrew Sisters.

Sherrie is the most recent addition to my circle of good friends. Although I knew of Sherrie and her quilting through a mutual friend, we only met a couple of years ago and immediately sensed we had a lot in common. We've been growing the friendship through our blogs and e-mails, but this was the first time just she and I have spent time together. I'd say the bond is pretty deep now! I can't thank Sherrie enough for inviting me over for the quilt show, then saying, Stay as long as you want. She knew I had friends in the area, maybe places I wanted to see again, and she was the perfect host, tour guide and chauffeur, not to mention a whole lot of fun to be with.

I'd actually not seen much of Sherrie's work and was mesmerized by what was hanging in her house. This was just one that I kept drinking in during my stay. Like those in the quilt show, her quilts made me realize I really need to start working bigger again.

Sherrie's pet of choice is Bunners, the rabbit. My previous experience with pet rabbits includes one my dad warned me against even as he handed it to me as an Easter present when I was about 5 (they bite and scratch with those hind feet so watch how you hold him), and a friend's that never seemed to be out of its cage. Not positive experiences. Bunners won me over, racing out to greet me in the morning (ulterior motive as he expected a piece of banana) and contentedly grunting as he nibbled food or groomed himself. No biting or scratching!.

And my goodness, how I enjoyed her husband Dave, who was quite the host and tolerated (or perhaps enjoyed?) my monopolizing his wife. Thanks for the beer, Dave!

These were the people I went to see, but there were a couple of strangers that factored into making the trip memorable. Here's my seatmate on the train between Seattle and Tacoma - Stu of the diamond willow canes and walking sticks. This was such a nice connection to make.

On the other hand, this was my seatmate on the way home between Everett and Spokane. You can tell she knows I'm not a kid person. I'd love to tell you she changed my mind about that, but she and her slightly older sister who soon took her place lived up to my worst nightmare of whiny bored children in transit. Ah well, that's what earplugs are for...

*****
I packed so much into my week away, but there's so much I didn't do that I thought I might. Didn't swim in Donna's pool or strike a yoga pose with Sherrie. Didn't get out my sketchbook or crack open the novel thrown in at the last minute. I failed to see the spectacular scenery my train route is famous for and visit the American Art Gallery (a frequent lunch break destination when I worked across the street). The Seattle Art Museum was closed the day we were in town, and we didn't make it to the original Starbucks either. Didn't eat at Frisco Freeze (there's a story there) and there are more people in the area to look up than I could fit in. And though we talked about it every day, I never got to pull out my handwork and stitch with Sherrie while sitting on her deck enjoying the view of Wollachet Bay (below). I'm definitely going to have to go back.

Vacation Trip - Quilts!

2011-09-07T16:28:00.000-07:00

I know, I know. You thought I'd never get to the quilt show, even though it was the carrot my hostess dangled for coming that particular weekend. I considered joining this organization when I first moved back to Idaho, but at that time, they did not include Idaho in their definition of the Pacific Northwest. Harrumph - Idaho has always had this problem. Newly reorganized, now APWQ expanded region covers 18 states and provinces west of the Rockies, and I am now eligible to join. Perhaps I will before the next quilt show.

Ferns in Living Color by Margie Davidson
24 " x 36"

I've been out of the quilt show loop since leaving the Midwest, and based on what I've been seeing in magazines of late, I was feeling a bit ho-hum about the show. Too much over the top just for the sake of over the top, weak design, art quilts that are more about throwing every technique in the book at a piece rather than thoughtful editing and that basic: strong design. I was pleasantly surprised and energized by what I saw, and took a ton of pictures for future reference. Not everyone, I've learned, agrees with me that this was a balanced show of overall high quality but I stand by that assessment. The juried and judged portion represented traditional, pictorial, innovative and art quilts, and there were many special exhibits to savor as well. The quilt above is from the traveling exhibit Living Color; click here to see the rest of that exhibit. I salute the organizers who did a fine job putting on a well-rounded exhibit reminiscent of AQS in Paducah.

Lunch at the Koi Diner by Judy Irish
(detail) 40" x 47"

As I sorted through the many photos, I realized that I photograph quilts for different reasons. Sometimes I'm drawn to something specific in the quilt, not needing or perhaps even liking the entire quilt. My intent is not to copy what I see within my own work, but more studying what is working well as part of my learning process. With this one, it was the Koi, rendered entirely in colorful thread on the black background, a very effective approach.

Autumn Beauty by Barbara Shapel
(detail) 56" x 59"

And in this one, it was the quilting detail of the feathers and the background quilting that I wanted to remember. Oh, and that magnificent rendering of red maple.

Cottonwood Calendar by Cynthia St Charles
(detail) 34" x 26.5"

This quilt had many of these squares, each with its own collection of embellishments. Some were so unusual, others so commonplace, the attraction for me being in how they were attached.

Red Will Make It Better by Sonia Grasvik
(detail) 33" x 47"

I was impressed by the variety of quilting motifs, especially the use of garnet stitch, effectively mingled.

Hallelujah by Sherry Rogers-Harrison
(detail) 57" x 55"

Other detail shots are merely out of awe for the artist's mastery of something I can so appreciate but would not attempt in my own work - not my style or not my expertise. This was a triumph of trapunto, paint, pigment, inking and quilting. No wonder she named it "Hallelujah".

Sinuosity by Patricia Howell
50" x 70"

I also record quilts in their entirety when the impact of the whole can stand on its own. Again, sometimes it is a matter of study, figuring out why it is working or appealing to me. I like the flow and balance of this, and of course, these are a bit "my" colors as well. Balance in my own designs is something I'm constantly struggling with.

Wind Dance by Mary Goodson
47" x 28.5"
Paint & Thread

This one also struck me as an effective composition, and of special interest because of my fascination with windmills. I've been mulling how to work them into my own work, so it is interesting to see how others are doing it. I'm also about to embark on a series based on this same sort of rolling farmland. I will be approaching mine quite differently, but it is instructional to see someone else's interpretation. This is part of the special exhibit "Knotted, Dyed, Tied and Stitched" by the Columbia FiberArts Guild.

History & Tradition by Judy Eselius & Myrna Fichen
46" x 60"

And then there are the pictorial quilts that left me so impressed with their realistic renderings, defying the fact they are two-dimensional works. I could believe I was standing on a bridge looking up this canal.

Natural Wonders by Kathy McNeil
60" x 63"

This large seascape took my breath away. Closer inspection revealed not only stuffed appliqued starfish and shells but real shells attached as well.

Montezuma Castle by Jo Ann Blade
81" x 49"

Not as large, but equally effective in giving a sense of actually being there. The curved perspective and color scheme were of particular interest for me. This uses a special construction technique of Janet Fogg's plus paint sticks to add 3D effects.

Old Machinery Left to Rust by Emilie Belak
30" x 25"

Yet another that made me feel I could reach into it, and surprising fabric choice/color palette.

The Mountain Is Out by Crane Johnson
54.5" x 34.5"
Photo Transfer & Machine Quilting

And look! There are my colorful shipping containers, cranes and Mt. Rainier! This was such a beautiful thing considering the subject matter - docks and machinery CAN work, especially when their shape mimics that of the mountain.

Upper Klamath Lake-Klamath Basin Vistas by Joanne Baeth & friends

Perhaps the most impressive quilts in the show were the three multiple panel landscapes in the APWQ Members Special Exhibit. These were a collective effort between Quilt artists from Oregon and California, recreating photographs by Jeremy Franklin. Each was heavily embellished to create a very realistic look. Unfortunately for me, the hall these hung in had dim lighting and it was next to impossible to get good shots, but I hope this gives you an idea of their magnificence.

Lollapalooza by Sherry Rogers-Harrison
72" x 72"

Finally, let me share a more traditional quilt that knocked my socks off. The quilting alone would have wowed me, but this is another one using an inking technique. An original design requiring over 800 hours to complete.

Be sure to click on any picture for larger, more detailed views. I've provided links to the artists blogs or websites where available, so please go visit them to view more of their art. And if you'd like to see more quilts from the show, Del Thomas has posted on her blog better pictures than I came away with. Start with this post and work back through older posts to see them all.

As I said, my reaction to the show was not what I expected, and I am so glad that Sherrie prodded me into coming over for it. The art & pictorial quilts in particular elicited two responses from me: 1) a need to go home and cry, because they really were better work than much of what I've been doing of late, and 2) the desire to go home and get back to work, step it up a notch. What I saw confirmed two things I've been sensing of late about where my work should go: I need to work larger and I need to incorporate more stitch. (Oh, and also incorporate more surface design like discharge and resist.) I've been working so small as of late that with a few exceptions, none of my current work would have met the minimum size requirement for the small quilt category, let alone the large quilt. Part of the impact of the pictorial and art quilts, I realized, was their size. The other part often was the heavy stitching, in those tightly spaced parallel lines that I love. I'll still be working on my smaller designs that look so good framed, but my mind is percolating as to how I can take these ideas that I've worked more as studies, and turn them into the larger art quilts I used to make.

Vacation Trip - More Art & Architecture Amtrak Style

2011-09-06T17:13:00.001-07:00

If you're in a hurry, don't take the train. I'm generally not too concerned about whether the trains run on time; in my book, the perks of train travel compared to flying these days outweigh any inconvenience from delays. Plus I don't enjoy driving the long hauls by myself like I used to. A delay is just more time to relax and contemplate one's surroundings.

I'd not traveled the route between Spokane and Seattle before (thus found myself sitting on the wrong side of the car to see the best scenery through the Cascade mountains) so had not been in Seattle's King Street Station. I had a brief layover there before boarding an Amtrak Cascades commuter train to Tacoma, enough time to notice some great architectural details.

Mosaics on the floor and running along the marble pillars.

This station has seen some bad remodeling, but one can sense how beautiful it must have been in its glory days. A major restoration project is currently in progress - perhaps the next time I pass through, I will see major changes in the waiting area where these pictures were taken.

I stepped outside for some air and there were my skyscrapers I love so much.

And towering directing over me, the station's 242 foot clock tower itself.

Zooming in, again I marvel at the detail on a part of the building hardly seen.

The route between Seattle and Tacoma is part of the Coast Starlight that runs from Vancouver, B.C. to San Diego. I plan to try that one next (possibly next year), hopping on at Portland. I love these vintage posters Amtrak uses to decorate its stations and train cars.

The train no longer stops at Tacoma's Union Station on Pacific Ave, a building I'm quite familiar with from my days working downtown. It now houses federal courtrooms for the Western District of Washington. The rotunda is also available to rent for special occasions. You can just make out the station slightly right of center in this picture, with the Tacoma Dome behind it.

So when I got off the train in Tacoma, at a station looking like many other newer stations along the rails, I didn't know where I was...that is, until I spotted that familiar dome. Ah, I'm on the tide flats, or at least near by.

The commuter cars are so different from the coach cars that make the long hauls. I was intrigued by the monitor that tracked our progress and listed eta's of the upcoming stops.

But it was good to transfer back to my roomier coach and watch the Seattle Space Needle zipping by as I headed home.

I got to thinking about Margaret Cooter's picture-taking on the trains around London, and tried to capture reflections as we sped past this glass building.

I had a pretty good view of the Sound from across the aisle, and in trying to capture sun rays through the clouds, also captured the silhouette of a young man, as enamored with train travel as I. This I could see as a quilt.

The light was fading fast, the windows a bit dirty and the hot air balloons a bit far away, but I played a bit with cropping and think this too could be the beginnings of a quilt.

Click on any image for a larger view.

Vacation Trip - Art & Architecture

2011-09-06T12:53:00.000-07:00

For four days, the weather in the Tacoma area was fabulously warm and sunny, not something you can bank on even in August. Day five dawned more typically cloudy and gray, which made us wonder if we should go through with plans to walk about Seattle. We even got spat upon as we drove to Bremerton to catch the ferry, but this tiny bright spot in the clouds convinced me we should risk the trip.

So what if the skies were as battleship gray as the actual battleships along the waterfront? And while we waited for the ferry, there was plenty of art to enjoy, all linked to either the maritime history of the area or the life below the surface of water.

Sculpture to ponder.

And sculpture to climb upon.

There were five of these conning towers lined up along this small park area.

Had we known this was Harborside Fountain Park, we might not have been so startled when they started spewing water like big whales through blowholes. One after another the fountains would rise. After a pause, the sequence might be different.

Inside the terminal, a different kind of art helped to pass the time.

I apologize for not getting the name of the artist. The tilework was so beautiful.

Here's our ferry arriving. Still looks very gray...

We opted for a late morning ferry, and nearly had the whole thing to ourselves. The return trip was right at the beginning of rush hour and all the window seats were quickly snapped up. Way in the back you might be able to spot more art on the wall.

I think it's about an hour ride, and the weather wasn't improving much. Here we are approaching Seattle, a large cruise ship in the foreground, the Seattle Space Needle visible along the skyline. I dismissed the bleakness of the view knowing we'd be spending time in shops and thankful that it wasn't raining.

While exiting, my eye was drawn to the industrial docks area. Those colorful shipping containers and the orange angular cranes cried out to me as fodder for a future abstract art quilt, If only the sun had been out so the colors would have popped on camera.

Then I turned my eye to the skyscrapers, long time favorites of mine.

Not as much detail as on buildings built earlier in the century, you still have to marvel at the decorative elements not visible with the naked eye from street level.

Our destination was Pike Street Market. Along the way we stopped at a Starbucks and took a moment for this photo op right outside its door. This is a woman craving warm fuzzies! I suddenly hear, "Adorable!" and notice 3 people in their 20's who immediately took turns striking the same pose after I got out of the way. Well, I guess that made me feel a little less embarrassed. Thank goodness, by the time we got to the pink pig, the crowd was too thick for Sherrie to pose me with it.

Once in the bowels of Pike Street Market, one has no idea what the weather is like outside. This is the shop where I found my bargain batiks. And as you see, I also found this bright length of fabric which I bought for Sherrie. When one has cloudy days, one finds one's own sunshine!

The clouds did eventually dissipate enough for blue sky and sun to appear. Here we say goodbye to Seattle now bathed in sunlight.

Vacation Trip - More Water & Angry Crabs

2011-09-04T19:52:00.000-07:00

When I first moved to Sandpoint, people were quick to point out how little public access there is along the lake's shoreline, and how aggressively residents guard their private land from watercraft considering a landing. In fact, that is one of the reasons I am ensconced in a "caretaker" house on my landlord's property. Kopachuck State Park on the Kitsap Peninsula is a small gem of public access along Puget Sound fighting a battle to stave off private development. It has been targeted for possible closure due to the State's budget crisis, which would be a real shame. Sherrie has blogged repeated about the Harbor Wildwatch Outreach Program's activities such as Get Your Feet Wet, and I wanted to see for myself. So off we went to talk to the volunteers, view the touch tanks and walk the beach.

There were lots of shells one could pick up and study and the "touch tank" where live specimens were waiting for your inspection.

I declined any actually touching, especially when I spotted this small but "angry" crab.

So the volunteer did the touching, holding up this Red Rock crab for us. He looked angry too.

Apparently, most people are more interested in the underside of these things; I was having a hard time getting through to the volunteer that I was more intrigued by that beautiful red back.

This crab has a sad story. The barnacles have formed along the line where the crab would normally split its shell to molt. The crab for some reason, has not been able to scrap them off so is trapped in its shell and will eventually die. Poor crab.

After this orientation, we walked along the beach, the Olympic Mountain range barely visible through the haze. At these events, kayaks are also available for rent through a private company, but we passed that up. Instead, Sherrie showed me how the sand dollars, oysters and others each had their own "community" rather than co-existing. I'd never been on a beach like this before, my experience with ocean beaches mostly showing what had washed up on the beach dead.

Once we'd had enough of the beach, we walked along the trails leading back up the wooded hillside to the parking lot. I was taken by surprise by this brief stretch of stone steps. Couldn't resist a shot.

This is rain forest country, where trees can be heavy with moss.

Sherrie alerted me to these ferns, a shaft of light highlighting the spores on the underside.

You didn't think I'd come away from my trip without some pictures of undulating tree trunks, did you?

Vacation Trip - It's The Water

2011-09-04T13:51:00.000-07:00

The Puget Sound area, I was reminded, is all about the water. Even visiting the cities, large and small, you cannot get far away from the influence of the Sound, variously described as a fjord system of flooded glacial valleys and a system of many salt water estuaries. Frankly, I'm not as keen on ocean views as I am on a lake nestled in mountains, so have always enjoyed the views around the Sound (above picture taken from train between Edmonds & Everett). In fact, I was thinking how much it looked like my views here at home on the lake, and so I was constantly surprised when beaches appeared and disappeared. Oh yeah, the Sound is essentially a huge bay along the Pacific ocean coast and so is influenced by tides. Any rise or fall of my lake level is primarily the result of spring runoff and the opening or shutting of a dam's floodgates.

Because the Sound is so extensive, Washington State has developed a unique ferry system linking both sides of the sound and the larger islands to the mainland. This cuts down commute time and is a much more pleasant way to spend an hour or so than stuck in traffic on the interstate. Smaller ferries make shorter runs to some of the smaller islands. This is one of the state-run ferries on its way to Seattle (as seen from our roof-top French restaurant).

Boats are just a fact of life out here. Don't know what the story is on this one, but it glided by as we waited for the big ferry that would take us to Seattle. (Correction: Sherrie informs me this is a foot ferry. I suspected as much but didn't want to guess.)

And of course, where there's big water, there will be birds gathering on pilings.

My friend, Donna, who I had not seen for over 10 years, now has a boat and goes out crabbing with her husband and son. I'd not been out on this portion of the Sound, let alone gone crabbing, so it was a real treat to spend an afternoon out on the water with them. In the distance you can see the Tacoma Narrows bridge which spans the strait between Tacoma and the Kitsap Peninsula.

This crabbing thing was all new to me (except enjoying the tasty catch). Here Donna is holding a salmon head that will be bait along with other salmon parts stuffed in that small cage in her other hand. This is strapped into the larger cage that will be going overboard.

Soundings are taken and at the proper depth, out goes the cage tied to a 60 - 80 ft long rope with buoy attached. How do you know which buoy is yours?, I asked. Besides laws about marking buoys, Donna made distinctive flags also marked.

We set out 3 traps, then floated along while having lunch. About thirty minutes later, we retrieved the traps (no mean feat, I discovered, due to the tidal currents). Not a great day, but we did catch a few dungeness and rock crabs. This was one angry crab, and according to that blue gauge Donna is holding across its back, it's big enough to keep.

Our route took us from the Narrows down toward the Nisqually Delta, past Fox Island, home to Joen Wolfrom of Landscape & Illusions, and the Visual Dance quilting fame, then back up to Willochet Bay. It was very hazy that day, so Donna was a little disappointed as she pointed out the mountains she thought might give me some inspiration. Hazy or not, I could see Joen's influence before my eyes. Later, I spotted orcas breaching. Not willing to trust my eyes, I innocently asked Donna if that was right. Apparently, orca sitings are as exciting to the natives as to us tourists, as she started shouting, Where, WHERE? and got her husband to turn the boat around. We saw a pair and a trio, but couldn't get close enough to get pictures. Still, a beautiful sight. And we also saw the occasional sea lion popping up a curious head. And as we turned into Willochet Bay, suddenly Mount Rainier was looming over us.

Can't thank my friend enough for taking me out on the water on such a beautiful day.

Birthday Vacation Trip - The Food

2011-09-03T14:57:00.000-07:00

Readers are already commenting on what a wonderful trip I had, but I haven't told you the half of it yet. Since some of the food on the trip was birthday related, it seemed logical to talk about it next. Above is the somewhat inauspicious start - my birthday eve dinner before boarding the train later that night. My brother, Bruce, and I have fond memories of our Dad taking us to Paul Bunyan in Coeur d'Alene for burgers back in the 1960's. The original drive-in is still there, plus a few new locations have cropped up. Sandpoint got its own about two years ago, and I was curious if the burgers were as good as I remembered from my childhood. So here it is, a deluxe burger, onion rings and a huckleberry malt. I don't think huckleberry malts were on the menu back then, but heck, it's my birthday so how could I pass up the seasonal treat? Let me just say, you can't go home again, and the malt was the best part of the meal.

It wasn't until I moved to the Midwest that I realized how fortunate I'd been to have access to really fresh seafood so many places I'd lived along the West Coast. It wasn't until I moved back to the Pacific Northwest that I realized how much I'd missed that fresh seafood. Imagine my delight to discover that my birthday dinner would be king salmon caught that day and barbecued over alder. That's my friend Donna cutting up the catch of the day, her son Chris in the background stoking the fire. Donna also made crab/artichoke dip from dungeness crab she'd caught herself and strawberry shortcake in lieu of birthday cake. I should mention that she and her husband had also taken me for a Thai birthday lunch at Lele's. The next day she took me crabbing and the leftover salmon and dip came along for an afternoon snack. You can never get enough salmon and crab, I thought - yum.

Later that day, Donna handed me off to art quilter friend, Sherrie, who had made these goat cheese stuffed pepper hors d'oeuvres. "Sherrie Loves Color" is the name of her blog, and that sentiment is in evidence all around her house, as you can see from the bright plate and sunflower napkin ring.

Sherrie's husband, Dave, had snagged this beer for us. Who knew there was a beer made just for us quilters? Well, not exactly. According to Iron Horse Brewery website this is actually named after the man who originally developed this brew: "The beer was originally developed by Jim Quilter then assistant brewmaster at Sierra Nevada as a 13.5% barleywine. Jim later moved on to Butte Creek, Mad River and Winthrop Brewery (now Old Schoolhouse) before opening Iron Horse Brewery in Ellensburg. Jim later sold Iron Horse and was working for the Bighorn Brewing (Ram) chain in Seattle when he passed away in 2009. Kudos to the present Iron Horse owners to give much deserved credit to Jim Quilter to this present fine beer. Raise a glass of this fine brew to Jim Quilter." Well, you can't blame us quilters for wanting to claim it as our own. Dave also barbecued up fresh salmon to go with Sherrie's pasta salad and fresh green salad. Save room for the fresh glazed peach pie. Oh, I am wishing I thought to take a picture of that glorious pie, but as my niece says, the little piggy in us dived in before thinking to capture the moment. Was I disappointed to find salmon on the menu for the third meal in a row? Hardly!

The next day I got a bit of a tour of Gig Harbor, including lunch at the popular Tides Tavern. Again, no pics of the food, too busy slurping up some of the best clam chowder I've ever had, but Sherrie did point out the photo op from the ladies' restroom which gives you some idea of our view while we ate on the deck. Dinner that night was...wait for it...leftover salmon, pasta salad and peach pie!

Sunday we were taking in the Pacific West Quilt Show in Tacoma, unhappily lunching on overpriced pre-packaged convention food. But that night, Sherrie and Dave took me to dinner at another popular Gig Harbor restaurant, El Pueblito. Dave was impressed that I scarfed up nearly all of the ample portions of my meal, but hey, I'm on vacation and no way was I not going to finish off that excellent chimichanga! Again, no food pics, but we did think this wall of kids drawings in the waiting area so much fun we had to have our picture taken in front of it.

Monday saw us taking the ferry to Seattle where we roamed the shops in Pike Street Market. Suddenly we realized it was almost 2:00 p.m. and we'd not had lunch. Not wanting to spend too much time looking for a spot, we ended up at Maximilien, a french restaurant with french waiters and an outdoor patio with view of the waterfront. How nice it was to sit down at a table with linen tablecloth and napkins, and be fawned over by our waiter whose accent was so thick I could hardly understand him. Sherrie tried out her french, but apparently she too had a too thick accent. ;-)

Of the many tempting menu items, I found I could not resist taking advantage of the fresh seafood offering of the Pacific Northwest salad. This delightful salad features Dungeness crab and sea bass topping a mound of arugula draped with delicate slices of smoked salmon. I remembered to take a picture just in time before little piggy took too many bites.

Not that we needed it, but we opted to add dessert. For Sherrie, it was Profiteroles au chocolat: Olympic Mountain Vanilla Ice Cream-filled cream puffs, topped with chocolate sauce. For me it was Mochaccino Mousse: Chocolate and coffee mousse, topped with white chocolate crème with Sablé breton (shown above as pictured on the restaurant's website).

Here's a shot of Sherrie's ice tea. Nothing french or fancy but we both thought it might make an interesting shot, what with the condensation and light passing through. When we got home that night, we found that Dave had taken dinner planning into his own hands. He barbecued the best steak, mushrooms, corn on the cob, and...more salmon! Yes, I definitely was in salmon heaven for the bulk of the trip.

Tuesday it was time to go home, but not before meeting a cousin for lunch at The Old Spaghetti Factory in Tacoma. I haven't eaten at one in ages, and did not have my favorite spaghetti with myzithra sauce but an excellent chicken panini, half of which I saved to eat later on the train trip home. I should mention that while breakfasts were whatever I wanted to grab from the frig or cupboard, some of that fare included freshly picked blackberries whipped up into muffins by Donna, and a too yummy vegan chocolate chip zucchini bread baked for us by Sherrie's daughter. And let's not forget the stops at Starbucks for calorie laden beverages. Wow, I ate so well on this trip...and now it's time to diet.

Home from Vacation

2011-09-02T12:52:00.000-07:00

It's taken me several days to unwind, unpack and savor memories from my trip to the Tacoma, WA area. I slept well, ate even better, laughed hard, talked long into the night, experienced new things and revisited places I haven't seen in years. People and places I spent time with spanned nearly my whole life - from a high school friend to an art quilt friend of recent acquaintance - I didn't realize until it was almost over what a microcosm of my life this trip would be. It was wonderful and will take more than a couple of posts to share! Since the trip began on my birthday, I thought an appropriate place to start would be to share the birthday part first. A few cards had arrived before leaving, but many more awaited me when I arrived home.

And presents! A box of chocolate-covered strawberries from a brother.

And from my niece, packaging that was as much a gift as the gift within. The tissue paper may work for my tissue paper sun printing technique, and the wrapping paper is thick like a fine handmade paper. I am sure I can incorporate it into an art piece.

Inside was something fun - Keel's Simple Diary with this bright yellow cover. How does my niece always know what I need? I never would have picked a yellow one, so bright it almost hurts my eyes, but I must admit, it makes me happy when I pick it up to use it. Hard not to be sunny when looking at this. And inside is a very playful format for recording your days. Like the newspaper blackout technique, it is oh so much easier to start with something on the page than face the blank sheet daring you to think of something important. I can tend toward too serious, I nearly rolled my eyes when reading the "instructions" but after the first page, I now look forward to what the diary wants to know about how my day went. Here's a sample: "Your day was (only choose one) ( ) a party. ( ) a U-turn. ( ) a smarty."

I had some birthday money too and used that as an excuse to treat myself to some fabric and bead souvenirs. The green leaf batik is from Harbor Quilts and the beads resting on it from Gig Harbor Beads just up the street. Both of these are in Gig Harbor, WA which was my base. The other two are lengths of batiks I found in a second hand shop in Pike Street Market (Seattle) that specialized in vintage textiles. Don't know how vintage these were but I paid $8 for 4 yards of what I think is African batik on the left, and $5 for a little over 2 yds of what I think is an Indonesian batik in Sari form. It's a very similar design to a used sari I bought from a vendor years ago at the Minnesota Quilt Show. Regardless, I felt these two pieces were a real find and a steal.

Anyone know what this label says/means? I also spotted after the fact, a small sticker below this label with "$9" written on it. Yes, I DID get a steal.

I spent most of the vacation with Sherrie Spangler who besides feeding me, running me around and providing a place to sleep, also gave me one of her quilts as a birthday gift. It is called "Red Energy - First Chakra" and I am definitely feeling its energy now that it hangs in my office. Energy and motivation is something I've sorely lacked this year, and often it is difficult to keep up the momentum of renewed vigor trips often generate; I'm amazed at how this quilt is pushing me toward a more upbeat feeling and, well, energy. Thanks Sherrie!

Finally, here's a gift that was delivered yesterday, although the generous giver did not realize it was a birthday gift. On the brief train ride between Seattle and Tacoma which happened to be on my birthday, I sat by a man from Libby, Montana who spends some of his retirement time making Diamond Willow walking sticks and canes. Since I have a brother who does woodworking, I was interested in learning more about this diamond willow and how he worked with it. He doesn't have a website and didn't have any business cards with him so I gave him one of mine so he could send me more info. As the conversation progressed, I mentioned my walking and hiking routines, and before I knew it, he was offering to send me a walking stick, no charge! Happy birthday to me from a perfect stranger - I guess there's something to this opening up bit.

Stu Cannon is the artisan's name, and he explained how he works the diamond shapes (cankers caused by fungus) to bring them out more, similar, I thought, to the way I work with fabric.

The walking sticks have a leather strap with this nifty antler slide. This one feels exactly the right length for me and I must get out and try it. Stu also uses larger pieces of diamond willow for lamp bases and vases. His prices are very reasonable, so if you are interested in his wares, you can contact him at 425 Indian Head Road in Libby, MT 59923 or call 406-293-7274. He's shipped these all over the country.

Next up? Probably the amazing food from my trip.

A Busy August

2011-08-23T18:34:00.000-07:00

There's been no sewing since the last post. I've been recovering from an oral surgery (I'm fine, really), entertaining guests and then this last weekend, attending my 40th high school reunion - oy vey. Tomorrow I board the train for a week with art quilting friends and a couple of former co-workers from my Tacoma days. So not much time for creativity. I was iffy about that class reunion, but through the magic of FaceBook, several of us had reconnected on-line (having no contact since the 10th reunion), so not as much awkwardness as might have been otherwise. In fact, we were so busy gabbing we forget to line everyone up for a group picture. This is just a small fraction of attendees, and we were joking that as usual, here was Gary and his harem. I really enjoyed talking with these classmates again, and it's always nice to go back to my hometown in such a beautiful setting.

We had a "mixer" Friday night at the Wallace Brewing Company, a micro brewery that was news to me (just over two years old). But I must admit, I really liked the Jackleg Cream Stout - very smooth for a dark beer. You can see from the business card that they are playing up the racy mining town reputation, but I did like their solution to the sluggish local economy. Turns out there's not only a connection to my class among the partners, but also a Sandpoint connection.

The buttons above the business card are two antler buttons I picked out at the Arts & Crafts fair on Saturday. The class reunions for an 11 year span were coupled with the annual Huckleberry Festival - it would appear, to make planning activities a bit easier. I opted out of most of the general activities, but did cruise the fair and then cruise the downtown. The central part was blocked off so food vendors and a stage for music entertainment could take over.

Most of the stores I knew while growing up are gone now, replaced by a multitude of antique stores and other tourist attractions. A few of the restaurants remain in one form or another. When I was in high school, Albi's Steak House was the nicest, fanciest place to eat in town, and where one took your prom date if you remembered to get reservations. It's still operating, but I was puzzled at what has moved in next to it.

Some of the 13 bars still remain as well. This one always intrigued me with it's sign and the fact that you had to go down those stairs to its basement location. It is named for the proprietor who's last name was Stein (and there was a Stein in my class), and the foam on the sign's stein had multiple little lights that flashed after dark. Love that sign and glad to see it still there.

Another period sign still intact is this advertisement for the motel that I believe was built in the 1960's. One of our classmates stayed there and reported nothing had changed - it was very retro. Again, we have the flashing little bulbs that sequence from bottom to top, exploding in the star and pointing the way to the motel. Don't ask about the little UFO thing sitting next to it - a more recent marketing ploy has labeled this town the center of the universe.

The historic railroad station no longer operates as one, but is a little museum with a gift shop. One of my classmate's father ran the station, and the family lived on the upper floor, which always fascinated me.

The town once had a 5 story hotel with an open cage elevator complete with human operator. They've made a nice little park on the corner it once occupied, and I was happy that they had saved this tiling that one walked over to enter the hotel's main doors which opened on the corner.

So some things remain the same, others have changed and if nothing else, you can always depend on the old buildings to sport some interesting details if you bother to look up, something I do these days. This building was not readily visible in my day, but now with other buildings gone, I see it has a very interesting facade which tells me it was built in 1916. Below are details from other buildings downtown.

Last but not least, what about this cool matching car and trailer?

Arts & Crafts Fair and Some Unfinished Business

2011-08-15T17:59:00.000-07:00

This weekend was Sandpoint's annual Arts and Crafts fair where I not only tracked down one of my favorite potters of Klickitat Pottery, but also volunteered some time as a floater. Having done my share of vending at quilt shows and one outdoor Arts & Crafts show, I know how much work preparing and setting up is and how long the show days get, especially for the lone vendor with no friend or spouse to watch the booth when needing a break. One of the services POAC provides during this show is volunteers who will provide those breaks, and offer other help when needed. I must have "babysat" 8 or 10 booths in my 2 hour shift, and under my official status, had interesting chats with nearly every vendor. I felt this year's selection of vendors was particularly good, and should have come home with more business cards. Unlike POAC's art exhibits which focus on local artists, the Arts and Crafts Fair pulls artists from throughout the west. Here are a few websites to check out: Fire Creek Glass, Fluting From the Heart, Pottery Place Plus, Staci Schubert Custom Handcrafted Bags & Accessories.

On a personal note, I have finished my nephew's quilt, putting the last hand stitches in the binding this morning. I had hoped to get some pictures, especially because it was a nicely overcast day, but with overcast sometimes comes showers, and such was the case today. Well, I needed to steam it a bit anyway, so stay tuned - pictures to come. In the meantime, it is very good to have another piece of "unfinished business" finally crossed off the list.