I'm In Luuuv.

Oh, baby, technology has found me! I have recieved a wireless router for Christmas.

Let all Lutherans rise up and ask:
What does this mean?

I'll tell you what this means. It means I can lay in bed and blog from my iPod.

Fully realizing how truly behind the curve this puts me, I can still say, in all my middle aged, country bumpkin glory,
"Look at me and my bad self!"

Day 3 Lunch

Lunch Al Fresco!!

And with new friends!




I cringe at the thought of having to go back to Michigan winter.

...and Today...

I'm still not over that chin. When did it show up and how do I make it stop??? On second thought, don't answer. I don't want to hear it.

Today was fun. Betty and I wore crowns all day (a pattern she is selling) and we sold tons of stuff...shiny stuff, sticky stuff, helpful stuff. There are so many interesting people to watch and help and chat with...it's like a big party.

My shining moment of the day was when I accidentally scanned a credit card into the items sold area of the computer/register. The sale showed up for Six Billion Dollars. And the lady's change came to Six Billion and something minus 10 dollars. I'm a wiener.

The funniest moment IMO was when a lady from Louisiana showed up wearing skull pendants. Turns out one of the pendants was a whistle. Forgetting to consider the gentleman vending across from us (he was soundly asleep in a convention hall chair, chin on chest, eyelids slightly parted), I said 'yes' when the lady offered to blow the whistle. It was piercing. The sleeping man jumped out of his skin. I nearly wet myself trying to keep from howling with laughter. How do you sleep in a convention hall full of raving quilters??

I know, it's not nice to torture sleeping people. The customer promised to return tomorrow for more hijinx. Can't wait.

And this, my friends, is what the end of the day looks like:


Make up off, nightgown on. Neck elongated for 'less chin' look.

Hello Houston!

Hey! I'm at the Quilt Festival! I"m waiting for Betty, my boss for the weekend, to arrive with my name badge. Here's what it looks like:



Good Grief, that's a big chin. Never mind that. Back to the show.

So...I'm working for Betty during the day and staying with a family friend at night. I've learned from working with Betty that I see more friends if I stand in one place than if I'm walking the show floor. Plus it's just fun to talk to customers and get them excited about Betty's products.

And the deal is sweetened by the fact that I'm able to get free wireless here in the convention center cafe area.

It's all good.

...sigh...

The Fyberartysta has tagged me for a meme, so now I must face the music, log in and actually post. The rules: six random facts about me, tag six people.

1. I enjoy watching boxing, kickboxing and all their variations.

2. Choreographed martial arts entrance me. My fav. scenes to date are in the Matrix (I know Kung Fu) and in Batman Begins.

3. I am a nonviolent person and view the above two as a version of dance. I see wierd beauty in their practices.

4. I love to canoe and be on the water. My dream is to live where the sea can lull me to sleep every night.

5. I am terribly insecure and paranoid about what people think of me. This posture alternates with 'I don't care what anybody thinks' on a high frequency cycle.

6. Word games bring out my competative one-eyed monster. So does Backgammon. And I'm kind of a sore loser.

The following people are officially tagged:

Deb, fabulous in so many ways, at the Scarlet Zebra

Von, a new friend at Nuts Over Fiber

Molli, a local good friend and Knitter Extraordinaire

Teri who's been involved in the art-quilting internet community longer than anyone I know.

Emily at What's That Gonna' Be. Go to her Etsy site. Buy her sock yarn. Buy more.

Carol, Goddess of Printing. Let's make her post something!

The rules are as follows:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post.
5. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know your entry is up.

My Saturday

Much to my delight, I spent yesterday with members of Running With Scissors. We talked about dyeing cottons with mx dyes, mixed up some dye stock and generally threw colors at fabric until exhaustion and brain fatigue set in. It was fun, FUN, fun.

Lynn has a flattering review and some pics here. I, Super Spec, gnat of small brain in the face of the Immense Universe, did manage to remember my camera, but as noted in Lynn's post, the heat, humidity (good for the dye, bad for my delicate nature) and general excitement of a fiber class zapped any picture taking initiative.

It's been a while since I've actually taught the dyeing process or led a group of adults. Molli counselled me to not freeze up, which was tough. In spite of all my prep, it felt as though I spewed rambling every time my mouth opened. Chalk it up to nerves.

Then there was the shear stupidity. Like leaving my entire stack of handouts and notes at Lynn's house. And putting the most brain intensive exercise after lunch, when my brain usually grinds to a standstill. I gave recipes incorrectly, mixed pre-soda soaked and dried fabric in with my other pieces and couldn't tell them apart, misjudged supply needs, and much more. From listening to many other teachers, I know this is all part of the learning curve. The best teachers have worked through these kinks and refined their classroom experience.

But even the best teachers run into the unexpected. At the outset of the day, there seemed to be no hot water....not good for a dye class and made me nervous. Turns out, we just needed patience and time for the tankless water heater to kick in. I've listened to and read about teaching horror stories that far surpass a little cold water.

All in all, it was a great day! We learned from each other, told stories, and sweated together. I would do it again in a blink.

Oh, Yes, I Will...

Hi. This is Cathy. It's Servant Event week, therefor I'm knee-deep in t-shirts. This year, I'm dying and screenprinting the shirts. Will post pics this week as progress is made.

In other Funky C news, our household now contains a driving teen ager. Lucky for us, he falls in the geriatric category and not the Speed Racer category.

Back to the dye bath....

Because she won't...

This is not Cathy. She used my laptop tonight and for some reason it has chosen to log her in when I went to put up a new post on my own blog.

I'm posting because she hates us all and won't do it herself.

I have no pictures for you but you know, Cathy can't even be bothered to put text up so I guess this is better then nothing.

Have a good night.

(Lynn)

Yarns

Wednesday night, I got to go to my fiber group. It's been a few months due to life in general. We're suppose to be devoloping art quilts, doing critiques, etc.... In a fit of spring fever, all of that was abandoned for the lure of hand dyed yarn.

Enter my first hand dyed sock yarn:

This looks like salsa to me...fresh tomatoes and peppers...good enough to eat.

In other knitting insanity, there is lace:

This is the Swallow Tail Shawl by Evelyn Clark, published in Fall 2006 Interweave Knits. The yarn is hand dyed silk (dyed by another artist). I've made it once before and am saying bad words in the same places as last time. Fancy that!

Fabric

In the interest of keeping this blog alive, I'm posting some pics of fabric I've made over the past couple of weeks. These are all done with mx dyes. The colors looked a little wierd in Photoshop, so I'm not sure if they'll seem as dramatic to you as they do to me.

This one uses my favorite 'face' screen print with many layers of discharge and dye painting:


Next up, more discharge over layers of dye painting. I layered ripped freezer paper on here and then painted discharge off the edge:


And then two pieces of scrunch dyeing. These were the best of several




The kids kept me so busy today that this post is the extent of my creative efforts for the day. I've also been working on a lace shawl that is sucking the lifeblood out of me now that I'm to the border. Grrr.

I'm hoping to make more fabric this week.

Frustrated...

...everything I touch in the studio today is turning to garbage. Better quit for now.

The good news is that a trip to Barnes and Noble ended with this

And I did teach a lady to knit today. That was good. And my daughter taught herself how to mix brown. She's coated several pieces of paper with brown paint....fun.

So maybe there's more good than not. Now I'm off to bed with my new book. Tomorrow is a new day.

Today's Output

...a little abstract:



Pulling the fabrics together only took minutes. Making the clay emblem was a different story. I have the perfect button for this piece, but it's a Rama raku button and I didn't want to use it on this simple exercise. Enter the clay and paint boxes, the toaster oven, and the E-6000.

I think this piece is okay....it's nice but not earth shattering. I like the tree element mixed with abstract componants....maybe worth further exploration. Somehow, I'd like to get more portraiture in these little works. Not sure how that's going to happen.

Here's my daughter's output for the day:


She, too, loves the clay box:

New Stuff

So, here's a piece that got rejected recently:

"Fertile" approximately 25"x30"

I was kind of bummed about it, but then a wise soul told me that artists usually have enough rejection letters to wall paper a bathroom. Point taken.

Detail:


There's a fair bit of applique and embroidery, but also textile paints. I'm noting here publicly that the paints did not play well with free motion embroidery. They shredded all but the slickest threads. I like the effect, though and will probably add paint to future projects.

Here's a couple of quick stretches:

'Valentine' 7"x5.5"

I did this yesterday....20 minutes of design time and 30 minutes to finish. That leaves me a few moments in the hour to scan and blog.

Here's today's:

'Cropped Plant' 5"x4.5"
Cropped images have an appeal that I love. They're so immediate. This little composition was not so great. Some healthy cropping made it better.

A Family Movie