Hey!

In case you haven't heard....

I Opened An ETSY SHOP!
You can find it here:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/FunkyCFiberSpree

I'm super excited about this!  To kick things off, I took the fabrics to a near-by art group and sold over half of them.  There's 16 pieces left and I'll announce the next update soon.

Because she's a good friend, Lynn is offering a give-away on her blog---3 fat quarters.  She's promoting a new surface design video class that starts soon and has at least three different give-aways going right now.  Be sure to check it out!

Happy, Happy!

Be Inspired

Hello, Blogophiles,

I've noticed a rash of bloggers posting about inspiration this morning. Here are a few of my faves, in case the cyberverse doesn't take you to the same haunts I frequent.

Lorraine Glessner:
lorraineglessner.blogspot.com
Lorraine is a mixed media artist and an academic. She posts work from a wide variety of artists. This feeds my eyes and my soul.

Sandy Snowden:
sandysnowden.blogspot.com
Sandy is a garment-head from the UK. Today, she has posted about finding inspiration in photographs. She encourages us all to look at our photo collections a bit differently to find inspiration. Fire up that camera!

Christine Predd:
www.christinepredd.com/quiltingontheedge/
Christine is an art quilter who posts "Tuesday's Ten", a list of 10 inspirations that riffs on one subject. Today's flavor: Scents. It took me straight to Olfactory Heaven. Check it out.

As for me, stamp carving is on hold this week. I'm knee deep in planning for an event next week. Will post more about that tomorrow. I can still think about stamp carving, just can't pick up the tools, or nothing else will get done.

So that you're not left completely fiberless, I'll share a little knitting, my "waiting for kids" passtime:

This is a sock trial based on Cat Bordhi's new book. For those not in the know, Cat is to knitting what the globe was to Flat Earth believers. She's the knitter's physicist and I find her to be very inspiring.

Time Warp

Hello Blogophiles. It appears that I have time for a post. Doesn't this make you happy? It makes me happy.

Let us go back in time a bit and chronicle certain events from my spring.

Concert

3 of these tax exemptions are mine. The 4th is somebody else's, but she fits in well with our family. Photo taken in April. We're standing in line for a free, open seating concert. We're praying the wind does not rip the meat off our frozen bodies. Note the Calvin imitator back left.

Apnea

Your very own Super Spec (moi) rigged up for a sleep study. Turns out that even though I stop breathing 5 times per hour and sustain a 93% blood oxygen level, my condition is not severe enough to warrant insurance coverage of the recommended equipment. So now, not only am I a spec in the face of the universe (and my charming insurance company), but I am not properly rested. This makes me surly.

Girl Time

See Mary. See Mary laugh. See Mary not wet herself while laughing.


See Lynn. See Lynn hide behind her camera. See Lynn take my picture.


See Mary's quilt. See all the pretty colors.

More about this episode of Girl Time here.

Collage Mania

My household is asleep. Consequently, I finally have a moment to post my submissions to Virginia Spiegel's amazing fundraiser, Collage Mania. It's part of her larger effort titled Fiberart For a Cause which raises money for the American Cancer Society. Forgive, please, for washed out color. These were tough to photograph and didn't scan nicely.


Pothos
5.125” x 4.75”
Donated in memory of my Grandma Anne: all around tough broad, cancer survivor, crocheter extraordinaire, passionate gardener. She has passed on, but not from cancer.



Life Radiant
7.625” x 5.375”
Donated on behalf of Grandpa Ben, doting husband of Anne, unconditional adorer of spoiled granddaughter Cathy. Grandpa Ben succumbed to lung cancer during my childhood and his passing still remains one of my most sorrowful losses.

Both pieces are mounted on 10"x8" mat board, ready for framing:

Flash Back

Here's a flashback to an art show presented by Eye For Fiber, an art group in Michigan. The show was in 2006 and was great fun. Click slide show for larger version.

Behold.......

....a Finished Object:


"Flow"
35" x 25.75"
July, 2007

...though you've seen it before in various stages. This piece was started while listening to a friend pour out her heart. Her daughter had just been diagnosed with a life changing illness (turned out to be a false alarm) and we had a long talk about the burden a mother carries in her heart for her children.


...an indoor shot...funny how the color is different...

Some reactive journaling revealed terms like prayer, suplicate, uterus, floating, hands uplifted, fallopian tubes, sperm, letting go, embracing. You get the idea. Again, I'm amazed how emotions play out in a piece that looks relatively benign.

Closer in:

The little sparklies are heat set crystals, a whole gross of them.

And closer in....


'Flow' is being mailed tomorrow for an exhibit in Indianapolis. In fact, anxiety about parting with an older piece is what forced me to finish this.


The End

Transitional

I've got that tingling, fuzzy feeling in my chest today.

My world seems to be up in the air. Nothing feels settled. Several quilt projects are half done, waiting for the spark of inspiration. Every room in my house needs a little work....not really crusty, but in need of a little up keep. I'm in the process of choosing paint colors again. That takes forever for me. It's so easy in my work and so difficult in my home. Why is that? The weather is the chaotic....mud mixed with snow, puddles and ice, green in one friend's yard, barren in mine. Oy!

Here's a little green in my house:


This amaryllis suddenly burst into life after months of not being watered. I love how plants to that....react to the longer days and prove you wrong about being dead. The photo is actually older. I've been waiting for a chance to share it with you and will post the photo progression in my sidebar every day.

I think the real cause for my tentative feelings is because yesterday I accepted a comission--a substantial comission. Comission work has not gone well for me. I develop hangups that cause me to procrastinate and then it all goes haywire. Every time I take one on, I promise myself that I won't screw it up....yet I always do. Currently I have five in the docket and am working on heart quilts instead. Not good business.

So, once again, I'll control what I can today. I'll do laundry and pick up the house. My sewing machine will wait patiently. Maybe there'll be time for a little stitching this evening.

Getting it Together

Hi. It's taken some time to figure this blog thing....where to store photos, time of day when noone's screaming, "MOOoooooooom"....you know the drill.

But! I've been taking pictures like a mad fool and have a great deal to talk about.

Want to see a recent piece?


and a close up....


Yikes! That's a lot of stitching! Sure was fun, though. Even the Evil Metallic Thread played nice. The background is velveteen and the heart is stitched on a piece of cotton/Lycra that was -The- right shade of pink. I culled those fabrics from a box being tossed by a friend. The flower behind the heart is from a piece of polyester tricot, vintage Salvation Army.

More and more of my fabric is coming from 'alternative' sources. My husband and I were checking out a newly found thrift store the other day and when he saw the screaming turquois tie in our pile, he began gesticulating vocally until I explained that I didn't expect him to -Wear- it....it was for my stash. There's freedom in letting him think I'm crazy, anyway.

So, what is this? The piece is titled 'Bloom' and is 11" x 14". I made it for an exhibit called
Keiko and Friends ,organized by Laura Wasilowski, creative genius behind Artfabrik. If you're going to Chicago, stop by the Fine Line Creative Arts Center and take a look.

She Conquers All!

Well, maybe not *aaalll*....

But I did conquer the Evil Metallic Thread!


The photo is mediocre, I know. But do you get the idea? I finally got to the point where I could do some smooth quilting before the thread would fray. And then when it frayed--but before it broke completely, I'd pull some fresh thread through the needle. With some threads, one just has to be resolved to some breakage.

So, what did I do to get this thread to work? Well, lemme' tell ya', it wasn't pretty. There was whining and furrowed brows. There were complain-y phonecalls to girlfriends. There was chocolate, lots of chocolate....which means a few extra pounds (that I just lost)....followed by depression, then the fetal position...

OK! Was that more than you wanted to know? See what a truly Evil Thread can do to a girl? Here's a list of items and techniques tried with the E.M.T.

-a variety of machine needles in various sizes---finally settled on a Schmetz size 16 topstitching needle.

-Threads in the bobbin...fat ones, skinny ones, pretty ones, ugly ones. In the end, bobbin thread had nothing to do with it.

-Thread Tension, bobbin and needle. Niet.

-Sewer' Aid....a silicon lubricant that can rescue some threads....like the last Evil Thread I chose---a variegated Sulky cotton. No dice---didn't fix a thing. Some say you can't use this stuff with metallic, but this particular E.M.T. had enough non-metallic content that I thought it worth a shot

-Using a higher chair. It did help my back and wrists, but not the quilting problem.

-Turning the thread cone up side down. Yes, we're getting desperate at this point, but there's something fuzzy in my memory about thread twist....

-Naked Voodoo Dance under a full moon. You never know...

What finally did the trick?


A pair of snug gloves with rubber-impregnated finger tips and a thread net.
Turns out the real problem was too much jumping around. The thread was coming off the spool too loosely and not feeding into the tension disks correctly. And the quilt really needed to be hooped. Even with a darning foot the quilt was jumping around too much, not allowing the tension controls to do their job. The gloves helped turn my hands into a human hoop, giving the stability needed. I was able to rip through the quilting at a good clip without fraying.

The thread net was an inspiration---I saw it in my toolbox and said, "Oh yeah!" The gloves were a matter of finally caving in. They were at the table watching me the whole time, probably thinking, "You idiot." It took a week of horsing around before the solution came into my head.

The real lesson here is to be determined to use what you want to use and to keep a variety of supplies on hand. Yes, it was a frustrating process. Sometimes one has to live in that place for a time. But once the solution came, I was freeee! And the joy of free motion quilting was mine to savor again.

Who's In Charge Here?

Today, I wake up to discover that I am not in charge. The universe is in charge and I am a spec.

There are children everywhere, calling my name. There is laundry rising to incredible heights. Cowpaths guide me through the house. There are no clean spoons. Where is my husband, my helpmeet? He has gone to work, like the good boy that he is. (sigh)

So! What can a spec control in her corner of the universe? She can control this:



and change it into this:

Hooraaay for Super Spec!

She can not, however, control this:


....all thanks to this:


Boooo! Down with Evil metallic thread, even if it is too beautiful to ignore.

Tune in tomorrow when Super Spec uses her amazing (though microscopic) control powers to stamp out a New Evil.....


The Thread Basket of Dooooom!