Waiting for Spring

The spring pillow covers are done

and Bunners obligingly posed with them on the front porch

this afternoon in -- GASP! -- the sun.

I dug into my sewing gadget stash for some old metal button forms (the kind you cover with your own fabric) and the Fasturn tube turner to make some cording to loop around the buttons. The cording was a pleasure to make -- it took only seconds to turn using the Fasturn device. But that fat, sturdy piping was not so fun to insert, especially on the 12 corners. I think I strained a neck muscle wrestling with it, causing me to nearly pass out in pain when I went into
Down Dog in yoga class today.

The Fasturn tube turner in action.

Here's the  reverse side. As I was cutting the fabric, I wished I could give a piece to every person in Japan who has been devasted by the disaster there to at least give them something bright to hold onto. The logistics and aid experts say it's more important now to send money, 

but if I could I would send

color and light.

Don't forget to watch for

the big moon tonight.

Happy St. Paddy's Day!

My yard art is doing a little Irish jig for St. Paddy's Day

-- and also because spring is almost here.

Inside, Bunners is having the luck of the Irish,

with a big pile of green parsley for breakfast.

And I'm dicing lots of green veggies for

-- spaghetti sauce?

I like spaghetti way better than corned beef.

Back outside, I went in search of signs of spring

and found a little crocus poking through

the grass in a roadside ditch.

Above was this blooming forsythia branch:

Of course, here in the Northwest the skies

are still mainly gray,

 so in defense I decided to pull out

my brightest flowery fabric

and make spring pillows for the front porch

 to help ward off the gray.



Yards and yards of fat cheery piping

will surround each pillow,

which I hope to finish by tonight.

Have a colorful day!

Spring forward!

Eric the Red at Disney's Epcot. Those crazy Norwegians.

It's time to spring forward tonight.

I hate giving up that hour of sleep,

but it sure will be nice to have an extra hour of daylight.

(It would be even nicer if it was SUN light.)

What does this have to do with Eric the Red?

Nothing, but I like the way the light highlights his

braided beard

and my favorite complementary color combo:

ORANGE and BLUE.

Paintstiks and oil paint flashbacks

I decided the other day to pull out the old Paintstiks

and doctor up some scraps of hand-painted fabric.

As soon as I opened the box of colors and peeled off the protective film, the heady aroma of oil paint transported me back to the paint-spattered classrooms from my high school art classes. One memory led to another, including flashbacks of the extraordinarily artistic bathroom graffiti in the stalls at Carnegie-Mellon University's art department back in the '70s. The bathroom musings were a mixture of psychedelia and philosophy that I hadn't thought about in probably decades, and just that one whiff of oil paint was enough to suck me back through the time tube in a rush of color.

This started as a piece of drab gray and black hand-dyed cotton.
The Paintstik rubbings really transformed it.

So here is the box of Shiva Paintstiks, which are solid oil paint in the shape of big fat Crayons:

In front of the box are some plastic rubbing plates and a stencil that I considered using with the Paintstiks. You can put a rubbing plate under your fabric and gently rub the Paintstiks over it to create a quick design. Or you can put the stencil on top of the fabric and apply the paint through the stencil. You can also see the gray and red fabric that I want to embellish. Decisions, decisions.

Here is a closer view of the Paintstiks and some leaf rubbing plates. (Elementary art school teachers let kids use Crayons and paper with these rubbing plates. You wouldn't give a kid oil paints in a stick.)

I decided to keep it simple and only use

the rubbing plate with concentric circles.

Step one (above): Tape fabric to work surface and slip a rubbing plate underneath. I selected a green iridescent Paintstik for the first layer. Peel the protective film off the tip of the paint. (This film forms to protect the paint from drying out between uses.) Breath deeply.

Step two: Gently rub the Paintstik over the fabric. Move stencil and repeat. I wasn't crazy about the green, so I switched to gold and like the final result, below:

Step three: After the paint dries -- which can take hours to days, depending on the humidity and how thick you applied the paint -- heat set it with an iron. Be sure to iron from the wrong side and to place paper underneath to absorb extra paint. Now it's ready to incorporate into a quilt or collage.

The swatch of fabric above is one that I've been using to test different stamps and sponging techniques (with Setacolor fabric paint). I didn't like how harsh the blue stamped spirals looked. Paintstiks to the rescue!

Next up was this piece of black fabric that I sponged some years ago with bronze fabric paint. It needed something.

Gold Paintstiks to the rescue:

I really like the concentric circles, but next time I'll try out some other rubbing plates and post the results. In the meantime ...

Have a colorful day!

P.S. For more ideas and where to buy, google Shiva Paintstiks. A lot of quilt, craft and art stores carry Paintstiks and the rubbing plates, or you can order on-line. You can also find free tutorials on-line.

A Quilted Heart for Lizzie

Here's the promised continuation of Show and Tell

from the Twisted Nut Stitchers!

Tonight I'm featuring Nancy's quilt tops

and her ADORABLE LITTLE LIZZIE.

Nancy is a PASSIONATE person,

which is probably why she uses a lot of red in her patchwork.

Lizzie is the color of champagne

and just as bubbly,

and note how she coordinates

with the beiges in Nancy's quilts.

Nancy also collects coffee fabric

and loves lattes.

This is her unfinished coffee quilt,

sizzling with more passionate reds.

 

All this talk about passion and coffee has me craving an iced mocha,

but Starbucks and Borders already have closed for the night.

I'll have to dig into the chocolate chips.

 

Gotta be rested for the big day tomorrow:

Sew Expo at the Puyallup Fairgrounds.

The Twisted Nuts will be there in full force.

 

Me on the road with a double.

 

Have a colorful day!

 

28 years and still together!

Is it appropriate to put your own anniversary on your blog? I'm going to anyway, with some of my favorite photos of my man of 28 years as of today!

He's at home on the water ...

 

In the woods ...

 

In town ...

 

With plants ...

 

And with animals ...

In all weather conditions ...

Always prepared.

Cheers!

"In the depth of winter ..."



Somewhere near Monterey, CA, in the summer.
I feel like the gargoyle, hunkered down
and trying to remember what summer feels like.


 In the depth of winter,

I finally learned

that within me there lay

an invincible summer.

Albert Camus (1913 - 1960)

A sewing friend sent me this Camus quote today and said it should be my mantra. I told her that I don't think there's a summer inside of me, although I keep trying to imagine that it's so. I dread the dark winters and I long for endless summer light. The Northwest is not the best place for someone like me, but in the spirit of being positive, I'm posting some of the photos I took when the days were bright and colors clear.


Western Washington in the summer



My daughter's former yard in Olympia, in May



A quilt that I made sometime in the summer in Illinois.
I called it "Garden Gone Wild."



Perhaps I am a bear,

or some hibernating animal underneath,

for the instinct to be half asleep all winter

is so strong in me.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Now this quote about hibernation is more me. I don't get much art quilting done in the winter because I just want to hibernate. Blogging is easier ... I guess because writers are used to working in dark, cold garrets, but artists need good natural light.



This is why Western Washington is home to so many writers.



And this is why New Mexico is home to so many artists.
I took this photo in Silver City, NM, in March years ago.
I want to live in New Mexico.

Detail of "Study In Green," which I made in the summer.



Dave walks among the giants in coastal California.



One of my quilts for the Journal Quilt Project.
I used torn masking tape as a resist on black fabric.

I took this photo in Sequoia several years AFTER
I made the little quiltlet below.
I just discovered the similarity while going through my photo files.

There's a certain Slant of light,

Winter Afternoons --

That oppresses,

like the Heft Of Cathedral Tunes --

Emily Dickinson

Oh Emily, I can relate. Poor Emily's poems may have taken a different turn if she could have visited Hawaii in January:

And I'll bet she never soaked up the sun on the beaches in Southern California:

Somewhere south of L.A. in the summer.



Detail from "Beach Houses."
I painted the fabric while California dreaming.



One kind word

can warm three winter months.

Japanese proverb

Thanks, Linda, for inspiring this entire post

with that one quote!

(That's Linda's embroidery at the end of the last post.)

Have a colorful day