Monsoon damage

We had a doozy of a monsoon storm move through yesterday afternoon, collapsing the roof of the Hobby Lobby a few miles from my house and knocking out my power for a couple of hours.

 

Coincidentally, I just finished my "Monsoon" piece (above), and I'm almost done with "Heat Wave," (below). 

Our Southwest summer monsoons are generated by excessive heat (it's going up to 108 today) and moisture from the gulf that swirls westward, opposite of usual weather patterns that move west to east. Besides having torrential rain, monsoons have very high winds. And the season goes from June through September, so we're not done yet!

The storm blew one of my beautiful Talovera pots off my patio table and shattered it ...

... and tossed around my outdoor chairs and messed with the rug.

This big tree was ripped apart in our neighborhood park, and a lot of my neighbors had big branches down.

But in the midst of it all was a rainbow behind my house.

 

Have a colorful day

Staying cool

That's exactly what I'm doing, except I'm painting fabric that I'll use in my quilts. It's been a scorcher the last few days and it's only getting worse, with no monsoon rain in sight. Stepping outside just to get the mail is brutal!

So I'm continuing to play with the fabric paints. And in Tucson's dry oven-like heat, I can put the wet painted fabric outside and it's dry in minutes!

Here's a little bit of what I've done the last few days.

The piece above is wet fabric arranged in soft folds. Below is how it looks after it has dried and been ironed flat. It still looks three-dimensional because as the fabric dries the paint wicks up to the highest points and creates darker areas.

This next green piece is silk organza drying in the sun. It's sheer, so I'll layer it over other colors. Or if I layer it over another green it will intensify the color, which is really exciting!

I like to embellish the dried fabric with stamps, smeared paint, splatters, over-painting, etc., to make it more interesting. Some of these pieces might become spirit dolls and others might end up in quilts or other projects.

I think I'm finally satisfied with my Dreams of the Land challenge piece, above. But I'll wait before stapling it around a frame in case I decide to add anything else. (It's not due until August.) Maybe a few stitches or beads here or there.

And this little orange guy is going to get stretched around an 8x10 frame and maybe become a gift or put up for sale. I can see doing a bunch of these little ones. With two months of brutal heat left, I'll have plenty of time.

p.s. I'm glad so many of you have told me that you ordered Sherrill Kahn's books. Send me pictures if you make anything inspired by them and I'll post them here!

Have a colorful day

Painting, partying and Juniper

I painted some more fabric, since it's too hot to do anything outside. (Going up to 108 today.) I really like how this one turned out. I let it dry on the plastic drop cloth, which had rumples in it that the paint responded to as it dried, giving it an interesting texture. The top picture is the front and the next picture is the back, which I like just as much!

I also crumpled a piece of painted fabric into a pie tin and let it dry like that, resulting in even more texture. I'll add more paint to this one -- probably some stamping and dragging.

It reminds me of the sky the other night.

Our book club partied on the Fourth, with a potluck and Mahjongg.

From left: Kathie, Judy, Beth, Meegan, Sandy, and me.

It started with Beth's Hugo spritzes made with elderberry liquor, Proseco, club soda, muddled mint, and a lime garnish. They looked refreshing, but since I can't tolerate alcohol I stuck to my iced tea with mint.

Meegan grilled vegetables sprayed with avocado oil and tossed with delicious seasonings:

We didn't go hungry! Here's my plate with a grilled turkey burger, baked beans, potato salad, the grilled veggies, broccoli slaw, cole slaw and fruit salad.

To top it off, Sandy made a delicious blackberry cobbler with vanilla ice cream.

Here we are at our Mahjongg tables, exercising our brains before eating. We learned to play last year so that we'd have an indoor activity to get us through the blistering summers. Kathie, in the pretty flowered top, who's an expert, taught us over many sessions. Beth's dog, Sunshine, wanted in on the action.

Juniper update: She's dabbling with solids and reading! I miss that little bundle of fun so much. My daughter picked up my appreciation of color. Notice how Juniper's outfits coordinate with what she's sitting and lying on.

 Have a colorful day

Sad news about Sherrill Kahn

After writing about Sherrill Kahn's creative books in my last post, I dug around online looking for information about what she's doing now, hoping I could follow her latest creations on Facebook or Instagram. When I couldn't find anything, I did what we always hate to do and googled Sherrill Kahn obit. There it was. She passed away Dec. 10 of last year.

She was 82 and was living in Encino, CA. I knew that her husband, who helped start her company, Impress Me Now, had died, and I think that's when she closed her company. But her books will live on!

She had been an art teacher for more than 30 years, with 27 of them being at Palisades High School in Los Angeles. She wrote her wonderful, colorful, creative books after she retired.

The only way for me to describe her style is delicious! She uses all of my favorite, mouth-watering, saturated colors and fills her art with symbols inspired by Southwest petroglyphs. I have some of her rubber stamps and use them often.

Rest in color, Sherrill!

Making progress on "Desert Daydream"

I added borders to my "Desert Daydream" quilt. Only one inch will show on the front and the rest will be wrapped around a 20x16 frame. You can see on the top where I'm adding big stitches to connect the borders with the center. 

Now I'm interrupting this post to bring you the latest Juniper update. She found her feet!!! She's such a little bundle of cuteness. I can hardly wait to visit her again.

Back to the stitching: I'm using a variegated orange pearl cotton thread. I might add some kind of stitching to the left side of the quilt by the stamped figures, but I'm not sure what that would be.

Before I started the quilt, I pulled out my favorite surface design books to get in the spirit. They're so old that I don't know if they're even still in print, but I treasure them.

I used Yvonne Porcella's "Colors Changing Hue" to learn how to paint fabric about 30 years ago. I still do it her way, using Pebeo Setacolor paints, aluminum pie plates to mix the paint, and scrunching the fabric so that it dries in interesting patterns.

Sherrill Kahn rocked my world about 20 years ago when she came out with these books about fabric painting and mixed media. She's incredibly creative and was an art teacher in public schools for 30 years. I especially like them because she uses my favorite color combos -- orange, blue, purple, gold -- and uses petroglyph inspired stamps, which she designed and sold. Her company was Impress Me Now, but it's since disappeared.

I bought some of her rubber stamps way back when and used them for the stamped petroglyph figures in my quilt. I also learned from her how to create quick and easy stamps from foam food trays, now one of my favorite techniques. And I like her technique of sponging paint onto the stamps to give the image more texture.

Switching to weather news: It's hot! Triple digit hot. These scraps on my cutting table remind me of the searing desert heat.

But the summer monsoon rains have begun, cooling us by about 20 degrees when they pass through. This is last night's sunset after a short rainfall.

Have a colorful day