New piece and February reading

Here is a link to my February reading...

This piece is what I'm working on (sort of) at the moment. It is 11.25 x 25.25 - my measurements are always weird because I just cut fabric "about the length I want" then go on from there. I round off anything less than 1/4 inch.

The borders at top and bottom are sewn on, but everything else is fused raw edge. I wanted to try doing without the binding and keep a raw edge, so after quilting, I trimmed backing and batting down. The quilting is just straight down the sides with grids in corners.







Over the last week or so, I've put it back on the design board, and waited until deciding what to do next. And the grids needed to help lift the piece from blandness - so, French knots.

Not enough, added red rectangles. And copper dots.




And am considering something like this.

Folk Art Exhibition

Saturday, after Tai Chi, I picked up my father, and we went to get a Humphrey - frozen yogurt, fruit, granola, and honey - before going down town to see the Folk Art Exhibition. Our docent was excited about the exhibit, and her enthusiasm was evident as we approached pieces she particularly liked. Many of the works are from the collection of Scott Blackwell, founder of the nonprofit Folk Artist's foundation. "The collection is the foundation for the folk art museum in Hendersonville, North Carolina..." and the artists are from all over the South - Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennesse, and Virginia.

Having left my camera at home, I mentioned coming back to take some pictures later,
but the docent said photos inside are not allowed. After expressing my interest in the bottle tree and window displays (outside), she said she didn't think that would be a problem - so I will try to do that. Robert Trudeau, however, has a blog that celebrates the arts in Shreveport and has some photos here on his Flickr site.

The part that I liked the very best was a collection of wonderful photographs by Katsy Long of the artists and their homes. It helped put everything in perspective - some of their homes are evolving works of folk art and fascinating in their own right. The works are mostly personal and the stories behind them as interesting as the art.

Shopping...

I went to Material Girl, one of my favorite places to shop, with the gift certificate Fee gave me for Valentine's Day in my hot little hand. How quickly one can spend money in a fabric store. The store caters mostly to traditional quilters so there weren't any books that I wanted, but I managed to get a stack of Asian-themed fat quarters, a new ergonomic rotary cutter, and some 1/2 yard pieces that jumped out at me.

Then I stopped in at Medina's, one of Amelia's favorite stores. Medina is where Amelia's friend Penn works, and it is really a lovely place to work with wonderful things to keep the eye happy.

See how happy Penn is! Surrounded by inspiration each day, bet it is hard to actually have a pay check to take home...





Here is the beautiful piece I decided I needed. Just love the color and shape!

Fireworks!

This is the small piece I used for experimenting with the oil pastels for the journal quilt discussed in the posts below.

Finished, it is 5.25 x 8.25 and is hand-quilted & embroidered. Although very small, it took me HOURS to embroider & quilt.

Not a problem - because it is the perfect thing to do when watching television (really almost the only way I can watch tv), and on one Sat. night when Fee was out of town, I indulged in an As Time Goes By marathon. Nina ordered the first set of DVDs and loaned them to Thomas, another fan, who ordered the second set. Thanks to both of you! I love Dame Judi and the show makes me smile -over and over- and then, when least expected, laugh out loud! Still have the second set, and try to parcel them out instead of watching several episodes at once.

At any rate, this kind of hand work must take me much longer than it does other people, so I'd never venture into anything large, but for small pieces it provides the perfect television occupation. I may go back and do some beading on this tiny little piece.

And on the subject of television series, I have pre-ordered the first year of Boston Legal. I have only been able to see it a few times because it comes on Tuesday nights - which is one of my Tai Chi class nights. The few times I've been able to catch it, I've adored it! When I saw that I could get the DVD of the first year, the keyboard was on fire to Amazon.com.

February Journal Quilt- detail and process

I have no idea how much of the original post is lost after my attempts to get my sidebar
back where it belongs.
The Chinese Lantern Festival is celebrated 15 days
after the Chinese New Year and in 2006, the Lantern Festival
was on February 12th.

In one legend, the Jade Emperor in Heaven was so
angered at a town for killing his favorite goose, that
he decided to destroy it with a storm of fire. However,
a good-hearted fairy heard of this act of vengeance,
and warned the people of the town to light lanterns
throughout the town on the appointed day. The
townsfolk did as they were told, and from the
Heavens, it looked as if the village was ablaze.
Satisfied that his goose had already been avenged,
the Jade Emperor decided not to destroy the town.
From that day on, people celebrated the anniversary
of their deliverance by carried lanterns of different
shapes and colors through the streets on the first
full moon of the year, providing a spectacular
backdrop for lion dances, dragon dances, and fireworks.

My goal was to use the oil pastels and see how they worked. I found a photo online
of a lantern festival and used it as an inspiration (much simplified).
Regardless of many attempts to set the oil pastels, they faded
and rubbed off when I began quilting. (Have recently read Karoda's comment about
using diluted gel medium to set regular pastels and will try that next time.)

Here are some of the early sketches and use of the oil pastels. I really did like them
although they did not show up as well as I'd hoped. The small piece I used to experiment
on as I worked on the JQ had a particularly difficult time because I handed quilted it
and that meant even more handling. I decided to machine quilt the JQ, but it didn't fare
much better...
and my quilting gloves ended up with much of the color.

February Journal Quilt - "Chinese Lanterns"

Final version of February journal quilt. The
following post will contain details of how it came
about (as usual, it was not as I expected).











Here is the back with binding sewn on, but not
folded over until the printed back can be applied.

Quote from DebR

From DebR, I conviscated this wonderful quote:
"Lord! when you sell a man a book you don't sell just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue - you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humour and ships at sea by night - there's all heaven and earth in a book, a real book." ~Christopher Morley

And another of my favorites: "A book is like a garden carried in the pocket." Chinese proverb

Deb G. also posted a response on her blog, and like DebR, she included pics of the books.

Have you noticed the tendency for quilters to be readers, gardeners, and cat lovers? If I were drawing a caricature of "the typical quilter," I would certainly include those 3 elements - and stray threads on clothing. :) The many pictures of quilters cats curled up in fabric, stretched out on quilts, hanging over computers, etc. always elicit a grin. Note to self: get a cat. Not. Two dogs are enough.

More on books and fabric play

30 books children should read - as chosen by three
influential British writers. The Royal Society of Literature
recently asked three top British writers to nominate
10 books they think children should have read by
the time they leave school.

J.K. Rowling, Philip Pullman and Andrew Motion chose
an interesting, if somewhat high-brow, collection of books.

Here are their choices. I've highlighted the ones I've read.

J.K ROWLING
Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe
David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
Catch-22, Joseph Heller
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Animal Farm, George Orwell
The Tale of Two Bad Mice, Beatrix Potter
The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
Hamlet, William Shakespeare

PHILIP PULLMAN
Finn Family Moomintroll, Tove Jansson
Emil and the Detectives, Erich Kastner
The Magic Pudding, Norman Lindsay
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Coleridge
Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak
The Ballad of Sir Patrick Spens
First Book of Samuel, Ch 17
Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare

ANDREW MOTION
The Odyssey, Homer
Don Quixote, Cervantes
Hamlet, William Shakespeare
Paradise Lost, John Milton
Lyrical Ballads, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
Portrait of a Lady, Henry James
Ulysses, James Joyce
The Waste Land, T.S. Eliot

WHO IS ANDREW MOTION?? ... OK, I'm back, and I've discovered that he is England's Poet Laureate. And a tad optimistic about the reading habits of the young.

Three pieces I played with yesterday. Above, playing with thread on a scrap piece of muslin.

Bayou Quilts: Children's Books This is what got me started on this subject. And Here is the Meme.

Black and white (love 'em) fabrics pieced into approximately 9 x 11 block that had no purpose or direction yet.


Postcard from scraps.







Yesterday was self-indulgent play day with no laundry done, but The Stranger House by Hill finished (missed "fat Andy"), The Conjurer's Bird, by Martin Davies begun, and another chapter in Friedman's The World Is Flat.

Great Mail!

Yesterday was quite hectic: mammogram, Tai Chi in the park, errands, Home Depot for Fee's Valentine (an enclosed trailer, I'll take pictures later), working on journal quilt, laundry, taking my Dad to dinner. I didn't even check the mail.

BUT look was waiting while I ran around:


A surprise package from Karoda!!! Filled with cool "metal" fabric in various shades of silver, gold, bronze and with lovely textures. Pretty skeleton leaves, and a piece of hand-dyed cotton and 3 pieces of her microwave dyed silk! Oh, joy, Oh, excitement! Thanks so much Karoda - what fun awaits me.

See the shimmer, the shine, the silky colors, the delicate leaves!



Don't forget to check this out: children's books meme. I would love to know what books were important to you as you grew up.

Valentine Postcards

Here are the Valentine postcards I mailed Friday afternoon about 4:30. Had to get them hand-canceled so they needed to go out on Friday, and I thought they'd arrive today.

Thomas and Beth, however, received theirs on Saturday.




The deep red ones (didn't photograph well) with Chinese calligraphy went to the Tai Chi in the park group.

The pink ones went to Erin and Amelia.





These were fun to make.

Right now, I'm finishing up the February journal quilt, but won't be able to post it until Debra gives the "reveal" dates, which will be around the 20th of February.

children's books Meme

"Books are humanity in print" ...Barbara Tuchman

Shelly's Bookshelf posted the following meme, and I am borrowing it. She also has one of my favorite quotes at the top of her blog: "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested." Francis Bacon

1. Name your 3 favorite children's series.
2. Name your 3 favorite non-series children's books.
3. Name 3 favorite children's books characters.

I couldn't narrow them down...

Series
Anne of Green Gables (Especially Anne of Windy Poplars)
The Gilbreth books (Cheaper by the Dozen, Bells on Their Toes)
The Borrowers
Pippi Longstocking
The Wind in the Willows
The Pooh books
Madeline
Little Men & Jo's Boys (Alcott)

Non-series
The Little Prince
The Secret Garden
Robinson Crusoe
The Egypt Game
Where the Sidewalk Ends

Characters
Jo from Little Women, Little Men, Jo's Boys
Montgomery's Anne
Pippi

This was hard. If you respond on your blog, please leave me a line in your comment so I can check and see what I've left out.

To make this quilt related, here and here are some wonderful quilts by Jeanne Meyer.

Children's Books

One of the nice things about having a blog is having complete editorial control. That I should exercise more qualitative restraint might be a valid assertion, but I am the editor and publisher and the decision rests with me. What power!

I've been thinking about children's books. Miss Mila's visit, of course, required some reading. She particularly enjoyed Green Eggs and Ham and Olivia. She is only two, so she likes repetition and the ability to point out things. "Where is Olivia's red bathing suit?" "Dere it is!" I can't wait until her next visit when we will try Eloise by KayThompson. Mother gave my girls their first Eloise book, and it remained one of their favorites and my favorite to read. I also read it to my senior English students where it was received with much the same delight.

When I was young, my favorite books ranged from age appropriate to whatever Mother received from the Book-of-the-Month club. I loved the Box Car Children and Nancy Drew. In the 6th grade, I still read Nancy Drew, but after seeing the movies, I read Exodus and Gone With the Wind. My ability to switch with pleasure from children's to young adult to adult remains.

Our family once went on vacation to Hot Springs, Arkansas when I was in the third grade. My memory of the trip consists of the fact that my Aunt Corry gave me The Secret Garden - how wonderful! I can still read and enjoy it, but not without recalling the pleasure of the first occasion, although nothing much else remains in my memory about the trip to Hot Springs.

In the 4th grade, my father said I couldn't bring home another Nancy Drew from the library without bringing something of WORTH. At a complete loss about what was of WORTH, I went to the adult stacks of non-fiction and began bringing home books about archaeology. Still remember the Etruscan necklace with gold as thin as rose petals, Doric and Ionic columns, aquaducts, and pyramids. My father's real purpose was to curtail my reading (he thought it was bad for my weak eyes), but he opened such broad horizons, and my glasses were strengthed every six months.

I read Brief Gaudy Hour a novel about Ann Boleyn at that time, one of my mother's Book-of-the-Month choices. Oh, history and England and fat Henry and Ann disguising her extra finger nail with flowy (sp) sleeves.

Was I a bookish child? Yes, but there was almost nothing on television then. I played hard after school, went to dance and acrobatic lessons, and read at night. Pretty much a live wire that only settled down when given a book. Or when designing houses with English Manor House libraries and long narrow dance studios with a mirrored wall.

My gosh, I've wandered on and away from the original subject,. Editor! Edit!!!

in which Miss Mila goes home...

Delivered Miss Mila to a very happy mommy. We met in Monroe for lunch and then said our goodbyes. We've had a full and pleasant week; she is a joy - and who else in the entire world would ask me to sing!?

When we got home, I hurried to the post office to have my valentine postcards hand canceled and then to the library because I'm almost finished with my last book from the last library trip. I was so excited to find a new Reginald Hill novel, but on returning home discovered it is not a Dalziel and Pascoe. Oh well, it is still Reginald Hill, and I can hope for the best.

Art, traditional, etc.

The Feb. 4 post on Highland Line is an interesting post that addresses the pleasures of both traditional and art quilting. I do get tired of the frequent quarrels over art and traditional quilting. I've only made one baby quilt and two table runners with traditional piecing, but I will never forget the pleasure in making them, and I think Lynn Bunis addresses both the enjoyment and the boredom of the traditional methods. Someone else called the piecing "meditative," which I think is accurate. On the other hand, "Making an art quilt is almost all joy, start to finish. Trying new techniques or embellishments, adding surface design, can be very exciting. It can also be somewhat disappointing as every experiment brings the risk of not quite going the way you thought it would." I think that covers it for me - and the disappointment when it doesn't turn out can quickly be redirected and forgotten.

Another take on art quilts from Artmixter: "Perfectly pleasant people who would give all encouragement to someone making a bed quilt, seem to think that it's open season on people like me, who make wall quilts." Traditional quilters, however, also feel that art quilters are biased (and from some comments I've read, justifiably so) against their style of quilting.

I love both, but don't have the patience or skill for the most beautiful and complicated of traditional quilts. Like Lynn, my pleasure is mostly in the experimentation and like Artmixter, in the process.

Have had little spare time lately as Miss Mila requires a GREAT DEAL of attention. How so much energy can be stored in such a tiny little form amazes me - inspite of the fact that her mother was much the same. She chatters and sings, dances and plays, questions and orders (Help me! Help me! No, by myself!), charms and exhausts. She will be three at the end of May, but seems to have been here forever. She sees a picture of Amelia and insists that it is her mother... ?? Obviously, the girls resemble each other more than I realize.

Here she is in the pajamas her Aunt Amelia brought from San Franciso. Or, as she says, her Tai Chi outfit.

The cat in the background is one of the posters from The Fringe Festival in Edinburgh that Amelia gave me one Christmas. We had bought one when we were there in '98 (I think), then she ordered 3 more for my Christmas present. I love them!

Bed & Breakfast

We spent Friday night at the Fairview Inn, a charming bed and breakfast in Jackson, not too far from Erin's house. The lobby has a cozy seating area behind the table, but it doesn't show up too well.

To the left was a library with a great red couch and several comfortable chairs.

Our suite consisted of a large sitting room and bedroom and a small bathroom. I loved the colors and the warm feeling in the sitting room.Isn't the bed beautiful?

The garden from our window. There are several decks; one to the left is quite large, but not visible. The section behind the gardens is a recent addition. We were in the original house. Other additions are huge dining areas in the restaurant that now connects the original house to the old coach house.

Favorite red head and Dreadful Incident

Off to Jackson later this morning to visit my favorite red head and pick up our favorite granddaughter. It will be a flying trip, and we will be back late Saturday.

I don't usually go into things that really disturb me - personally, politically, or otherwise. Today, however, I want to relate a disturbing incident that occurred on Wed. at our Tai Chi in the park session. A woman walking a dog approached us and said she was from out of town and didn't know what to do about what she had just seen - a man molesting a child. I started to the car to get my cell when Thomas handed me his after dialing 911. They connected me to the Shreveport police, and I related a disjointed account, asking the woman questions, and then as we walked up the hill, reporting what everyone was saying about his movements. There were 3 cars searching for them in no time. Today, Beth sent a link to a KTBS news article reporting on the man's arrest. They are investigating him in connection to other incidents.

"Just Imagine"

A friend just sent me this beautiful experience. I watched "Just Imagine" and will look at the others later. Thanks, Nina!

Projects and Lions

I've got 4 projects going at the moment: postcards, pillow, journal quilt (well, I'm looking at the lanterns in oil pastels, but not really working on it), left over piece that I used to experiment then decided to hand quilt, and a lion's head that is drawn on the fabric and will wait until there is time. Sometimes you have to go with the idea before you forget, then let it sit while you decide where to go with it when you have time.

The lion's head is the funny, mischievous kind used in the Chinese Lion Dance. Not this one, which I forgot that I'd posted in July after the Orlando tournament, but a more multi-colored one. I love the lion dances and admire the strength and agility of the kung fu students who put in all of the hard work. The costumes are beautiful and elaborate charicatures, and the dances are funny, sometimes dangerous, sometimes flirty. It's amazing how much personality can come through. Here is an example of the dangerous part, but watching a lion flirt with children is priceless.

I'm wandering all over today. Back to one of the projects...but which one?

Pentimento

I’ve always thought that Californians are so uninhibited because their grandparents don’t live down the street.~Martha Murphy, Pass Christian, Mississippi

The above quote is one that I've been thinking about since viewing
Laura Calfee's "Of a Place" photographs. I'm also in love with her new work- wonderful, wonderful still life vignettes.