Quilting on the Edge

Monday Memory

Easter Morning  back in the fifties:  Easter dress with a big white color, bonnet or straw hat, with long ribbon down the back, white gloves of some stretchy fabric,  white or black patent leather Mary Jane's with white stockings, straw or white purse, sit quietly in car on way to church, and DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING THAT WILL GET YOUR GLOVES DIRTY!!!   Back home, a straw basket with colored plastic grass, yellow chewy chicks, jelly beans, chocolate bunnies, chocolate eggs.  One year a real live purple chick, we named Cisco Kid........maybe you remember the TV western that had a character with that name.  After two days of incessant peeping in his little box down in the kitchen he was "relocated" to an area farm........that was the story anyway.  I remember seeing lots and lots of colored chicks in the McClellan or Woolworth dimestore that were for sale.   And hopefully, a spring day that meant you didn't need to wear your winter coat to church and cover up all your new finery.     

Perspective and Calm at the End of the Week

It's Friday, and time to unwind if possible from all the tension, expectation, and craziness of the past week.  Take a moment to listen here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0VJBvaO5G4    and you will be transported to a place of serenity, if only for just a little bit.  

Art Quilt, Anna Maria Island Series: Boys in the Sand

Here's my second piece in the series I've started. The inspiration for Boys in the Sand was a photo I took one day on the beach, watching two young boys digging to their heart's content.  The size is 15 by 14 inches. It was challenging to make the sand look like sand that has been walked on and disturbed, not to mention the shadows created on the boys' bodies due to their awkward positions.  I was particularly pleased with the fabric I had for the water...it looks to me like you can see the sand through the waves lapping on the shore.  One of the challenges for me in this work is knowing when to STOP.  So, I finally did after much fussing.  Click on the photo for a larger view.  Next, I'm going to work on a piece without people, but of a series of colorful beach chairs in front of a local store here.  I can see that that will be another push out of my comfort zone!

Tuesday's Two Cents: What's Going Through My Mind

 It's beena crazy weekend, nationally anyway.  I'm left with some thoughts that you may have too.  First, I am disappointed in those who, when push comes to shove, cannot keep their actions consistent with their stated principles.  Yes, everyone has a price, not matter what they say into the microphone.  I should have known better, but I chose to believe in people's inherent truths that they express, and guess what?  I was wrong.  This is immensely disappointing. 

Second, spring is here!! Families have arrived on Anna Maria Island for vacations........I hear kids squealing in neighborhood swimming pools, and see lots of folks on bikes and walking about.  Everyone is happy!  I hope the weather holds out for them.  I am reminded of when we did that years ago.Azaleas are budding and even beginning to bloom here in Florida.  I fed them some miracid today and I expect they will reward me for that feeding.

Third, some days you look around the house and it's clear that it is time for more than the usual house cleaning.  It is now one of those times here for me.  I'm reluctant, procrastinating, and not happy about it.  But I'll get to it all in due time.  I'm not in any hurry.  I do things little by little.......instead of days of whirlwind activity as I did when I was younger.  I like to think I'm wiser now instead of lazier.

Fourth, I am more than half done hand quilting my donation for the Pioneer Land Quilter's Auction this summer in LaPorte, IN.  This is the time when I gain new momentum on a project.......I'm anxious to see it all done!

Another Tuesday is here.......for me, after Tuesdays, the week flies by!  Fortunately, I have no significant appointments this week, and all I really should be doing is starting that extra cleaning I mentioned.......we'll see what happens with that.  My studio still has the loudest voice!

 

The Song Always Remembers When

Maybe you're one of those people like me who can hear a song on the radio in the car, or while shopping in a Walgreens' or some other store, and just a few chords or bars of the music transports you back to another place and time, where you heard the song before and it was a meaningful part of the soundtrack of your life.  This happens to me on a regular basis, so much so that I don't marvel at it as much as I used to, I just go with the flow and bam, there I am back at another place and time years ago.  Yesterday when I was walking Dionne Warwick's hit "What the World Needs Now is Love Sweet Love"  came up on my iphone shuffle of music and boy, I was back in the sixties tooling my Mustang back and forth to my job as a camp nurse in Valparaiso Indiana.   I can't hear theTemptations MoTown hits, from the sixties,  without seeing myself and nursing school friends all doing the Temptation Walk in the rec room of our dorm in Anderson Indiana.  Boy, I'd miss those memories!!!  and of course, I wrote before how I sort of have a song that reminds me of each of my sons, and when I hear it, I always, always, always think of them at some point in their high school years.   I am glad I am so sensitive to music.  It must permeate my psyche. In fact, another of my favorite songs is the one by Trisha Yearwood called The Song Remembers When, about this particular subject.....to quote, "I was standing at the counter, I was waitin for my change, when I heard that old familiar music start.  It was like a lighted lamp, had been dropped into my soul, it was like a dam had bursted in my heart.  After chasing every rainbow, gettin lost and losing track, so that even if I wanted I could  not find my way back.  After driving out the memories, of the way things might have been, even though the whole world has forgotten, the song remember when".  I surprise even myself that I could quote those lyrics pretty much correctly I think. And if this is a topic you like, I recommend you search down the rest of the lyrics to Trisha's song.  My favorite line still is my favorite:  "we were young and were in love, and we were easy to convince".  That easy to convince part has always been one of my best remembered lines.  Anway, this is what I would miss most of all if I someday am experiencing loss of myself through memory deficit, dementia, Alzheimer's, or anything similar.  My mother seems to be taking a fast turn that way lately, sometimes faster than others, and of course, I've wondered how it will be for me when my time comes.  But I'm hoping that maybe the music, always the music, will connect me to my past.  I'll have to tell the kids to remember that, just bring me the music, set me up to play it easily, and that, for me, may be my ticket to the past while I slowly leave the present.   And now, I'll just keep adding those memories as I take my musical tour along with my everyday wanderings.  The Song Does Remember When. 

Great Friday Video

This should set you on you way to a great weekend!  so just go watch it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWUW0NUb5bY   and smile, smile, and maybe even laugh!

Tuesday's Two Cents: A Day Late but Still Good

 I guess if you post on a blog or website online you are subject to having your work copied, despite understanding about copyright laws and how they apply to all items on the web.  I have a site that keeps track of what is copied from my blog here.......in the last ten months since I have used the service to keep track of copying,  12 images and 69,954 words have been copied from my blog... is that alot?  probably not, maybe so, I don't know really.  I can guess what some of the words are........according to my blog "hits", many times I've had people looking at my Tuesday's Ten List of short story opening sentences.  Believe me, I know 'em, and I'll know 'em if I see 'em.  but that's unlikely too isn't it?  Out of all the things they could be used on, the odds of me seeing it aren't very good.  One never knows though. From my website, some interested observer had been to see my WildFire quilt many many times........by now the viewer would have made the purchase, but if they are just trying to make one themselves, I guess going back and back again lets a person learn a lot.    I recently read of another quilter whose designs were discovered on a fabric line..........now, that's some copying all right.  This doesn't make me feel good, but I don't think I ever expected anything on the web to be private.  There are unscrupulous people, and that's that.   But I wouldn't hesitate to pursue it if someone had pilfered my words or images for something in a commercial way.  I've known of that to happen too.  It's a chance we all take.  But one thing all copiers should know:  we look out for each other in the quilt world.  Most people hear of their stuff copied by someone else telling them who saw it some where else.......so maybe the original artist or writer doesn't see it, but they have friends, and fans, I daresay, that can, and do, and have let them know if they see their images elsewhere.   threatening? Probably not, to the copiers.   But, it can and does happen.  My two cents, a day late but still good. 

Art Quilt: Anna Maria Island Pier

I decided to try my hand at creating an art quilt from a photo I had recently captured on the Anna Maria Island Pier.  The finished size is 14 by 20 inches.  I first made the couple, then they were attached to the background after I had designed and quilted the background.  This was very challenging for me, but I like the way it turned out.  I am starting another one now of two boys digging in the beach on the sand, hoping to keep interested in this process to create a series of island quilts. 

New Artist Trading Card: Try Something New challenge

 Andso I did.  I decided to use paper instead of fabric for this months challenge.  I had purchased a package of different colored tissue paper that bleeds color when water is applied.  I tore off bits and pieces of the tissue in different colors, put it on watercolor paper, then added water with a brush. Here's a sample of the surface with the tissue paper on it.   As expected, the colors bled onto the watercolor paper under it, so when the tissue paper dried, it came off and the paper underneath had lovely colors on it.  This photo is just one I did, I actually did two different ones. When dry, I cut the watercolor paper into the size needed, 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches, then finished off the design with an added rectangle and strip of the watercolor paper which I attached by sewing them with the machine. Below is a photo of all the cards I made and will be trading.  This was fun to do, a welcome change from always using fabric, and seems like I will do it again!   What do you think?

 

Tuesday's Two Cents on Thursday! Computer Crash!

  doesn't this remind you of how the web must be.....reaching all of its' tentacles around?  this is what I missed when our computer crashed last Thursday........all that  web of people, places, and things.  It's Wednesday now and I'm posting for tomorrow........I missed my Tuesday post obviously.  I already knew that the computer was a major part of my life, but in case there was any doubt, and there wasn't, now I know for sure.   I was lost without being able to keep up my fellow art quilters on line.  See their new work.  Read their remarks.  It drove me crazy.  I guess I am spoiled, so that's okay if you want to say that. Many times over the last five days I've said oh, I'll go check that out online, or words to that effect.  Fortunately, I stopped myself before I actually went to the vacant desk.  I'm glad to be back again........I have lots to share coming up.  I'm working on a new art quilt about places on Anna Maria Island, I'm nearing completion of the first piece.  I hope to do a series.  I did some experimenting with tissue paper that has bleeding color when wet, for my ATC trade this month, and that was very interesting as well.  I cleaned my studio really well ........well, sort of really well.  I see I'm already taking it back to its' normal state of disarray.  Now I can finally get to my photos for my next island piece......that drove me crazy most of all.  I'll post something more tomorrow with pics!  Ah, good to be back.