Holiday Fun!

We had a tree this year for the first time in several years. We used only a fraction of our ornament collection on it but we think it's just wonderful. I don't know what type of pine it is but it is very fragrant still. Here's a picture of it--we finally got some sun so I could take some photos.

The gold ornament on the left side, kind of hidden by a branch, is the first I remember making--from cardboard egg carton sections glued together and edged with trim and painted gold. A small red ball is suspended inside on a wire. The red ornament near the top is also an early one--it's a plastic round (from some gift cheese spread) backed with tinfoil and coated with glitter. I've moved on a bit from those early crafting days. Most of the handmade ornaments pictured were by me, a few made by friends, and a few are old family ornaments.

I finished Bill's stocking on time--with the usual last minute crises. I dug out my sewing machine a few days before Christmas but waiting until the day before we were going to my sister's to set it up to sew the stocking. The machine would only sew backwards. I fiddled, Steve fiddled, but nothing helped. So I decided to sew it backwards. The tension was off, too, and as I fiddled, it came to me that I could just drop the feed dogs and sew it freemotion. So that's what I did.

Stockings are a big thing in our family celebrations. I'm older than my siblings and when mom was done doing stockings, I took up the task. I was probably in college at the time. I still do it. When my nieces and nephews were born, I made them each a stocking. The parents are responsible for filling them and I know my sister still does. Stockings are also a big tradition in Bill's family. Theirs are knitted and filled by Bill's dad.

Here is my original stocking, I'm not sure of it's date. It's exactly like my sister's and she was born in 1957, so I'm suspecting they both date from then. Although, I do remember having a stocking before that...I need to check old photos. The crochet stocking is my husband's, made in the 70s when I was madly crocheting. It's also big so it can hold a lot. I had forgotten about the stretchability of crochet. That stocking will hold A LOT!

We celebrated the holidays with my family on Sunday. Here are some pictures--the tree surrounded by presents. The dinner table awaiting the ham. I made nut cups from old Christmas cards and a niece is nibbling as she awaits dinner. We had a nice dinner (ham, mac&cheese, loads of veggies) followed by a chocolate feast.

We are serious chocoholics in my family. There's a family schism between those who prefer milk and those who think they're wussies and only want deep, dark, rich chocolate (guess which camp I'm in!). My brother made amazing individually-sized deep, dark chocolate cheesecakes for everyone.

My sister made cookies with chocolate frosting. My hubby got everyone a large Lindt chocolate Santa (on sale after Christmas at the outlet store--sometimes a delayed holiday is good!)--you can see them on the dinner table. He also obtained several boxes of amazing homemade truffles that a friend makes every year: dark chocolate, chocolate covered cherries and turtle truffles (caramel and nut in chocolate). Plus the usual small holiday chocolates. We rolled home in a state of OC (over chocolate).

This last photo is of some of the family, the new couple are in the center. That's my sister on the left and other niece on the right. We've mostly done the rip-n-tear and things are calmer now. My sister's holding the needlefelted cat. Everyone seemed happy with their gifts.

Tomorrow starts a new year. Changes already--my wonderful assistant for the last six-months has completed his projects and today was his last day. I'll really miss Jacob a lot and it was great getting to know him. We learned today also that a temp worker that I like a lot was hired permanently--that's good news for the secretarial pool where he's been working.

We had some minor flooding over the weekend and my car is now full of empty copier paper boxes so I can hopefully get things sorted out one corner of the basement. I'd been working to sort out what to keep or discard, mostly magazines but also some pattern books, charts, kits. The keep pile of magazines was soaked and went to recycling.

I lost all of my Fine Lines magazines, some Pieceworks, some Annas, and some other odds and ends. I knew they were in a dangerous spot, we have occasional seepage, but hadn't had a chance to get down and get things better organized. I think the experience will make it much easier to get rid of the piles of discards now. I kept a list of the soaked magazines but doubt I'll replace them and if I ask myself seriously about it, I doubt I'll miss them.

Last night I got back into the swing of things and finished the embroidery on November's TIF.

Happy New Year to All!

TIF & Christmas

I haven't said anything yet about this month's TIF, the last one, but I have been thinking about it. At the beginning of December, I realized I needed to set this project aside until I'd finished some Christmas projects.

The stocking I'm making is underway. I had planned to satin stitch the name in red and the outline is preparation but I rather like the outline and now all sorts of ideas are perking.

This is stitched in floche (the m at the end is yet to be done) but I have a set of Au Ver a'Soie threads in holiday colors and now I'm thinking about doing a multicolor filling or each letter with a different color filling, leaving the red outline, or leaving the red as is but adding some satin stitch holiday motifs (holly comes to mind but I'm very fond of holly). I do think it would look nice as red satin stitch, my original plan, too.

As for the TIF, I really like this month's theme and think it's quite appropriate. At the beginning of the month, I made this jotting in my notebook, just to capture my thought for later when I get a chance to finish November and begin this.

I've been thinking of doing it in embroidered felt similar to a previous page. I enjoyed this one most of all. I thought to link the two by using a hand and heart image in this one, using hands for the wings on the heart.

Last week I picked up a copy of Artists’ Café (volume 3), a compilation of past articles from Somerset Studios magazine. In there I found a few instances of imagery where hands became wings. This made me think that perhaps I was on a good path, not so much because others were using similar imagery but more because it came into my life at the time I was thinking about it. I could have seen these articles before, and perhaps did and remembered them subconsciously, but it just felt like the timing of seeing them again is important now. So, I know the path I will tread when it's time.

I finished this last bird last week. It is a gift for my husband, who is fond of chickadees. It's also free standing. The other photos that showed this better came out blurry. My next project is what all of these birds led up to, more or less, a cat for my niece.

The birds came as a kit and each progressed in complexity so I learned about needlefelting and working with the designs as I did each one.

I have a book with some ideas on how to do other animals, including a cat, and I have some thoughts of my own. I'm debating about a pipe cleaner armature so it's posable. The cat in the book stands on it's own without it. I have enough wool that I can make more than one cat to test ideas.

I need to complete a scrapbook cover, which will be quick. I found some interesting old map prints and am just pasting them to the covers of purchased journals. I made tiny snowmen ornaments for some neighbor children (I forgot to photograph them) and I don't plan to do any baking, I think, so things are starting to come together. I do have a lot of shopping yet to do.

November Take-It-Further

Well, I didn't get it done. I tried. The four-day holiday weekend helped and I stitched on it pretty diligently. I used one whole skein of the floche. My unopened second skein is in the picture. And not much red is left to be covered.

So far I'm pleased with my progress. I should have pinned it to a stretcher frame--there is some fabric puckering that having it on a frame probably would have stopped. But I'm happier working in hand so I went with that and will accept the puckering as a consequence.

I did take time out on Friday to needlefelt this flying cardinal. The birds don't take long and my hands were getting sore from the satin stitching.

The holiday weekend was nice. We held our family gathering on Saturday. We held up the American tradition of stuffing ourselves. On the actual holiday, Thursday, my hubby and I went to the zoo. We watched the children feed the farm animals their Thanksgiving dinner and wandered around. On Friday we went to see a local theater production of A Christmas Carol. And on Sunday we went to an open garage (like an open house but with antique cars). I've got some zoo pictures to post later this week.

November TIF progress

My November TIF project is finally underway. I’m feeling my way here and I think I should have set it up differently perhaps. First, I tacked my paper form to the ground fabric, using the floche I’ll stitch with. I think perhaps I should have used something thinner. Then I basted the ground fabric to muslin. Which I probably should have done before basting the letters on. Here’s a picture of the basted piece, ready to go.

When I was at Designer's Desk in Geneva, I had walls of fibers to choose from (literally, there are moving pegboard panels four deep along two walls of a room, loaded top to bottom with fibers. A third wall is cabinets and more pegboards. And the DMC and Anchor flosses and perle cottons are in boxes elsewhere).

I like floche for satin stitch and they have a good variety to choose from. I brought my rust-dyed fabric with, thinking I'd go with a dark brown color. But the blue just jumped onto my fabric. A rich, royal blue. I also got a nicely complementary rust, in case I want to add some touches in that.

I began stitching on Monday night. It’s a bit awkward working with the paper but I think it can also help make some nice satin stitches. I’m using floche and that helps, too.

Here’s a photo of the progress I made on Monday. I began stitching in two places, to try and get the paper firmly onto the fabric. I have removed some of the basting as I’ve stitched. Mostly because the stitches holding the paper are made too far from the edges of the paper and thus stick out.

It’s tough going. The rust-dyed fabric is a bit heavier than the cotton I’ve hand quilted before and I’m finding my hands hurt after a couple of hours of stitching. But so far, so good. I hope to finish it this weekend.

Right now I'm planning to do the letters all in the one shade of blue, so the graphic effect will be similar to the maroon. (It's on maroon paper because that's the cover stock they were throwing away that I grabbed to use for projects like this--it's white on one side and shiny maroon on the other and will go through the copier and print on the white side.)

I did some searching online to see if I could find any photos of the small monogram letters of pressed paper used like I'm using my huge one, but I didn't find any. I remember seeing a box full of little glassine bags and each had several heavy card letters in an Old English or Germanic font for monograms. I've also seen them in a script type. The letters were rounded in the center of each stroke and would work like pad stitching. The largest were maybe an inch high. The instructions said to baste them onto the ground fabric and then satin stitch over them. I can't imagine they would be washable but many of the clothes in the 19th century were not washable.

Mostly Take It Further

A trip to an antique show this weekend sparked an idea. While browsing I found two issues of Corticelli's needlework publication, 1898 and 1899. This photo shows the front of one and the back of the other. I love these publications.

Each one features different stitches. They often include common stitches with uncommon (today) names and also stitches I've never seen elsewhere. The color images are mostly of needlepainted flowers.

At the back of one of the issues, there was an article about crocheting over oval and circular shapes and appliqueing them to fabric for sort of a lace effect. It wasn't terribly appealing but it began a thought train.

In the past, in various antiques shops, I've seen envelopes with small card initials that were made to be stitched over on fabric. I assume the cardboard would act like the padding for padded satin stitch. It gave a more integrated but similar effect to the oval and round pieces used in the booklet.

I made some intertwined initials, playing around with this month's TIF, and liked the idea of a monogram like this.

I'd like it to be large, to fill the journal page but also knew I'd never get so much stitching done in padded satin stitch. So then I thought about the cardboard thing. And decided to use that as a technique. I've printed the intertwined initials below onto cover weight paper and plan to stitch over that for my page this month.

I think I may use the bok choy "rose" printed fabric I made recently (here) as the background fabric. I'm not quite sure yet what colors I will use for the initials. White is traditional and I think perhaps two very pale tints might be fresh, but I like the contrast in the artwork and want to preserve that. I'll have to play with flosses. I do think I will use plain solid color floss on the busy background.

Now that I have a plan, I need to get to work!

P.S. I often post these photos and additional photos to my Flickr page: Marjorie from Illinois. Photos are often there days before they make it up here.

November TIF

Well, at first I wasn't sure about this month's TIF project. It didn't seem to me to be as personal as the others. So I thought perhaps I could make it personal by working up a cypher or monogram, perhaps combining my first initial with my husband's.

Flipping through magazines the other night I sat up and took notice when I saw "Cheap & Chic, Mixed Media Decor" by Linda Blinn in the Nov/Dec issue of Cloth Paper Scissors. She does lovely things with letterforms. And that got me remembering the fun I had with that when in Sharon B's Studio Journals class. So I've been playing around a bit with letters and text. I began in Word but moved to Photoshop.

Here's a doodle on the letter M. So now I'm really getting into this theme. I'm not sure where it will take me but for now I'm just doodling. I like the Gothic arches of the largest M.

This past weekend we visited one of our favorite places: the Oak Park Conservatory. It sure packs a punch for a small place. The meeting hall at the far end had a church service going on so we had Gospel music with our flowers.

October TIF done

I just about finished my October journal page in October--it was all done except for the ribbon loops for binding. I didn't get those stitched down until Sunday.

I think this one of my less successful projects, although I did enjoy trying out the Wonder-Under image transfer technique (discussed here). I think it could use more yo-yo "project bags" but I got rather bored doing it. I was using luscious hand-dyed fabrics which kept me going longer than I'd expected.

What this month's project really did is get me thinking about what type of space I'd like, how I would use it, how I really work...and that all got both me and my husband thinking about our home, it's space and how we use it, and all sorts of issues. (a real can of worms!)

Take It Further start (long)

I'm feeling particularly relieved at the moment. (I know it won't last.) This year at work has been full of back-to-back conferences that I've run, and I'm finally getting my feet back under me and am doing my "real" work.

I manage a couple of dozen different grants and accounts and I have them all up to date for the first time in months. Now I have to turn my attention to the annual report that should have been done a while back.

This is the start of this month's TIF piece. It's very different from what I had planned. But once I began thinking about where I worked and how I managed the process, I ended up with more images (more on how I did the transfers below) than I expected. This journal page kind of traces the process of how I work. It's starts in my brain. It's the one workspace we all have in common.

I often do research and some thinking on my computer. Next is my ironing board work-station where I can do larger or messier things or those that require heat. Mostly I sit in my chair and stitch. The image of my stove-top photo studio isn't clear, but I still decided to include it. (I'll know what it is.) Last is my file cabinet/display gallery at work. I don't often put up images of pieces I've done there--they're more likely to appear as a background on my monitor or at the top of the custom calendar pages I print each month. But it's every changing and a kind of a symbolic bulletin board for me.

I identified each photo using a letter rubber stamp. It's a big one like those date stamps libraries used to use. This one has about 16 bands of the alphabet so you can "set" and print your own words. I've had it for years and this is the first time I've used it. I love it. I used pigment ink.

The little blobs are actually off center yo-yos (thank you, Clover!) to represent all of the piled up bags and totes that contain my various projects and materials. I have added a lot more since taking this photo and plan to add more yet.

That's pretty much it. I plan to complete it this weekend. I'll back it with some prequilted fabric I've used on others and add some sort of loop for binding.

Image transfers: I wanted the images to be rather rough and not crystal clear. This is where and how I work right now, but it's not my ideal and I think I'd like it to be fading away. Here's how I did it: I printed reversed color images of my photos using a laser printer. I ironed on two layers of Wonder-Under fusible to the front of the paper (one at a time). Then I soaked the images and rubbed the paper off of the back. This type of transfer isn't quite as clear as using acrylic medium, but it is quicker--you need to let the medium dry at least 24 hours. Press, wave in the air a bit to cool, and dump into a pool of water. The two techniques are equally fragile (you can remove the image with the backing paper if you're not careful).

I rolled the wet paper off with my fingers using kind of a pushing motion and let it dry a bit. Once the paper begins to roll up, it will help the process by picking up other bits of the paper as you move it along.Then I wet it again and went over it again with a more circular motion and got more of the paper. I let it dry again.

By now my fingers are complaining about all the rubbing so I dampened a tea towel and rubbed some more, very gently. Now you need to be careful--you can easily rub away the image--and here's where the edges begin to fray.

Once I had the paper removed, I placed my images on the background fabric (and spent about 24 hours moving them around each time I passed by) and pressed with a hot iron to fuse. Fabric right side up, image photo side up (the photos will now be facing the right direction), fusible down. Cover with a Teflon press sheet or parchment paper and press with a hot iron. The images brightened up a bit upon being transferred.

I was pleased with how well they stuck--no curling edges or missed spots.

Concurrent with this month's project, my husband and I have been doing some house hunting. We do it occasionally but haven't for a while. I would like to move (desperately!) but am not thrilled at taking on a huge mortgage, so our options are limited. We live in the town where he grew up and he's not one for change so he's not thrilled but he understands my reasoning.

This month, dreams and reality met. (so far, reality's winning)

For many many years we've driven down this one short street, out in Indiana near the Dunes, and said, "boy, this is where we'd like to live." A few weeks ago as we were doing that exact thing, we noticed (for the first time in all these years) a house for sale on the street. So we called and went to look at it. It's lovely. It has no stairs--but it looks like it may have a wet crawl space. It has a large garage--lined with toxic particle board. And the whole thing was kind of like that. Lovely living room but the kitchen needs a major redo. It would double my commute to work and effectively isolate my hubby. And it's just barely beyond our price range--and if we moved there we couldn't afford to redo the kitchen and bathroom. But this area is so far beyond our price range that the place seems quite the bargain--and very difficult to pass up. This was a really hard one but for now we've opted to stay put.

It really got us thinking and talking about what we need (space, no stairs, trees) and want (studio, three-car garage, a bath and a half, a kitchen we can have a table in, neighbors further than 10 feet away). We've looked at other houses, closer to where we are now, and that's honed our requirements and also encouraged us to stay put for now. We've been contemplating renovation but I think we'd need to move out in order to be able to do that. We need (and sometimes want) change but we're two old fuddy-duddys stuck in our comfy rut.

another little pincushion & TIF first thoughts

I'm still playing with bottlecap pincushions (between migraines and bill paying--it's that season for me (variable weather) and the first of the month). Here's a little fall pumpkin. The stem is detached buttonhole (I'm not sure what the metallic thread it--it was a scrap). It looks more tomato colored here but the felt is a burnt-orange color in reality. I'm now working on a Christmas tree and another creepy eye with green skin.

I couldn't bring myself to put pins in the eye I made. It's now living with a friend who loves Hallowe'en, didn't have a pincushion and will have no problems at all with the pins.

I've been thinking about this month's Take It Further--about my textile work space. Or more to the point, my lack of one. Things are a bit out of hand at our home. Too. Much. Stuff.

And it's exacerbated because I don't have a place for myself and my textile work. Usually I sit in my lovely recliner with my good light and stitch. Which means many of my materials and projects are piled around the area. If it's painting, messy or needs flat space, then I set up the ironing board in the kitchen. I made a cover for it years ago with elastic around an ironing board shape cut from an inexpensive plastic shower curtain.

The problem is the ironing board takes the entire open space in our (tiny) kitchen. But it's adjustable for sitting or standing and it's a very old ironing board so it's heavy and stable. If I need really firm I add a cutting board or cookie tin on top and off I go. It really works quite well (until someone else wants to get into the space for silly things like lunch!).

I do an awful lot of thinking and some note making here in my office at work. I also use Photoshop and the Internet here, after hours. Here's my messy desk, with my monitor and word for the year (focus), birthday card, calendar and piles of work. Caramels for the students (but it's mostly the professors who stop by and grab them). The bowl under the monitor is a gift from China. Next to and below the candy bowl is my coaster collection. In front of the candy bowl is my box of little 2" art squares.

Here's the file cabinet I sit next to, with some of my magnets, photos, friends, and ancestors stuck on. The quilt is a little piece I made in a class with Laura Wasilowski. On top is an encaustic screen I purchased recently from artist Jenny Learner. Quite a hodge-podge. The cabinets face me. The side that faces out is properly plain and blank and only the artful encaustic screen shows to passers by.

As you can see, I don't quite fit into the minimalistic and paperless image that is being promoted here.

I'm far from minimalistic at home, too, and after 30 years in a small house with another pack rat, it's become interesting to say the least!

My immediate thoughts about the topic were pretty negative. I want a pretty, clean, empty, big studio, too! (stamping foot here!) I am feeling unhappy and frustrated with our lack of space and my lack of a place to keep things and to work. A short exchange with Jane reminded me of other things and I realized that in reality I have mixed feelings about a studio.

I would like more space. I would like more bookshelves for the books piled about and nice cabinets for the lovely laces and trims I have. I'd like a big permanent table and a place for my sewing machine. And I have a feeling that I'd go in there to do specific tasks on occasion, but that I'd still end up most nights where I am now--in my comfy recliner with my hubby nearby stitching by hand.

Once upon a time we had a big ole farm house (it needed more renovation and tlc than we could provide) and I had a room upstairs that was designated the sewing room and my boxes of stuff went up there and my sewing machine. But the sewing machine made it's way downstairs, to a corner of the dining room, within a pretty short time, and the ironing board ended up next to it. And I spent most of my time sitting in the living room with my hubby nearby stitching by hand.

So for now I have my office as my "get away" spot--the place with a door I can close. I think this may become more of an issue if I can ever retire (and with the way the economy is going, that date keeps getting farther and farther away!). But for now, I've realized I'm more content than I'd realized (thanks, Jane!)

My immediate visualization for my journal page is a crazy quilt. I'm feeling rather crazy and disordered, but there are a lot of good things in the mix (laces and trims and buttons!). I had the thought of piles of yo-yos to represent some of the piles of projects in bags I have around. I haven't gone very far with this yet but I think that's the start.

September TIF done

Here's my September TIF journal page on lists, all done, early for a change!

I stitched my chain of lists in a random order and intertwined them a bit when I stitched them to the background. The binding loops are more selvedge strips.

The top and bottom edges are "finished" edges of selvedge strips. I left the sides unfinished. I was going to bind them and then I realized, lists are never done, they're never finished, so I left the sides unfinished.

There's more description of the selvedge background in my previous posting.

It's certainly colorful, a bit raggedy feeling and uncharacteristic for me and to get myself back to my comfort zone I added a plain backing of tan felt, attached with buttonhole stitch in red perle cotton. I wrote the title with a Sharpie. I can now check this off of my to-do list!

September TIF underway

I've finally gotten underway with my September project. It's been pretty much a one-step-at-a-time project. I realized my problem with lists is that I have really mixed feelings about them. On the one hand, they are a huge help for someone with the memory of a gnat. On the other, they sit there on my desk and just nag at me endlessly, all these lists of things that really need to be done. Sometimes I write down things I've already done so I have something to cross off!

I began with the selvedge meaning of list that many of us liked. I shipped selvedges from fabrics lying about and overlapped them and stitched them to stiff felt with a running stitch. In a way, they make their own list--of projects I've completed and those waiting to be done.

That's the photo here.

Then I took a sheet of plain paper and wrote down all of these lists--the good ones and the nagging ones--shopping lists, to-do lists, supply lists, chore lists, book lists, instruction lists, member lists, lists of things I want to do, lists of things I should be doing. I used gloss gel medium to back the paper with some muslin that I'd used as a paint rag--I like the random splotches but never quite know what to do with it other than backing things. In keeping with the randomness of this month, I used an old catalog to keep glue off the counter and some of the images transferred ink splotches to the list.

Then I cut the list into strips and will make them up into a chain--the chains that keep me going and together or the chains that weight me down with shoulds. I'm not sure how this will work or how I'll attach the chain to the background but, as I said, it's a step-by-step process this time. I don't think it's going to be really readable, but I think that's okay.

This month I've noticed I've integrated the TIF project fully into my life. At first, it was overwhelming and seemed to be all I thought about or did. I was exhausted at the end of January! Now it's just part of the flow of my days. I don't think I really think about it less overall. Perhaps the designs are a little less time-consumingly stitched. I already know a lot about the engineering of the pages and don't have to spend as much time on it.

I am very much more relaxed about the whole process. At the beginning of the year I was in a panic until I came up with a viable idea. Now I'm trying to work with the ideas a bit more, at least on a conceptual level. And if one doesn't manifest immediately, I keep trying to look at the question from different angles and see what I learn.

List

It's been a quiet week and I haven't been stitching or home much at all to do anything. This month's TIF challenge is lists. When I looked it up, the dictionaries only had list (singular). There were some very interesting definitions...here's my list of what I found in the Oxford English Dictionary.

noun
Hearing; the sense of hearing. to have or give a list: to give ear, be attentive, keep silence.
Art, craft, cunning. Also phr. by or with list.
Border, edging, strip. a. gen. A border, hem, bordering strip. Obs.
Pleasure, joy, delight; Appetite, craving; desire, longing; inclination.
The careening or inclination of a ship to one side; A leaning over (of a building, etc.).
A catalogue or roll consisting of a row or series of names, figures, words, or the like. In early use, esp. a catalogue of the names of persons engaged in the same duties or connected with the same object; spec. a catalogue of the soldiers of an army or of a particular arm; also in phr. in or within the list(s, in list
The flank (of pork); a long piece cut from the gammon

adjective
Ready, quick (esp. of hearing). Also applied to rooms, etc. in which one hears well.

Some of these are appealing, especially the first few, but I know that those meanings were not Sharon's when she said "Lists." So I'm going to go home and cogitate.

I think I'm so imbued with lists and listing things that I can't see the forest for the trees.

August TIF done!

I'd hoped to get this up last night but Blogger wouldn't cooperate. I spent much of today "visiting" France. A French friend is in town so we went to a local French bistro with another friend for an amazing lunch (La Petite Folie--not to be missed). Then we spent some time looking at wedding pictures (one of my friend's children got married this spring).

I had potato-leek soup and a wonderful chicken salad with asparagus, artichokes, olives, and just the right amount of feta. One friend had the same, the other had a crab salad and an heirloom tomato salad. (those few words just don't describe at all the luscious dishes and their various components.) We had to have dessert. I was good and had a compote of berries with lemon sorbet. Yum! The others had a chocolate bombe and an apricot tart. Luscious!

Lunch and the nice visit left me feeling much more in balance than I have been lately. My vertigo is improving and with it my attitude. I think my piece this month shows some of the lack of balance I've been feeling.

The background is my take on an inkblot--I did a yarn painting--the kind we did in grade school where you coated a piece of yarn and placed it on half of a piece of paper, folded the paper over and pulled the piece of yarn out. I wanted to do an inkblot but realized that the heavy paint from that would be hard to stitch through. All along I had been thinking white fabric and black ink but at some point the image reversed and I got myself some black fabric and used white acrylic paint I had. (I think part of the choice had to do with the white paint being to hand.)

A yard of upholstery cording was the yarn. I pressed and precreased my fabric, poked the cord into the paint bottle. I used a chopstick and the rim of the jar to squeeze out excess paint and then "artistically" draped the cord onto half of the fabric. I folded over the other half and then pressed a cutting board over it to keep the fabric flat. Then I pulled out the cord. For some I did this more than once.

Looking at them live they looked to me like flower petals. Looking at photos of them, they look more like x-rays. Other samples on on my Flikr site.

I chose the one I did because it reminded me of twirling, of the inner ear bits that are giving me fits, and the heavy line reminded me of the kind of balance staff tight-rope walkers use. I liked the layered effect.

I used a piece of the cording (dry) to wrap the tightrope. I used wools that I had on hand. I began to wrap neatly, this fine line we all walk to keep our balance could at least be pretty, but then decided, well, it's not. I'm not quite sure if the dangly threads are obstacles or things to hold on to. Most likely both. The ends are frayed and not attached to anything.

I backed the painted fabric with black stiff felt and then couched on the cording. I added a backing of white stiff felt. The last of the yard of painted cording is looped for the page binding. Done.

TIF thoughts

After the award, this feels like a most uncreative week. I haven't worked on my journal, although I have been gathering materials for a collage or two, and I haven't done much on this month's TIF.

I have, however, thought a lot about it. My first thoughts were that this challenge comes at a perfect time for me because I'm feeling out of balance and perhaps this will help me regain it.
I've been writing in my journal all week about being in and out of balance and came to the conclusion that being in balance, at least for me, it not a steady state. I tip one way and come back and then tip the other and come back and in the middle of all of this tipping and tottering, there are brief moments of balance.

It rather reminds me of going to the chiropractor (which I haven't been doing lately) and she puts my spine back in balance. It doesn't stay there but it feels great while it is aligned. And each time it seems to stay a bit longer or go back into alignment easier.

And that reminded me of meditation, where you focus on something and as your mind drifts you gently bring it back, over and over, to the point of focus. (which brings me once more to my "word" for the year: focus.)

I spent some time looking at images of gymnasts on balance beams and tightrope walkers but nothing was exactly right. So I began thinking about the balance point--the rope. That sparked a whole variety of textile and embroidery-related ideas for my journal page this month.

Today Sharon B's blog linked to an article on design and composition. In the discussion they touched on balance, including symmetry and reflection. And a note about how ink blots, such as those used in psychological testing, are symmetrical and balanced. Which got me thinking about all of the psychiatric aspects of balance.

The dictionary definition added more food for thought. The meaning I thought of first is the last one listed! (with 5, 6 and 7 running close behind)

bal·ance
Function: noun
1 : an instrument for weighing: as a : a beam that is supported freely in the center and has two pans of equal weight suspended from its ends b : a device that uses the elasticity of a spiral spring for measuring weight or force
2 : a means of judging or deciding
3 : a counterbalancing weight, force, or influence
4 : an oscillating wheel operating with a hairspring to regulate the movement of a timepiece
5 a : stability produced by even distribution of weight on each side of the vertical axis b : equipoise between contrasting, opposing, or interacting elements c : equality between the totals of the two sides of an account
6 a : an aesthetically pleasing integration of elements b : the juxtaposition in writing of syntactically parallel constructions containing similar or contrasting ideas
7 a : physical equilibrium b : the ability to retain one's balance
8 a : weight or force of one side in excess of another b : something left over : REMAINDER c : an amount in excess especially on the credit side of an account
9 : mental and emotional steadiness

So I'm off for a long weekend. Tomorrow a group from my EGA chapter is teaching at Camp Quality--always a fun day.

July TIF done

For some reason I just could not get going on this one. I sampled and experimented and gathered materials but didn't take a stitch in the project until July was gone. The I sat down on August 1st and pretty much did the whole thing.

The intensive needlework was likely a reaction to going down to my cousin's memorial service. I often find I channel my grief and other emotions into intensive stitching. This first picture is how the page will look in the book.

I wanted the effect of a mossy milestone. It looks more like that in this vertical picture. The past is darker than the future and has a bit of a golden glow. The future has more of a pink tinge; I like to be optimistic. I stitched the edging using the Glove Stitch from Country Bumpkin's (Inspirations Australia) A-Z of Stitches, book 2. The outer edge on the future side is stitched with a Needle Necessities overdyed perle 8 with some sheen to it. The past edge is stitched with a darker and duller Wildflowers from Caron.

The moss is needlefelted. I drove my husband nuts sitting there, endlessly poking the needle through the felt into a foam block for hours on end. The letters are cut out (carved) and needlefelted, as are the borders and edges.

The leading edge--today--has lots of colors in it.

I'm late in getting the August challenge--balance--and also in getting lesson 6 of the journals class. I just am getting them now. I think the balance theme may be a real challenge. I'm feeling very much out of balance right now. It's good and hopefully will help bring me back into balance--if I ever figure out what it is.

June's Done--finally!--on to July

Well, June's endless TIF is finally completed. When I was done I made myself notes on everything. The front shows a stash run amok, full of ideas and plans. It's stitched on an antique pillowcase I found with a monogram M. I used it until it fell apart.

The two floral motifs came from 1940s British needlework magazines that were my introduction to my very good friend Jenny. The silk threads are from Rita's estate. The wools are Medici from my stash, mostly from Susan's former shop, and one green was purchased on my first trip to England in Burford. This trip probably never would have happened if I'd not "met" Jenny.

Most of the beads came from SJ Designs' line of beads and pearls. The wired flower centers on the right were leftovers from my niece's wedding last December. I used them as centers for tissue paper plum blossoms for her shower. Simple materials, really, and basic stitches.

There are penciled in drawings on the background of the front, showing designs that were lurking but never got stitched.

The back is just stash, pure and simple and includes fabric, lace, paper, beads, buttons, and other bits and pieces I found laying around. It carries the title for the piece, Stash Stories.

This was a hard one to do. I think perhaps because once I began looking I saw potential everywhere and had a really hard time settling down to one thing and making a choice.

After taking the last stitch in June's piece, I began to work immediately on getting out the lurking ideas for July. I'm going to do a milestone. I'm going to be pretty blatant about it, mostly because I wanted to incise words into the top layer (carved into stone) and needed them to be simple. I'm going to use felt and needlefelt it from the front and the back. And I'm going to highlight the front corner of the stone, I think perhaps with some yellow roving needlefelted along it, to highlight the NOW.

I like the fact that this piece isn't a full rectangle, so that the other month's pages will show as you look at the milestone.

Livin' it up!

The big conference has begun and I'm in downtown Chicago. I got here around 4:30 yesterday and immediately began working, straightening out some reservations. My room is lovely, on the 30th floor, with a gorgeous view of the Chicago River and Lake Michigan. I watched the sun come up over the lake this morning.

Yes, I was up and off to work early this morning. The day was bumpy--typical of a big conference. But all in all it went okay.

Before heading down here for the conference, I had a good weekend break. I worked very hard on my journals class--catching up from the week of doing no work on it at all. I did some exercises from week 2 and then began some for week 3 and I also began using the journal to collect some notes and things I wanted to keep and also to make notes on a design I want to do (in the fiber books group on Stitchin' Fingers) but just can't find time for right now. I brought journaling materials with me and hope to get an evening or two in to work on them.

Over the last week or so, I put the finishing touches on the back of June's TIF piece. I'm still working on the front and also thinking about the July piece. I want to do a mossy stone milestone and I think needlefelting might provide just the right look if I felt the green into the gray stone from the back. I'm still not sure what I want my milestone to say. I've been reading others comments on this month's project and as always I've found new things to think about.

After I finish this, I'm going to head for the pool. Woo-hoo!

Frottage and TIF

Since I had to come in to work on a holiday, I decided to get in a blog post. I had fun in my office yesterday with an exercise from the Journals class--frottage (rubbings). I have a little box of 2" squares that I made after sending others off to the Pink Art Doll Project. (a few are pictured here)

I used a 6B pencil and plain paper and made rubbings of my art squares and various other things in my office.

Last night as we watched Chicago's big fireworks show, I cut them up and pasted the resulting pieces into my Journal. Boy, is this fun!

And I was totally amazed of the things I found to take rubbings of. When I walked into my office and looked, I thought there's nothing here. But once I got going it was really hard to stop.

I used a 2" square window to find designs in my rubbing page of the art squares and I cut them out. I used a 1" square window to cut out my other rubbing page.

I also spent some time last night thinking about the June TIF theme. I made some jottings in my TIF journal along the lines of what I wrote in yesterday's post and then went a bit further and sketched out some ideas for making a milestone page. Right now I'm liking the idea at the bottom of the page and trying to think about where I might find gray wool felt in the middle of summer. I should go online shopping today.

All of this Journaling activity has meant that I haven't taken a single stitch all week. I need to figure out how to better balance things.

Well, I'm off to the meeting I came in today for. Then, tonight, Fireworks!

TIF-July

The theme for July is "how does it feel to be at the half way mark?" I must admit my first thought is relieved!

I'm still very focused on June, and the new Journals class, and am pretty blank on this and just beginning to think about it. My thought process was, as usual, helped along my Jane, who had some really intriguing ideas about half, half full, half empty, and how you pass through this half way point.

I usually begin with words and associations...
Yin-Yang
Milestones
Pushimipullyu (Dr. Doolittle's two-headed llama)
balance, teeter-totters, fulcrum

Right now Milestones has the most resonance. Here's a link to the Wikipedia page, Milestones, and a picture of a milestone.

A little progress

Things are still quite busy at work and I've been feeling the stress. I really get annoyed with myself when I let the stress of things get to me. I did get some things done over the weekend. I completed the floral spray using Rita's silks for my June TIF journal page.

I plan to stitch a crewel leaf on the other side. I want the pencil drawings to show through. They don't relate to the design I'm going to do. I want them there to show some of the other possibilities that the fabric has and tell a story. (Inspired by some student pieces I saw in the senior art show at Lawrence college a few weeks ago.)

Across the top I plan some beaded flowers. It's not complete at all but much closer than a week ago!

I also began the back of the journal page--a stash collage. Some of the items have memories and others are just things I'd gathered. The quilt block was made, I believe, by Susan's mom. It's a bow-tie block. My grandmother made my sister and me bow-tie quilts when we were children. The blue piece of fabric in the upper left was from my mom's crazy quilting stash. The lace bit in the middle was from Eileen in England. There's a bit of gauze peeping out on the right, leftover from Steve's surgery a couple of years back. Some of the bits are from this summer's quilt expo classes. There's a bit of canvas and a bit of linen and a scrap of a charted design. I've added quite a bit since I took this photograph.

I find photographing or copying a piece in progress really helps with seeing how it really looks. When I took this shot it became obvious that the two white spots really stuck out. I've added some things on top of the linen to tone it down and I've added an off-white crochet bit, about the size of the white lace, just overlapping the lace a bit, to mirror the shape and help tone down that white spot in the middle of the page.

We've had some lovely weather lately...not too hot or cold or rainy. I try to take a stroll around the yard every day (not hard, it's small) to see what's up. Here are day lilies from the side of the house.

And here are my tomatoes and parsley, growing happily in their pot. I need to get some stakes for the tomatoes before they fall over. They have buds!

I also began the Studio Journals class with Sharon B on Joggles. Right now it's a bit overwhelming...it's a very chatty group. It appears to be an amazing group of people from around the world. In two weeks, once this conference is up and running, I hope to have time to really get into it.