work continues

the deadline for the challenge I was making this piece for has come and gone, and I'm not really close to having this piece finished, but it has evolved along the way to the point that I may think about entering it in the annual Fire Mountain Gems seed bead competition

yesterday I finished the third of the big leaves, so now it's on to the smaller ones

the quilting on the trees piece is coming right along

and I have most of the sky of the next piece up on the design wall

and here is a look at what these will possibly look like hanging together -- from forest to farm to sky scrapper

and yesterday I started thinking about what the fourth and fifth panel would look like

moving right along

the tree is ready for the second of the parched earth series -- I need to quilt the background panel before it can be attached, and that couldn't start until the order of silk organza arrived -- and it's here now, so this week the quilting on that can begin

and the stitching on the third of the parched earth series backgrounds has begun

this is a big piece -- 5 feet wide by a little over 2 feet tall -- but it had to be big to be the right scale for the truck!

on Friday my daughter and my grandson were here and we all played with the tye dye kit, we used a number of the t shirts that my son-in-law had as give aways from HGTV paint by Sherman Williams

our theory was that a t shirt that advertises paint should have some color to it!!

when I did the wash out in the machine, I tossed in two color catchers --- and they came out of the process black

here's where the lesson in color theory comes in:  when you are dealing with paint or dye, black is the presence of all color, and white is the absence of all color --- when you are talking about light, white is the presence of all color and black is the absence of all color ---

cool!

it's a coaster

it's about 3.5 inches square, and I crocheted it for my daughter's office in about an hour

she has a new, executive job, so a tacky piece of a bar towel on the desk as a coaster under her water bottle just won't do

it was my pleasure to do this for her --- I'm very much the proud mama here --- I love seeing her be a success!

and there is a certain irony here too -- back when I had the office job she made me a fiber coaster that I used under the cup on my desk

and so the student becomes the master.......

going faster by slowing down

last week began with a trip to Ft Logan National Cemetery for my dad's committal service --  here is what I said there:

Dad didn't want us to make a fuss.

When he told us that he was not going to do any more surgeries he said there was no need to hold a gathering 

Sorry dad, as the survivors, we just over ruled you 

A few years ago,  we took mom and dad with us to Springfield,  MO, where we were doing an art show  

Dad had a baseball cap that said WW II Veteran on it 

During that weekend I saw people stop and talk to him and thank him for his service  

He never talked about it, and we didn't really grow up thinking of him as part of what has been called the “greatest generation” -- but he was 

Which brings me to why we over ruled him  

We believe he deserves this tribute and the honor of a final salute

In the time since he passed, I have received a number of cards from people I barely know that are members of my local quilt guild -- it has been a sweet reminder that even strangers will give you a hand up if they know a little bit about you

On three occasions during that time I have had a quote from Marianne Williamson included in either a personal note or some other communication online:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.  Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.  It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.  We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?  Actually, who are you not to be?  You are a child of God.  Your playing small does not serve the world.  There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.  We are all meant to shine, as children do.  We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.  It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.  And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.  As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

This reaching out by others has resulted in an odd phenomena -- the odd sensation that as all this caring is a stream of water pouring into the glass and running over the sides in the form of ideas and art work

here is what that art week looked like:

 the bead embroidery on both of these is complete -- I still have a few more of these to do for the project, but these came out really well!

the quilting has begun on the first piece of my Evolution series - the forest

and I have begun the work on the next piece - the farm

the tree for the second Parched Earth series - the tree is coming along well -- as soon as the order from Dharma Trading arrives with the needed silk organza I'll be able to start quilting the background of this piece too

I have finally figured out a background for the truck piece I created earlier in the year

this piece began as a "one of" stand alone, but now it will be the third of the Parched Earth series

this was what the first parched earth piece looked like before I decided to cut that top third off of it

I saved that piece because while it didn't look like dust (which was my original idea), it did look like fire

unfortunately, I had already done quite a bit of quilting on it before I decided to chop it, which meant I had to "skin" it so that I can move forward with the idea I have to make it into a piece on it's own

a piece that will involve using some of these shapes

I don't know yet is this is another "stand alone" piece or if it will fit in the parched earth series -- I'll have to decide that later

of course there is the required picture of the wild ginger dog -- we started a new obedience class on Tuesday and she is doing very well -- sometimes a totally different approach is what is required

Onward to another full week!!

 

work continues

actually, I've been pretty productive since I last got here to post anything

the bead embroidery work on this piece is complete now, so I'm moving on to the leaf pieces that go with it

since I had finished the quilting on the two big pieces I was working on, I decided to pull out and finish the last two in the shed door series

it feels good to finish a project this big -- even if it did take me over two years to do so!

next up for this series is the photography session as there is a gallery that has expressed interest in having the entire series in their space (pretty exciting that!)

so this will be the next thing under the needle

I finished putting pieces in a few days ago, and after looking at it for that long, I've decided it's time to fuse it down, put the "sandwich" together and start quilting

and since that piece is at that stage, I've been working on the concept "drawings" for the next one in that series

this is already a "did I do that?!" moment, as this entire piece is something I created in PhotoShop from bits and pieces from a number of photos I have in my file

it's time to create the "map" and start thinking about fabrics to do the fusing of this piece

this is a close up of the bottom section of the next Parched Earth piece

and this is the concept for the finished work -- you can see there on the left side the beginning of that cracked dirt portion of the piece

as soon as the background layer is finished, I'll start in on the tree which will not get applied to this until a layer of silk is put on and the first quilting done

and since I'm thinking about how I'll do that tree, I did some experimenting with some scrap fabric

a friend of mine makes her pieces by building the individual units that make them up on a piece of parchment and fuses them together then she can put the parts together

I've been thinking about that, and wondering if that technique will work with the materials that I'm using for my pieces

this experiment shows that it will

the picture on the left is the raw parts laying on a sheet of parchment, the picture on the right is the entire unit after I ironed it to fuse it and peeled it off the parchment -- it still maintains it's "sticky note" usability, so this experiment was a success!

these 4 dogs (and one more) all came out of the same litter

except for the two black ones, they barely look related!

because Gypsy is so unlike either of the two labs we have previously had, we decided that knowing just what is in her genetic background would be a great help to better training and less angst

the DNA test kit went in the mail yesterday, so by the time she's going in to have her spaying surgery in mid July, we should have a much better idea of just what we've got

meantime she continues to entertain and baffle us

(the picture on the right should be titled:  "You talking to me?")

this week's activities include my dad's committal service at Ft Logan National Cemetery tomorrow morning, a dentist appointment and a test to determine if my ongoing gut pain is being caused by a non-functional gall bladder (I've been dealing with this since February!) -- it's going to be a full week

self medicating (it's a good thing!)

if you've known me a while (in person, or only through the magic of the Internet), you know that I work on a lot of different things at once

a friend of mine told me last week that I was "self medicating with creativity" -- she's right -- making art is one of my chief coping mechanisms when I need to feel like there is still order to things

last week was one of those weeks

and as a result, a lot of work got done

this little necklace for my daughter is all finished -- even the small adjustment to the clasp that I needed to make is complete

this piece, titled Parched Earth I, is finished -- that tiny 1/8 inch wide binding was an interesting challenge, but I really like how it looks

Soma the Red Dog is all done and ready to go to the framer -- through the magic of PhotoShop I can show you what it looks like with a nice clean edge even though I haven't cut it yet

and having finished all of those, I worked on other pieces

this panel is moving along nicely

it has had it's challenges -- like when I decided that I really needed to back the top 2/3 with blue and the bottom 1/3 with brown to represent earth and sky after I had already placed all of the tree trunks and some of the leaves --

yeah, well, that was a challenge to carefully work from one edge to the other, picking up the pieces one at a time and putting down the new background

I like it a lot better now

and this piece which will be Parched Earth II

last night I finished the sky portion and started working on the earth part

since I like doing a bit of machine work during each studio session, I have have returned to finishing the last two of the shed door pieces

even though this is a small piece (about 12 inches by 12 inches) there are still a lot of little details to be stitched

one of the bead groups I belong to does challenges that are designed to be larger and more detailed

we begin with a list of suggestions for a theme, then we vote and the theme with the most votes is what we work on for the next couple of months

for the first time ever, one of my suggestions was the favorite, so we are working on pieces that are to be inspired on an ancient culture

after having done several pieces that were Egyptian inspired, I decided to do something that is based in the Greek culture

moving right along here!

of course we have to have some sort of puppy picture

last week for the first time I noticed that Gypsy has "wings"

you can only see these when she has her front legs spread out and her head down between them -- how cool is that

now as for the claim that she's an angel -- not so much -- still a wild ginger dog!

Stanley Philip (Phil) Blunt

He passed quietly on June 10, 2016.

Phil was born in Ottawa, Kansas, in 1926, the son of Bruce Keith and Mary Myrtle (Ross) Blunt.

He served in World War II in the Navy from November 1944 to July 1946

Married Betty Lee Stowell in February, 1950 in Denver, Colorado.

Survived by his wife Betty; daughters Beverly Haring (Nick), Nancy Green (Felton); grandchildren Philip Hodgdon and Dorothy (Haring) Barnhart (Nate); great grandson Asher; sister Ruth Owen

Committal service will be held at 10:15 a.m. on June 27, 2016, at Ft Logan National Cemetery

His pain is no more, his soul is flying free.

because it's June!

okay, if you hear a chorus singing "June, June, June, just because it's June" when you read that title you are as big a musical theatre fan as we are!

and June has picked up right where May left off with being busy, busy, busy!

this week's utilitarian sewing -- two brand new pair of board shorts with cargo pockets for Mr Cute

the bracelet I had been working on for an online challenge is all finished

cool tiger eyes!

and I'm in the middle of doing the chain for this piece, which will go to my daughter as a belated birthday present as soon as I finish it

the tree trunks are all on this piece, and I have finally gotten the drawings done for the layers of leaves --

my plan for this afternoon (as soon as the laundry is done) is to start putting those on

this is a test

I'd been trying to decide what to do with the edging of this piece

that really skinny (it's only 1/8 inch wide!) binding looks like just the right thing

I actually have it all stitched on there, but no pictures of it yet ---- watch this space in the next post for a picture of the final work

this is the beginning of the next piece in this Parched Earth series --- moving right along building a cloudy sky

my wood flower garden has been relocated off the deck to a space along the fence behind the vegetable garden

Miss Gypsy was way too interested in nibbling on these, and I don't want to have to spend every moment yelling "NO" when we are out there, or never being able to turn my back

the corner where those were is now occupied with a bright pink wading pool which she is having a lot of fun in!

the new catch phrase here:  "Why do I smell wet dog?!"