Painting

I am so excited! I have done my first encaustic painting! I bought these paints two years ago and never even opened one up. This is from a picture that my daughter's therapist showed me of a place called Hermits Island. I sketched it in oils and then thought I would try some encaustics on top and then the encaustics took over!
I am reading a book by Eric Maisel called Fearless Creating. He said "get up right now and go and work on your project for a half hour." So I did. Feels great to make a painting. If Mark, Katy's therapist, likes it I will give it to him.
While painting I listened to Yo-Yo Ma play Schumann's Cello Concerto. Life is good!!
Of course I later felt compelled to go and change the entire thing. Never know when to stop. I like the second one, but I wish I had kept the first one as well. Someone needs to remind me tha I can have two canvases. I don't need to keep reworking the same one.

Sketching

I realize, of course that the way to get good at something is to do it over and over.It has been a mixed blessing for me that many things have been easy for me without effort. Sketching is not one of them and there is a part of me that feels angry because I am not good at it all the time every time. Since blogging has opened up the incredible windows into other people's work and art I have been yearning to do more and more and this is good because it circumvents my pique at not being good enough "right here right now."
That is a flashback to my ex husband's Auntie Betty from East Kilbride in Scotland. That was her way of calling you out for a confrontation. Let's do it, right here right now. She is in heaven now laughing. She knows what it is like to be ticked off because you cannot do exactly what you want when you want it. We understood each other.
This sketch is of Bailey doing her math homework. She was being very wiggly and insisted on moving every other second or so. I like the expression.

My border

This round is ready to be packed up and sent to the next person. There will be a couple of very slight seams in the next round but I think it will look good. I am not the most meticulous stitcher tho I do try. There is always a point that turns out blunt and a zig where I should have zagged. But I do like the way it turned out. I was hoping to make it so that the stars spun out from the center star and kept the whole thing in motion.
So I do hope it meets with the approval of the next stitchers. I always worry more about what the recipients think about the borders that I put on more than I care about what they are doing to mine. I will rise to the challenge though. I am learning with each new thing I try. The hardest thing to learn is to overcome the anxiety and go for it.
The block patterns are from the Dear Jane and Dear Hannah books by Branda Papadakis.

one last thing

It was forty degrees here today and very windy which made it seem so much colder.My husband could probably tell you which direction the wind came from but I don't listen long enough to the weather bimbos to get to that nautical part. I think they are over paid prompt readers and why can't people just look out of the window or read the freakin farmer's almanac. You would get better information. Any way they wind may or may not have been off the ocean which may or may not have made it colder.
In this kind of weather people come out if their houses dressed for all contingencies. Some runners in shorts and kid in hoodies and one lady in a huge fuscia down coat which was being blown off her body as she clutched at it desperately. I was mesmerized by the fuscia and it had a big diagonal yellow and black stripe. It was truely horrifying, and besides she was doubled parked next to me at the trian station and I had no choice but to stare at her big hypnotic coat because I could not get out of my parking spot
And then there were these two ladies both with big enthusiatically coifed ash blonde heads and matching-I kid you not- knee length, belted, mink trench coats. I nearly ran them over I was so stunned. And they were standing on the curb leaning out as though they were trying to hail a cab, holding on to each other for balance, and where oh where was the doorman when you needed him. I think they got off at the wrong train stop. Or the wrong paralell universe.
These were but two of my visual adventures as I drove my daughters around and around our lovely island to meet their social and medical obilgations.

Tea Leaves Illustration Friday

I just joined the Illustration Friday group about ten minutes ago and decided to post my first effort. Every week you illustrate a theme that someone has picked. This week's subject was Tea. hehehe...

Ten cents a dance

Today I played with dolls. I made her from a Gail Wilson kit. I have no idea why I feel the need to make tiny things. I find it soothing. I get to finish something.


I posed my model as a skater: a salutation to the Olympics which I have watched here and there during the week. I like watching the events but the hoo ha annoys me. So I only half watch while I am doing other stuff. If the announcing gets too dull I switch to Law and Order reruns.

To pipe or not to pipe

I thought that adding piping to my RR would break up the red and define the center but I am afraid that it cuts into the flying geese! What to do what to do!! I really like the faux piping! What to do!

Sprinter

I did make progress today on my round robin! Almost done if all goes together the way I hope it will.
My kids are on vacation all week so I may whine and moan more than usual.Why do teen age girls get so mean to their mothers? Sometimes I feel like a rung out rag always trying to set an example of how to communicate with out yelling. Well today I snapped and yelled as loud as I could and said" see this is me yelling!!!" and I hurt my throat but now maybe they will stop saying I 'always yell' at them because I hardly ever do. Hurts my throat.
I got my son's graduation quilt back from Becca and Shiela and it is gorgeous! I need to put on a binding and label and woo hoo a big finish! This weekend he is competing in the classical guitar competetion at Ithaca. He is very excited about it. I have a flannel binding all cut out. I may use it but maybe not since there is no flannel in the quilt.

This is my border for the February Chris Boehringer Snowman block. I still haven't stitched it down. I'm a sprinter, rather than a jogger, in sewing and other areas of my life. My challenge is to do a little daily instead of trying to do a marathon and then doing nothing for days. I am in the Wiproducers@yahoogroups.com group and that is a big concept there-one thread a day.
On my next post I hope to announce that I am finished with this round robin and awaiting the next one.

Valentines

Here is a variation on the Valentine I made Mike. Isn't it pretty? Is is a compilation of images from pictures and from a painting I did. The boat I made years ago and I altered it in Adobe. I spent hours playing with the layers in Adobe Elements last night. If anyone ever doubted the expanse of the human mind they need to delve into this Adobe program. Boggles. And I am only using a non pro version.
Any way Mike was pleased with his Valentine and I woke to flowers and coffee. I am making Lasagna for dinner at home and I even promised to move the printer off the dining room table. Temporarily of course.
Now I must do some blocks and carry on with my day. It is already past noon here! And I have things to sew!

Paper pleasures

Did I forget to mention that I love paper too?
The sail boat is folded and painted and gilded with artificial gold leaf.I made it after Mike and I visted the New York sea port in August 2001. It was a gift for him on Valentines day.
The one and half inch sushi box is made with guitar string wrappers(dia dario) and the accordion book is made with two 18 by 24 pieces of water color paper with folded cover sleeves made from hand made paper I found at artpaper.com. Warning-if you love paper and are on a tight budget, this is not a safe place for you.

How cool is that?

I got a bouquet of pink from www.batiksplus.com today. I will add them to the moda marbles I got from www.webfabrics.net for the quilt for Jen and Jason's wedding gift! See the Shoo Fly blocks from the nickelquilts swap? Will this be a cool quilt or what?
I am making progress on my Round Robin. I have all but two blocks made and I have begun to set the squares on the diagonal.I hope to have this complete by end of next week. Or sooner. Then it is on to the next one!
I have become blonde. In need of a change to mix things up a little. I like change.
I learned how to put links and buttons on my blog and I have joined a blog ring. It seems that you must know where to plunk the html code for links or it will not appear. Who knew?

small poem

11/25/05

I would
when I had hair like hers
toss my head
getting it out of my face
before resting on a pillow
like her

when I had hair not like hers
for mine is straight and always has been

before i knew that you can’t go back
not ever

before when finality was nothing more than a vague and impossibly distant abstraction
when days without number
dense and tangled like ancient forests
like names on a wall
or names of the gone in the ledgers of angels

before finality was a possibilty

when to defer meant later
not never

well what of it?

it is not then now
is it

Art quilt jounal quilt mini quilt

Here are my efforts at journal quilting. One will go to the Ami Simms initiative and I will keep two!! The hanger -triangle in the corner method- was described in Ami Simms web site. Cool Huh? They are all my original photographs altered on Adobe Photoshop and printed on Electric Quilt printable fabric.The writing layers are from a letter and a journal page. Two are beaded. I had a hard time sewing through this fabric due to its very tight weave and I think I will try another fabric next time. Someone has suggested using regular fabric ironed onto freezer paper. Since these journal quilts are not to be washed, I will risk it. BTW, I did use new sharp needles and rethreaded and cleaned out the lint in the bobbin case and tried three different threads. The one that finally worked was a Shmetz microtex sharp needle #11 and Sulky 30 wt premium cotton varegated. Phew that was a mouthful.
Warning:non quilty comments to follow..... A woman online was talking about her husband's risking his limb rather than going to the er and having himself treated. It is agreed that this may be a testosterone thing. My dh who fixes airplane engines on the night shift , once stood up on the platform(they are very high) and knocked himself starry eyed on an open engine cowling. He got up and kept right on working. I told him he was the only one I know who would have not taken the opportunity to stay flat on his back and get a week off. The knot on his wee bald head was the size of an egg-and a strange purple color.
We went to the casino in Connecticut yesterday and spent the day playing slots and eating and enjoying mindless entertainment. I broke even. I am not a big spender by any means and I am sure my five dollars surfeit will not hurt the casino.I have only ever gambled three times and I have always broken even so I consider myself very lucky. Now I think I shall desist altogether and not tempt fate!

Quilting for Reason

I am making a small quilt for Ami Simms Alzheimer Quilt Initiative. She is going to raffle them off and the proceeds are being donated to find a cure. If you don't already get her newsletter, I recommend it.
Ami Simms was teacher of the year in 2005 and she is also seen on QNN. Her site is really worth a visit , even if you just like to read about quilts and she how she is doing:)
Of course my sewing machine is behaving badly and I have an appointment this afternoon so I am tearing myself away from this project and will comtinue when I get back. I have a couple of friends who have lost parents to this disorder, and I am intimately aquainted with other mental malfuntions, so lets just say we all have a vested interest in finding cures for this and other related maladies. I hope to make one for Ami to auction and one for me to keep as a journal quilt.I have made one for practice and hope to make at least one that is good enough to donate. The picture above is one of the pages that I made in Adobe from a photo I shot on the boardwalk in the fog. The writing is from a letter I found from my mother from a million years ago.I will work on the embellishment and stitching tomorrow.

Where do we eat and other mysteries

Funny you should mention design walls...my problem is I have too
many things hanging on the wall and not enough walls. But I did
remove one painting which is now on the dining room table-along with
my printer and ironing stuff and computer!! ...and I hung some
flannel on the wall so I can play with the blocks I am making for my
round robin. It is not huge but it will 'do'.

I made an error calculating the size of my round robin border blocks
so I don't know what to do!! I will put a picture in the I am working
on it file and see what you guys think.I am thinking of putting the
blocks on point-that may work, or using different spacer blocks,
narrower.Or if I add another inch to the inner border... They did
look good in EQ5. Not to worry. I will figure something out.
So that is my story for today. You do not want to hear the one about
my vacuum! Bad words were said. I am not proud.

I did not finish my journal block due to my Photoshop disability, but
I have not lost hope! It is still in the running! I need to learn how to make a collage in photoshop. Perhaps I should refer to the book??? I promised myself that I would read the whole thing but I always end up looking up stuff as I need to.
I spent too much time last night trying to make my blog more interesting but I am not
that savvy. I could not make a links button so I guess I will have to
try again another day! It just takes too much time. I need to spend some time studying this as well. So much to learn- who could ever be bored?
bye for now
martha

Our walk

The tempurature here reads 56 degrees fahrenheit. We walked along the edge of the Atlantic. It is always glorious and even more on a day in January which by all rights should be cold and harsh along the water. Today seemed a gift, and so we took it.
I wish I could share the salt spray and air and the warmth of the sun along with pictures.
Now we are home and it is past noon and we both have things we hope to accomplish today. Mike is grouting the tile!!! Woo Hoo! and I am going to stitch some blocks and maybe later for fun I will do a Gail Wilson kit.
www.gailwilsondesigns.com
The four legged friend was just stopping by for a visit and sniff.

I have fears about not being able to replace fabric. It causes me to hesitate before cutting a piece of beautiful material, cut into my stash. It causes me to buy when I know I have enough. It is not a good feeling. So I am somewhat stuck. I noticed it today when I was making a drawing for a journal quilt and I thought about using some beautiful hand dyed fabric I have and I noticed my sense of loss when thinking of using this fabric. Once it is used, it is gone and the dreams are gone,the dreams of the other things I can do with it and the anxiety about not being able to replace it because yes in order to feel safe I do need a my art, and my means to create it. I guess that is the bane of the quilter/artist. I do experience these pangs when using all art supplies, not about food or money or clothes, but beautiful supplies.Fabric thread paint cancvas pastels pencils clay
So it is now that I have to fall into to my faith and trust that the great provider will continue to give me what I need. I used to feel like these things-beauty, color, art, quilts, a studio, were superfluous. But now I understand that these fabrics and paints and threads, pencils and paper, are necessary for me to feel happy and purposeful.It does the world no good for me to be miserable. I used to think my need to create was a less than important purpose. I did not have fame or a following. I had made no lasting impression in the world. I was, therefore, not important.
I look at the sky and I think God is a wonderful painter and creator and it is not wrong or shallow to want to create beautiful things like God does. It is not wrong to want to be like God.
Somewhere in my life someone put terrible wrong ideas in my mind-that it is virtuous to live in lack, morally shallow to make pretty things and now it is part of my journey to have to take back my voice and my ownership and be a co creator with God.

The pics are the round robin that I received from Germany last week. I am so excited to begin work on it. I am going to make my border a frame of Dear Jane blocks which I have all printed from eq5 and ready to go. I do love my eq5! And Dear Jane and Dear Hannah and Nearly Insane and and and ...
Another trip to the ER last night as we watched my hand swell up to the point where I had no knuckles and turned purplish.Doc said it was a blood clot but not the kind we have to worry about. He said cold and hot compresses and no aspirin or ibuprofen which are blood thinners. Well the doc who did the surgery put me on 800 mgs of ibuprofen so who knows. I will just stop taking it altogether.
Friend and internet mentor, Tilde has pointed out that many of us have many crafty interests! I do have many other creative interests, but sewing has always been my favorite, like mac and cheese,or beef stew or chili (maybe I have too many comfort foods?) it is comfort substance.
I sort of took a leave of absence from the lofty and demanding world of fine arts when my dd started having troubles which were eventually diagnosed as bi-polar disorder. I needed to be in familiar territory and comforted by the feel of fabric.I am a fabric fondler! There is also the theraputic value of piecing together fabrics to make a whole. KInd of like piecing together my life. I know this sounds corny but , for me, it is true. And in the last few years the amazing community that has been facilitated by the internet! What a gift to have you all "by my side". And lastly(?) the finished quilt to gaze lovingly upon. There is no better medicine.
As for the cross stitch projects-well, I will keep those in hiding. I think I have three that are in various stages of progress -two Christmas and one other. Through the years my daughters have all gone through the friendship bracelet stages and I have given them my floss to use up. I had it arranged in three ring binders, cut to the right length for stitching and strung through holes which I punched in old manilla folders. The supplies are all tucked away in a cabinet under the tv. With the polymer clay stuff....
Yesterday-for the first time in a year or more, I prepped a canvas for painting. May or may not put paint on it. Haha. I have many other canvases prepped. Today I will do quilty things.
Love and peace and creative energy to you all.
m

Thirties Bullseye Blocks

Got these blocks in a swap and just wanted to sew something together. These blocks were swapped with Leoni's NickelQuilts swap group. I am enamored of swapped blocks. You get such a nice variety of fabrics and combinations that you would never think of. I will put it aside for now because I want to work on my round robin. I am in the idea stages and I am pretty sure I am going to make a row of stars for my round. Maybe in a couple or three different sizes.
We are back from visiting Mike's family-a final send off for his Aunt Olga, and we are ready to call it a night at eight thirty!And I am computer sharing so I am outta here.

cookies?

Today i sewed together 36 ten inch nine patch blocks for my swap. All are ironed and folded and ready to be put in the envelopes and mailed off. I also sorted all of my remaining thirties fabrics into colors-the pile is getting smaller and smaller. I also received a nice round robin to work on. More on that later.
Seems like we will not be going to Vermont next week after all, I am not disappointed. I am only a tentative skier and I can think of better things to do with my time than to drive nine hours to strap sticks on my legs and hurl myself off the side of a mountain, spend two nights, and turn around and drive nine hours home again. I love my friends and my husband but I also love room service and quiet strolls through museums.....am I spoiled. I guess so. And I am not comfortable leaving my kids for that long now that they are evil teenagers.
And maybe dh will finish the &*(&^^%$%$$#%#$@ bath room!!! Tomorrow he is going to the motorcycle show and he will come back with new resolve to finish this week so he can get another job and a new bike??? maybe not. maybe i need to get out more, but not skiing and not to motorcycle shows. The last time I went it was so crowded I could not push my way through the the thronging mass of flesh. Since Mike wants to see the custom bikes and that is where it is most crowded, I am sitting this one out. Maybe I can work on my wonderful round robin.....
Maybe I have pms. Maybe cookies will help.Maybe oatmeal cookies.