Year's End: Answering the Call

Cyndi Souder waxed rhetorical in her latest blog (http://www.moonlightingquilts.com/): why do we feel the need to count our accomplishments as well as account for our actions over the past year? Most of us don't have to deal with the breast-beating that can go on during Yom Kippur, and I, having only 1.75 breasts left, am neither going in for the beating nor for the fasting on New Year's Day. However, there's been history made and we need to learn from it lest we repeat our mistakes, right? Talk about pain!

My biggest quilt-related mistake and resulting emotional pain was answering a colleague when she confronted and accused me of selfishly making a cancer victim on our faculty a get-well quilt. Not only did I have the temerity to make the quilt, I also had nerve to ask faculty members help make blocks and then sign the quilt with their wishes for our friend's recovery. To this day I don't understand what that colleague's point was, especially since she had been included in the process, and I know I should have walked on. There will be other quilts if needed, but there will never be another reply to such a bizarre "accusation." I hereby resolve to smile, nod, walk on.

On-going mistakes: I cannot leave an interesting craft book in the store. I have books on all the varieties of quilts and the skills needed to make them (of course), collage, journals, altered books, book making (not gambling, the actual making of books), art dolls, surface design, embellishment, jewelry making, machine embroidery. I pulled enough books yesterday to donate to my quilt guilds so that I have only 260 left and now they fit on my shelves. Cool. A library is a wonderful thing.

Not necessarily. I actually memorize these books. I can't remember my sister's birthday (born on my 10th), but I can remember many trivial techniques so well that I'm often in the middle of using one before I realize what I'm doing. Ask me the best way to do something and I'll reply with a title and/or an author that will help you.

What's so bad about this? It's expensive. On the oft chance that I may ever want to use a particular technique, I scour the universe for all the supplies that might be needed. I spent three weeks last spring finding 1" acrylic disks and solvent ink to make 3-D embellishments for a fabric journal I may make someday. (Fabric Art Journals by Pam Sussman, page 47--took me all of 30 seconds to get my hands on the right book and find the page I needed for that piece of documentation.) I have cabinets, closets, shelves, boxes full of art "supplies" for any number of projects that have caught my eye. My kitchen should be so well stocked! I hereby resolve to use more stuff than I buy. What do I do with the finished projects?

NO PROBLEM! I never finish anything. Mistake Number Three. Why is closure so difficult for me? Fear of failure or fear of losing a good friend? It's like this: I never finished reading All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren because the man is a poet. I never, ever want to stop reading that kind of prose. Also, I don't want the protagonist to lose the girl. If I finish the book, he loses the girl and I lose a friend. If I finish a project, I no longer have that which has given me so much angst/pleasure and I lose a friend. After a LONG time, I just this week finished Ghosts of Jerusalem (see below). Sewing that label was very difficult because now the quilt is no longer my baby. It belongs to the world.

So, what have I accomplished this year? I've amassed volumes of knowledge, learned a bunch of skills, produced a few decent quilts, and entered two in a show. What do I resolve? Use the knowledge (and the supplies), work harder on the production end, finish that which is worth finishing, and finally get my work "out there."

Oh, and SMILE, NOD AND WALK ON.

Closure!

Pinch me. No, really. Go ahead and pinch me. I must be having an out-of-body experience.

I finished my plaid quilt ("To the Gypsy in Me") and readied it and my Jerusalem moon quilt ("Ghosts of Jerusalem") for the MAQF show. I made a special trip to the post office just to send my images, application blanks, and entry fees to New Hope. This is not me I've been watching. I am far too lazy to follow through on anything as important to me as entering my first juried show, albeit a "friendly" show, as Cyndi calls it. This must have something to do with all the other events bubbling in the bizarre cauldron called my life.

Here are the entrants:

The finished "To the Gypsy in Me" (31.5" x 28")

And "Ghosts of Jerusalem" (22" x 24")

Tomorrow I will experiment with gelatin monoprinting ("Printing From Your Panty" by Rayna Gillman) and hope to show off my efforts at HQU in February. I'll let you know how it goes.

Tyvek Explorations

"Tyvek Explorations" is an on-line class offered through Joggles.com. This piece shows some Tyvek that was painted on both sides with Lumiere then stitched onto some batik and some cheap velvet. The accompanying bright orange fabric is lame'. All stitching was done in one swell foop--fastening and quilting are the same threads. After all was fastened securely, I hit the Tyvek and the neighboring double-sided lame' with my heat gun. Tyvek melted everywhere except at the stitching. The lame' melted toshow the color I faced it with. Lots of controlled shredding.

The piece needs an edge. Typically, I didn't finish it. I had to be somewhere else instead.

Do I like it? Is it finished? Where is it supposed to go from here? All excellent questions and all without answers.

Fall-adelphia Weekend

Halloween weekend in Philadelphia seemed like such a good idea when we planned our trip. I had four stops on my itinerary: Ardmore and Lonni Rossi's store; Philly and the Snyderman-Works Gallery; Intercourse and The People's Place quilt museum and store; and Adamstown and some antiques malls. Mike added a few surprises: dinner with his brother--which turned into roll-on-the-floor hysterical laughing fun (who knew?), a cheesesteak lunch on South Street (NOT on my diet), and a visit to his JCFS woodworking teacher to tour his studio (almost as good as Carol Taylor's digs).

My priority was getting my foot in the door of Lonni's store. The last time I tried to shop there, the store was closed-not fun after a four-hour drive. But this time not only was the store open, everything was 20% off! Just think: Handpainted Lonni Rossi fabric! OH MY! And on SALE!!! See Susan drool. See Susan buy a few yards of very damp fabric just to avoid a lawsuit. Only the white and gray fabric is handpainted. The other $70 worth is "merely" commercial goods. I must say I was not eager to leave the store, but there were my husband and puppies to consider. Tell me why that's important, please.

Our next stop was Pa. Dutch country where we ate an abominable lunch of bland, fatty, uninspired sandwiches much like the food of my childhood--but at least there was no ring-balogna--and I visited The Olde Country Store and quilt museum. The store downstairs has every kind of quilt fabric in print, except, of course, Lonni's. It's not cheap, but there's a lot of it: traditional, dependable, predictable. I bought some fat quarters in shades/hues/tints of browns, rusts, and beiges, plus two yards of Amish black. I was wearing my Obama button and as I paid for my $50 worth of fabric was treated very curtly by the proprietress. McCain country. Gun-toting, Bible pounding, right to lifing, capital punishing, war mongering, half-truth and scare tactics spouting McCain country. I wonder if they every saw pictures of Sarah in her thong.

But I digress. We met Mike's brother for dinner in Villanova (Maia--very modern, trendy, plus side of average food) and spent the night in Exton, PA. The next day found us in Philly at the Snyderman-Works Gallery and on South Street. The gallery is inspiring. Some of the art was bizarre and seemed as if it were torn from the artist's soul. Some was serene--apparently from more peaceful souls. I resolve to follow where my ideas take me instead of trying to impress other people. My current path isn't leading me anywhere. It's not working.

This may seem like a lot of driving. It was. We had planned to spend Friday in Philly, Saturday in Lancaster, and Sunday in Adamstown. But then the Phillies had to go and win the World Series. Philadelphia was NOT a place to be in on Friday. We flipped our plans so that there would be room for us in the city by Saturday.

Saturday's lunch, a cheesesteak hoagie, was an improvement over the previous day's pseudo-German garbage. After another night in Exton--early to bed due to sheer exhaustion of running heite to beite (forgive me, Yiddish police), we were off to Adamstown antique malls. We went to two large establishments and bought nothing. I was simply too tired to think clearly and refused to spend money on the wrong stuff and have a tastelessly over-decorated foyer. Consequently, my foyer table will remain tastelessly under-decorated for another year. We were on the road by 10:15 and paid a visit to Mike's woodworking teacher in Strasburg (whatever--the town with the railroad) before starting on our way home. It was fun, mostly, but I'm really, really tired of the inside of Mike's car.

Melange Mania

Good news! A very nice woman came to take away my Civil War fabric, freeing me to play with my painted canvas. Et voila!

I lie. There was nothing fast and easy about this mess. I painted (stamped, dabbed, spritzed, silk screened) every piece of the fabric used in this 34 x 29" rag. I began it months ago for Cyndi's class. It started as a mark-making exercise using black paint on watercolor paper. I criss-crossed my paint, added something puffy, and came away with plaid.

Since then I've been arranging, stitching, ripping, rearranging, stitching, ripping, gluing, trimming, ripping, and stitching painted canvas until I'm sick to death of the piece and may need to put it away for a while before I quilt it. On second thought, I never get back to projects once I put them away to "cook." I'd better keep it out in plain sight where it will continue to annoy the heck out of me so that I finish it. THEN I'll hide it away.

The quilt (still to be quilted and embellished) contains fabrics I painted (etc.) in classes and at home over the past year and a half. It's busy since I still don't know when to stop adding things. At least I'm restricting myself to a few colors (yes, that's a few), and that's progress.

My husband (bless his heart--Southerners know what that means) commented that I'm developing my own style. Sure is: Schizophrenia.

Civil War Sale

Every time I come home from a cash therapy session, I wonder where I'm going to put my therapeutic goodies. It's been flying under the radar for some time, but there's a bin in my closet devoted to Civil War and 1800s reproduction fabrics. Say WHAT? Have I been paying attention lately? Couldn't that space be put to better use?

I was collecting those fabrics for a very good reason, and they are very good fabrics at $10 a yard or so. My husband was interested in joining a Civil War reenactment group a couple of years ago and I was going to make quilts to sell at the events. Now that he's over it and on to studying physics and the origins of the universe, and I'm over using old-fashioned designs, the fabric must go.

A couple of weeks ago I spent an entire weekend cutting Eleanor Burn's Underground Railroad quilt and have been assembling it ever since. The borders are ready to apply and I've gathered the larger cuts of my CW collection to piece into a backing. In a couple of hours this puppy will be ready to find a willing (and cheap) quilter. Because I chose all the fabrics in one swell foop, I'm not pleased with some of the choices but am sure others will not object. This 60 x 90" quilt will be for sale at cost. There is just too much money invested in it to donate it.

The remainder of my CW fabrics will be offered for sale. Most are fat quarters, some are odd large scraps, and some are half or full yards. A guesstimate this morning told me I have about 10 yards left. I would be happy getting $50 for the lot.

I can't wait for this episode of my quilting life to be over. Is there a traditional quilter out there who would like a bargain?

A day with Laura Cater-Woods

Artistic Annex is hosting workshops with Laura Cater Woods this weekend. I participated in Laura's "Off the Wall and Onto the Page," a mixed media (me? mixed media? go figure) class. Laura showed us the effects of so many nifty, gotta-have items like Drainage Screen (cheap-o garden supply) and Lutradur (not cheap, not garden, but very cool stuff). Then there was all the nifty, gotta-have stuff at Judy Gula's shop in Alexandria. If you have never met Judy or taken a class with her or shopped with her at many quilt or surface design shows, you are missing something special. Check her out on line. She doesn't sell yard goods, but if you're serious about surface design, you canNOT live without what she does sell.

The project: A two-sided, three-panel standing "book"

I used one of my Immaculate Conception's images (Ateroa in New Zealand) as the basis for my "book" still in need of "binding." I made several prints on computer fabric and one on Extravorganza. One of the prints came out in gray tones for some reason (user error, no doubt), but it was a wonderful mistake that became a Unifying Element for my piece. I added some silk paper--needs trimming--I made two summers ago at John Campbell (I can't remember whose class it was, and I remember everybody memorable. Shame!) and some of the canvas I painted with Elizabeth Busch this past summer at QBL. I used lame' and trapped some charms in tulle as touted by Bernie Rowell, but with limited success (read: looks like yetch and needs a bit of re-thinking). Embellishments to date are gold thread and some of those Middle Eastern evil eye charms that have a name but I can't remember that either.