Art, Quilts, and Other Adventures

Stray Threads

Just some miscellaneous things that I have been thinking about:

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels:  I was at the grocery store yesterday, and bought some Pop-Tarts.  We usually get the 12 pack (and I don't really know why they call it that:  yes, there are 12 individual pastries, but they are packed in twos, so to me it is a 6-pack), but I was excited to see that they are know selling a new Family Pack -- 16 pastries in a box.  I stood for a minute trying to calculate how much of a savings it was.  I was convinced it was at least a small deal -- after all, isn't the point of buying in larger quantities the notion that you can get a smaller per-item cost???  When Mark got home I told him about it.  He thought for a minute and said, wait, didn't you just spend more for the privilege of a larger quantity?  I ran to the computer to use the calculator).  Darn it.  I fell for it!!!  I paid 20 cents per individual Pop-Tart for the 16 pack.  The 12 pack is only 18 cents per Pop-Tart.  I know, not a huge difference, but it makes me mad that I fell for that particular marketing ploy.

Moral of the story:  take a calculator and do the math.  Make sure the really good deal, really is a good deal.

Quilts that talk to me:  Do your quilts talk to you?  Are they bossy?  Mine are.  My January 12x12x12 piece has decided that it wants me to add a bunch of beads to it.  I'm just glad that because of the quantity of participants, the powers that be have asked us to spread our reveals out -- mine is isn't until the 16th (instead of tomorrow, like it was originally going to be!)

Collaborative Journaling: While at the bookstore yesterday, I got the book Alphabetica by Lynne Perella.  I have looked at before, but finally decided to get it.    She and 14 other artists worked on collaborative journals -- they each started one and then basically did a round robin -- each artist worked on each journal in turn.  And their theme was letters and numbers (ha!  right up my alley!).  I have to admit that there are a lot of things in the book that don't appeal to me.  But, on the whole, I love looking at all of the artwork.  I'm really fascinated by the concept of a collaborative journal -- whether it be with one person or with a whole group.  I know I don't really need another new project, but if this is something that might be interested to someone else reading my blog, will you send me an e-mail???

Selective Senses: My husband has been the main launderer around here lately.  I'm trying to surprise him today by doing 2 loads of laundry.  And by "doing,"  I mean actually doing them from start to finish, and not forgetting about the wet clothes in the washer...I'm not sure why it's such a hard concept for me.  My office is also my laundry room, so the washer and dryer are less than 4 feet away from me.  I accuse my boys of having selective hearing, but apparently I have selective eyesight or something.

I'm pretty sure there were some other stray threads floating around that I wanted to blog about, but I can't remember what they were....

Cleaning my Brushes

Several months ago I signed up for an e-mail newsletter from an artist named Robert Genn.  The newsletter arrives twice a week (In fact, it's called Robert Genn's Twice Weekly Letter).  Genn is a painter, and many of his newsletters are specific to painting, but at the same time, they are...not.  They are universal subjects that really do affect all artists.  I have learned a lot from the newsletter itself, and from the reader comments that get published on the website later in the week.

This week's newsletter was a response to a question about how to clean paint brushes.  Genn talks about his methods, and admits that there are probably artists all over the world cringing at his treatment of his tools.  (He doesn't abuse them, really.  It just sounds like he doesn't exactly do it the way his art teachers taught him).

He then goes on to talk about a fellow student back in art school.  This young man spent a lot of time cleaning his brushes.  So much time, in fact, that he never actually did any painting and was asked to leave.  I think Genn said that the man eventually became a dentist.  And now that I type that, I get how funny that is really supposed to be.  I'm slow sometimes.

As I was snoozing this morning it occurred to me that this is what I have been doing.  I've been "cleaning my brushes."  I have a number of things that I'd like to explore, but instead of DOING something about these ideas, I've been reading, and thinking, and trying to find the perfect sketchbook or book to alter, trying to find the perfect markers or, pens or..... In other words, I've been cleaning my brushes.

Spending time blogging (and thinking about blogging) has started to push me into accomplishing more (like I said last night -- in order to post something interesting, first I have to *do* something interesting...).  Yesterday's newsletter, though, really helped gel in my mind why I feel like I'm spinning my wheels some days.   I think I'm going to make myself a sign, and hang it over my computer:  "Are you DOING or are you CLEANING YOUR BRUSHES???"

First, though, I need to find the perfect paper to do it on.  And should I use markers or print it on the computer?  What color should it be?  Should I decorate it with doodles, or just print the text......... (wink, wink...)

Faces

Apparently TypePad has been up and down today, I almost thought I wasn't going to be able to post this evening!

My sister-in-law came over this morning with some pictures to scan.  We bought Grandma and Grandpa a digital frame for Christmas.  (A 10.4 inch frame from PhotoVu).  Unfortunately, it wasn't here before Christmas (delayed at the factory in China....), but it is finally here and we are working on loading it with adorable pictures of our kids.  She ended up staying and chatting for quite awhile which was nice -- it gets a little lonely here at home sometimes. 

Speaking of adorable pictures -- I haven't looked back at some of the really old ones in a long time.  My kids are cute now, but oh my heavens -- they were SO CUTE CUTE CUTE when they were little.    Here's one of my favorites -- Chocolate Chip Cookie Faces.

I did manage to get some stuff done or at least worked on today.  I'll post about one of them tomorrow, since it's a WIP, but the other is progress on my 12x12x12 for January.  I'm not going to post any pictures of the quilt itself, but I will post a picture of the thread I ended up using for my thread painting.  It's some of my new ARC poly thread.  Very fun.  This thread is nice to work with -- runs great in my longarm.  I'll use it in my embroidery machine, too, someday....

I still have more work to do, and I decided that I'm going to probably be doing some beading.  I hope I make it in time for my reveal on the 16th!!!

Remember that cool new software program I talked about yesterday -- ArtRage??  Well, I played with it a little bit more today, too.  I imported a picture of one of the boys, and used it to create a pencil drawing of his face.  I did trace to get the outlines of the shapes, and another time I will try to use the picture as just a reference and do it freehand.  I want to be able to draw so that when I draw things, they look like what they are supposed to, without being cartoony or stick-figures.  I realized something the other day about this.  I want to be able to sit down and draw a chair, or a face, or a tree, or whatever, but right now, my brain doesn't really know what shapes actually make up those things.  I can't just make them up out of my head, because that information just isn't there yet.  I need to continue working on drawing from reality.  I did this some last year (I got Danny Gregory's book The Creative License and I got the book Drawing the on Right Side of the Brain), but I stopped for some reason -- I need to get back on that bandwagon.

This is far from perfect.  I'm happy with how this turned out.  I know a few things I would do differently next time.  I'm particularly happy with his eyes.  Aren't they gorgeous?

(That's his seatbelt underneath his chin -- his Daddy took this through the window while we were stopped getting gas -- you can see the pump in the reflection...)

I think that's enough rambling from me for tonight.  Thanks to all who visit.  Please comment if you can!

Growing up (and some fun task avoidance)

My boys jar of life experiences is still pretty empty, but they now have something new to add to it.  Dealing with a bully.  Actually, I think bully might be too strong a word for the current situation, but I'm keeping my eye on things.  Instead of bully, maybe "really annoying person" could be substituted?  Today's episode included calling the boys "the ugly twins."  I think it kind of hurt Will's feelings -- enough that he actually told the teacher in charge of recess about it.  Just this morning we had talked about the fact that just because this annoying person calls you stupid doesn't actually mean you ARE stupid. 

We talked about it some more for awhile after school.  Later, at supper I said something about the boys being the CUTE TWINS.  Will agreed that MOM was probably right and that this annoying person was WRONG.

I keep telling everybody, having twins was hard work that first year, but that was absolute CAKE compared to this kind of stuff.  At least when they were babies I had complete control over everything.

Shortly after our after school conversation it was time for piano lessons.  It's cold here, but not freezing -- it was maybe in the high 30s/low 40s at the time.  If they were still babies they would have been bundled into heavy coats, hats, mittens, etc.  Not anymore.  Just sweatshirts.  I had to make myself stop my instinct to force them to put their coats on.  Pick your battles, right, Mom?

Speaking of growing up, guess who needs to grow up herself?  Why do I keep having to learn the same lesson over and over again?

Here it is:

The dreaded task that you are just SURE is going to take HOURS and be incredibly painful, in actuality will only take about 5,10, 15 minutes TOPS.  Plus, the relief in having the task done will far outweigh any tiny bit of pain you might feel doing it.

I have learned and RElearned this lesson countless times.  And I'm only 34.  Good grief.  Maybe I should print the lesson and pin it on my wall where I can see it from my computer.

So now, on to more fun things:

Button weighing report:  I own approximately 5 pounds of buttons.  (Not counting the 6 new pounds I reported on yesterday).  More than half of those, though, are buttons I got from an antique store in town last year.  I haven't really sorted through them, but I'm not sure most of those are worth much.  Maybe later (when I need more task avoidance...), I'll spend some time sorting.

So, I was half right -- the buttons I've collected in small amounts on my own over the years add up to about 2.5 pounds.  My goal is to not just collect buttons, though -- I'd like to actually use them!  Vicki made the mistake of mentioning eBay and buttons.  And then she sent me an e-mail with a link to an auction in it.  Oh my.  I'm not sure if I should thank her or not.

(I only ended up bidding on one auction, and I won't allow myself to put in a higher bid, no matter what.  I just realized that the auction isn't over until the end of the week, so I probably won't get these.  Oh well, it looks like there is plenty more.....)

Other ways to avoid tasks:  discover cool new things in CorelDraw. 

I'm using CorelDraw 12 to write/draw my quilting design book.  I bought the software last spring when I did the first book, and it has worked great.  I've been well aware that I'm just barely scratching the tiniest bit of the surface of its capabilities.  I played with the calligraphy pen tool for a bit. I was going to do my blog header with the calligraphy pen, but it didn't turn out quite the way I wanted.  I did make the new header you see above in CorelDraw, but I don't think I really had to figure anything new out to do it.   Well, except maybe to make it so that it wasn't HUGE, but I fixed that pretty quick.

I also discovered a really cool spray tool that can spray objects along the "line" that you draw

No, I don't really know how this is actually going to be useful or helpful in my life, but isn't it cool?

The other thing I did was to find this really cool art program called ArtRage

The drawing/painting tools actually act like the real objects -- paintbrush, crayons, paint roller, pencils.  There's metallic paint and GLITTER.  I was drawing a face earlier and was playing with layers and accidentally lost most of my drawing, so I was pretty bummed about that.  I'll try again later.  I am using my Wacom tablet with it (I love mine...), and probably would be totally hopeless if I tried to use my mouse.  I'm a terrible mouse-artist.  That sounds really weird, but hopefully you know what I mean!

(Make sure you click on it to see the texture of the background.  In the real thing, some of the blue lines of glitter actually sparkle....)

Despite all of this task avoidance, I did actually manage to get several drawings for my book done, so it was not a completely lost day.  We'll see what I can task avoiders I can find tomorrow. (VBG)

Much better now, thanks....

I was so grateful to wake up this morning and not feel horrible.  I took it sort of easy today, as I'm still a little tired, but I should be 100% tomorrow.  Well, at at least 90% anyway.

I actually spent most of the day sewing.  I finished the machine appliqué on my longarm round robin project, and got all of the rows sewn together.  I had this great idea to try making it asymmetrical.  This was, in part, due to the fact that I didn't think I had enough of one of the fabrics to use it as a border all the way around.  Well, I discovered two things:   for one: the asymmetry looks ridiculous, and two: I found another strip of the red fabric that I didn't think I had enough of, so I have some unsewing to do, and some resewing -- and voila, I'll have a finished top.  No pictures of that right now, as I would have to walk to the other side of the house with the camera and that is just not in the cards at the moment.

I will walk a few steps to the counter behind me and snap a picture of the buttons I got yesterday, though.

Six yummy pounds of buttons.  I haven't even opened the baggies yet to dig through them.  What's wrong with me????  I need to sort through my existing stash of buttons so that I can put them all together.  I wonder how many pounds of buttons I have already?  Hmmm.  Add that to my list for tomorrow. 

My prediction:  I probably don't have more than 2 or 3 pounds in my sewing room.  I'll let you know how close my guess is when I do some weighing tomorrow.  I knew that postal scale would come in handy!

One of my other goals for tomorrow:  work on a calendar. 

My name is Suzanne and I am calendar challenged (is there a 12-step program for us?).  I keep appointments on my computer, but that doesn't always work for me -- I don't always have it with me.  I don't always remember to check it.  I have an old Palm, but it just never seemed to work out for me.  I've bought day planners in the past, but I'm never happy with the amount of space (or lack thereof).  I've been looking at calendars again lately, but nothing seems, well...perfect...it has occurred to me that I could probably do something on my own, but what? Well, I found an idea today, and I'm going to try it tomorrow.  I dragged out an old, dusty day planner that I haven't used since 2004 and I'm going to experiment a little with that tomorrow.   I'd also like to use it as a written journal.  We'll see how it goes.

I've done a whole week's worth of my little business card thingies, I'm going to try to see if I can add to my goal to keep up with those the goal of keeping up with a calendar.

Laid low

I guess it is possible to keep a good woman down.  Give her a nasty stomach virus.  That'll do the trick.

Ugh.

So much for all of the fun things I was going to do today.  Maybe tomorrow.  I got my new thread yesterday.  Couldn't even play with it.  Got my new buttons today.  Can't even manage the energy to go take a picture to show you what they look like.  Maybe tomorrow.

The picture of the thread was taken yesterday.  Isn't it pretty?  I feel like I got a brand-new box of crayons, only better.  Maybe tomorrow I'll get to do some coloring.

Right now, I'm going back to bed.  Good thing I never changed out of my flannel jammies with the penguins on them.

My sympathies to anyone that has had this nasty stomach thing, and I sure hope the rest of you don't get it.  Make sure you wash your hands and practice all that other good preventative type stuff.

Almost time to go back to reality

The boys all head back out into the real world tomorrow.  The little ones to school and the big one to work.  It's going to be so nice and quiet here! 

I need to get back to reality, too.  I work from home, so I'm never far from the different projects that make up my work life.  I have let most of them slip back to the back burner over the last week, though, and tomorrow I'd better get back to work.

I've spent today working on a couple of things -- mostly in the studio working on my entry for the Have a Heart contest.  It's my second go at the project.  I decided to keep the first one.  I'm starting to get kind of attached to this one too, but I should be able to part with it without any tears.  It's not completely done yet, and I'm still struggling with how to do part of it, so I'm not going to show it off yet.  How's that for a tease??? It has to be in Colorado by the 15th, though, so I can't contemplate it too much longer.

Last year I joined a Yahoo group called DailyDevotions365.  The idea was to create (or work on) a piece of art every single day (and to blog about it).  I think I did about 3 days worth.  If that.

I did actually spend more time working in a sketchbook last year, just not necessarily everyday. I'm going to try again, but I'm thinking very small this year.  Business card size, in fact.  I bought a new box of blank business cards, and for now I'm going to stick with trying to decorate one a day.  Maybe I'll go bigger later in the year, maybe I'll switch to fiber, who knows.  I've got to start somewhere, right?  I think some of what intimidated me last year was that so many of the participants seemed to have these great ideas and themes and their work was really good.   As I talked about it in a previous post, I still feel like I'm stuck in elementary school, so what I'm doing seems sort of childish to me, but I'm OK with that now.  Honestly.  I look forward to seeing what these look like as the year goes on, and what ideas they might spark for other things.  I'm not going to blog about them, I wouldn't want to bore everybody.  Unless one of them is really cool.  I'm just going to upload them, maybe a week at a time?  Maybe daily?  They'll be in a photo album which I'll link to in the sidebar.

I've thrown a lot onto my plate for challenges and projects and things to accomplish.  Am I crazy?  Maybe. 

The other thing I did today was buy buttons.  I can't remember now where I read the note from Natalie, maybe the QuiltArt list??  (The link is to her Etsy shop, she has a bunch of lots of fabric and other stuff, too).  She is cleaning out her studio and was listing pound bags of buttons.  I think she said she had 50 pounds to get rid of.  About 6 of those pounds will be coming to live with me.  Yes, I guess I am crazy.

No photos of quilts or projects in progress tonight.  But I hate to leave you without a picture or two -- these will most likely make you laugh...

My boys all got haircuts last week, and 2 of them let me shave it to 1/8th of an inch.  My poor DH.  His hairline has been receding for awhile, so we decided to see what it looked like shaved off.  Will agreed to match his Dad.  Here they are feeling each other's heads.

Joe wouldn't let me do the 1/8th inch.  His is a whole 1/4 of an inch long.  And you'll just have to take my word that these are 2 different kids and that I'm calling them by the correct name.

Debra's Birthday Gift(s)

My sister turned 30 a week before Christmas.  I mentioned it at the time.  I'm finally now able to post about her gift from my MOm and I, as it finally got opened.  I sent the box Priority, but it didn't arrive until the day after she and her family left for their Christmas vacation.  Luckily, they had a neighbor looking for it, so it was kept safe until her return.

On her birthday, my Mom sent her flowers at work -- the card said "Gift 1 of 30."

Yup.  We sent her 30 presents.

Here's a picture of the 29 presents we wrapped and mailed to her in all of their wrapped glory:

Some were silly (a bustier purse), some were scrounged from around our houses (a tin for candy), some were really nice (a framed picture of her son), some were antique (well, old anyway -- my Mom sent her the really old Cooky Book that she used to use when we were kids).  Some were practical (tissues, lotion, batteries, etc...), some were just for fun (crayons and a pad of paper, a book about Marshmallow Peeps).  Some were handmade -- an embroidered dishtowel that my mom had made, and a postcard that I made for her. 

She loves sunflowers, so I made one with 30 sunflower petals and her initial.  I wish I had stitched around the edge of the letter to make it stand out better -- live and learn, I guess.  She got a little sack with 30 pennies in it, and several things had 30 pieces of candy in them.  We had fun putting it together for her, and I think she had fun opening it and contemplating all of her goodies.

Happy New Year, Part 2

Phew.  I feel much better today.  I'm not sure what was wrong with me.  I was really worried it was the nasty stomach bug that's been going around.  I had just been talking about it on the phone with my sister before we watched the movie last night, so that's what was stuck in my head.  I made my DH give the boys buckets and a reminder that if *they* woke up feeling sick they needed to aim for the bucket or head for the bathroom.  Luckily, none of us needed a bucket last night, and hopefully we'll stay that way.

Today's post is a list of my goals for the New Year. 

I'm not calling these resolutions and I'm not trying to set myself up for failure.  These are things that I would like to accomplish in 2007, and while I hope I can accomplish every last one of them, I am well aware that life gets in the way and sometimes things don't always turn out how we plan them.

So here we go (and in no particular order):

1.  Self-publish second book of machine quilting designs.
2.  Have at least one teaching engagement (whether in studio or traveling) per month.
3.  Send quilts to Machine Quilter's Exposition, Machine Quilter's Showcase, Home Machine Quilters Showcase, and Innovations.
4.  Submit quilts to at least 1 other national, non-machine quilting specific, quilt show.
5.  Work on my altered book each day.
6.  Complete all of my 12x12x12 monthly quilts, as well as each of the Fast Friday Challenge quilts.
7.  Finish first semester of correspondence classes.
8.  Start second semester of correspondence classes.
9.  Take better care of myself.
10.  Try to send more letters and postcards.
11.  Be open to possibilities and ideas and have fun with the directions in which quilting and teaching and blogging take me in the new year.

I have lots of quilts in me that are itching to get made (and some tops that are itching to get finished).  I won't set myself up for failure by trying to say I'm going to complete a certain number of quilts -- making quilts is, for me, a fact of life, and setting a goal for how many I'm to make isn't going to happen!

I'm enjoying visiting other blogs and reading goals and thoughts about the new year.  I'm still thinking about trying to post a list of how many projects I worked on this past year.  I'm not sure I can remember everything!

Happy New Year

I had great plans for a New Years Eve post, but we were out all day shopping, and right at the moment I am feeling really horrible.  Like I'm coming down with something nasty horrible.  So, I'm going to go throw on my jammies and crawl into my bed and hope that I feel better in the morning.  I sure hope I'm not getting something nasty, as that seems like a really awful way to start the new year!