Autumn Bouquet

I know---it's spring, not fall.  However, I forgot to show the autumn piece I was working on back in Fall 2009.      "Autumn Bouquet" is  27"  x  23 1/2".   The leaves were individually cut out and fused onto a piece of pellon.  I then hand embroidered around and on each leaf, going on to back the "cluster" with black felt. After cutting out and around the outside edges and the inner openings, I bound it all together with embroidery thread.  (I have to admit, after going over and over each leaf, this became less and less of a good idea.)   I'm not sure how I feel about it overall, but I do love the colors.  

Oh, Ward---June Is In The Kitchen!

My daughter, Alex, in the apron I helped her make for the birthday of her friend, Eddie.  He loves to cook and has always wanted to be a "1950's housewife"--he was thrilled !  This is probably also the only time I'll see Alex in an apron!

Deep Thoughts

"To live means sharing one another's space, dreams, sorrows, contributing our ears to hear, our eyes to see, our arms to hold, our hearts to love."

Paul Tillich

That's New To Me!

On Nellie Durand's blog, nelliedurand.blogspot.com, she showed and wrote about how to make flat bindings with a "clapper"---(no lights turning on involved).  I asked where to get one and Nellie replied that someplace like Joanne's should carry it.  Then Kelly Jackson at ihaveanotion.blogspot.com reported that she also carried them at her site under the name of a "seam press".  I thought this "device" was pretty cool! Take a look!

SAQA Auction

Finished my 12" x 12" piece for the SAQA auction and will be mailing it off. It's hand appliqued, embroidered, beaded, with a small amount of quilting. I used commercial fabric, peacock feathers, and glass beads. It's the first time I've ever set out to make a piece a specific size, and I found it challenging at first. I love peacock feathers--the beauty, colors, fragility, and the inherent symbolism of vision and seeing. This is another part of our womanly being which is either often viewed as weakness or denied, but there is splendour in the spaces of a woman's soul.

Searching For A Heart Of Gold

Quest For The Year

"Searching For A Heart Of Gold"

 11 1/2"  x  11 3/4"

          

Deep Thoughts

I had the right to remain silent...but I didn't have the ability.
                                                                  Ron White

Gone Already?

February is zooming to an end.  It began with upgrading to Windows7, everything went haywire, and I ended up on a Trip To The Darkside!  I have again spent hours working, reading, consulting, re-doing, lugging this back and forth to Best Buy.  They would fiddle with it, say it was fine, but it never was.  They kept saying I was doing something I wasn't, etc. Finally, I noticed discrepencies in different people and their information, confronted it,  found out my new program was corrupt.  Then they wanted me to BUY another program and they would install it for me!    I won't go into more detail.  Let's just say a tired, frustrated, middle aged woman who has been getting pushed around is not to be messed with!   Suffice it to say that I have a new program, my computer seems to be working normally, and all repair people/corporate businesses are still accounted for.  (And I didn't pay!)

My Good Old Days

January is drawing to a close, another year is already unfolding, and I’m really experiencing time passing seemingly as I blink my eyes.  I’ve always heard older people say this but, as I age, it does speed by.  I’ve been looking at some old pictures so I can finally make a family history book covering several generations for my children. I came across the following photos of the dolls and the doll bed I made for my daughter for Xmas, 1980 and 1981. I drew and sewed the dolls when the kids were asleep (so Santa could bring them). My daughter, Alex, did a lot of crawling around with them in her mouth; my (older) son, Jesse, whizzed the family around the house in a plastic truck which “wrecked” all the time. For the bed, I used the ends of an old day bed, added boards to the sides, and bottom plywood. Stained it all, and made “sheet,” quilt, pillows. She saw it and hopped right in!

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Sacred Bond

These are from a piece I made earlier this year. I have always been almost magnetically drawn to madonna images. This seems a good time of year to look at this piece. Across cultures and religions the holy mother has been worshipped and honored, her importance recognized and valued. At Christmas, we are, of course, remembering the Christian story of the birth of the Christ. The mother and child bond here was deep and strong. I am surrounded this time of year by these images and meanings. It makes me think about what children are learning about themselves and the world in their first years.

After I had children this moved from concept to truth. The love from mothers before me, and the love I was passing on, was holy and sacred. As the ones who carry children, give birth to them, and are the (mostly) primary caregivers, we have the power to change the world. Do we teach and live our values? Do we love our children unconditionally? And yet establish conditions we must all live with in order for justice and peace to exist? I read once that the most important question we are asked after death is, "Did you love?" Let Christmas remind us yearly what we must ask ourselves daily.

XMAS 2009

My Xmas "card" and one from my daughter--like mother,
like daughter!

Thangka: Summer Grace

This piece is a thangka--a Buddhist image on which to meditate
and center oneself.  It is called "Thangka: Summer Grace."  It is 34 " long and 13 1/2" wide; it appeared "In The Spotlight,"

Quilting Arts Magazine, Fall 2005.  Hand pieced, embroidered,

 beaded, and quilted.

Thanks to Nellie Durand (nelliedurand.blogspot.com) for her compliments on this piece!

Deep Thoughts

We needed...to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life---daily and hourly. Our answer must consist , not in talk or meditation, but in right action and right conduct.

Victor Frankl

More Small Wall Hangings

I've been working at my job a lot lately, read a couple of books in the minutes I grabbed here and there. I started back to work on my "Leaves" piece-- and realized I need to get some more work done for an annual craft & art sale here at SIU (in a couple of weeks)! I'm getting slower and more forgetful--can't wait until the time I forget how slow I am!

Rainy Night City Lights

It's raining tonight. I can hear it hitting the roof and the top of the metal vent. When I was a child, I slept in a little daybed right by a low window over the cistern. The rain would hit and pour onto the roof, falling over and down gutters, and rush echoing and dancing into the cistern. The rain joined the water there, seeming to sing me into dreams. It's still one of my favorite sounds.

This is handpieced, embroidered, and beaded.