Beading With World Beads

 

 

I just received an email from my wonderful editor at Lark Books telling me that Beading With World Beads is now shipping.  I am eagerly waiting for my contributors’ copy.  I submitted something like twenty designs for this book and had eight accepted for publication.  The parameters of the project were to use funky, ethnic, and natural beads in your designs.  I had much fun digging into my huge stash of African trade beads, Chinese turquoise, and Thai silver beads to make the pieces I have in this book.  When my contributors’ copy arrives I will post more details, but for right now I just wanted to get the word out. 

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

Well, I sure hope I actually get a summer vacation, but it was the next best thing starting Friday evening when Aisha and I headed out to our friend Nancy’s cabin for the Athens County Knitters’ retreat.  Nancy lives about 20 minutes from here, out on one of the wonderful green and leafy hillsides that surround my home, and the cabin is nestled in amongst those trees, well back from the road and it was like being in another world.

Mostly we knitted and ate, and ate and knitted, and laughed and then knitted some more.  But I also managed to:

Paint a yarn bell.  We painted plain terracotta flower pots, oriented upside down so that we could put a ball of yarn under it, feeding the thread through the drainage hole at the top.  The yarn doesn’t get away in all the mad knitting that can then ensue.  Mine features happy giraffes, rose bushes, and fish bones hiding in the dirt below.

I also finished a snail from the Hansigurumi book, and made a raccoon-fox from the new OddBod Knitting book (they are on the pieces I’ve been sewing for the Next Big Project):

And I got some new to me shoes from Nancy’s mother (like the Sweet Potato Queens, who are all named Tammy, all the Athens County Knitters are named Nancy)

Then today Natalie came over and I worked on my adirondack chair (warning, obligatory bead content ahead):

The back of the chair (worked on over several months)

Detail of chair back, including some wonderful stoneware faces from Earthenwood Studios, bone beads and ceramic alien heads.

And the seat of the chair, in process, including a jumbo malachite cabochon and more stoneware and bone beads.  I am hoping to have this finished for our Innovative Art Alliance show.  We are hanging the show on May 30. 

So there you have it, what I did on my summer vacation, as such.  I hope you all had a great weekend!

Thoughtful Thoughts, Thinking

Because of that wonderful line in "Help" something along the lines of "I am a good shot, shooting" :) Who doesn't love the line of form fitted pants under a full tunic? (I also loved Emma Peel and Julie Newmar's Catwoman, what can I say?)

We are in the in between again, that odd place that some call "falling through the cracks" but is more like a place where time, while not standing still, gives us a little breather from being what the world considers "normal". I have signed on for Eric Maisel's month-long "productive obsession" group, and have set myself a goal of getting into the studio from 1-4 M-F in order to produce the big pieces that look so good in the museum settings. I have managed to get upstairs every day so far, not for the full three hours yet, life and allergy induced headache/lethargy got in the way.

Focusing on the work enables me to put aside the constant anxiety about the job situations, as when every time I was pregnant I had this odd sense of being safe/protected/free of all responsiblity except growing the new life we had made. Not really realistic, but the relaxation of letting go of the stress enabled me to be more productive and efficient in my life because it didn't matter as much. I had, as they say "bigger fish to fry".

Last night we went to see the poet/author Kim Addonizio give a lecture/reading on campus. She talked about mining already existing stories and myths for source material, about writing about the characters on the edge of well known stories, such as the current trend toward books about people like Jo's father in the new book "March" and of course Gregory McGuire's series of revisited fairy tales and stories. I had an epiphany about a story that's been percolating in my head about characters from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, that it doesn't have to be a novel, it can be a poem, and I am excited about playing with the idea again.

Words have been begging to come out, while I am sewing my head is filled with words: Frida telling me about blog posts we can write, ways to maybe help other people find good even in the middle of this economy, thoughts about the creative process that are "profound" and "thoughtful" and "mature" and all those things that all those "other" bloggers manage to write, but which stop just at the end of my fingertips when I sit down to actually write them, even though I know they are in there. (I am seriously considering a recorder to use while I am sewing, because this is maddening).

And I close with this, a sort of prose poem/morning page/free write that I made this morning, describing my trip home earlier this week in this place of magic and wonder:

"Green grass on the hills short and fuzzy like down on a baby duck. The mists surround the hills, bringing the sky to the ground once more. The words itch, they burn, they beg to come out and play, to do the somersaults and cartwheels I could not do. I hear the wet whoosh of the wheels as they slice through the water as we speed along through this landscape where gods used to walk. Today no gods, just me, in a turquoise Tempo."

Management From the Top Down

I am not a hair chick.  Never really have been, probably never really will be.  My one foray into hair chick-ness was back when I worked at Wendy’s in Bryan/College Station, Texas.  My running buddy Mike talked me into having my hair done by his friend who worked at the cosmetology school.  I ended up with a beautiful, body-permed, burgundy mullet, which he would do each day before we went out (I also bought my first curling iron at his urging, and yes, occasionally I did my own hair). 

Fast forward too many years later, and I became frustrated with trying to find a good hair style (I have a natural wave and no matter what the haircut I seemed to end up with Farrah hair) so let my hair go, and as they say, I also had “let myself go”. 

My good friend Diane bought a piece of artwork from me, and as she handed me the payment she said “I want you to use this on yourself”.

Well, Alyson Hannigan (Willow from “Buffy”) had just gotten a cute bob with a slight wave.  I thought it might work on my hair.  I lucked into finding Amy at Regis, and was happy for many many years.  The hair was also part of a “top down” makeover at the time, which ended with me over 100 pounds lighter and much healthier.  I thought I was an “after with a vengeance”.

Life intervened, in the form of hormone upheaval (mine) job upheaval (my husband) and just general upheaval.  In the middle of not knowing when the next regular paycheck would arrive, my hard-earned new regime slipped a little.  Instead of tomatoes and brown rice, I found myself nibbling on the cookies I was baking for the local coffee shop; and instead of walking five times a week, I found myself sitting on the sofa or at the computer.  Haircuts also went by the wayside, as I chose to use what windfalls came my way on other, longer lasting items.

Today, I got a real haircut and style.  Tomorrow I am buying a packet of funky stickers at Target (part of the weight loss/getting in shape regime involved the very simple yet satisfying act of putting a cool sticker on my calendar each day I worked out).  My friend Lucky bought me a basic yoga DVD last year for my birthday and I have already been laying down some stickers. 

Here I am with my new haircut:

(I also bought some of that makeup Ellen has been advertising for, as I swear by my Oil of Olay Regenerist Serum; did I also mention I am not a makeup )

Who knows? Maybe I will look into some hot rollers next!

How to Get Ahead in Life

Well, one can work hard, put in long hours, make sacrifices and difficult choices.  That’s one way to get ahead in life.

OR, you can get ahead from eBay.  A dozen of them, in fact, for only $48, including shipping and insurance.  Here they are, waiting for their debut as part of my upcoming hat exhibit at The Canton Museum of Art.

Back to work!

Gocco, My Gocco or The Rewards of Patience

Several years ago I received a Print Gocco for my birthday.  It is a device that flashes small silkscreens to make cards and other fun stuff with.  I made several screens of various designs for projects as varied as mermaid ornaments to individual doll panels to surface design on fabric for quilts.  Then the company who makes the Gocco decided to quit exporting it to the US and I hoarded my remaining bulbs and screens (I have since found suppliers, but I still have to have a Very Special Project to pull out the screens and bulbs).

While quilting the quilt that never ended (it finally did, yesterday, yay!) I had lots of time to think about what I was going to do next.  This piece is about 50” x 80” and there will be a lot of blue sky in the background of the wonderful red and white checked tower.  What to do with that space, beyond the basic quilting, I didn’t know.   However, I figured since the quilting was taking forever I could, like Scarlett O’Hara, think about it tomorrow.

The answer came while changing bobbins at one point (I went through a LOT of bobbins).  Make a Gocco screen from my reference photograph and screen print the quilt with lots of little white water towers (I knew that they had to be white, to help with the “realistic sky” feel of the background).

Yesterday, after I had done my happy dance upon completing the quilting, I dug out my Print Gocco.  I scanned the photo into my other computer and printed it out.  Then I drew on the printed image using an Ebony pencil (they have enough carbon for the Gocco to work), flashed my screen, and…

Could not find the stamping accessory attachment that I received with the Gocco.  No clue if it was where the Gocco was, and the bathroom/storage room is kind of full right now due to almost every book’s projects having come home from the publisher.  So I had to do it old school, using an old credit card as a squeegee.

The tower, in full and you can see the legs of other printings in the corner.  It is not as detailed as the original photo, but I am still happy with how it’s turning out.  I probably wouldn’t have thought of doing this had the piece not taken so long to quilt, so there is something to be said for working on big pieces that take forever to make.

Next up, heat setting and binding.

Published!

Late last month I received my contributor's copy of the new book Stitched Jewels: Jewelry That's Sewn, Stuffed, Gathered & Frayed, by Marthe LeVan. I designed a lotus choker and a set of earrings, based on the flower piece I made for an earlier book, and was eager to see what the other artists had come up with.

The book covers everything from the very basics on how to do hand-stitching and machine stitching, to the properties of different fabrics and what to expect when using them. Since the focus is on jewelry, there is also a section on findings and jewelry construction, all presented in a simple, easy to read format. Gallery images of fabric jewelry are scattered throughout the book for inspiration. The projects range from simple to sophisticated and I am very proud to have been included in this book with the other talented designers. It's a great book to have on your shelf, and if you have even a small fabric stash and the desire to make something fun with it, this is a good book to start with.