Color, Line, and Texture

Ideas for the Assisi Stitch

2009-03-21T12:59:00.001-07:00

I was pretty enthusiastic about the Assisi stitch when I read about it in Clearwater. Yes, I confess I dropped $5 at the cyber cafe for 15 minutes of Internet time to read Sharon's blog. At the time, I thought the stitch had a lot of possibilities. I had collected some shells while I was walking the beach at low tide and I thought I could work their images into the design.

But I just wasn't getting a contemporary feeling from the shell direction. One of my wishes this year has been to make my work a bit more free-form and less traditional. So, I pulled out a book of postcards I purchased last year at the Frank Lloyd Wright exhibit and tried to adapt one of his designs for my panel. Here's the diagram that I prepared:

After a lot of erasing, re-arranging, and review of several stitch dictionaries, I just couldn't picture how this would look when all the stitching was done. I really liked the mix of round, square, and triangular shapes FLW used in his "City by the Sea" (unintentional beach theme going here). But it just didn't feel right (Wright?) being worked in Assisi stitch. I felt like the contemporary was clashing with the traditional.

So, I returned to the 100% traditional route and thought about snowflakes. Here's the layout for the panel, but I jettisoned that idea, too. Snowflakes, shells - both traditional and not what I was aiming for. However, for those of you who would like to use snowflakes, may I respectfully recommend The Floss Box (www.blog.theflossbox.com). The site has at least 25 snowflakes that could be easily adapted to Assisi work, and the patterns are free for downloading. Blessings on the women and men who offer their work to the rest of us.

So, I tried one more time for a contemporary design using FLW's art as an inspiration rather than trying to slavishly copy from him. Here's what I think will be translated to the canvas:

Let me explain what I'm after here in case it's not intuitively obvious. The diagonal lines demarcate fields with different filling stitches; they will be removed when the filling stitches have been completed. The rectangles will be the blank fields with perhaps some embellishment - stitched squares, glass seed beads, tiny buttons?

I am really glad to have this particular challenge. I've always have a hard time using negative space in my work. This exercise may help me improve the way I think about using the fabric to speak for itself.

There Goes Challenge #2

2009-03-21T12:31:00.001-07:00

I am appalled at myself. I worked two small trellis stitch blocks on my canvas and then got occupied with other activities and didn't complete the February challenge. I really don't like signing up for tasks I can't do as promised so this is really annoying me. But then I realized my agonizing over the February block was taking all the fun out of the challenge so I stopped beating myself up over it - sort of.

Actually, my spouse has had some medical issues of late and I decided my family needed to take him on a trip he has been aching to go on since I married him 33 years ago - Phillies' Spring training in Clearwater, Florida. Those of you who bail out of this blog at this point have my complete understanding. I'd have bailed out of the trip if I could have as I am not a die-hard baseball fan. I had hoped to squeeze in a visit to a quilt shop in Dunedin, which is right next to Clearwater. But given the schedule we planned for my husband, that wasn't a happenin' thing, as they say. Oh, they said, "We can go." But all I could picture was my husband and son standing outside the store shuffling their feet and emitting agonal sighs while I tried to look at fabric. It's really no fun trying to shop under that kind of pressure. And needless to say, the trip to the yarn store, which was just down the street from the fabric shop, also fell victim to cancellation. Well, it wasn't my dream vacation, but it wasn't planned to be so I am not terribly disappointed. Oh, all right, I'm not disappointed at all because I have enough yarn and fabric to last me for the foreseeable future. And I did get to spend some time at the beach and the weather was great - sunny and hot.

I did manage to squeeze in a trip to the cyber cafe while I was away and got the third stitch challenge. I drew out a couple of plans for my panel and I'll blog them as soon as the server lets me upload my photos. I've decided to move ahead with the third panel and go back to the February assignment if time allows. Hopefully I will be able to devote more time to stitching of all sorts in the coming weeks.

The Trellis Stitch

2009-02-28T05:26:00.001-08:00

I was flummoxed by the name "trellis" stitch. The samples I found surely didn't look like a trellis to me at all. So I did something I've never done for either the TAST or the 2008 challenge: I did a practice panel. Here it is, completed just after Valentine's Day when Sharon first posted the assignment:

I watched the videos Sharon provided on her blog and decided to work squares instead of circles. I'm a linear thinker so it just seemed easier to me if I could try duplicating the rectangular samples offered up in the videos.

I varied the weight of the fiber, because initially I couldn't see how this stitch could be varied very much. I thought I could get different effects on my panel if I simply changed the type of threads I chose.

Lo! Spacing the stitches far apart using fine thread clearly showed a trellis effect. Note: It's impossible to space the stitches using fine thread close together. You won't be able to see the bridge stitches in order to work the succeeding stitches.

That said and done, I confess I am having difficulty with this assignment. If I work the stitches with large spaces between them, it is very hard to control the knotting and consequently the regularity of the fiber length in each stitch. But now that I've got some ideas, I'll start stitching on the panel and see what evolves.

Depressing Lace

2009-02-27T17:14:00.000-08:00

Well, I finished my lace panel on time but I failed to post in a timely fashion. This was partly due to my Internet service provider not providing, partly due to my disappointment with the overall attempt.

Here's the panel, more or less.

First off, working on the tulle was not as difficult as I thought it would be. In fact, after the first few minutes of stitching, I hardly noticed it at all. I back-light the canvas to make the holes more obvious, so that probably helped obscure the surface tulle. And as long as I did not have to rip any stitches, it was like working on the plain Aida cloth.

However, I am unhappy with the panel for a number of reasons. First, I didn't think through the design adequately. I wanted the panel to look like the corner of a lace curtain. But I kept trying different stitch variations so the piece doesn't hang together the way I wanted it to.

I am happiest with the top rows, which look most like the chicken scratch stitch. I also think the large chicken scratch stitches along the right hand side best exemplify what I was trying to achieve with the piece - the look of lace.

The two flowers look out of place because I used only one-sixth of a chicken scratch stitch (or a half cross stitch). I thought about doing these over immediately after I finished them, but I was afraid I might damage the tulle if I tried ripping them out, so I let them be. And I thought that I could integrate them into the lower part of the panel better than I did.

I really dislike the way the woven thread work turned out. I have curtains of lace with a honeycomb weave, and that is the look I was trying for. But I think the woven threads are too thick and the honeycomb does not integrate well with the rest of the motifs in the panel.

That said, here's the do over if I ever decide to make lace instead of going to the store and buying it (Ha! Not a chance): Work the entire panel in one strand of floss using the woven (honeycomb) stitch. Then, work the top motif along the top and the right hand side, over the base woven stitches. Integrate the motif that appears on the right hand side throughout the rest of the panel. Omit the flowers. I think by laying down the base of woven stitches, and then working the motifs over them, I would have gotten the lace look I was trying for.

For the moment, I am letting the panel "rest." I am toying with the idea of somehow spiffing it up a bit with beads or maybe gussying up the flowers or ripping out the woven stitches... Sigh! I just need some time to decide what level of fiber surgery is necessary to save the life of of this lace. Readers suggestions are certainly welcome.

Flowers It Is

2009-02-01T05:52:00.001-08:00

After mulling over a modern look for my chicken scratch panel, I decided to consult some of the needlework books I have in my library to see if I could find any patterns for flowers that used cross stitch. Well, there were a lot of them actually, but I settled on one likely candidate and went to work. Instead of using the double cross stitch that makes up chicken scratch border, I used a half cross stitch and varied the direction in each petal to give the flower a bit of interest. I also wanted the flowers to stand out from the borders, so changing the stitch was one way to do this.

After completing the first flower, I realized that I needed to give the petals more weight. Using one strand of floss as I had for the border resulted in a flimsy flower. It looked like it didn't belong in the panel. Not wanting to rip it out and work it again, I went back over the stitches with a second strand of floss and that seemed to fix the problem. The second flower was done first time around with two floss strands. I am not sure I am completely happy with them, but I am letting them percolate in my mind before I change them in any way.

I wanted to put a side border on the panel, to mimic what I might see in a curtain. I toyed with the idea of just turning the top border and working it vertically, but since part of the challenge is to explore, I thought using a different stitch might be interesting. (Side note: Interesting is a word used to describe something that 1) doesn't quite work, 2) is outright goofy but the viewer is too polite to say so, or 3) genuinely innovative and so unique the viewer needs time to digest what she's seeing. Number three is definitely out!) Here's where I'm at so far:

I am going to finish the vertical border today and then try to come up with some stitches that unify the sections I've completed so far so that the piece works as a whole. I have not yet done much with needle weaving (I did just one row in the horizontal border), so I will probably attempt to use that stitch as a filler. However, I don't want to use up all the negative space on the tulle. In looking at commercially made lace, the netting becomes part of the lace design. And since one of my objectives was to be man emulating machine, I think I want some tulle exposed.

Oy, My Eyes!

2009-01-25T05:57:00.001-08:00

I spent the first part of the week planning out on graph paper a few motifs that I thought might work well on the lace panel. I realized after the second sketch that I wasn't going to get the soft imagery I was hoping for. Whether I am too constrained by the stitch requirements or whether I am lacking imagination is up for discussion. Regardless, all my motifs took on a hard, geometric line.

So, I did what I did best for TAST. I showed up at the canvas and started stitching, in the hope that my needle would transport me to the desired destination. I was hoping the destination would be an interesting hand-made lace that looked at first glance like it came off a machine.

All of the lace samples I purchased had a border, so I started with a simple chicken scratch line across the top of the panel. By the time I got to the end of the row, I thought my eyeballs would fall out. There were over 200 individual stitches making up the tiny cross stitched stars and it was no picnic trying to stitch with the tulle overlay. I was beginning to rethink the "delicate lace" concept.

But not being one to throw in the towel quite so soon, I worked a row of one of the motifs I had developed to use in the border. About half-way through, I decided to split the panel into two sub-panels and altered the motif slightly. I finished up with some larger stitches on the first sub-panel, and stopped there to consider where to go next.

Here's the panel so far:

I had planned to develop some kind of flower motif, since all of the lace samples I have use flowers (generally roses or primroses) as the principle design element. But I am beginning to rethink this objective. Why do I have to use flowers? If contemporary embroidery incorporates dead leaves, rocks, and ephemera and is done on burlap, paper, and denim, why should I stick with flowers for my lace panel?

So, before next Friday evening, I have to come up with either a justification for continuing with the flower concept or I have to come up with an alternative inspiration.

Depression Lace?

2009-01-18T09:38:00.000-08:00

I don't think anyone can argue that Sharon's choice of "Depression lace" for the first Explorer challenge wasn't appropriate. We are all, across the globe, economically depressed right now. Plus cross stitch is so versatile that I think all of the participants will be able to come up with some novel ways to handle the assignment, so I am anxiously awaiting my fellow stitchers' reports.

Sharon was generous with the examples she provided. Apparently the cross stitch variation got its name because it looked like lace? I wasn't seeing it. Tatted and crocheted laces are beautiful but don't have an elegant quality about them, although I am sure there are others out there in Explorer land who would disagree about the elegant part. Knitted lace is fine for shawls and scarves, but still not really lace in my mind. No, lace is that ostentatious stuff on wedding gowns. Lace has flowers and a satiny feel when you rub your fingers across the bumps that outline the flowers. It can be appliqued onto a fabric to create drama and richness.

So I decided the effect I wanted to create with "chicken scratch" (what a horrible name for a stitch that can be so beautiful) was actual lace.

So I went to the House of Fabrics in Columbia to see if I could get some inspiration. Now, the House of Fabrics never fails to inspire me somehow. It caters to the theater folks and to bridal dress designers. Quilters need not stop here, although I have occasionally found some fabulous cottons at outrageously low prices. The House of Fabrics is just across the street from where I work, so it's wonderfully convenient.

Anyway, I shopped their huge selection of laces, and I did have to amend a few of my earlier opinions. Some of the cotton laces were lovely and certainly could have been selected to provide ideas for my own Depression lace. And they were elegant - okay, I relent. But I stuck to my original path and chose three traditional bridal laces.

When I got them home and studied them, one thing I noticed, being machine made and all, was that they were embroidered onto a foundation of tulle or netting. Since I wanted my Depression lace to look as much like bridal lace as possible, I decided to use a foundation of tulle, hoping (dreaming?) that my finished panel would look like commercial lace.

Here is one of the three inspiration laces.

And here are the other two, set against the tulle.

Thankfully, the tulle almost disappears. This was important because, in order to work the canvas I had prepared, I had to be able to see the weave of the underlying Aida cloth.

And finally, here is the canvas with the tulle laid across it. I've stitched the tulle down with a basting stitch and I have spent the last three days or so trying to develop a design that looks like lace. I am not sure how successful this will be, but the problem sure is stretching my puny brain. I have a few motifs drawn on graph paper, but I fear they all look a bit modern - too geometric. I am trying to figure out a way to soften them up a bit before I dive in with my needle. I will use a single strand of DMC embroidery floss for the stitching to give as fine a feel as possible to the work. If I'm lucky, I'll find an hour or so today to get at least one row completed.

New Year Plans

2009-01-04T08:58:00.000-08:00

In looking back on the past year, I feel pretty good about completing 80% of the Take It Further challenges on time. I had a few personal criteria: the projects couldn't cost a lot and I had to have fun doing them. I also wanted to try different techniques across a number of different crafts, and I wanted the monthly projects to be useful in some way if possible.

I can definitely attest to the having fun part. The only two challenges I didn't complete came at the end of the year when I had some family issues to deal with. As a result, not much of anything was fun, so I just set aside the final two TIFs for a later date. I plan to do them - just not in the timeframe of the 2008 challenge.

Most of the projects used both stash and new materials, so on average over the year, I didn't spend much more than the $10 I allowed myself at the start of the challenge. The exception was the fabric and batting I needed for the Elvis quilt.

The best project from someone else's point of view: the Barbie clothes that resulted from the January TIF and the Elvis quilt (September). The most personally wrenching: the Alzheimer's clutch purse and bracelet from the February challenge and "Fear of Pretending" (April). The most fulfilling from a design and execution point of view: the fabric book pages I completed for the challenges in March, May, June, and July.

Only one TIF challenge didn't work out the way I had planned. It was the teapot block in October. I eventually ripped about half of the block and re-stitched it to coordinate it with another larger project. I also haven't done anything with the fabric book pages. I am thinking that I need to get some color cohesion going, so I'm setting them aside until I determine how best to put the book together.

I've joined the 2009 Explorer project, and it comes as a relief actually. I can concentrate on embroidery again and I have decided to make a companion piece to the 2007 TAST sampler. It will be the same size as the 2007 piece, and the plan is to have 12 panels - one for each month of the project. I've mounted and blocked out the 14-count Aida canvas and gotten my supplies together so I'm ready to go when Sharon gives us the first assignment. I've even found the remaining Moleskine notebooks, so I'll record the sampler progress the same way I did for TAST.

My personal goal for this challenge is to be less constrained by how a stitch was used in the past. I want to explore and experiment more. I am going to use the panel size as a suggestion and see how each assignment develops as I work the stitches. To help me get my mind ready, I'm reading Constance Howard's "Inspiration for Embroidery" (Anchor Press: Tiptree, Essex, Great Britain, 1976; first published 1966). There are so many great examples of how to use stitches in designs that it's definitely getting me in the mood to get down to business and play!

No Progress for TIF

2008-12-21T05:18:00.000-08:00

It occurred to me last week that I had not posted my progress on the TIF challenges in almost three weeks. This has been due to the fact that there has been no progress. So, there. Which is not to say that TIF has not been on my mind.

I looked at the December challenge and thought, "Well, I can always buy something for the 'Toys for Tots' campaign." I could say I addressed generosity and be done with it, leaving me only the November challenge to catch up on before the end of the year. But I jettisoned any thought of spending money on non-essentials since my husband lost his job two weeks go and probably will not find employment again until well after the presidential inauguration.

Needless to say, it's not been the happiest of holidays around here. But I've forged ahead on some projects I dragged out of my stash. With apologies to my Tulsa sister, I have my "hairy" sweater almost done. My sister hates sweaters that have eyelash fibers, glitter, and other thingies hanging off of them. I, on the other hand, love them. So, I started the Concerto sweater I blogged about briefly on November 23, and now it's substantially done. I just have to sew the sweater pieces together and finish the edges. (Okay, I can hear some of you laughing, given my November posts, but really, I do plan to get it sewn up by the end of next week.)

I've also been busy with other craft-related activities. This is the time of year I always want to clean my house and change the decor around. Starting the new year with an orderly living space has always been a sort of tradition with me, and in the last couple of days, I've been occupied with a sort out and throw away. I actually can see my work tables, I have found some UFOs that got buried under new projects, and I have been reminded of projects not yet undertaken but for which I once held a great desire to do. The latter was like meeting up unexpectedly with an old friend - we got reacquainted, paused for a few minutes to reminisce, and parted with promises to do it again soon.

Which led me to thinking: When will I have time to do some of these formerly-buried projects? How do I see 2009 shaping up for craft projects? So, I am off to ponder my goals for next year in light of the materials I have on hand, the projects that arose from the dead, Sharon's plans for the 2009 challenge, and the time constraints I face given that I'll be working full-time for the foreseeable future.

SOX, not TIF

2008-11-29T05:18:00.000-08:00

I must now officially confess to the TIF community that I have not done one thing on the November challenge project I developed, other than to plan the design and gather the materials. Normally, I would feel very guilty about this state of affairs, particularly since I am just two months from on-time delivery of the entire challenge. Last I heard, though, Sharon is not giving out medals, imaginary or otherwise, for getting to the finish line, so "winning" is all about my personal victory in this, not some certificate of completion.

However, looking back over the month, I have been more productive in November than in any other during the challenge. Having several days away from my paying job contributed mightily to this. But if I have to blame someone for this state of affairs it's Jane. You see, at the start of the month, Jane had this fabulous idea to draw up a monthly to-do list for projects. It was such a good idea, I copied it and drew up my own list. Trouble was, the TIF project never made it to the list. Oh, all right. It was totally my fault and not Jane's.

But don't for a minute think I didn't try to get the November challenge out of the starting blocks and down the track. I carried that foolish quilter's hoop and the rest of the materials between my home and the capitol all month. This alone should have kept the project on the front burner as they say, since given its size it always needed to be carried in its own bag. I even placed the bag in my line of sight when I arrived at my destination so it was never out of sight. I just put it completely out of my mind in favor of other projects for the last two weeks.

One of these projects was a fabric basket. I took a class on November 16th to learn this technique. The basket is substantially done, except for embellishments to gussy it up a bit. I am thinking of making a few more to give as Christmas gifts. I also made my husband some socks, also for Christmas. So, see? It's not like I was just sitting around eating bon-bons. I just wasn't working on the TIF challenge. Plus, I started a sweater using fiber I purchased eons ago in keeping with my stash-busting resolution.

So, now I am conflicted. Do I just give up on the November challenge and start fresh with the December one? It would sure be a help if Sharon selected a challenge like "warm feet" or "organization" or "pick one on your own" for December. Then, I'd simply swap out one of the November projects I've already completed for December's and do the November challenge next month. I guess I'll have to wait until tomorrow evening to see what she's got planned for us. I can't see how I'll get two challenges done in one month, but then stranger things have happened.

Just thoughts

2008-11-23T04:34:00.000-08:00

All of the economic news is bad, not just for my own little corner of the world, but for most of the rest of the towns and countries across the map. So, my thoughts naturally turned to the value of my IRA - my craft IRA that is. I figured it was time to take stock of what I had in savings, otherwise known as stash. I suspect that there won't be a lot of unrestricted money in the coming weeks and months to fund purchases of fabric, yarn, and notions so it would be useful to itemize the materials on hand and get down to actually using them.

It's been a useful exercise, this inventory taking. I found a Concerto kit I purchased at Stitches East when the conventions were still being held in Atlantic City, some hand-dyed merino I bought to make a kimono jacket, vintage Banlon I picked up at Tuckers (Allentown) to make a retro sweater or two, plus all the wool I still have left from the Harvard sheep (town, not university; enough 100% wool for at least 10 sweaters, from fingering through bulky weights - maybe I was waiting for heather shades to come back into fashion?)... Well, you get the picture.

All of this taking stock was further spurred by my husband's birthday gift to me - all four volumes of Barbara Walker's "A Treasury of Knitting." As I sat Friday night paging through volume 1, I realized how many beautiful stitch patterns were available to create one-of-a-kind garments if I just took some time to be creative and write my own patterns.

Now, I am terribly remiss when it comes to actually reading the craft books in my library. They generally end up being eye candy, good for inspirational viewing. Sometimes, they serve as a quick reference when I hit a snag on a project. What would happen if I actually treated these volumes as textbooks? What if I actually stopped being Plow-ahead Peggy or Little Miss Know It All? What if I take Jane's idea of a monthly project list and make a year-long list? A New Year's resolution to read one craft book a month and work up one item from stash related to that craft book? Heaven knows I have craft projects I'd like to do lined up since 1975. If not now, when?

This plan will do little to help the economy. But it certainly makes more sense to use the fibers now rather than have my family put $250 worth of merino hand-dyed yarn in a yard sale for $10 after I'm gone from this earth. I can just see that yard sale table now! The mental image alone is enough to make me seriously consider this de-stashing plan for my New Year's resolution. And it will be a lot easier to do than giving up chocolate.

I Am Not Cleopatra

2008-11-15T04:54:00.000-08:00

My TIF challenge for the month remains undone and this weekend blogging exercise reminds me that I had better get going if I want to get even one letter done on the piece I designed.

What I did spend time on was the layout of the teapot squares for my lap quilt. It turned out the concept was interesting - teapot, teacups, and dishes of petit fours all from different fabrics, but the result was less than satisfying. Oh, all right. The results were horrible. Each block was just darling all by itself, but together, they fought with each other like mad. I spent a total of ten hours over the course of a week moving the completed blocks around, trying different fabrics for the blocks still needing completion, and generally trying to get a cohesive whole using the five finished blocks.

At some point in this futile exercise, I remembered something an instructor in a knitting class once said. The class's topic was correcting knitting mistakes. The instructor asked us how many times we reached a point in our knitting where we looked at the evolving garment and thought it might be too big/too small/pattern off/etc. but we keep going thinking things would work themselves out? We all raised our hands. Now, this is a hilarious state of affairs. If you think something isn't working, why forge ahead?

So, since my name is not Cleopatra (Queen of Denial), I ripped out most of the work on the first five blocks and started over after accepting the problems and fixing them. They were:

too many fabrics in each block and in the nine blocks together - Each block is more effective if the teacup and saucers are cut from the same fabric and the trim of every item in the block is the same. The blocks work together if a least one of the fabrics is repeated in either the teacup or the teapot section;
two palettes too many - Some rose shades were blue and others brown. They needed to be in the same color family to tie the blocks together. And some "pop" colors (purple, for example) were just too strong for the quilt as a whole.
too many embellishment types - I jettisoned the multicolored beads and funky flosses in favor of gold beads (to echo the gold in the "wallpaper") and floss and tiny ribbon rosebuds in the same color palette as the fabrics. I have a bit of lace on hand, and will see if that can be incorporated without making the design look junky.

Here is one of the blocks waiting to be appliqued. The only thing remaining from the original block is the petit fours.

And here is another block, with just the teapot remaining.

And finally, here are the nine blocks together. In this photo, the corner left and top center blocks need to be cut, but I completed that step on Thursday evening before I packed up to head back to Aiken.

I suppose I should accept the need for more do-overs in mid-project because my knitting instructor was right. Why waste time forging ahead when you have a gut feeling that a project is not working out? I am much happier with this layout. The fabric content isn't quite what I wanted, but I don't have enough fabric in my stash to bring my mental vision to fruition. This is a good compromise because I think the blocks look like they all belong in the same quilt and the design isn't so busy that your eyes can't settle on a block without being totally annoyed by neighboring blocks.

As to the sashing fabric I purchased for this quilt? That will be set aside in favor of a solid fabric or one with a very small print. But I will not make any more purchases until I get all of the blocks assembled. That will be the time to decide what will go best with the design. I will be working on this project over the course of the coming six months. Now that I am done with vacation days, I will have less time to devote to my fiber activities so my output will slow down considerably. Too bad, too. I was having so much fun!

Un-fiber, Un-TIF

2008-11-11T05:48:00.000-08:00

Ah! So many comments on recent posts that it's scary. I am beginning to feel pressure, not only to complete my challenges but to post regularly. So, since I am still working on that Hanne jacket and I am home for one last weekday, I will blog on another topic: perfection.

I am waiting for my kitchen floor to dry. While I was mopping, I got to thinking about Jane Brocket. Ms. Brocket writes a blog called Yarnstorm. My Tulsa sister put me onto this blog about two years ago when she said, "You've never read "Yarnstorm?" (in a tone that implies everyone involved in fiber must be reading this blog.) So, I wrote down the address and got officially hooked.

Ms. Brocket is, I think, England's answer to Martha Stewart, only she is far more insidious. Martha Stewart complicates every household activity beyond belief and has no shame in hiding that fact. Ms. Brocket makes it all look easy. And that is what is dangerous for us "normal" moms.

Whenever I want to visit a foreign land, I plonk in Yarnstorm on my keyboard. For a few minutes, I get to envision a perfect life in a faraway land. And not just far away in mileage. No, far away in lifestyle. A lifestyle that is so unlike what my son experienced, I wonder if he will sue me and his father one day for the cost of psychotherapy. He never got homemade blueberry muffins to take to school; he got store-bought cupcakes that I rushed to the store for, cursing all the way about how I was going to be late for work. Ms. Brocket's children get not only homemade cupcakes, but beautifully hand-decorated ones to boot. She even takes the time to photograph them!!!!

In fairness to my own competencies as a mother, my son's childhood photos show a smiling face. And that is why I will not allow into my house Jane Brocket's new book, "The Gentle Art of Domesticity." Best my son not know there are functional families out there, where the mother not only has time to blog and write books, but make fabulous sweaters for her kids and take them abroad on wonderful vacations. Better that he thinks he comes from a typical American family that is quirky but normal. I suspect that, after four years in college, he knows this, having visited enough friends to see how they live. But why take chances?

So, I guess what I am trying to say here is that I appreciate Yarnstorm and Jane Brockett. I may actually purchase her beautifully written and photographed book, but I will keep it in my travel collection. It's a nice place to visit but, all in all, I think I like where I am and where I've been and am not particularly anxious to leave just yet for a town called Perfect.

The Filatura Sweater

2008-11-10T11:15:00.000-08:00

I unearthed another un-pieced sweater yesterday afternoon and had a bonus moment - the shoulders were already seamed and the neck edge finished. So it was just a matter of stitching up the side and arm seams. Here's the finished sweater, knit in Filatura di Crosa's "Cambridge" palette #2, lot 0010.

The stitch pattern is a simple stockinette with a twist every five stitches, offset every four rows. It was just enough of a pattern to keep things interesting but let the beauty of the fiber show through. Here's a close-up of the fabric. By some act of the Fates, the colors in this close-up are accurate.

Some of you may be noticing that the design of the three sweaters I've written about is the same for all. Well, I got tired of making sweaters with commercial patterns and ending up with garments that didn't fit correctly. So, now I don't use a pattern. Instead, I select a sweater I like that fits me well and use the dimensions to calculate the number of stitches, bind offs, and yardage based on my selected fiber and gauge. I make a large swatch (one ball, usually) in the stitch I plan to use for the garment. I only manage to get ill-fitting sweaters these days when I fall in love with a pattern and slavishly follow it.

Hence, my Hanne Falkenberg disaster. My Tulsa sister knit a fabulous "Lastrada" sweater using Hanne's kit. Can't be too hard, I thought, since my sister was a novice knitter at that point. It's garter stitch and the hardest part would be mitering the corners. Well, call it the curse on someone using another person's pattern, but my sweater, made with fiber I had on hand from 25 years ago (no, there's no typo), was fit for a very womanly woman when it was finished. I looked like a little kid wearing her mom's clothes when I tried on the finished garment.

So, I did the only thing I could under the circumstances. I threw the sweater into hot water, spun it to damp dry, and then put it in the dryer. Now, if this had been a sweater that fit me perfectly and that I loved beyond measure, it would have shrunk to postage stamp size and at least partially felted. But not my Hanne disaster. It shrunk a bit, I'll admit, so that the body wasn't too objectionable, but the sleeves were still down to mid-thigh. Here's the sweater before alterations:

And here's the sweater after I inserted a lifeline across row 6 of the red sleeve stripes, cut the rest of the sleeve off, picked up the live stitches from the lifeline, and added a few rows to finish off the sleeve to an appropriate length for a pygmy.

Here's the detail of the revised sleeve.

I guess this is no longer a Hanne sweater - not her fiber and not her pattern, strictly speaking. But it's wearable now and I will use it on days when I need a lot of color in my life. Now, I'm off to put a lifeline in the other sleeve while I still have some daylight left. I only have one more day of vacation and I am trying to make the most of today and tomorrow for the crafts I love.

Another Noro Sweater Done

2008-11-09T05:24:00.000-08:00

I spent yesterday morning stitching together another sweater I knit from Noro yarn. The first one I posted earlier this month was done with Kureyon. This one was knit with Aurora. Aurora has some sections of the yarn wrapped with polyester. Hence, the shiny stretches of varying length that pop up randomly on each row. Here's a close up. The fiber is 55% wool, 20% kid mohair, and 20% silk, and 5% polyester. The polyester sparkles in the sun. The color palette is #8, Lot #A for those of you who are die-hard Noro fans.

And here's the whole sweater, done in K1P1 rib and simple stockinette. I always toy with the idea of throwing in some cables or doing a fancy stitch with Noro yarns, but since the fibers are so colorful, I always end up letting the yarn stand on its own.

I made this sweater last year with yarn I purchased in Baltimore at the October Stitches East knitters convention. I went Noro-nuts at a retail booth that had bags upon bags of all kinds on sale. My initial plan was to have this sweater done by the Thanksgiving/Christmas holidays, and the not-sparkly sweater done by January. I made my deadline - sort of, being only a year late and all.

I don't usually block my sweaters. After waiting months and years to wear them, blocking seems like one more hurdle I have to get over so I just ignore it. But the pieces of this sweater were jammed into a small bag for about 12 months, so the fabric looks like, well, like it's been jammed into a small space for a year. Wet blocking will definitely be needed here. I guess that will teach me to store knitted fabric flat until the piecing is done!

Today, I must do some housework, but I will devote a bit of time to begin sewing up a Filatura di Crosa sweater that I finished knitting about six months ago. At this rate, I will have a whole new wardrobe by next weekend. Thank you again, Jane.

Another Sweater Completed

2008-11-08T05:49:00.001-08:00

In keeping with two challenges this month - Jane's lists and TIF, I can proudly report that another sweater has been sewn together. I started the cotton sweater shown below in March of 2008. The fiber was purchased before I left New England from a yarn auction my local knitting guild sponsored to raise money for its speakers and trips. One of the members donated enough organically-grown cotton to make a sweater and I was the highest bidder. The fiber sat in my stash for about three years until I moved south and found the climate more suitable to fibers less warm than wool.

I chose the caterpillar stitch because I wanted a mindless stitch that was relaxing but that looked good with the fiber. One thing I particularly like about the sweater now that it is done is the side seams. I did a three-needle bind off for the shoulders, but left a slipped-stitch selvedge at the other seams.I decided to try stitching the seams together from the right side of the fabric to create a raised rib. I really like how it looks on this particular sweater, but I am not sure how well it would compliment fancier stitches.

Here's the completed garment:

I have to confess that I have not picked up the hand quilting hoop for the TIF challenge, but I hope to get to that this weekend. And the teapot quilt blocks? Totally disassembled and... But that is a story for later.

Lists and Other Ideas

2008-11-05T11:04:00.000-08:00

Since I have had two days of vacation this week, I have had time to catch up on other TIF-ers' blogs. I have a list of fifteen or so I visit when time allows and yesterday, one set me to thinking. Jane of Loopy Lou's Adventures into Handicrafts prepared a project to-do list for the month of November. It made me revisit the times in my life when I scheduled at least one task each day, every day, for completion. Incomplete tasks got carried over to the following day until they were done. I was really productive when I did that, but I gave up the process after my son was raised and I had more free time (time to waste?)

Since work expands to fill the time, as the saying goes, I decided to make a stab at efficiency and compose a list of projects of my own to complete this month. This is not a tough thing for me to do. I have five sweaters that have been knitted but are still in pieces, waiting to be sewn up for wearing. Two of them, both of Noro yarns, have been sitting in my knitting bag for two years and one, of a no-name rayon, for three years. Two are cotton sweaters that I wanted to wear this past summer, but they never quite got pieced. I also have a sweater that needs altering. My Tulsa sister told me on Saturday that this was a "disgraceful" (her word) state of affairs. These UFOs, of course, are in addition to the new projects I'd like to tackle: the TIF challenge piece, plus the two pairs of socks I want to knit for my husband for Christmas.

So, I spent yesterday morning sewing up one of the Noro sweaters I knit last Winter. It is the lead photo in this post. I have four more sweaters to go. I also managed to rip out the cuffs and four inches of sleeve in the sweater that is too big and needs altering. The live stitches of one sleeve are loaded onto a needle and ready to be re-knit to the proper length.

As to the TIF challenge piece, I also squeezed in a trip to Wal-Mart and bought the thimble and hand quilting thread. I hope to devote a few hours on the weekend to practicing on the design I chose. But tomorrow, I head back to work and that will limit my fiber time in a big way. I think, though, that as long as I chip away at the projects, I may actually be able to have no UFOs by November 30th. Thank you, Jane!

Choosing a Design

2008-11-03T17:08:00.000-08:00

I played around with some design ideas last night for the November TIF challenge. There were a couple of things I wanted in the finished piece: I wanted color, not the traditional white-on-white stitches, because I could see more easily if my stitches were even or not; I wanted long enough "runs" of the stitches and repeated lines in order to get in enough practice to master the technique of hand quilting (oh, all right, begin to master the technique); and I had to somehow use typography in the piece.

Here is one design. I was going for mini-quilts with embedded letters.

And here's the second design with the typography more obvious.

Then again, I could stitch some mini-quilts and go with typography that includes symbols, like the example from my inspiration book.

So, my tentative plan is to stitch the mini-quilts in the layout of the first figure and then decide later how I will apply the lettering. Tomorrow, if the lines at the polls are not too long, I will have time to shop at Wal-Mart for the thimble and thread. If I'm lucky, I'll find the supplies I need. My LQS doesn't carry either the metal thimble Alta recommends or hand quilting thread.

I might mention here that the thimble Alta uses has a top or dome with a lip around it (almost like a saucer). The lip keeps the needle from slipping - a constant problem I had in the class. The key to small, evenly spaced stitches is simultaneous control of the fabric and the needle as well as holding the needle as close to the tip as possible. Having a bottle of Advil or Motrin on hand doesn't hurt either both for the headache from eye strain and the cramped fingers. Alta asked us if we didn't find the stitching relaxing. Not yet, Alta, not yet!

Letters and Stitches

2008-11-02T03:42:00.000-08:00

I was really happy to see Sharon's November assignment. The only thing I have more of than fiber is books, so I am really glad to be asked to somehow work the printed word into a graphic design.

One thing I had fully intended to do, no matter what the challenge, was to use hand quilting in the project. You see, yesterday I took a hand quilting class with Alta Miller, a lovely lady from our local Mennonite community. Her handwork is absolutely stunning. Her stitches in a completed project are probably about 1-2 mm long. And her stitches are so even that some people who view her quilts ask her if she did the quilting by machine.

You might think a perfectionist like Alta would make for a stern teacher, but she is definitely on my short list of saintly people. Her patience with all of us was nothing short of miraculous. I never heard a discouraging word all morning from her, even though a couple of us (like me) certainly had work worthy of lots of criticism. Her only themes: "Keep going. You will get better. It's hard at first, but you'll see by the end of the morning that your stitches will get smaller and more even."

The assigned project in the class was a pineapple - you know, in preparation for one of those beautiful pineapple quilts? Yeah, right! Here's my 12 inch (31 mm) hoop with the quilt sandwich loaded. It's hard to see the pineapple, but I assure you that it's there and about 3/4 of the way done.

And here's a close-up, sort of. The leaves were worked first and the stitches in that section are about 5 mm long. The scales were worked later in the day and the stitches on that part of the pineapple are about 3 mm long.

Only one woman in the class of 7 finished her project and Alta allowed as how it was the best one any student of hers ever produced on a first try. Let me tell you that hand quilting is hugely difficult. I may never get the teeny stitches Alta achieves, but I agree with her that, with practice, I can at least get passable results. It's all about controlling the fabric and the needle. So I am off to Wal-Mart later today to find the thimble Alta recommends as well as some hand quilting thread.

So how does all this fit into November's TIF? Well, I am going to rip out the pineapple and work a graphic design in hand quilting.

A year or so ago, I bought a book called "ABZ: More alphabets and other signs" at Barnes & Noble. The 221 pages are full of graphic designs, about half of which could serve as an inspiration for this challenge.

I have not yet settled on a design, but I'm thinking it will have the following characteristics: there will be letters, not words; the quilting will be done in as many straight lines as possible (after working the curved pineapple scales, I know my limitations at this point in the learning process); and I'll use colored thread in order to see the design better. Here's an inspiration page so that you get a feel for where I'm going with this. And now, I'm off to do some housework before I rip the daylights out of that pineapple.

Final photos for TAST

2008-11-01T12:22:00.001-07:00

First off, let me thank everyone who left comments on the TAST 2007 sampler I worked as part of last year's challenge. I am always amazed at the generosity of the needlework community when it comes to taking time from their own work to offer advice and praise to others.

After fiddling a bit with my camera and waiting for daylight, I managed to get a few additional photos of the sampler's panels. This is about as good as my camera allows, so I thank you for your indulgence. The white dots are all white glass seed beads, except for the French Knot panel which contains no beading at all.

One additional note on how this canvas was worked: I used a back-light to see the grid properly. Even in daylight, it helped to have the canvas illuminated from behind. My only do-over would be to use perle cotton thread throughout. I completed the first four or five panels with 2 strands of DMC white floss, and these came out just fine. But as Sharon assigned more complex stitches, DMC #8 perle cotton worked much better. The difference in threads is not noticeable in the finished canvas fortunately. For some later stitches in the challenge like French Knots, I returned to two strands of floss because of the flexibility of the thinner untwisted threads. But overall, perle cotton was superior.

As to the disposition of the teapot blocks: they are all ripped out - talk about a do-over! I will report on that project throughout this month, as well as the November challenge, as I have three days of vacation coming up. That plus the November holidays will give me the opportunity to do a few more entries that I am usually able to produce in a month.

Having to do these blog entries certainly keeps me on top of my projects! I am beginning to see why some fiber artists rely on blogging so much. It's kind of like Weight Watchers, only there are no annual dues and you can eat all the chocolate you want.

TAST Map and Panels

2008-10-25T04:26:00.001-07:00

When I completed my TAST sampler somewhere around December 28th of 2007, I decided to make a "map" of the panels and create a list of the stitches as a "key" so that each stitch variation would be identifiable at a later date. Good thing, too, because in reviewing the sampler, there were several stitches that really didn't ring a bell, so to speak. Here's the map. It folds out from the last page of the second notebook.

And here's the list of stitches as assigned each week. I also gave each stitch a "grade" from 5 plusses (really enjoyed working the panel) to 1 plus (never again), in case I ever wanted to select a stitch for use in another project. The key is in the notebook glued to the page preceding the map.

I tried phot0graphing a few areas of the sampler to give you an idea of what some of the individual panels looked like. I tried some closer shots but they were blurry and I just didn't have the patience at 7 AM in the dark to try to fiddle around with the camera (dawn breaks here now at 8 AM or so, but we go to standard time next week so that will change soon enough). The panels on the left were mostly done at the end of the challenge; the panels to the right were done early on.

As the challenge progressed, I got a bit freer with some of my variations. I especially liked working the "Christmas tree". The three white blobs are white buttons that were attached using the shisha stitch (I wanted to keep the work completely a black/white affair.)

And here's my TAST SOS. After I had worked the running stitch, I noticed that I had long and short stitches arranged like dots and dashes. I checked a morse code list and I had stitched T, A, and S. I was absolutely floored by the serendipity. So, I stitched TAST next to the panel just for jollies. Sometimes, things work out in unexpected ways which make a person marvel at the Universe.

Now that I have completed this posting, I am thinking that I will photograph each panel and put it into the notebook so that I have a record in the journal in case it gets separated from the actual sampler. After, I have others' work pasted into the journal - why not my own? But I will have to figure out how to get good close-ups. I may go to my non-digital camera. I am just not that enamored of digital technology and my camera is definitely not high-end and do-it-all, so it may be a while before I get that task done. And if I somehow get the panels photographed and inserted into into the journal before the end of the year when the current challenge ends, I promise to post the results.

TAST Journal

2008-10-24T04:55:00.001-07:00

Before I undertook the TAST challenge, I had read a lot about the love some people have for moleskine journals. Somehow, it sounded like the very fact they used these notebooks instead of a marble copy book made all the difference to them. So, as part of the 2007 TAST challenge, I decided to keep a written record of my progress in one. I selected a package of 5 tiny notebooks, mainly because of the cost: they were the cheapest (most reasonably priced?) of all of the moleskine possibilities that were available at Barnes & Noble. It took me two of the five notebooks to complete a year's worth of TAST notes about the stitches. Here are the two bulging books:

The first page was devoted to recording the materials I had purchased for the project, which I had hoped when completed would turn into a case for my knitting needles. I stapled a sample of the two possible fabrics that would line the case to the inside cover of book 1. Here's a photo:

I then set about recording my thoughts on each stitch as I completed a panel of the canvas. Before I wrote (but generally after I had completed my own set of stitch variations), I surfed the Web for the work other TASTers had done on the same stitch. I downloaded pictures of their work to include with the notes in order to have a visual record of the different interpretations of how the assigned stitch could look. Here's one page that's pretty typical of the journal:

Because most of the downloaded photos were too large to fit on the tiny journal pages, they needed to be folded. Early on, I didn't record which fiber artist had completed a sample, but after about week 6, I began to keep better records of who did the stitching and the Web address where the work was published.

The photo above shows how the photos fold out to complement the notes.

If I had a do-over, I'd have selected an acid-free notebook that was larger and copied the photos onto acid-free paper, although as one of my sisters points out, the book will last anyway for about 20 years and after that, who will want it anyway? The manufacturer of the journal didn't matter to me in the end, although perhaps subconsciously I finished the project because I knew how much I had financially invested at the start. I still have three notebooks sitting in my desk drawer, and I will most likely use them in a future project. I like the paper medium much better than a Web log. There's something about the physical act of writing and drawing that sets ideas in the mind, and for me, a blog does not do the same thing. I am not sure it is just a matter of resisting technology. Maybe I just need to buy a better digital camera and post the written journal pages? Ah, more ways to spend more money!

2007 TAST

2008-10-19T05:12:00.001-07:00

Since I achieved my goal on the October TIF challenge so early in the month and since I have a couple of days vacation coming up in the next two weeks, I decided to take a walk down memory lane and post the TAST challenge I completed last year. I am doing this partly because I am afraid if I take a hiatus from the challenge for two weeks, I won't take it up again. Partly because I feel guilty that I didn't correspond with all the other TASTers who so openly shared their work.

In 2007, I did not have a digital camera nor was I interested in blogging. I'm still ambivalent about both, but since one of the requirements for this year's challenge was that we blog our progress, I felt like I had to learn both if I wanted to sign on to Sharon's on-line assignments.

Anyway, as of January last year I had recently started a full-time job and wasn't sure I'd be able to keep up with a weekly assignment. I hadn't signed on to "Inaminuteago" in nearly a year, having stopped most of my Internet use during the move from New England to the South. But late in December of 2006, I visited Sharon's site and after some deliberation I decided to give TAST a try and see if I could keep up. I think only Elizabeth of "Quieter Moments" ever knew I was participating and that was when the challenge was about half over. I managed to complete all of the stitches by the first week in January 2008. I had two goals for myself when I joined: 1) complete each week's stitches as close to on-time as possible; and 2) keep a record of the work in a moleskine notebook.

I wasn't sure how to approach the challenge, and being practical, I didn't even consider working the stitches on waste fabric. I guess it was my mother's voice whispering in my brain, "What are you going to do with THAT?" So I went large and purchased some black aida cloth, lashed it to my embroidery frame, and decided to work each week's stitches in a small panel. The size of each panel was dictated by how many variations I could think up. The original purpose of the piece: to serve as the cover for a knitting needle case.

The canvas measures 21" X 18 " (53 cm X 46 cm) and the embroidery is 18" X 14" (46 cm X 35 cm). The size was dictated by the length of my knitting needles. Here's the piece as it looked just after Christmas in 2007.

And this is a close-up of the herringbone and buttonhole stitches' panels. The little dots are white beads I used to fill in some of the spaces. The entire canvas is beaded here and there throughout.

I used either 2 strands of white floss or perle cotton, depending on the stitch assignment. I started the panels at the top left of the canvas, and turned it in various directions to make embroidering each panel as easy as possible (working the middle of the canvas was a bit hard on the back, I'll admit.) Per my usual method of operation, there was no plan for the arrangement of the panels. The work just evolved throughout the year.

Here is a close-up (relatively speaking) of the panels as they looked about half-way through the challenge.

And here is the canvas in full at the half-way mark. These pictures were taken with my non-digital camera and uploaded so the figures might not be as crisp as digital photos might provide.

In the coming days, I will post the finished canvas, some photos from my moleskine journal, and a "map" of the panels. All but one of the stitch assignments made it onto the sampler.

The sampler is still on the frame. After working two months' worth of stitches, I decided that the needle case idea was a no-go - too many delicate stitches to be rolled up and thrown in a storage bin. Maybe blogging the work will propel me to figure out what to "do with THAT."

Evolving Teapot Quilt

2008-10-18T04:42:00.000-07:00

The color part of this challenge has gone much better than I had anticipated. I finished my first quilt block using most of the color palette Sharon suggested for this month. Here is the first block. I have not yet embellished it with the embroidery on the petit fours or stitched the "steam" that is supposed to arise from the cup.

I decided from the get-go to not be fussy about making every angle sharp and every line perfect. I wanted the blocks to have sort of a country shabby chic look. I'm not sure I achieved that, but I am really happy with the first block nonetheless, given that I had altered the pattern from paper piecing to applique, changed the background requirements, and tweaked the design (cup overlapping the teapot, only three little cakes instead of six.)

I was so happy with the first block that I rushed off and did a second one , which I think I may like even more than the first.

I also cut out the appliques for five more blocks, which leaves me with two undecided as to fabric (I am planning for nine 12 inch x 12 inch (30.5 cm square) blocks in the finished quilt.) I think I'll try to choose the materials for those after I have the other blocks completed. That way, if I need a dark blue teapot with dark yellow plates and a pink cup to make the rest of the blocks work well together, I can make it specifically. At this point, I used fabrics I loved and that worked well in an individual block without worrying as to how they relate to one another in the finished quilt.

Now, before all you experienced quilters recoil in horror saying, "You what!?!?!?", I actually did rethink this rather random plan and laid out the blocks with the appliques pinned to them to see if my choices worked as a whole. That's when I decided the last two blocks would be dependent on how the first seven are assembled. However, I must say that I was surprised at how well the randomly developed blocks came together. I admit I will have to do a bit of finagling to get the color gradations I want in the overall quilt, but so far, so good.

So, both challenges are completed for this month, but I will continue to follow the progress of the quilt for those of you who might have an interest in this medium.

I don't wish for any "do-overs" for the quilt block I did for the challenge. However, for those of you who have trouble working with patterned fabrics, I think I stumbled on something that might help: when selecting patterned fabrics for this quilt block, use a 1:3 ratio for the largest to smallest print. That is, the smallest print should be 1/3 the size of the next largest print, which should be 1/3 the size of the largest print. I suspect it would be 1:4 if four fabrics were used, and so on. I'm sure this has something to do with how the eyes travels around the finished block, but all I know for sure is that, after sometimes playing for an hour or more with fabric combinations, that ratio always seemed to apply to the fabrics I finally settled on.

Any other "rule", you ask? I'm not sure yet. Stay tuned.

Studio 2

2008-10-16T03:38:00.000-07:00

I have a second studio of sorts, since I live in the capitol during the workweek in a one-bedroom apartment. It is sparsely furnished, which is good in some ways (easy to keep clean) but not in others (not particularly cozy.) Over the two years or so that I have occupied this space, I have consciously avoided adding much in the way of furnishings since I was hoping the arrangement would be more temporary than it has turned out to be.

In any case, here is my apartment work space as it looks at the beginning of the week. I use the dining table and spread out as much as I want. If eating becomes necessary while a project is in full swing, I clear a corner of the table for a bit or I eat in the living room.

My materials are kept in the utility closet just behind the table. I have a lot of closet space in the apartment, so I removed the clothes bar in the closet and installed some plastic shelving. The sewing machine and the bucket share the two bottom cubbies, but craft items fill the remaining drawers and boxes. The top shelf is large enough to store my cutting mat and rulers. My tiny ironing board hangs in the closet on the wall to the right.

The view from the apartment is spectacular, and from my craft table I can look out and see the city fading into rural spaces. The following photo was taken in the late afternoon looking northwest. And yes, those are snakes on the railing and table. The balcony is not screened so in order to deter the pigeon population of Columbia from calling my balcony home, I asked the previous owner of my unit to please leave his "pets" in place. This works wonderfully, although it is not a very attractive solution from a human point of view. If I end up keeping the condo long term, I will enclose the space with screening to keep out both the pigeons and the wasps, who also seem to want to share my unit.

I can't see the city from my craft table, but if I'm sitting on the balcony, this is the view I have at sunset. I'm only about 2 miles from downtown, so the city is actually a lot closer than it appears in this photo.

And this is how my workspace looks when a project gets going. I leave the closet door open, the ironing board is set up on the kitchen counter and I am within few steps of anything I need to work with fabric. The chairs serve as temporary shelving. Since the apartment faces west, it gets the afternoon sun so it is always bright and cheery late in the day and the projects I'm doing are easy on the eyes. The space is always returned to its blank slate look on Thursday evenings before I return to Aiken.

Sharon asked what our studio space means to us. For me, the space means a place where I can keep supplies in an orderly fashion without the rest of the family rummaging around in them, where I can retreat to think and plan in quiet, where I can spread out a project. But I have to confess that I work on projects wherever it happens to suit me. I don't feel compelled to use just the space I've designated as a studio, although I do happen I suppose to do most of my work there.

I have lived without studio space most of my life, and I can honestly say that I don't think I felt limited in any way. For me, time has always been the limiting factor. And while it is nice to have a special spot for fiber work, a special place to display yarns and fabrics and threads, I am wondering if such spaces are over-rated and are a product of our having too much in the way of space and supplies. I think of the beautiful sweaters which were created in the Aran Islands by women who probably knit them next to the fire in a very small cottage, or the Gee's Bend quilts which were created with scraps by women who owned not much more than the clothes on their backs. Studio space? I can hear them laughing.

Would I choose to give up my space now that I have it? Not a chance! Has it improved creativity or expanded my horizons? Perhaps, because the materials are organized and visible. But I would say that the quiet evenings away from the family during the week have done more to affect creativity and output than having studio space. I am looking forward to reading what others have to say on this. It was an illuminating exercise for me because it really did make me think about the impact workspace has on productivity and how I've arranged my space and projects.

As for the teapot blocks, I'll show the progress in my next entry.

TIF for October

2008-10-05T04:48:00.001-07:00

I was really pleased with the color palette this month. I wanted to try my hand at a third quilt, and my LQS owner pointed out a book of patterns for small individual projects. The book is called "A Year of Paper Piecing: 12 Sensational Seasonal Designs" by Beverly Maxvill (Martingale & Co., Woodinville, WA, USA, 2008; http://www.martingale-pub.com). Here's the pattern that sold the book for me:

See? I told you last month I was more of an English garden kind of gal.

Anyway, I loved the teapot theme. The little petit fours and the steam arising from the teacup require embroidery to embellish the piece and, well, I just loved the whole thing. And I still loved the whole thing until I read what paper piecing required. But I pushed ahead and studied the block some more and finally decided that I would need two certificates from psychiatrists attesting to my sanity if I were to make the block as called for by the directions. Now, please don't get me wrong. I am not a whip-it-up-quick person. I don't mind taking my time on projects. But some of the pieces on this block are so tiny I can't imagine getting them under the foot of my sewing machine without having them sucked into the bobbin box. Plus, they are not of different fabrics! Gratuitous sewing, I say.

So I kept the design but modified it as follows:

I bought some lace fabric for the "tablecloth" and kept Ms. Maxvill's concept of Victorian "wallpaper" by purchasing a second fabric containing a metallic gold print. I will use the "wallpaper" as a 12 1/2 X 12 1/2 inch foundation block and stitch the "tablecloth" to it.

I'll cut out the teapot and other design elements and applique them to the block. I'll probably stitch the contrasting fabrics for the teapot and plates by machine if that makes sense. Otherwise, it will be applique most of the way. And since I love applique, well that will work out perfectly.
Instead of one block, I'll be repeating the design nine times for a quilt, but I'll use different fabrics for each block, keeping the "wallpaper" and "tablecloth" fabrics the same.

Here are some of the fabrics I've already chosen from my stash (with a few new additions - there was sale yesterday at my LQS.) Not all of them will be used in this block, and a few others not shown will probably be added if I decide they look right as the block evolves and if they conform to Sharon's palette.

Here's the teapot cut out, with a possible rim fabric.

I plan to have at one block finished by the end of the month - plus a few more if I am lucky. As to sashing, border, and binding fabrics - not yet chosen. I thought I'd wait until all of the blocks are completed before I shop for any more fabric. Plus my wallet needs a rest. I am way over my $10 limit for the last four projects.

As a postscript to last month's project, Doris was gifted the quilt on Monday and she said she loved it. And I think from her reaction she really did. The leftover fabric also found a good home: I gave all the Elvis fabric that remained to my LQS owner. She told me that all week, as customers walked through the door, they'd announce, "Congratulations! You're the thirteenth customer of the day and we're awarding you some free Elvis fabric." Not one person accepted the "prize." Finally, one customer returned to the shop and said her sister would love the fabric to make a quilt for her son who is a loyal Elvis fan. So everyone's happy, me included because I no longer have Elvis in my stash tempting me to use him up in another project.

Studio 1

2008-10-04T12:16:00.000-07:00

Sharon asks what my studio like? I never really thought of it as a studio. The word studio to me connotes serious art. So I've always called my workspace the craft room.

The space is about 10 feet X 10 feet, and was meant by the builder of my home to be a guest bedroom or den. There's a work table of dubious origin in one corner, near the window that looks out on the back garden. When I first brought the table home from the antique market, I noticed that the whole room was taking on a terrible musty smell and the odor was starting to permeate other rooms as well. So I dragged the table into a large shower and doused it with bleach and hot soapy water, figuring if the odor wasn't destroyed, the table was a loss anyway. Two days later when the table was pretty well dried out, I moved it back into the craft room, and it has been serving me sweetly ever since. It's higher than a regular table, so I can work at it standing up (I'm only 5 feet tall) or perched on a bar chair. Plus it has two panels that fold up to give me a very nice work space. Usually, though, I use the table as it appears below.

The boxes under the table hold small knitting tools, embroidery floss, and swatches or other tests or trials. The two bears in the basket are remnants of my son's childhood; I can't quite bring myself to part with them yet, even though he will be graduating from college in May. The files on the table hold scrap items and project directions I've saved over the years. The tin baskets hold my camera and corral small containers of beads.

My main supply storage space is in the closet. I purchased plastic units and recycled old data cards as labels for each drawer and bin. I organized this space about 4 months ago so it is still pretty tidy. The bins are organized by craft item (beads, paper, paints, etc.). The large flat containers on the overhead shelf hold my stash of yarns, organized by weight and type (sock yarns, cottons, etc.) The left side of the closet also holds a plastic storage bin with drawers - pretty much the same view, mirror image, but most of the supplies on that side are for sewing projects.

On the side of the room opposite the table, there's a computer armoire. The books are all art or craft books, and the clock is a tide clock. I have set it to tell whether the tide is coming in or going out in Myrtle Beach. The torchier lamp and the poorly upholstered chair were both my grandmother's. I will be sending the chair out for reupholstering as soon as I have saved enough money to cover the expense. It is the coziest chair, even if I am poked unmercifully with rogue springs, and I want to keep it no matter what. The books to the side of the desk are all knitting publications I've saved over the years as well as some books I'd like to alter. To the left of the desk, there's a window that looks out onto the side garden. The room is painted yellow (the color in the following photo is pretty accurate), but the tones change as the day progresses - bright and cheery in the morning sun, but almost deep beige late in the day and at night.

I titled this post "Studio 1" because I also have a work space in the capitol. Generally, in Aiken, I work on small projects and save anything that requires a lot of space over several days for Columbia, where I can spread out to my heart's content. That means that knitting can be done anywhere, but the finishing is done in Columbia. The quilting is almost all done in Columbia because I can leave the sewing machine out and I have a much larger table for cutting fabric as long as I eat my dinner in the living room. And all new projects are designed and organized in Aiken because that's where the bulk of my supplies are.

Now that I think of it, the arrangement may make me more productive. If I don't get the project organized by Sunday night, I have nothing to work on during the coming week. But it does make me frustrated sometimes, like when I finish something quicker than I had expected and I don't have supplies on hand to move on to the next step of the project or start something new.

As to the TIF for October? Well, I'll be working with the color palette again and I'll post as soon as I get the materials organized.

Last Elvis Sighting

2008-09-27T16:50:00.001-07:00

I'm finally finished with this month's challenge. I used the color palette Sharon selected and made a small quilt using Elvis Presley as the theme. Here's Sharon's inspiration piece; the five focus colors included two shades of blue and gold, lavender and brown.

I posted a photo of the front of the quilt earlier in the month. Here's a close up of one of the tropical stamp appliques I used to fill in some blank spaces.

The back of the quilt was a single fabric imprinted with a "Blue Hawaii" movie poster. I quilted around each of the blocks on the front of the quilt. Here's some detail on the quilting as it appears on the back. (Stop gagging, all you experienced quilters. This is only my second try at this medium.)

Of course, I had a fabric mishap. I nicked a small hole in the movie poster, so in order to cover it up (yes, I made it worse trying to fix it before I stumbled across the method I used for the repair), I appliqued a few more stamps on the back. Here's the one that's serving as the cover-up for the hole.

I'm big on do-overs. You know, those post-project analyses where you perseverate on all the things you did wrong or could have done better. So, just in case any of you are thinking about replicating any part of this project, here's my Elvis quilt review:

I'd use just one batik fabric for the front of the quilt and let the photos speak for themselves. I'd keep the stamps, though, partly because I like the effect and partly because I really loved appliqueing the stamps.
I'd applique after all the quilting was completed. Quilting around each stamp on the front of the quilt almost made me leap screaming from the roof of my condo.
I'd choose a plain fabric for the back so that the quilting wouldn't be so obvious (stitching over Elvis' body parts I think is distracting to the overall effect of the poster back.)
I'd put a hanging pocket on it. There is always that remote possibility that I might be invited to display the quilt at a show - yeah, right! Maybe after my fiftieth quilt, if I live that long.

And if anyone can tell me how to turn off this annoying underlining, I'd really appreciate it.

Elvis Rocks and Rolls Onward

2008-09-14T03:54:00.000-07:00

When I decided on the design for the quilt face, I thought a photo album or scrapbook page theme would work really well with the fabric I had chosen. I thought it would be a pretty simple thing to cut a few squares, sew them together, and make the size match the quilt back, which is the "Blue Hawaii" movie poster fabric I blogged earlier.

Hah! Lucky for me I am still stupid when it comes to quilting, because the whole thing ended up being a design challenge of major proportions for me. This is roughly how it went:

Select "photos" from the fabrics and cut them out;
Piece together a sheet of brown shipping paper the size of the movie poster fabric that serves as the backing;
Lay out photos on the paper and draw a preliminary "page" design;
Plow ahead and frame several of the photos with the stamp fabric;
Decide the preliminary design wasn't going to be a go and begin moving fabrics all over the place to make what I had already done work;
Purchase fabric after fabric in innumerable trips to at least three stores to try to get the colors and scale of the fabric prints right;
Stitch, rip, stitch to get the whole piece to measure properly.

I started with the center block - a 16 x 16 inch (41 x 41 cm) square of Elvis with a ukulele. I cut the tropical postage stamp fabric into strips and made a frame. That block became the center of the quilt face and I worked out to the edges from there.

I'm sure if I knew how to do paper piecing, this whole thing might have gone more smoothly. But since I'm the kind of gal who barges ahead with a project hoping it will all fall into place somehow, I just dropped Elvis and his ukulele onto the paper design, arranged the other photos around the central block, selected coordinating fabrics which I hoped would look okay, measured the size of the strips I needed on either side of the central block, and started stitching from the top left corner to the bottom left corner. Next came the top and bottom central blocks, then the right side panel.

Biggest problem for me after getting the fabrics selected: remembering that I had to add 1/2 inch to the seams in order to have the blocks come out to the size I required. That's why there is a narrow border of dark fabric. When I placed the front and back of the quilt together, the front was smaller than the back. In order to preserve the entire movie poster back, I had to add a border to the front.

Here is the lower left corner with the white cotton batting showing. The black dashed lines are the basting stitches temporarily holding the quilt together.

And here's a central right side block.

When I got all the blocks sewed together and stood back from the quilt to get the overall effect, I was basically happy, but felt there was too much blank space around some of the blocks' photos. So, I cut out individual postage stamps and appliqued them as a filler. I started quilting "in the ditch" a couple of days ago (more stitching, ripping, and stitching) and I hope to have most of the sewing completed by this coming weekend. Then, I'll be able to add the binding and call it a day on Elvis.

Here's the quilt face. If I had a do-over, I'd use the same lay-out but stick to one batik fabric with the color palette of the central block. I'd still use the appliqued stamps, which weren't part of the original design; I really like how they tied the individual blocks together.

Thanks is extended to Nancy Clifton of the Aiken Quilt Shoppe and Susan Congdon of the Aiken Quilt Society for their expert advice on fabric, for pointing me to the Web for inspiration, for listening patiently to my tales of woe as the project progressed, and for hiding so well their actual opinions about Elvis quilts in general.

Elvis Quilt in Progress

2008-09-06T05:47:00.001-07:00

After I chose Elvis Presley as the theme for my quilt, I did a little Web-based research and found out that a guild in the U.S. had recently issued a challenge to its members to create Elvis quilts and that the guild had posted photos of the results. So I swung by to get a little inspiration. There were some really interesting interpretations, a couple of which were beyond me technically as this is only my second quilt.

Next, I Googled "Elvis fabrics" and came up with several online resources. I decided to use the "Blue Hawaii" movie poster as the quilt back, and do a photo scrap book for the pieced front.

Here's the quilt back:

And here are some of the photos that will be used on the front:

Of course, I spent a small fortune on the coordinating fabrics because I am not very good yet at determining what will work well in a quilt design. Here is a small sampling of my purchases, one of which never made it into the project. One fabric that is not in the photo contains a series of tropical stamps. I purchased this fabric at Jo-Ann's and decided it would fit into the Hawaiian theme as well as address the "Return to Sender" song Elvis made popular. It's visible in the second photo in this post.

I have a huge supply of the photo fabric left over, and I promised Nancy, my local quilt store owner, I'd bring it to her in case anyone else in the area wants to do an Elvis quilt. Personally, I never want to look at anything Elvis ever again. But I'm not complaining. I feel like I am getting three-for-the-price-of-one this month: practice making another quilt; a gift for a dear friend; and another TIF challenge delivered on schedule.

Gotta Love Elvis

2008-09-01T08:13:00.000-07:00

Last week, I wrote briefly about the fiber class I am taking at the Columbia Museum of Art. The class is taught by Susan Lenz and is called "Hot Fabric". Since I mentioned the class in my last post, I thought I'd show you the results of my novice attempts at some of Susan's techniques.

This is the last piece I created. It took about 15 minutes last Wednesday night to lay the foundation (fabric backing, layers of contrasting fibers, velvet squares, and overlay of netting), and 6 or so hours to plan out the other design elements, choose the contrasting fibers and beads for embellishment, and embroider the piece.

Susan asked us to complete several foundation pieces, so I selected one from the first class two weeks ago for a second go. I was inspired by a Kaffe Fassett design and had an easier time choosing the embellishments because I was more constrained by the space and by the theme. But overall, it took about 6 hours to complete as well.

I am working on one more piece today, and if I can get if finished by Wednesday evening, I will take all three to the last class and be guided by Susan's opinion about which one is most worthy of mounting and framing, which is the topic of the last class.

I loved the time I spent in this class. I learned so much and Susan is a fantastic teacher. She shared her studio materials freely, and I have to say I felt guilty about that. Most of the classes I've taken with fiber artists require a separate materials fee. So to ease my conscience, I made Susan a basket of fibers from my stash. Hopefully it makes up in some small way for her generosity.

As to the September TIF theme, I'll be using the color palette this month. I am cheating a bit because I will be finishing an Elvis quilt which I've already started. The predominant colors on both sides of the quilt are the blue and yellow tones Sharon selected. How lucky can a girl get! And before you go jumping to conclusions about my love for "The King," let me tell you that this quilt is a gift for a coworker who was kind enough to give me her sewing machine to take my first quilting class last May. When I asked her how much I could pay her for the machine, she said, "Make me a quilt." She's a HUGE Elvis fan, so I thought maybe I could find some fabric with a music theme and print a few Elvis photos on muslin and do a four patch. Well, it turns out that there is already a large selection of Elvis fabric out there, ready to be cut up for quilting! Wow! Who'd have thought. Anyway, next weekend, I'll blog a little about the fabric and the design and my inspirations for the piece. Selecting the fabric, piecing the quilt, and now quilting it has been one long challenge, so I guess it's right and fitting that it shows up in TIF.

Done, Mostly

2008-08-26T04:19:00.001-07:00

I don't usually get to do anything personal on the computer during the week, but I have two field visits in my region today and tomorrow, so I am at home rather than in the capitol and can finalize my August TIF.

I realized the side of the page with the writing on it was not working out the way I had planned. The floral fabric had an ivory cast to it, so the fabric with the writing on it looked stark. It didn't even blend well with the front of the page. So I took to attempting a bit of quilting-in-the-ditch on the front of the page to soften up the white fabric on the back. As you can see from the following photo, it certainly didn't help.

I wished at that point that I had spent the extra time copying the text onto the floral fabric as I had originally planned. That way, I would have had a solid piece of fabric to back the page and I wouldn't have had to worry about how the quilting would affect it. Since I wasn't about to rip the piece and give myself a do-over, I thought about adding some appliqued flowers from the floral fabric to soften the white area.

And it worked pretty well, so I stitched up the binding and added a couple of flowers and I'm done.

And for those of you who try desperately to read the text which is incorporated into projects like this, it says: "I'll use this as my checklist - oh, and there'll be time to knit in the doctor's office. Yeah - could be a very good day if there are no complications, medical or otherwise. June 1, 2005 - This is one of those mornings when my chest feels tight and I am trying to do 2 things at once (and I'd do 3 if I could). My mind is racing because I have to finish all my work today in 4 hours and then wind up packing at home, grab the suitcases and race for the airport. JW wasn't feeling so good this morning, so I am not sure if he'll be driving us. Throw that uncertainty into the mix and you have the makings for one hectic morning and early afternoon. I feel numb. I feel like I don't have anything ready psychologically for this trip. I know I will be meeting with "Big Al" but I feel like I'll be confronted with a whole bunch of choices I'm not ready to make. I'll have to pick hardware, lighting fixtures, floor coverings and paint colors and I'm not sure what I want for some of those things. I feel like there aren't enough decorator magazines in the world to fully address my uncertainty right now. Maybe it's because I'm changing..." I selected the text because there were no embellishments on the page - I just wanted straight text. And here's the front of the page. All I need now are two grommets or eyelets to accommodate the binding posts. Whew! Still up to date and reasonably balanced!

On the Wrong TIF Track

2008-08-23T04:43:00.000-07:00

I went back to the capitol with all good intentions to think about my page-in-progress, but life happened. My paid employment required some serious attention in the way of unpaid overtime (don't ever tell me government employees don't work hard!) and I had the good fortune to get into a fiber class conducted by Susan Lenz. If you are unfamiliar with her work, she posts at (and I hope this link works for you because I am usually not motivated to provide this depth of detail, figuring that's what Google is for) http://artbysusanlenz.blogspot.com.

There are five of us in the class, which runs once a week for two hours over the next three weeks. I have been a big fan of Susan's since 2007 when she participated in an open studio event and I dragged myself up to the capitol a day ahead of time to attend. Her studio was at the top of my list of sites to see primarily because she listed Inaminuteago as a favorite Web site on her blog. When the Columbia Museum of Art offered a class conducted by Susan, I jumped at the chance to learn some of her techniques.

Susan promised us we will all have a piece of our own art, matted and ready for framing at the end of the class. She obviously is being very generous in what she calls art, at least as far as my attempts go.

In the first class on Wednesday night, Susan demonstrated the methods she uses to develop the foundation of a finished piece. The demo took about 20 minutes, at which point she sent us to our tables to make as many foundation pieces as we could complete in the next 90 minutes in order to get a feel for the techniques. Yikes! She made it look so easy and it's really not because you have to think about color and line and texture and overall design and what you want to heap on top of the foundation and...

Well, here are my three foundation pieces.

This one was the first and turned out fairly well because I followed the demo to the letter. But Susan told us we could mix up the order, so I did that on the last two pieces, which I think did not turn out as well as I had planned or as I had expected (and, yes, the photos should be rotated so that readers don't have to turn their heads at odd angles to view them properly, but I always seem to forget this step before I upload the images.)

I photographed this second piece so that you could see the underlying fabric and how the layering of fibers changes the overall appearance. The little white dots on the black velvet are burn holes which will accommodate beads or other embellishments in the coming two weeks.

And the final photo shows what looks like a turtle, but started out in life as some paisley-printed velvet in the color palette of the strip to the right. The underlying fabric was from an old stained tablecloth.

Today, I will find some beads and embroidery floss from my stash to continue work on the piece this coming Wednesday evening. Susan is providing all the materials for the class, so this is probably not really necessary, but she has been so generous in allowing us to use materials from her own studio that I feel compelled to contribute something of my own to the finished piece. Meanwhile, I will work on the TIF page if I can find the time. It might take me an extra week or two this month but I wouldn't have missed Susan's class for anything.

Success - Sort Of

2008-08-17T09:03:00.000-07:00

My original plan had been to fuse some contrasting flowered fabric to freezer paper and then copy some of my journal writing onto the fabric. But I cheated. I am running flat out with other projects and household chores and I didn't have time to play with this technique. So, when I was in my local quilt shop on Saturday, I bought some pre-fused fabric that is specifically made to go through an ink jet copier.

Here's the journal page copied onto the prepared muslin. Wow! Too easy. I am thinking I could make my own fabric designs. For a quilter, this would be heaven, especially if you wanted to work photos or special designs into a quilt. Now I want to try the freezer paper technique more than ever.

In any case, now that I have the journal page on plain fabric, I am rethinking my design for this part of the project. Maybe on my drive back to the capitol tonight, I'll come up with something I'd like to try.

Balance Represented in Fabric

2008-08-09T15:54:00.000-07:00

Inspiration of a sort hit on late Sunday afternoon just before I was to leave for the capitol. I thought that if balance in my life was generated by walks in the garden, writing morning pages, working with fiber and textiles, and reading, then I ought to be incorporating those activities into this month's challenge, even if I was reluctant to share my morning pages.

So I quickly went through my limited but growing fabric stash and came up with some flowery English country garden cottons specifically designed by Moda for quilting projects. I have just completed my first quilt - a 4-patch - and I wanted to try working with tiny blocks. I cut and stitched with abandon, not really caring if the points met or the blocks were perfectly square or the seams lined up. I slapped on a border of some scrap fabric, and lo! the front of the page. Here's the result of wanting it done, not perfect:

I decided to work some text of my morning pages into the back of the page. Here's the wrong side of the Moda fabric that coordinates with the 1 inch squares on the quilted side:

And here's the right side:

I'll use the wrong side of the fabric to print the journal text. I understand there is a technique for this that requires the temporary fusion of the fabric to freezer paper. You then run the fused fabric through an ink jet printer. I've never tried this before, but I'm game. So, that is the next step in the project.

Here's a photo of the two sides of the page with the binding fabric that will frame the piece when it is finished.

For the back of the page, I've selected part of a journal entry I wrote as I was planning my move from New England to the Carolinas. It deals with stress, taking one thing at a time, dealing with the unexpected, and making the day come out just right in the end. I think it sums up the way I see balance in my life - more like serenely coping with the day as it unfolds, less like controlling the outcome through scheduling or planning, even though I do try to plan some things. Here's the text that will be imprinted on the fabric if I can get the technique to work. If not, I'll have to figure out if it is worth $10 to have the photo store downtown do the printing for me. The proprietor does this for quilters in our area but will use a prepared fabric sheet instead of my selected fabric.

And for those of you who are trying to squinty-read the text, I promise to provide the words in 12-point Times New Roman if I can get this TIF challenge to come out the way I envision it.

Interpreting Balance

2008-08-02T14:03:00.000-07:00

Given this month's balance theme, I thought of a couple of design possibilities for another page in my fabric book. The fact that I can come up with a few different ideas in the course of 30 minutes must mean I'm making progress in translating a concept to a fiber project. But I will confess right now that all of my ideas seem trivial: a scale; a yin-yang symbol; a seesaw. See? Trivial, easy.

Which all got me to thinking about how I measure balance in my life. Am I in balance if every day ends up as planned? Fat chance! If I end a month feeling like my life has been satisfactorily split among family, paid employment, friends, education, relaxation and free time, then is my life in balance? Maybe. Am I closer to being balanced at the end of a year, decade or quarter century? How do I measure balance in my life? And how would I express it in a fiber project if I could define it?

One way I balance my emotions and my schedule is to write morning pages (see Julia Cameron's "The Artist's Way" and my personal favorite, "The Sound of Paper.") But my morning pages are so personal that I am not sure I want to work them into an art project of any kind.

Another way I balance my creative life is to read something inspirational every day. Right now, it's "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch and Anne Lamott's "Plan B." The chapters are short enough that I can read for a few minutes and then think about the message as I drive to work or make dinner.

And I walk in the State House gardens almost every day to regain balance after a busy morning at my desk. South Carolina has one of the most beautiful public gardens, with winding paths and gorgeous monuments. Even when the temperature is 103 F during these dog days, I try to get out and walk in the gardens every lunch hour if only for 20 minutes or so.

So I guess I do certain activities to put balance back in my life. I have my daily list of must-do's and the only option is to add additional activities that give meaning to the have-to's on the list. Hmm. Looks like I am making myself busier in order to achieve balance. I wonder what Henry David Thoreau would say.

All this philosophizing still doesn't help me define what I am going to do for this month's TIF challenge. I am truly drawing a creative blank at the moment, so I guess I need to walk away and fold some laundry or do some weeding. Maybe the inspiration goddess will swoop down and wave her magic wand over my head while I'm busy with one of the must-do's.

For Once, Finished Early

2008-07-19T04:19:00.000-07:00

The page I created for the July "Half Way Mark" challenge is done, and once again, the results turned out better than I had planned. Maybe I expect too little from myself as I begin each TIF challenge or maybe it's true that when you show up at the craft table, some creativity goddess takes over and guides your hand. In any case, there's a smile on my face.

The back of the page was to have three compasses stitched off-center. But the design needed something. There was too much blank space. It was like the page was saying, "Get me out of here as fast as possible." Since I really wasn't in any hurry and certainly didn't want the page to give that impression, I started to play around with sayings or phrases to embroider onto the empty space. In the end I settled on scattering some fussy cut flowers from the border. I stitched five of them to the page and embellished them with some beads. But then the flowers looked like they were somehow unconnected to the compasses, just sort of floating around in space (see, I did learn something from my introduction to drawing class and March's TIF challenge), so I took a few more beads and scattered them randomly between the flowers and the compasses. The compasses did not receive any beading (don't think I didn't try, but beads just didn't go with the zigzag stitches and the fabric imprint.) I used dark blue and turquoise beads at the center of the flowers, bugle beads radiating out from the flowers' centers, and yellow, bronze, and clear beads as the connectors between the compasses and the flowers, with a few red and turquoise beads thrown in at random for accent.

Now, I know some of you are sitting there saying, "Maybe she should have been in a hurry to get out of there as fast as possible because I still don't know what she is trying to say with the flowers and the compasses." Well, I guess an obvious message is: Fiddle with the design until you're happy with it. The Freudian message probably is: She had no direction at the start, so what makes you think that in two weeks she got one and found her way?

The front of the page remained pretty much as it was last weekend. I tried some scattered beads but decided against them, thought about embroidering something at the right side of the page, but then realized that this is where the grommets will go so that the page can be inserted into the book. In the end, I just sandwiched the the cotton batting core between the two pages and stitched on my border. I did not quilt the page, although when the page was done, the grid lines of the foundation fabric lined up perfectly on each side (what an Act of God!), so I did consider it.

This project was good practice for the quilt I'll be starting on Monday - a gift for a friend who has had (and is still having) a run of extremely bad luck in her personal life. I am hoping that maybe the palette Sharon selects next month will agree with my quilt colors. I can't imagine that the theme will! :)

Moving Along the Road to Anywhere

2008-07-10T06:30:00.001-07:00

Good morning, dear readers. I'm getting this project done more quickly than any other I've set out to do in this challenge. I spent part of an evening earlier in the week cutting maps out of the hiking fabric I purchased. I kept one map area with the compass intact and pieced in additional map parts until I was happy with the layout. I was going to hand stitch the pieces onto the background, but decided to try out the zig-zag stitch on my sewing machine. The effect is interesting and I like it a lot, although it is impossible to see on the following photo. The extra space on the left side of the page is to accommodate the book's anchoring posts. I will mark the fabric and do a buttonhole edging around the post holes.

I decided to do a different design on the back of the page. Since I generally develop patterns that are fairly symmetrical, I opted to experiment with an off-center layout. I fussy-cut compasses and again played with the positioning until I liked the effect. Here's the final product, also appliqued onto the background with zig-zag machine stitching.

I had to come home for an eye doctor appointment, so I raided my stash while I was in town and picked up some batting to sandwich between the two sides of the page. The other pages I completed are fairly hefty, and if I don't add some additional fiber to the page, it will seem flimsy compared to the others.

I was also going to embellish the map page with beads or heaven-knows-what, but I haven't been able to come up with any ideas that I think will work at this point in the project. I also haven't decided if I should quilt the page or just leave the batting loose. Since this is an experiment, I am willing to take one step at a time, although adding beads or other embellishments will be a lot easier before I install the batting. Maybe over the weekend I'll just think about what road I'll take. Seems like I am at a circle/rotary/round-about. Isn't that just what I should be expecting on this road to anywhere?

Any Road Will Get You There

2008-07-05T05:38:00.000-07:00

I have decided that the reason I am astonished by Sharon's challenge each month is that my mind does not operate on the same plane as hers. I remember years ago, I saw a comedy routine in which Jonathan Winters was handed a wire coat hanger and asked to turn it into a prop. My mind immediately thought, "Well, hang up clothes, silly." Mr. Winters on the other hand proceeded to think of at least 7 things he could use the hanger into for. That is the difference between linear thinkers and the more creative types. However, over the years, I have learned that you can nurture and develop creativity, even if others seem to be born with it and consequently have to work less hard at it.

So, Sharon says, "Half way there," and I think, "WHAT?!?!?" After giving myself an afternoon to calm down, and instead of immediately going to the color palette challenge for July to do more of the same, I spent several hours thinking about what it means to be half way there.

First thought: I'm not half way anywhere. When I joined the challenge, I wanted to have fun, use up stash, and just see if I could persist in meeting a monthly challenge in the event that I wanted to enroll in an on-line course. Practice, so to speak, for a future day. So, if there's no destination in mind as far as projects or techniques are concerned, you can't be half-way there.

Then, I got a bit perturbed. Is everyone else in the challenge half way there? Am I the only one wandering aimlessly through this challenge?

Anyway, the more I thought about it, the more the following saying kept springing to mind: "If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there." So, I decided to use a map theme this month and do a page for my growing fabric book. I know that this project is not the most original idea, but it does seem to fit the challenge. And although I did not set out in January to make a fabric book, it does seem like I am on that road. So if the journey is the important thing, then I guess I'll stick to that road until a signpost points me elsewhere.

I went to the store to look for fabric that had maps printed on it. I thought this would be easy - Not. I managed to find some quilting cotton with a backpacking or hiking theme. I first thought I'd embellish the fabric with embroidery, but then decided to fussy cut the maps and the compasses and make my own design for the page. I selected coordinating fabrics for the back of the page (the plaid) and the border (blue flowers). I really like this better than just using a map background. The compasses imply direction and the maps, destination. Wow! Fate or what?

Next week, I'll try to find time to lay out a design. Oh, by the way, the colors in the photo are true.

Another Month, Another Page

2008-06-29T04:47:00.000-07:00

I managed to find an hour or so to finish the June Challenge. Here is the finished page mounted in the book I began a couple of months ago.

I made the page a little larger than the first one I completed. Right now, it is on the top (page 1?) but I will eventually change the placement as the book evolves. The knitted scrumble is in the middle of the page, and the needlepoint panels are to the right and left. I wrote on Friday that there was a smooth transition from the knitting to the needlepoint, which is not was I was after at first. I had planned discrete panels of embroidery with floss, beading, crocheting, etc. However, I am glad I stuck with my gut instinct after the first two needlepoint sections. The transition from knitting to needlepoint is so smooth in some places that you really have to examine the work carefully to see which panel is which.

Here is a close-up of the page. The knitted border panel includes the eyelash fiber and the two light purple and the pink mohair yarns. The needlepoint border panel includes the yellow, light blue and dark blue sections. The piece looks better than the photo depicts. It's so good that I am thinking of using the other scrumbles to make some additional pieces to frame and sell. I have to work out the blocking - the piece does not lie flat, but I did not use a frame when I was stitching so that could rectify the problem. I'd also have to see about the framing. There are several good framers in my area who specialize in mounting needlework, so maybe one of them could offer some suggestions. It might be a good series to use in charity challenges, since I already have the scrumbles done and the other elements are in my stash. Framing would be the only cost, and I do have a miter box.....

I wasn't wild about the page backing I selected after I got the whole thing stitched together. However, I did get the fabric from my stash and as a result I spent $0 for this challenge. Everything for this project came from stash. Wow! And it's done. Margot, my quilting instructor, kept asking us during my recent class with her: "Do you want it perfect or do you want it done?" For this challenge, I want to try new techniques and have fun, so I guess in some ways I wanted it done so that I could move on to next month's assignment. It was a test piece for technique and mixed stitching types and I succeeded in what I set out to do, even though the piece evolved significantly from the initial concept.

Here's a close-up (sort 0f) of the back of the page as it looks in the book.

And here's a shot from a distance.

See you in July.

Better than I Had Planned

2008-06-27T16:02:00.001-07:00

I am absolutely dancing for joy. I love the piece that resulted from the combination of knitted scrumble and freeform needlepoint. I have to say though, that I didn't end up with what I had planned. I had thought I to use a patchwork of several different fibers and fabrics from my stash. But as I began to work the piece, it became clear that what looked best was an all-wool patchwork. What really surprised me most was the seamless transition between the knitted scrumble and the needlepoint.

In this photo, you can make out the needlepoint on the right and bottom left. The middle part of the photo shows the knitted scrumble.

Here's a close-up of the needlepoint. I did end up using the beads, but not as I had originally planned. I had thought I'd do a whole panel of beading, but instead I just used the beads to embellish and accent the panels. The beading was done randomly, sometimes just to cover up a part of the free-form I didn't like, sometimes to highlight an area. I did more beading on the needlepoint panels than on the scrumble.

I had planned to use a paper backing for the piece, with a border of ribbon - both from my stash. But after some consideration of how I wanted the piece to be able to bend and drape, I decided to go to my fabric stash instead. There, I found a remnant I bought a few months ago. It's glittery and has the same deep rose-to-pink color palette that is dominant in the scrumble and needlepoint.

Here's a side-by-side of the front and back.

This weekend, I'll sew the backing to the piece and roll the fabric to the front to create a hemmed edge, so that the fabric will show bit on the front. If I manage to finish the piece by Sunday morning, I'll post photos of the finished product before I go back to the capitol. If not, I'll post next weekend.

I Can Do That - Or Can I?

2008-06-14T05:14:00.000-07:00

I was feeling pretty good about my project until I sat down to actually do some work on it. First of all, I realized that attaching the scrumble to the canvas would make the piece difficult to work on. So, I sketched the outline on the canvas, set the scrumble aside, selected some wool for the needlepoint panel, and began stitching.

It wasn't too long into the project before I realized that the embroidery with floss panel might not work. The wool panels of the design are "heavy" and will overpower any floss embroidery I might put into a section. So, I have not jettisoned the embroidery idea, but the panel will not be done with floss. I think I might be able to save the beading section, though, because the beads are weighty enough to be compatible with the wool fiber.

I also decided to pull the unfinished ends of the scrumble sections to the front of the piece. It gives the panel a less finished appearance, and I'll see if I like that effect when I get to the assembly stage. Right now, for the work-in-progress stage, I like it.

I have three needlepoint sections finished - all freeform, which is definitely out of my comfort zone. But the sections look good with the scrumble, which is free-form too. When I get back to the capitol tomorrow night, I'll see if I can work in a beading section.

I'm Having Fun Again!

2008-06-08T09:48:00.001-07:00

Those of you have been readers since my January Barbie adventure know that I had two goals for this challenge: to use stash as much as possible and to have fun. I have to say that three of the last five months have not been fun. Interesting, challenging, therapeutic, but not necessarily fun.

Anyway, fun looks like it is making a comeback. And this may be the first month where I use stash 100% - no outside purchases look like they'll be required.

I decided to use as many fiber and needlework techniques as possible in one piece. I drafted some designs and thought that a patchwork pattern worked best.

Four years ago, I was playing around with freeform knitting. I ended up with about 10 patches that I was going to make into a sweater or a coat or... I don't know? It seemed like a good idea at the time. Looking at the patches or scrumbles now, I think had I completed the project, I'd have looked like a rag doll who had some of the stuffing knocked out of her. In any case, since a garment is not likely to arise from my freeform attempts, I picked the smallest patch to serve as the foundation for the June challenge. It was made from stash and it was in my "projects to be done sometime before I die" stash. A two-fer so to speak. The patch is in the lower right hand corner of the photo.

I had drawn a pattern that I thought might work. It called for knitting, crochet, crewel embroidery, needlepoint, embroidery with floss, and a paper element to be determined. After rummaging through my various stashes, I found some Persian wool for needlepointing, some DMC floss for embroidery and some Aida cloth, needlepoint canvas, beads, paper, and ribbon - ALL in the same color palette! Now don't jump to the conclusion that my brain is ordered to favor certain colors. No, no, no. I've just got an ungodly amount of stash.

Anyway, here's where the project stands: I washed the needlepoint canvas (I haven't done needlepoint in about 40 years, and canvas was tan, but after washing gently with detergent it's now white again) and cut it to the page size for my fabric book. After I get back to the capitol tonight, I'll baste the knitted scrumble to the canvas and block out the rest of the patches. The needlepoint will be worked directly onto the canvas. The patches of embroidery and beading will be worked on the Aida cloth and then basted to the canvas. The paper (acid-free! How lucky can a girl get!?) will serve as the page backing and the ribbon will be used to edge the page. I just have to work out the designs for each patch so that they don't clash with the knitted piece.

Sorry, Tanquera - no candlewicking this month.

De-Stashing?

2008-06-05T11:06:00.000-07:00

One of the goals I had when I signed up for this challenge was to use materials on hand from my stash to complete the monthly projects. I have had limited success. For each of the four months thus far, I have used at least one item from my stash in each project. However, I also bought new materials as needed to complete the designs so that they'd be visually appealing. As a result, I can't really say there was a huge net outflow of stash. Imperceptible might be more like it.

So when Sharon named stash as this month's focus for the challenge, I was sort of giddy with delight. I began thinking up ways to incorporate a number of fibers and fabrics from my stash into a project - probably another page for my fabric book.

But I attended a wool applique class yesterday, and the women began discussing really old, unfinished past projects. Some of these projects went back almost 50 years. Do any of you remember these passing needlework fads: crewel embroidery; needlepoint; macrame; candlewicking; cross stitch (counted and/or stamped, depending on your preference); knitting a la 1970's; crochet (1960's hats and vests); well, the list could go on and on, especially if you include non-fiber crafts like beading and pottery. As I drove home from the class, I thought about all the pattern books that still populate my bookshelves. I thought they were kind of like stash, too. Projects not yet realized, just fodder for dreams. Eye candy of a sort.

Anyway, I am thinking I will do a walk down memory lane using my stash of both books and fiber. Maybe a collage of past techniques rolled into one page - a crazy quilt-like page. An index of stashed items. Heaven knows, I could use a guide - I get really annoyed with myself when I come upon a kit I purchased back in the day when my eyesight was good and I knew what was in every drawer in the house.

So, this weekend, I will pull out my stash for every fiber technique I have ever attempted and see if I can find some design inspiration in the needlework books in my book stash, aka library. By Sunday, I hope to have a design in mind, although I may be very late posting the finished product. I enrolled in a quilting class and the first meeting was last Saturday. The goal is to have a finished lap quilt by June 30th. I am busily sewing the 4-patch design, but I'm having the devil of a time getting the points to meet. I guess that's what happens when I sign up for a class having no experience with a sewing machine or rotary cutter. Fortunately, the instructor, Margot, is the most patient person in the world. I'm sure she finds students like me trying, but she just keeps smiling. And even though all the blocks aren't perfect, it's sort of coming together nicely and looks really good from 3 feet away. It won't win any competitions I'm sure if judges get up close, but it's making me happy, and that was my principle goal.

Wow! I'm Done

2008-05-30T18:31:00.000-07:00

I am pleased as punch with May's project results. I confess it was a struggle to come up with a design that expressed my feelings about being an artist, but the whole thing turned out way better than I had hoped for. Here's the front of the piece. I used the two shell beads to hide the holes I had deliberately made to allow the page to fit into the book I started last month. It was just as well that I added an embellishment to each side of "Fear." Had I put the page in the book as it was originally designed, some of the page's detail would have been obscured as other pages were added. I will pick up some stitches along the top of the page and knit an edge to accommodate the book binding, so the piece will ultimately be about 1.5" longer than it is now. But when it is inserted into the book, the entire design will be visible.

I incorporated a selvedge into the knitted piece, so I was able to make a hem which framed the fabric backing nicely. I wasn't able to work the accent yarns I selected last Saturday into the piece - a tassel just didn't work right on the piece. So even though I love dangly thingies, and even though I had plenty of beads available to hang about, I did not use them this time except to embellish the fabric backing, as you can see from the following photo. The color palette in this photo by the way is truer to the actual work than some of the other photos where the fibers are grayer.

And here's a close-up of the fuschia on the fabric backing,

the shell beads,

and the appliqued fabric on the front of the work.

If I had a do-over for any part of this challenge, I'd have thought through the size of the piece better, so that I wouldn't have to go back and add a section to bind the work. And I'd have used the same color palette for the shells. In my defense, the shells were not meant to be attached to the page, but were supposed to be used to weight the tassels on either side of the page.

Onward to June. I hope I can keep up next month. I will be very busy at my paying job for the next sixty days so the challenge really will be a challenge in more ways than one.

Got It Together (Sort Of)

2008-05-26T05:19:00.000-07:00

I decided that all I needed to complete the project were some gently contrasting fibers to make a tassel or two and maybe edge the page, and some additional beads to embellish the tassel and fill in blank spaces on the page.

So I stopped at the bead store and did some more shopping with the help of the proprietor and her assistant, who both have a good eye for color. We chose beads in neutral tones to avoid a jarring effect. The following photo shows the beads, but the depth of the darker shades captured by the camera is greater than what the eye actually sees. I will not use all the beads for the embellishments, so the darker beads will mainly be for accent.

Next, I selected fiber from my stash to make the tassels. Several of the fibers were samples I picked up at knitting conventions or "yarn tastings" given by my LYS (local yarn shop). I always wondered what I'd do with a two yard sample of fiber other than cram it into a bag with all the other unlabeled samples. Well, now I know. Anyway, I chose subtle (for me) colors, which believe it or not were hard to find in my stash. The yarns looked good not only with the beads, but also with the semi-completed page and the fabric backing. Here's the fiber:

And here are the beads and fibers together. I have everything now to finish the page, I think. I'll try to get the results posted by Saturday.

Halfway There

2008-05-24T04:49:00.000-07:00

I'd like to say that once I had selected a course of action, my plan would have gone smoothly. Not so, but perhaps that is characteristic of plans in general. Anyway, here's what I wanted to do and what really happened:

Plan: I had the lampwork bead I loved, so I selected some 30 year old wool to work a fabric page. Actual: I completed the knitted page as planned and gently felted it to remove some of the stitch definition. Since I don't feel I've made a complete transition to fabric from fiber, I wanted to retain some of the knit definition. Plus, I wanted to give the page some stability - knitted fabric is floppy.

Plan: I wanted to embellish the page, and had bought, in addition to the lampwork bead, two bags of glass seed beads and some fabric to back the page. Actual: The lampwork bead and the coordinating seed beads were definitely not a go. The lampwork bead was too heavy for the knitted fabric, even though it was felted to give it more body. The two colors of seed beads were not enough to carry off a design on the page. And I didn't know what design I wanted to embellish.

Plan: No design ideas for the page. Actual: I spent three nights drawing out geometric and floral designs and scouring books for apt quotations. I have a small volume called "Art and Fear". A very good text for "artists" like me. One of the chapters addresses all the reasons why artists don't produce work. One of them is fear of pretending. I read that section several times before I decided an appropriate phrase might be "Fear of pretending I am what I am not."

Plan: use the materials on hand. Actual: One of the seed beads I purchased for the project was in my opinion perfect to use for the saying. The bead was almost the same color as the background page, but stood out just enough so that a reader could make out the phrase. And it expressed perfectly how I felt in both words and color. When I'm afraid, I want to fade into the background and not be noticed. I want the challenge or whatever I'm afraid of to go away.

Anyway, here is the page as it stands at this point (forgive me for not rotating the photos):

(Note: The holes in the fabric on either side of "Fear" were intentional. I inserted them in case I wanted to put the page in the fabric book I started last month.)

Plan: Use the fabulous fabric I purchased at my local quilt shop to coordinate with the lampwork bead as the backing for the page. Actual: When the page was worked to the stage it is at now, the fabric was much too lively. So, I went to the fabric store in the capitol right across from my office building to search for something else. The store is in the artsy district and they always have the most embellished, outrageous-in-a-good-way fabrics. And sure enough I found the neatest fabric. It is an embroidered taffeta.

Here is the wrong side of the fabric.

The right side has furry fuschias! Perfect!!!

Plan: Back the page with the fabric and fussy-cut some of the fuschias to embellish the empty spots on the felted page. Actual: I hope to work on completing the page this weekend and maybe surf the Web to see what everyone else is doing on this month's challenge. I haven't visited sites for almost two months now, so it would be good to get back into the community of TIF-fers and see what's going on.

Confusion

2008-04-30T17:30:00.000-07:00

How do I describe myself as an artist? Gee. My first thought is that I don't. Maybe that is at the heart of my problem. Am I an artist first and foremost? No, I'm not. And personally, I think the word "artist" is a bit generous for this stage of my development. If someone asked me who I am, I'd say I'm a paid employee, a mother, a wife, a sister, a friend, a gardener, a daughter, a knitter, a scrapbooker, a needlepointer, an avid reader, a sports photographer, ... See my dilemma? Artist appears nowhere on the list, although one might argue, not very convincingly in my case I might add, that one or more of my hobbies could transcend craft and become art.

When I think of someone who calls herself an artist, I think of someone who makes her living, however modest, from art. I would never describe myself to anyone as an artist because my paid employment comes from non-art sources. Is this an American phenomenon? To define the person you are by the level of monetary compensation? Many people would point out that we all have to eat, so it would be natural to talk about your job if you are asked what you do.

But perhaps it's attitude that is at the heart of the creative process - or lack of it. If a person calls herself an artist, does that internally validate the artistic process and lead to more/better creativity? If I stopped defining myself as a paid employee and started calling myself an artist, would that change my daily behavior? I think it would, at least to the extent that I'd spend more time thinking about my art/craft and less time thinking about my job. Is that a good thing? I'm not sure, because I still have to work for at least another two years before I can officially retire.

Of course, I'm a TIF challenge participant who does not do art for a living. So maybe those of us for whom art/craft is an avocation will respond differently to this challenge. The difficulty for me will be to figure out how to express in fiber or fabric the dilemma I face. Who am I? Hmm. Something to mull over this weekend as I drive to North Carolina to photograph Clemson's club baseball team in the playoffs. See? Not artist. Photographer, mother, wife, but not artist.

Yippee, I Beat the Clock

2008-04-27T14:36:00.001-07:00

Well, I'm amazed. I actually finished a challenge on time for once. And oddly, it came out better than I had expected.

Here's a photo of the finished piece. I stuck with the black eyelash I-cord i had already made to embellish the seams of the page, but I thought it would be over-use to edge the page with the same fiber. So I selected some polyester fiber called "Candy FX" by Berroco to make the edging. I bought just one skein of this fiber a year or so ago to see how it would work up. (Note to knitters: I do not recommend this fiber. It has to be one of the most difficult yarns I have ever worked with due to the way the manufacturer attached the slubbed pieces to the main strand. Berroco says to work Candy FX with another fiber and I did not. In my humble opinion, however, working two strands together would not improve the ease with which a knitter could work with this fiber.) I made the edging from Candy FX and it was a perfect choice for this particular project. The colors in the photo don't really do justice to the actual color scheme. And the irregularity of the stitches caused by Candy FX's slubbing complimented the eyelash yarn. I hand-stitched the I-cord and edging to the fabric page.

I left the back of the page essentially unembellished except for a rogue piece of edging that I was going to unravel so that I could use the yarn again. No big surprise that ripping a completed piece would be a no-go. So I sewed the edging piece to the back of the page, and left the unraveled end hanging off the bottom. What looks like unraveled fiber on the side of the page is just some extra yarn that I cut up and tied to the end tails of the edging. I thought maybe some black beads hanging from the threads would be neat, but it was too over-the-top, so I let the yarns speak for themselves and decided the work was done.

I assembled the backing for the book according to the directions in Cloth, Paper Scissors, as noted in my first post for this month's challenge. Here's the inside cover. I used spray adhesive to attach the cloth and the paper to the foam board. It worked fine on the cloth, but not so well on the paper. I will go back later and use a stronger adhesive in the places where the paper is sneaking off the backing.

And here is the outside cover of the book backing. I just love the fabric. The design is all orange, peach, and yellow on black.

My only disappointment is that I didn't make the page as large as it could have been. I have decided to turn this into a design feature and stagger the length of additional pages, making each successive page a bit longer.

I am still working out how to use the Weave-It squares in my fabric book. I have not had either the nerve or the heart to cut them yet, and I haven't worked with any more fibers since my last post. Depending on the upcoming challenges, this Weave-It experiment will either be free-standing or I'll incorporate into one of the coming challenges.

More Moving On

2008-04-17T16:21:00.000-07:00

I was able to spend six hours working on craft projects today. I need to take more vacation days like this - no packing, no reservations at some strange hotel, no endless drives or waits in airports, no family arguments about where to eat, no frantic rush home. Just sleeping late, eating a leisurely breakfast, followed by crafting - with an occasional cup of tea or dish of yogurt. So what did I accomplish for the challenge?

After knitting several fabric pieces and being dissatisfied with their weight compared to the weight of the woven fabrics I selected for my book page, I was about ready to give up trying to combine knitting with textiles. I felt I just wasn't getting combinations that were pleasing to the eye. I was moderately happy with the I-cord outline I had planned for the fabric book page I sewed, but I still wanted to work with both my overabundant fiber stash and my growing, but modest fabric stash as part of the changes theme. Using I-cord on a patchwork fabric background wasn't fulfilling my goal or my soul. Then, I hit on a possibility. I had a Weave-It loom (stop laughing, weavers) from my girlhood and I decided to try using some of my fiber stash to make my own fabric. In my first attempt, I used some vintage nylon super-fingering yarn from the Fifties to lace the loom, and some polyester modern accent fibers to weave.

I also used some modern crochet thread to lace the loom and to weave.

I have to say that I was pretty happy with the results. The advantages to using my fibers in a woven format are 1) the resulting fabrics are lighter in weight and more compatible with commercially-produced textiles, and 2) I can control the color variations much better on the loom than I can in a knitted fabric. The disadvantages? I don't have all that many synthetic fibers or much crochet thread in my stash.

I have not yet tried to cut the Weave-It squares, so I don't know how they will stand up to being combined in a patchwork and then trimmed. I am still working on this idea. I have not used any wool fibers at this point, but I have so confess I am not anxious to do so. I love how the synthetic fibers bloom after being released from the loom. And the synthetic fibers are slippery, making them easy to weave on the Weave-It. The slipperiness also allows the eyelash fibers to spring out of the fabric with a bit of rubbing or gentle scratching. It's very easy to control what fibers you choose to release, too, so you can selectively set free only blue eyelash fibers, for example, keeping the others woven in the fabric. Can you tell yet that I really had a good time with this experiment?

In any case, I need some additional stash to continue my research, so my $10 monthly budget for challenge projects will be thrown to the wind this April. I am definitely going shopping this weekend for more fiber. And when I get to Allentown in three weeks, I will be asking my dear sister to take me to Tucker's, a fabulous old knitting store that still has inventory from 60 years ago. Need vintage fibers? Call Tucker's, but please not before May 12th. I get first dibs.

Meanwhile, here is a photo of the green fabric that will back the finished page. The color is actually more of a yellow-green than what appears here. I am not sure how I will treat the backing - leave it as is or do some embroidery. I think I'll get a better feeling for this when I get the I-cord stitched on and the edging done.

Finally, here is the fabric I chose for the back cover of the book. I also selected an orange fabric to line the inside back cover, but I decided to use acid-free orange card stock instead after looking at some commercially-produced scrap books.

Moving Right Along

2008-04-17T05:12:00.001-07:00

After a bit of experimenting with fabric and fiber together, I decided that the best use of the materials I had on hand was to use the fabric as a base and then embellish with the fiber. I knitted up several small swatches of fabric, but none of them coordinated well with the woven textiles. The knitted swatches were of a heavier weight, and the knit and woven patterns did not mesh well.

So, I dragged out the sewing machine I had just received as a gift, choose several squares from "S-S-Silly Safari", and stitched a book page together. Do not, under any circumstances, think this was an easy task. New machine, new sewer - well, what more can I say, other than a serging stitch does the trick nicely, and I'll figure out how to sew a straight stitch at a later date.

When the swatch was done, I matched the knitted swatches against it to determine which fibers coordinated best with the page's fabrics. I knit up an edging and some I-cord to outline the individual fabrics in the swatch, and now I'm ready to embellish the page.

I also did a bit of shopping in the last ten days. I picked out the fabric, screw posts, and foam board for the book backing, and I bought fabric to face the finished page. If the weather cooperates, I'll be out on the patio spraying adhesive on the foam board and attaching the fabric to the book backing.

Today, the women in my housing development are hosting a craft day. We are going to be working on UFOs from 11 AM to 5 PM. I couldn't resist this activity so I took a day of vacation in order to attend. I hope to have made significant progress on this month's challenge by the end of the day.

Salsa Girl is Back

2008-04-06T13:06:00.000-07:00

The March challenge left me feeling flat and uninspired. I think it was because of the project I selected. I fell way short of my goals, and I certainly couldn't say I had fun. I was in fact working at the task of drawing and I usually wasn't happy with the results of the sketches I did.

I decided to turn back to wild and crazy in April. Back to experimenting with techniques, back to having fun. When I read Sharon's challenge to address change, I immediately thought of my wish to move away a bit from knitting and try quilting. Fiber to fabric, so to speak.

It so happened that I was in my local quilt shop earlier in the day and found a pack of color-coordinated fabric in primary colors. Needless to say, I had to take it home with me, but I had no idea what I was going to do with it at the time of purchase. I have also begun to acquire some "fat quarters" with the goal of learning how to quilt in the coming months. The fabrics are in no particular palette - just what appeals to me at the time I'm in a shop or at a yard sale.

I decided to address this month's challenge by trying to marry knitted fabric with woven fabric. I wanted the piece to be transitional, in some way incorporating the best of both the fiber and the fabric. I pulled out some inspirational photos of crazy quilts, with the intention of perhaps using the fiber in the embellishment of the seams. But I felt I didn't know enough about quilting to complete a project by the end of the month (Lord knows, I have a hard enough time keeping up with these challenges when I at least have a vague idea of what I'm doing!)

I recently completed a fabric postcard class at my local quilt shop, and I thought that maybe I'd do post card-size piece. I thought I'd use one fabric as the core or center and then work the knitted fabric(s) as a kind of frame, maybe embellish the fabric with buttons or sequins or beads, and then back the piece with either a knitted or woven complementary fabric.

Here is the fabric stash I started with:

And here is the fiber that I selected from my stash (Note about the fiber: I stuck to all synthetics or cottons since all the fabrics were cottons or cotton-polyesters):

I ended up selecting four possible fabrics and five or six fibers in coordinating colors:

The fabrics all came from Moda's "Sss-silly Safari."

I swatched up three of the fibers and began playing with the pieces. Being a nut for color - any color as long as it's screaming, in-your-face, outrageously bright - and as long as I can combine a zillion patterns in coordinating shades with all kinds of glitter, charms, and sequins dangling around, I am REALLY happy. So I realized after about 10 minutes of shifting fabric and swatches around, I'd need a bigger piece than 4" X 6" (10 cm X 15 cm) because I wasn't content to use just one fabric and two or three fibers. I wanted several fabrics. I also wanted to combine the knitted and woven fabrics randomly, rather than having the knitted parts forming a frame around the fabric.

Here's where I'm at for the moment: I have decided to begin a "book" of fabric pages. I plan to make several more swatches from the coordinating fibers and I'll play around with them until I come up with something that's pleasing to me. I plan to use the "build-a-book" instructions that Virginia Spiegel published in the Fall 2006 issue of Cloth, Paper, Scissors (p.60-65). I haven't decided on the size of the "page" yet, although the instruction suggest 10" X 6 " (25 cm X 15 cm).

Back in the Game?

2008-04-05T13:14:00.001-07:00

When the challenge for the month of March was issued, I immediately thought of the perfect way to make me (or anyone else for that matter) notice details - draw a picture or take a photograph.

I've always wanted to be able to draw better and a couple of years ago, I took a course at the local art center at night. The teacher was very tolerant of my beginning efforts and I showed up for every class, including the ones where we were asked to draw the human figure from a living, breathing model. Thinking about that class now, God bless the model. She'd visit each easel at the end of the modeling period and see how we had portrayed her. All my renderings of her looked vaguely alien, but she was always very kind in her comments.

In any case, I decided that I never got good at drawing because I never worked at it diligently. When I took the class, I didn't draw outside the structured classroom time, and to get good at anything, you have to practice at it daily. I thought this was the perfect opportunity to see if I could stick to some kind of schedule and get better at drawing too.

The project as I conceived it fulfilled my personal goals for this challenge: I already had a sketchbook and a set of pencils so I'd definitely be within my $10/month limit for project supplies; I've wanted to practice drawing so that I'd improve the diagrams of projects I'd hope to undertake; and I thought drawing daily would be fun. My objective was to draw one thing every day, however small or trivial.

Here are the results of my efforts to notice details:

I didn't manage to draw one thing per day, which was a personal disappointment. The goal didn't seem that outrageous. But there were days when I got home so late from work that I just didn't have the energy to tackle a challenge. I did try to stretch myself by trying a cartoon figure, drawing designs from memory, and putting some of the objects of my attention in context (my art teacher always used to pass by my easel and ask me why the fruit/bottles/cans were floating in space without any reference to other objects).

I thought the challenge would be fun but it wasn't. I discovered that I do not think drawing is fun. It is not relaxing for me. I couldn't wait to be finished with each sketch I was doing and get on with my knitting. As a child and young adult, I never just spontaneously drew or doodled. I suspect that people who draw or doodle would not necessarily pick up knitting needles, so I am content with this.

I feel more confident about my drawing now - I can at least put a name to each object I drew which is some comfort. As a result, I have more confidence in recording ideas in sketch form in a project journal. And it certainly is true that if you draw something (or in my case, try to draw something), you remember it very clearly later. There are details of the palm plant and the flooring tiles, for example, that I never would have paid much attention to had I not had to draw them.

The challenge also made me look at other artists drawings. I'd ask myself, "Would I be happy with that if that werre my work?" I was surprised how many times I'd decide I'd reject the piece because I didn't think it would be good enough to publish/sell/publicize. Never mind that the drawings were all published in art magazines. To me, they were not particularly attractive. I suppose much of that criticalness is merely taste. But the March challenge did made me think about when something from the craft table is good enough - maybe not perfect, but okay. I'm still working on this notion of good enough versus perfect versus it's done let's move on. Settling that in my mind is for some other later challenge, I suppose.

So, I am now off to consider April's assignment. I have already decided to use fiber, no matter what Sharon throws at us. I've noticed that most of my fellow challengees are needleworking. I think it's time to stop bucking the tide and get with the needle arts program. Also, to those of you have been left comments, I only have computer access on the weekends so I am not intentionally ignoring you if several days go by without a response. I just don't have the capacity to read and publish your comments more quickly.

February's Challenge Completed

2008-03-23T08:08:00.000-07:00

My response to the February challenge certainly morphed between conception and finished project. After my last post, which admittedly was eons ago, I had finished an envelope and had gathered an assortment of buttons and seam bindings, with the intent of doing a sort of "rosary". After the post, I kept looking at the items I had put together. I kept thinking about my mother and how she'd consider the assembled materials, and what she'd think of the project overall. And that's when I switched gears yet again.

My Mom was a very fashionable woman in her time. She'd never have settled for a few buttons and some seam binding. She'd embellish a dress she'd made for one of her daughters with smocking. She'd add a corsage. She'd find some fabulous jewelry to accessorize an outfit. So I dragged out every conceivable embellishment I had on hand and began considering how I might merge part of me with part of her. After all, I AM half of her genetically. Why not have half of me in the project?

I was torn about this approach because all of the items I had from her did not altogether match up well with things from my stash: glass beads with plastic buttons; colors just a little off to be really compatible; and not enough of any one thing to tie it all up in a neat package.

Then I decided that the neat package concept was my problem. Alzheimer's takes what was once a neat, pulled together package and rips it open. Goofy stuff hangs out of a person suffering from the disease. So who says everything has to be neat and matched in this particular case? So I settled on a few items from my stash (beads mostly), stopped by Jo-Ann's to get some jewelry embellishments, packed up all the items, and went up to the capitol for a week of paid work.

For once, I left work on time one afternoon and got home with enough energy to do more than flop on the couch with my knitting. I decided to make a bracelet out of the beads, partly because my mother always would ask of any project, "So what are you going to do with THAT?" "It's a bracelet, Mom. I can wear it if the spirit moves me." I used her buttons, my beads, and the newly purchased findings. I never beaded before, so I'm fairly happy with my first attempt. I don't think it's too bad, except that the bracelet is a bit too big for my wrist (okay, it's gigantic!), so if I want to wear it, I will have to shorten it. Then again, I forgot to measure it as I was stringing the beads and buttons - Freudian?

I really got into stringing beads. It is very repetitive, almost like knitting if you can manage to work up a good rhythm. The envelope was sort of plain, so I made a string of beads to embellish the front of it. When the string was completed, I stitched it to the envelope. I used some of the buttons that didn't make it into the bracelet to complete the face. Here's the envelope opened flat. The colors in this photo are true.

And here it is closed.

And here's the envelope and bracelet together, in case you are interested in scale. The bracelet is 11 inches (27 cm) long. The envelope is 4" X 6" (10.5 cm X 15.5 cm).

So there you have it, the February challenge completed by the end of March. Some demons exorcised, some not. But I did eventually have fun with this project. I didn't spend more than $10 (my personal expenditure limit for each month's challenge), and I sure know what's in my stash now when it comes to beads, sewing supplies, buttons, and fabric. Mom, I don't know what I will do with this project. I might carry it around with me to remind me of your favorite colors, or to remind me that you were once a very accomplished seamstress, or to remind me that even a practical person like you had a pretty good stash.

And for those of you who think I am so far behind at this point that I will never catch up with the March challenge, well do I have a surprise for YOU. I have been secretly working on this month's challenge, and I will reveal all next weekend - or not. Depends on housework, paid work, and whether any more tornadoes touch down in South Carolina. Now, I'm off to clean up some more debris from the garden.

Challenge #2, Oy!

2008-02-24T05:05:00.000-08:00

Maybe if the project I select for the challenge gets too personal, that's when I run into trouble. I'm usually a fairly decisive person, but this assignment has me twisting and spinning.

I was pretty pleased with myself on Monday evening last week. I had pretty well laid out the project and had assembled the relevant materials. I had planned to make a postcard that had the seam binding going at angles across the face, with black buttons sewn randomly about the card. I also wanted an envelope to house the card. It would hide the card with the randomly sewn seam binding and buttons, like Alzheimer's patients try to hide their forgetfulness in the early stages of their illness. I selected fabric I had bought for the first challenge, because it had a pattern and color palette I know my Mom would have liked. I had some gold metallic fabric on hand that I planned to use for the interior of the envelope. I chose some rose-colored fabric for the postcard face, and I selected seam bindings that sort of matched. I wasn't too concerned about the matching aspect at first, because matching clothes was something that went by the wayside pretty early for Mom. Here's a reasonable facsimile of what I planned to work with (I don't always get the most accurate colors when I photograph - Note to self: take a class in digital photography!)

I found a paper envelope about the right size, cut out the fabrics, and hand stitched them together to form an envelope. Here it is just before the flaps were sewn down.

As I put the finishing touches on the envelope, I began to have second thoughts about the plan for the postcard. I had been fingering the buttons as I selected them, and I felt that maybe they'd be better used as worry beads or charms instead of being tied down on a card.

The envelope reminded me of two smaller ones I had on hand: one that a jeweler used to hold a gold necklace I had purchased; the other to hold a rosary. So, maybe I should scrap the postcard idea and try to figure out a way to use the buttons in a chain? As jewelry? As a string of worry beads/buttons? An Alzheimer's rosary?

The mismatching of the seam binding was bothering me, too? My Mom would never have mismatched anything in her earlier years.

So, I suppose I must decide what I want to bring from the past and what elements I want to incorporate from the present before I complete any more of this project. It's definitely a dilemma for me.

I think I want to go forward with the envelope, but I've decided to not use the postcard to hold the buttons. Maybe a stroke of genius will hit me as I iron this week's laundry. Or maybe I just have to lay out a bunch of supplies on my craft table and fiddle about with them in case genius needs a shove in some direction.

Onward to Challenge #2

2008-02-18T04:42:00.000-08:00

Now that Nikki's clothes have been retired to the more appropriate three year old hands for which they were intended, I can move on to February's challenge.

Last month, I had thought to try an admiration piece to my mother. But I couldn't come up with a way to express my feelings, so I selected the color palette instead. When the topic of remembrance was assigned in February, doing something to honor my Mom jumped into my mind again. So on February 2nd, I sat down with my photo albums and thought about making a collage of photos of her with a poem to accompany them. Trouble was, I ended up surrounded with wet tissues, thinking about the woman I loved who is lost to Alzheimer's. Scratch that idea. I'd need therapy or at least a good support group by the time I completed that project. And one of my personal goals with the challenge was to have some fun.

While going through the photos, I came up with some darling shots of my sisters in the late fifties or early sixties. I haven't mastered iPhoto yet and I thought I might do a computer project, experimenting with photo layout and color. This idea was gently percolating, but I hadn't firmed up anything concrete in the way of plan or process.

Then, last night, as I was putting away all the materials from the Barbie project, I came across two containers of sewing supplies that had once belonged to my Mom. When my sisters and I cleaned out my parents' home just after they had moved to an assisted living facility, one of the items I inherited was a tin of old (and I mean old) seam bindings, elastic (thinks bras and girdles from the fifties), hooks (rusty), snaps, and sundry supplies, plus a small box of odd (really odd) buttons. I still laugh when I think of my sisters' faces when I said I wanted the items. I know they thought I was ready for a rest home or at least drugs when I decided to lug this junk hundreds of miles across the Mason-Dixon line, while the Lladro and Limoge went begging for a home.

When I saw the two containers in my sewing bin, that's when it hit me: use the materials from her stash to do my February challenge. So I spent an hour or so last night considering how the seam bindings and the assortment of buttons might come together into some kind of cohesive piece. Since I am starting this project so late, I decided to keep the piece in the 5"X7" range. I'll probably need to purchase 1/4 yard of foundation fabric (I don't have anything heavy enough in my very meager fabric stash) and I may add a few seam binding colors if my design requires them.

I am going to use the color palette of one of the last garments my Mom ever stitched before she gave up sewing - a mandarin-collared blouse that I also inherited but haven't had the strength to wear. It's not good, you know, when someone says they like your blouse and you burst into tears. Plus, it's scary to wear your Mom's clothes - like when you forget what you've got on and you pass a mirror, you get inclined to say, "Hi, Mom." This does not help my self-image.

And how, you ask, does this fulfill my goals for the challenge? Well, I'm using up stash, holding the cost of the project to under $10, having fun (okay, that's questionable, unless exorcising demons can be considered entertaining, although remembering my sisters' expressions the moment I said I wanted the sewing supplies should count at least a little bit), and it is something I've wanted to do, if only to prove to my dear Allentown sister that I really am going to use this old stuff for something. Plus, it will actually be a stitched piece, which is more in keeping with the rest of the work the challenge participants are engaged in. Might as well not be totally out of step here!

Oh, by the way dear Tulsa sister, you don't have to send me those embarrassing photos of us as children that you said you had in your possession.

Finally, the Fashion Show

2008-02-17T16:59:00.000-08:00

Well, for those of you who have been waiting patiently for the Barbie fashion show, here it is. Nikki (left) and her friend Nancy (right) were available for the modeling gig this afternoon and I finally got all the velcro closures, hooks, and snaps sewn on the clothes just five minutes before the photographer arrived. I have to say I am tickled pink with the results. As I was making the garments, I tried each one on Nikki but today was the first time I put the pieces together to make whole outfits. There are a few gaps in the wardrobe, like a long sleeve blouse, a long cotton skirt, and a dress, but I think a three year old will overlook those deficiencies.

Here is a summer ensemble. Nikki is wearing the halter top, which came out much better than I had hoped (I decided to stitch the neck straps closed, like the bikini Nikki was assigned at the factory) and a hand stitched cotton skirt. Nancy is wearing the vest/beach cover-up/mini-dress. The beach bag is the only item I didn't make - it was a potpourri bag I found in my sock drawer, and the color was just too perfect to not re-purpose it.

And here's Nancy in the dress above, reversed front to back. Nikki's wearing the Kidsilk Haze cardigan with the black sleeveless blouse and the skirt I made at the beginning of the challenge.

My favorite outfit is the skirt of Shepherd's fiber, the little jacket and the halter top that Nikki's got on. Nancy's in the first sweater I knit for this challenge.

And here are the girls in their reversible sweaters.

And last, but not least, here's the Noro coat and the Habu jacket.

I'm laughing as I scroll through the photos. I haven't played with dolls in years and boy, did I have fun with this project. All that remains is to dress the girls in their factory-assigned clothes, box up the clothes I made, and find some suitable birthday wrapping paper for the present. Nancy needs to be returned to her owner, too.

I'm sorry I'm finishing the January challenge a bit behind schedule, but I'm glad I enjoyed this project so much. If I had a do-over, I'd use snaps on the clothes instead of velcro - the velcro makes a thick closure that deforms the fit of the garment; I'd plan out the ensembles better - I made what I wanted to make and didn't think about coordinated outfits until about halfway through January; and I'd have made sure the fashion show occurred at work as planned. I'd also have mapped out my time better so that I finished the assignment on time. But I've always been a procrastinator so it's not surprising that I'm late with this, just disappointing.

From the January challenge, I learned that if you "show up" for a project, somehow it gets done and the results are better than expected. I learned to trust my instincts more when knitting. Patterns are good guides, but I didn't use a pattern for any of the garments I knit for Nikki. That said, I couldn't have made the fabric garments without the patterns from that wonderful woman in New Zealand. I guess it's okay to let go and do as long as you know your limitations. And I learned that if you ask friends for help with a fun project, they will laugh with you, ask every day how the project is going, send you fabulous fun fibers in the color palette you need, and read your blog even though they most likely have much better things to do.

Onward to February.

Longer than I expected

2008-02-09T14:30:00.000-08:00

I apologize to the few readers who have left comments and are waiting to see Nikki and her pals all dressed to kill. I hit a few speed bumps on the road to project completion.

First of all, it is no longer possible to buy fashion doll accessories. I must confess that I did not complete an exhaustive search for doll shoes and purses. But I did visit three or four stores looking for those bubble packs of accessories I remember my sisters getting after my mother made doll clothes for them. A gentleman in one store told me they hadn't carried accessories for at least three years. I guess this says either we are now so affluent that we just want to buy whole outfits, or it say we are so litigious that companies are no longer willing to risk a lawsuit over a potential choking hazard so they'll stop selling very small items. In any case, Nikki is shoeless and bagless.

Second of all, a stream of disappointed women came through my office door to tell me they couldn't find their Barbie dolls. Well, I can see clearly how this happened. Either their minds are failing and they can't remember where they actually put them, or someone in their household was doing a clear-out and the dolls got tossed into the trash. Of course, the guilty parties who chucked Barbie will never own up. It's much easier to let your spouse think the item you are looking for is just misplaced. One woman came in all harried with the story that she spent three hours in the attic searching for Barbie and came away empty handed. She left my office though saying that the search had been worthwhile because now she knew where some other long-stored items were and the attic was all neat and tidy.

In any case, I have two fashion dolls in my possession and I will try to do the fashion show with them tomorrow.

As for the February challenge, I am still mulling over what I want to do. Last month, I zoomed out of the starting gate. This month, I am being a bit more thoughtful. I am thinking I might try to learn some photoshop techniques and incorporate some old photos as part of the "I remember" theme. I will select the photos over the next week and decide how I want to handle them in the overall project. I'd also like to do some text to give the photos context. I'll be able to devote my full attention to this after the fashion show.

Last Lap

2008-01-27T06:29:00.000-08:00

I've completed three more garments for Nikki during the third week of the January "Take it Further" challenge. After reviewing what I had done so far, I knew I needed a black top to complement the moss green outfit and the coat. I also needed a neutral top to go with the cotton skirt. And I had a skein of crochet thread I bought specifically for this project, so I wanted to at least attempt something with that.

My dear Tulsa sister had sent some lovely Handmaiden silk that she had left over from a project she had done. So I decided to use that for the neutral top, even thought the color wasn't exactly what I had in mind to match the skirt. It whipped up fairly nicely in plain garter stitch, considering I had no pattern. I just kept measuring the garment every two knitted rows or so against Nikki. All I have to do is add the velcro closures at the neck and back edges, and it will be done.

Next, I turned my attention to the crochet thread that has been patiently waiting since early January. I decided to just wing a long, funky vest because Nikki was with me only part of last week and I was unable to measure the garment against her every few rows the night I started the project. I used a stitch count based on the sweaters I had completed, and just set about doing what was in my mind. Knitting with crochet thread was challenging, but I actually like the look and would consider making an adult garment out of it. The twist of the fiber is really tight, so the thread doesn't split, and the drape is nice (not great, but nice), but it requires very small needles (I used size 0 USA). The fit of Nikki's vest is okay, but if I had to do it over again, I'd allow fewer stitches on the two front panels and provide more of a shoulder seam. When I tried the vest on Nikki, there was so much overlap in the two front panels that I realized if I made a belt, she'd have a mini-dress or a beach cover-up. So, I did a teeny-tiny I-cord for the belt and found a small plastic ring in my embellishments stash, and voila! another reversible multi-purpose garment.

My last and most dreaded project was a black blouse, which looks more gray than jet black in the accompanying picture. The problem with black fabric is that it's so hard to see what you are stitching when you are using black thread. By the time I had completed the project, my eyes were worn out and I was thinking this was the last item I'd do for the color-coordinated wardrobe. I guess I was partly starting to feel like I did what I had set out to do - make color-coordinated outfits in the color family assigned for a fashion doll. And I was also partly feeling the time pressure - the need to be ready to move on to the February challenge, which God wiling will NOT entail making doll clothes.

At the moment, I still have to stitch on all the velcro closures and I need to get some shoes for the doll. And I think I'll host a fashion show to demonstrate how the garments look on Nikki and maybe some of her "friends." You see, I've told some of my coworkers about the project, and they think it might be fun to use part of a lunch hour to put the dolls on a catwalk and do a photo shoot. Yes, I'm talking grown women with Barbie dolls. I guess this project has brought a smile to more than just my face. Or maybe it just says that we have too much time on our hands and we should be cleaning out our kids' toys now that our kids are in college. Nevertheless, it looks like we'll have a photo shoot at the end of the week - Fridays are always a good day to get giddy. So, just as the next challenge is upon us, I'll be posting the final pictures from January's challenge. See you next weekend, and I hope you got at least a little kick out of these posts.

Sew and sew

2008-01-21T15:22:00.001-08:00

I spent yesterday afternoon cutting out one skirt and one jacket pattern each for Nikki's wardrobe. When I was done, I made an emergency phone call to my dear Allentown sister. I had all the pieces for each garment, but I wasn't sure how to go about assembling them. Do you seam the sleeve and then put it into the armhole, or do you seam just the shoulder, insert the cap of the sleeve, and then seam the arm and side together in one long seam? Where's the best place to tack facing?

My sister calmly and patiently walked me through the assembly process, and then said, "So, you got your machine set up?" I said, "No." She said, in a tone nurses reserve for mental patients going through a psychotic break, "You're going to hand stitch them?" (emphasis hers) I said, "Well, yeah." Now, you have to understand my dear Allentown sister does not just sew. She has a room devoted to several sewing machines which function in a variety of ways I can only guess at. She is an expert at tailoring and machine embroidery, and she teaches sewing. So I could just picture her madly flipping through a "Sewing for Dummies" book as she spoke to me , hoping to find easy explanations for the sewing simpleton she had on the other end of the line. Talk about being sorry for answering the phone! Anyway, in addition to the assembly advice, she suggested I use a product to stop fraying and she said, if Nikki had rubber legs, to be careful about how form-fitting I made the clothing. Apparently rubber legs makes the clothes difficult to slide on and off.

So, I sat myself down and hand-stitched two garments, and they look pretty good if I must say so myself. The jacket matches the knitted green wrap skirt, and the skirt looks good with the celadon mohair turtleneck sweater. I think I won't use a closure on the jacket, although I saw the cutest teeny-tiny buttons at Hobby Lobby today and they'd look great as an embellishment. The skirt pattern called for a zipper, but I left the back seam open and I'm going to use velcro for the closure.

And speaking of patterns, K.F. Williams' fashion doll patterns are right on for size, plus they are very easy to understand. I mean, if a novice like me can get two garments looking as good as these two do using hand-stitching, then an experienced sewer should be able to whip up a whole wardrobe in a day. And the clothes look great on the doll.

Now, I'm off to see where the gaps are in Nikki's wardrobe and make plans for the final two or three garments. I have to be done by next Monday. That's when my coworkers have agreed to help me host a fashion show. They will be bringing their Barbies to work and we're going to photograph the group in the full array of garments. This is turning into way more fun than I had anticipated. Who'd have thought that playing with dolls at my age could be so much fun.

Rowan and Noro for Nikki

2008-01-20T08:53:00.001-08:00

This is the last of the knitting for Nikki. I decided to make her a coat and a mohair turtleneck sweater as my final contributions for this part of the wardrobe.

I had a skein of Noro Shinano (65% wool, 35% silk) in my stash, but I cannot for the life of me figure out where this skein came from. I can't picture myself purchasing anything in this color family, but it worked perfectly for this project.

I was hesitant to knit anything for Nikki on needles larger than a size #3 (USA). The Shinano required a minimum needle size of #7. I have to say it didn't turn out all that badly, and Nikki actually looks fairly cute in it. To give the sleeves and body of the garment some rigidity, I allowed for a hem. For those of you who are new to knitting, this is a very simple operation if you are dealing with a stockinette fabric. All you have to do is purl one row on the knit side of the garment where you want the hem to turn, then continue in stockinette for the remainder of the garment. I have never used this technique to turn a vertical edge, but I would guess it would work just as well. It gives a nice finished edge if you don't want the traditional K1P1 or K2P2 ribbing, and the raised stitches of the purl row provide a guide if you want to add a fancy edging when the garment is done.

The belt was an afterthought. I was going to try my hand at looped closures down the front of the coat, but then I thought a three year old might have a hard time with tiny toggle buttons. Also, I didn't want to complicate the project beyond belief (which I seem to be doing anyway), so I thought I'd just make it into a wrap coat. If I had it to do over again, I'd make the belt narrower. I only completed three rows of garter stitch including the bind off row, but it's a bit too wide for my tastes.

Overall, the coat exceeded my expectations and looks darling with the magenta skirt. The weight of the fiber was acceptable for a coat and it was definitely quick to knit up and finish.

Next came the turtleneck sweater in Rowan's Kidsilk Haze. I was really excited about trying this fiber because so many knitters absolutely adore it. But I have to say I was disappointed in its performance. Aside from the fact that it is an extremely fine or dainty fiber to work with (think thread), it turns really nasty if you have to rip out an error. The mohair fiercely grabs the neighboring stitches, and no amount of either gentle coaxing or vigorous tugging convinces the errant stitches to release. This is a property of most mohair fibers, but I found it particularly annoying knitting a sweater for a fashion doll. The garment pieces are so small to start with, that any error needing frogging results in a balled up piece of unusable fabric. In fact, I made an error on one of the sleeves and ended up throwing it away because of the tangle that resulted.

Personally, I'd choose Habu's A-32B (60% mohair, 40% silk) over Kidsilk Haze for adult garments made using this fiber composition. The Habu blend seems to be spun a little tighter and the fabric that results is soft, a bit less fluffy, and has a wonderful drape. I haven't compared yardage or price for either of these yarns, but now that I know how each fiber performs, I'd feel confident making the financial commitment for the Habu if I wanted a special sweater.

As far as the sweater design is concerned, I wish I had made the collar a bit larger. I measured the doll and estimated the amount of fabric that was needed, rather than trying the garment on Nikki every few rows as I knit. The body of the sweater fits perfectly, but the neck requires a bit of stretching to get it right. I will probably not use the velcro closures on the neck edge. Nikki's long hair will hide the fact that the collar does not go all the way around easily.

Clothing patterns for fashion dolls don't seem to be widely available on the Web, unless you want to knit. One woman in New Zealand has generously posted her patterns at http://www.kiwifashiondollpatterns.co.nz/downloads.html. Since I don't have a sewing machine set up in my craft room and have little experience with making clothing (okay, dear sister in Allentown, I have no experience making clothing from textiles), I decided to use all the help I could find in this area. I printed out three of the patterns and I'm off to hopefully not make a total mess of the fabric I purchased last Saturday. What was that again about checking for the bias of the fabric? What's bias? And do these paper patterns have an allowance for the seams? How can you tell? Darts? Okay, dear Allentown sister, you can stop laughing now.

The Paper Kimono

2008-01-13T11:06:00.000-08:00

Nikki's kimono jacket is done.

I used Habu's item #A-62, which is 1/10 paper moire, and 50% each linen and nylon, on size #3 (USA) aluminum straight needles. It was a heck of a fiber to knit with. It was very slippery on the needles and it was easy to drop stitches. The fabric is very stiff and has a mind of its own when it comes to drape. On the plus side, because of the tiny paper flags (and I mean tiny), it was tough to see uneven stitches or mistakes like knit stitches where a purl was required. The fabric is a bit scratchy to the touch, but I suspect that it will become softer if I wash the kimono and use a bit of fabric softener in the rinse water.

I knit a swatch from #A-62 several weeks ago as part of a Spring fiber display for my office, but the swatch was so unruly, I nixed the plan to make a garment for myself out of it. However, after seeing how cute Nikki looks in the jacket, I'm revising my thoughts. I bought just one skein of this fiber at Stitches East this past Fall, with the idea to try some alternative fibers and maybe update my wardrobe to include some "now" fashion looks. I showed the swatch to a few coworkers, one of whom said that I could use it to patch a bare spot in my lawn. So maybe I'm just too short and round to carry off an alternative fiber that could make me look like a mobile marijuana plant. Then again, a jacket in #A-62 could be quite a conversation piece if not a wacky fashion statement for a woman my age.

I've looked over the five garments that are now completed for Nikki and this challenge. I'm trying to figure out how I developed ideas for each piece of clothing. I'd say that the style of the clothing was dictated by my past knitting experience with human-sized garments. I did a lot of improvising and I measured the garments against Nikki every few rows. It was liberating to look at the pieces as they evolved and not be constrained by counting stitches or ripping work because I had not followed someone else's directions perfectly. I think more of my sweaters would turn out as I had planned them if I followed this course of action for human-sized projects - constantly measuring the knitted piece against a piece of clothing that fits me the way I'd like the knitted garment to fit.

Choice of fiber also has heavily influenced the evolution of the Nikki's garments. For example, when I chose the Habu fiber for the jacket, I pretty much locked myself into the style and fiber for the wrap skirt.

The fact that a 3-year-old will eventually inherit the completed project definitely played a role in the clothing design. The garments had to be relatively easy to get on and off the doll, and she had to be able to secure the garments on Nikki without adult help. Hence my choice of velcro closures.

Finally, mistakes caused me to make changes in the originally conceived designs. The first sweater I knit was too small in the back, for example, so that dictated a corrective action if I wanted to salvage the sweater; the color of the sweater locked me into the magenta skirt, and the weight of the fiber made me choose an A-line design.

I'd like to say that I planned all the clothing out on paper, but in truth I just grabbed a fiber I wanted to work with from the palette I was limited to, and, using the stitch counts I researched on the Web, just started knitting. I've learned from this project that if you know how to knit, purl, increase, and decrease, you can make anything if you just follow your intuition.

Now, I'm off to complete a turtleneck sweater to go with the drawstring skirt. Sorry, dear Tulsa sister, but I cracked the Kidsilk Haze last night (I couldn't resist the temptation any longer) because the green color was perfect. I promise I'll make it up to you somehow.

New Yarns, New Clothes

2008-01-12T16:54:00.000-08:00

My horoscope for Monday said, " A thing of real value is to be found right on your own doorstep." And guess what arrived by post? The yarns my Tulsa sister sent! And talk about value?!?!? She sent me two Knitpicks "Palette" yarns, Kidsilk Haze (aka Kidsilk Addiction), a Shepherd's sock wool, a Rowan wool and a wool-cotton, a hand-painted yarn by Dani, and ... I'm hyperventilating just looking at the selection.

So, I did the only logical thing I could do under the circumstances. I dove in, grabbed the Shepherd's sock yarn, and knit an ankle-length wrap skirt for Nikki. I have a marvelous Habu fiber that is nylon and paper, and I wanted to make Nikki something up-to-date and funky out of it. The Shepherd's wool was the perfect compliment for the Habu yarn, color-wise. And I had never knit with Shepherd's fibers, so I wanted to try it. I can definitely say that it is a wonderful fiber to work with and the subtle color shifts resulting from the dying process are fabulous to behold. Frankly, I'd never waste this fiber on socks, but then there aren't a lot of us who like using size 3 needles to make an adult-size sweater. Anyway, here's the skirt. I'll be adding a velcro tab as a closure on the band, and maybe another velcro tab to hold the top of the skirt closed.

I was on the road most of last week, and Nikki went with me so that I could make sure the garments I was knitting fit properly. Fortunately, I was not in an automobile accident. I don't think I'd want to try to explain to a South Carolina state trooper why I had a half-dressed fashion doll in my trunk. But the trip went well, and during the evenings, I had a chance to make another skirt for Nikki. This time, I used my sister's Knitpicks Palette yarn. It's 100% Peruvian wool and it too was nice to work with, although I am not a big fan of hand wash, lay flat to dry clothing. I changed my original drawstring skirt pattern a bit by putting in a keyhole opening in the back and using a tab band for a closure. Here's a photo of the skirt's back view. Once I get the velcro on the band, the opening should disappear when the doll is dressed. Plus her hair goes down to her hips, so that should conceal any gaps in the closure.

When I arrived home last night, I decided I still didn't like the first sweater I made Nikki, so I did a wedge thingie along the back opening on both sides. It looks really cute on her now and is officially reversible, front to back. And the sweater goes great with the purple skirt.

As much as I like knitting, I was starting to feel like Nikki was getting cheated in this deal. I mean, how many of us only wear woolen knits 24-7? A blouse would be good. So would a cloth skirt. And maybe a cotton dress. So this morning, I went off to my local quilt shop to see if the proprietor, Nancy, had any "fat quarters" that fit the color parameters of the challenge. And of course, she did, so I had to break one of my rules about spending only $10 on each month's challenge. I dropped $16.00 for 6 fabrics and 2 packs of beads. I decided that I'd use black as an anchor color, and let the rusts and oranges in two of the other fabrics serve as accents. Here are the latest supply acquisitions for the challenge. I'm still trying to decide what I will make with these fabrics, except for a black blouse that will go with the moss green skirt and kimono. As for the beads? I'm not sure yet, but don't the turquoise beads go great with the magenta fabric? I'll come up with something if I just let my mind wander a bit.

I am having a huge amount of fun with this month's challenge. Every time I think of the fibers, fabrics, and doll clothes I smile. If the next 11 months are anything like January, I'll be in a perpetual state of bliss. Thank you, Sharon, for choosing colors I'd never have selected. The challenge is really reminding me how to play like a kid again.

Off and Running

2008-01-06T06:58:00.000-08:00

My Tulsa sister sent me a photo of the fiber she was willing to share with me for this project. She asked me how much of it I wanted. Well, duh...ALL of it. I mean, is there a knitter on earth who would turn down fiber? Okay, actually, I asked her to edit out the fiber that looked turquoise unless her camera did not capture the true color. I also asked her to edit out the very pale fibers, unless they had a green-yellow tint. The package was shipped Thursday priority mail (gotta love my sister!) and should arrive tomorrow.

I found an 11.5 inch fashion doll at Target. Her name is Nikki (according to the box) and she was dressed in a bikini. Must have been a Mattel remainder from the summer. Anyway, she was screaming for more seasonally appropriate clothes due to the cooler temperatures we are having in South Carolina, so I got to knitting right away.

I consulted the Web to see if there might be any knitting patterns for Barbie dolls. Wow! Were there ever a lot of choices! But I decided that I'd like to try my own designs, so I limited myself to noting the needle size, fiber weight, and stitch counts that other knitters had used. I didn't really want to knit gauge swatches so I made the assumption that I'd at least be in the ballpark if I started out with established numbers for the yarn I had on hand.

My first attempt was a sweater in the mauve tones of the color chart Sharon posted.

It was not a huge success. The numbers I used for the body of the sweater were from a 1960's era pattern. Clearly, today's fashion dolls have bigger hips and smaller busts, because the sweater doesn't close in the back across Nikki's hips. Either that, or she's menopausal. Anyway, since the sweater opens all the way down the back, it may morph into a jacket if I can figure out how to edge the opening. Maybe then, it could even be a reversible sweater? For you knitters out there, I used some leftover Welcomme-Pernelle superfingering fiber from a sweater I made for myself in 1978 or thereabout. I'm not keeping detailed patterns but I'll do so if there's any interest.

Next project was a self-fringing scarf, on the theory that I couldn't go wrong with such a simple project. Plus, I wanted to see if I could knit with the tapestry yarn I had pulled from my needlepoint stash.

I met with some success. I separated the three-stranded tapestry yarn into separate fibers and knit each one individually. Each row of the scarf required one strand of fiber, with a length allowed at either end for the fringe. It was knit on size 0 needles (USA) in garter stitch. When the scarf was completed, I used one strand at either end to wrap the fringe. Also, I bound the scarf off tightly because I wanted it to curl a bit. That way, it would hold onto the doll better (the clothes are going to a three year old, and I didn't want to raise frustration levels because the scarf kept falling off). For you knitters, I would not recommend tapestry yarn for knitting. It doesn't have a lot of give or spring to it, so if you are tight knitter, don't go here.

The final project to date was a skirt, and if I must say so myself, the biggest success.

I used the two circular needle method that sock knitters use, instead of double-pointed needles, in order to get a seamless tube. I decreased one stitch each side every 4 or 5 rows in order to get the skirt to taper. The waistband is a simple (*K2 tog, YO*) to create small holes through which a sash can be threaded. The sash is just three strands of the yarn plaited. The yarn is a sock weight fiber, and I used size 2 (USA) Addi turbo needles to complete the project.

Cheers to all of you fellow TIF-fers. I'll try to catch up on everyone else's posts in the coming days.

Decisions, decisions

2008-01-01T07:18:00.000-08:00

I was stunned, absolutely stunned, when I read Sharon's first design challenge on New Year's Eve. I was anticipating a traditional assignment. Something like "Use three to five lines in a composition with a nature theme." So when I was asked to use admiration as a theme, I was floored. How an artist expresses admiration in a fiber creation is a mystery to me. Or maybe I just needed to give the design challenge time to mentally marinate. But I'm impetuous so I knew ruminations over admiration weren't in the cards for me.

So, I moved on to the color part of the challenge, hoping that I'd get some inspiration from a jaunty, vibrant color theme I expected Sharon to select. Wrong! Mauve and celadon are not jaunty or vibrant. They aren't even "my" colors. Last Fall, I took a color workshop with Brandon Mabley at Stitches East. Halfway through the class, we were asked to display our work. The other women produced samples that had subtle color changes in gentle heathers, soft transitions from light to medium hues. Not me. I handed over my sample for posting and told Mr. Mabley that I wasn't Mexican by birth, but my sample sure looked like I might be. Bright yellows and reds and greens were all over my piece. He called me "Salsa Girl" for the rest of the workshop. See? Celadon and mauve have never been in my color vocabulary.

So, after staring blankly at the computer screen for about 10 minutes, I took Sharon's suggestion and visited the Colour Lovers Web site. That visit explained a lot. The color scheme is one that might be chosen by graphic designers. Did I want to start thinking in terms of a graphic design project? Then, I clicked on the Korean Handbok link and got the inspiration for my January project. All those little dolls lined up made me think of fashion and the dolls made me think of Barbie. And what do you know? I thought "Why not create some up-to-date fashions for Barbie?

Now, you are probably thinking that I have more than one screw loose. However, I set up some personal parameters for this challenge over and above Sharon's monthly limitations. I have to use up stash wherever possible and avoid adding new materials to stash. I have to produce something useful if possible. And I have to have fun doing the project. Designing for Barbie in the mauve and celadon colorways was perfect because I know a very young lady who is having a birthday in February and she'd love to get some clothes for her doll. Plus, I have been saving some Barbie knitting patterns since 1968! I mean really, if not now, when? And doing this project would be a hoot for me. I haven't played with a doll since... well, for about 50 years.

So, I rummaged through my 7 (huge) boxes of fiber and came up way short. Like I said, mauve and celadon are not my colors.

So I telephoned my Tulsa sister and begged her to go through her stash to see if she had anything in the assigned colorways. She is the kindest, sweetest person on earth, and she was awfully nice to humor me, especially on New Year's Eve. She promised to send me what she had. She's a sock knitter, so a lot of her fiber remainders will be the proper weight for Barbie clothes. She also buys expensive designer fibers, so Barbie will be the recipient of at least one one-of-a-kind garment. She also made me promise to buy a Barbie doll to accompany the clothes. I believe her exact words were, "Oh, come on, Bernadette. Spring for it." So, since Barbie will only be temporarily residing at my house, this will be an acceptable purchase. New personal parameter: Monthly purchases for a project cannot exceed $10. And now I am off to the Dollar General in search of a mannequin, er, Barbie.

2007-12-23T17:49:00.000-08:00

Post on this blog will begin in January 2008, when the first of twelve challenges is issued by Sharon of "Inaminuteago." The purpose of the challenge is to develop a project in response to a color scheme or design element that is assigned on the first of each month for the next twelve months.