mmm.... coffee.....

i went out into the night, i went out to find some light

i have a wonderful therapist: he understands that the things i sew are extensions of myself, they are a form of expression.  i can show up to a session with a quilt or something like this & not only does he get it, but we can sit & talk about it in the context of everything else in my life.  and, since he has his own private practice, he's very good at giving me business advice!

definitely inspired by the Capreolus Polycoros from Ulyssis Aldrovandi's Monstrorum Historia, this creature is about 14" tall with button eyes surrounded by felt, the body is some weird ultrasuede upholstery fabric & the horns & antlers are sculpey/fimo clay.  i made a little button shank out of jewelry wire so they're sewn into place & then glued down.  unfortunately i broke the antlers shortly after this photo was taken but i'll make a new set tonight.  i guess i didn't have to tell you that part, you'd never know, but hey, it's part of the process!

thirty years from now someone will spill juice

what am i doing?  i'm making creepy, but cute things...  i stayed home from work today because i hurt my leg helping neighbor susan move from a 1/2 basement apt to the 2nd floor.  it's just a pulled muscle, but it's cold & rainy outside, it would have taken me forever to hobble to work!  creature making is probably not what i should be doing, but i'm really excited about the strange creatures i've making.

a funny thing happened earlier: i was looking for my spool of pink thread, you know, the one i've been using all day?  it suddenly disappeared & i searched everywhere for it.  is in on my table? maybe it's under a piece of fabric or rolled off to the side.  oh, maybe it rolled onto the floor or into the trash!  can you find it? it's here somewhere...

eat you alive, or i'll just hug you to death

(i knew there was a reason why i had to order all that gorgeous felt, teresa!)  i got up really early sunday morning (thank you, daylight savings) and cleaned up from the previous day's baking, made a cup of strong coffee & stood in the sun playing with my fabrics.  i sewed these three little quilts all in one day.  i started to worry, though: are all they too similar?  will people be bored when they see a booth of them?  i hung them up together in my studio & am trying to decide if they are different enough.  i mean, i think they're all different, but i've spent time with each individual one & know my fabrics intimately...  i think it gets back to spending more time on the embellishment of them, like the miniature felt leaves on the first one.  i started sashiko-embroidering the purple one last night.  there needs to be a little more ruminating on their personality.

some exciting news: they finally opened an apple store in providence!  i might have to run down there between work & craft-night today...  i know you've heard me say it before, but: no more craptop because new computer, here i come!

a mind-pounding, eardrum-harming experience"

it's quite possible that we don't share the same sense of humor...  i think my newest pincushion is awesome, but it's okay if you don't want to have a dead one-winged raven to stick pins in!  i'll just keep it for myself:

i meant to post this the other day, but i was struck down by some random allergy attack & then, well, the rest of the week got away from me.  that keeps happening, although every day lately feels like it must be monday, somehow it is already friday...  and tonight is the opening for Wunderground at the RISD Museum, i'm going with my friend Paul Lyons.  the show spans 1995-2005, which i guess is kind of my era in providence, it's a little weird & i'm not sure i'm ready to see it spread across the walls of a museum!  i'm both excited & a little freaked out about it - i am curious to see how many of the posters i've stolen are in it & if i have any that aren't.  just to the right of her shoulder is one of my favorites, a long skinny BSR 88.1FM poster:

(photo from projo.com by Gretchen Ertl, click it to go to the article)

now i go out alone if i go out at all

done!  i worked through a migraine yesterday afternoon to hand-stitch the binding down on the wedding ring quilt.  it's actually my favorite part (& it helped to distract me from the pain) i enjoy the methodical & meticulous blind stitch & pride myself on making it disappear.  i do not recommend making your quilt top out of silk dupioni.  seriously.  i did my best with it - zigzagged the binding on & lined the binding itself with interfacing.  i'm confident in my work, i'm not as confident in the strength of the silk itself.  it's well-made, but i didn't go too crazy with it.  in book repair i learned that it's important that your repairs are not stronger than the book itself, otherwise it will tear itself apart.  the same goes for sewing.  we have some really old family quilts & the ones that are made out of a mix of clothing scraps have ripped themselves apart because some fabrics are stronger than others.  this is why i enjoy making "art quilts" that aren't going to be used or washed, i can mix & match & not worry about wearability!

i've been meaning to make myself some little felt pincushions for a while now & finally stitched a few last night.  i seem to have lost my good pins, i'm hoping they'll show up now that i have these adorable pincushions to stick them in...  i'm going to need them since i got into the Foundry Artists Sale in addition to the Bazaar Bizarre Boston & the RISD Alumni Sale!  so i'm basically not allowed to leave the house for the next 4 months.

i am very very sneaky, sir.

artbeat on saturday was fun, there was no need to leave my booth since i was surrounded by the lovely crafty ladies of new england.  i didn't really take any photos, teresa has some over here, including one strange one of me, i think i was trying to look coy?  i have no idea.  it was hot.  and i was wearing a dress!  gasp!  this whole skirt thing seems to have infected my brain, i actually wore a cute little dress.  crazy. 

when we returned from somerville my dad was here!  we escaped the unhealthy hazy/hot/humid city via his air-conditioned car & spent a day down in Bristol, Newport, Narragansett, Pt. Judith, the whole gorgeous loop.  the weather down by the water was completely different & completely perfect. 

we ate too many delicious clamcakes at Aunt Carrie's in Pt. Judith, picked up rocks, got a little sun-burnt & drove around Newport in leisurely circles.  coming up next: photos of coffee & pie from last night's dessert!

where do you move when what you're moving from is yourself?

look out! they're multiplying & they've been
spotted running around town!  those three
little legs can really move fast... i've been
busy herding them together so hopefully
you can catch one for yourself at ArtBeat!

i will have some vinyl cuffs & purses with me tomorrow, but i have been having way too much fun sewing & embroidering these little guys.  i think they need names, even stories, eventually i'd like to make each one their own box, too...

i'm dropping hints, candy for candy-coated tongue

i don't know what i'm going to do with these little guys, but i can't stop cutting them out!  i keep carrying them around with me to show people (they're best when they are all together, like some kind of weird family) i think i'm going to make them like the drawings - there will be species, similar ones, but they'll all be a bit different...  these two little guys came to work with me the other day & cavorted among the boxes:


i didn't get around to posting this on friday & i feel like there are several posts all waiting to be, um, posted.  i'll try to get them all up this week.  hey, this weekend is Art Beat in Somerville, you wouldn't know since i'm completely unprepared!  if you live around Boston you should stop by & see what i bring with me...

fish are jumping & the cotton is high

this is the coming together of several different & somewhat connected things...  i finally want to make creatures again!  i was a bit burnt out after making so many last year, but i've been thinking about them a lot, trying to decide what to do.  there were these weird drawings i used to make that i called "drippy bears," i drew tons of them, all different creatures, all drippy & weird with one big eye & one little eye.  i have a pile gorgeous wool felt in such lovely colors that i've been itching to make things out of, like the jabberwocky creatures only of my own design.  i was poking around the interspace & checked in on Moopy & Me and her stuffed animals reminded me of my drippy creatures.  i wanted to submit them to Morphe II, but i missed the deadline.  oh well, i'm still excited about them, i've been staying up really late sewing.  i made a two-headed bunny & a big fat mouse yesterday that still need stuffing.  do you like their anatomical hearts?  they may not be very clever, but they have a lot of love to give!

i sheltered you with leaves & flowers

i made this last night for no reason.  it's just a tiny bunny sewn out of felt.  all pink & cute as a ... bunny.
  well, alright, not for no reason, it comes from a lot things: like my idea for making holiday gifts for the craft group, but then we decided to just get teresa presents, and from the cat toy i just made, it reminded me i like to work with the wool felt, also relating to the jabberwocky creatures (shh, don't say that too loud or people will start emailing me again!) i wanted to make a strange creature out of felt, a weird creepy thing, but somehow i just ended up making a cute pink bunny.  sigh.

that is my attempt to photograph the (i think) super cool machine-quilting i did on the large solid space on the bottom of the orange & green quilt.  i drew it out by hand with an evaporating marker, straightened the lines with a ruler, then just sewed it on my little pfaff.  what?  not my necci?  no, the pfaff has a larger surface arm thing to it which makes machine-quilting so much easier.  and it's still wicked hard, i need a friend with one of those long-arm quilters...  i also need some undyed yarn & many packets of kool aid:

i dyed this yarn (recycled from an old wool sweater of my mom's) many many months ago.  abby had left behind some packets of kool-aid so i thought i'd give it a try & i've been dieing to do it again!  (oh yes, pun entirely intended)  the yarn came out really sweet, turns out it knits up quite pretty, too.  yeah, i know, i said i wasn't going to knit any more, but did you see the yarn harlot started a knitting olympics?  can't i just knit one sock?  please?  of course that means i'd have to buy some sock yarn...