Archive for January, 2017

Progress

Sunday, January 22nd, 2017

Some progress to report in spite of having a lot of US Nationals Figure Skating to watch on TV.  I usually have the TV on when I sew, just for company, I guess, not to really watch.  But certain shows require actual watching, and skating is one, so it does cut into the productivity!

A lot of the time when I sew these pieced pictorial pieces, I use straight line seams, it is easier;  but these fire scenes seem to require curved seam piecing which is definitely more time consuming! What takes the most time though, is choosing which fabric goes next.  Then the cutting and auditioning and sometimes even sewing before deciding perhaps something else might be better!

Here, I thought I might extend the fire’s glow a little higher,

Or perhaps a darker fabric would be more dramatic!

Dilemmas.

New work

Friday, January 20th, 2017

In spite of good intentions, there continues to be too much time between postings.  That’s not to say things don’t happen, but perhaps not so much happens that you would be interested in!

Like, do you care that I finally got the sales tax filed?  I didn’t think so, but still, it took a lot of time to get the info together and sent.

I completed two small pieces, one a 12 x 12″ bird challenge piece for my local art group that I won’t reveal until after our next meeting on Thursday, and a 6 x 8″ for the auction at the SAQA Convention in the spring.

 

These little pieces will be matted so the edges are only zigzagged.

I started a new fire piece since I needed a new landscape and all of these fabrics were still out on the cutting table from the last ones.

This is after the first working day and so far, I’m liking it.  I intend to post progress shots as I go, we’ll see how that goes!

It’s Been A Long Time

Thursday, January 5th, 2017

Much has happened since last I posted here. Our daughter Karen died on Oct 26, very unexpectedly. Plans to go to Houston were cancelled. Our other daughter arrived from AZ for the funeral and to stay through her father’s scheduled surgery three days later. That went well, but a few days after she left to go home, he developed a bad reaction to the pain medication and I had a couple of scary days until the effects wore of and he regained normalcy.

In the meantime we were sorting through Karen’s things, donating most of it to various agencies. This is a very sad and time consuming process and I can’t express enough, the need for everyone to get a jump start and sort your own things while you can. Thank you, Cindy, for all your help! After the furniture, books, clothing and other personal stuff there are still boxes of papers that haven’t been gone through yet.

I had no desire to create, but somewhere along the line, I forced myself to get into the studio one Saturday morning and make two little 6 x 6” pieces for a local gallery’s annual Christmas Mini show and sale. It was something that I had been wanting to do, but was unsure if they would be accepted, since they were textile pieces. Everything gets uniformly framed in a wide black frame with a gold accent, very classy. They were accepted and they sold quickly! I was asked to make more, so I did two more and those also quickly sold. At that point the owner asked if I would make a large prairie fire piece for him to show and sell in the gallery. This finally gave me a focus and got me back into design and create mode. It has been fun to have a goal again and yesterday I delivered the finished piece which is 56.5 x 27” to the SouthWind Gallery here in Topeka in time for this month’s First Friday opening.