Dora on 1/2 quilt

While going through a cupboard in said studio I found this… And yes, Dora DOES think it belongs to her! This is a whole cloth crazy quilt that I started in 1990 as a wedding present for my heart-sister, who is now divorced. Note that it is not finished. And this is actually only 1/2 of it, and I finished piecing it this weekend. The other half is about 3/4 pieced, and on my table now. Not one piece of fabric in it relates to her ex-husband, which is interesting, since I had access to a bunch of it that she had made clothing for him out of… including his wedding vest fabric. Maybe I always knew.

It’s based on a historic quilt that a friend’s grandmother made – she let me examine it in detail when I lived with her. Oddly, all of the pieces are stitched down with ONLY herrinbone stitch in primary colors. None of them have the edges turned under, the stitching just covers the raw edges of the fabric. My version is a mixture, because I realized in the middle that with the fabrics I had on hand that just wasn’t going to work.

It’s 6 feet by the width of the muslin (calico) wide (I think it might be 45″, but don’t quote me, it’s not in front of me right now to measure.) There are two pieces that I intended to stitch together either with sashing in the middle or not, I hadn’t decided. Right now I’m leaning to not, and then just putting the black and forest green edging around it to make it bed sized.

Yes. I’m still giving it to her. It’s now her “I’m on my feet again and people love me because I’m worth it” quilt. And I’m not afraid of posting it here, because I already told her. The herringbone stitches are mostly done by me, but several friends of ours in Oregon worked on it as well, and every one of them knew what it was for, except for the person for whom it’s intended (and yes, she stitched on it, too!).  The bulk of it is done by me, and all of the embroidery on the fabric is from samples I worked for other projects. There is a bit of printed fabric that my heart-sister did in a textile design class in college and gave to me for “doing something with.” Other fabrics range from pieces of clothing we both had during college and a bit beyond, fabric remnants that she was allowed to bring home from her job as a stitcher in a soft interior business… and other various stuff.  I’m immensely pleased with the fact that there are spots in this quilt where fabric that sold for $500.00 a yard (yes, the decimal’s in the right place) is right next to fabric I bought at a discount outlet for $1.00 a yard or less. LOL wonderful irony.

A few more details:

But when I return, I hope to have a surprise for everyone. And a giveaway to celebrate it! Hopefully I’ll be back completely next Monday. But I can’t promise.

This is not to say that there hasn’t been dancing in my life – I think last week’s posting about shows and workshops proves otherwise!

What it comes down to, I think, is that I’m not thinking a lot about dancing – I’m just doing it, in a very zen way. I teach, I attend workshops. I perform. I don’t often sit down with a pen and analyze my dancing or why I do it, although I DO sit down and analyze my technique. It’s just something that has always been part of me – separate from school, and writing, and stitching.

I’m going to try to remedy that omission over the next few months. Please bear with me – I haven’t thought about dance this way before, so some of my ideas may be a little half-baked. If you think they are (or if you agree!), talk to me in the comments! I love to hash things out in dialog. Heck, that goes for stitching, too!

Session 2 classes start this week – if you’re in Fuquay-Varina and have ever had an interest in bellydance, I encourage you to join us. It’s a lot of fun, good exercise, and none of us bite!

While I adore painted canvasses, and dream of sitting down and stitching one –I’ve even bought several — they are usually the last thing I choose to work on. Frankly, they are one of those projects that I want to enjoy the finished product, rather than the journey to get there.

One day this book may change my behavior. In the meantime, the way she challenges you to look at designs in a different way has changed my approach to most of my work.  Shay Pendray encourages her reader to think outside the box of tent/basketweave stitch for canvasses – or even beyond the counted stitches in general. She utilizes crewelwork, long and short stitch shading techniques, metal thread embroidery, and even some stumpwork techniques to take the painted canvas beyond pillow or rug and will into the area of Art.

Even if your favorite technique is cross stitch, you could use some of these techniques over the top of your work. It’s expanded my vision into integrating more and more different techniques together. Sometimes simple is better. Other times getting extravagant can be really really cool!

On the other hand, my Studio Journals class kept me at least a bit active, and I’ve tried out several things, some of which have been inspiring, and others complete failures. But it’s kept me doing at least a little every couple of days, if not daily.

Some of the things I have actually accomplished follow: (since it’s always a good idea to list what you did accomplish when feeling inadequate)

• The designs for the samplers discussed in Disappearing Act.
• Playing with cut paper designs & snowflakes.
• Playing with more geometric motifs for cross stitch.
• Sketching bellydancers.
• Taking photos with my new camera — mostly macros. And realizing that I really do still know what I’m doing.
• Researching designers programs with suppliers.
• Playing with paints and pastels.

I’m frustrated with the last because although I enjoy working with them, I never seem to be able to achieve any results I like with that kind of colored media. The exceptions to this are thread and colored pencil, both exceedingly fussy and time-consuming techniques that don’t particularly lend themselves to quick sketchbook work. I also can’t seem to get results I really like with the computer. But the last may well be simply because I spend so much time on a computer in my day job that using it as a design tool — even for simple pattern manipulation — is a pain in the backside.

So wow. I have accomplished a lot! It’s just that pesky stress thing making me think I’m drowning and not progressing.

And yesterday evening, after I wrote the draft of this to here, Dear Husband reminded me that no matter how stressed I am right now, there’s actually a final date give or take a month or two that I can plan for. So as of today, my plan is to start sorting and emptying my supposed studio space (now a muss of storage that I try to work around). Then the full remodel can begin on January 2. He promises me bookcases, real drawing tables and drawers for my bits and pieces. So I can put things away, even if I do often like to work in a creative disaster area. Right now it’s just a disaster area, not creative at all… This is going to be fun. Planning hat on!

And just to finish on a happy note, here is one of the photos I took that I’m really proud of. One of the last of the summer daylilies out by Dad’s apartment. My Dad and I were playing “one upmanship” with our cameras. I won. Click to embiggen.

First, I want to say that the past week has proven to me that I am truly blessed. I may have been kept from blogging (more on that later) but I am very pleased with the outcomes of all the adversity. I want to apologize for my absence. I won’t go into details, but the quick and dirty story is as follows:

• Went to Seattle to discuss health issues with my aging father. He’s agreed to move out here, and now we’re just trying to figure out how.  In the process we drove down to my old haunt in Eugene, OR and I got to talk to Mindy and her family at the needlework shop, as well as many of my old friends. It was like I’d never left!
• Last Friday, my husband and my godson were in a car accident, and while they are fine, the schedule’s been kind of messed up as we’re down to one car for transportation again.
• I entered, on a lark, drawn by the promise of Sharon Boggon‘s handdyed threads, her contest to guess how long her sampler has become now that she’s stitched all of them together. Six inches wide and 33 feet 2 inches. I guessed 33 feet, and along with two others, won! I’ll post pictures of the pretties when they arrive!

Back at the beginning of the century (hee, that sounds so… ancien regime!) I wrote an article on stitching with overdyed and variegated threads. I found that article yesterday, and am working on two things. I’m updating it a little bit with some new products I’ve noticed since then, and I’ll post it as several blog entries AND a downloadable pdf that you can put in your personal library. It’s got a couple of small patterns I designed in it to try out some of the techniques as well.

Hopefully I’ll be able to get that posted soon, as well as updates about the trip, and where we go from here!

All photos by Megan H. Freeman.

Like this one, wrapped up in my veil…

Or this one, caught mid-flourish!

There was even a close-up portrait that I like! I think the hat suits me, don’t you? (I stole it from the photographer… ok, BORROWED it. I did give it back, even if I considered running!)

Now it’s back to stitching and designing for a while, though I do start the next teaching session next week. Enough people for class, so here we go!

Linn Skinner still has a couple spots open for their yearly needlework tour of London. They leave on October 7. I really really really wish I could just drop everything and go. But no passport yet, family balancing issues, and a release date at the day job just keep me from dropping everything and going. Durn it.

For anyone that doesn’t know her, Linn Skinner is an amazing woman. She spends a lot of time hanging out in European museums when she’s not stitching or paying her bills, and she communicates that information freely in a way that makes you hang on every word.

If you are remotely interested, have a passport, and can drop everything and take one of these spaces, I highly recommend it. The trip will be worth every penny.

Nephew started back to school today, right after coming home from his family reunion yesterday. Life’s been a bit stretched over the past three weeks, but I hope to get back to some semblance of a pattern of blogging soon.

So what I am saying is I apologize. I’m going to go out on a limb and blame one of the theiving cats for taking the flash drive… The thing does, after all, have a wonderful string toy for playing with. I’m sure I’ll find it at some point.

In the meantime, I’ve got an old backup of the to-be posts, and if I can ever get them finished again, I’ll be back up and running in the next week or so.

In other news, however, I have restored the backups of my old cross stitch patterns, which I hope to get pulled into a new website in the next few months and make available again, as well as a couple of new knitting patterns and some new needlework patterns. Watch this space! (I’ll be posting more often. Really I will!)