This has come about for many reasons: my parents were raised during the depression – you reuse everything. Somehow, my father missed the “must have everything” consumerism of the sixties and on. Mom saved everything, like her mother before her. So mom would stash it, and Dad would throw it out — it’s a good thing they stayed out of each other’s stuff… Mom was a seamstress and embroiderer… It’s dangerous to throw out a stitcher’s stash!

But then it happened. Mom died during my freshman year of college. I was in the dorms. This left us with a true dilemma. There were several (tons) of things I wanted to keep, and Dad’s mantra has always been “if in doubt, throw it out.” (This caused many many rows when I was growing up and he decided to “help” me clean my room…) Notice this is not, for the most part, “repurpose, donate to someone who needs it, or sell it.” Into the trash it often goes. I talked him into an estate sale when he was finally ready to clear out the house. I had to give things up — there was no way I could finish school and care for Mom’s stash (and her mom’s, too, since we had never gotten around to clearing out Nini’s basement apartment after her death in ’79.) We sold a LOT. And for the most part I was allowed to keep the money for college expenses.

There are things I miss and regret letting go, though.

1. All of the handmade Christmas ornaments — Mom made a different kind each year to put on presents and the tree, and we had enough for a tree and a half! I have a few of each, but I miss having the entire set.
2. My grandmother’s recipe box and her button jar. Both full. Both gone, I know not where. I don’t think we sold them, but they are definitely gone.
3. My grandmother’s 1930s cast iron sewing machine. Dad, bless his heart, figured I’d want the “newer” one, and kept Mom’s. (I wanted, and in this case needed,  BOTH.) He also didn’t keep the cabinet that made the sewing machine truly useful. I still don’t have a cabinet for my machine, but it’s high on the list of “needs”.
4. All the lace and trim remnants from years of sewing. This one’s my fault. I had no idea I’d get into crazy quilting, and there wasn’t nearly enough of anything to do anything other than doll clothes with. As I recall, I donated it all to an organizations that made doll clothes, so it’s not a waste, but still…
5. All the photos — “Why do I need these? I’ve got the memories!” said Dad. Mom was always annoyed when he threw out photos. Now his sister’s on his case about it, too… I miss them, but there are still enough left that I have a record of some sort. Just not complete, and I’d LOVE to have his old baby book that I couldn’t get him to keep. If I had them all, I’d scan them into the computer before they went away, since I’m sure I don’t have enough time to scrapbook all there were, even just into albums.

But mostly I miss the fabric – the lace and trim, my old ballet costumes. Things I can’t replace, but had no room to keep at the time. It means that now I fight the urge to keep everything. I try now to work stuff into my artwork before I throw it away – And now that I’m working on shoveling out my studio so that I can organize it and actually USE it I’m fighting the urge to just throw everything away and start over. Yup. I’m definitely a conflicted combination of my Mom and Dad’s tendencies.

It has also renewed my interest in my little band sampler – I got it into my head to work all the stitch combinations in Carole Sample’s Crazy Quilt Stitches book in thread of some sort. Of course, choosing different thread and spacing can make the exact same stitch combination look completely and utterly different. Currently, though, I’m using what’s easy – the cottons in my “traveling” box with few, if any, beads or embellishments. I’m changing the weight of the thread by adjusting the number of strands, and I’m mostly only stitching each stitch combination once, in one color or thread-weight scheme. I may amend that as I go, but this is a DENSE book that will keep me busy for years as it is!

And then there are the historic works available online for free, like this book, which has nice, clear diagrams that “pop.”

Some of these techniques could be adapted to embellishing clothing – without the “crazy” element. Maybe that’s my next step… I do have this tunic in progress… and there’s that velvet choli top I need to finish so I have something to teach in….

• Pintangle – Sharon Boggin’s blog. Between this and her stitch dictionary, my stitching life could be complete.
• Annie’s Crazy World – I found this site through Sharon’s. Annie is one of Sharon’s Australian friends, and follows her sampler and her crazy quilting escapades. Very cool eye candy.
  
• Grumpy Shopkeeper – Sally Webster keeps a small shop in Edinborough, and blogs about her adventures with knitting, crochet and other needlework stuff.
• Virginie - yes, it IS in French. Look at the pictures if you don’t read French.
• Moonsilk -Just cool needlework to look at.
• Rooted In Mississippi – Rissa stitches and bellydances in Mississippi.
• Elmsley Rose - Megan is learning historical embroidery by making a beautiful sampler of stitches.
• Needle ‘N Thread - If you’re interested in the broad needlework world like I am, you’ll want to keep up with Mary Corbet’s blog.  Pictures, giveaways, and lots and lots of good information.
• Witchypoo - Lovely stuff. Just beautiful work, in everything – art journaling, needlework, and such.
• Linn Skinner – she’s been off and on because of health issues, but Linn Skinner provides really cool links, and she’s a gem of a source for historic needlework information.

Stumpwork detail

If you’ve been following me you know I took Sharon Boggin’s Encrusted Crazy Quilting class. I’m loving it to death. Every time I take another class from this lady I find another layer of myself and how to work it into my work.

In this case, I’m trying to find more depth in my work. A friend of mine, one to whom I’ve taught stumpwork techniques, laughed heartily when I told her this. I think she missed my point. Stumpwork is dimensional, yes, and very pretty – I’ll keep teaching it and doing it. But texturally, it’s not particularly layered or deep. I can find cool thing after cool thing in historic stumpwork designs, but in general they are beside one another. The thing about what Sharon does is the sheer baroque depth of it all –

First Encrusted CQ Block

So anyway, class completed, my block now looks like this (click the photos for details):
And I’ve finished a second one:

Second CQ block

And working on a third and fourth (they’re lighter). These four will turn into a small wall hanging, taking lessons from the Sumptuous Stitches class, and the Studio Journal class, I have built to a theme of Madame Pompadour: something I came to as I realized that my blocks all reflected the colors in paintings of her in my print collection. It’s evocative, there won’t be anything specifically figurative, but I’ll know. Although I am toying with the idea of using her quotes in the sashing when I put it together. I rather like “Intelligence has no gender.”

Block one with many (not all) seams stitched!

Recently I have been focusing my depth of field on backgrounds in my art. Simple is beautiful. but as I discover some of the more detailed and deep layering in mixed media art I want to figure out how to apply that to my tixtile work. A while back I took Sharon Boggin’s Sumptuous Surfaces class — which set me on this path. This year I am taking her Encrusted Crazy Quilting to continue this line of thinking. What better format for adding this kind of depth than crazy quilting? I stitch slowly, so I can’t promise you quick results on my original blocks (though I seem to be moving faster than I originally expected!)

In addition to the quilting class, I took Kelly Kilmer’s Prompt a Day mixed media journaling class last month. Can’t justify the time this month since I havent’  done all the prompts from LAST month yet! But what I’m finding is that the more layered the background, the sharper, and more prominent the focal image appears — a way of adjusting the depth of field in hand-made art as well as photography. This should be an interesting experiment.

I highly recommend sidestepping out of your normal media choice and play for a while. The results to your focus may surprise you.

In the meantime, somehow stitching crazy quilt seams isn’t nearly as dizzy-making as trying to work on the computer. So back to that! More photos soon, I promise.

That I forgot I had done!!

I was trying to pull stuff together to start embellishing those blocks for the Encrusted Crazy Quilt class… And found a block that I’d started and not finished a while ago. There were two little seams left to finish. So as a warm up to stitching the new one, I finished it.

It’s very simple as crazy blocks go, intended as a large pillow for the living room.  Made out of cotton decor fabric I was given by an interior designer from old samples (make friends — they give you WONDERFUL fabric!!) and embroidered entirely in cotton 6 strand floss, I think it will make a lovely pillow.  Detail photos below. Click any of them to view larger.

Block 1

I am taking Sharon Boggin’s Encrusted Crazy Quilt class this month through Joggles. Despite all the bellydance workshops and shows this week, I managed to get two blocks pieced.

The first wasn’t as successful as the second, initial design-wise, but I’m hoping I can fix some of the problems in the embellishment stage: the most glaring being the horizontal line a third of the way down that goes all the way across the block! That came from using a block that was too big as my first block, and putting it down too close to the bottom of the block off the bat… Lesson learned. But I REALLY wanted to use the entire leaf!

Block 2

The second block is better balanced, but to my eye it seems VERY busy. Of course, I was told to “overload” it, so this may be a good thing!

As usual, click to make bigger.