More Postcards & "Socker" Season

Here are a few more fiber postcards. All of the fabric for these cards was "created" by me (through dyeing, painting, monoprinting, screenprinting, or digital printing) except the pieced fuschia/orange/purple backgrounds which are commercial fabrics.

In knitting news I'm on a sock bender. After all, it is "socker" season! I'm going to lots of soccer practices, and they're the perfect venue for sock knitting. I finished 2 socks this weekend, and just need to kitchener closed a third. (Due to my fascination with trying new sock yarns that makes a total of, ahem, one pair plus 2 non matched socks. The second socks, plus two others, are in progress.) I also enjoyed a little yarn shopping yesterday with some fellow knit bloggers. Lolly has pictures on her blog. It was great meeting Minty from Philadelphia, and Heather whom I hadn't met before, as well as seeing some of the other gals from our group (Jen, Coleen, and Sarah). Hopefully my husband will stop traveling so much on Mondays and I'll be able to make more regular meetings!

"Easter Sock" - first in a series of two

Fiber Postcards

I finished up a couple of fiber postcards for Fiberart For A Cause. These postcards, as well as many others by other artists, will be on display at the Houston International Quilt Festival. They'll be offered up for sale for a $30 donation to the American Cancer Society. If you're going to Houston, be sure to stop by the FFAC booth and check out the postcards. If you're a quilter, please consider donating some postcards to this worthy cause - the Fiberart For A Cause link above has info on how to donate cards.

(All pictures are clickable for a bigger image.)

Inspiration

My youngest child, the third son, is in some ways woefully neglected. I used to do super crafty things with the oldest two on a regular basis (or at least it seemed that way). Number 3 hasn't had nearly as much crafty fun, mostly due to the fact that I have less time to supervise messy things like painting.

While the older two were at soccer camp, my youngest finally got to run wild with the Tempera paints. The truly remarkable thing to me was his complete lack of inhibition in mixing the paints.

He methodically dipped the brush in each paint pot down the line.

He used several brushes at once.

He mixed paint by holding two brushes with the bristles together and rubbing them together!

It was a beautiful thing.

And it reminded me that my children were the source of inspiration for several quilts, including Grotto , Aqua Leaves and New Growth. I hadn't used Tempera paint much, but they came home from preschool with new "works" in Tempera nearly every session. I was fascinated by the way the colors blended, or sometimes didn't blend, and the texture and lines created by the paint.

Each of the quilts I mentioned above began with a fragment of a tempera "painting", scanned in to the computer and manipulated.

It just goes to show that you never know where you'll find inspiration.

I wish you all an inspirational day!

Meet Me At The Fair

Through the magic of the internet, I was able to be in two places at once on Saturday!

Here I am in Cincinnati, at the Zonta Quilts for Change show, by my quilt Bayou Reflections.

Okay, it's not me, it's my fabulous stunt double Deb R. who very nicely took the picture for me. Thanks, Deb! You're pretty!

I was really at the County Fair.


The sky was an incredible shade of blue on Saturday. The chickens were down right inspirational!
Unfortunately, this is my only half way decent chicken picture, because I was holding a 36 pound 3 year old who was still getting over a too thrilling ride on this little dragon "roller coaster" (a series of very small hills) that he wanted to ride. But the other chickens really were quite phenomenal! Someday I'll make a rooster quilt.

The super slide was more the speed that my guys needed.

(Two of my guys, ascending.)

I fully intended to survey the entries in the Domestic Arts competitions, but we ran out of time before I could check out Coleen's award winning entries. Maybe next year.

Driving By

Son #2 had a birthday party to attend this evening (a 7th birthday luau!). I couldn't bear the thought of packing 3 boys into the van, driving 25 minutes to Toys'R'Us, withstanding the onslaught of whining there, spending too much for a toy the birthday girl probably already had, then driving 25 minutes home.

Instead I made this.
And it was a big hit! I had wanted to make something in delicate pastels, but it turned out I didn't have enough of those (go figure). Most of these are commercial fabrics I probably bought about 6 years ago. The pocket is a (newer) Laurel Burch fabric, and we bedazzled the birds' eyes. It was fun for me, and fun for my son, who enjoyed dictating what fabric should come next when I was sewing together the strips.

This particular son seems to be fairly popular with the little ladies, so I anticipate that this may be the first of several girlie tote bags I make in the next few months.

New Boyfriends

I believe Jane Dunnewold coined that phrase for the newest fabric you've dyed/painted/stamped, and with which you're infatuated. My boyfriends are green and blue.

I'm pour dyeing pieces not quite 2 yards long, and getting a nice shibori effect at the folds (centers).

The dye that drips off the fabric is being used to produce mini runs of gradations.

I tried to do some arashi shibori the other day, but was under equipped (and failed miserably). I broke down and bought two 3ft long pieces of PVC yesterday. Now I just need Floris to do a mind meld with me so I can get it right, as hers is always beautiful.

No matter how many new boyfriends I get, I still always love the old ones the best. Here you can see that at least one of them has a tongue, and he's not afraid to use it!

Self Portrait and Enabling

Sorry - no pretty colors today - we're totally black and white and grayscale.

After seeing so many fabulous self portraits over at Deb R.'s blog, I decided to try and use the timer function on my camera and get a self portrait. Of course, I was in a hurry, and didn't get the focus dead on. (Note that I was also playing with using the black and white function, since I hadn't used it before.)I liked the pose, so decided to see if I might salvage it with some Photoshop filters. The one below used "smudge" (I believe I used filter->artistic->smudge stick.)
Here I used filter->sketch->stamp. The bonus is, it makes you look 10 years younger!
Since it's been super hot I've dyed a small amount of fabric on, of all places, the guest room balcony (we're sleeping in the guest room and have handed over the master bedroom to our guest). The railings are at a good height to hang some PVC and do a little drip dyeing. The fabric is in the washer right now, so the jury's still out on how it turned out.

My biggest fiber accomplishment this week is that I taught someone to knit! I was doing a little knitting at swim lessons, and at the same time became reacquainted with a nice gal who's son used to go to preschool with my oldest son. (Confused yet?) It turns out that her daughter, also there, who is about 11 (or 12?), wanted to learn to knit. So yesterday I taught her! I've never taught anyone to knit before, and she was a very quick study, so it was quite fun. More fascinating facts: they have a few sheep (including Romneys and a Corriedale), and are having some of the fleece made into rovings. But they don't know how to spin - yet. At least they are now knitters!

Oh, I almost forgot. Good news from the Mancuso's - "Grotto" will be at the Pennsylvania National Quilt Extravaganza.