The Vine

Christine asked how I made the vine on the heart piece. I'm glad she asked! It is cut from black fabric and fused and I figured out a pretty neat way to do it, so I thought I'd show you with another little piece I was working on today
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I started out by sketching my vine design on a piece of freezer paper. You know about freezer paper, right? Yes, the stuff you wrap hamburger in to go in the freezer. It has been used by quilters for years now because of its very handy ability to adhere to fabric temporarily. It has a shiny side and a dull side. The shiny side is coated with plastic. When you lay a piece of freezer paper, shiny side down on a piece of fabric and iron with a hot iron the plastic melts just enough to stick to the fabric, but not enough to permanently adhere. When you want to remove it, the paper peels easily and cleanly from the fabric, leaving no residue. Very handy stuff!

So, here's my design, drawn on the dull side of a piece of freezer paper. You can probably see that I first sketched it with pencil and then used a black marker to outline it. The drawing doesn't have to be very polished or even perfect. You can see that I changed my mind about the tiny leaf about halfway down the stem and turned it into a curled tendril.

Once I had my design I ironed the freezer paper onto a piece of dark brown cotton fabric.

Then I put the piece, face down on my light box. You can see that the design shows through to the back side of the fabric. I outlined the design with Liquid Thread fusing liquid that I diluted slightly with a little water. Then I took the piece to my ironing board, covered it, Liquid Thread side up, with a teflon ironing sheet and pressed it with a hot iron until the fusing adhesive melted into the fabric. I let it cool for a few seconds, then peeled the ironing sheet off. You can see the shiny adhesive left on the fabric.

Now, I must tell you at this point, that instead of using the Liquid Thread you could, instead, use a fusible web, like Wonder Under, on the back of the fabric instead. I prefer the fusing liquid because it really melts into the fabric and seals the woven threads, so there is no fraying of the edges. I think it does this better than other fusibles. Just my opinion.

The next step was to cut out the design, leaving the freezer paper attached to the fabric. The freezer paper keeps the cut out vine somewhat stiff and stabilizes it until you can get it fused down.

I then fused my cut out vine to my background by laying it on the background fabric and ironing it. That remelts the line of fusing material and bonds the two fabrics together. I carefully peeled the paper off and then pressed the vine again good to fuse it tightly to the background. If you peel the paper off carefully you can use the design again, which I did to make several duplicates.

And finally, the finished piece. This will be a sample for one of the techniques that I will be demonstrating for the TV taping. Finished size is about 10.5" x 8.5".

Art happening

Wow. I am really busy right now. I have seen it coming for a couple of months and now everything is due at once it seems. Deadlines. There are deadlines for my parts of the Twelve by Twelve book, deadlines for quilts that are promised for shows, and here is some news that I haven't shared here yet—I am going to tape two segments for Quilting Arts TV next month in Cleveland. I will be demonstrating two different projects/techniques and I need to put together samples in different stages that I can work with. Life has its own deadlines as well. Valentine's Day is when I send cards and letters, instead of Christmas, so I need to create the image for the cards and write the letters. Blah, blah, blah. I know—this is boring. Everybody is busy. The thing is, I like to share what I am working on here on the blog and not all of it can be shown. After all, I want you to buy the book and watch the TV shows, not see it all here first!

I occurred to me this week that if there was a way to make one thing work for at least two purposes that would help. Above you can see my Valentine image that I am working away on. I think it is going to help me out on a couple more projects as well.

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A couple days ago when I showed Jane Davila's new book, Barbara left a comment asking if it was a book that a beginner could easily work with. It is a book of techniques and the instructions are very clear and easy to follow. For beginners I would tell you that techniques are only part, and the least important part, of what you want to learn. Fortunately, Jane's first book, written with Elin Waterston and titled Art Quilt Workshop, is a great place to start. It has great information about design principles and color and basic techniques, with exercises to practice. There is a wonderful preview of this book available online here. With this book, and her new book you can definitely get started. Then you may want to move on to even more fun stuff and get Rayna's book! You know there is no end to it.

Cutting down trees in the rain

A bunch of guys arrived this morning while I was out walking and spent the rest of the day at our house cutting down trees in the rain. Three trees actually. Plus, they trimmed off excess branches from other trees and performed major surgery on a very sick (well, dying) tree.

I kept watching them off and on all day. Cutting trees is dangerous. They climb up and throw ropes over the branches that get cut first and tie ropes from neighboring trees to hold and direct the falling branches and chunks. As they fall they swing crazily and crash into trunks and other branches. And all the time the rain is steadily coming down. This is not serious logging but it made me think of Sometimes a Great Notion and crazy men who wield chainsaws with one hand while hanging off the sides of great trees.

The significance of this tree cutting is that we are clearing a spot on which to build the studio and greenhouse. This is part of the "grand scheme" of moving out here and remodeling that didn't happen on schedule because the stupid economy tanked and the stupid stock market plummeted and the stupid real estate market crashed and the old house didn't sell and we stupidly got caught in the middle of a stupid mess. (Am I bitter? Trying hard not to be. Could be worse, I keep telling myself.) Anyway, we viewed it not as a cancellation, just a deferral and now I think we are cautiously ready to get started on this next project. The trees were the first step.

So, as long as this crew was coming to take out those three trees we had them trim up some of the other trees and then there was that bad tree next to the creek that was looking mostly dead and the tree guy said was probably going to cause some problems if not addressed. He said it was likely to "take out your nice little bridge one of these days." That didn't sound so good. The final decision was not to cut it down, but to remove the bad top and leave the trunk and some of the intact limbs for bird habitat. You can see it in the last picture with the top cut off. I asked the guy what will happen to it now and he said, "oh, it will fall down someday." Then when he saw my alarm he added, " a long, long time from now."

Late in the afternoon as they were hauling all the fallen branches out to the street to toss into the chipper, the rain stopped and the sun came pouring in through the front window. The light has changed. I walked out to see how it all looked—trees cut into sections and piled into three neat piles, a light coating of sawdust covers the muddy ground. As they climbed into their huge truck I heard one of them say, "Well, that was a good day." Then he gestured toward a scrawny Ash tree that grows up through the power lines. "They shoulda' had us take that one down too."

Good mail and more on the fabric mosaic

I got a box from Jane Davila a couple days ago, containing a copy of her new book and my artwork that she used in the gallery section of the book. Jane is one of the hardest working artists I know. This is her third book, she blogs, she has an online business, she teaches and she makes art! She has used my work in her last two books and she has been a joy to work with. She's another of the longtime online friends I finally had a chance to meet awhile back. She is from Connecticut, but turns out her brother lives just up the hill from me. It is such a small world!

Anyway, Jane's book is terrific! It is filled with how-to's for all kinds of surface design work on fabric and/or paper. The format is unusual and so practical. It is a smallish size with a coil binding, covered by a nice outer cover. This makes it possible to open it up and have it lay flat, so you can work with it at your side for reference. This is the kind of book you will keep and use for years and years. I'm so happy to have two of my pieces shown as examples. My portrait of my grandmother Hazle uses pastel pencils to create the shading in the face and clothing, and the crow piece uses fabrics I stamped, using my own stamp designs.

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After I posted my progress on a new quilt a few days ago, Lisa left a comment asking for more information about the technique I was using. As I mentioned, I got the idea for this kind of fabric collage/mosaic from Terri Stegmiller's blog. I don't know how Terri is doing it, but I can describe my interpretation of the technique.

I started by cutting swatches of a whole assortment of brown fabrics. I pressed them, using spray starch, which gives them a little more body and helps to keep them from fraying badly, then I cut a whole pile of odd-shaped pieces—mostly triangles and parallelograms. I used my liquid fusing technique on each piece and starting laying them on the felt that I am using as the batting for this piece. I butted and overlapped to completely cover the felt. I lay down a section at a time and then use my small iron to fuse that section, then move on to the next section. In the picture below you can see my tools and materials: tray full of cut pieces, scissors, bottle of fusing liquid and little Clover brand mini iron.

Me and Rosarita

Many, many years ago when I graduated from college, I moved to the big city. I left my home and family in Pocatello, Idaho and headed for the hustle and bustle and bright lights of Boise! (OK, laugh if you will, but it is the biggest city in the state of Idaho.)  I got a job and I got an apartment where I lived by myself for the first time in my life. I missed my family and I really missed my mother's cooking. Mom was an outstanding cook and having grown up in the Southwest, her specialties were Mexican or Tex-Mex dishes. Oh, those enchiladas! Mom usually made everything from scratch, including the sauces and it was a big production. Cooking for myself after a hard day at work was whatever I could make quickly. An early discovery was canned, Rosarita brand enchilada sauce. It tasted almost as good as Mom's. Now there are a lot of canned enchilada sauces, and I have tried them all, but, trust me, Rosarita's is the best. Rich and earthy, spicy but not too hot and more chile flavor than tomato. I could build myself a tasty stacked enchilada for dinner in no time. A little omelet, smothered in some Rosarita and sprinkled with cheese and green onions. A toasted cheese sandwich dipped in Rosarita. I considered Rosarita sauce my main staple.

Years went by and my cooking repertoire expanded and I lost touch with Rosarita for quite awhile. I looked for her in the stores, but never saw her. I assumed, sadly, that Rosarita was no more. Then last year when we moved, I started shopping at a different store and there, in the ethnic foods section I found my old friend Rosarita! We are BFFs again. And I have been remembering just how versatile this can of sauce is. It's not just for enchiladas!

Tonight I made a delicious and quick-to-fix tortilla soup, with Rosarita's help. It was so good, really! Here's how I did it. Took less than an hour. Amounts are sort of variable. I was making it up as I went along.

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  Cooked two very large chicken breasts in the oven at 375 for about 30 minutes
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  While chicken cooked, I fried half a chopped onion in a little olive oil until starting to brown
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  Added one can (14 oz) of diced tomatoes, filled can with water and added to the pot
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  Added can (20 oz) Rosarita enchilada sauce, plus another can of water
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  Added can (4 oz) chopped green chiles
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  Clove of garlic, minced
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  1/2 tsp. cumin
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  added a rounded soup spoon full of chicken boullion paste

While all that simmered, I sliced 5 fresh corn tortillas into strips (about 1/4"). Sprayed a cookie sheet with vegetable oil and spread the tortilla strips on it. These went into the oven with the chicken.

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  Took chicken from oven and cut into chunks and added to soup
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  Took the tortilla strips out when they were very crisp and browning a little
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  I added a little more water—actually I ran some boiling water into the pan I had cooked the chicken in and loosened the brown bits and juices and added to the soup

Ladled hot soup into bowls and garnished with shredded cheese, avocado chunks and the tortilla strips.

I know this sounds like a lot of cans of stuff, which is not the way I usually cook, but it is so fast and so tasty! Today I wanted to spend more time in my studio than the kitchen so it was perfect. I love a good tortilla soup. I'm not a fan of corn and rice and a bunch of stuff in my tortilla soup, but you could add whatever sounds good to you. If I'd had some cilantro I'd have sprinkled some of it on top. A squeeze of lime juice is also good if you have it.

There you go. I have broken those sacred blogging rules by not only telling you what I ate for dinner, but giving you the recipe.

Working, working

I started working on a new quilt yesterday. It will be a large one for me. It must be an exact, prescribed size, which is never easy, in my opinion.

It has been cold and my workroom is heated by a wall heater, so until it warms up things are cold in there. I like to carry my little pot of tea in with me to warm both my insides and my hands until the heater is up to speed. I was given this little 2-cup teapot by a sweet friend (who will read this and know who she is) and I have loved it so much. It holds about two cups and has a mesh basket inside to hold loose tea. I have been drinking black tea with cherry and almond. It smells as good as it tastes.

This quilt needs background. I saw a technique that my twelve by twelve friend, Terri Stegmiller used and knew instantly that this would be the perfect way to construct the kind of background I need for this piece. It required me to pull out every piece of brown-ish fabric that I own and cut scraps in triangle and trapezoid shapes.

That is a tissue box sitting on my work table. Don't you always look for the coolest box designs when you buy tissues? I do. Much more important than the quality of the tissue inside. Ha! When they are empty I use the box as a little waste basket in my sewing area. tiny fabric scraps and thread snips go into the box until it is full and then discarded. By then there is usually another empty to take its place.

This part is a little tedious. I am cutting up scraps and scraps and scraps. Since this quilt is for an invitational show I'm not sure how much I can show beforehand, but I will deifinitely keep showing this background as it grows. I haven't used this technique before, but I am liking how it looks so far. It's going to take awhile.

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I have to tell you how much I appreciate all the comments left on yesterday's post. Lovely, supportive words from old blog friends and new. Thank you!

Imperfect Reflection

Today I read a post by Dena Dale Crain about "Blogging for Quilters." If you are thinking about starting a blog, especially hopeful that it will bring you fame and fortune and sales of your artwork, she has a lot of good information there. By her standards, though, my blog probably doesn't measure up. Maybe I should worry about this, but I don't. She asks at the outset, if you are blogging, are you doing it "properly and successfully?"

Properly? Oh, sigh. That makes me tired. Am I "keeping my present and future readers informed about what I am doing and what I am selling?" Yes, sort of. Sometimes. Maybe. Er, not so much.  "Not selling yet?" she asks, "Why not? Don't be naive!" OK, OK, I am selling. I set up an Etsy Shop awhile back and flogged it to death here and sold quite a lot of stuff, but I have not had the time to restock lately. I should probably be doing that instead of writing this.

Successfully? What? What is successful? Since I didn't have any concept or goal about what would constitute success when I started writing this blog, I can't really say if I have been successful. If it means has it opened my eyes to things I had never noticed, connected me with terrific people and opportunities, given me another creative outlet, put me in touch with my own life in a way nothing else ever has, then, yes, I am blogging successfully. If it means, fame, sales, and how many search engines access the blog daily, well, I just don't know about that stuff.

Don't get me wrong. I have no argument with Dena's advice and I think she has given this some very good, analytical thought. I was just taken aback by such a single-minded approach to blogging. At one point she says if you aren't blogging to sell something you should switch to Twitter or Facebook where you can share your personal thoughts and photos there.They are, apparently, only worthy of a couple lines and a square inch or so.

You know what I love in a blog? Someone who can write really well. That is what I aspire to. Beautiful photos that take me to another location or a glimpse into someone else's world. I love that too. Humor. The human condition, well told. Travel. The world. Food, though I am with Dena in that I'm not very interested in what you had for breakfast. But I do love those favorite recipes and a great, tasty discovery shared. Art. I love the art, but it is even more enjoyable for me when I have learned something about the artist and what makes her tick.

My blog is an imperfect reflection of me. I'm sure it could be more professional, but it is what it wanted to be. Not for everyone. I am getting old and life is short—too short not to do what I do for my own enjoyment mostly. And for the record, even when you are young life is too short. Maybe I share too much of my mundane life, or maybe not enough. Maybe I'm unnaturally interested in other peoples' lives or maybe reading about them just provides some comfort in knowing how much we are all alike at some deep level. I just never thought of blogs having to be business tools.

Maybe Dena's advice will help someone start a successful blog. I hope it doesn't dissuade anyone who won't want to follow her rules. They can follow my rules instead! No, really I don't think rules are needed for something as personal as a blog. If you wanted my advice, and you probably don't, I'd just say what I'd say about art in general—be authentic. And if you can be funny or profound or make things beautiful—bonus points.

Looking down on it all

Finished. I am working my way through January as if I were actually getting paid. Ha! This is my second "Bird's Eye View" piece finished this month. They will be submitted next month. The first was Mt. Hood from the Air which has taken its place in my blog banner above. It was not intended for the blog, but when I was contemplating changing the look, it suddenly seemed perfect. For one thing I think it is the only quilt I have ever made that is that horizontal in orientation. Then, there is the fact that Mt. Hood is sort of the definitive landmark here where I live. When we can see Mt. Hood, we know it is a good day.

Now, this second piece, by contrast is not a real place. It exists only in my imagination, but it is an impression of scenes I have seen from the air. It needs a name. If you have any great ideas leave me a comment. I do love the greens and there are some really beautiful color changes when you look at it closeup.