REMEMBER 2016

Dearest Blogger Friends,

It's been so long since I posted that the whole format of Blogger has changed 

so that I'm trying to adjust to the new look as I write to you.  

This is a great stretch for my brain.  

Thank goodness I'm not teaching anymore,

not quite sure how all the public school art teachers are coping with lack of supplies and money,

plus just learning all the new technology.

I know me and I would have been FREAKING OUT!

I guess I've been in kind of a funk for the past few months,

trying to pull myself away from social media.

These are such upsetting and frustrating times plus I'm starting to feel very manipulated by the media.

So I find myself backing away from it and retreating into other venues:

reading, gardening, movies, knitting and working out.

Soothing activities.

Also still trying to loose weight but that's a whole other story,

an unsuccessful story.

But hey,

I'm got some great biceps going on.  

Ha ha

So anyways,

I'm super thankful for Liz Ackert (blogger friend I'm Going to Texas) 

and her checking up on me and my lack of presence here on the web.

Her reaching out feels so good amidst these crazy times.

Thank you Liz.

Now onto her quilt above.

I just revisited her post about this piece.

Firstly,

I'm so saddened to hear about her eye struggles.

She is awaiting Cataract Surgery in one eye,

and has floaters in her other "good eye".

Losing my sight has been my # 2 fear right after my #1,

Alzheimer's.

So Liz,

 my prayers are with you.

Since she is having troubles seeing to stitch,

she has found that she has enough sight to finish off her Remember 2016 quilt.

She sent me this photo above because she included us,

my art students and I,

represented as artisun,

in her piece.

When I saw that it made my heart so happy,

so thrilled in fact that I had to go back on the whirled wide web and find her post about it.

Thank you Liz for helping me find my way back to my blogging buddies.

SHIIPS SAILING MY WAY

I'm beyond excited to to receive these two precious works of art from

 Handstories blogger Hazel (Cindy) Monte.

They are in the mail as you see this post.

Hazel is one of my favorite fiber artists.

I adore her designs and her delicate way with stitch & thread.

One day I hope to meet her

and watch her work.

I plan on framing these as sister ships

and cannot wait to share them with my students,

especially Hapshiba  hee hee.

Dyeing with Rust

For over a year now I've made it my mission to collect anything rusty so that I could share rust dyeing with my 3-d students.  This was our first attempt and I think the fabrics came out wonderfully.

Rusty nails, bottle caps, railroad ties, you name it, anything I can find on my walks and at garage sales.  Got these results with Rit Dyes, safe to use with young ones.

Rebecca Tjahja and Kaili Hamada (above)

Vinisha Kothari and Jasmine Lim (below)

Rebecca Tjahja

Cassidy Chansirik and Annie Lin

Appliquilt Journal - My Work

One of the many peaks of my job is to get to be able to create right along with the kids, only I have to keep one day ahead of them so I have a piece to demo. on.  This is the Appliquilt Journal I got to build this year, and it was a blast.  I got to start with two tye-dye pieces for the out and inside foundations that I thought looked really good together.  I also forced myself to work in colors that I wouldn't normally choose, I find it's good to push yourself every now and then.  I bought the great butterfly button years ago, knowing that one day I'd find a place for it.

I'm loving cheesecloth right now so I incorporated a bit on it on the front and back side.  And I wanted to balance the butterfly on the front with one on the back so I found a handmade piece of paper that I ripped into butterfly shaped pieces and collaged them onto a piece of posterboard to strengthen them so I could sew it on onto the backside.  That beautiful paper bead was a gift from mixed media artist Kelli Nina Perkins, again, a special piece I've been saving for the perfect art piece.  I put in a lot of quilting stitches for additional interest...

and added a bit of donated lace to extend the journal edges because I accidentally made the journal pages too wide :)  I added a lace pocket on the inside jacket and slipped in an older picture of my daughter and her best friend Hope when they were 5 years old, something else I've been saving forever.  A little hand tie to keep the journal pages organized.

Then on the inside back jacket I cut off and saved pieces from each of this years 3-D students tye-dye pieces so that they could be together in my journal, a piece of each of them.  I like that. They were a very special group of kids with great chemistry.  A remembrance.

Fiber Artist Grace Forrest

I want to share the textile work of Grace Forrest, a woman who inspires me on a daily basis with her lifestyle in New Mexico;  her goats, her yard, the wind that blows thru, and her art.  

Grace calls this piece below "Luring Crows", and she graciously decided to part with it so that I could enjoy and display it in my home.  

From the moment I watched her begin this piece on her blog,  it was love at first site.  The colors of the natural dyes on the cloth, the textures, the stitching and finally the girl calling to the crows.  I used to call to the crows myself when I was a youngster, then later again as a young adult (they are such spiritual birds).    I asked Grace if her piece was for sale and she said she needed 6 bales of hay for it or the price of the bales  LOL  "Sold I said!"  

It lives at our home now, and hangs to my right as I write this post.  It is such a feel good piece to me.  I love glazing at it from afar as well as close-up.  Thank you again Grace for sending it my way.

I hope Grace, you don't mind, me sharing your intriguing story about how you packed the quilt and sent it to me, and what happened as you did.  Perhaps I should ask you first, I don't know, since you posted it on your blog,  I'm assuming it might be alright.  Well here goes...

"i wasn't going to say anything about this.

but then, as time goes on, it feels like i am dishonoring something.  This is the cloth and the stick that i sent to Debra in California....Luring Crows.  i packaged it in a very LARGE cardboard folder, much larger than the cloth, to accommodate the stick.  it was more than 2ft square.  all kinds of feelings and thoughts were present when i was taping the stick down, wrapping the cloth in tissue.  making it secure.  all kinds of thoughts and feelings about exchanging this THING for money.  a LOT.   and in it i enclosed a short note to her telling her about what that meant to me...luring crows.

how there are crows that go overhead and have recently swooped low, seeming to be interested in the arrival of the Goats, seeming to be, just more Willing to look down.  and how i call them.  how i hang laundry on the clothes line almost for them,  how i wave and yell to them  if they are high.  and what it is i want.....is just that they might come here, for just a  moment  to light on the dead branches of the big Russian Olive, or on the fence, fence post.  Just that.  that it would be enough.

so, i put this note in with the cloth and stick and there is a great Wind doing what it does out there and i go out, to go to the post office to send this and as i am unlatching the gate, i for whatever reason, look to my right and then

up

and there,  There on the top branch of the Russian Olive is

a crow.

a crow.

i stand there and see it.  i watch it seeing me.  seconds pass and then in a kind of slow motion, it's wings raise just barely and extend, just barely and Wind lifts it up and sails it off to the right, up and in the current....the crow making no effort at all and it is gone from my sight.

i stood there.  hanging on to the cardboard envelope.  not knowing what to do.  feeling like i should fall to the ground or something, i  should DO something.

but what i did is to continue through the gate and latch it closed and get into the car and head off for the Post Office.  staring straight ahead.  continuing.  and i mailed it.  and now it's a couple days later and i think as i did in that moment driving down the road,  that That's also probably like how it is even when we are dying.  When we somehow know we are about to exhale for the last time.  and we

exhale.

we Just Go.  

and i wasn't going to write this here.  it seems so improbable.  so surreal.   But it happened. 

it was no more, but no less."

A few close-ups of the delightful detail that Grace has stitched into her work.

The girl...

 the crows...

and a tiny personal favorite, this wonderful mark that she has stitched into the cloth.  I wonder?  Does she always stitch this mark into all her pieces, kind of like her signature mark?  I like to think it is just for the crows.  I'll have to ask.

The Proud Owner of Jude Hill's Santa Beast

Yeap, that's me, I was finally able to purchase one of Jude's incredible cloth stories after months of logging on every morning only to see "sold" on all her works.  I watched her create this piece on her blog, and the more I saw the more I fell in love with the piece.  It arrived just in time for the Xmas season, and my favorite thing of all was to see one of her works in person...

to see all her stitchery, her natural dyed cloths, her antique linens she recycles into all her works...

Jude inspires me everyday to keep on truckin", to keep on stitching, and to keep trying new things.  Jude, I apologize for the lighting that I shot these with, especially this last one.

Twelve by Twelve: A Collaberative Art Quilt Project

I was blogging around the other day and checking out what was new on Kristin LaFlamme's site (see sidebar) and saw that she and her fiber friends had just completed a challenge they set up for themselves. On a 12" by 12" format, using only blue, black and white create an art quilt. These 3 were my favorites. The top one belongs to Kristin, check out all her embellishments! She calls it Broken Dishes.

Love the teacup arrangement as well as her patchwork technique. Artist Teri Stegmiller calls it Stacked Blueware and used misty fuse to hold down her patches.

And Helen Conway calls her piece Stolen. She has done some serious stitch embellishment. Love it! I want to thank all the ladies from the challenge for sending me feedback and comments and allowing me to post their quilts after the fact, I'm sorry, I should have asked permission first, my bad. I also was negligent in the posting of links to their site so you can see all their fabulous work. So here they are: http://www.twelveby12.blogspot.com/ , www.gericondesigns.com , http://www.terristegmiller.com/ , and http://www.threecreativestudios.com/ Enjoy!!!

Audrey Pulido - Fused Applique - Student Art

So let's see what 3rd year 3-d art student Audrey Pulido is up to lately. She just finished her latest assignment, a fused applique quilt done with all her own hand dyed and hand printed fabrics.

She tried two hand dying techniques. In this first one she loaded a tub with an inch of shaving creme and dribbled some transparent fabric dyes on top. Then she took a comb and racked in several directions.

A close up when she was satisfied.

Another technique that she tried was to lay a piece of white cotton fabric on a large piece of plastic covered foam core board, spray the fabric with water then brush and splatter on transparent dyes. While still wet she sprinkled some areas with coarse salt, laid down buttons and charms as well as leaves. Basically anything that would lay flat on the fabric. Then she put it in the sun for several hours to set. At the end of the day she was to remove all the objects and salt and wherever something sat it resisted the dye and turned back to white. However, I'm sorry I don't have a photo to show you, our custodian accidentally thought her project sitting all day on the grass was trash and he threw it away, and before we could retrieve it the garbage truck had hauled it away. That was a hard pill for the both of us to shallow. Oh well! That's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. A lesson learned, the next time we put a big sign on it. So you guessed it, the next day she did it all over again. But before I could get a picture of it she had already cut it up and printed images over it. She's fast!

The shot above shows the piece after she fused everything down but before she did her quilting, and below is a close up of her quilted piece. She used several techniques: some free motion, some embroidery (see chain stitch around the couple) and some zigzagging. My favorite parts in the piece were the images she found of Paris that she printed onto her dyed fabrics.

Fantastic Job Audrey, and way to hang in there and overcome and conquer life's little disappointments.

Audrey Pulido - Another Fiber Super Star - Student Artist

Audrey is in my Advanced 3-d Art class which means it's her 3rd year with me. She is a very strong designer and an impeccable craftswoman. Last year she learned to piece fabrics together with a sewing machine for her quilt project. This year she is learning to fuse fabric to make her design with. This is her sweet little preliminary that she was to practice on, embellish and frame out. She created the frame with cardboard and paper mache collage. It's a stunning piece and only her practice. Can you imagine what she's going to do for her real one? Can't wait.!

Professional Quilt Artiist - Ricky Tims

One of my all-time favorite quilts that I've purchased is this one by international quilt artist Ricky Tims. It hangs in my home right in the entrance hall so that when you walk in the front door it's one of the first pieces of art that you see. Love the vibrant colors that he hand dyes into his cloth and check out the close up of his free motion quilting stitches. He is truly remarkable in my eyes. I've taken two classes with him over the years and he is so much fun. He is completely self taught and teaches innovative approaches to curves and fabric selections. He also sings to his students as he demonstrates. If you ever get a chance to take one of his workshops I highly recommend them.

Liberated Quiltmaking - Student Art

Several years ago I took the most wonderful workshop with nationally known quilt artist Gwen Marston and learned how to make an art quilt without any patterns and to just work spontaneously and go for it from my recycled fabric stash. It was so much fun that I teach quilt making this way to my 2nd year 3-D students. First I teach them to sew on a sewing machine then we move right into this assignment. The top piece was done by 8th grader Emmerline Kim, and the piece below was created by senior Caroline Ma who is headed off to art school in the fall. It's an exceptional design and was made with hand dyed fabric produced by world renown quilt artist Ricky Tims, along with other misc. fabrics.

Close up view of Caroline's gorgeous quilt. This shot really shows off her free motion quilting. Free Motion is when you drop the feed dogs on your machine so you can draw like an artist would with your thread. Very difficult to do but Caroline really wanted to learn. Usually I don't teach this technique until the kids come back for a third year in the 3-D class. But I made an exception because Caroline was so persuasive :)

Fiesta Ornament Duo

This summer I was inspired by an article on paper quilts in Quilting Arts or Cloth Paper Scissors Magazine (can't remember which one) which featured the work of Chicago artist, Judy Coates Perez. When I visited her site http://www.judyperez.blogspot.com/ I saw these delightful fiesta ornaments. They were actually featured in the 2008 gift issue of Quilting Arts. So anyways I tried making a couple of these handpainted ornaments this summer thinking they'd be a great new assignmnet for my 3rd year 3-D students. But instead of doing them as individual ornaments I wanted to mount them side by side with copper mesh under them before I hand appliqued them to the quilted batting as I had seen Judy do in her site. I love teaching units that incoprpoate at least 2 to 3 different media. In these we would be using metal, textile paints, pearle cotton threads and fabric. Well, I never finished my sample, but hopefully I will soon cuz I'm really enjoying how it's working out. The saddest part of all is that I didn't get any 3rd year kids back this year because the ones who wanted the class couldn't fit it into their schedules. Oh well, there is always next year!

Strip Tease #1

This piece was made in my 2nd Ricky Tim's workshop, and was so much fun that I made 2 more. Ricky Tims (http://www.rickytims.com/) produced this handdyed fabric, and we were able to buy it from him at his workshop. What I love about his fabrics are there are no two alike.

Dancing Flowers

I made this piece in a workshop that I took 4 years ago at Concordia University in Irvine, Ca. called Camp Watch-A-Patcher. Really fun, spontanious, fused applique process. Right now this piece is being free motion quilted at Cranberry Quiltworks in Yorba Linda, Ca. because I don't trust myself to do a good enough job. I'm hoping to hang this in one of my grandbabies nurseries. :)