oh my gosh!

abc has finally started airing the last three episodes of pushing daisies! so many new story twists were added in tonight's episode. i really, really, really hope that a made-for-tv or even a direct-to-dvd movie is created to help things end well.
i would have gotten even more enjoyment from watching if there wasn't a commercial every two minutes. you've already canceled this amazing show abc, and now you want me to give $ to your sponsors? what? are you nuts?

not your average case

so, while viewing some fascinating textural images on flickr, i was inspired to weave something; not having a loom at the moment and never actually doing it before only being a small bump on the road. but, hey, i've read about the main technique somewhere before, and have seen it done.
grabbing my embroidery frame out of cold storage i proceeded to hammer straight pins into the dowel rods. moments later and voila! a frame on which to weave.

i can see why weavers created patterns; it was monotonous at times but actually really relaxing. it put me in mind of a movie from my childhood, the three lives of thomasina.

taking the finished piece off of the frame was tricky and i'm sure there is a clean way to do this, but i forged ahead anyway. the poor little cloth (because that's what it was at this point, and really amazing too; that whole yarn to cloth part.) was kind of worse for wear but had me thinking about a pouch. several stitches later, a trip to the store for a zipper and a button, cutting, ironing, stitching, and sewing by hand and i had a cute little pouch to store my new business cards in. it's a little asymmetric, kind of wedge like, but really charming all in all; and i like it because i made it from scratch on a whim, which is pretty cool in my eyes.

ah, yes, the cards. they turned out very nice. eventually i want letterpress ones, but i really don't know of the design yet.

the machine

i forgot to post a photo of my little sewing powerhouse. well i like to think she is. she's a pfaff select 3.0 and she sews beautifully. i took the photo last night while she was out on my desk. i like the illumination of lamp light; it softens her edges.

there's something about packaging

i love buying something and receiving it all wrapped up prettily! it's always such a nice surprise when opening up a nondescript box to find the item you ordered all decked out. so when i decided to start selling my pincushions i knew packaging was important.

i wanted it to be inexpensive, but done nicely, in a way that was easily duplicated for every item. eco-friendly packaging is also important to me, so i decided to use recycled paper cardboard boxes, reclaimed packing filler, unbleached wax baggies (instead of plastics for water resistance) with a personal wax seal to close, and reused tissue paper. i also love ribbon, and there may be others out there who love getting it as well, it's such a nice touch.

i hope the receivers of my pincushions love the thought and effort that went into them, from their construction to their packaging!

rain, rain, go away

not that i don't love you, or see the great need of mother earth to have you, but it's been over a week and every day you've visited us. i miss waking up to the suns brightness, it's like my morning cup of caffeine; the day just doesn't go right without it. you've turned the road outside my door to mud, and that's just not fun to drive down. but you have been kind to my hair, giving waves where none usually reside. but still, enough is enough for now. please go away and come back next week, or the week after; my schedule's open then.

the above is my ode to strawberries, i'm calling it "strawberries from space pincushion". the printed fabric is just so quirky, it's like another planet, or a space capsule an herbivore civilization would make, all the circles and whirly gigs. i wanted fun bright colors that remind me of the sun setting on a hot arid day, and strawberries are definitely a sign of summer.

behind the lines

i'm at midstride on another pincushion, and being ever so slightly influenced by the strawberries i've been eating for the last two weeks. they are ever so yummy and red! i don't think i'll ever get tired of their taste, the glossy shine when you cut one open, the delicate linework and contrast of red into pink into white.
i would have been posting the newest pincushion at this moment, but i didn't have a particular shade of green in my thread collection. or much green thread at all for that matter. so, off to the quilting store i shall go tomorrow. before work. hopefully i will have enough daylight to see when i get home. and then i can photograph saturday morning. before work.

choosing to move the piece

reading a post from a fellow artist in blogland made me think about something i keep putting off; being happy with how 75% of my life is going, and feeling rather like a mushroom, content with my place in the forest beneath the heavy canopy, i keep avoiding making a physical move to another part of the country. in my mind i yearn to change; wanting a new creative surrounding, hoping i can encounter and thrive with other talents, growing and shaping my creativity, taking yet another step towards maturity and growth of self.
but in my heart i don't want to give up the things i have here. maybe it's not so much a mind vs. heart choice, as a choice to overcome my fears and current level of comfort. it's comfortable in my life with the exception of a few sticky thorns that i want to interpret as signs of needing change. but is only a little change neccesary or a much more drastic change?
at what point do you throw caution to the wind and take a chance? how many walls do you build to limit yourself before you realize you don't like walls?
there are days that i'm scared to death of moving, and days where i'm scared of losing myself if i don't move. live through the journey, i say to myself; but how to gather the strength to begin?

breakfast foods x 3

most people have comfort foods they favor. i realized the other day that my favorite foods are breakfast ones. it's the one meal i don't have to agonize over. it's a bowl of hearty whole grain cereal with unsweetened almond milk, two slices of manna bread with nutella and sliced strawberries or blueberries or blackberries.

the day before, i was home, it was lunchtime, i was low on groceries and hungry. so i took some strawberries out of the 5 lb bag of ones i picked last thursday, sliced them and put them in a pan along with raw sugar and gelatin. boiled, reduced and poured into a jar. i toasted myself an english muffin, slathered it in irish butter, with a scoop of fresh strawberry preserves and they were so yummy! for dinner i made lovely oatmeal on the stove and poured it over frozen wild blueberries, red raspberries, fresh strawberries, irish butter, crushed pecans, and a dollop of local savannah bee company acacia honey. breakfast foods are definitely delicious times three! the main combo is grain + butter + sugar + fruit = yum!

some others i enjoy at times are:
~whole grain toast with butter and a sprinkle of vietnamese cinammon and raw sugar
~farina with irish butter and local honey
~whole grain pancakes with mango, blueberries, and crushed pecans or walnuts

what are your favorite breakfast foods?

pincushion additions

i created another pincushion before work yesterday. i really enjoy blues and greens even though i have other colors to work with. i have to say that red is my least favorite color; but pinks and purples are very near the top of my favorite list. weird. maybe it has something to do with blood and raw meat. i get queasy when i see raw meat in the store.

this pincushion i called "algae bloom". the embroidery is reminiscent of kelp and sea plants and the greens remind me of algae against the watery blue. the olive velvet was a bit painful to work with, it kept moving even with pins in it. i think it has something to do with the length and fluidness of the velvet and its backing. so i had to hand sew it which was fine.

last week i made a pincushion from a variety of grays with a splash of icy blue and this lemony neon yellow silk. the color is just so luminescent and glowy. the herringbone wool and soft grays had me thinking "gramps" so i embroidered a mustache and pipe on the back side.

with every pincushion, i start by finding a fabric print that calls to me, and pair it with 7 - 10 pieces of harmonic fabrics. then i lay them out in a couple of patterns, put some fabrics aside, add others until i get a picture that i like. then cutting, piecing, sewing, and trimming. then i wait for an image or a word to pop into my head to embroider on the backside. i like doing some hand embroidery first, then some machine stitches. add a button tag, then assembly. the fun part.

sleepyheads

they had a bad day. it was their yearly visit to the vet. they went in for a checkup and came out with microchips embedded in their shoulders. poor babies, mommy surprised them with the new technology. but they're recovering well, irregardless of what the look on nala's face says.

mishap in the sink

i broke my bowl; she was a beauty, all deep purples and faintest greens, such luminescent glazing, such shimmer and shine, she was perfection on a table. it happened so quickly, she just slipped as i was cleaning her. shattered, so many pieces, such sadness as overwhelming. i want to mend her, fix all her broken bits back whole. how can replacement ever bring such happiness as she? my poor bowl.

i've gone to the etsy side

so, finally the day has dawned when i've taken that one small step to sell my artwork to the public. it's only been 6 years since i graduated college with a b.f.a.; procrastination is not the word for it. it's more like coming to a point where you have an idea and instead of running only halfway into it, you actually finish the race and make one thing, then another, and then there's three things. it's a gradual pace. will they sell? no clue. but i enjoy making them; and to me it's the creating of something precious from little bits of things that have so much potential that's the challenge and the goal.
please visit my new etsy store, the link is in the right hand side of the screen.

purple haze

i love purple; be it named mauve, lavender, lilac, violet, heliotrope, or any other. from the softest shade of purple tinged gray to the most intense color found in orchids, it is truly lovely to mine eyes. this is my pincushion ode to such an amazing hue.