Surviving the Scourge...

For whatever reason, the past several days have been nothing but fibromyalgia pain-filled misery. Undaunted, I've tried to make progress, but I've not accomplished too terribly much.
Just before that, however, I managed to get 5 more flowers done for my niece's baby's blanket and I sorted through several boxes of old stuff that has been out in the garage for years. Found some great stuff and some stuff that was kind of depressing, but, that's how it goes when you go through old junk, innit?
I also got on to Spoonflower and made some more fabric designs. It's one of the few artistic things I can do that doesn't cause too much pain or take up too much energy. I'm going to be going through my designs soon and discontinuing a few, so if anybody wants some, now's the time to get it. Unfortunately, Spoonflower doesn't have "sales". Well, that I'm aware of. I think I've found a mini project!
Interestingly the designs I worked on yesterday were ones I imagined for garments, instead of quilting. Not that they couldn't be used for quilting, but I could envision some really great clothes out of the stuff I did yesterday. I'm not sure if those will actually go up for sale or if I'll dare to make a clothing line out of them. It is something to consider.... hmmmm....
Here are three of the new flowers I did last week.

I'm trying to make sure to use combinations of the old and new fabric so I don't have this set of flowers here, that set there... I wonder if we can change the block name to Auntie's Flower Garden? I have 7 step-grandchildren and one great-step-grandchild, but I'm not really a grandmother yet. I know, I know. It's a Grandmother's Flower Garden.
Well, let's see what the next week brings. Hopefully today will mark the end, or the beginning of the end of this bloody fibro flare up, and I'll get something done! I'm missing my Summer, dammit!

Lillian...

Finally got over to meet baby Lillian and give her the quilt I made for her. She snuggled right in...

Clockwise from top right, my friend, Laurel, Dutch, Lillian, and me.

"Hmmmm... I think I like this blankie!"

"Yes. Yes, I do!"
Sorry the photos are so blurry. She was in her bouncy seat. 

It felt really great to be able to give her something I made. 

In fact, I think I'm going to see if I can't finish the floor quilt (Scrappy McScrapperton) for our neighbors. They run a day care in their home and they have a couple of little babies. Though I personally think it's fun for everyone. 

I've been battling the good ol' fibromyalgia since last Thursday, and not getting too much done by way of quilting, housework, everything. It's going to set me back a few days. Usually about twice as many days as I'm knocked out. I've tried to keep moving, but the weather has been so oppressive, and it really effects my flare ups. 

On the up side, my husband and I were approved for our RV loan, so we'll be able to travel a bit more with the boys. We pick it up this Thursday, which is also my hubby's birthday. I can't wait to travel the country and see quilts and trinkets from all over. I also can't wait to make quilts for the beds. There's a queen size master bed, queen sofa bed, full size in the dining nook and four bunk beds in the rear. Obviously, we won't need them for all the beds, but I'm looking forward to making them just the same. I'm already planning on taking the machine wherever we go... I hope my husband realizes this...

Well, stay cool, stay hydrated, stay creative! Have a safe and happy Fourth of July!

More poetical inspiration...

Today's poem by William Wordsworth has such wonderful imagery I wanted to share it. I hope it inspires your art.

A Whirl-Blast from Behind The Hill 

A Whirl-Blast from behind the hill 
Rushed o'er the wood with startling sound; 
Then--all at once the air was still, 
And showers of hailstones pattered round. 
Where leafless oaks towered high above, 
I sat within an undergrove 
Of tallest hollies, tall and green; 
A fairer bower was never seen. 
From year to year the spacious floor 
With withered leaves is covered o'er, 
And all the year the bower is green. 
But see! where'er the hailstones drop 
The withered leaves all skip and hop; 
There's not a breeze--no breath of air-- 
Yet here, and there, and everywhere 
Along the floor, beneath the shade 
By those embowering hollies made, 
The leaves in myriads jump and spring, 
As if with pipes and music rare 
Some Robin Good-fellow were there, 
And all those leaves, in festive glee, 
Were dancing to the minstrelsy. 

William Wordsworth 

photo by Bella Fortuna

Above is a photo by one of my facebook friends, Bella Fortuna. She takes amazing photos of nature. I keep telling her she should send her stuff in to National Geographic. Her photos of insects are so perfect! I keep thinking I'll make an art quilt of them one day. She took a picture of a dragonfly that almost looks like it has a little smile. And she captures birds most beautifully. I just thought this pic of a lagoon would work well with Wordsworth's poetry. 

I made a label for Lillian's baby blanket, since we'll be presenting it to her tomorrow - yay! I started out trying to embroider it, but my skills aren't up to snuff on that. I got out my pink acrylic ink and painted it. I can paint much better than embroider, at least for now.

I have to stitch it on, obviously, but this is what I have so far. Later today I'll post some progress/process photos from the Grandmother's Flower Garden. I needed to replenish my supply of hexagons. I had many cut and all the freezer paper was cut, but still needed to be ironed on (which I did last night) and I started basting the pieces. I'll take some photos so you can see how that goes. 

For now, have a beautiful day! If it's sunny where you are, go get some vitamin D. Take pictures, take notes, get your creative juices flowing!

A couple more things...

I took a picture of the variegated ribbon yarns I used for the batik tie quilt. They don't show up in the photo of the quilt enough for you to see what they look like. The colors really blend in, which is cool, and what I wanted, but I thought you might enjoy seeing how they actually look.

I also completed the "1/2" flower (#9) from the other day and finished the 10th!

Gee, it looks like it either has a teensy little stem or a tampon. I should really think of those things when I take pix for this blog. Oh, well.

I'm back home after spending a few days with my mom and tomorrow morning I hit the ground running, so I wanted to make sure I posted these before I forgot. I have an action-packed day ahead. First, a morning appointment with my waxing artiste (my friend, Angela the Aesthetician, is going to rip all the unwanted hair off my face), then a 2 o'clock photo shoot with Nathan Yungerberg, photog to the stars, and in the evening, I'm auditioning for a production of Cabaret. I've already played Sally Bowles - almost 10 years ago! - so I think Fraulein Kost will be a nice, small, low-impact role. Unless, of course, the director would like to do some non-traditional casting and put me in as the Emcee. Ha! (What? I could do it.)

Oh, yeah! This Tuesday I'll (finally) meet little Lillian and give her the baby blanket. Pictures for sure! I'm soopy citers! Yay!

Another one bites the dust! Hey, hey!

Cacophony of Cups is done!
 I have to get my phone charged up so I can take a pic of it, but it is all done and ready to go home with Laura, our babysitter. She's a really neat kid (young woman) and has been our sitter for about 5 years.
I completed another hexagon flower and started another. I now have 7 whole flowers and the 8th has all of its petals but they need to be attached to each other now. I'm trying to decide if I'd like to stitch them all together like the kit had them done or to put a border between the flowers to differentiate them from one another. I'm not sure I liked it the other way.
You'd think I'd have liked it, since I like busy designs, but I feel it made the quilt sort of confusing. I think when a shape has more than four sides, it gets to be a bit much visually. If they had been all put together singly, maybe it wouldn't have seemed so odd to me, but the designer put them together as flowers then stitched the flowers to one another.
Actually, I have an idea. I'm going to look up the lyrics to Anywhere I Wander, since that's what I've decided to call this one, and I'm going to stitch them along the "paths" between the flowers.

Anywhere I wander, anywhere I roam
Till I'm in the arms of my darling again
My heart will find no home
Anywhere I wander, anywhere I roam
Her arms were warm as they welcomed me
Her eyes were a fire bright
And then I knew that my path must be
Through the ever haunted night
Anywhere I wander, anywhere I roam
Till I'm in the arms of my darling again
My heart will find no home
Anywhere I wander, anywhere I roam
Her voice was oh such a soft caress
Of love it gently told
And in her smile was the tenderness
I may never more behold
Anywhere I wander, anywhere I roam
Till I'm in the arms of my darling again
My heart will find no home
Anywhere I wander, anywhere I roam

Love it. I think that'll be nice for a Grandmother's Flower Garden baby blanket. The song was written by Frank Loesser. Back in the time when the song was written, your darling could've been your sweetheart, yes, but also your mother. I think I'm looking forward to this little girl. Still kinda wish she was a boy, but it's not my kid, so... Yeah. I think I'll spoil her a little.

Needles!!!!!

Mom has needles (not to be confused with measles)! I can finish the Cacophony of Cups aka the batik! Hopefully I won't also need my pliers. I brought them along, but they sure are a pain in the patootie. Then I'll run it through the dryer to give it a nice finish.

Also, between last night and this morning I've finished another hex flower and I'm about 2/3 through another. My niece is expecting a girl, so perhaps that's even more of an impetus for getting the flower garden done. (I was really hoping for a boy, but, oh well.) She's due in November, so that should give me ample time to work on it. As long as I take it with me wherever I go. THAT'S IT! There's my name for it: Anywhere I Wander. It's a song from Danny Kaye's movie, Hans Christian Anderson. Perfect for a baby quilt.

My sister is so excited. She has a lot of step-grandchildren, but this is the first time one of her own kids is having a baby. It's pretty rad. I'll have another grandniece! My brother's daughter has a little girl about the same age as my youngest. Boy, is she a punkin! She's a little bit of a drama queen (must come from my side of the family) who loves ballet and princesses. Very girly girl. We have a picture of our matching shoes from Christmas. Well, our matching slippers. Black sequin ballet slippers. If I was at home I could post it. Maybe next post. I should make something for her, too! OMG! I've got a list a mile long! 

I also have to make those other two my mom commissioned. Also for baby girls. I wonder if any of my friends are having boys? I wanna make something with trucks on it. Or motorcycles. Hmmm... I wonder what I have at home I could use for two little girl quilts? I know I must have something. Or, mom could pick out the fabric. Most of the stuff I have at home has been assigned to a project. That will... someday... get done...

Scrappy McScrapperton aka More, more, more...

How do you like it? How do you like it?

I like it when I'm busy. I also, apparently, like it when my quilts are busy. Like this top I just finished, which I shall call Scrappy McScrapperton.

It was inspired by a few things. First of all, the scrap quilts that my grandma made. Second, a similar quilt top I found in a magazine. Which I promptly lost, so I can't add a pic of that one. Third, recent research suggests that all those pastel baby things we get for newborns, can't actually be seen very well by babies. They develop a sense of contrast first, black and white is best, then the spectrum of colors begins to be processed. Geometric shapes are easier to see than fuzzy blobs, but they eventually register by the time baby is about a year old. 

My Grandma Louise made scrap quilts. She typically used a 9-patch, but I saw a quilt in a magazine (seriously, where did that thing go?!) that made squares within squares. It also had sashing, but I opted to just put the blocks together without it. When my sister's kids were little we'd put my quilt from Grandma Louise on the floor for them to play on. My nephew in particular, enjoyed discovering matching squares throughout the quilt; a bit like the game of Memory, but without the cards being flipped over. Hey, when you're 1 1/2 that's about all you can manage.

So, I put together a bunch of fat quarters with different colors, shapes, and varying degrees of contrast, cut them into strips 2 1/2 inches and 4 inches wide. I didn't worry about the length because I didn't have any idea which ones I was going to use where, though I did have some which were shorter and longer and I made squares of each size. I also used a couple of scraps left over from another quilt. They weren't the right size, but I just worked with them as they were. 

As far as putting the blocks together, it was an exercise in improvisation. I'd pick a center piece, (some were squares, others were rectangles. I like variety.) and then I'd put together the pieces going around the center piece in much the same fashion as you would for a log cabin block, only without the triangular color separation. I trimmed the length of the strips as I went around to square them off. I also didn't want the blocks to be perfectly square. They're 11" x 12". Sometimes, because of the trimming, in order to get the right size, I'd have to add an extra strip to one end. I just played around and had fun.

Once I had 20 blocks, I laid them out and played around with placement, following my instincts with regard to the way the colors made my eyes bounce from one part of it to the next. I also decided I wanted 5 more blocks. It's meant to go on the floor to let your kids play around on it, rather than cover a specific size of bed, but I wanted it to be just a skosch bigger than it was at 20 blocks.

I still have a ton of scraps left over, so I can make similar ones, or pillows. Or something completely different. 

Some of those fabrics were used in Lillian's baby quilt. I took what was left, added some solid batiks and had enough for a twin sized bed runner. Or, as I like to call them, Tootsie Toasters. 

It was pretty windy when I took this one, so I put some rocks on the corners to hold it down. Also, there's some schmutz on the camera lens. I'm just going to pretend it's a fancy schmancy artistic filter, 'kay? I may even have enough of the hot pink flannel I used for the back of Lillian's quilt to back this. I haven't checked yet. What? I've been busy.

Also, today is my little guy's 6th birthday. He's busy playing with his presents, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to add these photos and blog.

Happy birthday, Li'l Pootie Boo!

Hard on myself...

I've been working on the baby blanket for my friend and I began quilting it yesterday. I have one square in the quilt that is all white, so I thought, Wouldn't it be cute to write her name when I'm quilting? Fortunately, her name is Lillian, so it's got a lot of loops. I didn't have quite as good a grasp on it as I'd hoped, and it didn't come out like I wanted. It was too small, wasn't at the right angle (I hadn't been able to find my water soluble pen to write it out first, so it was totally free-hand) and I felt like a dip for even trying it. Then I thought, well, just fill up the square with some more squiggles and blend it in more than making it a feature. That worked! Well, I think it did.

At least I can live with it. Even though I won't actually be the one living with it. You know what I mean.

Anyway, I got that all sorted out when all of a sudden, my tension got all wonky. I tried all sorts of things. I even tried simply stitching over where it was loopy. Then I discovered that somewhere along the line, my thread got taken off the back hook of the line. Hmmm... That's not the technical term for it, but I'm not sure what it's really called. The very first thing I hook my thread around when I'm threading the machine. That's where it got pulled off. I didn't realize, because it didn't really look any different and was still stitching, however sloppily. 

Waaayyyyll, crap. Now I'd done it. This is when my rather unfortunate brain chemistry chirps in and starts telling me all sorts of nasty things, like, "You're an idiot. What made you think you could attempt this? It's just one more thing for you to fail at." No really. She likes to go off the deep end. I should give her a nasty name. Like Chick the Stick. Just so you know it's my evil twin talking down at me, not me. Because she tends to have way worse grammar than I. 

Of course, the other problem is that I didn't get cast in the last of several shows I auditioned for. I got cast in the one non-paying gig I auditioned for, which is way cool, because I'll be working with a really great director and I really wanted the role, but I'd also really like to get paid for what I, frankly, love most and am best at doing. I deserve that paycheck. Hence the severity of the down talk.

Back to the quilt... I was terrified at the prospect of trying to remove the stitches. I'm relatively new to the quilting aspect of this process and I've only ever done free hand. I've also only ever done stuff that's pretty small. Yes, even a baby quilt is huge by comparison. I also don't have a machine specifically for quilting. It doesn't have a particularly long arm, so I have to really make adjustments for that. So, my stitches aren't terribly even and some of them get pretty tight. BLARGH! 

So, thoroughly disgusted with myself, I cut the blanket free and brought it upstairs to sit in my recliner under the good light and try to remove my mess. I must have had quite a look on my face, because my hubby looked really worried. I just muttered about how awful I am and he did his level best to be supportive and soothing. I'm not easy to live with, I grant him that. He has the patience of a saint. More so, probably. 

I started picking away at the threads from the front side because I thought it'd be easier than trying to work with the flannel backing. Then I flipped it over, just to see what kind of a mess I'd made on the back side. It turned out that, since the tension had gone so loose on the top thread, even the tight stitches were easily plucked if I simply made a few slices with my seam ripper. It wasn't an easy task, by any means, but it certainly wasn't as dreadful as I had anticipated. Sure I have a few needle scars, but those will work themselves out in the wash. I did leave it alone for the rest of the evening to let myself cool off and just separate from it for a while, but I'm going to get back to it once I've gotten the boys home from school today. 

I guess the whole point of this entry is to remind you that, even when you make a mistake, whether it's stupid, honest, or both, don't be so hard on yourself. Take a break. You made need only a few minutes or maybe you'll need to really separate yourself from it and move on to the next thing. But don't beat yourself up over it. And if you just can't help it and start to put yourself down, give your evil twin a name (a really awful name) and tell him/her to SHUT UP.

Also, don't forget to check out my Spoonflower shop and the cafepress shop I linked in my previous entry to help kids with autism in June and July. Or just go shopping. I have lots of designs in both places.

Bad blog! Naughty blog!

I'm probably the worst blogger. I have a hard time sticking to things. However, in my defense, I have been rather busy.
My husband and I took a vacation to Cancun, where I finished my certification for SCUBA diving. Not surprisingly, I found a lot of inspiration while I was under water! The colors, shapes, animals, patterns... all lend themselves to the creative mind.
Before I left for the trip, I prepped several hexagons to take along to work on by hand. It's going to be a long process, since I will probably only work on that while I'm traveling anywhere. However, I have quite a few "flowers" for Grandma's Flower Garden made, so it's a decent start.
My mom took the Dresden top down to her place for storage until I'm ready to put a backing on it. The batik top is draped over the stair rail in my living room. It looks pretty nice, so I'm going to let it live there for a while.
My friends, Laurel and Nathan, had their baby girl and today I finished laying out the squares for the blanket I'm going to make for them. It's several shades of pink, white, gray and black. I read that babies' eyes find the sharp contrasts first, and though it might get to Lillian after her eyes have adjusted, that was my original plan when choosing the colors. It's very simple. I had a 9 inch square of pink gingham from the curtains my mom made for my bedroom when I was around three, so it's 20 - 9 inch squares. I may or may not put a border on it depending on time and money and how it looks when it's done.
I also found out that my niece is going to have a baby in November and I saw a quilt in a magazine that I thought would make a great blanket for her baby. It's squares within squares, again with the contrasting color idea. For mine, I'm going to use a whole bunch of colors and prints (mostly geometric shapes, but some others as well). When I was a kid, my Grandma Louise made scrap quilts and I was always fascinated by all the different colors and patterns. One of those quilts was used when my niece was a baby for her (and her siblings) to play on. We'd ask, "Find blue." or, "Find a flower." It became a game about learning colors and pictures. I'm going to make it unisex and not too baby-ish, since we don't know what she's having and then it's easier to pass along to the next child. I'm going to use a modified log cabin to make the squares. I have quite a few of the strips cut already, but I discovered I hadn't got any yellow for it. The yellows are in the washing machine as I type. I think I'm going to sash the blocks, but, to be honest, I haven't made up my mind as yet.
I have started work on the Fan Dancer quilt, but I've set it aside for now while I work on these other things.
On top of all of that, I've begun rehearsals for the play, Crimes of the Heart. We're into our fourth week of rehearsals. I also sang in a concert piece written by a friend of mine. It was fantabulous! However, as you can see, I've been quite busy, so I hope you'll forgive the lack of blogs.