Kiss my tuchas, spiders!

In yesterday's post I mentioned vacuuming up the spider webs in the basement as I clean up and make room for my new sewing studio. This is not a pleasant thing for most people, but I'm arachnophobic, so it was kind of a big deal. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to empty the canister when it got full. Well, I managed to get the vacuum canister emptied all by my big self without vomiting or so much as a dry heave. I got a little lump in my throat, but I did it. For those of you who understand the psychology of phobias, you should be very proud of me. Just sayin'.

Yesterday afternoon I started to panic as I looked around my would-be studio. I've nearly gotten to the point where I need to start making piles of the things I want to keep. The whole organizing thing. I start off thinking like this:

Tools

Supplies

Fabric

Reference materials.

Then my head starts spinning with all of the subcategories and subcategories of the subcategories...

Tools:

 - for cutting

 - for measuring 

 - for quilting

 - <sigh> cutting for quilting

 - cutting for garments

 - measuring for quilting

 - measuring for garments

 - for tailoring

     - for marking

but I need to mark for quilting, too, and that's a different pile of tools...

 <son of a...>

...aaaand my brain shuts down. That and I don't have a great place to set up the space I'll need for doing all this organizing.

So, I called mom. Sometimes when I'm feeling overwhelmed, I can call mom and the conversation will spin off into an idea. I had been worried about using a table we have that we take camping with us. We're heading out again this weekend and I didn't want to take over the table. Then I remembered that one of the tables I have downstairs is even smaller than the one in the camper. I could set up the camping table, transfer the stuff from the smaller table, and we could take the smaller table with us. We only use it for setting up our Foreman grill. So that's my new plan of attack. It's a start, anyway.

<sigh... of relief>

I got the big table downstairs but needed to clear off some more of the floor and do some more vacuuming. I sucked up a big brown spider. <shudder> But I found my missing yoga toes (I had lost one and had been alternating feet) and now that I'm in a show which requires me to be barefoot and agile, I'm glad I found it. Seriously, that was pretty exciting for me. I have no idea why it was down by the laundry. I must've scooped it up with some clothes I took down to be washed. 

In my paper journal yesterday, I got pretty excited about the basement. I started envisioning what it would be like to have a real work area down there with a proper table for laying out fabric and cutting patterns so I wouldn't have to do it on the floor any more. Storage that is actually organized so I can find things and it all makes sense. I'm good at envisioning organized places, but putting into reality and then keeping it there is the hard part for me (see above). However, if this is going to be a home business, perhaps it'll be easier. When I worked at the fabric store, it drove me nuts if things were put away in the wrong place. I was always reorganizing things that had been just stuck any old where. I enjoyed it, actually. I took pride in it. Then I'd come home and completely shut down. Honestly, I think it's my medication that's helping me. I know it doesn't work for everyone, and I really put it off and made excuses for myself, but I haven't been this motivated in... ever, really. Plus I have the diagnosis, so it helps knowing that I can actually do something about it and it's not entirely my fault. I'm not stupid and lazy. I've just got some farkachte synaptic signals.

I forgot to mention in yesterday's post that I did a burn test on some fabric I had gotten at the thrift store. It's a cute brown and ivory gingham and I thought perhaps I could use it for the backing to the Grandma's Flower Garden baby quilt. I just wasn't sure if it was polyester, rayon... It was hard to tell, but, since the quilt top is 100% cotton, it'd have to be a (mostly) natural fiber to use it. Turns out it's acrylic, probably Orlan. Yeah, can't use it. The cotton will continue to shrink a little for a few more washings and the acrylic isn't going to shrink at all. That will make for some unattractive bubbling in the quilting, so it's out. Oh, well.

I went on line and downloaded a fiber burn test chart.

This one is from Ditsy Prints.

I cut a small swatch from the fold line of the cut edge, held it in a tweezers over the sink and lit the bugger on fire. It was really easy to do. Since I do like to shop at thrift stores, this will be a handy skill to have. You could even do it for clothes if the tags have been removed. That is, if there's a bit of seam allowance you can clip out. Then you'll know how to wash it. There's your thrifty hint for the day!

I also forgot to mention that on our drive home from the air show, I completed 5 more hexagon flowers and started a 6th. I now have 21 complete flowers for my niece's baby's quilt. So I laid them out to see if I need/want more and to sort of figure out how many more I would need. If I but a path of single hexagons between the flowers, I would have a crib sized quilt right now. But I'd really like to make it a throw so it'll last longer as she grows. 

Well, I need to get back downstairs. If you've been feeling stuck in your own studio or organizing your stuff, I hope this will be some inspiration for you to know that you can do it. If I can do it, you can do it. Yes, folks, it can be done!

Smooth as a baby's...

I love my friend, Angela. She's an actress I've worked with and she's also an aesthetician. She just ripped the hair out of my face. She's good at it, and she really enjoys the work. She's very inspirational to me. She and I have a lot on common. I have the fibromyalgia, she has RA. We both love being on stage, but both need something else to support ourselves. We both want to really enjoy that "other" thing we do, whatever it may be. She really enjoys working with people's skin to make it beautiful. I like to put beautiful clothes on their skin. Angela is one of those people I talked about the other day for whom I would do just about anything. Nothing illegal, you understand, but if she ever needed blood or a kidney and I was a match, I'd do it. If you're in the Twin Cities and you need your chin waxed or your brows shaped or a nice, deep facial cleansing, go see Angela Walberg. I'll put you in touch with her. Seriously.

Okay, now onto the home front. Going through all my stuff has been looming over me for... years. I'm not even kidding. Over the last couple of weeks I've gone through so much stuff, and I'm not even halfway there yet! I'm on medication, I'll freely admit that. Most creative people are or should be, frankly. I've only been on the new stuff for 5 weeks and I've accomplished more in those 5 weeks than I have in the last 5 years. Longer, even. I still had a few maternity clothes in the garage (my youngest son is 6). I've just been avoiding it. I've now been through a dozen or more boxes (several loads of laundry) and not only did I take over all that stuff to charity last Saturday, but I now have 6 more grocery bags and a storage basket of clothes (mostly the boys' baby things, but some of mine, too), toys, and brick-a-brack to take over to the thrift store.

Everyone needs to purge now and then. This is probably the biggest purge I've ever done in my life. I have to say, it feels pretty damn good. I have my current projects sitting on the sidelines waiting patiently for me to get through this. Though I do have my hand sewing with the hexagons by my recliner and pick that up during the evening news. My Christmas tree blocks are under way, but I'm not feeling any great pressure to do it. I'm happy knowing that, once I get this big purge out of the way, not only will I be able to pick up where I left off on those projects, but I'll have more room, better organization, and more freedom. Less chaos. That's the real goal, right there. 

Not only that, but if I aim to proceed with designing my clothing line, I'm going to need that space. Last weekend I made 14 sketches, I figured out which type of fabric the pieces should be, but I have yet to figure out how much total fabric I'll need. I'll finish this purging business first. It needs to happen before my mind can be clear enough to focus on a clothing line. Also, clearing up my sewing space will show my husband that I'm pretty darned serious about pursuing the dream. More serious that I've probably ever been about anything.

Speaking of designing, I have two new collections now available on Spoonflower. Jewel Box, http://www.spoonflower.com/collections/3982 which is, as the name suggests, full of jewel inspired designs and photos,  and Tropical_10, http://www.spoonflower.com/collections/17621, which is all designs that were inspired by my husband's love of Hawaiian shirts and this year being our 10th anniversary. The photos used were taken during some of our vacations over the years.

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!

Summer inspiration

I am a fan of poetry, I'll freely admit that. I wasn't always a fan of reading poetry, but I've written an awful lot of awful poetry in my day. About a year ago I started designing art quilts based on the poetry of John Keats. I plan on embroidering Frank Loesser's lyrics to the song, "Anywhere I Wander" to the quilt I'm making for my niece's baby. 

Today, in my email, I received the following poem (I get daily poems from poetry.com). It's one I hadn't known before, and true poetry mavins will probably tsk-tsk that. To be fair I really didn't start actively reading poetry until the last three or four years, so I'm still a relative virgin. 

Anyway, I thought, since it's officially summer and sometimes the change of seasons brings a need for inspiration, I would share this one. Hopefully it'll inspire you do go outside in the sun and enjoy the day! Or maybe it'll inspire something creative and artistic, which is what it did to me. Great. Another idea in my head. I wish I had Dumbledore's pensieve for all my ideas. It does get a bit cramped in there...

Summer Sun 

Great is the sun, and wide he goes 
Through empty heaven with repose; 
And in the blue and glowing days 
More thick than rain he showers his rays. 

Though closer still the blinds we pull 
To keep the shady parlour cool, 
Yet he will find a chink or two 
To slip his golden fingers through. 

The dusty attic spider-clad 
He, through the keyhole, maketh glad; 
And through the broken edge of tiles 
Into the laddered hay-loft smiles. 

Meantime his golden face around 
He bares to all the garden ground, 
And sheds a warm and glittering look 
Among the ivy's inmost nook. 

Above the hills, along the blue, 
Round the bright air with footing true, 
To please the child, to paint the rose, 
The gardener of the World, he goes. 

Robert Louis Stevenson