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Silk Purse Out of a Sow’s Ear?

Thursday, September 29th, 2005

Yesterday I dyed and over-dyed some fabric. I knew I needed more greens and browns for an upcoming project, but didn’t have much white PFD (prepared for dyeing) fabric. Then I realized I could over-dye some of the ugly, ugly, ugly fabric from some of my first attempts. After all, I wanted swamp green and mud….and the moosh of all colors makes mud, so how could I lose?

My favorite piece is the ochre “rock” which started out as a nearly-solid peachy tan:

OK….Blogger is working again! Yeah! That means I can now upload photos again. The other one that turned out way cool (I think anyway) is one that I’ll use for the background / sky in the swamp area (so am I the only one that was surprised to learn that yellow plus black make olive green?)….

Anyway, it’s also possible to salvage the uglies. Here is what I began with (this piece, by the way, is on the back of my African guy–Bijagos Warrior–didn’t think to take pictures before I overdyed…anyway, you can see how UGLY this is!).

Here’s what it looked like after adding more dye (yellows and burnt oranges):

Still not exactly beautiful, but WAY more useable. It doesn’t show in this picture, but there are really cool crystally markings, and a soft green hue that will work for leaf canopy, to give some contrast and definition to the leaves. There were some over-dyed pieces that began as blue, ended up being a bit too brilliant green after adding both lemon and warm yellows. So, they went back into the dye-pots today…used thinned navy and “safari” gray, a gray with a yellowish cast. And the tree bark turned out too reddish-orange (I want swamp, not redwood), so added some greeny-brown and blue, and we’ll see how it looks tomorrow.

More Postcards…

Thursday, September 22nd, 2005

Well, I can honestly say I had fun, and I’m glad I’m done for now! Today I made another 13 postcards. Two are large–6×8, the rest are typical 4×6 postcards, and all are –uncharacteristically– abstract. I used a piece of fabric I painted…a fat quarter (21×18 inches), then quilted the daylights out of it, cut it into pieces, and finished the edges. Most of these will be donated to either Virginia Spiegel’s Cancer Research fundraiser at Festival in Houston or the www.artdoinggood.com fundraiser for the Red Cross hurricane relief efforts. Here are a bunch of photos:
The first is the wholecloth painted fabric, which became all of the cards. I’ve called this the Canyon Colors Series, numbered 1 – 13.


And more:

Postcards on the edge

Wednesday, September 21st, 2005


The good news is that I made 10 postcards today, all “wholecloth”. Eight are nudes in a series I’m calling Hot August Night…four men, four women. Two are of teasels, just because I love them. (The color, on my monitor anyway, isn’t so great…or maybe it was my camera…the colors are washed out compared to the real thing.) The original plan was to put a few up on my website, send one or two to friends, and send the rest to Virginia Spiegel’s Cancer fundraiser in Houston.

Ummm…well……I like them so much, now I’m thinking maybe my postcards for Virginia will be the other ones, the ones I haven’t made yet (have some fabric painted for some abstract pieces…should be easy to get them made tomorrow). Specifically, I’m thinking it might be cool to mount the four guys (or three or two) together on a separate, quilted base layer, and ditto for the women. Or I could make a pinwheel arrangement…though I think I’d switch the four postcards show to be one of each color….

So…what do I do? Stick to the original plan, make a happy foursome, a pinwheel, or maybe stick to the original plan, then expand the idea into a larger, different piece?

WooHooo—-INXS Finale

Tuesday, September 20th, 2005

INXS warnings apply…don’t read if you don’t want to know what happened.

Well…..I’d hoped maybe MiG would get it, but he didn’t, so I’m thrilled that JD got it….. maybe he’s grown up some, and has more to do, but he is the one that from the beginning had the music inside his head, and it seems that’s what INXS wants. I’m guessing his mom and sister were up in the balcony, the way he was looking up at someone ready to burst into tears. And it’s really nice that INXS wants Marty to front for them….his style isn’t for me–too intense, but Trees is a wonderful song and I, the non-musical, find phrases of it running through my head. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that I’ve had this tree-thing going in my quilts for the past year-plus. The line is “The trees will give us the answer” is the one that keeps playing…

Anyway, it’s late, the school bus is here in less than 8 hours, so gotta run….. Hope this works for all of them. And that MiG, Suzie, Ty and Jordis all get awesome contracts…their albums I’ll buy!

Achy achy, ick….

Wednesday, September 14th, 2005

The best part of the week was Monday, when the Frayed Edges got together at Deborah Boschert’s house in Topsham. We’re sure gonna miss Deb, but are figuring out how to keep this foursome going with one of us in Texas and the three rest of us in Maine. Click here to get to Deborah’s Blog with all sorts of great pictures.

After that, not much to report other than my sons breathed on me and shared their germs. The good news is that I haven’t been sick in ages, and they are well already so this should be over soon! Grumble, grumble…..

INXS warning….don’t read if you didn’t watch the show.

OK……if I had to guess, I think that it is down to JD or Suzie. Suzie has the voice, JD has the music inside his head. Which do they need/want more? Kirk Pengilly had a good comment the other day, that this is getting harder, not easier, as the numbers dwindle. I think MiG is awesome, but am not sure that his voice or his music are equal to JD or Suzie…on the other hand, he’s a great performer and a nice guy, and that’s a good thing when you’re on the road together. Marty’s song Trees is a real toe-tapper, catchy, and hope it turns into a single, soon, just not an INXS single. Meow? Not really….I just don’t think he’s the right “mesh” for INXS. Of course, we’ll all find out soon enough. And it sounds like there will be a “reunion” for the final show next week. Can’t wait to see it, and hope they all get to sing.

Now, back to the sofa. Blug. That’s a combination of blech and ugh. All our anti-fever stuff (ibuprofen etc) is all at least a year out of date, so it isn’t exactly working at a hundred percent, so neither am I. Have to drive 80+ miles to teach tomorrow, so gonna crash. Nite nite…..