The moving van arrived this morning, and we were pretty much ready!   This is what our back entry hall looked like at 8 a.m. this morning:

As you come in the back door...a wall of boxes

And then you turn left:

Looking into the kitchen, aka chaos zone

That’s dear hubby’s noggin on the left–he’s cleaning the woodstove doors to lay a nice fire for the new owners.  Good hubby!

The hallway:

The upstairs hall

Then they moved boxes into the living room to shuttle them out to the truck:

The used the living room as a staging zone...fortunately it is cleared out tonight as there is nowhere else in the house to sit!

Here’s what my studio looked like in the morning:

My studio, after the packing, before the moving

By the 4 pm, it looked like this:

My studio, by the end of the day....seems so much larger without all my STUFF!

And the end of the day:

The truck toward the end of day 1

It is SUCH a relief to be at this stage….by Friday we will be asleep in Hope, Maine!  And we’re eating carry-out this week <grin>!

Last year I was the lucky recipient of a $50 scholarship from Coastal Quilters to take a class; they can be in person or online, and must somehow relate to your quilting.  If one wanted to take a class in photoshop, for example, to learn about manipulating photos and printing them on fabric, that would qualify!  Well, I had signed up for two online classes:  lino-cutting and the workhorse sketchbook/journal.   I used my scholarship to defray part of the $60 fee for each of the classes.  In return, scholarship recipients share what they learn with the group.  We don’t give away the teacher’s entire class, but share enough to whet the appetite to learn  more, I hope!

I did a fairly long program about lino-cutting, including explaining the tools, the materials, where to order them (you can buy some at the local art supply store which is awesome, but the linoleum I prefer we have to order from away).

My cutting board/jig, with a new block in progress and the carving tools. Of course I had to buy the pretty bright colorful ones!

I got the idea for this block while working on my ornament gifts for my Frayed Edges friends this past Christmas.  I realized there was NO way I was going to carve the block, print the fabrics, and make ornaments in time, so I set aside the idea for future reference.  But I did decide to work on the design and make the block as a demo of the process for Coastal Quilters.

I went to some of my reference books and Google Images for pictures of reindeer.  I ended up with a composite image of a caribou resting:

I liked the arched-top shape for an ornament; I think I can make these similar to a fabric postcard using Peltex as the stiffener inside.

To make carving the block easier and make the block more versatile, I chose to use a 6 inch square of linoleum carved on point:

The recumbent stag is carved, as is the sky, but not the ground

Originally I thought I’d carve some rocks in the ground, but eventually decided that grass was a better choice.

Nearly all carved...I saved some of the grass so I could actually finish the carving during the presentation

I made the first test-prints during the demonstration.  As you can see, the first print came out OK, but a bit light (on the left).  Figuring out how much ink is enough without getting goopy is a trial and error effort.  You just have to accept that you may have a few duds.  I added more ink (think consistency of toothpaste) and got the second, better print (on the right).

first and second prints, done on a pale gray (think snowy) batik

Here’s a close-up version of the stag/caribou.  I can leave these prints as is or cut them down into the curved-top shape from the original sketch:

The better of the two prints

I pretty happy with this one, tho I didn’t get the lines on the face quite right.  Hope you’ve enjoyed the process, cheers, Sarah

So what was I doing, before the packing cyclone hit my studio?

I decided that if I didn’t make this piece right away, which is due for a juried invitational in mid-March, I would (a) explode with frustration and (b) it would  not get made.  The closing date for buying our new house is February 9th.  We are packing up pretty much EVERYTHING ourselves, so that is several weeks of work with all the c-r-a-junk (as my dear old Dad used to say) that is in this house.  The basement is downright SCARY. So I needed to move quickly, fuse-applique and quilt, or the piece wouldn’t get done before I absolutely HAD to start packing.

Since I am not allowed to share the finished piece, I thought I’d show you the drawing, blurred in the middle.  The finished quilt will be 36 inches wide by 48 inches tall, pretty good sized, with the theme The Spaces Between.  An e-mail conversation with one of the curators, in which she said “YOU are the one in between” (as in caught between the demands of being a daughter (mom has dementia so I do all her billpaying etc), a mom (obvious), wife, quilter, teacher, etc….).  BINGO!  Picture in my head instantaneously….

I decided to use only “color”—no beige, brown, black or white in this entire quilt.  I had, this past summer, had a seriously wonderful visa accident at Batiks Etcetera and Sew What Fabrics in Wytheville, Virginia.  They have awesome customer service–I first ran into them when teaching at Paducah in 2008.  If you want yardage of something in their boxes of half-yard or fat-quarter cuts, they take that sample back to the store and within 24 hours I think of returning from a show, the orders are starting to be shipped.   They have an entire room  packed three shelves high which means they have a good range of the hardest to find batiks, the light lights and deep darks.  So I spent nearly half a day’s wages there filling big  gaps in my stash.  I have never spent that much money on fabric in one go ever, but it was worth it.  They also…yeah!….(I am not responsible for Visa moments that you might have….) are online at www.batiks.com (easy to remember, eh?).

So I raided my supplemented stash and came up with this for the quilt:

lights/warms on the right, darks/cools and a few others on the left

Here’s another shot:

Aren't those gorgeous? And see all those pale-pales at the top--those came from Batiks Etcetera

And the to-be-used-later batiks in the darks:

Yummmm.....

I ended up not using as many of these as I anticipated.  The background changed from busy to simple because the focal point of the quilt kind of insisted on it…

It was fun playing with all that color in mid-winter!

The lack of posts is due to mostly one thing:  packing.  Can you say UGH?   I HATE moving. It also has been wicked cold.  This was the weather station report this morning–exactly ZERO (that’s Fahrenheit for my non-US readers…about  Celcius minus 18):

6 in the morning, zero degrees outside, 63 inside, no wind chill....

That is a vast warmup from this time yesterday:

Jan. 24, 2011: the lowest temps since we moved to Maine. It was MINUS 11 Fahrenheit (-24 Celcius); the wind had almost stopped when I took this photo. At one point wind chill was -18 F.

I also have too much stuff.   I had cleared out some stuff, but as I pack my studio I clearly need to clear out more.  When I unpack, I do believe that I will finally cull and sell some of my quilting books! As you can (maybe?) see from the chaos below, a fair bit of packing has happened—five low shelf units, all the patterns that I sell (half the filing cabinet), the knick-knacks inside the Hoosier (and do I really need all of *those* dustcatchers?).

See all those awful cardboard boxes? At least the shelves behind are packed up!

Ugh again.  Here’s another view toward a different corner.  Ugh.  The blue on the sewing tables is my recent project, which I can’t show you.  Bummers.  It is for a juried exhibit with a mid-March deadline.  I knew I had to finish it early or it would never happen.  I finished sewing the facings on Sunday mid-afternoon, then started in on packing boxes.  I still need to sew my name to the front and make a label, but since the quilt won’t ship until late May/June (if it gets in, that is), I’m gonna let that slide for now.

Another shot of the rampant chaos in my studio. I hate being in anyplace this disordered. No more moves!!!!

So for today?  More packing!  UGH!!!

Have been slamming away on a quilt, so not too much to report or share.  I did manage to read a novel by Steve Martin, An Object of Beauty.

The book is well written, and is about the art and gallery scene in New York City.   It makes me very glad I have nothing to do with it!  I learned a good bit, including that the main character, Lacey Yeager, is utterly unsympathetic.  As a result, I can’t say I’d recommend reading this book, mostly because I can’t imagine writing an entire book about such a “yuck” person.

On the other hand, the writing was quite good—Steve Martin is turning into one of my heroes:  funny, good actor, musician, author, multi-talented, hard working, always exploring…these are things that bump people up in my estimation! (think Paul Simon and Paul McCartney!).  Anyway, I’d gladly read another book my Martin–hopefully one with a nicer main character.

However, one quote made the entire book worth it.  At the end of chapter 61, on p. 271, is this exchange between Lacey and her sort-of-beau, an FBI agent specializing in art fraud, about a painting by a Russian of a moonlit night, with the light reflecting on the water of the harbor:

“Tell me why you like it.”

“Well, it’s pretty.  Kind of lonely looking.  And it’s symbolic don’t you think?”

“Symbolic?”

“That’s where something in the picture stands for something else.  Like truth or something.”

“Thank you.  So what’s symbolic about it?”

“Remember, this is not my best subject.”

“I’ll remember.”

“Well, the water, to me, represents the earth and all the things that happen on the earth, reality.  And the moonlight represents our dreams and our minds.”

“And…”

“And the reflection…well, I guess the reflection represents art.  It’s what lies between our dreams and reality.”

WOW…. “art…it’s what lies between our dreams and reality”…how amazing is that?   That is SO IT!  Thank you, Mr. Martin!

And the birthday:  today is the 112th anniversary of my dear old Daddio-o-o-o-o’s birth in 1899.  He lived until 1995, and died two days before I was scheduled to arrive for a visit.  He hadn’t been in the nursing home for four weeks.  Mama said he asked every time she went to visit when he would come home.  After about two weeks, he stopped asking.  I think he realized he wasn’t going home, and he just gave up.  He lived an amazing, generous, long and interesting life.  Think of it…he was born literally during the reign of Queen Victoria, in the era of gas lights and horse and buggy.  When he died, man had landed on the moon and computers were on the rise.  Wow.  I hope I live long too, then that I get to see him and my brothers (his sons from a first marriage, and both gone) again and we can re-live it all.  Happy Birthday, Daddy.