Oh wow…some days the piece just works! And I can tell it is working when I keep smiling from ear to ear as I pin it up on the design wall, step back and see how it’s going. And just because I’m truly wicked, I’m going to make you read before you get to see the picture!

Here’s how it began: A while back, I was surfing the web looking for quotations for a collaboration I’m working on. There are three of us working on pieces about the elements…earth, air/wind, fire, water and spirit. I found this one at www.bartleby.com which I just loved:

Earth and I gave you turquoise
when you walked singing
We lived laughing in my house
and told old stories

–N. Scott Momaday

He is described as a native American poet….born 1934 (does anyone know of him or his work? I’m curious to learn more….)

I noodled around with the idea, but while working out at Curves one day had this image of hands coming out of the earth, offering up the turquoise. In December, before the kids got out on vacation, I visited the bead shop in Damariscotta (yo eco!), and bought three real turquoise beads (maybe 3/8 inch or so large…lumpy rock-ish shapes, but polished) and some turquoise colored beads to use.

As I was photographing and tracing and sketching out hands, they morphed from coming out of the earth into offering up the Earth. Then, I was trying to figure out the edges (given the size of cloth I had for background (about 26×30) I wanted something simple and irregular…) I pinned up the green cloth, and decided to do only the sides. I ripped the fabric, then fused it, leaving the slightly frayed edges of the green un-fused. I *think* I’m going to stitch corn leaves and turn them into stalks of corn; with the native American connection, I keep coming back to the corn as symbol of the fruitfulness of the Earth. I’m thinking of using dark, muted green threads so that the leaves are subtle….what do any of you reading this think??? too much or OK?

The white lines you see are chalkmarks…I think I’m going to stitch some blue lines–breath–or wind?–and tuck the quotation into the wedge spaces between the air currents above the Earth. Finally, I’m going to stitch the turquoise nuggets and beads into the heavens above the earth. And I may add some dangly things or sticks top and bottom…hang from a stick (laced on with leather?) and have a stick hanging on the bottom, maybe with a few small rocks and feathers…will see…that may be too much “stuff” or it just might work…)

This time, I’m trying something different with the threadwork. Instead of doing all the stitching at the quilting phase, I’m doing it as free-motion embroidery, the way Ann Fahl describes in her book Coloring with Thread. This has a few great advantages: best of all, you don’t have to bury so many thread tails! Just knot off on the machine by stitching in the same place, and pull threads to the back (which my machine does for me—love those Janomes 6500 and 6600). If your tension is a wee bit off, it’ll be hidden by the batting (oooh, I didn’t really just confess that did I?). Less bulk to maneuver under the machine. When you outline quilt or do background work, the motifs—the planet and the hands, will pop more instead of being compressed across the entire surface by the stitching. The drawback is that you need to hoop or stabilize in some way to prevent unsightly puckering. For the long lines, hooping will be impossible, but it worked great for the hands and Earth.

Alas, I need to do some real “work”–finish the Christmas newsletter (ahem) and mail it, prepare two patterns, once for a private class I’m teaching at the end of the month and get in the mail Monday, open and hook up and use the new CD burner (a gift from a very generous internet friend from Quiltart, who had a “remaindered” one in the drawer after they upgraded their computers…bless you MH!) and the external hard-drive and back up my internal hard-drive regularly ….minor details like that. Sigh. I wanna work on this quilt….I’m a SO jazzed! Some days, it just works!

Carolyn Lee Vehslage is going on a round-the-world cruise and doing art while she’s at it! One of her projects is Fiber Art Cards: Far and Wide, and you can see more about that here donated one of my cards to the cause. I’ve and her collection, called St. Elmo’s Fire (4×6 inches):

I made three other cards in this series. The first, Moonrise, is a bit larger (about 5×7) and I’ll mount it on a painted 8×10 gallery-wrap canvas.

The other two cards, a standard 4×6, show boats at anchor and are called (gasp–such originality! Be still me beating heart!) “At Anchor” and “At Anchor 2”, featuring a sailboat and lobster boat, respectively. I’m planning on mounting both of these on black foam-core and taking them down to the art gallery here in Camden that sells my work (yippee!), Ducktrap Bay Trading Company.

Hello! I remembered at 10:34 that it was on, so quickly flipped to Bravo, found it repeated at 2am, and taped it, but not before watching the ending …then watched the whole thing today.

I thought Nick’s dress the better of the two (his and Santino’s)…given Nicky Hilton’s comments during the review, I couldn’t figure out how Santino won…. guess it’s that Heidi Klum as Executive producer thing?

And I couldn’t figure out why they all loved Chloe’s dress…usually I love her work, but the halter top thingies that served as the bodice were just limp—sagged like sails without a breeze in them. I thought the top of the dress just didn’t fit, and didn’t look very good…..the bottom was good, and fabric selection and color good, but that deflated front was distracting!

Anyway, during the part when the contestants were all flouting their garments and personalities for Nicky, I kept thinking how vapid and irrelevant are these people anyway? Sheesh….they are vain, clueless twits! Of course, so is most of fashion, so I guess I was just being me again LOL… like when I was thinking about the home dec sewing I did for that million dollar *guest house* when I lived on San Juan island–the cost of either the guest house or garage could have paid to build 8 or 10 Habitat for Humanity houses for real working people……

I get on these rants occasionally, if you hadn’t noticed ….toodles, Sarah

Somewhere in the blog ring a while back, I found a post that led me to Danny Gregory, so like a dolt (or maybe not so dolt-ish), I signed up to receive notices when he updated his site, which combines writing and illustration / art. Today he sent this link:

http://www.dannygregory.com/2006/01/the_magic_mailb.php
to a project he initiated to have people send him illustrated
letters….they are posted online at:
http://www.dannygregory.com/Images/illustratedletters_web/illustratedletterspages/TalaPhoto0000.htm
or http://tinyurl.com/7lg6h

It is good browsing and some inspiration…not at all cloth related, until
you make it so in your mind…..

Now I’m going to go finish those postcards after I put a bandaid on my right index finger (speaking of stooopid….how do you take a divot out of your fingertip opening a new quart of plain yogurt? I don’t know either, but I managed to do it, and the stooopid cut won’t stop bleeding….how am I supposed to not bleed on the quilted postcards????)

Cheers, Sarah

Oh what fun….my friend Marie sent so MANY wonderful treats in her Christmas and birthday box. One of the goodies was this tea-for-one pot and big cup. It is definitely a morning pot and cup. Please don’t ask why, I just know it is! And I inaugurated it already .

In the second photo, you can also see a mini teapot and cup-with-saucer sent by my friend Penny, whom I have known since 7th grade—that was um….1969, which means we’ve known each other for —SHRIEK!!!!!!—- 36 years! Shudder, gasp, ohmyg****d……OK, breathe deeply, concentrate, inhale slowly, and be grateful I was sitting down! OK…back to the minis….. they are for my Christmas tree!!! They are SO wonderful, that I was going to keep them out all year, but I have zero display space in this house, and I think they’ll be even more special on the tree…hanging next to the German ornament Pen gave me about 25+ years ago when she was doing a university year in Heidelberg. Hang on…let me go snap a picture of that one!

Here’s the German ornament–a cradle with two bebitos:

I love being able to look at my tree and think of who and when and where!