A is for Apricot

One of the reasons I’ve been walkabout so long is that I was part of another Postmark’d Art postcard swap.  I had thought that due to the move and the general chaos that I would be really late, and thankfully the group said that’s OK…just get them eventually done.  Luckily, I was only about a week late.  This time I was in three groups swapping with five other women.  The themes I chose to participate in this time were  Fruit, Bridges and Buttons.  So the one above is obviously Fruit.  I’ll try to take photos in few weeks of the cards I received and share those, too.

My second effort was B is for Button, and I made a “button band” like on the front of a tailored shirt, then sewed the buttons to that.  All the buttons came from my stash, and one postcard (the one I kept…sorry ladies!) had vintage buttons from Mama’s button box.

B is for button

I wanted to continue the  “A is For, B is for” series with my bridges card, but B  was already taken.  And I wanted to do a picture of the stunningly lovely Penobscot Narrows bridge (click on the hotlink to see the Wikipedia article).  It is between Prospect and Verona Island (in the middle of the Penobscot River, with Bucksport on the north side), and is so completely unexpected in this relatively remote stretch of road.  It is Route 1, the old Atlantic Coast Highway, that runs north-south on the East Coast of the US (what folks used before the interstate  highway system), but it is still  pretty far out of the way…maybe  3 1/2 hours north of Portland, Maine, and 4 or so hours south of Canada.  But P for Penobscot or N for the Narrows seemed to be stretching things a bit, so I decided to let that idea go and keep it simple.

The quilting says Penobscot Narrows Bridge, Prospect, Maine.

I had thought it was about three days since my last blogpost, not two weeks!   EEEK!  Thanks to a couple of you who wrote to see if I was still alive and OK…. just swamped!   I have decided I just can’t keep up.  Between the older son, my mother, teaching, trying to sleep, trying not to fall apart, the house, the husband and younger son, the end of school-year frenetic activities, Eli’s sports schedule, and whatnot, there are two options.  Fall behind or fall behind more~! And oh yeah… I’d actually like to quilt or make art and not implode somewhere in there, too!

So, blogging got put on the back burner, and the calendar evaporated even faster than usual.  I had intended to post this photo on  Mother’ s  Day.  Remember what I said about being behind?

with Mama (age 92) in early May 2011

Mama is in the dementia unit of a WONDERFUL local facility called Quarry Hill.  Since she fell and broke her collarbone (thank heavens it wasn’t worse) in February, her decline has accelerated.  We have begun hospice care, and I am so glad the charge nurse suggested it.  They are really being proactive about saying she needs pain meds (she is too far gone to remember / understand to ask or say she hurts, and the hospice folks have more leeway under rules and regulations to administer to those who can’t verbalize well for themselves) and attending to her care.  She is on a waiting list for a place in the area nursing care level facility for dementia patients, but for now, this is so good for her.  So I am grateful for their care and the time I get to see her.

Paul and the boys gave me flowers, a card (which Joshua’s girlfriend even signed…I loved that!), and I got to pick where we ate when we went to Portland for a Sea Dogs game the previous day.  Life is good!

Mother's Day flowers combined with daffodils from the garden in our new home

I’ll be back with more posts when I can.  I have tons to share, just not enough time to process photos, write, upload photos, and deal with the glacial internet here in the boonies.

Twelve by Twelve: The international art quilt challenge

A while ago an early review of this book summed up their feelings in two words.  Ditto:

Buy it!

Table of contents: twelve chapters for twelve challenges

That said, here’s a few more details about this fascinating, informative book!  The project began with Diane Perin Hock, who invited quilt artists –newbies and experienced– into what became the Twelve by 12 challenge.  (You can see their website here and blog here.)  My friend and fellow Frayed Edges member Deborah Boschert (website here and blog here) is among the twelve, so I am especially thrilled to have followed this group from their beginnings, to thinking about a book and submitting a proposal, to published.  And how well they have done all along the way!

The book is arranged into twelve chapters, one for each of the two-month challenges.  The first chapter is written by Diane Perin Hock who is the featured artist for the first challenge, whose theme “Dandelion” she also selected.  Each chapter opens with all 12 of the 12×12 inch quiltlets on the left hand page and a large photo of the “featured” artist’s quilt on the right hand page.   In this chapter Diane explains how she came up with the idea for the challenge and got things rolling including  My Quilting Life, Choosing the Theme, Exploring the Theme, Creating My Piece, and Starting Your Own Challenge Group, a  how-to sidebar.  At the bottom of each page  the other 11 quiltlets are shown (larger than on the group page) with a  paragraph by each artist about her piece.

The subsequent chapters follow a similar pattern, though the person who selected the theme is not necessarily the featured artists for the theme.  The book ends with succinct artist profiles and links to their websites and/or blogs and—as every good book must have—an index. Of course I had to pick Deborah’s chapter to share:

Chapter 12, Deborah Boschert featured artist; I love Love LOVE the "thread wrap" Deborah has developed for her bindings. You get a clear "end" to a piece yet the picture continues in the thread stitched around the binding. Way cool! (PS--sorry about the salt shaker...needed something to hold the book open and it was nearby!)

As I read through the book, and yes I wanted to read every word, you  can see how the sense of community developed among this group.  It is amazing that each person managed to complete every challenge on time (or pretty much on time), and they share how they needed to make the bi-monthly “reveal” date stretch to accomodate the fact that members live in Belgium, the UK, the US and Australia and the dateline and time zones shift!  Each chapter has a  how-to section, and I think what I liked most was reading how each artist developed here quilt, sometimes rejected false starts, or re-working them, or admitting that “this was my least favorite.”  Not everything “works,” and it is refreshing to see something in print that acknowledges this necessary part of the learning and art experience.

To go back to where I began:  buy this book!  It is a treasure.  You’ll want to sit down and read it through.  Then browse.  Then soak in the art.  Consider inspiration.  Consider technique.  Ask yourself “what would I have done with this theme or problem?”  Then read it again…the book is available many places online including at Amazon.

When I moved out of the old house, I removed the design wall from my old studio.  Since the corners were cut off the 2-feet wide rigid foam insulation, they couldn’t be re-used well in the new studio as the new design wall.  BUT, as I was hanging some artwork, I decided a ginormous “bulletin board” would be just the thing to display smaller pieces by sons, friends, inspiration, and so on.

The display wall installed, but without stuff...yet.....

With stuff...quilts and art on the left are by Betty Johnson, Jacquie Scuitto, my son Eli, some calligraphy from Lunnette (a christmas card) and a fabric postcard of hers, and on the right a photo that was on display at IQA-Houston, a leftover Koi from that quilt that will be made into something eventually, my very first (but I hope not my last) Houston ribbon, and a basket

Here’s how I did it, so you can try also.

1. I took the largest piece of rigid foam insulation which was 2 feet wide by 91 inches long as my “big piece.”
2. The second piece, with a corner cut off, would yield another 91 inch piece that was 12 inches wide.  I  cut the pink 2″ thick insulation with a new blade in the box cutter (extended to a scary distance) and managed to get a nice clean edge.
3. I used clear packing tape on both sides at the join so it wouldn’t buckle, then wrapped the flannel from the previous design wall (a sheet from Lands End) around the 36×91 inch piece (that’s just under one metre tall by about 2.5 metres long for my metric readers).
4. Next, I used “L” shaped brackets spaced about every 20 inches so there were 5 brackets on the bottom edge.  I bought some wood lattice (a thin strip of wood about 3/8″ thick by 91 inches long) which I screwed with very short screws to the brackets.  This gave me a long, flat, firm bottom edge on which to rest the display wall.
5. Placing the display wall on the strip, I marked the top edge just about above the five “L” brackets on the bottom.  I added another five brackets to the top edge, moving them down about 1/16″ or 1-2mm. below the marked top edge.   This way I can just slightly squish the rigid insulation and it is held in place by friction…no need to use glue or otherwise muck up the wall (well, any more than putting the screws in).

I made a smaller “bulletin board” with a 24×24 piece of insulation leftover from another project and covered it with this beautiful fabric.  It’s by the door the center part of the basement (which WILL get a different color of paint…sky blue, with green on the floor….but not soon….maybe in August or September after the year’s travel teaching is mostly done). I had to underline this one with batting because the pink insulation changed the color of the fabric–an effect I did not want.

The bulleting board next to the door is made the same way as the large wall, but I added batting because the pink of the insulation distorted the crisp white in the flowers, so I added batting to prevent that.

And when the closet is done, that vacuum had better fit inside!  Don’t like the look!   The blue bucket is my large new garbage can…5.99 from Target!  I think it was intended as a beach tote or bucket for filling with ice and sodas in summer.  Nope.  With the flexible shape and two handles it’ll be easy to tote upstairs to the outside garbage can. That’s it for now!

Hoooray…the floor is done Done DONE!  And here’s the last bits and pics….

This is how it looked the last time I shared...cluttered!

Then I moved all the “stuff” to the already-painted half of the room and proceeded to get rid of the old washing-off dark greenish paint (latex?).

I've folded back the damp towel. You can see the damp spot on the cement and outlined in bright green Photoshop dots the old icky paint than needed to be removed. This was all over the second half of the room. I am glad that is done...my bones ached after sitting on that cold cement floor!

Here’s the floor with almost all of the paint removed.

As you can see my helper is inspecting my work in the foreground....

The remaining bits refused to come up, so the floor will have a slightly “leopard spot” look when done.  Oh well.  Nothing much to be done–do NOT want to rent an industrial sander and create a dust mess just to remove them.

And compare the 3-coats on the top of the photo (the first part of the floor completed) and the single coat on the bare floor on the second half:

The top and right of the floor are done with 3 coats. The left side shows what it looks like with just one coat. Had two more to do after this picture was taken.

In progress….

In progress

DONE!!!!!!!

The second half of the room painted....floors done!

Well…the floors are done.  There was still more work…design walls, display space, closet doors (in a couple of weeks)…..stay tuned!