Hunh? you say?

Well, it started last fall when fellow Frayed Edge Kate Cutko wanted to make floor cloths to sell at a holiday craft bazaar. Rhea Daiute at Alewives Fabrics in Damariscotta Mills had some on display last year at Maine Quilts (the annual show of the Pine Tree Quilt Guild) and sold out on her kits! And On Board Fabrics in Edgecomb, where Kate used to work, carries the canvas in varying widths. So, on our Frayed Edges field trip to the Botanical Gardens (see here1, here2, here3 and here4 for those posts).

Unlike me, Kate actually got things done. Here is a picture of one cloth she began and another (the green) Painted canvas underneath ready for the fabric–wouldn’t that mango one be glorious as a kitchen runner?

Kathy made several as Christmas gifts (why the heck don’t I have PHOTOS of their finished ones???????)… while surfing around for links to Alewives and my blogposts, I discovered Rhea has a blog, and she even blogged about a floorcloth workshop, here. Well, I figured the last thing we need in our house (with, at the time, two boys, two dogs one of whom was 150+ pounds and hairy, and four cats) was one more thing to get dirty on the floor……BUT, I was wishing for some wipe-down placemats as the boys are still kinda sloppy.

So…… floorcloth becomes 8 placemats! I used the leftover paint from painting my fabric shelves (remember these?) as the base color, then picked a selection of my favorite Caribbean-ish batiks for my squares. Oh…by the way, I had to ask Kate to help me remember, but you paint the canvas first, THEN glue (if you do it the other way, we learned the hard way, the edges ripple).

Then there were some little leftover bits of canvas…can’t let those go to waste… Bingo! Coasters for the drippy, sweaty iced-tea glasses of summer:

So far, after having used THREE coats of polyurethane (semi-gloss) on them, the wiping up is working! The hard part was keeping (and failing) the floating cat hairs out of the stuff as it dried, so a few random bits of Thumper, Tyger, Hannah and Zeus appear to have become part of the mats…. Anyway, I figure wiping mats (but not submerging them) to clean can’t be much more wear and tear than a floorcloth! And some day, I may actually make a floorcloth! Rhea and Alewives Fabrics will apparently be selling more kits at Maine Quilts, so stop by the booth early..they’re sure to sell out again!  They also have this cool Non-skid stuff to paint on the backs so you don’t break your neck with the cloth skittering across the floor… check it out!

This past Saturday, Kate, Kathy and I met at Quilt Divas from 10-12 for a book signing which the owners, Debbie and Doris, arranged for Creative Quilting with Beads. The three of us and Frayed Edge in exile Deborah had eight projects in the book! (I stayed until 1, since I had goofed on the day and scheduled it for the same day as the local quilt guild chapter meeting…so I stayed until some friends could come down and buy books…then we had a blast and went out to lunch).

That’s Kathy, who always looks happy, always looks nice, and is just plain fun! I’m SO looking forward to the next year or two when she MOVES down this way! Anyway, Debbie and Doris set up a nice table and display just as you entered the store. Kathy is holding her project which (drum roll please!) they chose as the FIRST project for the book! WOOT! Deborah sent up her triptych that is in the book, my blue and orange piece is on the same display, and Kate had already packed up her two pieces that were in the book (she had a meeting and had to boogie on time, before I remembered to take pictures!).

While there, Kate was kind enough to let me photograph her journal, since I’m going to develop a new lecture on Journal quilts. I decided the lecture should be about journals too…how you can use a notebook to record ideas and stuff for later use. Kate’s camera died on a recent trip to Italy (I’d have perished on the spot!), SO she sketched instead. Man is she GOOD! Just look at this drawing, which she colored later with watercolors, of beach peas in bloom in a jar….

I was so inspired when Kate first shared these with us… she told us about some watercolors she had bought … made in Russia. Surfing around the internet and then Dick Blick (an online and real art supply store) I found them…. Yarka from St. Petersburg. And I found the $$ my mom had given me for Christmas (and which I had carefully tucked away so as not to lose it, and therefore which wasn’t to be found for six months….) and SPLURGED! I had been wanting some watercolors, and nice, rich, deep colored ones, not insipid student-cheapo grade….. and the price on these was not to be believed (or skipped)…

Here’s the Dick Blick page. Of course, have I DONE anything with them since they arrived a week ago? Nope… maybe this weekend? Anyway, I’m hoping that in time my journals will be as colorful and maybe even a tenth as wonderful as Kathy’s and Kate’s…..I’m so lucky to be surrounded by such talent!

Can you tell things are settling down? It’s a near miracle. And I am having fun avoiding working on my book by doing (and cleaning up) lots of little things. One thing I accomplished this week amid mom stuff, kid stuff, general exhaustion (what else is new) and walking the cutest dog on the planet, I made an apron! When teaching at Sarah Johnson Quilts in Belfast, Maine, at the end of February, I spotted this apron pattern from Indygo Junction:

I snapped it up, and some Westminster fabric and some batik I had planned to use for a totebag got snagged for the apron. I will admit, I was a bit surprised by the pattern. Now, I am used to professional garment patterns (have been sewing with Butterick, et alia, since I was aged in single digits, which was a loooonnnnggggg time ago), but there wasn’t a layout! Nor was there a little guide showing what pattern pieces were on the pattern tissue. That meant the all-text, no pictures instructions were hard to follow. I was also mystified why they printed the cross stitch pattern on the tissue and again on the reverse side of the instruction sheet. They would have done FAR better to eliminate the second version of the cross stitch (on the red apron) and write adequate directions.

That said, I loved the apron! I adapted it…instead of making a partial lining, it was a WHOLE lot simpler to simply make it reversible…clean finished edges everywhere, no fussy lining up of stuff or unsighly seams showing, etc . And it makes it two layers at the tummy, where I’m always leaning against a drippy counter! The photo above is of my favorite side. Thanks to Eli (number 2 son) who is my relieable photographer. Please ignore the gut, the glasses, the lack of make-up (and therefore nearly invisible eyes!), etc. What can I say, I’m a plumpish, medium-everything (brown, weight, height, etc) except of course for the fish-belly white skin….. Anyway, photos are a good cure for delusions that I might look decent (and hotel bathroom mirrors are downright evil, but we’re not gonna go there….).

Enough blathering…here’s the other side of the apron:

It took a few shots (and reminding myself I look less plumpish if I grin!), but I like the photo…..

This coming week:  quilt Joshua’s quilt  and write an article or two… or at least START the articles, after crazy life and quilting, Cheers, Sarah

Sheesh….. the week has evaporated yet again! This week started with a glorious Frayed Edges (my mini-group) day, so I’m going to break it into two posts. Then I got swamped when I realized entries for Houston (IQA) are due June 12th, and my quilt isn’t done let alone photographed and forms completed, so I’ve been quilting like a madwoman all week. I finished the quilt (well, except for the hanging sleeve and label, and they don’t have to be done to photo the front) last night, and will put entry in the mail on Monday. In the meantime… I get to share the wonderful day we had on Monday…

Hannah Beattie, the youngest of us, now lives in Harpswell, which is south of Brunswick, Maine, on a peninsula that has to be one of the most beautiful in Maine, and that is saying a LOT. I believe that Hannah must know and be friends with every amazing artist between New Hampshire and the mid-coast…see she’s one of those people that everyone love! So anyway, over the weekend Hannah writes to ask, would we like to go visit Natasha at her home and studio? Heck YES! As you can see f rom the photo above, when you drive up to the house you know you are in for a major treat… I mean, don’t you want shutters like these? I do! And in the vegetable patch to the left of the drive, look at these awesome garden people (which Natasha makes on commission, too)–that’s Kathy, Hannah and (in her arms) Nina:

For those of you who have come to art quilting lately, Natasha was one of the trail blazers, and has been at the forefront of the art quilt movement for longer than she probably wants to remember (and it also means she started young!). Here’s her website…I encourage you to go look and enjoy (and shop?). Anyway, there was plenty of color and creativity in her home… both in her studio and in the other rooms. Here’s Natasha with one of her works in progress…she began with white cloth, used lots of Shiva paintsticks and more:

and her studio (PS…please don’t blame me for the studio lust you’ll feel)

Repetition was a theme which I enjoyed… her yarn baskets:

Pencils and pens:

The pillows for sale on one table: (Kathy bought one!)

The broken-ceramics tiling she did on the woodstove chimney in the living room:

and close up:

Then there is the jewelry for sale (does natasha ever sleep????):

And tho it isn’t repetition in the same way, I LUST after this bathroom mirror:

OK..I also lust for color, and the time to create….

.

Doesn’t that piece just make you want to RUN to the studio and play?

And finally, on the way out….

Next post (or maybe the one after), what we did with the rest of our day….

Well, I was tagged quite a while ago (Susan and Marie), but I’m only now digging out from underneath enough to come play! So here goes….and if you want to know why this photo, you have to read to the end (yes, I’m wicked! <grin!>)

So, according to the instructions I am supposed to

• post the rules (which I’m doing now)
• tell you 7 things about  me that you might not know
• share 7 favorite blogs (as usual, I didn’t follow the rules)
• tell the 7 people I tagged (and I’m also telling them since many of them have already been tagged, they don’t have to keep on keepin’ on, if ya know what I mean!)

Seven things you might not know about me:

1. I come from a very small immediate family, and we are rapidly diminishing in number! My dad was born in 1899 and lived to be 96. He married and had two sons, divorced, married my mom, and had me (well, mom did the hard work on that one). My mom, older half-brother’s wife Joyce, and I are the only ones left in the immediate family. So, I am amazed at and intrigued by large families!

2. I learned to speak Spanish before English (my parents lived in Madrid, Spain, when I learned to speak), and then when I was little also learned French (while living in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and attending the Alliance Francaise school). When we returned to the US, a few weeks after Kennedy was assassinated and when I was 6, I decided I was American and was going to speak only English, so forgot it all (but learned both languages again in high school).

3. In high school I could have chosen to become a professional ballerina. I was taking lessons at the San Francisco Ballet School at that time, but was 5’5″ and change (tho I still maintain that at 5’5 1/2″ or 3/4″ I can really say I’m 5’6″). At that height, I was too tall and heavy for the guys to lift, so would have only ever been corps de ballet, not a soloist. I decided college was better than too old, washed up and with bad feet at 25 (typical for a dancer) facing a life of teaching kiddie ballet. Good decision.

4. I wanted to work in the arts out of college, but due to extreme parental pressure and a bit of practicality, majored in the Humanities in International Affairs and did something practical that paid regularly and reasonably well. Now I’m 50 and finally doing what I WANT to do! Art! WELL….. when I can fit it in when family stuff permits.

5. I ‘ve always wanted cats. When I was little, my friend Mary Farkas had Siamese cats which they bred and sold the kittens. One time, Lapsang Suchong (the mom) got out at the “wrong” moment and met up with a randy alley cat. So that litter they were giving away. One kitten, Ivanhoe, used to follow me around her house like a puppy. He slept with me when I spent the night. They wanted to give him to me (he was charcoal grey with a white blaze on his little chest), but my dad absolutely refused. So as soon as I got my own place after college, I promptly went and adopted Cassy from the Arlington (VA) Animal shelter. She is one of the best cats ever to have lived, and I have been owned by cats ever since (they even consented to my insane travel and living abroad!).

6. Ummm…. OK… does anyone really have ANY interest in all this drivel???? Well, I’ll keep on….

I love to read, too! One summer in High school I earned all of $37.00 cleaning houses (my parents mostly wouldn’t let me work, but I filled in for a friend who had cleaning jobs and needed someone to cover for her). I spent $35 of it on ONE book (hardbacks sold at the time for maybe $5): a leather(ette?) bound Lord of the Rings Trilogy which came in a slipcase. The hardest part about living on a pension is not being able to buy books at will, tho having an Amazon visa card (you can spend the rewards on books!) and now moderately predicatable (albeit modest) income from quilting means I can indulge this passion a bit more.

7. Ummmm…. what else could you possibly want to know? OK, I now have two pairs of lime green shoes. One are sneakers and one are new, the Merrells at the top. I decided to wear one of each for the photo! Since I wear SO MUCH blue, and since we know it is nearly impossible to get blues to match, it is much easier to wear lime green. Fun too!

Seven bloggers you should know:

1. Marie! Aka Marie Johansen, My best friend, who always amazes me at the caliber of her art, her creativity, her prolific output (I’ll confess to being a tad jealous!).

2. Susan Brubaker Knapp, who tagged me for this….keep your eye on her… I KNOW we’re gonna see more of her work in the top echelons of quilting.

3. Dijanne Cevaal, a textile artist originally from the Netherlands, living in Western Australia, frequently travels to Europe and the Middle East, and whose work always intrigues and inspires me.

4. Jinny Bowker, also Australian. I first saw her work in a sewing machine company ad in an Australian quilting magazine and have been following her ever since. THEN I learned we share something else… diplomatic service! Her husband has been Australian ambassador to assorted places, most recently Egypt.

5. Planet Textile Threads isn’t a person, but a selection of interesting blogs… I like it (and not just ‘cuz I’m included)… it really is about textile artists literally all over the world. Cool!

6. Deborah Boschert is one of the first art quilters I met in Maine, became a dear friend (and I really miss having her here… she now lives on the far side of the universe, aka the Dallas metro area), and a fun and interesting blogger!

7. Kathy Daniels is another dear friend here in Maine and a totally amazing artist. When Deborah and I started talking about getting together a mini-group, Deborah wanted to invite her friend Kate (who alas doesn’t blog as she is WAY too busy), who wanted to invite Kathy. WOW what a group! We have since added Hannah (who is beginning to blog, but I still don’t have her blog address… AHEM! Hannah? Are you out there? Link please!), and we are the Frayed Edges!

8. Since #5 isn’t really an individual, I really wanted to add Terry Grant here. I love her work, I love her blog, I love sharing her life and art.

Thanks Susan and Marie for the honor of including me in your lists! And I hope I haven’t bored you all to tears… I promise, quilty content IS coming (I’ve actually QUILTED something this week~! Even if it IS a class sample for Paducah, I really like one of them a LOT!)