So the week got away from me!   Eli has the first official Cross Country meet of the season, and I’ve been working on assorted projects and, well, the week got away from me!   The theme for the previous week in Ricky Tims’ 52 Week Photo Challenge was the Power of One.  I think mine is more the power of Red, but it’s the best I came up with.  Next week’s assignment is Do Over, so I will try either silhouette or Power of One again…… (and sorry, but the reminder that all photos and imagery are (c) Sarah Ann Smith…I forgot to watermark these).  Right click on photos to view larger.

This was my class entry.  Adjustments to decrease both shadows and highlight (just a little—too much on hightlights makes a bizarre halo on the treeline!), only 3 on vibrance. Smart sharpen.

I took the same photo as a horizontal, which is more typical for shoreline shots, but I liked the emphasis on the masts and reflections in the one above better which is why I chose to submit that one.

Slight adjustment to increase constrast and lower highlights. Smart sharpen. Cropped to eliminate excess sky and water (and the tippy tops of some rocks on the bottom).

And a few more options I considered:

Of course I had to do one that was quilty!  This is part of my stash for a thousand pyramids quilt I hope to make.  The quilt on our bed is over 10 years old and is really starting to look it!   Smart Sharpen, adjustment to red layer to make the “one” more accurate. Digital cameras mess with reds!

I need to review our lessons. Tried to do a vignette, but had to resort to using the dodge tool on the corners. Wasn’t able to highlight the woman without making it look forced.  If I had used selective focus, with her sharp and the rest blurred, that would have created a stronger focal point, but I wanted the idea of her looking out on the harbor.   Perhaps I should have moved up hill…….learning, learning!

A rare shot of the hubby, who usually scowls at the camera.  Waiting for the runners at a cross country meet. Increased contrast a tad, cropped off a bit on the bottom, lasso and content aware fill to remove a sliver of a person on the far right.

Have been busy dyeing fabric, making slacks, making a top, and working on a small quilted thingy.  Must take photos.  Must blog!   Stay tuned and enjoy the last gasps of summer!

Hi everyone!  Happy Friday!  It is, according to my calendar, my TENTH anniversary of blogging?  How the heck did that happen, ten YEARS?   So I’m celebrating with TWO posts today.  The first is my Foto Friday from my 52-Week Photography Challenge class with Ricky Tims, and later today I’ll post about my Dinner@8 interview.

So this week’s challenge was Old Paint.  Here are my top three choices:

This is the photo I submitted as my class assignment. A picturesque (means falling apart) buidling on our property. LOVED this shot but it needed some work. Deepend the leaf shadows, then dodged the shadows on the left part of the hinge so it was more visible. Reduced highlights a tiny bit. Selected the cracked windowpane and lightened as it was too dark—overpowered the rest of the door. Summer in Maine!

Here are a couple more:

This might have been my choice but once I was home (and didn’t want to drive 22 miles back into town round trip) I saw on my laptop that it wasn’t crisp. Had high hopes for this one, but disappointed in the depth of field…f/13 not enough. Would have been better with flowers and siding crisp. May try again the next time I’m in town with my camera.

Another shot of the picturesque (aka decrepit) building on our property. Why no door on the right? Because it LITERALLY came apart into a crumpled heap. And the plywood that has covered up the opening blew down late last winter. Need to fix. Soon. Autumn is trying really hard to begin!
Decreased shadows a tiny bit, knocked back highlights a bit more. Punched up contrast.

Other photos from this week are on my Flickr site, here. Happy Blogoversary everyone!

Looking back on it, this has been an exceptionally good year for getting published!   It has also been a bit of a challenge as I’ve had to keep three quilts and one watercolor unpublished for an extended time while jurying of exhibits was done or waiting for books to be published.  The first of the quilts was the one of Eli running during Cross Country season, which I wrote about here.   This is the second:  Two of Us,

Two of Us, (c) Sarah Ann Smith 2014. Part of the Inspired by the Beatles challenge and an anniversary gift for my husband of 33+ years.  Of course, as soon as I gave it to him (late) I then told him he had to give it back for two years because it was going in an exhibit and book!

part of the art quilt challenge organized by Donna Marcinkowski DeSoto.  The recently released book is Inspired by the Beatles:  An Art Quilt Challenge.   You can read more about the challenge here and order the book or read more about it here.  Even better, if you are lucky enough to be going to International Quilt Festival in Houston this year, selected works from the exhibit will be on display there, including mine!

Donna asked participants to choose a Beatles song title, then make a quilt with that same title, inspired by the song perhaps, but careful NOT to use any copyrighted lyrics, images, etc.   I had been wanting to make a quilt like this for Paul as an anniversary gift for a couple years–he is notoriously hard to get gifts as he always says he doesn’t want anything.  I wanted a scrapbook feel to this quilt, similar in some ways to the kimono quilt (you can see it here) that is pictured in one of the photos on the bottom right which I gave to Mother for her 80th birthday.

Detail of Two of Us, by Sarah Ann Smith (c) 2014.  These photos include the only two grandparents who were alive for  the boys to know, Paul’s dad and my mom.

I went through our photo albums and boxes of photos, picking pictures of us from the time we met until just recently.  Beginning in the top left corner, you can see photos of Bissau, in the west African nation of Guinea-Bissau, where I met Paul.  A bit of our wedding invitation, a wedding photo, our home on Capitol Hill in DC, from Canada, Bolivia, Machu Picchu, Gabon and our first generation of cats run across the top.  Moving clockwise down the right you can see our home in Arlington, Virginia (I still love this architecture more than any other home we’ve had), me preggers with Joshua, with the boys when they were little, pregnant with Eli, in the hospital when Eli was just a day old then the first ferry ride home, to our home on San Juan island in the bottom right corner.

Moving right to left on the bottom, pictures of the boys when little and life at home.  And up the left side, the boys as they grew,  moving to Maine, Joshua with his beloved guitar (and boy is he GOOD) and Eli, honor student and exceptional athlete.  Can I just say, Life is GOOD!

Here’s to book, a 176 page hard-bound whopper. Each quilt gets its own page (some get two), with a fun and extensive commentary written by Donna from our replies to her questionnaire that tell about our lives, inspiration and methods. Click on the links in the first paragraph to learn more.

The quilt is made with fused collage.  For the house, Paul, the pug and me, I sketched us on white cloth with colored pencils.  I hate to admit but since I made this over a year ago, I don’t recall for use WHICH pencils I used–either Prismacolor or Inktense.  I have since learned that some of the Inktense colors are not colorfast, so I HOPE it was prismacolor!  Total finished size, as required for all quilts in this exhibit, is 24×24 inches.

This is a typical two-page spread. The book is organized alphabetically by title.

And a shot of “my” page! Artwork (c) Sarah Ann Smith.

And since we are quilters, I must show you the back.  I did the threadwork at the top stage and did simple outlining around the photos.  But it is the letter and photo I want you to notice:

Paul and me on our wedding day outside the church, and a photocopy of the very first letter Paul ever wrote me. Yes, we wrote snail mail.

You see, Paul was working in West Africa and I was in grad school at Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy near Boston when we met.  The letter is hilariously “State Department-ish.”  Paul was acting Ambassador (Charge d’Affairs, ad interim) for the first time, so for his first letter to me, he wrote to thank the American (me)  for her part in improving morale at post, in particular that of the admin officer (that would be Paul).  Then he added a note saying this would probably be suitably framed in something tacky and hung in the bathroom.  I vowed upon receipt to do just that–in his first apartment when he was back in the US.  Little did I know that in less than 10 months, his first apartment would be OUR condo as newlyweds.  The original letter still hangs in a tacky metal frame from the drug store (which is sorta falling apart, appropriately), over the toilet in our bathroom.  The signature on the letter has faded to near invisibility.

So that’s the “Two of Us.”  Plus kids, cats, pug, and assorted stuff from all over the world.

Copper tendrils hold the watch face onto my sketchbook cover.

Oh what FUN!  For a number of years now I have been inspired by New Zealander Claire Prebble’s wirework in her art-to-wear costumes (her website is here), and have wanted to mess around with wire.  Then last summer I took the first of three online classes with Jane LaFazio.  In one of them, I “met” Janice Berkebile and several other wonderful women.  After the second of the classes with Jane, we decided to set up our own sketching group online (we are globally dispersed from the San Francisco Bay area to northern California to near Seattle, Ontario Canada, Vermont and Maine and in the UK).  One day, Janice quietly said “Oh… my first book is just published.”  SAY WHAT?!!!!!!!   Here it is, and it is wonderful:

Available at Amazon.com

If you’d like to see Janice, click here and for the home page to their website, click here.

Well, I’m nowhere near starting on anything as awesomely intricate as Claire Prebble’s work, or even one of the simpler projects in the book, but I sure had a grand start today.  See several years ago, my Frayed Edges art quilt mini-group friends and I decided to do a journal-cover swap.   I got the lovely one made by Kate Cutko (queen of recycled and all things “green”…her blog is here) which has discharged and also rust-dyed fabric.  When she gave it to me, she told me she had wanted to find a watch face to sew to the cover.  Well, that year at Quilt Festival/Houston I found just the one!

After several years of use, the monofilament thread which I had used to attach the watch face had  broken, so I wanted to re-apply the watch face to the journal more securely.  At first I was going to sew beads to set it the way you would use seed beads to couch a cabochon (big flat stone/bead) to something.  Ugh. Hard.  Then I had a brainstorm–WIRE!   So this morning I started to play.

My work table this morning with hammers, pliers, cutters, wire (copper), more wire, and Janice’s book open to the appropriate page.

At first I was thinking of making a network of wire underneath with curlicues that extended to the front and intertwined with a circle of copper (since I bought that because it isn’t as expensive as silver!) on the top.  Then I thought…why a second circle on top?  How about “prongs” that wrap to the front and have them hold it?   SO….I made it!

Janice and Tracy’s book is great because it tells you what tools you need, which are nice-but-optional (especially when starting the cost of tools can be a bit frightening!).  I bought a larger bench block than you recommended (only slightly) in the book because I want  to eventually work on some larger pieces that may well include shapes cut from sheet metal…. They give all sorts of hints and tips, and have TONS of step-by-step pictures so you can follow along on your own.

Journal, with watch face attached with way more fun and creativity this time!

The tendrils that wrap to the front grip the watch face securely.  I sewed the copper “whatchamacallit” to the cover, then tucked the watch face into it, and pinched the tendrils down.

And then for fun I tried to make a spiral…while standing up and rushing.  Not the best, but at least it is a start!

Not quite round, but at least it is a tight spiral with a hanging loop!

So now I have their book back by my spot on the sofa and tonight will pore over it to see what I can adapt to use some beautiful beads made by ANOTHER internet friend that I got to meet in the real 4 years ago in Paducah (Caty are you out there?)!

Cardinal in the Pine by Sarah Ann Smith

Cardinal in the Pine is my contribution to this year’s Coastal Quilters Chapter Challenge (see this post for all the quilts).  Once again, I–the art quilter–went traditional!  Since the Ohio Star of course reminded me of Christmas, I thought I’d make a holiday quilt with mine.  Online I found a couple free Tree of Life blocks.  I wanted my tree to be vertical.  Since the vertical axis of the tree is usually on the diagonal of the block, I figured out what size I needed the block to be so that it would fit vertically within the 20 1/2″ square format.   (PS–sorry about the double watermarks on the bottom of the photos…I’ll fix that on the next batch.)

First, there were a LOT of half-square triangles to make, both green-and-white and then red-and-white for the sawtooth border. The red pile on the bottom left is what I had after I “un-stitched” the original block (seen in last photo in this post).

For the reds, I used the red in the original red-green Ohio Start block plus a range of red batiks, all tone-on-tone.  Here I’m trimming, finger pressing, squaring up.

Hooray! I LIKE IT! I’ve got the components of the block pieced and ready to sew together. I used all the green and most of the red in the original block. For the Tree of Life I opted to use just one red square for my favorite East Coast bird: the cardinal; alas, we don’t have any our yard, but they are here in mid-coast Maine. I set the pieced bits out on my 20 1/2″ square ruler to gauge size.

Then on to the really FUN part:  quilting!  I knew I wanted to use a feathered vine as the wind swirling the snow around the tree, and I knew I wanted it to stand out and sparkle, so I used Superior Threads Glitter (a holographic thread–basically ya know the stuff they use to make mylar balloons?  sorta like that except cut into looooonnnngggggg flat strips) in Pearl / Crystal #111 (here).  This thread is amazing, as it looks clear/white/opalescent here, but when used on dark fabric, it looks like an irridescent green (the black quilt on the cover of my book uses the same thread!).  It’s important when using holographic and metallic threads to use a SLIPPERY thread in the bobbin;  I use The Bottom Line, a smooooooth, fine poly from Superior.  Once could also use clear (ugh), rayon (not my fave at all) or silk.  You do *not* want to use cotton, as the slubs on the cotton will grab the glitter or metallic threads and play not-so-nice.

Close-up of quilting on Cardinal in the Pine. Feathered vine stitched in Superior Threads Glitter (Pearl #111). Other background quilting uses Superior’s 40-wt trilobal poly thread in white.

An angled view of the quilting in Cardinal in the Pine shows the relief and (to borrow Pamela Allen’s word) puffosity of the quilting.

And the quilt with the block which inspired this challenge:

Cardinal in the Pine, 20 1/2″ square, with another of the original Ohio Star blocks. I used one of these blocks, a white-on-white (the back side so it wasn’t so garish), and red and green batiks.