Relentless Toil

My imagination has been stolen away by fairies

I have been working on a new series of pictures -- for my daughter's soon-to-be-redecorated* room! Most of these drawings are not too personal at all, and so I hope to make them available as prints. Of course I have had a) a full time day job and b) a preschooler who gets sick a lot and c) technical difficulties with the monitor-to-printer calibration to contend with, hence no print shop update just yet.

* True to typical 4-year-old girl form, she wants a palette of pink and purple and the more fairy-princessy-fluffy it is, the better. So far I think we are talking pink walls and purple bedding, flowers, and pictures of all the things she loves. Why not? It's her room... and since I have easy local access to affordable zero-VOC paint (MAB Paint's EnviroShield is my current favorite) this should be a pleasure. She'll be able to sleep in her room the night I paint it, too.

Mmph

Hi! I still exist! (So does the above cat, who will turn 17 next month.) Since my last post, each human member of the family has gotten ridiculously sick, recovered, and now one of us appears to be coming down with something else, as of this morning; my day job went through a major transition which turned out well for me but makes me much, much busier; I mourned the departure of Battlestar Galactica; and welcomed Spring. I crafted just a little bit, and drew just a little bit, and will be drawing more very soon because I've got commissions due. Overall -- good things. The sicknesses can shove it, that's all. How are you?

Re-Stash a Crafter

I haven't been free during the too-few hours we get good light in the house lately, so I have not been able to photograph anything pretty for you -- not the totebag in progress, not the pretty fabric from Spool, not the exciting yard of thomaspaul aviary fabric soon to become cushions. But: in my small way of helping my brother-in-law and sister-in-law furnish their new home, and get some extra breathing room in my home, I have been de-stashing a bit, emptying my 2 desks of fabric and scrapbooking scissors and beads and sequins and yadda yadda. This comes right at a time when somebody in the world can probably use and love the craft supplies I want to give away.

I've just sent an inquiry to the coordinator for "Re-Stash a Crafter" (make sure you read all the teeny text on that page, and in the sidebars -- it's a little hard but let's understand they had to put the page together in a big hurry. Or maybe my browser is just weird). I'm hoping Re-Stash can take my excess and give it to a crafter who lost his or her stash in the bushfires in Victoria, Australia. I reallyreallyreallyreallyreally love my stash. Sometimes, I have to admit, I just like visiting it and having it near and I'm sure I'm not alone in that. Imagine if you were a book-lover (which, hmm, you may well be) and ALL of your books were up in smoke. You may not need to read any of those books at the moment but you'd miss their nearness and their presence in your life. So. Re-Stash. I hope I can be part of the goodness.

ETA: This link is actually super duper helpful!! I'm sorry I didn't manage to find it before but I think the fault is my own. Anyway, there are instructions, there is a shipping address, and they will take my stuff!

My sweet valentine took me to Spool

Seeing as how the family was presented with a TRULY RARE weekend without any one of us being ill, we decided we'd better celebrate Valentine's Day early. I mean, chances are we will each be laid up in bed with mad cow disease, rabies, and jock itch next Saturday. Maya and I went on a date to Dunkin Donuts. Then we bought Sam some beautiful new shirts and ties. He has a pink one now, thanks to our little girl's insistence. Then Sam and I went into the city, just the two of us. He took me to Spool. In the picture above, I look so judicious and conservative with my one bolt of fabric, but that's only the beginning of the story. That one bolt was soon joined by 13 others... all by fancypants designers to which I rarely, rarely treat myself. Do you want to see what I got? I'll take photos.

I know where the daffodils are sleeping

Well, I just checked, and the economy: still crap. (Although at this very moment the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P are each up a tiny bit.) Yesterday I got an oil bill for $790. That is a 7 and a 9 and a 0, each before the decimal point. Yeah. So today I am in a rather cool house, covered in snow and impressive icicles, though full of happy daylight, and I'm trying to do happy and hopeful things. I drew this image (above) which has been in my head for weeks, and I watched The Art of Quilting documentary by PBS. I got it from Netflix. It's not a how-to, not at all, but an exploration of art quilts. I was so mesmerized by seeing and hearing the voices of these artists I have been reading about for years that I forgot about being hungry, forgot about my pause button, and burned lunch but good.

It was worth it.

I am sending a print of the daffodil bulbs to my sister who is on an amazing journey in South Dakota. I would say that in the I'm-colder-than-you pity party, she wins!

I think I had also better tell my mom, who reads this blog, that we are not freezing to death and that we can certainly pay the oil bill. I think it is just time to conserve, is all. Would you like some hot tea and a rice pillow?

I think that was the most artsy-craftsy weekend we've had yet

Friday evening, our buddy Jason came over with his guitar and a new original song, which Sam learned (he plays violin). Meanwhile, Maya and I were upstairs painting watercolors and listening to the music they made. It's how I picture ourselves on the very best kind of day, really. And then Battlestar Galactica had me on the edge of my seat, so good! I'm glad to see it take an exciting turn again. I called my friend Julie immediately after it was over to get her take on it and she actually hadn't seen it yet; she was DVR-ing it and working on a new quilt, which she wanted to tell me all about, and poor Julie, I -- her best friend -- said to her, "I CAN'T POSSIBLY TALK ABOUT QUILTING RIGHT NOW! [which is major for me; I love quilting] GO WATCH AND CALL ME BACK WHEN YOU'RE DONE!" And she did; I don't think she minded how totally rude I was. Seriously, it was a good BSG episode.

Saturday morning, I made pancakes. One of us makes pancakes every weekend, it is a highlight of our week for sure. This time it was apple-blueberry for Maya, apple-banana for Sam and me. I forget where Sam got the idea to shred a little bit of peeled apple into pancake batter, but DO IT. The effect is really good.

And I found this really hot chick on our griddle during the process.

Maya insisted she needed to do more acrylic painting, not with watercolors again but painting paint, so we went off to Michael's with one of their 40% off printable coupons (thank you, internets!) and outfitted her with more canvas.

Julie came over; she and Sam messed around with cameras while Maya and I did painting painting with painting paint. You can see the pretty things Sam and Julie did here and here.

Then after the kiddo went to bed, I taught Julie free motion quilting! She did very well. She has requested a quilted totebag tutorial from me, which I am slowly working on. I have decided I want Sam to film me while I am working on the tote, so I had to stop at step one, basically. But this is the patchwork front of my tote in progress:

I liked these fabrics so much and had so much left over -- plus that yearning to finish something good, and fast -- that I made a quilted pillowcase for one of our formerly very shabby couch cushions on Sunday. It's much happier now.

(That is a remnant of blue sari fabric in the background which Julie and I are "auditioning" for another pillowcase. Maybe. We shall see!)

The Mommy School of Art

Earlier this week we had a snow day -- actually, I did; my daughter's pre-school opened, but with a delay. I told her that she could go to school if she wanted, or she could stay home with me; but if she stayed home, she was going to do art projects and there would be no TV and no movies. She had to think hard about these options (she's obsessed with the movie Anastasia this week; she slips up sometimes and calls it Alistasia which I find adorable), but ultimately she decided to go to the Mommy School of Art.

Last weekend I had seen a documentary on child art prodigy Marla Olmstead and wondered what might happen if I set Maya up with a stretched, primed canvas and lots of colors of acrylic paint.

There seems to be a lot of unnecessary angst over young children's art and whether it is coached or not and how bad/unnecessary/inappropriate it may be to try and tell kids what to do with anything that's creative. So, let me come right out and say there was some hands-on coaching, but you know, I still have to coach this tiny little kid through using the bathroom and eating her meals every single day, too, so I say let's not pooh-pooh a parent who makes suggestions about how to paint.

...As if she wouldn't do precisely what she wanted to do with her painting, anyhow.

At this point I put the camera down to show her how to daub on paint on top of paint and build up an impasto. The word "impasto" hasn't really made an impression on her but "blap, blap, blap" works well. Most of the dark reds and yellows at the bottom are mine. The rest is hers. Maya said this looks like a flower garden.

My photography skills leave much to be desired ... we'll probably tap Daddy to do the honors this weekend!

The rest of the day we scrubbed off paint in the tub, drew, made sticker collages, had a tasty lunch, and a long nap. Perfect day.

Happy Rainbow OCD Land

I like to sort things by color. No, really, I like to sort things by color. I find the task pleasant and the results so cheery, assuming a kind of rainbow ensues. My embroidery floss (above) is sorted by color, my thread is sorted by color, my crayons are sorted by color, and my fabric stash is sorted by color. The clothes in my armoire used to be sorted by color but lately I do not open it much any more. It is kind-of scary in there.

Big thanks to Julie for her recent gifts to the box of embroidery floss... she inherited a floss stash from a dearly departed cross-stitcher. It will be used with love.

Bring on the magnolias

I think I am about three months ahead of schedule but I have witnessed the gamut of wintry precipitation today (the ground is like a parfait of slush on top of ice on top of snow) and I am ready. For magnolias.

And funny little hats with great big magnolias on them.

Inauguration Day, and a Quilt Revealed

No, we were not at the actual Inaguration -- but yeah, that's the Capitol in the background, on an unseasonably warm day last February. And my teensy sister-in-law is adorable.

You know, on the whole, this was a pretty good day to ride the planet. I watched the Inauguration on TV with some very special friends, most of whom I had also watched the debates and the election results with, so it was like coming full circle. I love being together with these people for these things -- it underscores that sense that we are all in this together, that we participate in democracy not for ourselves really but for each other. Plus, my friends make me laugh (at one point today, I snarfed a cookie). And this time WE HAD CHAMPAGNE (um, this may have contributed to the cookie snarf).

My neighbor -- who is Canadian -- rigged a very very large American flag to his truck today. Seeing this, I was inspired to stick my very very large American flag in its little flag-holder on the house. Thank you, previous homeowners of long ago, for screwing the little flag-holder onto our house. We don't brandish our stars and stripes much but on days like today, wow. Also, I have never seen the National Mall so full of people. I've been there many times. It's a big space. That's a lot of people.

In other news -- I finally get to reveal something I alluded to last post! Last summer, my siblings and I conspired to make a quilt for our mom's birthday. Each one of mom's four kids was to contribute a square and then I, being the quilter, would do the sewing and quilting. Like all great plans ours ran into some complications: Mom ended up raising some very talented, accomplished, super-busy people. So, her birthday quilt ended up being 3 months late (all 4 of us had something going on!) but she got it last weekend and she really, really, really loves it.

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My sisters each got some creative help from their kids (fabric markers on cotton, freezer paper on the back makes the writing/drawing easier) and my brother and I printed onto some of that fancy June Tailor printer fabric. Each square is very special but my brother's is my favorite. It's an edited photo of him and my mom about 33 years ago. This is a scan of the original (minus the tweaking I did to make it coordinate with the rest of the quilt).

In the background there's a printed felt banner that reads "Love is Homemade." Perfect.