Oops

I drove to Back to Lexington this afternoon to regroup for a few days and I just realized that I left my computer in Maine. Oops!  So what this means is that I will be taking a few days off from the blog while I tend to things here. I am writing this post on my phone  but doing more will drive me crazy. So I’ll be back in a few days.

A Dose of Coast

It was a beautiful day to enjoy the coast with my house guests...Huy, Jolee, Elliot and Anni.  Here are a few of the rock carins we left behind.

So many tidal pools to explore and rocks to climb. The reflection of the afternoon sun on the water was just dazzling.


There's nothing quite like a dose of coast!

Beep Beep Beep!

It was a beautiful fall day today and included a nice walk and a productive day in the studio. I made progress on a few projects, reinvented one...and finished some others.

I mounted and added the hanging wire to the fall birch tree project...I'm pretty happy with it. It looks good on the wall.









This fire red maple stopped us in our tracks this morning...or at least it stopped me. Paul patiently waited while I snapped a few photos....he's good that way.

There's not much color left in the zinnia patch on our walking route...I've loved watching it go full circle.                                                                      

My wheat bouquet is growing! In hindsight some of them are a little too wild so I'll add a few more that are a little more tones down. We'll see where it ends up.

Did I mention they've been paving our whole condo complex over the past month or so.  Today they started the finish coat on our street and driveways so it was noisy and smelly all day long. I'm going to hear "beep beep beep" in my sleep.

Celebrating Boston

My guests headed up the coast for the night and I'm looking forward to spending most of the day tomorrow in the studio....it's time to rally.  I have several things going but nothing to post here.

So instead I'll share this lovely photo from IGersboston's instagram feed.  All the photos posted on their page celebrate the beauty in and around Boston....definitely worth checking out!

I absolutely love this tumbling pumpkin display!

Young People

It's kind of nice having young people in the house....I get to pull out all my puzzles and toys.  It's always a good thing to play.

Brian Andreas, Story People

Change Over Day

I have a couple friends who live in beach communities and they talk about "cottage changeover day" when the seasonal rentals get cleaned up and ready for the next vacationers.

A couple of other visitors just passing through....
but they don't need clean sheets and towels.

Today was condo changeover day.  I took Clarke to the airport this morning and started getting ready for the next guests. Some friends of ours from Minneapolis...a family of four arrive tomorrow. 

I do believe that taking care of and sharing my home is a creative
process...it just doesn't involve fabric or sock yarn.

Adding Texture

I approach a show like I approach decorating.  I pick an inspiration for my theme and color scheme and weave it throughout to create flow and cohesion. For the last show I was inspired by trees and used common fabric choices spanning the whole color spectrum to create cohesion.

For this show the theme is the stripe stacks and once again I'm inspired by the bright color palette of these Kaffe Fassett fabrics. But it's important to me to bring in more texture this time....even if it's just for styling.

I found that sock yarn wrapped around sticks makes a fun pattern very similar to the stripe stacks. So over the last few weeks I've been wrapping sticks in the evening while watching TV. 

Now I just have to figure out what to do with them.                                                                                  

And....inspired by something I saw on Pinterest I just started wrapping bundles of wheat in sock yarn. I'm not sure if they will be displayed in a vase or mounted somehow ...but I think the texture will be a nice addition.

This is just round one. My fingers may be numb when I'm done.

I love that it creates a stripe stack!

And it pays to know the right people...because just today I got a pile of left overs from my friend Patsy's sock making.  Yay!

Mojo

Clarke and her grandma...

....and progress out Margie's window.

While Clarke spent time with Margie...I worked on a very simple little piece to boost me out of my creative slump.  At first I thought I would do another tree piece...but I really didn't want to go there again. Trees were the focus for the last show and the one piece I made recently is enough this time....maybe one winter one for December.  Maybe.

This 10 x 10 combo of the stripe stacks and the confetti dot fabric is a nice variation on my ongoing theme.

I will likely do at least one more version of this in purples and the reds to round out pieces for the focal wall.  I also am going to fiddle around with some tiny stack pieces.  Maybe I'm getting my mojo back!

It's not glued down yet...but this piece will be mounted on a deep black repurposed canvas.

Creative Process

Not a lot of keepers lately....but it's all part of the creative process.  Sometimes I call it "product development."

Clarke's here!

Like A Kid....

....in a candy store. Treats from our morning walk.

I was just reading about sumac and learned that some of it is poisonous.  Since I'm not covered in a rash I'm assuming this isn't. Phew! It sure is spectacular in the fall.

I've been enjoying a zinnia patch all summer long around a mailbox on our walking route in Portland. I'm loving it just as much this fall in all its wabi-sabi glory!

I'v had a little creative slump in the studio the last couple of days...recent projects not quite working out. So I'm even more grateful for the colorful eye candy from our walk....it was the highlight of my day.

I'll try again tomorrow.

My niece Clarke arrives tomorrow evening from Tennessee.  She'll stay with me at the condo...but also spend a lot of time with Margie, her grandmother.

Colorful Mess

This pile of prep work on my sewing table resembles what my brain felt like today....a tangled colorful mess. 

I cut a bunch of strips of the Kaffe stripes and some pretty solids for a new stack project....this one will be pieced rather than fused.

Fall Trees

I stopped in to see Margie yesterday....and got a glimpse of the row of maple trees that are starting to turn out her window.  It's going to be a colorful couple of weeks for her!


I had no idea when I snapped this next picture that I happened to catch what looks like a seagull flying overhead.

And here are my fall trees.  I'll eventually mount it on this 16 x 20 deep repurposed canvas....when I'm sure it's done.  This one is very linear....almost geometric. I may try a version that is a little looser....and I'll certainly do a version with more of a winter feel for December.  

The great thing about fusing...is all I had to do was turn the edges to the back and iron them down.  I fused it onto a piece of stiff interfacing and chose not to use any batting so it would lay nice and flat...more like a piece of art and less like a quilt.

It coordinates nicely with the fallish stacks....so may be the start of the focal wall for the show.  

Confetti

Quite some time ago I bought 1/2 yard bundle of a whole spectrum of ombre fabric called Confetti.  The colors are beautiful and rich and I love the little metallic polka dots mixed in with the other tone on tone dots.  

I've been dreaming and scheming for a while now what I would do with it....and just yesterday I started one of the many projects I've been thinking about.

But first...a little bit about the prep. From salvage to salvage the fabric goes from dark and more dense dots to light and more sparse in the middle...then back to dark.  I cut each piece in half giving me two bundles that look like this picture below.  I tucked the second half away for down the road.

Next I sliced these pieces in half again and spent a loooong time fusing the webbing onto the back of each piece. Most fabrics fuse easily...especially hand dyed fabric.  The glue sinks right in under a hot iron and the paper peals right off once it's cool.

But this fabric was TOUGH! Maybe it has extra chemicals because of the metallic dots....but I had to iron and iron before the fusible webbing would stick well enough to pull the paper off.  But I persevered and finally had a nice pile all trimmed up and ready to go.

My first project is a fallish starry night sky with birch trees.  I pulled the fabrics that felt a little more like autumn....and prepped some interesting text fabric for the trees and got to work. 

Although I had a sketch....I found it easier just to work free form in chunks....just winging it. I've never been very good at following a pattern.

After some fiddling and auditioning I decided that the bottom needed to be a little more monochromatic...using all the colors just on the top.  Using a sliver of soap I kept marking and slicing the fabrics until I was happy enough with the design. I ended up eliminating the brown fabric and keeping the yellow just at the top.

Here's where I ended up.  I'm not sure it matches the awesomeness that was in my head....but I'm OK with it. And...it can still evolve.

Next came the stitching.  I varied the width and length of the blanket stitch on my machine and outlined each tree.  It took a while but I got it done and I'll share the finished piece tomorrow. It's growing on me....pardon the pun.