A blast from the past

Digging through some junk boxes the other day, I came across a love letter from my Mom to my Dad. It was dated December 1 through 4, 1944, when he was in the Army, and two years before they were married. She would have been 27, he, 31. The following segment caught my eye:

Saturday finished, almost completely, my Christmas shopping & then met Mother. She and Dad are giving Fred[erika – Mom’s twin sister] & Tom bedside tables for Christmas & they wanted to give me an equivalent present, so I was to buy “a couple of tables’ worth of dress – “ or in other words, a very “yummy one.” We had no luck at our usual pet place & then went to another we like, a little place, & they had several pretty ones. I brought 2 home to “model'” for Dad – I am to have one & I think they may be giving Fred the other, of black wool jersey. The one I’m to get is so pretty – I just want to go & feel it from time to time & can hardly bear not bubbling about it to Fred. It’s a two-piece dress – really an unlined-jacket suit – of soft, light black wool, with a one-button-at-the-waist closing. Then into the front is stitched a very pretty crepe vest of pink, trimmed with black sequins (paillettes) & beads, & tied at the neck. It is lovely – will be nice for holiday festivities & theater later, & still later, with a frilly blouse will be perfect for spring. I “love it good,” as Mary Lib would say – now if I could just ‘doll up” in it & meet you at the airport like one Christmas evening -- -- !

This ended up being two full pages out of the 17 she wrote! It made me smile for several reasons: while he may have enjoyed a slice of home life, I doubt he cared that much about a dress. But mainly I smiled because she sounds like every textile person I know . . . ‘I just want to go & feel it from time to time’ are words I’ve heard more than once at a quilt show! Hope you enjoyed it too!

More on the Keeper

Well after reviewing all the wonderful comments on ‘Can’t let this one go,’ below, I decided it was time to do some virtual design wall stuff. Plus it’s a good way to learn to mess with Photoshop Elements and DrawPlus Starter Edition. Not going to post everything I tried; the items below were worth keeping. Some I like better than others – what do you think?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More on the booth; life moves along

Life continue to move on, as life is wont to do. I've sent off my article on snow-dyeing to American Quilter magazine, and they asked that I take down the parts of my blog that overlap the article. So I've done that; but I've saved them locally, so they’ll be back next year. I'm just about to ship a big box of samples to them - the Editor, Chris, is going to select from them and they'll take professional photographs of the fabrics. It's all very exciting.

Today I also went to a temp agency to try to line up some work between now and the fall shows. Hope something comes of that - it will mean less time, but a little more money in the bank. And I'm still adding items to the website, and there's a lot to add!

Two weeks ago we set up at the York PA Guild show, and I tried out the new garment racks. It made the fabrics a lot more accessible; here's a picture:

Cloud Photos Challenge

Hello, quilting friends, textile tootsies and dye junkies! On the QuiltArt email list lately there has been some discussion of cloud photos, copyright free and otherwise. I thought to myself ‘Why not just send her your pictures? Nothing to be afraid of, right?’ Then I decided to go one step further and make a challenge out of it. Below are six photos I took a bit over a year ago, June 2009. My challenge to you is to create a piece of textile art, whether a quilt, complex cloth, clothing, object, vessel, weaving, whatever, inspired by these photos. Anything goes – you can print them on cloth, manipulate them any way you like, create a meditation; use stitching, beading, recycled materials – ANYTHING! And as an incentive, I will award DippyDyes gift cards to the three I judge to be the best. Nothing massive, sorry, probably $32 for first place, $24 for second, and $16 for third. And since this is all about me, the deadline is my birthday, September 7, just before I head out to a lot more shows.

More details will be forthcoming once I figure them out. These pictures are available for your personal, non-mass-market use. If you do sell, show, or otherwise profit from them, please just give me credit in the caption. If you are going to make 10,000 coffee mugs out of them, that’s another story! If you need larger, higher-resolution images, let me know.

About the clouds: I believe these are mammatus, or mammatocumulus clouds. It was fun to photograph them; the first two pictures were taken from the studio window, then I followed the group of clouds on foot; by the last picture the structure had pretty well broken up.

Polyester - not an original thinker!

Hi all - just to give credit where it is due, Lisa Grey very kindly spent time with me on the phone and by email to answer some total newbie questions. We even had scheduled a class for at least two students at her studio, when I had to back out because of the wedding of a dear friend. Still need to reschedule the class at her convenience. It was she who mentioned that the dyes could be directly applied to fabric, then heat set. It makes sense, I think anyway (remember, newbie here) if the paper controls the dye sublimation, the teflon sheets on each side of the fabric would do the same. So here's a link to her site - her work is awe-inspiring! Lisa Grey. Plus click on her class schedule links - Mendocino, CA in July.

Polyester Sunprint

Couldn’t wait to process this piece of Nu-suede. It’s my first effort at a sunprint. Looking at it critically, there are several flaws – boring, all-over placement of the leaves, a thread visible in the upper right of the detail, below, and general blurriness. Also, monochromatic doesn’t do much for it. But it’s still extremely cool and I can’t wait to do more, and do it better!

Auditioning Paintstiks

Well, I have been giving some thought to the ‘keeper’ fabric and came up with a decent way to audition Shiva Paintstiks. This illustration shows about the third iteration, and the first I like. The paint for now is temporary – I applied it to Glad Press ‘n Seal™ cling wrap - you can see it best around the top fan. Once the paint has dried thoroughly, I can remove and reposition it all I need. I like how the curvilinear shape of the fans echoes the bound spider webs. Hope you do too. I did test out some intense green, but that might be best in very small bead-sized doses. Thanks for looking!