By popular demand, I have finally scheduled the first two of my studio workshops.
So, for those of you who have been saying "let me know when you give workshops in your studio," I'm letting you know!
Space is limited to 6 people.
Saturday night we entertained for a change -- something we haven't done in a long time. Our friends came for dinner and it was so nice. They used to live in this condo development and it was the kind of easy friendship where we could call each other on the spur of the moment and say, "come over" or "let's go out to dinner.
Since they moved away a couple of years ago, it takes planning; my Thurs. night invitation for Sat. was pretty spur of the moment, considering.
So this was what was left of the Flourless Chocolate Cake last night and I think I can slice off a little edge while I give you the recipe. So easy and fast and fabulous!! You can make it a day ahead and refrigerate it but you really need to let it come to room temp...and serve it with REAL whipped cream, which takes about 3 min to make. No shaving cream served in this house.
Makes one 8" cake - line bottom of pan with parchment paper or buttered wax paper.
INGREDIENTS
4 oz. fine quality bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened)
1 stick (1/2 c) unsalted butter
2/3 c sugar 1/2 tsp vanilla
3 large eggs
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
Cut chocolate & butter into pieces and melt in microwave for 1 to 1-1/2 min. Whisk sugar into mixture. Add eggs & vanilla and mix well. Sift cocoa powder into mixture and whisk till just combined. Pour batter into pan and bake in middle of oven 25 min at 375 (or at 350 if convection oven) or till top has formed a thin crust. Cool cake in pan on rack 5 min and invert onto serving plate. I dusted w confect. sugar and threw some berries on top, as you can see in picture. Supposedly, cake keeps in airtight container 1 wk but it won't last that long!
Today, I took my mother to the Montclair Art Museum to see the Wyeth exhibit: N.C., Andrew, and Jamie. It was okay, but I wasn't overwhelmed by the work. What I did like were these three guys standing in the front hall of the museum. Made me smile!
For those of you who keep asking when I'm going to teach locally -- I've been working on a studio workshop schedule for the Fall, which I'll talk about in more detail in the next few days. Small groups (limited to 6). Stay tuned!
The last two days I was in the studio. On Wednesday I did a little scrunching and throwing into a quart plastic container with dye. Most of my studio dyes are used up and all I had left was strongest red and some teal. So, into the red went a couple of small pieces. They looked like this when I took them out. 
Yesterday, I simply couldn't resist stopping the sorting process to see what I could do with these (and a few other) bad dye jobs. The piece above still looks like that. The red had been used up, so I overdyed the other one by throwing it into the teal. What a horrible combination; especially with the layer of some random deconstructed screen printing under all of it. So I decided to play "Can this Fabric be Saved?"
I picked up a partially used deconstructed screen that was lying around; mixed up some thiox paste and put it through the screen. I had no idea what would happen but I knew it couldn't be worse. I was right. Here's what it looks like today, after discharging and washing/ironing. I don't know how or when I will use it but at least it has potential.
Now I have to go change because Marty and I are going to Happy Hour at a local restaurant and I can't go with chocolate all over my shirt.
Serves me right for being up till 2:am, blogging. Not tonight! Busy day -- I am exhausted and I am going to bed.
I baked this morning. Having company for coffee tomorrow morning; a friend who will go home with a car full of fabric and books, if I have my way.
Kate's Brownies
Melt 2 sq. of baking chocolate + 1/4 lb butter Add 1 tsp vanilla, 1 c sugar (I add about 3/4 c) and mix. Add 2 eggs, mix. Add 1/4 c flour, 1/4 tsp salt & 1 c. either choc. chips or walnuts, or both. (I add choc chips). Bake in 8" pan at 325 for 40 min (unless you have a convection oven, in which case, check after 30 min). To die for. Ask anybody who has ever eaten my brownies.
I went to the studio before lunch and mostly ironed/sorted (you know the routine). While I was at it, I decided to do something about all those dreadful things I dyed last night (and other nights) and throw them into Thiox. That's when I made my big discovery: you do not have to boil the mixture to have it work. Hoo ha! I threw some thiox and soda ash into a little plastic tub and added boiling water. Voilà -- discharge!! I use my electric tea kettle and this works fine if you aren't discharging a ton of fabric.
It's late so I will cut to the chase. When I left the studio this afternoon, these works-in-progress were on my wall. I found the middle piece while I was sorting stuff at home and am thrilled! I could not for the life of me figure out where it has been for the last X years (you don't want to know how many).
It didn't take long for the table to get back to its normal state.
I got out a bag of strips and blocks I had pieced last year, when I was doing therapy sewing and threw them at the wall to see what would happen.
This is the design wall right now: another work in progress. See you tomorrow!
It's a challenge, I will admit (and I'm sure you'll agree) to keep things fresh and interesting. Did you ever simply run out of things to say? Well, if you have, I hope you've had the good sense not to blog that day. If there's one thing I can't stand it's somebody who just blathers on about nothing simply to fill up the page.
Blogging is really akin to doing a monologue....and you know how hard THAT is to do: at least for some people. Nonstop talkers can be very wearing--especially if they are neither funny nor interesting.
On the other hand, if you're the listener you don't have to expend much effort since it is not necessary to hold up your end of the conversation. In fact, with some people, you don't even have to listen; they're so busy they don't notice your glazed look.(How did I get onto this topic?)
So this afternoon, I packed all my commercial fabrics, put them into assorted bundles, and filled a rolling bin. This place is looking tidy again. At least, as Helene says, "comparatively speaking." Keep in mind that if I don't see it, I don't own it. This does make life a little more complicated...but I'll cope.
Then I pulled yesterday's overdyes out of the dryer and ironed them. To say they need work is an understatement. I won't bore you with their lack of variety in a color I already have too much of.
Instead, I will go have my beauty sleep so I can be bright eyed in the studio tomorrow.
When I talked to my son Jeremy tonight and told him I had been in my sewing room for 4 days, cleaning up, he responded, "you mean the disaster in the front room?" Yep. That one. Leave it to Jeremy to cut to the chase.
TREASURES
The room looked neater yesterday but it really is getting there. I took the six-year-old notices off the bulletin board and tacked everything in rows. Among the detrius was an envelope full of fortunes. Here are a few of the better ones.
TRASH?
Yes and no. Hidden in this messy bin of strips and scraps were sewn-together strips from therapy quilts I had made (or never made) and I'll play with those again. Many incorporate Usha's wonderful Indian batiks. Treasures.
On another note, the fabrics I overdyed today are in the dryer. Mostly, mud. But what do you expect when you use old dye stock? I had no idea what anything was; I just poured it to get rid of it. I do most of my dyeing in the studio these days, so this stuff has been sitting around since the year of the flood. Tomorrow, I'll iron it and put it in the pile of fabrics that need help. Or not.
Tonight's fireworks were not as loud as yesterday's and I was so busy that I wasn't even aware of them till it got quiet out there.
And what, you may ask, was I doing?? See these bins? Three -- count' em. THREE:empty!! I took out every scrap and piece of yardage. They have all been sorted, ironed, and put into plastic bags (one of which is trash). I have only 3 ins to go - but they are all commercial fabrics, which I use for backs. I just need to sort, iron, and neaten.
The weather was delicious today: the first day without rain in a month. It was clear, breezy, and warm with no humidity. Perfect!
So perfect, in fact, it was a shame to be in. So I set up a thiox bath on the deck and decided to do a little discharge. All of my resists are at the studio so I didn't do anything spectacular -- but I was very pleased at the color of this piece: yellow - and brighter than it looks on my monitor, at least. 
In addition to discharging a few black fabrics, I used the bath to take out the color of quite a few pieces. I must have been on a medium-blue binge at one point because everything is the same (boring) nowhere blue that is too dark to print on and too light to provide contrast.
Actually, I realize that I don't love blue. So, lots of fabric went into the thiox bath and I will overdye it in some other color. This piece was so dark that I could hardly see the printing, but once it discharged to a beige-y color I was able to see that it must have been a demo piece for a class. Base color will remail and I'll add another layer.
Instead of dyeing/printing new fabric, I am going to go back and revise what I already have and see what I can do with it. Lots of possibilities for new work in my stash.
Here's what I did yesterday and forgot to post. I stitched on these two pieces, which are pretty much done and not finished at the edges yet. I'm happy with them.
Can't keep eyes open. G'night.
Fireworks on July 3rd?? Who ever heard of such a thing? It's a good thing I didn't go to bed early because at 9:pm the booms started right outside my window (or so it seemed). At first, i thought it was kids playing with illegal fireworks because it was so close. Get this: the next town held their fireworks tonight -- about a mile from our house. Why tonight? Because it was originally scheduled for July 1 with a July 2 rain date. Since it rained both nights, they held the fireworks tonight. HUH?
I'll leave that to the calendar experts: it's like celebrating Washington's B.D. a week early because it is convenient for the government.
On another subject - I have not blogged for the last couple of nights because I have simply been flat-out too tired from turning Fibber McGee's closet into a habitable room. Trust me, this is NEAT. The clock says 12:30 (a.m.) - I've been sewing (gasp!) and ironing (double gasp)
and at midnight there were kids screaming and yelling out in the street, so after I went outside and did a little screaming myself (they were accompanied by their parents, no less - unfortunately our new across-the-street neighbors) I decided I had better post while my adrenalin is flowing.
Going through all the odds and ends and deciding what to do with all of the little things is the hard part. I could open my own optical shop with all the old eyeglasses I found. Most of them will go to New Eyes for the Needy but I will need a couple of pairs of frames in which to put new prescription sunglasses. Next: what am I supposed to do with this item?
It's an am/fm/micro-cassette player. I have no idea to whom it belonged or why it is here. Who listens to micro-cassettes with earphones? or even without them? I think the only micro-cassettes I have are in my non-functioning answer-phones. Maybe I should dig them out - I might hear voices of the dead whose messages are still recorded. But afterwards, what do I do with this machine?
I haven't even gotten into the trunk, which is full of antique quilt blocks I once bought at a flea market. Anybody want to buy antique quilt blocks? And then there are the two Polaroid cameras for which they no longer make film. Speaking of film - ROLLS that need to be developed, probably of my 10 year old grandson when he was a baby. And several flash cards for my Canon, one of which had about six pictures of this on it. Another quilt I never made.
God only knows what else I will find once I look beneath lids and doors and in drawers. I think I'll skip that part.
Bactracking: I was in the studio every day but today and my roommate was there two days this week, which was a pleasure. On Wednesday, I finally had an arrangement on the wall that I was happy with and I left it sitting.
I've been ironing and sorting, which is interminable but must be done. I'm doing a little bit of over-printing as I go through the fabrics, just to change the pace. But because I love the printing so much, I can't let myself get sidetracked from the task at hand: filling plastic storage boxes.
I cannot tell you how many hours of work it took to get this bookcase looking neat. Probably 6 hours.
It will stay this way for a while because I am too tired to get up from the chair and take out a book. I will not show you the rest of the room. Every day, a little more goes into the trash: magazines, the preliminary printouts of the book, and untold amounts of other paper I do not need.
What is it that makes some of us such packrats and others, such minimalists? Is it our Myers-Briggs type? Are we hard-wired? Nature or nurture? I tend to think nature, tempered by nurture...but who knows?
and these.
Another long day tomorrow; I think I will skip my morning walk because I have shin splints. I thought you were only supposed to get those from running. Hmm...
I spent this afternoon in the studio, ironing (of course) and throwing things at the wall to see if I could recreate the feeling of the never-mades posted last week.
Nope. Some of the fabrics in the original attempt have been used in other pieces either and can't be replicated or there is only a small piece left. Others have been changed -- either overdyed or overprinted -- and don't work any more. Nevertheless, I played around to see if I could start again. Took pictures, revised, took more pictures, and finally packed up and came home to make dinner.
Tonight, more ironing so I can take a pile of fabrics to the studio tomorrow. This is my feeble attempt to clear out this disaster area. Here's what I accomplished - but it doesn't really look like 3 or 4 hours worth of pressing and sorting.
I did get some ideas while I was doing this tonight: I just hope I remember them tomorrow!
Marty and I stopped at the farm today to buy fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, basil, white peaches, and some lovely lettuce (2 heads/$1). As we completed our purchase, the young lady at the counter handed us a bouquet of these wildflowers and couldn't tell us what they were. It was only tonight, when I read Del's blog and spotted yesterday's post again that it occurred to me these might be wild mustard. Del?
We had stopped for produce on our way home from Hilary's house, where we had gone to say goodbye to Josh before he leaves for camp on Tuesday morning. This is his first time at sleep-away camp and he's excited to be going for a month. Benjamin will go to day camp.
We didn't stay long, but I insisted on interrupting their baseball practice so I could take a picture. They are 21 months apart: Ben was 8 in November and Josh turned 10 in March.
When we got home, I got out the paint bucket and decided it was time to get rid of the rainbow of test colors. My first choice would have been to hire a painter to paint a buttery yellow, but I took the lazy/easy/cheap-o way out and repainted the ufinished parts that have been sitting for a year with daubs of grass green and butter yellow. This color is greener than it looks here - for some reason it has come out very gray-blue instead of blue-green. 
We are planning to downsize so I'm trying to get the house ready to put on the market at some point. I am dreading it because nothing is selling - although I probably have a nicer kitchen than anybody else in the development.
I will be putting many quilts on sale, as well as other things (I haven't forgotten the tjaps - it will take a while to get act together). I will be getting rid of all those wonderful quilting books that I haven't looked at in years because I don't make those any more...etc. You know the drill if you have moved recently.
This week, studio. Have to pay my mother's bills in the morning and then I'm gone. Back to ironing, no doubt. As my former studio-mate commented on Facebook, sorting and ironing are part of my creative process. A little creative spirit would be good.
We met our friends Caroline and Robert for an elegant lunch at Fiorello's, across from Lincoln Center and had a great time catching up. I met Caroline on the Garden Web Kitchen site last year and when she and Robert come to NY every few months to soak up the culture, we see them if we can.
No pictures of the wonderful food, but my camera was clicking everywhere else. The climb out of the subway at Columbus Circle was so steep that we sat down to rest at the first public space we came to, on a plaza in front of a glass building. Don't you love those round benches?
I kept taking pictures of the reflections in the building's facade and finally decided I might as well be in one of them. 
Across the street, on the second floor of a beautiful building, several windows full of merchandise. 
But my favorite images are a different kind of beauty entirely -- the grit that never fails to move and captivate me. I'm not sure why, but maybe it doesn't matter. We took the PATH to 33rd St. and then the subway up. On the way down, we took the E train to the WTC and we took the PATH from there - a substantially shorter and easier trip because we didn't have to change trains.
It isn't easy to take pictures on the subway because it's usually too crowded - but the E train was fairly empty on the way downtown because it was mid-afternoon. Notice how this guy paid attention to the signs.
When we got off the E train at the World Trade Center stop,we had to walk about a block to the WTC and the PATH (Port Authority Trans Hudson, which in my day was called the Hudson Tubes. Back then, we always took the ferry to and from NY. You drove your car onto the ferry, got out and walked around to where the windows or deck were, and drove off when the boat docked. They discontinued the ferry in the 1950's).
We took the escalator down and I noticed that the view through this wonderful grid is visible today, which is wasn't a year or two ago when I took this picture.
The escalator down to the PATH trains. I love the Welcome to the World Trade Center sign.
I never have a chance to shoot the beautiful landscape on the PATH route, but today I did. What can I say? I love these views. 
I was so tired when we got home that I took a 3 hour nap on the couch: unheard of for me. And now, off to bed.
The pieces in the previous post no longer exist-- in fact, I never put them together..and it had nothing to do with not wanting to quilt them.
This is how I work: I put stuff up on the wall to see what works together, take pictures, and then move them around or add/delete and finally, either make the piece or take everything down and throw the fabrics back into the bins.
I never put those pieces together because I did not think they worked. I may have used the fabrics in other pieces, printed over them, or they may be in my archeological dig - the rolling milk crates from Staples that I throw my bits into. (This is why I iron - I am trying to see what I have).
Truthfully, in looking through my photos to see what I could delete from my computer, I found a load of these "audition" photos and and am sorry, in retrospect, that I was so hasty in taking them down (the one above doesn't count). While I can't recreate them -- the moment is gone for each of them -- I can take them as a lesson (in what??? -- sewing them together just in case they turn out not to be part of my crap quota?).
It is Friday morning. Marty and I are going into NY today to meet our friends from Alabama for lunch. It is about to pour: we are taking the PATH and the subway. I'm bringing my camera but can't guarantee I can keep the raindrops off my lens. I will check back with you tonight.
When I started this blog in January '05, it was a visual sounding board for myself (an oxymoron? maybe - but you know what I mean). I wanted a way of evaluating work in process from a bit of a distance and the digital-to-screen seemed ideal. It was. It still is.
I auditioned another fabric with it and wasn't sure it made any sense, so I went back to the original idea.
Then I wondered what would happen if I made it bigger, since it was the approximate size of so many of my other pieces and I'd like to work larger. So I added these fabrics and brought it all home to put it together.
The original idea was to see if I could work in essentially two colors, but I find this too coordinated and as a result, boring. So it sits, and will stay here till I go through a few more permutations tomorrow with my critique group. I find that the idea of consciously working in two colors is meaningless to me. What does this piece say? What is it about? For me, it has to speak and it's not talking yet. Maybe it doesn't want to be larger. We'll see.
Newspapers. Eleven days' worth, saved in case I wanted to read them. I didn't...but of course, had to go through the entire pile so I could retrieve Wednesday's NY Times food section, Thursday's Home and Styles sections, and the Sunday book reviews from the last two weekends. Oh, and the art. Took the whole morning.
Well, to be fair, it took only half the morning. I got home at 6:am and since my body was on Left Coast time, I went to sleep and slept through the first half of the morning. Then back to laundry and real life. Studio Six meets at my house on Wednesday and I had to bake for the occasion - so that was tonight's actvity. 
Lemon Sours
Sitting in LAX, directly across from the President's Club (where the gate agent told me I could get free Wifi) and I have about two hours till boarding time. This has been such a wonderful teaching trip that I am sorry to be leaving Southern California. Karen and Ted Rips drove me to the airport - and we stopped on the way at the famous and wonderful Tito's Tacos! It is worth a trip to (or from) LAX just to stop there. Fancy it ain't - but the food is to die for.
I kept forgetting to take pictures of all the delicious meals we had while I was here, but this was too good to miss! Really. Tito's is unforgettable.
The class wound down today as people worked on the work they had started yesterday or cut into new fabric and reassembled it.
Carolyn's piece began as a horizontal and after doing our crit and what if?s, it became more dynamic when she added a few elements, moved others, and turned it into a vertical.
Pam's piece on the right started with the gelatin print and is evolving into something very special. (see her blog for lots of better pictures than I got, of the goings on in class)
Sharon auditioned her rusted and printed fabrics to see where they would take her -- and she has a pretty clear idea that should be great when she finishes it.
It is still a work in progress but promises to be a very good piece.
Here is Jan's piece from yesterday, cropped and ready to take to the next step. 
It was hard to say goodbye, but I hope someone will invite me to come again to this part of the world. Flight is boarding soon, so off I go. And I expect you will not hear from me till Tuesday night, after my crit group meeting. It is always harder going home with the time change - I land at 6:am Monday but it will be 3:am California/body time. Maybe I'll be lucky and sleep on this Red Eye.
Today was much more laid-back than yesterday but I think it took a lot more concentration because people were actually working with fabrics they had printed. As a few of them can tell you, it takes some concentration -- and sometimes, the courage to cut into the cloth. Ouch!
Mari found fabrics to audition with her gelatin-printed piece from the other day.
Working with their own printed fabrics led to some interesting results. Susan found herself using colors she never uses -- but they worked with the fabric she had printed.
And several people took the first-time leap to slicing, dicing, and reconstituting one piece of cloth into a much more interesting piece than they had started with. Instead of putting a border around the house she had printed, Jan cut it up and now has this in process. Fun!
It really takes guts to cut a gorgeous piece of fabric you have printed yourself. I admit that I am just as hesitant about doing this as many other people are. But look what happened when Maren took the rotary cutter to her fabric.
We'll see what happens on Sunday, which is the last day of the class.I was too tired to blog last night. It was a pretty intense day and I'm betting the class members slept well, too. Lots of creativity, some fun, and working quickly produced some nice work in 20-30 minutes. These were two people's interpretations of the same phrase. 
It was interesting to see that by the third exercise the quality of the pieces had skyrocketed. These 3 examples all came out of the same assignment to use the 6" square of green(ish) fabric I gave to them (thanks, Helene!).
Last night, after dinner, I went for a walk around the hotel area to see what I could find.
There were the requisite fleurs...
And then, a few other things.
Breakfast! Or I won't get to class on time.
Except when someone else grabs it to take a picture of me, or when I am walking around the classroom, asking "where is my camera? Has anyone seen my camera? I know it's here somewhere..."
I have usually parked it on someone's table when I've been answering a question or helping with something. This repeats itself about 20 times a day; I think my next camera has to be red or acid green or something easy to spot.
Tonight, I left it in the classroom when we went to dinner and realized it at the restaurant. Ack. I took so many pix that I couldn't face not blogging tonight - so Eileen Alber was nice enough to unlock the shop after dinner so I could retrieve the camera. It was under a pile of fabric on my table. Big surprise.
Above, I am demonstrating putting glue on a screen. What I did was not nearly as interesting as some of the screens the students made. Here are just a couple of them lying in the sun (screens, not students).
Glue was a big hit and a couple of students decided it was their favorite thing to do. Oh, joy.
Sherrill Kahn worked primarily on paper, her primary medium, but today she switched to fabric for a while and was thrilled with the results from her glue screen!
Sharon is doubly delighted because she has never printed before and is discovering that she is an artist. This is her glue fabric.
Hanging on the lines and racks, all kinds of goodies, screened with glue and/or tape.
Using a syringe isn't always easy till you get the hang of it. Florence had put a bit too much on the fabric but folded it over and pretty soon, it was looking good! 
The rest of the afternoon flew by with tons of fabric being printed and everyone working in layers. 
By the end of the day, I said goodbye to Cherrill, who has family obligations that are pulling her away for the rest of the week. We admire each others' work so much, which is funny because except for the layering, they are polar opposites. 
About half the class went to dinner at an Indian restaurant (we've eaten Mexican, Middle Eastern- twice - and tomorrow, sushi). Then, after I retrieved my camera so I could post these pix tonight, I came back to this lovely Marriott Courtyard. I must say this is the nicest hotel I have stayed at, anywhere I have traveled to teach (except, of course, the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley). Thanks to the Quilters Studio in Newbury Park, CA, for making my stay so comfortable.
One more thing: this is Pam Price Klebaum's glue print. I'd like to know what you see.
Tomorrow we switch gears.Today, I was so busy I didn't have much time to take pictures, but I will post the few that I have. Big class -- 19 or 20 people -- and very productive, indeed. We did gelatin printing this morning and just these two random photos will give you an idea of the variety.
After lunch, I showed them screen printing with newspaper,
Pamela Price Klebaum went a step further and used paper (if I remember correctly) as a resist on a Thermofax screen she had brought with her. What a great idea!
Later, after the class had plenty of time to play, I showed them the results they could get with tape on a screen. There wasn't a lot of time left to experiment with that, but we'll go back to it tomorrow -along with some other screening methods.
Sherrill Kahn, who also is taking my class, worked her magic nonstop on paper. She's a live wire and although my one picture of her came out fuzzy, I'll take more tomorrow. Stay tuned!
It is a dilemma when you want to blog and really have nothing of interest to say. Do you say the boring things? (like D.H. calling my cell to ask me how to turn off the oven? or my 92 y/o mother calling to tell me she'd fallen and couldn't get up? I'm in CALIFORNIA, forgodsakes, ma!) Should I make things up? (I'm not that imaginative) or not blog at all?
Then there is the matter of photos. Personally, I prefer visuals in somebody's blog if I am going to read it. If you think about it, this is ridiculous: I don't need picture books to be engaged with a good story - so why do I need pictures to be engaged with a blog post? Maybe if it were interesting enough it wouldn't need pictures. OTOH - not all pictures are interesting. See what I mean? Did you really need to see this?
To backtrack a bit... Carol Henke and I drove to Culver City to meet Karen Rips, who is my host for the rest of this trip. Karen and I hot-footed it to Quilters Studio in Newbury Park -- where I am teaching for the next five days. What a wonderful store!! Eileen Alber has such a fabulous selection of fabric that art quilters from Europe order from her. But I digress...
today, I was getting set up and organized (or what passes for organized) for the rest of the week.
After that, Karen and I had a deluxe dinner out. On the walk back from the restaurant to the hotel where I am staying, I got out my camera and took a few pictures to post tonight. I don't recall seeing these blue-purple fleurs in New Jersey, so I could not resist.
And this view from my room gave me something I can really work with. Texture!!
So now, having made the requisite blog post and bored you to tears, I am signing off, scheduling a wake up call for the crack of dawn, and getting ready for another teaching day. Come back soon and visit.
I'm in a citrus paradise. You people who live in California, Fla. and wherever else people have lemons, oranges, kumquats, persimmons, and limes in their yards, have NO idea how exciting this is...unless you came here from somewhere else. And then, maybe by now you have forgotten what a miracle it is to walk outside and pick these fruits when you want them.
I spent this afternoon with my sewing and my book, sitting outside looking at the grapevines, tomato plants, and even an apple tree with fruit hanging from the boughs. The weather, to be honest, was cool and comfortable until the sun went back in and it got downright chilly. But in the meantime, this was another part of my view today. Truly a day of rest.
Tomorrow morning, heading for Santa Monica and then to Quilters Studio in Newbury Park for five days. Looking forward to the next adventure!
After class today, my cousin Brenda, who lives in Carlsbad, CA, picked me up and we went in search of a couple of good drinks and dinner. Found it here (at left) in Fullerton.
Drinks were great, food was outstanding, and I have no affiliation with the place; we found it by happy accident and it's worth a visit if you are in the area or live in Orange County, CA.
Café Hidalgo
305 N. Harbor #111
714-447-3202
Brenda and I only get to see each other every few years (why do all my favorite cousins live in California and Florida??) so this was a treat. How silly when two senior citizens get the giggles in a public place! Here we are, with Brenda looking more serious than normal. 
Cindy Cooksey, whose work is pure delight (go to her website from her blog to see her work) promises to post some pictures. In the meantime, I have plenty from today.
At lunchtime, I had a bonus visit from Inga Buell, who took a class from me in Santa Barbara almost 3 years ago. What fun to catch up with her! She is now a printmaker and loving it.
Karen Cunagin took deconstructing screen printing to a new level when she decided to take a printmaker's approach. Here she is, painting onto the screen with a definite plan...
and here a just a few of the varied prints she did the same way. Can you believe it??
Judi Corrado, who came from Nevada for this workshop, loved doing squiggles on the screen
and came away with this fabric -- a big hit with her classmates during show & tell.
There were a few other big hits as people not only showed their printed pieces but brought in their actual work to show us what they normally do. Carol Henke makes work that is so serene and abstract that I feel calm just looking at it. Go look at her gallery. 
Here is Del Thomas (did you guess it was she in yesterday's post????) looking pleased as punch with a couple of her prints from a to-die-for screen she made yesterday.
It took some work to get her to show us a quilt she has made. She is so busy posting the quilts in her collection to her blog that we never get to see her work. Here is one of them. She told us that she puts a bird into almost every quilt she makes, even if it is hidden. 
I had to have this picture taken with Del, who is wearing her newest acquisition from me.
Tomorrow, a hanging-out day while Carol does errands and then perhaps, a visit to Sharla Hicks' shop, Soft Expressions. It has been a wonderful two days for me with this class.
Today was day one of the deconstructed screen printing class I am giving this weekend at Fullerton College. There were about a dozen people in the class - all that the printmaking classroom at the college could accommodate. But everyone had two tables to work on and there were a couple of sinks, so we managed just fine.
We spent most of the morning making the thickened dyes, putting them onto the screens and drying them.
Everybody brought a variety of STUFF to put under their screens and I provided a bunch of other textured items they could experiment with as they created their screens.
I had hoped we could put the screens outside in the sun to dry but alas, no sun. Instead, hair dryers and fans helped things along. Finally, by the time lunch was over, most of the screens were dry enough for printing.
Above, the smiling woman applies dye to her screen. I was thrilled to have her show up in my class -- what a nice surprise!
Below, Susan Slesinger removes the dye from her screen and deposits it onto the fabric by deconstructing it with print paste. The result is below her picture.
In the foreground, Joanne Ratner's piece is coming along beautifully and it seems she is trying to decide where to put the next print.
The thing about this process is that you cannot tell how the print will look by looking at the screen. Carol Henke, who organized the class, made the screen below and was sure it wouldn't be very intersting because there were so many open spaces. WRONG. Look at the wonderful abstract print she got from that screen! 
Jeanette Kelly, in process on what ended up being one of her favorites. Tomorrow we'll talk about how she might be able to use it.
When we left the classroom at the end of the day, look what was on the walls...
After class many of us went to Carol and Bill Henke's for a barbecue and spent a delightful evening of great food, good company, and stimulating conversation. Tomorrow is another day.
That's what they call it out here (as Judy Sall mentioned in yesterday's comments). Mind you, I think they all have thin blood out here - it felt fine to me. Nevertheless, to dispell the gloom, Carol Henke, her daughter Amanda (below) and I made a visit to Jamie Fingal's bright, cheerful (and well organized) studio. Three rooms overflowing with colorful STUFF and wonderful quilts in process as well as finished.
Jamie and I finally got to do a face-to-face (one of my travel perks) and while she beat me to it by posting a similar picture on her blog earlier today, here's another one, just for the record. Jamie is wearing one of her amazing aprons in this photo and I persuaded her to
model another one of them so I could take a full view for you. Be sure you click on the picture to get a closer look at this funky garment!
Jamie is a co-rep for SAQA in SoCal and has juried a show that will be exhibited at Quilt Festival in Long Beach next month. We were lucky enough to get a preview this morning and it will be a super exhibit. I didn't take pix because I didn't have the artists' permission to post them, but if you are within driving distance of Long Beach, CA, go!
Jamie and I had a conversation about the jurying process and what a fascinating, challenging, and educational experience it is. I won't beat a dead horse since I have talked about this previously, but once you have juried an exhibit you will never again take it personally if your work is not accepted.
After seeing Jamie, we went to Fullerton College to set up the room for the weekend class and I made a couple of deconstructed screens I hope will be dry by morning. Thai food for lunch and then we hit the dollar store, the supermarket, Trader Joe's and Costco. I didn't think I needed to take photos in any of those places - LOL
Indian food for dinner, and Carol's homemade coconut ice cream for dessert. Lucky you, I was finally able to get an Internet connection on my own computer. Tomorrow I get an early start so I'm signing off for now. I promise more pix tomorrow night.
in sunny Southern California. Flight was excellent; Internet access not my favorite -- my hostess does not have wireless, so I am on her computer and doing e-mails on the Internet. Past my bedtime, since I am still on Eastern time. Tomorrow should be a more interesting report. Problem is, I don't think I can upload photos from my camera onto this other person's computer. Hmmm -- you may have to settle for just text.
Another full day, but not nearly as interesting or creative as yesterday.
I paid my mother's bills, went to the bank and post office, then picked up a pound of dark chocolate almond bark and some dark-choc covered pretzels, hit the studio for 10 minutes and delivered the chocolate to my mother. Her 92nd b.d. is on Friday; I will be in California.
At the post office, I mailed out commissioned t-shirt and also a scarf to Cathy Arnett after her post on yesterday's blog, asking if the blue one was for sale.( It was).
Cathy's getting ready to launch her annual Fabrications Retreat in a new location -- Kalamazoo, MI -- and it looks like a star-studded lineup! Kerr Grabowski and Laura Cater-Woods, who always have waiting lists, will be teaching there - along with Lesley Riley, Susan Sorrell, and Lyric Kinard. Classes are starting to fill, so if you want to get into any of the classes before the waiting lists get started, you should probably send in your deposit soon. The end of August will be here in about 5 minutes, or so it seems.
When I went to my studio this afternoon to pick up my Reduran, my studio mate and I laughed about how we make "to do" lists and then lose the paper we wrote on. Does this mean that if my list is in my mind, I am bound to lose that, too?
While I was in the studio today, I looked again at this piece of cloth which I had printed and then cut in half. Now I think it should be back together unless I can do something very clever with the two pieces. Well, it will have to wait till I come home. It looks industrial to me. Can't seem to get away from it. That's what happens when you live in NJ.
Speaking of living in NJ, I don't watch tv but if you watch that program, Real Housewives of NJ, one of those women (the skinny one who is not related) lives up the road from my daughter Hilary. Hil says watching the program is like watching a car wreck: it's terrible but you can't take your eyes off of it. Of course, all this does is reinforce the Sopranos reputation of NJ - but these people are REAL.
Enough digression and nonsense. I meant it about the early night. Tomorrow morning I will finish packing. Fortunately, I'm not leaving for the airport till 10:am.
We had a vicious thunderstorm last night, the likes of which could have awakened the dead (except my husband slept through it). It kept me up till about 4:am. THUNDER! LIGHTNING! SIRENS!! Rain teeming on the skylights...a nightly occurrence, lately.
I never got out of the house again today but I did accomplish a great deal. Just don't ask me to remember what it was! (just kidding).
1. Cleaned up the dyes, screens, brushes, plastic containers, etc. from the downstairs print table.I hardly recognize it from yesterday.
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2. Cooked dinner: wild caught sea scallops in garlic, butter, lemon. Brown rice with raisins and pine nuts; yellow beets marinated in oil, wine & balsamic vinegars, and dill; baby spinach salad.
3. Paid my bills (but not my mother's bills,which I have to do before I leave). 4. Started to pack my suitcase. Got as far as the underwear and 2 small screens I thought I might need but probably won't.
5. Ironed some scarves.
6. Opened the box that came from Dharma after last week's tjap e-mail.
7. Began deciding which copper tjaps (from Java and Bali or wherever)and wood stamps (from Afghanistan) I am going to sell off. Started photographing but haven't sized or priced them yet. I just don't have room.
We are going to downsize and I will be having a downsizing sale over the next x period of time. I'll probably put them on my website with a link from here. Stay tuned.
8. Started stitching one of my tree pieces by machine and decided I will try some hand stitching to see if that works for the circles.
9. Began putting together the piece that has been sitting here and that I've carted back and forth from studio to sewing room. This is how I work and how things look as I am putting them together in sections.
10. Checked Funny Word of the Day blog for my daily chuckle.
11. Finished the last of Ben & Jerry's NY Super Fudge Chunk.
g'night.
My feet are happy that they are up. The rest of me is happy, too, although I cannot move. Another day at home dyeing/printing silk scarves.
Yesterday I printed with thickened dye I had brushed randomly onto the screen with a bristle brush. The results were interesting and I'd like to do this again.Here's a glimpse from before I steamed it. The "after" picture is fuzzy and I am too tired to take another one right now.
The advantage of doing scarves at home is that the washer & dryer are right here. On the other hand, I am up and down the stairs every five minutes, there is little or no room to print down in the lower level (as those of you who have been here, know), and all my good screens are at the studio so I am making more here. Thank goodness for two Thermofaxes!! The sheet that covers my print table is looking pretty good today. Too bad it isn't silk - I could wear it!
You can see bits of some of the screens I used to add another layer to this scarf from yesterday.
The last two of today's scarves are in the dryer. Here is one of them. This is one of my favorite screens and the original was so worn out that I had to make a new one. I just love this and was frantic because I couldn't find the original image. It was someplace random on the computer and happily, I came across it today. This is charmeuse and takes the dye beautifully. It doesn't need another thing.
The other one was a candidate for "can this scarf be saved?" and I was sure the answer was "no!!" --mud on top of mud, all the same value. I tried to save it the first time by screening another layer but it didn't get better. Last ditch - tonight I discharged it. Greatly improved but not done yet.
More tomorrow.
I know you missed me - thanks for all the cards and letters - LOL. For so long my website languished and was neglected (that's what happens when you start a blog) and now my poor blog (and every other one that I read) has been sadly neglected. Oh, the stress of time management!
In between the website stuff, I have been printing scarves. The first batch was butt ugly but I think they've gotten better with a few layers added. I had previously done soy wax on some chiffon scarves and they were gorgeous, but I didn't like the few I did this time, at all. This didn't look any better after I ironed out the wax.
so I discharged through a screen and now, of course, it needs another layer. That will be 3, not counting the dyeing part.
These next two blue scarves were boring beyond belief. Three zillion layers later of wax, dye painting, discharge, writing and screen printing, I find them much more interesting.
I charge way too little for all the work and I think my stimulus prices might just be inching up after this. This blue chiffon was another yawner. Waxed it and - bleh.
So then I printed and discharged through a screen.
And screened again, this time with a dark color and two different screens. We'll see what happens to this tomorrow. It is still not satisfied with itself.
But it will wait because I think I had better give up and turn in. Tomorrow!
It's a work in progress, but go take a look anyway and let me know about any (so far) glitches.
Been at it all night after being on the phone with Homestead all day to find out why my software didn't load. They finally figured out and corrected the problem on my computer: some sort of corrupted file. http://www.studio78.net
Tomorrow I finally have painters coming to give me an estimate for the kitchen, front hall, my front room (after I dismantle it - argh) and who knows what else.
Goodnight. I hope to catch up with all of your blogs tomorrow when I can keep my eyes open.
Yesterday's SAQA Parlour meeting in Mahopac, NY, organized by the charming and talented Debbie Bein, was a big hit! Sixty-three art quilters, some from as far as a 3-1/2 hour drive) came together to meet/greet/eat (of course), show-tell, crit, and we had a slide lecture by fabric collagist extraordinaire, Patricia Mattison. Amazing work. This is a quilt made by a group of people, each of whom got a piece of the picture and had to do her technique with their portion. Very cool!
Some people brought 2-3 pieces for show & tell; I brought one quilt and 1 piece of fabric, both of which you have seen - so I won't bore you. However, Dierdre Abbotts, who was the official photographer, got this picture of me wearing my art jeans. Someone told me they looked better in real life than on the blog - LOL - I'm not so sure. 
Several people asked why I hadn't painted the back of the jeans: I didn't think I needed to draw attention to that area.
Sixty-some people had show and tell and it moved right along. I have to say it was a pleasure to sit through show & tell where people didn't say "and this is the grandmother's flower garden that I am making for my grand-neice" or "here is the sailboat quilt I made for my grandson."
Show & tell for art quilts -- yay!!
Last night I put this piece of cloth up on the wall. It has numerous layers.
While I was contemplating it, I began to think it was really two separate pieces and I should cut it into two pieces, stitch them, and mount them on canvas. They would be about 14"x17".
This afternoon I took a huge number of quilts to the studio where I photographed them in good light, camera on tripod. Some of them hadn't been shot in so long that I had actually used FILM and scanned them in. Not good enough for my revamping of the website! Spent 3 hours tonight uploading and resizing pictures but a few need to be reshot anyway. For now, I am done for the day.
There was a question on the QuiltArt list today about how many pieces it takes to make something a series. I guess, by definition, a series is more than one - so the answer has to be two. Right? But it is less a case of how many than of how you define a series. Style? Subject? If subject, does the style have to be consistent? Size? Color? Mood? Technique? I don't think there is any right answer.. Are they a series? If so, what makes them a series? Or if not, why not?
This is a piece of fabric I have recently printed. Does it belong with the above pieces? Even though it is a smaller size (and not intended to be part of anything when I printed it), is it part of the (unintended) series that evolved over time? 
And what about this piece, which was on my design wall recently? Style totally different: subject the same. Is it part of this series? Depends on your definition. I think not - at least not as it stands - or stood - because I have dismantled it and may or may not revisit it in the future.
And this one, which I made a decade ago and no longer own: is it, in retrospect, part of this series? 
If you were reading this blog two years ago, you may have participated in the terrific discussion about working in a series. If you didn't read the posts/comments, go to working in a series and click on it to see them. Then come back here.
Take a look at your own inventory of work: what do you see as a series? Do some of those pieces fit into several different series, depending on what you bundle them with? This gets us into another topic, which is what constitutes a body of work? But maybe that's for another blog post. Meanwhile, let's talk!
Maybe I should shorten this post's title to blah blah. Or even blah. Too tired to blog tonight - still recovering from a few 18 hour days.
Spent about 1-1/2 hrs late this afternon in the studio, ironing. Came across this one, which is actually from the fabric covering the print table.
That's enough for tonight. Hitting the sack.
Hello again. Sorry I've been MIA but I've been working steadily in the studio since Sunday.
The holiday weekend was a blur and I did not have a chance to come near the computer except to answer a few misdirected e-mails I had never seen till now. I did get a lot of deconstructed screen printing done, however. Here are a few I am pleased with. Click on them to get a better look.
It's been a while since I have done this so steadily and I still have plenty left in some of the screens. I'm looking forward to going back and using them on some of the other fabrics languishing in my studio. Maybe tomorrow afternoon after I get the non-studio chores out of the way. I'm also rearranging my space: it looks less glamorous but is more user-friendly, so we'll see how it plays out. Glad to be back with you.
The week has gotten away from me. I HATE when that happens! I have been moving my fabrics over to the studio little by little, but I don't think there is any ore room. I shall have to cut them up and give them away -- if I can find time to do it. I have been preparing for a special project I'm working on this weekend and I'm just hoping it is not 90 degrees again tomorrow or for the next few days. It has cooled down tonight and I'm keeping fingers x'd it stays this way. I've also been frantically dyeing/printing scarves to meet the request from one of my California venues that I bring a bunch with me. Here are a few I did yesterday. The first one is crepe de chine, deconstructed and then screened with text and music. 
The next two are chiffon. This one is dyed and screenprinted.
This one was dyed, discharged, and screen printed.
And finally, I have not been happy with the scarf below and finally decided I would discharge through a screen and see what happened.
Here is the result. Amazing, right? Thiox paste through a screen and then steamed.
Here's what the whole thing looks like. I hated it before; now I love it.
I'm working Sunday, Monday, Tuesday in the studio. I will probably not have time to blog till my company has left on Wednesday, but we'll see. If you have a long weekend, enjoy it!
