I've been thinking...

Comtemplating, really. Lots of things went through my head this week but due to a family emergency, have been too tired to post. All is well by now, but I have forgotten half of those thoughts. Never mind, the important ones are coming back... First -- those of you who have taken the time to e-mail me that you love the book - thank you! I'm so happy, and I hope you have a great time with it. I've been working furiously to get them all out and the last three will be at the post office on Monday, priority mail. All the domestic orders should be in your hands before the week is out. You can read a very nice review if you click here and scroll down. And Susan Brubaker Knapp had a few things to say on her blog, too! Second -- coincidentally, Martha Sielman's new book, Masters:Art Quilts, arrived in my own mailbox last week. There has been a spate of art quilt anthologies lately, so I was prepared to see "same old, same old." And yes, there are many of the usual suspects. But there are some fresh voices in this collection, and I am happy to see that Martha does not just include U.S. artists. Furthermore, she devotes enough pages to each artist that there is work by almost all of them that I had not seen before. There is so much here, both visually and in the artists' own words, that I not only enjoyed it, I want to go back and read it again. Check it out on Martha's website while you are reading the review of my book. Third -- I have been thinking about why we are so reluctant to cut into fabric, especially fabric we have printed. In my workshop at QSDS, we spent 2-4 days printing and 3 days using some of what we printed. Yes, some fabric should remain as whole cloth. But most of it becomes much more interesting if it is cut and combined, incorporated or reassembled. This was a demo piece in my workshop -- random screenprinted with I-forget-what as a resist. If one of my studients had printed it, I would have said "it's got wonderful movement - but now what? Print more and make it whole cloth? Or leave it alone and cut it up? It could go either way. This one has some nice bits but needs to be cut up. It has so many layers, I can't remember what was what. I have resisted cutting this one because I think it would make a strong element in another piece. But maybe too strong: perhaps it really does need to be cut into three segments. "You can always make more," I tell my students. But then, there is "do as I say, not as I do." It has been so long since I've been in the studio, what with teaching, traveling, and tending to family emergencies. I was planning to go tomorrow, but the Gillman clan from Bethesda is up here and stopping by on their way home. So, Monday. In the meantime, I continue to contemplate my crowded wall in the studio-cum-sewing room at home. And tonight, I will enjoy the luxury of silence, fabric that needs to be pressed, and a table covered with brand new silver ironing board fabric.