Sweater #2

Success, I have actually knit a sweater that fits and looks good. Oh, I forgot to say this is the Penelope blouse from Oat Couture.

More tin quiltlets

These are 4"x 5" like the others I posted last week. They are painted and have some outline quilting on the image. The embossed metal is stitched in place by sewing machine with a top stitch needle and the corners are stitched down with a bead.

Handmade book

I went to Papersource in Lincoln Park last week and bought precut book board and bound paper in a little packaged set, a roll of binding tape, bookbinding paste, several sheets of gorgeous paper and a new bone folder, my old one is probably still packed away in some box.
It sort of felt like cheating putting this book together it went so easily. I learned some basics of bookbinding when i was in art school a million years ago and it is much more labor intensive to make a book from scratch than it is buying everything precut and bound. They have so many beautiful papers and bookmaking supplies at Papersource, one could get very carried away. I want to go back and buy more. You may not be able to see this, but this books pages are printed with a grid.

Lutradur

I bought some lutradur to play with. This is a polyester fiber that is kind of like interfacing but not. It is fibrous like fiberglass looks, but it is pliable and you can do almost anything with it. It takes paint beautifully. you can cut it up, collage on it and sew on it by machine of hand. I am playing with it with the intention of creating an art book, whenever I think the pages are finished.

This page has magazine clippings, cut out lutradur, inkjet print outs and fabric run through a toner printer glued on to it with acrylic gel medium. it has machine stitching and some color added with tsukineko inks.

This is the back side. It has a mexican prayer card and a lotteria image glued onto it. I stiched a laminated virgen of guadelupe to some lutradur and stiched that on as well.

On this page I added some hand stitching and sewed in some window screen. The waves are watercolor pencil.

This is the back side with sharpie marker on the left and seaweed painted with shiva oilsticks. the fish have a little color added with Tsukineko inks.

This page has the addition of some beads glued on the crown and stitched on the squares.

The painted lutradur squares are glued on with gel medium and secured with hand stitching.
This is what I have to deal with today. yuck!

bye Deb

i dropped my sister off at the airport this morning :( She said I had to be sure and write that she was good while visiting. No snarkiness or public embarrassment. She has mellowed with age.

Knit top

I just finished knitting and blocking this top. It is rayon and acrylic yarn so it is nice and drapey, Unfortunately my gauge was off and it is way to big and fits me like a sack. Fortunately for my sister it fits her perfectly. So Deb just had Christmas in May. When I bought this yarn from Elann three years ago I wisely also bought the dark green. Now I will attempt to make the sweater again in a smaller size with smaller needles.

Tin Quiltlets

I am having a lot of fun making these little painted quiltlets. Each of them are 4" x 5" with a painted top and an embossed metal piece machine stiched into place with beads to hold down the corners. I have three more that I will post after I sew the beads and hanging ribbons on.

Nick Cave Soundsuits

On mothers day my sister, mother, step dad, my son and I went to see an exhibit at the Chicago Cultural Center of Nick Caves Soundsuits. These are absolutely amazing. They are a rich collage of all kinds of handwork; knitting, crochet, sequins, embroidery, feathers, sticks, hair you name it, sewn together to make these shaman like head to toe coverings. These suits are designed to be danced in and they create sound with movement. They are so gorgeous, a must see if you are in Chicago.

Also at the Cultural Center is an exhibit called Humans Being: Disability in Contemporary Art that is excellent. The CCC website says "The show aims to be a complex and serious conversation about how disability is both understood and misunderstood by the culture at large. It will include paintings, sculpture, photography, installation and samples of graphic novels by more than 20 artists—both disabled and non-disabled—and will explore issues of illness, impairment, discrimination, alienation, sexuality, community, identity and the political aspects of disability." It does all that they claim, a wonderful exhibit.

Goddess Icon

I have always loved religious iconographic art. For several years I have been thinking about creating my own little version of an icon. I like the idea of making an image of a Goddess in a tradional Christian iconographic style. I think Mary is the embodiment of the Great Mother. So this is an image of a Goddess in a style used to depict Mary. This blending of ideas reflects my spiritual thinking, I have referred to myself as a Christopagan, although I recently heard a term that fits even better- Episcopagan. I made this peice to be my self portrait to go with my Water challenge quilt for PAQA. It is 4" x 5" painted and machine quilted with a piece of metal that I cut and embossed with a knitting needle. This is sewn on with seed beads to hold it in place.

Deb of Artella

This is my sister who I am picking up at the airport today. She is going to stay with me for two weeks. Lets hope she behaves and doesn't embarrass me too much. Being the big sister she seems to take particular delight in doing that.

Anime Convention

Just one month ago I was at this same hotel and convention center for the IQF Chicago quilt show. What a difference this show was. The cosplay (dressing up as anime/manga or video game characters) made for some great people watching. I recognized only a few characters, my kids recognized all of them.

Nina and her girlfriend Ruby walked around the convention carrying their japanese ball jointed dolls and ran into many other collectors also carrying their dolls. One girl even had a life size doll that was pushed around on a dolly (is that why it is called a dolly?).

Abby did wonderfully in her bag, with a few short walks outside to smell the flowers and a nap in my lap during some downtime. She kept her head out above the rim of the bag at all times sniffing and people watching. She got lots of attention and seemed to enjoy the whole thing.

PAQA Water Challenge

Frieda has organized a water challenge for PAQA that is due next wednesday. I feel like I am getting the energy and drive to work on some art again. Four weeks on Thyroid hormones sure makes a differnce even my head feels clearer. Last week I bought this gorgeous piece of silk that shines blue and green when I was in the garment district in downtown LA and thought it would make a good ocean. It looks very green but where the quilting is it shines blue. I painted it tuesday night and quilted it wednesday. Next I have to do a 4 x 5 inch quilted self protrait. hmmmm....

Today I am off to an anime convention with my kids. Nina is going to work for an hour as an asistant in a manga drawing class and Ty is going to give origami demonstrations in the kids area. The nice thing about homeschooling is I can bring them today (friday) when the crowds will be smaller. Today we will call this social studies. Abby will be joining us incognito in her modified Trader Joes canvas doggy bag. We will be gone too long to leave her home alone.

Americans all but on paper

Yesterday there were Immigrant demonstrations in our Chicago neighborhood. My neighbor told me they estimated 400,000 people marched. As they marched down Randolph street they chanted "U.S.A., U.S.A...." then when they got to Harpo studios next door they switched to "Oprah, Oprah, Oprah..."