week 40--square

Such a basic shape. Simple. Plain. Uncomplicated. (Circles, too. That word will probably come out of the little red bag next; I assume it's in there since triangle was an early draw.) There were varied ideas for this one: 'Hollywood Squares', 'three squares a day', 'square root', and an op-art style layering of squares.  But I settled on squares of different sizes cut from handmade paper, rubber-stamped vellum, and dotted fabric (to contrast all those straight edges), and embellished them with purple, silver, and ivory square beads.  Pleasing placement on a rectangle was another minor challenge; centered won.

Cotton batiks and commercial prints, vellum, handmade paper, glass and metal beads, machine stitching.

week 39--white

White isn't just white.  It comes in lots of colors. Yeah, sounds weird, but it's true.  Just go to the paint store.  I pulled every chip that had the word 'white' in the name.  From some of them I cut these snowflakes, representative of the gazillions of flakes that Mother Nature has dumped on us this year. (What is this--Minnesota?!?) Shown are Ash White, Cottage White, Nano White, Muslin White, Antique White, White Lagoon, White on White, Weathered White, Stone White, Shamrock White, and Ballet White.   Other chips I pulled but didn't use include Granny Smith White, Whisper White, Mirage White, White Fur, Steam White, Swan White, Dove White, Pure White, and--believe it or don't--White.

Stay warm.

Cotton, paper paint chips, cotton thread, glass beads.

week 38--sound

Back again.  Another challenging one (aren't they all supposed to be?), though not quite as much as the last one!  Indeed a skosh more tangible.  I'd thought of doing something based on this cool video:  http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2013/06/the-visual-patterns-of-audio-frequencies-seen-through-vibrating-sand/ but happened upon an old package of rick-rack at a garage sale and decided it could represent sound waves.  Sorta.  Sound goes out, sound goes in.  But if a tree falls in a forest...

Cotton, cotton rick-rack, fusible web, machine-quilting.

week 37--thin

Wow, really?!?  October 2011?!? True, I was really stumped on this one, but over a year-and-a-half? Obviously I lost commitment to this project while life continued on, though the word always lurked in the back of my mind.  And I got caught between concept and technique--how does one show thin? Ultimately, I decided that thin is relative.  A hair is thinner than a wire, a wire is thinner than a twig, a twig is thinner than a supermodel (though not by much), a supermodel is thinner than I, ad infinitum...
So I simply chose fabrics with stripes of different widths; each stripe has its own dimension; it's only by comparison that one becomes thinner--or not.
(So curious what word I'll pull out next from the little red bag, once I dig through the cobwebs!)

Cotton, rayon, fusible web, decorative yarn, cotton thread.

week 36--sun

Today begins week 41 of 2011, so this is only a few weeks late (oh, plus one year) ... I will spare you the lame excuses for the delay. They're the same as always anyway.

The inspiration to finally take this one on came last week during a 'moment of silence'; I envisioned my 'core' and it burst out (just figuratively!) like the sun, from deep yellow/orange at the center, layered colors fading to the edges. Last April, at the big quilt show in Cinci, I'd purchased some silk dyes but hadn't used them yet. This project called for them, finally. I went for it, without reading the directions first (rebel!) so the squiggles/rays didn't stay white and the colors didn't quite stay within their boundaries, but hey, this is the sun. Just try telling it to not flare out.
Not the clearest pic--my cell phone camera usually takes great ones, but evidently not this time.

Silk, silk resist, Colorhue dyes, decorative yarn, cotton thread, glass beads.

week 35--ring

Hey--remember me?!? I'm still here! It only took six months to complete the latest word! Actually, six months to figure out what to do, a few hours to complete it. Must...loosen...up.

So, 'ring'. Lots of phrases with that word came to mind but what to do with them was the tough part; rather than pick one, I combined them. On key rings I put little jump rings, on those I attached little pieces of vellum on which I'd written the phrases: ...of fire, Olympic..., ...toss, bathtub..., key..., ear..., ...a bell, wedding..., brass..., ...tone, with this..., ...around the rosie, circus..., ...s of Saturn. Did I miss any?

I am quite curious about the next word I'll pull out of the bag--probably some spiders in there, too.

Cotton fabrics, colored metal key rings, base metal jump rings, vellum, pigma pen, thread.

week 34--moon

Back so soon? Yup, I am. I liked this word from the moment I pulled it. Ideas didn't flow right off the bat, but I just went for it after a couple of days and here it is. As I worked on it, I wasn't sure the result would reflect the effort, but I am happy with the outcome after all.

I mixed three colors of Jacquard Lumiere paint (metallics in pewter, pearl white, and turquoise) in soapy water on waxed paper, dipped an old cd in it and 'stamped' it on a used dryer sheet, hoping that soap bubbles would create the illusion of craters. The concept was there, but the process didn't quite get it, so with a foam brush I just painted the whole thing, using more pewter to the shadow side and more pearl white to the bright side. Machine-stitching with two shades of grey thread took care of the craters.

Painted used dryer sheet, Jacquard paint, fusible web, cotton backing fabric, machine-stitching, hand-beading.

week 33--soft

Hey! Remember me?!? Yeah, I'm WAAAAY behind this time. Life and holidays and all. It happens. I thought I'd try to get in at least one more piece before the year end. I'd had the idea for this one a long time ago, but never took the time to do it. Pretty lame execution, but I just wanted to get it done. "This is 'soft'?" you ask...well, I didn't want to do a baby's bottom ;-} and certain soft fabrics wouldn't necessarily show up as such in a photo (though yes, this project was intended more for trying techniques than for online display). I'd thought of the appearance of softness as mountains recede into the distance, and that's what I tried here.

I will continue this project in the new year, though I have ideas for others...

Rayon velvet base, blue/gold weave taffeta 'sky', layered-then-cut-away tulle.

week 32--fruit

I'm baaack. This week's word (this month's, perhaps? ha) gave me the usual challenges; not only the I-can't-figure-out-what-to-do-with-this-word challenge, but also the issue that I took my sewing machine to a machine dealer/repair shop/quilt shop yesterday for a tune-up and won't have it back for a week. (At the shop, I proceeded to buy a bunch of fabric for a quilt--now I can't sew it together!) So I had to make this piece without a sewing machine. A friend wants to borrow my felting machine so I decided to use it quick before I pass it on.

Wool, hand-dyed (by someone else) cotton batting, glass beads, pigma pens, pencil, on cotton osnaburg, wool yarn edging.

week 31--sharp

Hey--remember me? Yeah, I'm still out here. This project is delayed for the same old reasons; I'm okay with it so you should be, too.

For this week (okay, it's not really for THIS week, but you know what I mean), I serve up the word 'sharp'. I had a very hard time figuring out what to do with it, but once it came to mind (yesterday), it was easy. This art/craft is full of sharp implements; laid out just right they look vaguely like a table setting.

Seam ripper, rotary blade, needle, pin, scissors, all held down with Fireline thread; machine-stitching over cotton.

Bon appetit!

week 30--bird

I liked this one when I pulled out of the bag, but of course wasn't sure what to do with it. Birds are popular subjects in the quilt art/mixed media magazines but I didn't want to copy someone else's design. This bird design may look familiar to some, as it is from my holiday card many years running. I was doodling, probably twenty years ago in this very room, when I noticed two swooshes I'd drawn looked rather like a bird, a dove. One more swoosh for the olive branch and it was complete. Except for a few scattered years when life got too busy and it was easier to buy a box of cards, this has been what I've sent out. For this project, I decided to add a 'nest' on two edges, so it wouldn't be so plain.
Cotton batik, hand-embroidery, fusible-web.

Peace.

week 29--map

Darn, I thought this was week 30. I even wrote it on the back of this piece, then had to find out if good white erasers work on metallic colored pencils on fabric. They do.
So anyhoo, for my map-geek friends out there, here is my sewing room, a'la a map of the earth. Sort of. The floor is blue like water, and the 'land masses' are green and brown: green 'mainlands' (sewing, cutting, and computer stations) and brown for storage and such. (The big 'land' in the center has storage underneath, hence the notations of books and fabric, etc.) Follow the 'trade-winds' from the door to each main area; my chair does the same thing, rolling across the floor to each station. I just realized I forgot a map scale; the room is about 11'-and-change by about 12'. I also forgot to show the windows--this is not a basement cave. Imagine one each centered behind landmasses #s 1 & 2.
This is the latest arrangement of my room, with its new (smaller) main table and new desk, and it's working quite well so far. (Hot tip for anyone out there looking for a great worktable--find a neighbor who's redoing her kitchen and snag a counter--this one is a smooth, bright white formica peninsula that is held up perfectly by four little bookcases side-to-side and back-to-back, with knee space along the side for working at my sewing machine, and along the front edge for doing other work. I love it.)
Fusible web fabric on printed cardstock; rubber stamps, pigma pens, machine-stitching.

week 28--fancy

Yowza. Almost seven weeks behind. It was a busy summer, part (most) of which was spent cleaning out my mother's house. I really didn't know what to do with this word, but having found so many monogrammed linen napkins there I pondered cutting and embellishing one, "F is for fancy". But instead I found in my stash a black faux silk and some fancy, antique buttons--rhinestones, marcasite, mother-of-pearl, millefiore, and such. I'd always wanted to try the ruffler attachment that came with my Singer Featherweight so used that to ruffle the black ribbon for the edges. The rhinestone trim was leftover (read: untouched) from another unfinished (read: unstarted) project.
I'm so looking forward to pulling a new word--and having a little more time to work on it!

week 27--tree

So I'd thought of doing a family tree; I have been cleaning out my mom's house and finding boxes upon boxes of photographs. (Who are these people?!?) Then I considered doing the classic 'Tree of Life', a design I've always liked. But I'd found a piece of organdy (or is it organza? I could never remember the difference) and wanted to use its sheerness in some way. After attempting a few different ideas (felting, cutouts), I decided to simply draw a tree on it then layer it over another fabric to subtly show through. I had some Czech glass leaf-shaped beads so sewed them on. They're not quite to scale with the presumed size of the tree, but that's okay. The tree reminds me of the London Planes in the neighborhood, what we've called "bumpy trees" since Joe was a little guy. (They're a hybrid of Sycamore and something else, developed for London because the heavy pollutants in the air--London fog was actually London smog--wouldn't affect the trees as much with their contantly peeling bark. So they became popular as a city landscaping tree. There's your science/history lesson for the day.)

Pigma pen on organdy (I just looked it up--'dy is cotton or nylon, 'za is silk, poly, or rayon; what an education today!) over cotton batik. Decorative cording machine-stitched around edges, hand-beaded.

week 26--music

Wow, am I far behind with this project. Ah, well, I allowed for it to happen.
I figured I'd use the music-print fabric from my stash for this one, but didn't know what else to do. While cleaning out my mom's house I came across some old holiday tree decorations. Our tree always had lots of musical instrument ornaments, and I remember this verrry fragile, glass trumpet; it actually worked way back when, though it probably sounded a bit more like a kazoo. The mouthpiece is gone now; I glued a bead-cap on the end to replicate it (and cover the really sharp edge).

Cotton fabrics, decorative yarn, glass ornament stitched down with clear thread.

week 25--red

My original idea for this week's project didn't pan out so I'll save it for another word. (Intrigued? Not much? Okay.) So idea #2 was to attempt a lesson from my old art major days in college, that of 'layering' colors, or selecting colors so they appear layered, transparent. With this I tried to 'layer' just reds; I think it came out okay. Relatively simple, graphic.

Must get moving onto the next word...

Cotton fabrics, cotton thread.

week 24--vegetable

I decided with this one to get back to technique (as in 'trying new') and not worry so much about concept. I've wanted to try stamping and painting, so decided to use veggies to stamp with. To shake things up, I used different colors than expected: blue for the green pepper rings, orangey-red for the shallots, and yellow for the garlic, all over a green print made by rolling corn. Each image is highlighted (okay, that may be a stretch) with machine-quilting in matching thread. I chose the background fabric because it looked burlap-ey, market-basket-ey. Okey-dokey.

Jacquard Lumiere paints on cotton, machine-quilting with cotton thread.

week 23--park

Our summer vacation last week took us to Wyoming and Montana, examples of some of Mother Nature's finest work. All the mountains out there--probably the grandest, most imposing are in Grand Teton National Park--are make-me-cry beautiful, especially when driving away from them to return home.
When I originally selected words for this project, I'd been running most days on the trails at the nearest metropark, no doubt what brought this word to mind. Since then, I run on roads so I didn't imagine the metropark when I pulled this word; rather, the first thing I pictured was a black rectangle with yellow lines--a parking lot. I'd thought of including a little bit of one in this but frankly forgot as the design evolved. There are certainly a lot of parking lots out there, some not big enough--we were caught in a 'traffic jam' in one as vehicles from motorcycles to enormous busses jockeyed for openings that weren't there--but it's easy to see why: everyone should visit these mountains.
(Note that this is simply a representation--not a scale model drawing of any particular range!)
Wool roving felted onto a wool base; beads.

week 22--number

Yep, another lame-o. (This piece is 'number'?!?) I had thought of 'inventorying' my sewing room, showing it in numbers: 14 scissors, 6 rotary cutters, 6 sewing machines, untold threads and needles and fabrics and books and beads and embellishments and... Well, a song that is stuck in my head so often is Lowell George's "20 Million Things To Do"*, since that's what my mental list usually feels like. So here are little visuals of my to-do list: my family, including its four-legged & finned additions; my house and its upkeep (gardens, general maintenance, shopping--you know, the never ending need for milk and fruit and toothpaste and toilet paper and...); my sewing (this project, other sewing, ironing--sorry for the lousy representation of an iron; some in this house might say that since I don't use it very often then of course I couldn't draw one well, even a stick-figure version!); and things for myself (computer time [read: keeping up with friends], running, and reading). Pigma pen on cotton. That's it.
Still a couple of weeks behind...

*Not sure the whole thing will play. Suzy Bogguss recorded it, too.

week 21--liquid

Hmmm. Already did water and rain; so many possibilities for this word. (Should I have done gushing oil? Grrr.) I'd been thinking of doing something with text, so found some 'drippy' fonts and chose this one, painted it with Jacquard Lumiere paint, carefully and slowly with a really thin brush, and added thread and beads (same one's from last week's project). Not a stellar performance, but you get the idea.

Just two more words to go to catch up--today I'm excited about what the next word will be...