Paying the piper

When you've been working with fibre for as long as I have, the day comes when you are forced to upgrade or replace equipment and tools. Over the past 55 years I have had close to a dozen good, new sewing machines.  I wore out the internal cams in two good quality Kenmore machines, teaching myself to FMQ--and do it well.  At this point I expect that my current machine, less than 10 years old, will be my last.  It is a Janome Horizon 7700, and it has a lot of miles on it.  I love it, but recognize its limitations, and have accepted and accommodated to them.  One such is its weight.  It's a heavy thing, and I'm not getting any younger, nor is my husband.  Today we bought one of those huge rolling carts to move it around in, for when I'm teaching or taking a workshop.  K-a-a-a-ching!

Got me thinking about the sort of expenses I need to start anticipate. I have a short shopping/wish list of things that will have to be replaced over the next year.  First on the list is my cutting board.  Even the best self-healing boards wear out at some point, and mine is there.  Earlier this year my ironing board was replaced.  The old one was over 50 years old, and was a darn good board.  It was 18" wide, and I could no longer get covers for it. The foot on one leg was worn right through, making positioning the board on the floor a tricky issue.  Originally it had a cord that could be plugged into the wall, and then an outlet on the end of the board in which to actually plug in the iron.  Long gone.  It had followed me to six different houses over the years.  The frame is still tucked into a cord in the garage, as I can't make myself face the reality of putting it in the garbage.  Funny how attached I was to that, but sewing machines and irons go through my life without a ripple ( except in my cheque book, of course)

Now I've reached the point in life that I have to take into consideration how many years I'll be around to make use of any new equipment, when deciding to replace items.  Don't want to go there either.

Changed my mind

The blue piece in my previous post has bothered me since it was done.  Finally I "bit the bullet", and changed it.  There was probably nothing wrong with it, but, in my mind, it wasn't right.  I took it apart.  Then I took out all of the tiny snowflakes filtering down, turned it upside down, and put them back in, but falling from the opposite end. As you can imagine, this was a bit of work, as it had been beaded and bound already.  The binding, backing, and  both the tiny beads, and their glitter-y white trails removed, stitch by stitch.  Re-stitching the glitter-y white trails, was a challenge, as all of the other beads, within the larger snowflakes were still there, and had to be avoided with the presser-foot, as many of the trails went right over the larger snowflakes, but it also gave me the change to put some of those trails behind the large snowflakes.  

Sounds a little ridiculous in writing, but I feel much more satisfied with the piece, and it's no longer keeping me awake at night.

I plan to link this with The Needle and Thread Network

A few busy days

Made a small batch of paper.  It turned out that the hardest thing to gather was enough old newspaper to soak up the excess water.  Most of the flyers we've been getting were to oddly shaped to be useful.  My results weren't great, but I did get 6 pieces that may have some potential for use in Mixed Media.  I learned a lot.  My metallic mesh was too light, and this made it difficult to control.  I have now layered two pieces together, and sealed the edges with Duct tape.  My hands are still covered with small cuts from trying to control the mesh.  

There wasn't nearly enough pulp emulsion.  This meant that it was very difficult to get enough pulp onto the mesh, made more difficult by the mesh bending with any weight, and causing the pulp to move, and gather in lumps.  Obviously, pulling the mesh through the pulp is a learned skill!  One that needs practice!

But what I have is well coloured, and the bits of green tea I added to the emulsion, worked very well.  The lacey bits around the edges intrigue me, and I know I'm going to try to make them a feature of any Mixed Media pieces I do.

The blue snowflake piece is also finished.  I really struggled with a title and settled on "Gentle Snowfall".  This picture doesn't show detail well.

Here are a couple of close-ups.

But now, I'm all caught up with the studio work.  Not sure what to do with myself over the next little while, until I come up with a new challenge.

Preparing for a new venture

Recently, I watched a video on Design Matters tv on Paper making and waxing. ( www.designmatterstv.com/introduction-to-papermaking/  and www.designmatterstv.com/waxing-papers/ ) This intrigues me, and I've decided to give it a try.  Before that can happen, I needed to acquire all the necessary supplies.

Having decided that the wire mesh was probably the most difficult of the supplies needed for the paper making, today's outing was a search for that.  The lady in the video said that what she used had been found in a auto repair supply store, so that's how we started.  Visited four of those without any luck, but at the last one the fellow recommended Artists' Emporium, or Micheal's.  That didn't compute for either me or my husband, but since we were just a block from Artists' Emporium, we dropped in and asked.  Yep, they had something.  Checked it out--1/16" metallic mesh- 3 big sheets for under $20.  Evidently it is used on armatures for creating three dimensional masks and sculptures.  Who knew?!  Then it was a search for a second hand electric frying pan, and involved visiting a couple of large thrift stores.  Neither Value Village nor Mennonite Central Committee had any, nor did they have anything the least bit similar, which made me wonder if they don't sell such things for some reason.

Discussing possible alternatives, we remembered that we had an old electric grill, that hadn't been used in years.  Sure enough we found it ( Actually he knew where it was, it just involved a lot of digging).  Given the way the lady used the bee's wax, I think it should work well. But, he couldn't find any J-Cloths, on a trip to Giant Tiger.  I never for a minute thought that they would be the problem.

Here's everything we have so far.

As you can see, I've even started tearing up paper.  The funny shapes in the bottom left hand corner, are molded pieces of bee's wax, that I've had for years. I used chocolate molds to create them, as  I used to include a small piece in any kits I put together for classes that involved had stitching. As it was suggested that we be sure to include coloured paper, and not all white, DH brought in some torn off each of the three big rolls hidden in the garage.

Not sure when I might actually get to work, but, while we wait for Christmas, it keeps us busy and off the streets.

I'm so-o-o ashamed.

The last week or so has been a rush of craft sales, and preparation for craft sales, and then meetings about craft sales.  One such sale has been a regular event for the past few years, and every year I swear that I'll make a few Crazy Patch stockings to take, and every year I forget until it's too late.  This year was no exception.

So I vowed to make them right after the New Year.  However, with all of my meager Christmas preparations done, and a bit of time until the day, I started them this week.  The first one is sewn together, and decorated with programmed stitches in gold.  When I made my plans, I had forgotten that I had given all, yes, all, of my lace scraps to the local thrift store as part  of my "great purge".  But giving it a bit of consideration, I realized that I would be unlikely to get a price that would justify buying more, nor would it likely justify the extra labour that would be needed.

So here is the first one, just before stitching together.  I will be adding a red lining, and finishing with the top edge bound.  I assure you that they are the same size, and the difference probably due to foreshortening in the photo.

I plan to link this with The Needle and Thread Network

Still researching

I'm continuing to read articles etc about the use of sketch books as an aid in the design process.  I've found several "tricks" to help in the process, and I'm considering trying a couple of them. As a personal incentive toward this I have some new sketch books.  Symbolic of turning a new leaf?  Not that I do anything on a small scale, I have 5 of them.  Three are smaller books--handy to carry around with me when I'm out of the house.  Two have been around for awhile, but had been forgotten in a drawer.  These two are meant for mixed media, and have a heavier than usual page weight, to better support wet media.  The three smaller ones are new for me, and are beautiful.  They, too, have a heavier than usual page weight, were manufactured in France, and even have an attached ribbon book mark.  Very special books indeed.  Now, to get past making a mark on that first page.  someone once suggested forgetting about that first page and making the first marks on the second page.

I anticipate having a lot of time over the next few weeks to make marks in all of them.

The navel gazing saga continues

My navel must be the most watched navel in the world.  Today I spent several hours as a docent in the gallery in Selkirk.  there was a a sort of festival going on, and there were far more docents than usual, but, for some reason, the crowds didn't turn up.  This gave us the opportunity to talk, and as artists always seem to do, we exchanged info on our lack of confidence in our art.  We discussed our process, and also our response to the effect our aging has had on each of us, relative to our artistic process.  All of us appear to be going through the same worry about that process.  None of us expressed absolute confidence in our process.   This means a lot to me--just knowing that this lack of confidence is normal. 

So, where do I go from here?  There is now a queue of pieces waiting for finishing--at least four in active process and one in the planning stages.  Do I work hard on getting those done, or do I continue to explore  alternative methods of working, such as using my sketch books as an aid to the design process, as well as using them as a detailed project record?  Probably a combination of both, but I will have to be very aware of my tendency to bury myself in the work, and ignore the process.