Picture

I promised a picture.  This is a close-up of my latest in the Milky Way series.  Since it's for a show, I can't post the full view.

The spirit is willing, but----

Ruptured a tendon on my right hand a couple of weeks ago.  Have been wearing a splint on the finger ever since--the smallest cutest little thing-- that gives me a fair bit of function.  I have been seen by "Plastics" who referred me to an Occupational Therapist, who wanted to make a much more intrusive splint, but I convinced her to leave me with the one I like.  I have a bad feeling that when I go back to the Plastic surgeon, he will insist on the more intrusive splint, as with this one, I can use the hand almost as though there was no problem.

In anticipation of this, I have been working my fingers to the bone trying to get all of the intensive hand work done on my latest project.  Well, the hand work was finished late this afternoon and now it just needs to be FMQ'd and faced ( rather than bound).

My camera has also been repaired, and now I may be able to add a couple of pictures, when ever I can.

Inspiration and encouragement

Yesterday was the monthly meeting of my fibre art support group--Ravenesque.  One of our members had taped three episodes of the documentary "Why quilts Matter", and we watched those. We also discussed our individual reactions to the shwows, and one of our members shared wonderful news in that she has obtained a "One Woman Show", in a local gallery.
Reviewing the evening later, brought to mind the absoute need for this sort of support in the lifestyle we have chosen as artists.  How would we ever carry on without the encouragement, inspiration and general fellowship of like-minded people?

Teaching

I had another beading class yesterday, this one with 11 students, more than I've taught before--and they limited it to 3 hours.  So I had to re-organize the class.  I cut it down a bit by giving them instructions for the Peyote Stitch, but not teaching it.  I never use the stitch with fabric, and don't like it.  It also takes 30to 45 minutes of class time to teach.  So I broke the class into two sections and I demonstrated to one half while the other half worked on their samples.  It worked quite well, but meant that I was actively teaching for the entire three hours.  Since we had to drive 4 hours to get there and then 3 1/2 hours to get home,it made for a very long day.
But very satisfying.

what am I up to?

I firmly believe that every skill used in fibre art must be maintained throught practise.  The major piece I'm working on needed a few days for oil paint stick work to dry, so I took some scraps and made up a piece to practise free motion quilting, especially feathers.

Now, feathers are an element that is designed to fill space, no matter what size or shape that space might be.  The feathers need to be able to twist and turn to fill the space.  This is how I approached the whole piece--twisting and turning the feather to fill whatever space it was in.  Then I filled the negative space with very  close (1/16 to 1/8") echo quilting.  When I finished and looked at the piece, as a whole, instead of concentrating on the small area where I was working, I realized I had made a big mistake.  The feathers showed beautifully in the areas where there was enough negative space to contrast with their fullness.  In the areas where there was little negative space and the feathers very close together, they were at a significant disadvantage. 

I had totally forgotten to consider the need for adequate negative space to accent an image.  Lesson learned.

Feeding the soul

Yesterday my small fibre art support group, Ravenesque, met at the home of a new member.  She works with fibre, but is better described as a multi-media artist.  Yes--someone who works with music and video tape, as well as introducing some aspects of performance art.  She showed us one of her recent video's, which has been juried into a national film festival.  This was a very different meeting of the group, as seeing her work and the discussions we had around it were far deeper than our normal conversation.  She explores the traditional roles of women in society, and the effect that the restrictions of those roles might have on the lives women lead.  But there is also a thread of concern about how abandoning those roles might negatively affect society and life in gnereal.  Overall, a very thought provoking day.

New work

I have started my next exhibition piece.  The original concept was quite simple, and more traditional than others I've recently done.  A simple waterfall, with pieced rocks on either side.  The rocks were to be hand appliqued in place, the water FMQ'd, and the edge faced.  Piecing the rocks went well, they were cut out, hand basted, and the first side hand appliqued. But then I realized that the water would have to be added and quilted, before the rocks on the second side were added.  Since I had planned a little turbulance at the base of the falls, there would have to be rocks there as well.  Had to make more rocks, and the water had to be pieced to attach the rocks. If there was turbulance, then there would be spray on the rocks.  Okay, need to add a little paint, but the spray could also be stitched using bobbin stitching technique. Well, tried that on the Janome, and it just wouldn't work.  So had to haul out the old Pfaff--does bobbin work beautifully. But I had been told that the Janome would do bobbin work, and on the internet, ladies have spoken of using a special bobbin case to do bobbin work on the Janome. So off to the Janome store to ask about the special bobbin case.No-one there knew anything about it. We did find a bobbin case for machine quilting and "looks like hand done" machine quilting, but I wasn't going to buy it unless I knew it would work.

 Driving home I got to thinking.  The " looks like hand done" technique requires that the lower tension would be totally over-ridden by the upper tension, so that the bobbin thread is pulled to the top.  It's accomplished by adjusting the upper tension to maximum, but if the upper tension were left at normal and the lower tension reduced to minimum, would not that accomplish the same thing? And for bobbin work, the lower tension must be signifiacntly reduced, or eliminated altogether.  So this bobbin case may actually be what I'm looking for, but I still think I want to try it out to be sure.