Well, Cooooool!

Well, alright! Picked up some inkjet transparency paper. Yeouch! It was expensive. I already have my Golden gel medium so I finally get to tinker with image transfers. First I'll finish "Starbirth: Carina Nebula" though...

Los Hilos de La Vida

"The Great Risk" by Angeles Mercado (photo: Chronicle/Katy Raddatz)

Los Hilos de La Vida ("Threads of Life") is a group of Latina quilters based in Mendocino Cty., CA (San Francisco area). With few resources and the help of instructors Susan Kerr and Molly Johnson-Martinez, these women are creating beautiful art quilts, many telling stories based upon their heritage and experiences. They also have a blog.

Please donate to them if you can: Sewing machines in working condition, thread, batting, decorative materials, good quality fabric, and other sewing supplies can be donated to the class. Contact Deanna Smith Apfel at hilosdelavida@yahoo.com. Cash donations also welcome. Contact Molly Johnson-Martinez at the Anderson Valley Adult School, (707) 895-3277.

RE-started: Carina Nebula

After my iron fiasco (and many expletives), I immediately started a new version. I had to re-pastel and re-paint "Starbirth: Carina Nebula", so this is a photo of version 2. You can see the original NASA/ESA Hubble Telescope photo HERE.

Next up is the quilting. Fun fun fun!

AAAIGGGH!!!

After all that time I spent drawing and painting that and...

...I SCORCHED it. I mean big ol' iron print right at the top. I've never scorched anything with an iron in my life, but it happened today. On my freshly painted fabric. Lesson learned? Don't forget to use a pressing cloth as a barrier. Whoops. What was I thinking? Ohhhh...that's right...I wasn't!

Craptastic. It is ruined and I'm going to have to start again. AAAIGGGH.

Started: Carina Nebula

My sister will be so thrilled. There's a nebula out there with her name on it...

Was slightly productive today. Still working on the Starbirth series so I sat down, grabbed my wax pastels (broke one in half darn it! How Crayola flashback is that?), and got to work on "Starbirth: Carina Nebula". This one actually focuses on the Keyhole region of that nebula, 8000 light years away.

UFOs--We Ain't Talking Saucers Here

We all have 'em. Lurking in our workspaces, stuffed into bags or shelves or closets, haunting us in our minds: "Finish meeeeeeeee..." I know I have more than my share of them. Unfinished Objects, LOL.

The Washington Post actually had an article about UFOs today. I wish they had talked more about quilt shops and stuff, but hey! An article mentioning quilting!

Secret Santa & Quilted Handbag

My 3 siblings, 3 cousins and I put our names in a bag and draw them so that we only have that one person to worry about for presents for Christmas. I decided to make her a handbag this year. It's a denim clutch quilted with blue and gold metallic threads. I've never made a handbag before. I hope she likes it!

Could Be Worse

My goddaughters Rudi & Judi and a heckuva deep-dish pizza in Chicago...

Thanks for the well-wishes everyone! This has been a really rough two weeks for me, lol. Someone got ahold of my card number and wiped out a bank account and my 9-year old car got totaled when my husband connected with a guardrail (he's fine! Whew!). Top it all off with being laid up for 2 days and I think it's safe to say I've been a "little" stressed.

Everything has worked out though. The bank reimbursed all of my money, my insurance will allow me to be able to get another car and I'm feeling a lot better! My husband wasn't injured and things so could've gone another way. There are so many other things to be happy about: I won my guild's raffle quilt, I'm going to be published and my quilt for the Jazz exhibit is being considered as the image for the exhibit. Yay!

With everything going on in this world right now, things could be a whole lot worse, you know?

Eeee-yow!

Been a bit laid up for the past two days. Went in to the doc for a test. Came out in pain from it. I'm hoping that after a good night's rest tonight I should be back to normal, lol. I've been eyeing my machine, but not tonight...not tonight.

Nebula Cloud and YuleTIDE Cheer--DONE

These are the other two postcards I gave to two of my guild members: Nebula Cloud (a companion to my own wax pastel fabric one) and YuleTime Cheer. That's not a solid fabric making up the tree in YuleTIDE Cheer, it's little pieces all cut up and fused together and quilted over with gold threads.

Of course, after I wrote it I realized it was YuleTIDE cheer. It just sounded soooo wrong when I wrote it, LOL.

Lucky Me at Quilt Guild!

Well, first thing I'll admit is that I didn't want to sell tickets and planned on just writing a check for our guild's "Harlem Renaissance"-themed quilt this year. I'm just not one of those go out and sell things types. The raffle coordinator convinced me to go ahead and put in for it and put my stubs in anyway, bring the check next month. We only do these once a year at the big holiday party, so it's a pretty big deal. So, when the grandson of one the member's pulled my name, I leapt to my feet jumping. I never win anything at drawings, so this was amazing!!

The blocks are pretty cool and feature notables like Billie Holiday, Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston and places like the Savoy and the Cotton Club.

Look what went home with me!!!!!!!!! Lucky lucky me!!!

Rafet Na Postcard--DONE!

Tomorrow's my big quilt guild party. I'm not showing the other postcards I made yet until I've given the other two away.

However, I can show the one that I'm keeping. It is of a Senegalese woman wearing her loose robe (a grand boubou) and headwrap. I named it "Rafet na", for the Wolof phrase for "pretty/attractive." My camera's out, so this scan will have to do for now, lol.

Busy Bee

I've actually been productive today making bookmarks and postcards to give away for the holidays. I'll post some of them, but some I'll have to wait until after Sat. (our Guild's party) to post, as I've got some regular readers who are members.

I sure am having fun making them. My workspace is a mess!

Gee's Bend Quilts Stamps

Oooo-weeee!

The U.S. Postal Service is going to feature 10 quilts from the Gee's Bend exhibit on their stamps. This will look great framed, wouldn't it?

We've got to wait all the way until August 2006 for them though...

When You're Looking For It...

...you just can't seem to find it, but as soon as you stop? You do.

That was me and my Wonder Under tonight. I was going to sit down and bang out some postcards to give away for the holidays and couldn't find the W.U. for the life of me! I could've sworn I bought a good amount of it a while ago. I finally gave up and hours later, when I'm getting ready to go to bed, what do I see?

Yup. You know it.

G'ma "Lightbox" & Templates!

Well, I rigged up the coffeetable lightbox (My husband, as I'm sticking lamp underneath: "What in the heck are you doing?? Ohhhhh...) and started to create the freezer paper templates for the G'ma quilt. As I drew her face it made me realize how very much my mother looks exactly like her. I cut out the templates and tomorrow I'll start making (or creating) some fabric choices.

Alejandro Sanz & Musical Tastes

I love Alejandro Sanz. About a year or so ago I caught a re-run of his MTV Unplugged special and was blown away by the music itself and his almost raspy singing voice. I bought the album that night. When I was in Madrid--his hometown--I heard another of his songs "Regálame la Silla Donde Te Esperé" and it was so distinctively him that I was like "Alejandro Sanz!"

When I was younger, I remember always liking other musical genres, but it wasn't "cool" to admit it, LOL. One of the great things about being older is realizing how much broader my musical tastes have expanded. In my iPod you'll find everything from R&B to rock to country to music in at least 5 different languages (Spanish, Portuguese, French, Arabic and Papiamento). Music is about how it makes you feel--the origin shouldn't matter.

As the great opera diva Maria Callas once said: "Look how much beautiful music has been written with the same set of notes."

G'ma Quilt Beginning

For the sake of brevity, I'm nicknaming "Hope I'm Never As Old As You"--the quilt about my grandmom--"G'ma".

Anyways...as you can see, I've isolated the image and printed it poster-style on 4 sheets. I'm aiming for about a 30 x 40" quilt--about 2/3 the size of "Jazz." I'm not really big on working larger and that one (Jazz) felt large to me. It was 40 x 46". Not huge, I know, but it was to me.

Next up is turning the coffee table into a lightbox and drawing it onto its fabric. I'll keep you all posted.

Testudo: Fear the Turtle

I love Testudo. Maybe it's his solid, defiant stance on all of the official University of Maryland things. I don't know, but my night was made last night when he stopped and posed for me during the Terps basketball game. Yup. He's pointing at me. Coooool.

There is truly nothing like being at a big-time college basketball game. My husband and I were actually there as guests of the rival team--the Univ. of Minnesota Golden Gophers--since our friend's brother is a coach. You could've seen us on ESPN2, lol. We were a bit conflicted. We're actually Maryland fans, but we were sitting in great seats right behind the MN team in prime Gopher area surrounded by hundreds of rabid Terps fans dressed in red. Yikes. We decided to be neutral and root for neither and just enjoyed the game. Hey, we love 'em, but we didn't go to Maryland for school, lol. My loyalty's actually with George Washington U. Go Colonials, LOL!

After our little water main incident yesterday, this made yesterday a great day after all.