Monthly Archives: December 2010

Adding to the margins

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The margins — here a flipped linen — serve as a quiet surround.  Why the checks at the bottom, then?  D asks me to remove this black & white strip from a new pair of pants (an onerous, thumb-killing task that I will not repeat).  The scrap falls to the floor during the morning and flies up and lands in the margins in the afternoon.  What makes that expanse so inviting for more patterns?  What is this need to keep at it?  And fill it in/up?

This Jones New York dress makes a handy pinning-spot.  It is in line (with many other items) for some sort of revision — a thrift find waiting its turn.

And Christmas came early when I made my second annual run to the scrap heaven of a local upholsterer.  Oh my.  Oh my.  The luscious linens, silks, tapestries, and more are now piled on my dining room table.  Challenge – find space for them downstairs.

P.S. Did you know the new thing in boarding circles is holding up your pants with a shoelace?

P.P.S. If you haven’t seen this TMobile ad that documents (stages) a flashmob at Heathrow Airport, I really recommend it!

baby-zebra-at-her-side

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When the boys were little we loved the “I Spy” books. We would examine the photographs intently, looking for every little thing mentioned… “Here’s an anchor,” “there’s the fourth safety pin,” “ah! found it! The fox playing a flute.” Such clever assemblages. 
Recently, D. and I had a nostalgic interval while waiting outside the cast-removal area (it is gone! – the cast, that is, not the room). We got through an entire “I Spy” book.  Even though it is one we have at home and probably read 40 or 50 times, we “read” it again with relish.

Seeing the book put me in mind of the tradition of making “I Spy” quilts for children.

Just to name a few things to be found here:
two whales; two zebras (one, a baby zebra running next to her mother, I just noticed today while quilting the stripes!);  a butterfly; one tattoo; two stores; two snakes; four tortoises; one horse; one dog;  one reindeer; three antelope; four fish; two ships and one Hawaiian boat; one pirate; a treasure map; ginkgo leaves; a passionflower; green and ecru leaves, a red daisy, two stork-like birds, four cows, two trees, one door and one large red house.

The thought of a young child “perusing” this landscape makes me very happy.

This quilt was commissioned by  Wendy Golden-Levitt.

“Here’s Luck”

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Ta-da! In the twenty minutes between dropping the boys and taking my morning bath before work yesterday, I finished the last few seams on the Treasure Island Quilt (the commission for Jungian therapist, Wendy Golden-Levitt, blogged about here). It is pinned to another quilt (that is also almost done) on a dining room wall.

My early design process is sprawling, messy, and welcomes detours and flaws. The qualities of randomness and chaos are signatures, almost. But then, in the final run toward completion, the teeniest of details bug me?   Hmmmmm.

Here in this picture, I would have loved for the tiny black and white spiral in the white, pirate fabric to have remained whole, in order to pick up the larger spirals of the black/ochre spirals above it. And alas, a good portion of its turning was eaten by a seam.

Note to self — (since many of the niggling problematic details have to do with losing portions of print) — cut fabric rectangles BIGGER and get better at tucking under edges as I go (it’s all about what I SEE, you see, so seam allowances can get distracting).

Dare to self — try gesso on canvas!!!  You’ve been threatening to do this for years now.  So do it!

  • Yes, it would be a finish more consonant with the process leading up to it.
  • But here’s the thing — learning what happens to fabric and glue and gesso and shininess and lumps and the fact that placement would be more stuck/permanent (I move fabric around until the very final seams in my current mode) would mean being back on a learning curve.

And speaking of canvas and gesso, I have been inspired by the work of Sabrina Ward Harrison.

Good Morning!

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Hello little mouse! Hello December!

At 5:45, put on my headset with the intention of playing Holosync (alpha level whatever) and instead, as I set the iPod down, got Norah Jones singing “Strange Transmissions”. I came to wakefulness thinking, “who is the possessor of this voice?!!!”   Stretched hips, waist, and legs in bed as iPod continued to make selections (Elbow, Habib Cotiez — I’ll have to check on African musician’s name later). In other words, music roused me in the most surprising and wonderful way. In fact, it made me WANT to stretch into my day.

Twenty minutes later, walking Jack on the quiet side streets, the air was warm, brushing my face and I thought, “This is December”. Noticing my block — the inky fractals of upreaching oaks, nearly bare of leaves, against the hazy periwinkle of a sky portending rain; the predictable stop made by Jack at recently wet sapling; the creak of a morning dove’s ascent — gave me, if not a jazz of happiness, at least a spate of connected moments where I showed up.