Category Archives: Commissions

hunkered down

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The snow started in a light flurry.  Big flakes, so it must have been warm.  I ran to the store because although I don’t get into that pre-storm shopping frenzy that empties shelves and renders lots a tangle, it seemed like a good idea.  Everybody must have shopped yesterday, because it was a ghost town.  The snow has come down steadily all day, but only a few inches have accumulated.
baby-chairOur local schools were closed.  My husband’s office was closed.  And the T stopped running two hours ago.  It seems a little over-reactive, but then, you just don’t know with these big storms anymore.  And anyway, I understand the bulk of the storm is due to arrive tonight.
Natives-first-thingHere are my plaster friends before I went to the market.Natives-middayHere they are midday.  I could see them from where I was pressing seams.Natives-pmAnd here they are in the gloaming.
Progress is being made (that is, “I am making progress”) on the second barn quilt.

rooflinesThe rooflines have been tricky.
western-windowsAnd scale matters so much.
The FIRST barn, dubbed, finally, “Blue Hills Barn”, is hanging at the B.J. Spoke Gallery in Huntington, NY, thanks to my cousin, Ginny.

Blue-Hills-Barn

I had to scurry on Monday to get it trued, bound, signed, sleeved, and photographed.  sleeves

yours-truly

blue-hills-barn-mantle

I include the above picture for scale, and also to note that if it doesn’t sell, I won’t mind having it back to hang exactly here.

soup

And finally, what a good day it was for homemade chicken soup (is there EVER a day that is not good for homemade chicken soup?!)

Stay warm all you readers under the same Arctic air!

….ing

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sorting

sorting through old supplies and repurposing cabinet space

eating

eating

unpacking

unpacking old things; deciding what to do with them

beding

beading

damp stretching

damp stretching

redoing

repiecing, refining, redoing

refining

accentuating; finishing

I want to thank everyone who chimed in on the last post.  Very provocative and I appreciate every one of those comments!

November arrives

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My thoughts and prayers are with the folks in NYC and NJ and elsewhere, suffering with clean up, destruction, and deprivation.  I hope temperatures stay mild.  It’s gotten a little cold here (outside of Boston) in the last couple of hours.  Here is one of the Berkshire barns, as of this morning.  It is a completed quilt top.

I’m not sure why it turned out to be such a struggle to assemble, but it was.  It’s about 32″ wide and incorporates some of the more successful indigo cloths from this summer.  The indigo worked particularly well for the mountains.  I’m calling it, “Waiting for Snow”.

I created a ‘side bar’ quilt on the work table, taking little breaks from the Barn.  It has a totally different feel, and therefore constituted a visual contrast.  This was refreshing for some reason.
In this one, the structure is merely hinted at, and the landscape has been granted license to be wild and dominant.  Not a surprising choice, given the rampaging punches that Sandy delivered over the weekend, while I was safely working down in my cellar studio.  This composition features some more of my indigo dips, as well as silk from my upholstery-design-contact, quilting cottons, batiks, and that Lonni Rossi broccoli/tree fabric that I so love.
I am hand quilting this little composition today, as the sky greys and a cold rain starts to fall.  Its working title is: “Long Island Blues” (Jude Hill online class project).  In this case, the usual horizon line has been broken up (submerged?!!) by the wandering watery lines of shibori.

Damp Stretching

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damp-stretching-on-yew by dee at clothcompany

Well, OK, I haven’t exactly been the ‘best’ student in Karen Ruane‘s class. It’s not that her stuff isn’t completely and wildly inspiring or that she doesn’t share well. Not at all.

But, I was busy with CB2 over at Spirit Cloth and I struggle to create all-white or even monochrome pieces, and I am still mildly obsessed (can one be ‘mildly obsessed’?!!) with cloth weaving,

and there were summer activities, and I got my first indigo vat going… and… and…  In any case, nobody is yelling at me, and I WILL get to the Chinese knots (can’t wait) and the cut outs and the nontraditional use of hexagons… and my supply of antique lace and linens.  It’ll be fun.  (Did I mention that I’m looking for a job?!)

But for now, I am very happy to have just watched the lesson on damp stretching. The first photo and the one below are the Noah’s Ark piece…

Pressing a finished quilt that will hang on the wall is not as perilous as trying to apply heat to a two-sided piece, like Karen’s. And, I don’t, here, have to worry about scorching antique, white, irreplaceable linens, the way she does.

Nevertheless, pressing a finished wall quilt squashes the batting, ruins the irregularities so lovingly applied with hand-stitching, and can be a bitch to do uniformly, even if willing to make those sacrifices.

So I have pinned the unbound quilt to a piece of foam core board and spritzed it with water. It is out on our huge yew, to dry in the sun. I can see already that this will even things out nicely.

In the meantime, Son No. 1 is now home (though not at this moment) and we are, for a few short weeks, a family again!  Messes converge – backpack on sewing supplies, dirty clothes everywhere, shoes piled up near the back door, wet towels accruing at a hotel-pace.  Their having been gone makes me feel uncharacteristically tender toward their strewn things, and anyway, my preferred strategy, even when annoyed, is to deal with MY mess (which is generally sizable).  Today my paper mess is demanding some attention.  I’ve laid everything out, and left it there.  Not even a handsome face makes me want to touch the stuff.  But, I will.  I will.

At least I removed the mirror from the dining room table – just in case it was helping the mess multiply (think: Feng Shui).  Enough rambling for one morning, Bye!

ongoing ark

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This is Ark Redux.  Neither the buyer nor I could stand the gloom of round one.  Now, the silk chiffon ‘rain’ is limited by the insertion of a brighter, focus panel behind the ark.  I didn’t double the chiffon this time, so it’s a paler shade of grey. And, there will be a dove.

 

Smaller dimensions were also requested – which is a boon to the process of lap quilting!  Some folds and junctures between fabrics are left ‘open’ during basting, in order to allow the insertion of paler fabrics.

I was thoughtful enough to stitch the windows onto the ark prior to assemblage.  Why?  Because a needle stitching in that area will now be passing through three or four layers of top fabric (and one of them batik) plus backing and batting.

The yellow silk version was rejected after my husband in passing asked, “Is that supposed to be the sun?”  Well, no, but thank you for letting me know that the yellow isn’t working!