Windy and cold today and so, so many sirens in Newton. Siren after siren. I helped a friend with a small garden this morning and came home, bathed, and slept.
I posted this quilt on Instagram saying I was going to fill in the grid with colored threads. So many people said they loved it as is (surprised me honestly) that I guess I’ll trim and finish, as is. We don’t want to create by committee but sometimes the judgment of others is useful.
Pages of the daily kind remaining blank lately. Why? Fingernails crescents of dirt. Perennial divisions going apace.
But, here’s a collage from yesterday. I was thinking about fearless women, about Colorado, and about meat.
I had just read a N.Y. Times opinion piece examining the awful conditions of the meat processing plants and meat production’s extraordinary cost to the environment.
If the article is behind a firewall, here at least is an excerpt:
We cannot protect our environment while continuing to eat meat regularly. This isnot a refutable perspective, but a banal truism. Whether they become Whoppers or boutique grass-fed steaks, cows produce an enormous amount of greenhouse gas. If cows were a country, they would be thethird-largest greenhouse gas emitterin the world.
Little did I know when I started a quilt based on a figure from a first person shooter video game, how ugly its relevance would become.
It began as a visual expression of the need to defend my personal boundaries. And also, a bit of a sad wondering about what our children will be doing decades from now to protect their own sacred selves. Or their access to water. Or their privacy. Or or or. The first time I used this image was in a Sketchbook Project.
This is what I think every day, many times a day: If we don’t get money out of politics, things will continue to go to shit.Does anyone else think the slide to ruin has picked up its pace? The way I see it, corporate interests are contaminating democracy more and more quickly such that we are approaching a tipping point — in a parallel rhythm to the quickening pile-up of the consequences of climate change. Needless to say, overturning Citizens United would represent only a baby step in the right direction. And Trump? I can’t watch election coverage right now.
Who are we as a nation if gun reform cannot be achieved after the Pulse massacre? If we lack the political will to ignore the money, I kinda think we’re doomed — to revolution or extinction or both. No wonder I wake up nights. And that’s not even getting near the personal turmoil that keeps me wringing my hands. No wonder I’m now stitching a saccharine cliche. Something about the key to my heart.
(Those whitish lines are made by couching two rows of floss with a fair number of stitches — I can’t wait to try Jude’s wandering running stitch, but this is not that).
Even though it was cold again today, Finn and I had a good walk. We have taught him to “spin” and continue to challenge him with nose work outside, which he absolutely loves.
The comfrey is stately, vigorous. Soon it will flop down.
Later, I am planning to make a flourless chocolate cake for a friend’s birthday. Writing and conferring about writing went well today.
The heavens are about stitched down. I will need to get some more black thread.
In other words, life continues apace and while “bouncing back” would be an overstatement for the day, it’s not far off.
An early run to Salem meant traffic around the Turnpike exit. The usual. It baffles me every time how the left hand passing lane slows down while the middle and far right lanes do not, even though the stream of cars merging onto the highway are coming from the right. Does anybody understand that?
After a good effort with clutter, my sister and I ate subs from the corner shop. This shadow of a notice in reverse on the bench where I sit to wait for the order caught my eye. Had I sat on it before? Right after I got back to Nor’s, a front moved in, pounding the sidewalk with rain and regaling us with thunder. I can’t tell you how grateful I was that only the heavens let loose this morning, leaving human drama for another day. There’s been a little too much human drama of late. Seriously too much.The rain stopped by the time I headed out.
Do you see Finn’s nose?
The rain we got over the weekend helped the garden start its June show. I wish I had a pile of mulch on the driveway more than I wish I had a decent haircut. Enough said. I am enjoying the freedom to stitch whatever I want. Perhaps a male warrior standing on a distant planet is an odd choice. He caught my eye years ago and was incorporated into one of the two Sketchbook Projects that I participated in (you can see the entire Sketchbook here). For some reason I keep going back to these images — maybe because they addressed transitions in the boys’ lives and the boys’ lives are in transition again.
This Sketchbook page came with the question: “What borders will you defend?” The figure came from an ad promoting the video game “Lost Planet”.
I’ve been alternating between pinning scraps to the board and then pinning the scraps to a base cloth for sewing. Having used this method before and been frustrated when it came time to trim away the base, I’m happy I remembered to leave the edges unstitched.
I love the sky and the snow and even the figure, but wish the figure was “mine”. Such is the life of a magazine collagist.
Here is my quick version of how to make a quilt using children’s art. I really only have about three tips, but I’ll go start to finish. This one was auctioned at a fundraiser for the pre-school that my boys attended many years ago.
Order inkjet prepared cloth. This is one of my big tips. At retail and on many websites, sheets can cost up to $3.00 each. I almost never pay more than $1.00 — you just need to hunt around a little online. Many fibers and weaves are available. For a quilt like this, I recommend a cotton with some drape (i.e. not pima or canvas). For memory quilts featuring a single image (say, a vintage photograph), I have used silk.
You can prepare your own cloth for inkjet printing, of course, but it is a giant pain in the ass. Even if you shortcut like mad (as I am wont to do — in this case, meaning skipping the Bubble Jet set soak and subsequent pressing and skipping the stabilization of the perfectly measured and cut piece of fabric with a perfectly cut piece of freezer paper) — it is a lot of work. And if you DON’T shortcut and do all those time-consuming steps and the paper/cloth jams, it is heartbreaking.
Gather the artwork. This is the easiest part. Children make incredible, unselfconscious art. For this project, I used self portraits drawn by three year olds.
Photograph and Tweak. Take pictures and crop or adjust color a little, if necessary, but do not shrink the file size. This is different from the resizing one typically does to shrink an image for posting online. You want the data. Remember seam margins.
You might want to dye fabric for the sashes. We tried and it was a lot of fun, but the non-toxic green mixture was too dilute or weak or something. I decided the failure served the project, though, because a dramatic, striated ARASHI border would have competed with their art work.
Print the artwork onto the inkjet-prepared sheets of fabric. If there is not a TON of color in the artwork, go ahead and set your print to BEST. However, if there is a lot of color, you might actually achieve a better image at the REGULAR print setting (less toner being key).Fix the image. First, let the printed sheets dry without stacking so as to avoid any possible smearing. Then, carefully peel the paper off of the back and press to fix the color. Some instructions recommend rinsing with water, but I don’t find it’s necessary.
Make the quilt. This is standard stuff. My only tip here is if you were concerned about keeping your hours somewhat contained, skip the batting and make a pillow-case style attachment of the quilt top to the back, and run a machine top stitch around the edge to close the opening. Then the two layers will stay together with just a little hand or machine quilting and no binding will be needed.One of my objectives in selecting fabrics was to make sure they didn’t compete with the drawings. By pressing the quarter inch turn-under at the opening, the top stitching is very easy. I do this when hand-stitching the closure shut as well.
That’s it! Easy, really.
[On another note – The fakey links are back with nearly irrepressible pops ups and this rogue insertion of six gibberish characters “ ” or something like that, is freaking me out. WordPress has been so glitchy on top of that, with weird new arbitrary photo placements, etcs. Between all of this and the loss of regular readers, I have to wonder why I am doing this!]
