The title made you wonder, didn’t it?!! No, this is very innocent, and briefly delicious.
For Danny’s birthday on Monday, I made cinnamon buns Sunday night. They were delicious Sunday, puffy, light, gooey with glaze and sugary cinnamon, but sadly, overnight turned into rock-like lumps.
Dan is officially a teenager now.
In a week, we go through —
3-4 gallons of milk
3 half gallons of OJ, plus another fruit juice
a container of two of ice cream
a couple of boxes of cereal
many pounds of chicken, beef, and fish (combined)
2 dozen eggs
The refrain, “Mom, I’m hungry!” can often be heard!
I’m sorry (in a way) that gas prices came down, because it took the heat off of the push for sustainable technologies and fuels. But, when it comes to buying the groceries each week, I am certainly glad!!
This week’s quilt was meant to be inspired by a trip to Boston’s ICA (Institute of Contemporary Art) in a manner other than it was. We had to pull teeth to get our two teenage boys to go see Shepard Fairey. I thought the fact that the artist had been arrested in Boston on Friday, that his work could be found on city streets and the bottom of skateboards, that his motto, “question everything” informed most of his images, would hold some appeal. Not so.
I started with the idea of using Photoshop Elements to pair words of my kids’ resistance with a photo that revealed some of their exuberance at actually being there. I was going to print that on fabric, stitch it to another piece of fabric with wild, angry slash quilting, and be done with it.
harbor side of the ICA
But, in keeping with a prolonged and now excruciating run of malfunctions, the printer ate the fabric and then died. The top four or so inches printed before the fabric jammed, and those words and ink smears made their way into the finished piece. I cut out newspaper letters to spell “obey” — a reference to the artist’s “Obey Giant” series — which, of course, ironically also refers to our family conflict.
Because I forgot to look at last week’s quilt for a “carry over” fabric, the carry over is paper.
In the end, I like this quilt much, much better than the original idea, which means I am grateful to the printer’s malfunction. What I hope I can do now is to translate that to our family. If our outing yesterday was the printer jamming, then the way we relate to each other in the coming week would correlate to the improved, more interesting quilt.
And I’ll say it here for the record (look again at the spade-like leaves occupying near center of the quilt), the energy and intelligence that goes into rebelling are good things. Something Shepard Fairey knows for sure.
I make quilts, collages, boxes, dolls, and my husband would say (I agree), lots of messes.
D. jumping off of garage roof
student's felted globe
I teach fiber arts (mostly to kids) and have one boy in middle school, one in high school.
Bee Silk House
House motifs show up in many of my quilts, as do poppies, hearts and elephants. I’m not sure how I became a quilter because I am not a patient person, nor do I sew particularly well.
Near the paper cutter
My work space is cluttered beyond belief, to the point of distraction even for me, sometimes. I will never have one of “those studios” where the glossy neatness is lovely and precise.
photo on top of altar block
Oh yeah, and I love doorways.
Lastly, by way of introduction, I garden a few months a year. It is shocking to me how many more pictures I have of the shrubs I have planted than of my boys!
