Omphaloskepsis

Ok, so the second I say something like 'stick with me as I blahblahblah', the Evil Blog Monster rears its ugly head and snorts my blog out of whack. My last post I told you about the spirited QA discussion and my mini-challenge from a wonderful lady who loves teasing almost as much as I do. And I even finished it within the required amount of time. She dared me to do something really risque (view a particular pair of consecutive syllables and draw your own conclusions!), but...

So anyway, what does this have to do with the post title today? Well, the conversation revolved around omphaloskepsis, meaning 'to contemplate one's navel (belly button)'! It's 6x4, paisley fabric with a round, orange fabric navel, fme that you can't see in this pic (more tomorrow,; I was too excited by my blog working, HAD to post!!) using the ONLY decorative stitch this old machine has (White Blue Jeans, at LEAST 12-14yo) -- a 'briar' stitch, it's called, looks rather like feather. I used paper from a hole-punch for the eyeball whites in the rounds of some of the paisley figures, and turquoise beads for the irises. A bit of silver fabric paint added to the eyeball effect, IMHO!

Anyway, I'm happy!

Tongue in Cheek or Foot in Mouth??!!

After a lively exchange today on and off list, I've ended with a small personal challenge due to be finished in 3 days (YES, that's right, THREE DAYS). "Contemplating belly-buttons" came up, and I replied, sort of tongue-in-cheek, and someone replied to *me* off-list, and I'm already excited about my Great Orts Project (posting/pic'ing in a couple days), so the replier told me she could just *see* two quilts related to the discussion, so I whipped back, ok give me dimensions and a time-restriction and you're ON!!!!!!1 So she did, she is, and I am... Stay posted as I grump, groan, whine, and whistle my way through to Saturday and the finished product(s).

Heart-2-Heart Postcard Project

VALENTINES FOR WOUNDED SOLDIERS
Receive-by Deadline: Wednesday, February 7, 2007
For more information -- get in touch w/Karey Bresnehan by clicking here --> Heart-2-Heart

"To recognize and encourage the many American servicemen and women who have been wounded in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have created the Heart-2-Heart postcard project. Our goal is to send artist-made postcards as Valentines to our military wounded at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC, where all branches of the armed forces are treated. A quilt artist from the DC area has generously volunteered to deliver the cards directly to Walter Reed for distribution to the wounded. Thanks!"

Tags Part 2

The gold thread shown here is going to be couched down in a swirl design, interspersed with buttons, sequins (bunches I've collected over the years) and beads.

I have two of the rolls of that gold thread, and they have yards and yards of the stuff coiled on each roll. If you want some, email me privately w/your snail mail addy and I'll send you some. I know that not a lot of folks are reading my blog yet, but the first eight (8) people who email me can have at least 5 yards!

Another B-Find...~~

Ok, waiting A-gain for the dratted screens to catch up with my ever-churning brain, I went off on my usual pass-the-time poking around, guess what I found?! Go check out Bernardine Hine's Fabric, Dye and Threads blogspot and feast your eyes! Bernardine has an awesome Astral Quilt which you MUST see, and her next quilt pic'd, a tropical piece, won 2d prize at the Queensland Quilt Show. Also, her Alien Oddity quilt, a couple posts down the page, is too cool!

Tags - Part 1

I belong to a group led by Patti Medaris Culea, a fantastic fiber doll artist. If you go to her site (linked over there on my sidebar), you'll also see some what-she-calls Tome Pages. Each Page Project teaches you a particular set of skills, or helps you sharpen skills you already have; when the Pages are done, you bind them with the Tome Cover and store them in their Tome Box.

Anyway, we're making tags for trade! Never having done this before either, my first step was to cut a piece of cardboard (I usually use the backs of notepads but you can use cereal boxes) into the right size. In this instance, we're making a set number of tags with a set size -- 2"x5" max. SO, I cut both sides of the fabric that I want to use. The theme is "friendship". Being from Texas, I may go gecko and cactus, with turquoise (turquoise is one of the Gemstone Symbols of Friendship). I'll have to ruminate...

This is similar to FPC's, I guess, but different in that there are possible 3-D additions, movable parts, etc. I don't know why learning each new technique becomes such a task for me; once I get the hang, I love it! Am I the ONLY one in this virtual universe with this problem? AAAAACK!!!!

My Beaded Butterfly

Well, I'll have to work on cropping this pic later, but I wanted to get it up. It's a beaded butterfly that I'm attaching to a piece of beading from an old wedding dress (not mine, but a friend was going to *GASP* throw hers OUT...). The background, which I also want to try to make clearer, is a piece of greenish/bluish with touches of orangish/pinkish. It's a background that I will be/am using in several projects -- I want to see how it translates. This could qualify for my 6x4, although my beaded bush will run over the edges just a touch there at the bottom and on the side. I'm finally pleased with how something is turning out, so I'll be posting this through to its finish.

Traditional Quilting w/a Twist

Here are two more quilting UFO's...my ambition

is to finish the squares (it's a 'sampler' quilt in shades of pink and green) and pick a sashing and border fabric, then SEW ON the sashing and border. I may hand quilt this one, so that final step may have to wait a year since I hope it to end up queen-sized. But I definitely want to get the top all done, including sashing and borders finished.

The square on the left is called "54-50 or Fight". It has something to do with the setting of the longitude for the acquisition of Washington State and Oregon, but I haven't finished researching the title yet. In this piece, one of my favorites, I used the strip-piecing technique for the points of the star in dark greens, burgandies, light pink floral, and cream floral.

Quilt names fascinate me...for instance, the three squares pictured on the right are known as "Carrie Nation". Now Carrie Nation was a real woman in the early 1900's who had an incrediblly endearing hobby of plunging through the doors of an alcohol-serving establishment and smashing the bar into smithereens with an axe -- a full-sized chop-down-huge-trees AXE. * I kid you not, and you should see the fierce expression depicted on her face...that is one p'd-off woman! These squares utilize dark greens and self-print muslin for the main squares, with the smaller 1" squares in shades of blue/blue-green prints/green.

I still have work to do on my pic-taking, camera-cussing (I mean) utilizing skills, but at least things are more in focus, and the new camera may yet have its name changed from "Damn Camera" to "Damn GOOD Camera"!!!

*Note: I don't know what it is with women and axes in the early days, but there was also Lizzie Borden [who] took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks and when she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one. I guess women were thorough back then in their endeavors.

Quilt for DH

This is a quilt I've started for DH. It's three shades of blue fabric with a self-print muslin as the background. I've only cut myself four times with the rotary cutter so far, AND I still have my fingers correctly attached to my hands! I think I'm going to add three Wild Goose Chase borders. This is for either his birthday or Valentine's Day or our anniversary, depending on when I get it done and when he's home!

Damn Cameras...

I sure hate a learning curve. The pictures are taken. The camera is plugged in. The correct button is clicked. The message comes up -- "Warning: No images in camera" @#% $#% B...

TAST No. 1 for 2007

TAST

The first stitch of the year for those who are participating in the TAST Challenge is the Herringbone stitch.

In A Minute Ago Emergencies

http://sharonb.wordpress.com is where Sharon can be read and reached in times of stressed sites and blocked blogs. Let's wish her not only a wonderful 2007, but also a year free of internet irritations!

Regards,
The Pesky Texan

The Turning of the Year...

Although I generally will not write too much about really personal stuff, I will say that the past year has been one of stultifying pain and sadness in my heart. I decided to get involved with my blog in order to distract my thoughts into a more positive direction.

I'm working on a piece (for something). Well, I'm working on lots of things, but this piece, I think, will join the past year with the coming, and return my focus more clearly to creativity. It's to be called "Sorrow Dances".

Tomorrow, there will be pictures. DH gave me a new camera -- let's all join in with a heartfelt YAY!! and tomorrow, there will be introductions for TAST (Take-A-Stitch Tuesday) run by Sharon Boggon, and WISP (Works In Slow Progress) Wednesday, put together by Sandy. Many people have blogged their year-past creations...I will post my year-to-come projects. There is a STRONG current throughout the creative blog community towards finishing that which was begun, clearing the boards, etc. It speaks to the makings of a lively year here in our community, one which will be both interesting and inspirational for all.

So, today, I wish everyone the magic and fulfillment of the Eve of the New Year, and I wish you clarity of your soul's sight with verve and enthusiasm in your heart for each moment of the day in which you find yourself being.

I was told recently that from great pain comes great joy...and joy is to be shared from the heart. So I do believe that this *will* be the year that Sorrow Dances.

Heartfelt regards and peaceful wishes from Sarah

and BACK to the Program...

Ok, here's the last one for the moment. I can either sit here and post a gazillion pix (I know, I know, we ALL love pics!), or I can go do some work after this and post more Tuesday or Wednesday..well, we all know what Wednesday is, so at the very *latest*, I'll put up some more piccies then. Anyway, in my (don't laugh) spare time (IS there such a thing???), I have also become interested in goddess dolls. You just saw the large one I'm about to attempt. This small one is my first attempt at beading. The photo is horrible -- the beads are a lovely shade of grass green, and you can't even see the white beads I've started using for the head. *sigh*. The pattern is available at Kivett Studios, listed there on my sidebar. Ronda is a very talented artist and is quite gracious with her free patterns. She has more than one small goddess doll pattern, so you may want to print one off and try it yourself. (NAYY!) Although you can't tell since my piano bench is my photo-table, the actual pattern shown is only about 4", if that.

We Interrupt This Program ~~

I have a bad habit of surfing around while waiting for an editing or whatever action to complete. This area, somewhat rural, is still on Dial-Up (don't laugh), and things go somewhat slowly (not that the UPS person has to leap-frog over large black cows dotting the landscape between roads). Anyway, I can't stand sitting here and staring at a blank, blinking screen so I pull up another and go poking around.

And thank goodness I do!! Today's featured neato-torpedo fiber/textile gifted blessing to our world is Kathy York, found at her blog here. Like our Ferret mentioned yesterday here, Kathy Y. has a talent for the different in such a beautiful way! If you missed Ferret's site, you must go so as to save yourself from deprivation; and if you have not yet been to aquamoon, you are equally deprived and must visit!

Let me go check that dang screen again...

Works...

Well, these are what I call B-Worx. Beginning Works. May or may not become WISPs, depending. On what, I'm never sure...some things get speedily finished -- I just get on a roll, ideas snap together, and that's that, so to speak. Others (the Dreaded WISPs) get to a point where I just have to stop and think for a while, meantime becoming happily distracted with another B-Worx! One pic will be a cq tea cozy for one of my little one-cup tea pots (I have two of them!). The other is going to be a cq goddess doll. I'm actually excited about them both, but I'm going to include them in my WISP Wednesday posts, just in case!

So onward, onward!!

Perks (w/pics!)

Here's another what-I-consider-to-be perk -- I have come to adore making a pot of tea on an afternoon. I collect teapots, and one of my favorites is my grandmother's. It's sort of a peachy color, solid. The first tea cozy I ever made was done for it, and is reversible. In the pic here, I've tried to show by folding up the right corner there -- the reverse side is in shades of blue and goldenrod in an Oriental print. The yellow flower in the lower middle is my first effort at a sort of trapunto effect...it seems so inadequate now but 25 years ago I thought I was the cat's miaouw to try it!

WISPs, Works, Pics, Perks (Reversed and in Parts)

Well, perks first -- this is Brut, my 100-lb. lap dog. When DH first brought him home, Brut could fit in his hand. There's been just a *bit* of growth ... (grin!). Brut is supposed to be my watch-dog since I'm home alone so much of the time. DH, you may recall from an earlier post, retired from the FAA to play with trucks and now runs his own 18-wheeler cross-country for one of the major trucking companies. Brut, however, approaches everyone with a silly grin and a wagging tail. Well, for some reason he *does* hate the UPS person, but it's not MY fault!!

Many Blessings~

Just an interim note before this weekend's work. . .there are so many talented artists with such great inspiration-ing work into who's creative lives we are allowed to peek~~ so check out a new discovery for me http://ferfab.blogspot.com/ with incredible pieces, IMHO.

Tomorrow I am anticipating tea cozies, goddess dolls, WISPs, and works. I look forward to hearing your feedback (Open, Honest, Candid, and [GENTLY] Brutally Frank).

Until later then.

Mandalas and Celtic and Free, Oh My!

Someone on one of my other lists asked the other day about mandala patterns. I frequently do this -- someone will ask something and it piques my interest so I go off poking about to find patterns, information, etc. One of the sites that I found had this free pattern -- a lovely Breast Cancer Ribbon pattern. Ink Circles has several other free patterns available, and the site is well worth a visit.