How do you define slow?

As I was laying out ribbons for another Free Lace scarf, I began musing about how differently people perceive various (art) projects as quick (and easy) or slow (and tedious).  I began thinking about this because these scarves feel very quick to me--I have finished two already this week and am starting a third.  And yet I spend literally hours very carefully laying out the ribbons to make a pleasing pattern.  If they ever watched me as I do this, many people would say the process is very slow and think it tedious and boring.  Yet because I usually work on jackets and feel very productive if I finish two in a month, these scarves feel very fast to me.  One more example in life, of "it's all relative."
Here's a picture of the scarf that I just finished.  This is another one that was inspired by one of my jackets--specifically the thread couching pattern I used on it.

As I said it took me hours to lay out the ribbons to make all those box patterns, but to me it was far from tedious or boring.  I loved watching the pattern grow and seeing the interplay of the colors.  Working on something like this really helps me to live in the present moment, paying attention to and deriving joy from the details.  So this part of laying out the pattern and then doing the stitching to hold everything together is the calming, meditative part of the project.
The "rush" comes when I wash away the stabilizer to see the completed scarf, and again when I put it together with the jacket that inspired it.  Here's the combination for this scarf.

I was happy enough that I decided to make another one something like it - but I'm trying triangles this time - and very different colors.

Celebration Ensemble

It's gray, gloomy and cold outside, but I'm inside where it's warm and I'm having fun playing with color and texture.  As soon as I finished one Free Lace scarf I started on another.

Here's the one I just finished.  As I mentioned in my last posting, this one was inspired by the jacket I finished most recently.

I incorporated small squares of hand-dyed silk charmeuse in colors that picked up the colors of the jacket and used some of the same slub yarn that I had couched onto the jacket.  I cut the silk with a wavy edge rotary cutter so the edges will fray a little but not totally.  When I washed out the stabilizer the threads shrink up a little giving the silk squares a bit of a scrunchy look.

Here's the full effect with the jacket.  What do you think??

Meditative Stitching

My week is off to such a lovely start, I just had to share...
I got to the studio this morning about 9, after a refreshing water fitness class at the local Y.  By about 10, the sun had come out and burned away the clouds.  It is now streaming through the windows here in my studios, warming it up so nicely I have taken off the bulky sweater I was wearing over my turtleneck.  Glenn has Gregorian chant music playing in his studio across the hall which seems the perfect accompaniment to the undulating lines I've been stitching on a free lace scarf.  It gives me such a nice content feeling...

My plan is to create several new free lace scarves this month to put in the Winter Lights V show at The Loading Dock Gallery later this month.  The scarf I'm working on now is designed to coordinate with the jacket I finished most recently.

I call this one Celebration because I was working on it when I found out that I was a fully qualified juried member of the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen.  It uses a combination of a bluish purple linen-like fabric and a cotton with a batik-type pattern.  (The fabrics were someone else's cast-offs, so I can't be sure of the composition.)  The bluish purple has a lovely sheen to it.  I think it might be a linen and silk blend.  I have embellished the cotton by couching over it with a variegated slub yarn.  I have used that same yarn in the free lace scarf.  I'll let you know how it looks when I'm all finished.

Two More Art-to-Wear Jackets to Share

It has happened again...it's been a full month since I posted last.  It seems I just can't keep up with everything I need to do.  In my last post I mentioned that I needed to work hard to complete my last review for the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen before November 1.  Today I am pleased to report I found out Friday that I am considered a fully qualified member based on the work I submitted for the Craftwear exhibition in August.  I was so pleased and excited that I had to run right down the hall to tell my friend Betsy - another League member.  She's been my coach and mentor in the whole process, encouraging me to keep going when I got down about things.  Then that night I went out for dinner to celebrate with my husband and daughter.  (We had a great dinner at Fuse Bistro a couple of blocks from our condo.)

Now the next big thing on my agenda is to submit my application for a booth at the League's Annual Fair in 2013.  As a newbie I have lowest priority for getting a booth, so I need to make sure my application goes in on time.  I hope to do that tomorrow.

Of course having my own booth also means that I need to keep creating work.  I have finished two jackets since my last post.

Here is the one I call Honoring Friends.

The name comes from the fact that I used hand-dyed fabrics from two of my art quilt friends.  The rust-colored fabrics that form the body of the jacket were created by local artist Mary Walter .  The upper fabric was discharged and has shiny dots painted on.  The lower fabric was printed with bamboo sticks.  I echoed her designs with couched threads.  The cuffs and collar are hand-dyed cotton sateen from Washington artist Judy Robertson.  
(Judy and I used to vend together at the Quilt/Surface Design Symposium in Columbus each summer.  I built up my stash of her fabrics by trading for my art supplies.  Next summer I hope to visit her home studio.)

Here's the back of the jacket - same fabrics, but different proportions.

This next jacket is one I plan to include in the exhibit that Sonja and I are doing at the Topsfield Library (MA) in February.  I call it Wabi Sabi in my Soul.

For this one I used an African Damask that I also bought at Q/SDS in Columbus, from another friend, Becky Hancock.  This fabric seemed to me a perfect example of beauty in imperfection.  I loved the process of deciding just how to place the patterns of the fabric on the jacket to best show them off.  Then I spent many a relaxing night doing hand embroidery on many sections to add color and texture.
Here's a detail shot that better shows what I've done with the embroidery.

And finally here's the back.

I love to incorporate diagonal lines in my jackets whenever I can.

Music for my Eyes

Almost a month since my last post...where does the time go?  I did take a "real" vacation during that time--my son came home and the five of us, my husband, daughter and son-in-law, spent a week just hanging out at the lake.  It was wonderful, no plans beyond what to eat for dinner.  But beyond that vacation time, I've just gotten caught up in the day-to-day of keeping the Friends Fabric Art and Loading Dock Gallery businesses going.  There's always more to be done than can be fit into the available time.

In among all the general administrative things that need to be done, I've tried hard to make time for sewing as well.  If I want to try for my own booth at the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen fair at Sunapee next year, I have to finish my last jacket review by November 1.  I need four new jackets.  I finished one, and have another one well underway.  I should have no problem, but I always get carried away with the design/creation process and making each one totally unique.  It doesn't make for quick projects.

Here's the most recent one that I finished.  I call it Music for my Eyes.  I couldn't really explain that title, other than the jacket evoked music for me.

This one was inspired by that beautifully patterned fabric that I used for the collar, cuffs and lining.  The great blue and purple dyed design has been overprinted with a shiny copper color.  It's really spectacular.  The background is a moire silk to which I've added pieced insets to coordinate with the patterning of the lining.  I had such fun.

Here's the back.

I love to play with asymmetry in my designs.

Seeking Photos of Topsfield, Massachusetts

As I've noted before in this blog, my daughter Sonja Lee-Austin and I have a show coming up at the Topsfield (Massachusetts) Town Library  in February of 2013.  Our theme is Wabi Sabi - the honoring of things that are worn by the sands of time but getting better and better with age.  These are things that may be old and frayed, but are still beautiful and dearly treasured.

Having visited Topsfield many times of the years, we know that there are many things and places there that fit our theme.  Rather than just base the exhibit solely on our own ideas of what those things are, we would like to incorporate images of places and things around the town that are particularly treasured by the town residents themselves (or visitors).   We feel like this would be a good way to really share the wonderful spirit of Topsfield.

Here's basically what we have in mind:

Send us your digital photograph(s) of your favorite place(s) in Topsfield along with a brief statement about why you chose that particular place or thing and just what you treasure about it.  We'll print the photo on fabric and incorporate it into an artwork--perhaps adding embroidery or painting, for example.  We'll also incorporate something of your story into the artwork giving you credit for the photo and the story.

Here's a sample of the type of thing that we might do.  This is Sonja's Boston Public Garden Quilt.

Here are some important "rules" for this project:

• You must have personally taken any photograph you submit and you must be willing to let us use it as we see fit--e.g., cropping it, merging it with other images, etc.
• We will own the artwork produced.  If the artwork should sell, we would share up to 20% of the proceeds with you or if you wish to purchase the artwork yourself, we would offer you a 20% discount on the purchase price.  (It is possible that we would incorporate images from more than one person into an artwork.  In that case the 20% "commission" would be split among the people whose images are used.)
• We do not guarantee that we will use all images submitted to us.
• Images and stories should be e-mailed to Ann@FriendsFabricArt.com by September 30, 2012.

We'll share our progress on this here in my blog or in Sonja's.

From Somewhere on Cloud Nine

My first bit of excitement from the Sunapee fair (League of New Hampshire Craftsmen) came before the show officially opened.  At the preview party Friday night, it was announced that I was this year's winner of the Best in Fine Sewing award.  Was I ever surprised and thrilled.  This award is sponsored by the Portsmouth Fabric Company and the prize is a gift certificate for their store.  This is one of my favorite fabric stores, so that made the award doubly exciting.  I can't wait to redeem it.  I've been spending some of it in my head already.

The jacket that won was Fruit of my Mind - pictured here - in the center.

There is a funny story about this jacket winning the prize.  I had originally submitted Jellyroll Rag for the exhibit instead of this one.  Jellyroll Rag is red and when Stacy Herlitz, the Craftwear organizer, was setting up the display she had a hard time making the red jacket "play well" against the aqua wall behind it.  So she called me up to ask if I minded if she put Fruit of my Mind into the exhibit instead.  I agreed figuring it was much better to make sure the whole display would look good than to work around a specific piece.  Needless to say, I was awfully glad she made the swap.

Here's a closer view of the jacket.  It's made of embroidered silk with layers of couching--bands of plain colored silk, followed by iridescent ribbon, followed by those Stef Francis rayon threads that I love.

(Thanks to Sonja for these pictures.  I was so wound up by all of this that I forgot to take any pictures when I was there on Friday and Saturday!)

I have to say that it was also exciting to see my jackets in the context of the larger display.  Here's a picture of Dance Rhythms as a centerpiece of another part of the display.  The necklace that Stacy chose to put with it also won an award.  The colors coordinated beautifully.

These four jackets were part of the Craftwear Exhibit (i.e., eligible for prizes).  I also have 11 more jackets on a retail rack nearby.  

The show continues through next weekend, so there's still time if you can get there.  It's well worth the time.  There is just so much stunningly beautiful work available, I'm sure you'll be inspired.