A Day at RAFA

Well, we are getting ready for our show at the Rochester Area Council for the Arts later this month so it was nice to see all the different pieces all ready to be hung. Our leader on this process has been the inimitable Pat Pauley who is a fantastic artist/designer on her own and who has prodded us to be more professional in our approach to our arts. Her passion for art is definitely an inspiration for all of us.

I didn't take my camera today but did manage to get done the Yellowstone II piece and for the first time ever in a quilt, am anxious to get to the quilting part as I know it will be much improved by this step. I did manage to convey what I wanted to with this piece. It is larger and more complex which is what I was going for. I liked the first piece for its simplicity but I really wanted to take it further and I accomplished this. I am feeling definitely a need to try something else with this particular composition. I learned new things with the second piece. Most prominent was that I should keep the sketch and the composition itself relatively simple and then play with the different areas without committing myself to specific elements in the drawings. I like piecing my own fabric and using close values for some background areas but using lots of different fabrics. The next thing I want to do is to use more complex fabrics as well. Using my own mottled hand dyes is nice, but there is not the variety of textures I would like to have, some of which are only available from a practical standpoint in your local quilt shop. I love the work of Ruth McDowell and the group today talked about trying to get her for a five day class some time in the next couple of years and that may just happen. She uses very complex fabric and I am not sure I am there yet, but would like to move in that direction. Anyone who has seen my stash, knows that it will not be a problem to find the appropriate fabrics!!

We had two new members today as well and that is always exciting. One is a dyer that I met on Dyerslist. She does phenomenal work with mandalas -- as good as anything I have seen available anywhere. I am so glad that they opened up the membership again. I know she sells on Etsy.com but don't know her screen name right off hand.



Our Mickey finally was awake long enough for me to get his picture on our sofa.

Victory!

Well, can't believe it but the Yellowstone piece is pretty much put together except for "smoothing" out some rough spots. I am actually quite happy with how it turned out and may not feel compelled to do another one of the same scene but you never know. I have been thinking of it from a compositional standpoint and might see what would happen if I really played with the colors and took it out of Yellowstone completely and maybe into another western location!

I have quite a "to do" list ahead of me with numerous classes and two pretty much all day meetings in the next couple of weeks. I also need to get ready for the trip south as well so it will be a bit busy!

Making Progress

Well, my feet and my nose are cold and I am sitting in my fleece so winter must be coming to Upstate NY. Now to get out those turtlenecks, the staple of my winter wardrobe. With our extra long summer, I have still be putting tshirts on in the morning!

And no, that is not snow in these pictures. It is travertine or calcium carbonate which bubbles up through the various hot springs and geysers at Yellowstone. The picture that these two views were based on was taken in the Mammoth Springs area of Yellowstone in the morning when it was still quite overcast which gave the grey quality to the sky. The colors at Yellowstone are astounding and it is certainly my favorite of the national parks we visited in the spring.

We had to get up at 5:15 this Sunday morning to get my oldest on the plane back to her home in Charlotte. She had come to visit the mother of one of her friends who was recently diagnosed with multiple myeloma. She had a good visit as Maryalice was feeling a bit better after multiple dialysis and plasma tranfusions.

I AM making progress with my second Yellowstone piece as you can see. My quandary is that I don't have quite the graphic quality that I did with the first one which made use of quite a bit of black and very dark values. I have tried to use darker values but it may not be enough. I am relatively pleased with how it is looking right now as I am adding all the different shades of orange and orange/brown. The first one looks very simplistic to me now -- when does simple end and graphic begin? Maybe what I had needed to do was just to make the original one much bigger. Hmmmmm, but then it would have had large areas of the same color and that would have been boring as well. All these decisions....

Well here it is a bit more put together. I still have the tree to fully put in and then sew the top and bottom together so it is all one piece but looks like I will get it done by RAFA on Thursday.
As I do with all my projects, I just look at it as a learning experience and then move on to the next. At least, I have gotten away from dulling my senses by just doing mindless piecing when I am putting off doing the hard work of getting an original piece together. I will be doing plenty of that with my upcoming vacation where mindless piecing looks pretty good!! At least it will be nice and warm and sunny.

This is what the old piece looked like. You can't see from the photo but it is quite a bit smaller than the new piece.

Another Sewing Day for Yellowstone II Piece

Well, another productive day of trying to get at least the top of the Yellowstone piece done! It took the better part of the day and much tearing apart and putting back together and bobbin thread running out but I finally got the top to a stage where it is okay. I have literally ripped it out probably 4 times and put back together. There have been three iterations of the trees and this one is okay but still not what I totally want but enough so I won't rip it out again. Unfortunately, that means there may be Yellowstone III coming up. How many times can I do this one picture until I get it right!! Well, it is a learning experience. I like the original one from a composition standpoint but wanted to make it bigger and do more intricate piecing in some places as I thought I would like it better (which I do). It may be losing some of best of the composition though in doing that as it is not as high contrast -- doesn't have as graphic a quality. I will get it done and quilted and make my final decisions.

It was a gorgeous day again after a day of much needed rain so I included some pictures I took at Marcia's house today as there is beginning to be some color around there although we still have little up here by the lake. I also included a last picture of our garden at the house as it is still blooming and almost November which is AMAZING around here!


Here is some fall color from Marcia's back yard.


Here is some more fall color.




This is a fantastic tree called a river birch that Marcia has growing in her back yard. Isn't the bark cool!


Ah, here is a picture of our garden taken on Monday when it was 80 degrees out. It is never this nice even in September around here, much less the end of October!


These are the daisies in our neighbor's front yard which stand about three feet high and are beautiful this year.


These are some of Joe's glorious mums as well. They are huge this year and overladen with flowers.

My Sewing Collectibles

I thought I would take the opportunity today to take pictures of some of my toy sewing machines and other sewing collectibles that have accumulated in my sewing room and any other flat surface I can find!

I have made some progress on the second Yellowstone piece but it is not far enough along so I know whether I like it better or worse than the first. I have had a lot of trouble with the trees and am not particularly happy with them but think that was true with the first as well. Things seemed to go together better in the first piece though. Maybe I have built in too much complexity. I do have a little momentum going though and will try to photo tonight for tomorrow's blog.

Anyway, here are the archives!
The first bunch are the ones that are on the wall of my sewing room which you face when you come.


The second bunch are along the wall on the opposite side of the room.



These are a series of sewing baskets with the Chinese coins on them. I like the patina.


And these are the ones that sit in my guest room which can now be called the sewing room annex as I have quilts in the closet and fabric hiding under the bed, in the closet and under the dresser. These sit on top of an old Martha Washington sewing stand (I think everyone has one of these). This was always in my mother's small sewing room in the old house. I keep it filled with sewing machine attachments and some more notions.



This is my antique wash stand that comes from the Philadelphia area. It is from about 1800 and my mother bought it when we were young. It was one of my favorite things from the old house. On top of it sit many old sewing notions including several attachment boxes from old Singer and an old Wheeler and Wilson sewing machine.


These are more machines in the "sewing machine annex".

And still more!


This is a piece that utilizes some silk paper I dyed and made plus several pieces of hand painted fabric. It just screamed for beads when I was done so they were added as well even though I had never used beads on anything before. It is called Rainforest Leaves.

New Yellowstone Piece

After a day at Marcia's on Thursday, I finally got really started on the second of the Yellowstone pieces.




The first one was started in the class I took this summer and I really like it but made choices based upon the fabric I bought with me plus a little I purchased at the vendors. This time I decided to go bigger and more detailed and use more variety in the fabrics.



I began the same way by drawing a cartoon from the same picture I took at Angel Terrace at Yellowstone.


It follows along on a theme I seemed to have developed which is trying to bring beauty to things that are inherently not considered attractive which includes the forest fire, rusted truck. I took lots of pictures of dead trees on this trip and I think many will find their way into pieces in the near future! The fact that I live in a heavily wooded development probably is a significant influence here.

My father was a naturalist before it was stylish and taught ecology back in the 30's and 40's. As a child, one of the super big treats was to accompany my father on his Saturday "walks" which were down the railroad tracks and into the undeveloped areas near where we lived. He would find cocoons, tadpoles and I grew up with beautiful butterflies hatching and watching tadpoles turn into frogs in our back room. We grew most of our own fruits and vegetables despite living in a heavily developed suburb of Philadelphia. The town permitted my father to farm a 1/2 acre plot next the railroad tracks that remained undeveloped until I went into college when it finally became parkland. I think it was in the genes as his family had farms and came from English farming stock although it was two generations away from him.

Anyway, below is the current status of my newest Yellowstone piece.







I have also included a shot of my very favorite piece I have purchased from Priscilla Kibbee. It is a hand embroidered piece on hand woven fabric from Guatemala. I can't help myself when Priscilla brings back all these wonderful textiles and trims from all over the world.
See her blog at www.priscillakibbee.blogspot.com. She has fascinating pictures from her many travels around the world. I'll post some molas I have purchased from her as well at a later time. She actually bought them from the Kuni Indians off the coast of Equador in her last trip -- amazing hand work.

A 50th Anniversary Celebration!

We had the good fortune to be invited to an anniversary party of our old friends and neighbors in Batavia. Batavia is in western NY about halfway between Buffalo and Rochester. We moved there right after Warren finished grad school and we commuted to Niagara Falls and Rochester for 9 years in the early part of our marriage. The couple being feted at the anniversary party were our neighbors across the street. This was our first house and the time when our two children were born. I don't know what we would have done without them. We had no immediate family anywhere around to help new parents who were struggling to get things right! Terry left a fancy ball when our second child was born. I went into labor just as we had deposited our then 2 1/2 year old at the hospital as she had a rash from head to foot and a raging fever. Terry made sure they took good care of her as she was a nurse at that hospital.

The party was a wonderful tribute thrown by their two grown sons. It was amazing to see them all grown up after so many years!! Amazing how other people get older (although Ray and Terry looked almost identical to what they did 25 years ago) when Warren and I remain the same age...

Sandy and Phil were our other two neighbors and they also looked great!! Sandy took care of both my girls when they were small so we took the opportunity to blame her for all their imperfections!!

It was really great to be back there -- we had some wonderful time in those years.

This is Terry and Ray cutting the cake.


This is a picture of Sandy and Phil sitting across the table from us.