Lesson Learned...

I started out using an embroidery needle to make these seed stitches and after a very short time my palm started to hurt and stitching was painful. I switched to a sharp and the pain subsided to the point of being gone.  The fabric is cotton painted with acrylic and the backing is a heavier canvas which is also painted.  I thought the embroidery needle would be better because it was stronger than the sharp...the sharp is thinner but goes through the layers with more ease.

Basting

Basting, it has to be basting. When I ask myself what is the least favorite thing about quilting...I believe it is basting.  Its important but tedious...tonight I went with 505 temporary adhesive paired with saftety pens (pins?).  Quilting the stones is my favorite pattern for the texture it creates although here on the screen it looks flat...could be due to the circles not being tight enough, thread colour too close in value to the background, or that the middle layer is commercial felt instead of batting, or all of the above.  

This working intuitively with little to no pre-visioning on the outcome is working for me of late.  It might change again sometime and I might go cerebral at some point but just flowing when I am here in The Basement is working.   The painted fabric (above photo) is one that was eliminated from consideration for the Crows.  Its my aim to have this finished by the last Friday in the month for F.A.T. (Frankfort Avenue Trolley Hop) Friday which is designated as the Derby Hop.  I'm not sure if Mellwood will do anything special but I'm expecting that they will...a tenant's meeting is coming up next week and I'll get the scoop then.  I'm feeling a little gutsy (or just crazy enough) to hold a "Grand Opening" that night which gives me three weeks to plan.  I spent yesterday, pretty much all of yesterday, trying to recall how to create and merge layers in Photoshop in order to produce one mock 4"x6" postcard...if you click on the page heading for The Beauty of Holiness you can see what consumed me in time and energy....darn near an entire day squeezed into a 4"x6 piece of paper!!!!

 
(sectional view) 12"x12"

Sorry, Ade, but I'm not going with Languid for a title.   Try again.

Peace...

Do I speak a languid language?

I'm getting close to believing that pre-planning induces a deeper anxiety in me.  I didn't know that I'd end up with such a long stretch of time in The Basement, but I did.  Flowing from one thing to another worked for me today.  Just pick up something and go with it flow is what I did.   While there I did some exercises from Finding Your Own Visual Language and Image Transfer Workshop...

The transfer techniques involved allowing the image to dry completely in the gel medium and then spritzing with water and rubbing off.  If a solid filled image is important to the outcome then the culprit can be air pockets in spite of burnishing the back to get a good adhesion.  The larger image is on stretched canvas and the small image is a page inside a moleskin journal.  The desert image was a magazine photo and the crow was a laser printed on common printer paper.  Again, a techique that I'll relegate to altered books.

And right before I left I did this collage with some ink-jet printed fabrics that I'm in love with...instead of using them for some heavy message ladened art quilt, I just cut them into squares and rectangles and put them back together again.  Now I want to print off more of the same fabrics and just keep rearranging them into collages.  Ade, my youngest, called it "languid"...he meant it as a compliment...no, really, honest to goodness, he did...I think this is what I will title it.

And I'm lacking vim and vigor also, soooooo I'm taking my languid self to bed...Peace...

I should be cooking, but you know how it goes sometimes....

I don't know if any of the great grands are old enough to remember great grandpa not being in his "riding chair"...they all step up and know they can get a ride and some (Miss Z) even knows how to work the controls.  My father stood 6'4" and was always as long as I've known him, been a big man pushing 300lbs or so.  My father, by observing him ONLY, introduced me to foods that I didn't even know people consumed...pig snout and beef tongue.  He loves people and food which is making his rehab at the nursing home a demanding and challenging experience for the rest of us.  Did I ever mention that I also considered being a gerontologist.  My first jobs out of college where in nursing homes for a few years as coordinators in admissions, social services, and activities. 

Seeing the above photo, I think of my paternal grandmother, Lizzie Pearl, at the time my children where small...she nicknamed them based on something about them that she found entertaining...my oldest son, AD, had "frog blood" because he ran like a frog...my daughter, Mo, was "miss school teacher" because she liked carrying a "pocketbook" on her arm at a very young age...she was  barely potty trained and walked around with a purse on her arm with an attitude that it was suppose to be there.  One of the things I wanted to research back in the days when I thought I'd be a budding academician, was nicknaming patterns of African Americans in the South.  It was my great-grandmother who gave me my nickname that if I told you I'd have to cut out your vocal chords. 

Mo is handling herself with grace and mature composure. The nurses tell us that Anaya has a good disposition also inspite of the pokes, prods, tubes in and out.  We were given a diagnosis yesterday of Intertistial Lung Disease...I'm not sure how this works in newborns as I know ILD is kind of an umbrella diagnosis for various issues with lung tissue...I've had it as a secondary diagnosis for about 10 years and more than likely it has been the contributing factor for the PH.  My prayer for her is for a miracle...for not another generation to suffer through any pulmonary issues...for a healing in her lungs.

She has gone a few days on 1 litre of O2 and is doing well at the reduced level. 

 

Peace and Resurrection of Spirit to you an yours!

 
 
 

Gel Transfers using ink-jet images.

The transfer technique using gel medium is too unpredictable. I transfered onto paper, cotton, and a stretched canvas.The application of gel medium leans toward a thicker application then I expected in order to get a better transfer.  In this case, for the outcome, the use of materials seems a waste.  This technique gets moved over to altered books, fabric postcards at best.

I'm now trying a similiar image with a magazine page and a toner-based imageon paper and the stretched canvas.