I'm going to attempt to hang with Sonji this week who has committed to making a quilt a day. I will make a quilt top a day, Monday-Friday, but will quilt them over the weekend in order to improve my machine quilting with a continuous run. Here is my Monday quilt:
9.5"x9.5"
I love this woman! My daughter, who at age 9 started her cookie business with her cousin who is just 1 year older, hooked me to Paula's show. Insert Mama Brag-The cookie business ran for a solid 2.5 years and was titled Mo & Jo's Cookie Bakers. It ended 4 years ago because I couldn't help them keep up with the demand due to my day job. I ran deliveries and oversaw the mixing, but they did all mixing and baking and boxing and labeling and record keeping). So here she is chatting with Paula last Thursday at the book signing.
I picked this up from Julie at High Fiber Content.
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don't search around and look for the coolest book you can find. Do what's actually next to you
"Further, they will look for ways to explain her reactions that ignore the effects of her environment." from Feminist Perspectives in Therapy: Empowering Diverse Women 2nd edition, by Judith Worell and Pamela Remer.
is that you can loose your work. I know it is around here somewhere. I just had it last night!
15 minutes later (did the St. Anthony prayer, works each and every time!) I found it.
This is just the top and I'll have to learn how to bind the off set borders. Can I use a pillow turn technique? I was reading how to do a traditional border last night and the book was recommending hand sewing at the points.
This morning is a little rough. I slept with the oxygen (I wonder if anyone has ever strangled themselves with the tube in their sleep?) but I'm really fatigued this morning. I feel like my flesh is just going to slide right off leaving me a carcass sitting right here at the computer. One of my favorite sayings in reference to myself is "nappy girl gon' be alright"...but today nappy girl is just tahed...not tired...but tahed. Those jokes about being an old soul have caught up with me. Speaking of which I'm having dinner this Friday with my closest and dearest beloved friend Mary. We go waaaayyyy back but seldom see one another any more. We are Nel and Sula...so between telepathy and telephone we stay in touch but it will be awesome to see her!
Here are the wips pics that I promised...input welcomed and encouraged. Oh, I've decided that it will be no beads on the previous quilt. Thanks everyone for the comments!
This is working off a sketch I did. There will be much more added to it, but after I got this far it made me think of the only sci-fi book I've read, Kindred by Octavia Butler.
Okay, this is my contribution to knitting...I have a daughter (15) who knits. Of course, she knits and takes it a part over and over...this was going to be a scarf. Now she is making me a bag. She wanted yarn that was 8 bucks a skein...I took her to wal-mart and said "lets start here first". Of course if it doesn't work out, it'll be my fault for buying the cheaper yarn. 
Do you think beads would enhance it? What quilting design would you have selected? I started out with curly-qs and after the 2nd attempt I decided it just didn't work. I like the curves against the straight lines. What you don't see are the top and bottom which are slanted angles. It is 14"x6".
I have more pics coming but my transfer program still isn't installed and the other pieces are too big to scan.
I'm fixin' to prepare dinner...plaintains, brocolli casserole, and baked chicken. Coffee ice cream will be desert and then the evening will be spent getting ready for the work week and chilling out as much as possible.
Y'all hangeth in.
Before you think I've not been doing a thing QR, I promise I have pics forthcoming of 4 wips and I'll get to post them just as soon as LP works out the kinks in the installation of Beyond TV software program on the other computer.
But in the meantime, I'll talk about guilty pleasures that Diane asked about....ummmm, I'm still thinking....ummmmm....I guess for the short amount of time I feel guilty about something, it would have to be taking a vacation day or two when the kids are in school and LP is at work. I'm so seldom home alone and I really do love quiet...it feels so self-indulgent to enjoy the hours from 7am-3pm without much tv, unimaginative music, the phone not ringing, the banter of siblings, and so on. Just house sounds, birds outside, the wisping sound as I roll from one side of the bed to the other, my music, and just the sound of doing what ever I do. When I'm home alone I actually enjoy doing the laundry! Being home all by myself truly feels like a little gift to myself so like I said the guilt that I feel is short and brief.
in artists' studio spaces as much as I do? Take a peek into Rose Rushbrooke's Studio. She provided great detailed commentary!
Girl, girl, girl, the Vagina Monologues was all that and then some! But it wiped my behind out! I finally got my 6 lines down and it flowed really well with the group that I was with on stage. Actually it was easier and more comfortable doing it in front of an audience than in rehearsals. The furniture for our set was some really cool contemporary screens, chairs and a couch...we looked like we could have been one of those women gab shows that I've seen on the Oxygen channel...sitting there talking about "periods" in different voices that "bled" into one another. The audience of 700 people where having a great time and gave the show a standing ovation. I'm glad I followed through and didn't back out after getting the diagnosis I mentioned in an earlier post.
Speaking of which, I'm sitting here waiting on the O2 technician to come refill the helios tank...yeap, as part of this pulmonary hypertension I'm to be on oxygen all the time...my reaction to this was...., I'll just sum it up and say it was over the top followed by a meltdown. I still do not have the courage, lack of vanity to wear it out or wear it to work...just can't do it, don't know if I want to do it. I'm relieved (almost calm) to finally have a reason for the symptoms that have been progressing over the last 3 years but this has been and will be an adjustment. I'm still working but mainly because I'm scared of being without health insurance. I'm not that familiar with what Medicaid will do or not do and I definitaely do not want to be stuck under-insured because this is not a common diagnosis and treatment still seems experiemental and new from what I've read.
Back to the VM. Each cast member received a t-shirt with a design by a visual artist from Lexington named Tanya Lewis (pictures of her work are forthcoming. she gave me permission to post them here but my camera is at the zoo with P., A., & M). Also, we received a copy of the documentary about the impact of VM world wide along with a "pussy purse" which can be viewed here. (it is not pornographic) I showed this to P., (the purse, which I thought was cute) and he asked "is that in good taste?" (no, he was serious). He couldn't watch much of the HBO edition of VM. Politically he can be described as liberal to borderline radical...but he is socially conservative around topics for public discourse, i.e sexuality. Like spirituality, he feels it is very very private matter.
But on the fabric front...I've been making these shapes over and over, in a variety of sizes and then last night it dawned on me that it was in the shape of the vagina! Oh my! Then I went to town cutting them in all different colours...not sure what I will do with them but I think this calls for a Vagina quilt!
And, yet, another discovery about myself as a quilter...I'm challenged to mix design motifs on the same piece. There is this piece I started...blocks of stripes running vertical, horizontal, vertical--that is one row, the second is just the opposite...the overall appearance is simple to boring leaning toward whimsy, but the colour carries it and I think it has potential if I could add 1 or 2 more motifs. I'm thinking about adding equal size panels on both sides and adding multiple size circles as applique or re-creating the stripe blocks in smaller scales or maybe both. I'll get a picture up in a day or two.
The O2 tech was suppose to be here between 8-noon. He has 20 minutes. I'm going to have to go. Wait, wait, before I do, I wanted to mention that Gabrielle, at Handmaiden is being kind enough to share her teaching experience at Asilomar. She asked her students to come up with 2 words to describe where they are now and where they want to be as quilt artists. I'm taking the bait and my two words are "sparse and prolific". It is hard to build upon what I learn because I'm stop and go (sparse) with weeks between actually working and when I'm focused on doing something it is like I have to take a mental exlax to clear the clutter. Thats what the vagina shaped pieces where about...clearing the clutter so that I could see. Anyways, check ya' later 'gator.
Well, well, well...look who is swatching! The plan (here goes...) is to knit my grand daughter a sweater. This will be my first knitted ...
