My first week as a Macbook owner....

....was not an auspicious one. I had Parallels pre-installed so I could run some of my old Windows based programs. Some do not have Mac equivalents and some, well... just call me cheap. The new Macbook Pro is a beautiful, shiny, lightweight piece of technology. It runs quiet and cool. The first thing I tried to do was set up email. I decided that I really did not want to learn another new program so I installed my trusty Thunderbird email client. No problems getting it to work,, however, I wanted to migrate over all my old email and the files I had created. Not so easy. I dug into Google and could not find a definitive way of doing this. OK, so I knew I had a safety net at the Apple retail store. They have a "Genius" bar and they claim they will help you set up a new computer including migrating over files from your PC. GREAT! So I make an appointment and bring my two computers in. The "genius" said he knew how to do this but it would take time since I had 3 GIG worth of files.... 5 1/2 years worth of email. I had nothing better to do so I walked around the store and admired all the new toys while they made the transfer. Finally it was all done and the tech announced.... you know, I am really not suppose to do this... this is not a Mac supported program. HUH? So why do they advertise they will help you move stuff from your old PC to your new Mac? I thanked him for his time and went merrily home to tackle the next thing on my list. I turn on my computer and .... Thunderbird won't open. I keep getting a message that says there is an instance of Thunderbird already running.... WHERE??? I could't find it, I couldn't close it. Now I am getting pissed. These guys are suppose to know more than I do. It took me 2 hours to undo what this "genius" did. After doing much more research, it took me 6 hours to fix it and get the old files on the new machine. It was laborious.
So my next project was to install the FREE Lexmark printer that came with the laptop.I should also mention that the printer came with 1 3 color cartridge and no black cartridge although there is a slot for it. What do I want for free? They did toss in a printer cable as a gift! This should have been a piece of cake. The printer was functional... the Mac recognized it.... except there was no data transfer. I have installed lots of printers over the years but I decided that it was user error so I uninstalled all the programs and drivers on both sides (Mac and virtual Windows) and started over. Same thing.. I figured I missed something somewhere so started the process all over again. Still not data transfer. Sigh.... I guess I have to take them both back to the "geniuses". These guys weren't even born yet when I got my first computer in 1984. Did I mention that my trusty 2 year old HP printer bit the dust the same day?
Ok, so next up was installing my old copy of Office 2003. Not a big deal except the time it took. I had 6 years worth of updates to install as well. Next was my iphone and getting it to sync with the new machine.The itunes store makes it easy to install the apps and other data synced when I hooked it up. Not so my music library. I had to manually transfer via a thumb drive all the songs. This also took hours.
Next on the list was Picasa. I like the way the program works and I am used to it. iphoto is good for other things. 3 Gig worth of photos had to be transferred but the old program did not like my thumb drive. I had to back up all the photos onto a DVD and then restore them into the new program. How many hours? I lost track. I was finally done with all the housekeeping and I could now enjoy my new toy. ... but printerless.
Next question is which printer? Do I get the same type of HP which takes the Vivera ink cartridges I just replaced? Or, do I get an Epson? Decisions, decisions. I didn't think I was very hard on my printers but none of them seem to last more than 2 1/2 years.

It's a new week... maybe this one will be less "exciting".

Bittersweet

I sold a quilt this week and while I should be jumping for joy, it is sort of bittersweet. It is the first "art" quilt I ever designed and made and while it is a very simple design, I have gotten great pleasure from it. It is titled Serenity. I am sure it is going to a good home and I know the person who bought it will derive great pleasure from it. She insisted on having it!

On another note, we have been busy this week playing in a local regional bridge tournament and doing well. We are keeping wacky hours and I am exhausted. Thankfully, we have only 2 days 2 go. We won one team event, came in 3rd in another, and are playing in the semi finals of another today.

Where does the time go?

Has anyone noticed the passage of time? I can remember when I thought 30 was old. Sigh, my daughter is turning 30 at the end of this month. I don't feel old! Last week I spent time with a girlfriend of 52 years. I am in contact with another friend from High School who hooked me up with my HS English teacher! Turns out the guy was right out of college. We must have made life hell for him, BUT, he is still talking to me! In truth, I liked this teacher very much. He also had a hand in the Drama department and turned me on to scene design, costume design, lighting design, and makeup. I was very active in collage doing all of these and almost made a career out of costume design. If it weren't for him, I probably wouldn't have found my way to the green room.

The years seem to fly by. The days also seem to disappear on me and sometimes I have nothing to show for it. It is not like I am sitting and staring at the 4 walls and I never watch TV. So what happens to time? I think the gremlins are stealing it out from under me. I keep trying to get back into a routine of creativity but things just seem to get in my way. Next week will be another lost week in terms of my projects. Oh well, maybe the week after will be better. I am feeling prickly at the moment.

Back Home

Oh, I guess I never mentioned that I was away. I just spent a week in Irvine, California visiting some friends. It was a busy, but good week. I got to meet Jamie Fingal who gave me a tour of her spectacular studio and then we went to lunch and a walk around her lovely town. I played most of the week. I did some fun painting and stenciling on some ummm, undergarments for a young lady and I made her a vest with fish appliques. I cooked up feasts for my friends who don't bother to cook for themselves.... of course there was a glass of wine to go along with the food. For those foodies, the menu consisted of risotto with asparagus, pasta with garlic and oil, chicken cutlets, steak au pauvre, and grilled lamb chops. We had a wonderful berry crisp last night for dessert.
I was asked to "fix" an old silk flower arrangement..... I told my GF to take out all the flowers she didn't want any more.... hahah, she left 4 flowers in! We went shopping for new ones and I spent the afternoon creating a new arrangement. This is the almost final result. I ran out of time and we still need some leaves on the bottom. I will fill those in next time I am there.
I will get back to my project this week.

Good Day/Bad Day

The day started off real well... found out my stepson is in Kuwait on the way home from Iraq, YEA! We can sleep better now. I also got back to working on my Geisha piece and was making good progress when I noticed my cat was after something in the hallway. Since he is usually a wimp I wasn't too concerned but I did get up to look. SNAKE!!! I am DEATHLY afraid of snakes and I could feel my blood pressure go through the roof. I managed to think quickly before panic totally set in and tossed a trash can over it and added a rock on top for good measure. I never even saw what kind it was. I then called the fire department which, thankfully, comes and removes them. The snake was about the width of a pencil and about 18" .. but it had coiled up so I am not sure of the size. I left the room when it was removed and I did not ask what they did with it. I suspect it is in pieces in my garbage can. They told me they thought it was a red racer which is not poisonous but I am still a basket case no matter what it was. There are days (like today) I wonder why we live out in the dessert.
It is going to take me hours to settle down.

On another note... while I was in CA attending the IQA show, I took some photos of the bark on some of the trees. I thought they were rather interesting so I am posting them here.

IQA Long Beach

I have returned home from several fabulous days attending the quilt show in Long Beach, CA. While this show is not as large as Houston, I can see it happening in a few years. The exhibition of all the quilts and fashion was, as usual, top notch. Karey Bresenhan and her crew put on a first class exhibit and the reception for SAQA and QA list members was lots of fun. I got to meet people I would never have otherwise. I finally got to meet Jamie Fingal who is such a hoot. I caught up with her for a few minutes while she was creating a new wardrobe for her mice. I also volunteered some time at the SAQA table ( I learned how to work the credit card machine). The SAQA exhibit was truly awesome and pictures do not do the quilts justice. I was able to spend some time talking to Carol Larson who seems to share some of my opinions and also met some other big name (to me) quilt artists.
Unfortunately, I am not able to post pictures so what you see here is my "masterpiece" from Make It University where I took a short class from Rebecca Gill of the fantastic Stewart Gill line of fabric paints,etc. I love that paint and have been adding to my stash for the past 2 years. I picked up more thread from Superior, some more Misty Fuse and Transdoodle from an overworked but smiling Iris Karp, a few polished wooden buttons, and I found some wonderful old carved wood blocks that I will use for stamping. I also broke down and bought a pattern for a handbag that I saw some woman carrying around that has lots of inside pockets.
After dropping off my girlfriend (we drove) I met my DH for dinner and had a well earned chocolate raspberry martini and blackened Tuna. Yummy.

Day trip to Sedona

We have escaped some of the heat in Scottsdale and have been staying up in Prescott. It is lovely here.. sort of like a New England town in the middle of the dessert. The The foliage is very diverse up here including an apple tree in the yard. Today we took a side trip up to Sedona. I love the beauty of the place and I managed to get some nice shots of the red rocks. It should have been cooler there but the temps topped 100... warmer than Prescott and the folks were bitching and moaning. The Mango sorbet I had was wonderful.

QSDS Ann Johnstons's Class

The class was terrific! I had so much fun playing with dye paste and learning a great deal along the way. I am still tired from it all. We painted and printed using print paste directly on fabric. Some of us silk screened, stamped, rollered, stenciled, monoprinted, rubbed, etc. We also used corn and potato dextrine as resists. The class was 7 days... enough time to really get into it. Of course we took the required afternoon off and went to see Quilt National which, needless to say, was impressive. I aspire to that... probably only in my dreams. We also did some overdyeing and I managed some Shibori pieces as well. I have colored appendeges to show for it as well... yellow toes, blue, and red fingers. It was fun playing with all the toys.
I am waiting for permission to post some work from my classmates as well. There were 18 of us in the class which included some top tier artists... Shelley Baird, Marie Wiley, Faye Hoch, Ellen Bazzoli, Rachel Covo, Deborah Fell, to name a few. I felt quite intimidated the first few days but then just soaked it all in. Everyone was very gracious and generous about sharing knowledge and techniques and a good time was had by all. Ann was a good teacher. There were some awesome pieces from this class. I tried my hand at most things and have many pieces started and none any where near done. They all need more work but some of them I have a good idea of where I want to go with them. I have one piece that I think is a total disaster but I will use it to practice on.. who knows, maybe it will turn out ok.

I am waiting for permission from some of my classmates to post some of their pieces. I will add to the slideshow. I have added works from Meg Rogers,Teri Hjetland, Mary Anne Loehr, and Faye Hoch. I need to figure out how to incorporate these wonderful techniques into the work I enjoy doing. Enjoy.

Sacred Threads

On June 18th, we flew to Columbus, Ohio for the start of an exciting 10 days worth of activities which included my niece's wedding, a viewing of the Sacred Threads exhibit, and 7 days of classes with Ann Johnston at QSDS. We intended to meander our way through Amish country to drive back to Canton for the wedding. The weather did not cooperate.... it stormed all day Friday so we took the highway instead of the scenic route. The sun came out on Saturday and the wedding was lovely. On Sunday morning, after attending an after wedding brunch, we headed back to Columbus and the Sacred Threads show. The show was very moving. The pieces together created a very powerful story. I have permission from some of the artists to post their pieces here.

The artists are: Janice Potter, Lion of the Sea and White Buffalo Calf Woman Rhapsody, Diane C Lochala, Vines of Life and Time's Portal, Karen Fridy, Temptation, Wendy L Starn, Fire and Ice and Summer Breeze, A.Carole Grant, Joy, Gerrie Congdon, Juxtaposition and First Light, Sue Reno, Wood Poppy and Mystery Fern, Ginny Greaves, I am the Vine You are the Branches, and my piece, Dance! I have some others I would like to include and am waiting for their permission. I will amend the slide show as needed.

After viewing the Sacred Threads show, my hubby dropped me off at QSDS for my 7 day class with Ann Johnston. That will be a separate post.

Struggling to acheive realism

I am the first to admit that I cannot draw worth a damn. What I see in my head doesn't always translate well to paper. So for those of you who have the ability to draw this post should give you a chuckle. I have been trying to depict hands for the piece I am working on. It has been very frustrating for me. How do I get a 3 dimensional vision into a 2 dimensional piece? Pretty pathetic I must admit but this is how it is going to be. I cannot do what I cannot do. Sigh, I only have 2 others to do. These are the types of things that I get hung up on, get frustrated, then run away. Anyone else react like that?

Thread painting

I have been working on my project and making some good progress. Today was a first for me. I tried my hand at some thread painting. Not bad, although I will not be competition for anyone. It was sort of fun once I relaxed. Of course I kept it pretty simple so it was hard to screw up!
This piece also calls for some beading so I have lots of work still ahead of me. This piece is going to be larger than I have been working on lately. Probably a good thing. The larger size poses other challenges but leaves me more options.
I am starting to get ready for my class with Ann Johnston at QSDS soon. If anyone else is going, let me know so we can meet up. I think it will be lots of fun.

As ye sew, so shall you rip

This has turned into an interesting week...NOT. Nothing went quite as planned but I am not unhappy. Monday morning started out great. I finally began the project that I had been postponing for the past 6 weeks. I was happy with the way it was going and once I got some of the pieces on it was time to sew them in. I decided to use a variegated thread and a decorative stitch on my machine. I sewed about 8" worth and took a good look at it. YUCK! It was awful. It took me 2 minutes to sew it down and an hour to rip it out. Very frustrating. Of course I was now looking for an excuse not to work more on it that day so we went to play bridge. We won. ... actually had a very good week at the bridge table. I went back to the project this morning and got what I had done stitched down. It looks fine now. ...working on the next part. I need my cat to go nap because his help is not doing me any good. Looking forward to a productive weekend.

I need to start getting ready for QSDS in a few weeks. Of course I have done nothing. Dyeing is going to be on the agenda next week.

Hope everyone has a good weekend.

Wasting time

I spent an hour this morning looking for the pattern pieces I had made a few weeks back to start a new project. By the time I found them, I lost interest. In the meantime, there has been a discussion on the Quilt Art list of printers. Mine seems not to be working properly, but one of the suggestions from a friend is to reinstall the drivers. The printer is not pulling up the photo paper from the photo tray even though the tray is traveling to the back. It will pull up anything in the main tray. The other discussion is about dye based versus pigment based inks. My printer is an HP that uses Vivera 02 cartridges. According to HP they are dye based however some have said that the new ones perform more like pigment based. The pigment based HP inks are the # 38's and the printer they use is $600+. For that price I am not interested. I will play with what I have.

For a good laugh, here is the original fabric that I used for Fish Story.

Quilted

I did a simple quilting job even I couldn't screw up. I echo quilted around the fish and channel quilted the seams. I may or may not add some hand stitches but it is going on hold since I am going to go look for play fish to embellish with.
Susan will no longer be horrified!

Fish story

I did more work on my resurrected piece today. I finally listened to it and caved in about it being an underwater scene. Being lazy and also not wanting to invest a whole bunch of time in this, I cheated and used some mylar fish stickers I found in a drawer. I also added more paint to the piece. I had several options of adhering the fish to the fabric but I took the easy way out... it was also an experiment. I added a layer of netting over the entire piece fused down with Misty Fuse. I was concerned about the mylar melting but a low setting on the iron did the trick. I like the added texture the netting gives the piece. I tossed some more paint on top of the netting and I declare it done..... now I just have to figure out how to quilt it without ruining it. Yes, some of the fish blend in and you need to be close to see them.... it is intentional. My objection to the piece is that there is not enough value contrasts to the colors. It is what it is. The mylar is shiney and no matter what I do, I get some reflection spots. When I get it done, I will set it up properly and photograph again.

Good news and sneak peak

After some frustrations, my recalcitrant piece is finally coming along. I like how it has turned out. Here is a sneak peek.

On the good news front... usually my mail consists of junk and bills but today I was pleasantly surprised to find 2 very nice pieces. One was a wedding invitation to my hubby's niece's wedding next month (not a surprise) and the other was my "honorarium" check for my piece Through Rose Colored Glasses which will be featured as part of an article on landscape quilts in the July/August issue of Fons and Porters "Love of Quilting" magazine. This is pretty heady for a nobody in the art quilt world. This has been a good year for me so far. I hate drinking alone, but I think I will imbibe in a glass of wine.

Named

My latest wonky piece has a name thanks to some help from online buddies. I have decided to call it "In the Eyes of Chaos". Very fitting for this piece.
I have started work on another something or other. I was playing around with using paint on fabric in November and was not terribly happy with any of the results. Maybe it was timing, but I did not have the patience to really focus on it. The results were 2 pieces of crap with color on them. One has some potential down the road, the other was slated for the rag pile but it got a reprieve. I decided to slice it up and sew it back together again. It has some possibilities but I have already nixed 3 ideas. It has been screaming at me that it wants to be an underwater scene but it isn't what I wanted to do. Of course nothing else I come up with is working.... so we all know what it eventually will be. Now I just have to figure out a way to go with it.

Yummy dinner last night... my hubby hates mushrooms but he is in China on a biz trip. I bought some Portobello mushrooms and some arugula at the store the other day and last night I marinated the mushrooms with oil, garlic, and hot pepper flakes then grilled it. Set it over a bed of arugula and poured the rest of the marinade over it. mmmmm mmmmm good.

Yesterday...

....was an interesting day. We woke up in the morning to find out we had no electricity and no water. Some doohickey on the power pole outside our house had a meltdown. I will say that the folks from the utility company responded promptly and by noon we had power back. We need power to run our well. The good part is that we got stuff done around the house that we had been putting off and the weather cooperated. We had a lovely breeze so the heat was not stifling. I am not sure which one of us hit the shower first!
Tuesday evening was the reception at the Shemer Gallery in Phoenix. SAQA members were given the entire gallery to fill. I have 4 pieces hanging. They did an outstanding job of hanging and lighting and each piece was given enough space to view properly but not strung out as to look sparse. The gallery is in an old house and the rooms are smallish with narrow hallways. Unfortunately, I did not take any photos. The show runs till the end of June.

I did some more work on my wonky piece.... I added some color washes to the light colored areas, quilted it, and sewed on some Turkish beads I had. This piece needs a name. The beads are from an inexpensive bracelet I bought in Istanbul a few years back. I think these are the evil eye protection beads. I am not sure if more work is needed on this piece or not. I tend to the less is more theory. I may add more color.

Sigh, Ned left for a biz trip to China this morning. Maybe I will get back to some serious work. It has been staring me in the face for the past month.

Today is not a total loss

I haven't felt like starting the project I really should be working on but I decided to work on something I started many months ago. This piece was screened, rolled over stencils, etc using dye paste. It was pretty blah and sitting on my design wall waiting for some inspiration. I decided to play with some paint sticks and a new stencil. I think I have improved it. I will let it dry and see if I still like it tomorrow! It has no name so if anyone has something brilliant, please make suggestions.

It's spring

... and the lizards have been scurrying around. We love the lizards because they eat the ants, spiders, scorpions, etc. This is a spiny lizard.. not sure which one because it is not likely it will let me pick it up and check its belly. We usually have the more common lizards and gecko's in residence but this one I have not seen on our patio before. It is quite large.. the male is about 8" and the female about 6". They stand on legs that look to be 2" and have chubby bodies. I am sure it is mating season. I think we must have some resident lizards... I do not know what their lifespans are but most of them don't run away anymore when we are out there. We were moving some furniture yesterday and one came running out of the flowers and almost ran over my foot... it knew I was there as it had to come about 8 feet to do that. It just stopped and looked at me and then went on its way. OK, so I am nuts... I talk to them!