Creative Cue : Market

This is from the fall of 2002 at The Farmer's Market in Madison. Oliver is just over a year old here. The sights and smells and tastes were a bit much for him then, so he took a nap.

See the other Creative Cue interpretations for Market.

Creative Cue : Mother (or Gramma Pickles Sparkles)

For Mother, I decided to do a thread-sketch of my Gramma. In this picture, she is trying not to smile (but I know she is smiling under that frown). Just trying to look serious.

Want to know why we call her Gramma Pickles? When my son was born, we were having a tough time distinguishing between my parents as brand new grandparents and my own grandparents a generation older. Gramma is famous for her refrigerator pickles, and we had a jar in our fridge which we referred to as Gramma Pickles (meaning pickles made by Gramma). Somehow the name was transferred to her, and it stuck. ;-) In case you were wondering, that's a wreath of pickles around her head.

Detail of free-motion thread sketching, embroidery, and beading. Gramma is in her 80s now, and she still never leaves the house without touching up her lipstick, and putting on some earrings. Oh yeah--and those are sparkles on her glasses. I couldn't leave that out!

Happy Birthday, Gramma!

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Walk-a-Mile Challenge : Rich

Last October, Conversations-in-Cloth, my local art quilt group announced the Walk-a-Mile Challenge. Karen Matze, who devised this challenge, loves to recycle things. She challenged us to go for a walk, and pick up any old piece of junk that could be used in a piece of artwork. She said we could use 1 piece of commercial fabric, and muslin that could be treated any way we wanted. So all winter, I've been walking, and collecting a pile of stuff.


Here's what I actually used for this piece :
* A piece of paper from a billboard floating on a sidewalk in Toulouse, France
* Net from a bag of avacados
* A Ghirardelli chocolate chip bag
* Green lace from a dress that no longer fits me

I took that Ghirardelli bag and opened it up, painted it with miceous oxide acrylic paint, and zapped it with a heat gun. The result looked like a rocks along a stream-bed to me. If you look closely, you can see the blue and gold Ghirardelli logo under the paint. The plastic net bag and the green lace became vegetation. The billboard paper became the sky reflected in the water. I added some additional beads. This piece is only 4 x 6 inches, post card size.


Here is my inspiration photo, taken on the Isle of Skye in Scotland, near Uig.
How'd I do?

Creative Cue : Arm

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Creative Cue : Pocket

For this Creative Cue, I kept thinking about a song from what might have been an animated version of Jack & the Beanstalk. A beautiful woman was imprisoned by the giant. She sang a song telling Jack (and friends), "In his vest pocket, you'll find the key ..."


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Creative Cue : Side

Side of a Tree.

Side of me at the side of a tree.
I take a lot of pictures of tree bark, stones, patterns. I love texture. My husband is amused by this, and he went so far as to take a picture of me getting texture.

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Creative Cue : Break

My friend Janna sent holiday treats on this plate at Christmas-time. I'm sure she had in mind that I might later use the plate for mosaics. Thanks, J! ;-)

I dropped it from a little too high up. It was difficult to put the pieces back in their relative places, but I think you get the point.

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Creative Cue : Full

Just a quick sketch to illustrate this Creative Cue for Full.

Someday I would like to turn this one into a real wall hanging, but it will take a while ... The yard and garden beckon, so "making stuff" will have to wait a while ...

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Black Jack Quilt Top

I finished this quilt top last week.
It was the Log Cabin Twist-After Hours kit from Connecting Threads.
I've been wanting to do some traditional quilt blocks in black-red-and white. This one had the color proportions I was looking for. I was able to work on this evenings after supper. It was a good meditation (aka mindless sewing). Usually, my brain is too fried after a full day of work to sew, and I wind up making mistakes that a while to fix. But this was a good exercise.




Could be years before I actually get it quilted, so I wanted to share it now ...

Lake Fly Post Card

I've been wanting to try thread sketching ever since I started tracking Karen M's work at Rabbits Eat Quilts. She does some marvelous work!

Every year around Mother's Day, the Lake Flies hatch around Lake Winnebago, WI. I happen to live just 1 block from the Lake. This year the Lake Flies came early ... They look like a mosquito, except they don't bite. They don't even have mouths. They just hatch, mate, lay eggs, and die 2 days later. For 7-10 days, there are millions of them around the Lake. It's such a huge cloud that it shows up on weather radar! This hatch seems to be ebbing -- thankfully!

Creative Cue : Rich

Rich in texture, that is.
I took this picture on the Isle of Skye, Scotland. As usual, I was looking down, but here I could see the sky reflected in the water among the rocks. Lovely! This photo lives in my sewing studio as inspiration.

See other Creative Cue interpretations for Rich.

Conversations in Cloth

I am the resident blogger for my local Art Quilt Group, Conversations in Cloth. We meet once a month at an area Public Library to show-and-share and explore techniques. We take turns leading demos, so it's a good place to get your feet wet teaching. Aside from the great camaraderie (some nights my face is sore from laughing so much), it's also a wonderful place to problem-solve. I've brought pieces where I've gotten stuck, and the creative ladies in this group always offer suggestions and solutions to move through it.

I just spent 3 hours blogging last Thursday's meeting. Check it out :

Making Fabric Beads : Demo by Lois W.

April Show & Share : Spotlight on Jo Holden's Hand Dyes

April 2010 Show & Share