A New Wardrobe

As much as I wish it weren't true, I'm really crummy at making real clothes. However, I did make this tiny vintage wardrobe for PaMdora in just a couple of days (once again, ignore the red and white pins!)

Last month we saw an exhibition by Andrea Zittel at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. She has this whole company that she's invented called the A-Z company that makes everything from bizzare trailers to floating islands. One room was filled with dress forms wearing all sorts of dresses the she had created, and I thought they were amazing. Some were sewn, some crocheted.

Then I realized that she wore each one for six months before she made another. I can't find a good photo of all of them (there's a small sample on her web site), but they really were the sort of thing I would like to wear. Except not for six months. I mean, I also hate deciding what to wear each morning, but wouldn't they start to smell? And what if you spilled some soup on one?

Here's another green-on-green detail for Gerrie, the queen of lime green.

Still Life with Lipstick

One of these days I'm going to make some little quilts that just feature objects. I love drawing and cutting out these little things. They look just dandy on their own, but actually they are for a big quilt.

Here's a section...ignore the little red pins, they are just holding the buttons until I sew them on. I'm slowly dipping into that box of 10,000 buttons I bought at a auction once. Let's see, at eight buttons per quilt, that means I have to make how many quilts to use them all up???!!

Illustration Friday: Small

I love all the little vintage-looking purses that I see in shops nowdays, but can't seem to fit everything inside because they are TOO SMALL!

It's been a while since I've done an Illustration Friday, but this theme gave me an idea for another drawing for a quilt that I've been trying to work on all week. Why is it drawing is like excercise? The more I do, the better I feel. But when I get out of the habit, it's hard to get started again.

Art Car Museum

When I saw this sign laying around Mark Bradford's studio, it reminded me of all the metal valentines I've gotten from Russ. Luckily we live in the same house -- can you imagine the postage?!

Anyway, while Houston we did get to the Art Car Musem, not easy to find and less easy to park (is that ironic?) but definately worth it. Look at this great car door that's been covered with mosaic eyes.

This car won Judge's choice in the Houston Art Car Parade in 2003. It's called "Spoonozoid" and was created by Mark Bradford.

It's covered with spoons, hence the name. What would Miss Manners think! The "driver" had to lay on his stomach inside the beast to drive it.

As we were admiring the car, we got directions to Braford's studio, where there were lots more silverware and scrap metal creatures in progress.

He was on a deadline to finish another car for an event, so we didn't stay long. But I couldn't help but notice his not-so-white-board.

For more photos from the Art Car Museum, go to rubertstudios.com

Houston Center for Contemporary Craft

While in Houston we made it over to the Center for Contemporary Craft which was having an exhibition of eight internationally known textile artists. I thought these big long pieces on linen by Ilize Aviks were okay, but when I got closer I was really impressed by how all the embroidery made the work. It was called "Book of Hours: Perfectionism,", and you have to wonder how many hours all those seed stiches too.

There were several pieces by Joan Schulze that were a combination of toner drawings and machine embroidery on layers of translucent silk organza. The smaller ones were framed: this one is called "Gathering Clouds."

And of course Nancy Crow was brillant with her color and composition in "Construction 77: Looking for a Reprieve."

This Takes the Cake!

Okay, you have to admit this is unusual -- how many people get a birthday cake with a photo of their own quilt on top? The Uncommon Threads women and one man met yesterday and knocked my socks off with this surprise.

Of course, Arleta did mention that there might be a copyright issue since she used the photo from the Viking book to make the cake...but since it's was all done with sugar, we quickly ate the evidence.

Not only was there cake, but Merrilee hand-painted and hand-stamped this beautiful gift box and it was crammed full of goodies from everyone in the group. I was overwhelmed!

Lettie Blackburn's back in town, and she shared this fun quilt. It may look dark here, but believe me, it's COVERED with all sort of crazy bright stitches.

Arleta Johnson, the cake master, brought this quilt to show. It's huge and I wanted to include the impish looks on her and Merrilee's faces as they held it up, but figured they'd see the photo and find some way to get revenge.

Donna Fairbanks has been busy making this Moon quilt, and believe me there were lots of mooning jokes, especially by Donna's husband Clyde who is our lone male member. The moon is very three-dimensional, stuffed from the back and the little stuffing holes are cleverly covered by stars on the back side.

Cathy Jeffery brought a couple of works, one framed so beautifully I couldn't photo it (because of the glass reflections). I wish I had shot the back of this one, because it's black covered with lime-green quilting, each row a different pattern and quite stunning.

Updated My Website

I've finally updated my website, putting five new quilts on - well, actually four that I just finished these last two weeks, and the one from the Viking exhibition that according to the exhibition rules I couldn't post until November.

This little one with two kokeshi dolls, I started last summer but couldn't bring myself to quilt it with the brown border I originally chose.

It was a kind of neat vintage kimono material, but I guess I'm just not a brown person. I know there are many lovely browns out there, but just couldn't get it finished until I changed to the orange stripey border.

What's a Girl to Do?

I've been trying to follow the advice of Twyla Tharp in The Creative Habit -- to leave something undone for the next day, so when I return, I know exactly where to pick up working. Although I tried to finish up several quilts before leaving on my last trip, I didn't. However, that turns out to be a good thing!

Leaving right in the middle of my Meeting Captain Nemo quilt, I was anxious to return home and went right back to work in the studio the day after we returned. That MUST be a record compared to my usually slovenly self. But now, so many things to do and so little time!

There are songs to be put in the songbirds.

And details to embroidery on slippers.

But this new embroidery kick I'm on goes much slower than expected. This little hand towel took over TWO HOURS to embroidery, and halfway through I was panicking I would run out of this strange vintage floss I had chosen. Unfortunately it doesn't even show up very much.

Although as Gabrielle says, my fingers are starting to look like hamburger (never could get the hang of thimbles), at least I learned my lesson about color. I started to use more colors when I embroidered these fuzzy slippers, and the effect is much better. Reminds me a little of donuts and makes me hungry...

Tomorrow I'll officially be one year older. But tonight I'm feeling good that I've finished up these four new quilts, and I'm just working on the photos to put them on my web site.

Bridal Flip Flops

Just found this web site, uglydress.com - archive of the world's ugliest bridesmaid dresses. Actually I thought the shoes were the funniest section (nearly choked on my chicken caesar salad), but the ugly cakes in the ugly wedding section were pretty funny too.

Having just been in my step sister's wedding last September, I'm very grateful that she didn't make me wear anything like is on this web site.

Photos from the IQA Festival

Someone asked, what was my favorite quilt in the International Quilt Festival (the superbowl of quilts) in Houston last week? It wasn't hard for me to say - it's this one called Katrina Blues by Susan Shie that I kept coming back to again and again.

As she painted this quilt, her nanny adverture stories got mixed in with grief and worries about Katrina victims. It's my favorite because I think it's great art that is made most like real life - a mixture of charming, beautiful, funky, funny, sad -- about mundane things and very important things all at the same time. I wanted to pull up a chair and just sit and read the whole thing, but couldn't get close enough to read all of Susan's journal entries.

Perhaps one of my second favorites was this antique quilt from the 1930's by Annie Stolz from the collection of Joyce Gross. I loved all of Joyce's collection and her delightful stories about how she acquired each quilt.

You can see more of the quilts that caught my eye, and the stories or statements that accompany them in this photo gallery.

Husqvarna Awards

I didn't realize the Husqvarna Awards would be such a big thing until getting to the IQA Festival in Houston. We had a private dinner with a bunch of Husqvarna and Quilt Festival VIPs on Wednesday, and then an awards luncheon the next day. It was fun getting to know the other winners -- Helen Godden from Australia (on the left), Ita Ziv from Isreal (right), and Annette Hedricks (not pictured). Look at Helen's cool Aussie coat and leather pants she wore to the ceremony!

As we each walked up to the podium to accept flowers, a plaque, a crystal trophy, someone read our artistic statements! Most people at the lunch however came to the lunch to hear Libby Lehman's entertaining lecture. And each one of the five hundred people in attendance got a huge spool of thread as a party favor.

As first place winner, Annette got a huge crystal trophy that I'd like to see her taking through airport security. The rest of us got these cute ones that look like little boats with floating triangles inside. However the sewing machines in the ceremony were just for show - we will get certificates to pick them up at the dealer. There's also this great catalog that Viking published with photos of all the quilts in the exhibit.