Los Angeles Adventure

I haven't posted lately, so I've got a lot to tell, but I don't want your eyes to glaze over, so I'll do it in bits. My friend Cathi asked me to update my Music Playlist . . . so I did. If you have a favorite song that you would like included, let me know. If you don't like music playing while you surf, just turn your computer speakers off.

Today I went to the Gunther von Hagens’ Body Worlds exhibit in Los Angeles. It was truly incredible, unbelievable, amazing, fantastic (choose an adjective), all apply. Basically, cadavers have been preserved with plastinates; they show all the various muscles, organs, tendons, bones etc. I know, you're thinking that this sounds really gross, but it's not! It's fascinating.

Here's my kids with their 3D glasses before the IMAX Mummy movie. Interesting story, but it wasn't my favorite, and it certainly didn't need to be 3D. Oh well!

This is the roof/ceiling between the Science Center and the IMAX Theater. It was so cool! Gold balls in various sizes were hanging down from the ceiling and the purple circle is glass, so light pours through it and creates really interesting shadows.

Stamp Carving

I began carving erasers several months ago, first with an exacto knife, then a carving knife. It was fun to carve the erasers, but they're very small. I decided that I needed to carve a larger piece, so I purchased some Speedy Cut by Speedball and got to work.I set the stamp down to answer some emails. When I was finished, I realized that the stamp was hanging off the edge of the table and I broke the corner of it. Can you see the crack in top right corner? Wow, this stuff is kind of brittle, the erasers are a lot more pliable.What a Bummer! I tried to glue it, but it didn't look good. There was only one thing I could do; cut it into three smaller stamps.

Then I flipped two of the stamps over and carved the other side.

What do you think the stamp on the right represents?

An abstracted, happy wine opener (another design exercise). If you recognized it, I didn't do a very good job abstracting it!! I think it sort of looks like a woman with BIG hair. LOL

I can't wait to ink these up and see how they print. Stay tuned. . . .

Design Exercises

How often do you make time to strengthen your design skills?

Last week, after our Fibervision meeting, some of us stayed to practice some design exercises. Here are a couple of the pages from the "Shape Splitting" exercise. Basically, you chose a simple shape and cut it in as many ways as you can think of. Do this 8-10 times and evaluate your final shapes. I decided to use Sue's beautiful journal to store my design exercises.

Here's a Continuous Line, Self Portrait that I drew tonight. Do you like it?

In Santa Barbara, we have an art and cultural event called 1st Thursday. I attend many art openings, some fantastic, some not so good (IMHO). Tonight I attended one that was a lot of fun because you got to create your own art. It was held at the Perch Gallery and featured student art from the Ridley Tree Education Center. The continuous line, self portrait is one of the lessons they do with their students. You look into a mirror, and without ever looking at you paper, you draw a continuous line, self portrait. Then you color it with water soluble crayons.

Well, some people (I won't mention names) had a real hard time keeping their eyes in the mirror! Seriously, if you've never tried it, you should. It's not as easy as it sounds, but it is great fun.

And the Winner Is . . .

Angie in AZ. Congratulations, Angie, your guess of $267.00 was very close. The actual amount I spent was $274.59. Please send me your snail mail address.Here's what I bought: Cherrywood Fabric (hand-dyed, resembles suede), Tube purse pattern, MonoPoly thread, circle cutter, Stewart Gill paints (Colourise and Pearlise), Bags with paper and stitch book, African fabric (bottom left), Batiks, Creative Classics Quilting Designs book, and Rayon thread.


I spent a lot less than most of you thought. I wasn't showing restraint or being frugal. The truth is, my studio is overflowing with every type of supply imaginable. If you ever want to try a new technique, chances are, I have everything you need, including the book that explains how to do it. I simply cannot fit much more!

There is one thing that I really wanted and didn't buy - and A-1 Longarm Quilting Machine. I loved everything about it except the size and price! Seriously, there may be one in my future.

Thanks for playing along, I really enjoyed hearing from so many new people. Keep those comments coming, I love to meet new people and visit new blogs.

One Day Left to Guess

I'll announce the winner tomorrow night. So far, the guesses range from $20.00 (my husband guess - haha) all the way up to $800.00.

Mike came back from Greece with 550 photos. He's never taken photos before, so I'm really impressed with the outcome. I've chosen a few to share. Hope you enjoy them.Here's Casper. Guess he's know all over the world!This is a very cool angle to shoot these columns. It really makes them dramatic!How would you like to live in this house? If you have extra paint mixed, you can embellish your house.

This photo of the islands is very peaceful. Love it!

Colorful Give Away!

Where is everyone?? I was surprised how few people guessed how much money I would spend at IQA Long Beach. I know that I must have more than 4 people reading my blog. I would love to hear from all of you. I'll announce the winner on Saturday.

I spent part of the day making this colorful jewelry pouch as the give away prize. If you look really close at the interior photo, you'll see that there's an extra surprise attached to a sterling silver chain and hidden inside one of the compartments. Did I ever mention that I am also a silversmith?

I had a great time at the IQA Long Beach show in Long Beach. It consisted of Special Exhibit quilts (mostly art quilts) and 500 vendors. That's a whole lot of vendors! I'm real excited about an Olfa circle cutter that I bought. It cuts any size circle between 1-7/8 t0 8-1/2". I love circles and use them a lot in my work. This will definitely make it much easier to cut them.

I was in a fabric booth and heard somebody say, "Was that shirt on a blog?" Turns out it was Doreen K all the way from Nevada. It was so surprised that somebody recognized my shirt!

Lucky, Lucky Me

Sue Bleiweiss pulled my name out as one of the lucky prize recipients in her latest give away. I chose one of Sue's beautiful journals that has writing on the outside similar to my t-shirt.We both used the same curved syringe to do the writing. It's a fun technique to play with, you should give it a try.

The journal has three signatures inside, some pages are painted with metallics and some have been left white. I can't wait to start filling it up with something special, but I'm not sure what yet. Thank you, Sue; you are very generous and I LOVE it.

I would like to start teaching some classes locally. I'm planning to teach a variety of stenciling and printing techniques. It's a lot of work to get all the samples and directions made up. I hope it works out.

Kathy and I are driving to Long Beach in the morning to the first IQA show. Many of our friends are already there; Susan Italo is giving demonstrations on how she makes her beautiful jackets and I'm hoping to meet up with Ruth Rae in the QA booth. I want to check out the Stewart Gil paints I keep hearing about. I'm excited, it's going to be a lot of fun!

How much money do you think I'll spend? Hmmmm . . . that would be a good contest. I'll give a prize (unknown at the moment) to the person that guesses the closest amount. Even though it seems like I own every product ever made, I keep finding more to buy. Why is that??

Things that Make Me Smile

In order to be really creative, I need to enjoy my surroundings. I need a happy place to create, someplace colorful with silly little items surrounding me. I'm not sure if it's the item or the memory that makes me smile, but I love having them in my studio.

This welded sculpture is made with nuts, bolts and nails. This was a gift from my husband and immediately made me smile.I was at the Santa Maria Quilt show when I saw this soft sculpture. Although it made me laugh out loud, I didn't purchase it right away. All I could think was, "What will I do with it?" As I walked around the show, I couldn't stop thinking about her. I had to go back, and I don't regret it. She hangs on my design wall and makes me smile every day. Isn't that enough?

My kids got these little plastic Simba's in their McDonald happy meals around 20 years ago. I immediately loved their little dancing heads and begged them for their prize. They really didn't care and gladly gave them to me. Lucky me!

Certainly, I'm not the only one with wonderful chachki's in their studio. Drop me a note or send a link to the items you love.

Surface Design on T-shirt

Shhh . . . don't tell anyone, but I can be really sloppy. It seems like I'm constantly getting stains on my shirts. I'm tired of throwing out perfectly good shirts, so I got creative with some surface design.I decided to hide two little stains smack in the middle of the shirt with some writing. I guess I got a little carried away. Now, I'm going to add more layers with transparent paint. Can you see the stains? Hope not!

Here are some of the beautiful ATC's I received at our last trade. Lucilla (top left) used real clothes pins on her card and Louise (bottom left) stitched her cat using black thread. They are all so beautiful and creative.

Rayna's Book is Fabulous!

If you don't have a copy of Rayna Gillman's new book "create your own hand-printed cloth", you need to get one quick. It's Fabulous! The photography is pure eye candy and Rayna's fun loving personality comes through loud and clear. The instructions are well written and the samples are fantastic. I LOVE books and own a vast collection, however, there are 12-15 books that are very special to me. Rayna's book instantly jumped into this special collection. The contents page will give you a pretty good idea what you're in for. Sorry the photo isn't better, my camera went to Greece again! I'm really thrilled to have my quilt "Branching Out" (above) included in Rayna's book, page 23. Jeanne Surber, my Fibervision buddy, has her quilt "Yin & Yang" featured on page 14.

Colorful Weekend

I'm taking full advantage of the extra time I'm spending indoors and it's been a colorful weekend. Fortunately, the real Gap Fire is 80% contained, however, the fire living inside my head has spread to my design wall. For the background, I'm using a piece of fabric that I've painted. It has several layers of tulle and organza throughout with another layer of blue tulle on top of all the mountains and flames. It's still in pieces, but I'm getting pretty close to the final design.
I can't decide which fabric to use for the palm tree and border. Do you have a preference? Or maybe, you have a completely different suggestion. Let me know what you think.

The photo above would use a green palm tree to go along with the greenish/red foreground (left side of photo)This photo above shows a purple palm tree to go along with the purplish foreground (bottom right of photo).

Home Again

I'm very happy to be home, but he air quality is terrible; lots of smoke and ash everywhere. I need to stay inside as much as possible because of my asthma. I've spent a good part of the day returning all of my stuff to its proper place.
Unfortunately, this fire is far from done. It is burning towards Santa Barbara and thousands of houses are still threatened, but so far, only one mobile home, a few outbuildings and several cars were lost. Pretty amazing when you consider how fast this fire has spread. It has burned over 10,000 acres and is 28% contained. Over 1,200 firemen are working hard to control and contain the flames. No easy feat!We were very fortunate to have a beautiful house to stay at when we evacuated (thank you Cyndee), but under the circumstances, we really didn't get to enjoy it. We were much too worried. However, I did get some great shots of the fireworks from the balcony.
Thank you to both my local friends and online friends that offered their homes and words of comfort. You have no idea how much it helped.
The firemen are real life heroes and I am amazed at the bravery they continually display. As we run out, they run in! Thank you guys, YOU ROCK!