Mystery Fruit

Andi and I were getting ready to have a play day with gelatin printing. Just as we were taking the gelatin out of the pan, my husband walks in with this odd looking fruit.Boy, does he know how to get our attention! What is this? Where did it come from? And, how come we've never seen one before? The exterior looks like an artichoke, and the inside looks and tastes like a kiwi. So Strange!
It's called a Dragon Fruit and it was purchased at the farmer's market. Apparently, one of the local farmers grows them here. They are expensive, but this little fruit entertained the entire household for at least 30 minutes.I had fun arranging the cross-sections into various compositions. Andi thought they looked like ladybugs. What do you see?

Could we use the rind to print with? No, it was too soft, it wouldn't survive the process. Will it release it's wonderful Fuscia dye onto fabric? Good thought, but the results were underwhelming.
We managed to pull ourselves away from this colorful experiment and continued on with the gelatin printing. More on that later.

Fibervision: New Views

I'm working hard in my studio, trying hard to meet all of my upcoming deadlines. There are so many fiber happenings coming up in the next month; it's going to be a blast!
What's this, you ask? A detail shot from my "Smoked Out" quilt that I started after the Gap Fire. I posted a rough layout here. It's completely finished and it is very colorful! I love, love, love the way it turned out. It will make it's debut at Fibervision New Views exhibit at the Cabrillo Arts Center, 1118 E. Cabrillo Blvd. in Santa Barbara.

The exhibit will hang from October 1st through October 24th. And all of you are invited to the reception on Tuesday, October 7th from 5:30 - 7:30 pm. It's going to be a fantastic show! If you can't make it to the reception, please call the gallery for their hours, 805-897-1982.

Fibervision also has an small exhibit throughout October in the display case at the Santa Barbara Main Library.

And if that's not enough, the Coastal Quilters is having their Harvest of Colors Quilt Show on October 4th and 5th. It is being held at the Earl Warren Showgrounds in Santa Barbara. There will be over 200 quilts on exhibit ranging from traditional to art quilts. Ellen Ann Eddy is the featured artist. There will also be workshops with my good friend Andi Perejda and Joe Cunningham. Stop on by, Santa Barbara has an incredibly talented group of artists living here. The quilts are always amazing.

Another Self Portrait

My daughter saw my continuous line, self portrait and decided to give it a try.

Don't you just LOVE how this one eyed beauty turned out? I believe this was actually her 3rd drawing. If you aren't used to doing this sort of thing, it takes a little bit of warming up.

If you want to give it a try and missed the original post and guidelines, you can find it here. I would love to see your self portrait, please send me a link or a photo.

Texture Rubbings

At our latest Fibervision meeting, we did rubbings using all types of items. Some of the items used were rubber bands glued onto cardboard, bamboo table runners, hooked rug backing, stamps, rice, hot glue designs, placemats, paperclips, etc. Crayons, Shiva oil sticks, pastels, dye sticks and charcoal are among some of the materials used to produce the rubbings on either paper or fabric. Some of the rubbings looked great with pastel but didn't show at all in crayon. Some looked great on fabric, but awful on paper.These flowers were printed with a thermofax screen on a light, solid colored fabric. There was too much contrast for my liking, so I added multiple colors in the background, and now I like it a lot better.

I'm afraid I really didn't stick to the rules (nothing new there). In some cases, I layered several textures on each piece, so I don't remember what I used on every piece. I had a bunch of "ugly" pieces of fabric that needed a little something, so I used Shiva oil sticks and dye sticks to add a little texture. I used a commercial rubbing plate for the ginkgo leaves above.

I used plastic crewel canvas to rub a bit of texture here and there on this painted piece. I really like the depth it added.

Dyed in Ojai

I spent a fabulous day of dyeing with my Fibervision buddies, Susan Italo, Lora Martin, Mary Norton, and Linda Cassirer. I hope you enjoy looking at these beauties as much as I enjoyed making them. Look at this beautiful piece, I think it's my favorite. It's royal blue and turquoise with a touch of fuscia.
We went to Susan's house in Ojai (shhh, don't tell her husband that we made a mess while he was gone)! No . . . I think this one may be my favorite. Doesn't it look like a beautiful piece of agate?We had a great time dyeing, eating and drinking and I came away with some gorgeous fabric.
I've been trying very hard to resist the temptation of buying yet another set of supplies (I really mean dye). But look at the results. How will I ever resist the temptation?Each photo represents a very small section of the fabric. I didn't look for my favorite section, I randomly opened it and took a photo.They are all to beautiful. I feel myself becoming very, very weak. HELP!I'm a very good organizer, but I'm afraid there isn't any room for anything else. My studio is overflowing with wonderful stuff. I Love it all and couldn't possibly part with anything, so cleaning the studio again is not an option.

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??