Captured Moments

Over the years I have discovered that I like taking pictures. I love the spontaneity and the serendipity of the moment.

By far I am not, nor do I profess to be, a professional photographer, just a lover of images….those single, fleeting moments in time that are captured by a camera.

I am especially drawn to those photographs that evoke a response of some kind from the viewer, whether a smile or laugh or even tears.

So, from time to time, I will post one of my captured moments. Sometimes it will have a caption…..or not.

Here’s my first.

self portrait

(a very rare occurrence , let me tell you)

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See ya next time “In the Hayloft”,

Wedding Guest Book

My friend, Delane,  had asked me to make a wedding guest book for the marriage of her son Ted to his bride Lauren.

I really wanted to make a special gift especially for Lauren, she’s the photographer who took those wonderful pictures of my work a while back. Her favorite colours were red, orange and brown and colours of the wedding were in the Fall colour range.

I had no idea where to go with this at first and took some time mulling over a few ideas, I remembered that she wanted me incorporate the words “our wedding, underneath the trees” in her wedding book so I started with that.

Using a Stewart Gill stencil from their Flowers of Scotland collection, I reduced its size and cut out a new stencil out of freezer paper.

After ironing it to a piece of white silk dupioni, I painted it with Stewart Gill Brass Gold metallic paint.

I now needed to get Lauren’s words on the fabric. Because I don’t have access to a thermofax machine, I decided to try a new product

I had recently bought, Photo EZ silk screen. This was way cool and easy to use.

Photo EZ sheets are made from a silk screen mesh coated with a light sensitive water soluble polymer.

Using a saturated black image printed on plain white paper, it only needs sunlight and plain tap water to develop. Off I went and developed 3 separate screens for the front of the guestbook.

The silkscreen was taped down with masking tape (above) and metallic paint was squeegees through the mesh with the edge of an expired credit card.

I added Lauren and Ted’s names to the front of the book as well. After drying, I was now ready to make the book.

Cutting 2 boards for the front and back, I covered them both in the silk dupioni.

For the spine of the guestbook I used two coordinating batik fabrics and staggered them on the left edges of the boards.

Lasty, I glued a passion red bookcloth (afterall, they are newlyweds aren’t they?) on the inside for the lining.

I cut papers for guests to sign and then decided to add some black cardstock so they can also add pictures to personalize their book. It was finally coming together.

Using a Japanese stab stitch method, I sandwiched the papers in between the covers and stitched the book together, tying a gold ribbon at the spine edge for a touch of embellishment. I named this one “Beneath the Trees”.

I wrapped the guestbook in my signature brown paper and tied a red ribbon around the gift.

I was very pleased to hear that Lauren squealed with delight upon opening  the package.  Check Delane’s blog for some pics of the absolutely beautiful bride Lauren made….and Ted looked dashing too!

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See ya next time “In the Hayloft”,

New Work

“Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights…”      –Carl Sandburg

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Our Guild logo is the sailboat to coincide with our name, Lake Norman Guild. One of the themes for a guild challenge this year was “Sailing under the Harvest Moon” (which also happened to be the name of our Quilt Show this past weekend).

Instead of using the whole theme though, I decided to concentrate just on the harvest moon.

In my research I learned that the harvest moon is the fullest moon occurring closest to the autumnal equinox.

An equinox, which happens 2 times each year, occurs when the centre of the Sun spends about the same time above and below the horizon at every location on the Earth.

Therefore the night and day are equally as long with no long period of darkness between sunset and moonrise.

The moon shines brighter, takes on a beautiful golden hue and looks larger than it appears because it sits so low in the sky.

It is so very bright at night that farmers work thru the night harvesting their crops working by the light of the moon, hence the name “Harvest Moon”.

To depict this larger than life phenomenon, I painted 2 different Stewart Gill metallic paints along the edge of the hand dyed gold fabric, creating the illuminating moon.

Using a silver grey Caron D’ache crayon, I extended the haze of the light around the moon and onto the field of wheat to show some reflection.

The thing that stumped me for a bit though was the fabric we had to use in our finished piece.

Originally I cut leaves out of the fabric to float on water (sailing theme) but they really looked out of place. In the end I liked the way I used it to portray a suggestion of a fence line across the field.

The quilt measures 20.5″ x 17″, a small piece again but the smaller size enables me to try out new techniques without committing to larger pieces.

I have been told lately that my work is taking on a particular “style” (big smile here) and that’s definitely something I’m striving for, to create a body of work that represents the essence of MY creativity.  I’ve got much more work to do to reach my goal and, in fact, I am a part of the year long SAQA Visioning Project to help me move forward.

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See ya next time “In the Hayloft”,

 

 

Lake Norman Guild Show

This past Saturday wrapped up our guild show. What a hoot we had! We are a small group (about 55 members) and did we put on a show!  And to boot…I won a few awards.

Here’s the wrap up….

This was our regular group picture taken just after the show closed and before we do Take Down. Michele Sheets (reclining in front) was our Show Chair so we gave her a special space in the pic. These are some of the best bunch of ladies and am so happy to be in this guild with them. We have way too much fun together.

My group, Pandoras, won 1st place in the Group category, and below as we accept our ribbon. From L – R: DeLane Rosenau, me and Susan Brubaker Kanpp (missing is Lushorn Millsaps).

I won Best Innovative Quilt for Red Moon (below). What a nice surprise!

Here I am accepting my ribbon for it. Liz always cracks me up with her hilarious stories but, for the life of me, I can’t remember what she said here that had us giggling so much. Considering that this happened only 2 days ago, one would think I was having an early senior moment.

“At Odds” won a 3rd place award in the Art Quilt category. Yay!

A couple of pics of the quilts hanging….

Donna Loebs looking at the “Roots”Challenge pieces,

DeLane and her  “Birds of a Feather” jacket that won an Honorble Mention in the Wearable category,

Here’s our ribbon table. The smaller ribbons below the large ones are yo-yos that Jean Newman made as a new thing this year. Each winner got one that corresponded with the ribbon they won. We pinned them on our name tages so that show attendees could easily see who the ribbon winners were.

My husband brought my youngest son to see the show. He walked around really looking at all the quilts and came back and literally pulled me from my duty at the admin table to show me his favorite quilts.

This next quilt by Jeane Knick won Viewers Choice Award and a 2nd place prize for large bed quilt. This was one of the ones he pulled me to. He was so very animated as he told me how he loved how the colours moved in this Bargello pattern. It was really a beautiful quilt.

Sandy Palmer’s quilt “Shake Your Tail Feathers” was picked as Judge’s Choice by judge Scott Murkin. He absolutley loved it because he thought it was “ridiculously cute”.

“Till He’s Cute” by Joyce Mullis won a 2nd place ribbon in the Art Quilt Category. We all had a good laugh when we saw this one with the martini glass.

Towards the end of the show I realized I hadn’t gotten many pics of our guild members working the show so at one point I turned to see Liz (on right) and Jean checking out some quilts.

I couldn’t get a clear picture to I snuck around to the back of the quilt they were looking at and poked the camera thru. I surprised them and they both burst out laughing but, I got the perfect picture.

One of the new things we tried this year was a thing called “Playpen Frenzy”. We loaded a playpen (quite a few times too) with lots and lots of fabric (books, magazines and ribbons too).

Quilt show attendees got to fill a gallon size bag for $3…BUT…. it had to zip completely closed to count. This was a giant hit! Guild members got to recycle some of their stash and some lucky quilters got some “new” fabrics.

The Flight of Fantasy Doll Club set up a table at the show. I wish I had taken more pics of them but I just had to get the Witche’s trio. Look at how innocent they look.

…and what about this little elf popping out of the tree stump…he was way tooooo cute. (I apologize for not recording the names of the makers though).

and because the last day of our show fell on Halloween we had people walking around in costume (check our our one Charlotte Sloop as Reggedy Ann in the group pic at the top of the post). My son decided to dress as a “cool” vampire. Here is in full make up and in character…

Cool huh!

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See ya next time “In the Hayloft”,

Applique Petal Party / C&T Publishing

Looky hear….one of the blocks I made for Susan’s new book “Applique Petal Party“  by C & T Publishing is on their Facebook page. How cool is that? Check it out here. My block is the 1st one.

I had fun with the hand applique but wanted to enlarge the 12″ block so added the purple squares in the 1st border and then the solid green border. This was one of my first pieces using only batiks and I love the way the colours in the flowers worked so well together.

The hardest part was knowing I had only so much of the light blue background and, to boot, some of what was left was already cut into strips! That’s where the idea for the purple squares came in, I would have enough if I cut it up what was remaining into pieces but not enough to use as a large background piece.

It is now hanging in the hallway that leads into my studio.

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See ya next time “In the Hayloft,

Stepping out of the Shadow

Yesterday, my son lamented the trials and tribulations of life as an 8 yr old. Someone was “being mean” and calling one of his friends yucky names.

He came to his friend’s defense but then retreated when he realized the spotlight was now on him for rightly speaking up. I talked him thru that but the conversation tossed around in my head for a while about how we as adults deal with similar situations…till this morning.

I don’t always get a chance to check out Christine Kane’s blog but it seems when I need clarification on random thoughts rolling round in my head, her post of the day puts things into perspective.

In her latest post, “Standing Out and Standing In“, she talks about stepping into one’s own light and not letting the darkness of another encroach on one’s own ability to shine.

Standing out……by standing IN!

When we do good and someone’s compliment makes us feel uncomfortable or, even worse, someone making us feel bad because we did good, we tend to want to retreat, to step out of the spotlight and make excuses for our good behavior, like my son did.

Instead what we need to do is to feel proud of our accomplishments, our good deeds. Here’s how Christine describes it…

‘When we “Stand Out,” or when we “step out” into what we want (to be), what we’re actually doing is moving deeper inward. In fact, I’d wager to say that the inward movement is required in order to hold our center.

So, it might look like Standing Out. In the spotlight, into clarity, in a bigger playing field.

But what you’re really doing is Standing In. Deeper within yourself. Centering your intentions. Grounded in awareness.Few people understand this.  Few people ever discover that this is the ultimate reward of standing out.’

So another lessson for me AND my son

…to remember to stand out by standing in

…to remain steadfast in what our hearts contain

…to be true to ourselves thru all the madness and strife that others choose to bring to our doorstep and,

….to know that all the good, positive things we do will always far outweigh the negativity that abounds.

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See ya next time “In the Hayloft”,

StudioTours

…to all of you who dropped by to see the video tour of my studio. I have not had as much fun online as that. We all seem to be in a fever pitch to view all the studios that were available. I got some great ideas from some of you and marveled at how darn organized everything is in our studios. I think that really blew me away cause we artist can be a messy bunch sometimes.

Thanks also to Pokey and her staff for getting us all together. Loads of fun was had by all I’m sure. Now I will sink down in my semi-comfy chair ( according to hubby) and read the magazine issue of Studios that just happens to have my good friend, Susan Brubaker Knapp in it (check out pg 72 me amigos!). We are all so very proud of  her. Woohoo!!!!\\

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See ya next time “In the Hayloft”,

Quilting Arts/CPS Studios Tour

Today is the  Quilting Arts/Cloth, Paper, Scissors Virtual Studios Tour. PEOPLE…..I actually created a video and was able to upload it to Youtube as well. Woohoo!

I had loads of fun making my very first video but (oh my!) you should see the many, many flubs I made along the way.  Now, I will let you know that in some places the colour is a bit off and in others I just didn’t have enough lighting but other than that…welcome to my studio.

So…on with the show!!

**To see more virtual studio tours pop on over here…

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See ya next time “In the Hayloft”,

Cloth, Paper Scissors Studios Tour

Okay, I’m going out on a limb here. Cloth, Paper Scissors Studios magazine is doing an online virtual studio tour. I’ll be giving all and sundry a small tour of my lovely studio this weekend, October 3.

There have been a few studios (moving house to house) that have come before like the one where I felt like I was in a dungeon um…the basement. It really wasn’t as bad as that but it was sometimes so cold and damp I had to gear up to go down there.

Or there was the time before that my “stuff” kinda outgrew the small dining room in our 1st house and hubby came home one day to find I had taken over the larger living room next door!

Anyway, I love the studio I’m in now and look forward to showing you MY space. Please hop on over to QA/CPS site this weekend to see other great artist spaces. This should be so much fun!

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See ya next time “In the Hayloft”,

A Different Kind of Artwork

I don’t know about you but I love to actually see how other artists work. Watching as they lose themselves in their work is absolutely fascinating and intriguing. I frankly can’t remember how I happened upon this video but it had me enthralled the whole way through.

Kseniya Simonova is a Ukrainian artist who’s main tool is one we quilters actually use in our work…a lightbox. She “writes” stories with sand as her medium, and quite effectively too.

In this video Kseniya gives a moving portrayal of Germany’s invasion and occupation of Ukraine during WWII. It’s amazing to watch as she weaves the story by pouring, moving and drawing in the sand.

“If we take it that art’s purpose is to illuminate the world in a new way, provoke a reaction, somehow alter the consciousness of the viewer then her work is a huge success.” writes journalist James Donaghy (www.guardian,co.uk).

Oh and another thing, she just happened to have won Ukraine’s version of “America’s Got Talent.”But don’t let that stop you from recognizing her talent.

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See ya next time “In the Hayloft”,