Going Live

Yesterday was the go-live day for automation in the very last library in our county to computerize. I got to go help out and to train the staff. Time to say goodbye to the little date stamps and to move into the world of online catalogs and barcodes! It was fun being a part of their big day and everyone was very excited--staff and patrons alike.

This library is very teeny--it makes mine seem huge by comparison--and the staff serve their little town very well, despite very little space and funding.

Full shelves...

In the foreground, the techno-fabulous Mellanie, our system administrator. Just beyond the other woman, take a right turn and you're in .....a courtroom!

This is the library workroom. This is all of it.

But what's this I see?? A hand-knit sweater? Check out this great looking sweater made of domino squares.

Library staffer Arlene models her very totally over-the-top sweater. I want it. Or one just like it.

I've got the book on this technique checked out from the library right now. I think I'm going to get serious about learning how to do this. I want to make something like this too.

But y'know... Domino knitting is touted as a way to use up scraps. Somehow this sweater doesn't look like it's made of scraps. This looks like a lot of planning and shopping for fun yarns to incorporate. $$$$

But what else is new?

Keeping Busy

Strip sets

The weekend knitting class never happened but I'm hoping it will at some point. That was disappointing. I was looking forward to Will's friends being here and getting them started in knitting. Seeing young people start down the fiber art path makes me very, very happy and I'd like to help in any way I can.

This was a cold weekend when we barely left the house. This is what is meant by "the dead of winter". I walked on Saturday morning and then, coming home, managed to fall on our driveway, taking the whole weight of the fall on one knee. Ouch! Fortunately no serious injury, just a hard bang. Sunday and today--the temp is below my cut-off point for walking, which is 15 degrees.

I spent most of Saturday on the wonky squares quilt.

( I need to come up with a name--I think I can do better than "wonky squares"...) Construction is fairly slow--still have three strips to attach to the whole. And as the strips come together, I've encountered a problem that needs to be fixed. I finally got to the point where I'd looked at it and thought about it too much and left it all unresolved. Maybe a fresh eye to it this week will bring resolution.

Sunday I spent with my knitting.

I have the sleeves attached, finally, to the Rosedale United, and have begun the yoke decreases. There is another small intarsia rectangle on the back, and I've begun that. So now I'm wrestling with three different balls of yarn. I love the colors as they play out in this sweater.

Let's hope it fits--it's going to be fun to wear.

Inspiration:

This new mom who waited so very long for it all to happen for her.

This art quilter who just dazzles me every time I check out her blog. Be sure to scroll down and get the feel of what this woman gets accomplished.

Red!

Anyone shopping vendors' areas at quilt shows in the Chicago-Milwaukee-Madison orbit will be familiar with Dagmar Plenk Fabric Arts. Dagmar sells fabulous hand-dyed cottons, linens, and silks, even some luscious velvets, and makes evocative quilts using them all. I had assisted Dagmar with some very minor computer issues awhile back and she had promised to send me some fabric--a totally unnecessary thank you. But a package from Dagmar arrived Wednesday and I hyperventilated all the way from the mailbox to the house until I could open it.

She had sent me one yard of a range of rich redness, all the way from purply tones to brownish, including everything in between.

Once I finish the current improv quilt with the Carol Bryer Fallert fabric, I should get back to the RED improv one. I have some new ideas for it, not to mention this whole yard of new fabric to inspire. Now that I have Collaborative Quilting, I think I may add some Freddie Moran-style insanity to that red quilt.

And check out the wonderful card Dagmar included in her package--made with a snippet of her wonderful sparkly embellishment. This will go directly to the inspiration wall. No, the photo doesn't do it justice.

Unfortunately I can't refer to a website. Dagmar sells only in the real world at this time.

I've started reading Affinity by Sarah Waters. Once I finish it, I'll have read all her books and will have to sit around tapping my fingers till she produces a new one. I love her books--several of them are set in the Victorian world of the lower classes: among petty thieves, prostitutes, women's prisons. Dark but engrossing, with lots of plot twists.

So here we are at the weekend. I may be doing some informal knitting teaching this weekend. Will is talking about bringing several friends who want to learn. This should be pretty funny. I promise to take pictures.

Tile and Other Inspirations

I'm back from a great girly weekend road trip with my college buddies. The main purpose of the trip was to crash the retirement party honoring one member of our gang. And that was a great success. But there was also time for shopping, lots of out-of-the-ordinary treats like this,

a fair amount of wine, and a great deal of laughter. We've all been buddies since we were eighteen and the concept of RETIREMENT for us is kind of hard for me to take in. Especially since I am a considerable distance from retirement myself. Hmm. What kind of a poor planner does this make me?? We had to drive home in a nearly blinding snowstorm but that was only a teeny wrinkle on the weekend.

Our shopping stop was at The Shops of Woodlake in Kohler, Wisconsin. I spent some time being completely blown away in an Ann Sacks showroom looking at samples like this

and this.

Of course these would be sensational in a home, but I was seeing QUILTS. Printouts of these will be going in the sketchbook for future reference.

Because of this trip I missed Gallery Night in Milwaukee, which looks to have been great, full of fiber-y treats.

Thanks to Jan for pointing me here. Any one who is posting craft pictures to Flickr would benefit from this quick tutorial on photography.

Other inspirations:

This Russian artist.
This Austrian artist with a most evocative studio and home.
This website is fun to poke around in.

Happy Tuesday, everyone.

Twenty One Things

In observance of de-lurking week....

Twenty One Things…

1. I was the only child of older parents.
2. Because of this, I generally felt quite isolated when I was a kid. Many of my friends had grandparents the age of my parents.
3. I had imaginary friends. Quite a few of them.
4. I grew tall as a kid. As a result, I was usually the tallest girl in my class. Lots of anguish over that.
5. Then I stopped growing. But despite ending up at only 5’4”, sometimes I still see myself as gangly and awkward.
6. As a child I drew constantly. That was the way I processed EVERYTHING.
7. It was always easy for me to say “I am an artist”.
8. The fact that my parents were older awakened in me a big interest in family history and in history in general.
9. This segued into a big interest in antique needlework.
10. And in all kinds of antiques.
11. To me, old and worn is far more interesting than new and shiny.
12. I don’t generally like things that are too pretty or too perfect.
13. I can get lost in vintage photos, especially pictures of children and school groups.
14. When I was a child, I used to wish I could wear antique clothing, like I saw in old photos.
15. My college education was in fashion design.
    
16. But I never really worked in that field.
17. I spent ten years working in visual merchandising for a variety of retailers, large and small.
18. I work as a librarian now but don’t have a library degree.
19. Sixteen years of Catholic school….
20. I followed that party line until I was past 50 and finally got angry.
21. Now I don’t know what I believe and I kind of like that.

I'm off on a little trip with friends this weekend. I predict some wine will be consumed and lots of laughter will happen. Happy weekend to all!

Snowy Day/Not a Snow Day

Nope. No snow day.

Just enough snow to clog the driveway and make it necessary to take a push broom to the car. This morning has turned bitter cold--too cold for my morning walk. I hate that.

Windowsills? I've got windowsills too.

I sure wish I'd bought more of these fish when I was in San Fransisco. Not that we need so many chopstick rests around here. But I would just love MORE of the fish...

All that's happening so far this week is a little sock knitting. I'm liking these but I think I like the Trekking yarn better on size 1 needles. Like these:

In knitting, as in life, no short cuts.



Very nice on the feet!

Conjuring Past and Future

A corner of my house: something too dear to ever put away in storage with all the other outgrown clothes. I embroidered these OshKosh overalls for Caroline in about 1980. They saw plenty of service back in the day and nowadays grace the back of a door, where I can look at them all the time and marvel at the passage of time.

We're waiting with bated breath to see if a forecast "weather event" is actually going to happen. Three to six inches of snow? I won't turn down a free day Monday if it's offered, but most likely it will be just routine Wisconsin-winter-ugly and we'll have to dig out and go about our usual business.

It's been a pretty much unscheduled weekend, so there's been time to catch up with the usual domestic stuff and there's been time to sew too.

These blocks are slowly coming together. I've been trying to work intuitively and keep the critic outside the door. It's still rough, but it's progressing. A full day to work on it (AKA snow day) would be such a gift.

My kids used to have all sorts of incantations intended to conjure snow days. I'll have to see if I can remember any of them.

Amber Blues

Lace bobbins from La Rastra in Madrid, a Kate Greenaway print, and
a little porcelein souvenir shoe with a picture of a Pennsylvania oil derrick on it.

New socks started. Trekking XXL yarn, 75% wool, 25% nylon,
colorway 108, #2 needles. My first pair of these were knit on #1 needles. This is an experiment.
Look for these to be completed somewhere around Halloween.

Blues on a shelf.

Channeling Nancy

Finally spent a chunk of my Viewers' Choice winnings from last fall on this book. It was the right thing to do. This book will feed my soul for years. The cover alone--I could look at that image for hours.

The book is full of big, beautiful images of most of what Nancy Crow has made in the last twenty years, some in double page fold-outs. She provides context with commentary from her journals and from retrospective looks back.

Looking at these images makes my heart race and my eyes pop. The colors fairly pulsate; the lines undulate and twist. The book includes pictures of things humble and exotic that inspired her and relate to the lines and the organization of her quilts, as well as sketchbook imagery showing how the ideas began.

So instructive; so inspiring; so courageous. So deceptive in its look of simplicity.

And what can I say about the way Nancy Crow has influenced art quilting, both with her quilts and with the respect she has brought to the whole world of fiber art? We're all in her debt.

The issues I grapple with are things she resolved for herself ten or fifteen years ago. I look through this book and wonder what I could ever make in my whole life that would not be derivative of something Nancy Crow has already done.

I'm trying to not feel defeated by that idea.

It's encouraging to read Nancy's words affirming her love for piecing. I have learned about fusing, and have done a bit of it. But piecing, even with its limitations, is where I want to be too. Yes, it's time consuming and it can be tedious, but the results are worth it for me. And I'm so glad to see Nancy say that she is willing to put in the hours on the piecing.

Me too. Oh yes.

Diving In

It was a busy week, but I didn't intend it to BE a week before I made it back here.

Ups and downs at work. I always have a hard time when there are disputes with library patrons, no matter how small or ridiculous they are. There were a couple this past week. I've been struggling all weekend due to an incident on Friday. The best thing, I guess, is to learn from these uncomfortable moments and keep things moving forward.

So! When the going gets tough, the tough get down to business and sew. And what do they sew? The numerous UFOs taking up space? Of course not! They begin something new...

I have several packets of hand-dyed pieces from Carol Bryer Fallert, bought during her classes (and did she ever make a profit on me...). I decided to work with one packet, throwing in a few hand-dyes of my own and some black for punch. I'm liking what's happening so far.

These blocks were just thrown up on the wall as they were made, no particular order. All the obsessing will begin later. I'm planning to do some pieced elements to connect things up. I think it has possibilities, although they may not be apparent to the casual observer at this point.

I've also picked back up with the Rosedale United sweater, which was temporarily abandoned in November in favor of holiday gift knits.

The picture doesn't really capture the colors very well, It's an odd mix of colors. But in this as in quilting, put the colors together, repeat them, and they hang together pretty well. I'm only an inch or two away from joining the bodice up with the sleeves.

Saturday night was lost: Will came over with the new Wii game system he bought. He and I spent the evening swinging that wand around for some good old-fashioned virtual bowling and golf. News flash: I still suck at bowling.

Some Goals

Christmas is all packed up and put away for another year. Out with the Christmas-y palette and in with something new! I did the packing up and my long-suffering husband did the box-carrying down into the basement and then wedged the boxes into their out-of-the-way spot till next year.

Now it's time to turn the mind toward thoughts of Personal Improvement in the new year. Hope springs eternal, doesn't it?

I've thought a lot about my art taking a back seat in my life. Having a full-time job is a killer but it's also an excuse. I know in my heart of hearts that I could get more accomplished.

With that in mind, I'm setting out some goals for 2007:

• More quilting. This is open-ended. I need to clear out a backlog of UFOs and I need to be making new things, moving in some direction of personal development and artistic growth. It's very sad that my biggest quilting accomplishment of the year was a Mile-A Minute made from scraps. And a set of blocks I made that really excited me? I cannot find them. (Paging Dr. Freud...)
  

• More sketchbook work. Doodling is mental exercise; taking notes, verbal or pictorial, can bear fruit in unanticipated ways. And I plan to do more sharing of my sketchbook here.

• Get juried into something beyond the local level. Submitting slides and/or files, writing artist statements, working to deadlines--all that can be a pain, but it's also discipline, a leap of faith, and a pathway to growth.
  


• Make more of an effort to get to Milwaukee Art Quilters meetings. It's so tempting to blow off that long drive into the city after an even longer day at work, but the show and tell alone is always more than worth it.

• Make an effort to do more Artist Dates--visit more galleries, try to hit some Openings. Again, this usually involves trekking into the city. But it IS doable.
  

• Continue my knitting. I've found I love the challenges of lace knitting. BUT--no using knitting as an excuse to avoid the sewing machine. I think there was a bit of that mental chicanery during 2006...

Check this out: finished socks!

Shot in the balmy warmth that was New Year's Day here.

These are made using the Waffle Rib II from Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch. The yarn is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in Somerset. Eight months on the needles but finished at last. But y'know, I almost like the wrong side better than the right side.

But either way--done, done, done!

End of Year

The holidays are over; the house is quiet.

Caroline and her kitty flew off in a rainy haze this morning to return to Washington, DC . Above you can see Cosmo locked and loaded in his travel chamber, and none too happy about it.

Will left early this evening with a car full of gear--he and his new band were playing for a house party tonight.

My kiddies Christmas 2006

Tomorrow will be the day to un-Christmasize the house and to look ahead.

Two bits of unfinished business: two Christmas quilting projects completed.

This is the Mile-A-Minute couch quilt for Caroline, made from scraps of another quilt which is not yet completed. A bass-ackward way of working, but I can't deny that it seems to be my way of working.

This is a table runner made from Tree's Up orphan blocks. I was concerned about the directional nature of these blocks, and whether they work well when turned in different directions. I stewed about that for a few days, but in the end threw up my hands and just made the thing.

Those Christmas colors are so crisp and nice--they're still looking good to me. Thanks to a friend who generously shared a pattern, Christmas 2007 will be the year I finally make a new Christmas tree skirt.

Resolutions. Back with more of those when it's not 1 a.m.

Happy 2007 to all.