Food in Long Beach

The weeks before I left for the quilt show I refer to as “Houston in Long Beach” were marked by a flurry of emails between my traveling buddies and myself. For example, there were several worried posts regarding the erratic weather in Long Beach. One day, the forecast called for sunny and 81. The next, clear and 83. How is a girl supposed to pack lightly for weather that unpredictable?

Once we got the clothing issue sorted out, we turned our attention to the food dilemma, as in: what if Long Beach has no food? We handily solved this crisis in the making; each one of us shopped our way through various grocery stores and stocked up. Way up.

Please keep in mind that the following photos show provisions brought by only 2 of our 4 companions. The amount of food doubled on Friday when the rest of our troupe got to the show.

Here is our snack drawer:

Of course, an artist needs morning fuel, so we also have a coffee bar. Uh, yes, I brought an espresso machine:

And then, on an evening, we might need a glass of wine:

The fridge was stocked, too (more wine!):

Luckily, due to our supreme forethought, we survived the week without starving to death. Now, it’s back to laundry and getting the kids ready for the return of SCHOOL!! Hey! Didn’t summer vacation just start a minute ago?

An early art quilt… or how to use a fabric panel

I am definitely finding refuge from the dustbowl boys’ room clean-out by updating my blog. Thank you all for giving me a reason to procrastinate!!

Their room has proved to be quite the archaeological pigsty dig. In addition to an entire childhood’s worth of toys found jammed behind a dresser, I found one of my earliest art quilts:

I made this for my oldest son when he was 2– almost 9 years ago! Gwen Marston’s Liberated Quiltmaking had just entered my personal library, as had a pre-printed fabric panel of trucks and cars. I remember buying the fabric; I was feeling so proud of the fact that I was purchasing boy fabric, even as I was scratching my head, wondering how to put together a boy quilt.

Even after 9 years as an art quilter turned fiber artist, I think this is a pretty successful quilt. The truck/car blocks were all wonky sizes, so I added skewed coping strips, log cabin style, to bring the blocks to a workable size. A few coping “strips” of half square triangles and flying geese helped to break up the black background borders. The inner borders are all different: some are flying geese in scrappy fabrics, some are liberated half square triangles, and one side (the viewer’s left) is split between half square triangles and an enlarged, bordered block.  At the time, I found this quilt very daring, very arty, very liberating!

If you are new to the art quilt world, or if you are still in the flirting phase of art quilting, I highly recommend reading Gwen’s book. She breaks down different traditional quilt components in such a friendly, breezy style that it is hard to resist trying her techniques. The book remains one of my favorites; I fully credit Liberated Quiltmaking for pointing me on the path towards the artist I am today.

Thanks, Gwen!

Finally, some fiber content that you don’t have to eat! Tyvek art

It’s been forever since I’ve posted something fiber related– that didn’t begin with “wash a bunch of kale leaves”! I’ve been meaning to share this new art piece, and just never got around to it.

The piece is part of a series I’ve begun, based upon my fall trip to Italy. While there, I was inspired by all the rusty, decomposing doors, tiles, and gates (texture-laaaaaa!). Not long after my return home, I participated in Fibervision’s art show at a gallery in Santa Barbara. The show featured fiber art based upon the artist’s interpretation of a photograph. (aside: It was a spectacular show, and I was very excited to be a part of it! Our next show will be at the Cabrillo Art Pavillion, again in Santa Barbara, in October.)

Here is the photo I took at a castle in San Marino– roof tiles.

Here is my full piece (photo courtesy of the amazing Judy Rys– thanks again, Judy!) The title is Umbria: Roof I:

The piece measures only 17″ x 20″, pretty small for me. It also has (gasp!!) HAND QUILTING stitches! Admittedly, they are randomly placed scatter stitches (I think this type of stitching has a name, but I have no idea what it is!) It was refreshing to work by hand, for the first time in a loooong time.

Here’s the breakdown of the parts:

• The background is a commercial batik, stitched with a muted hued, variegated thread from Valdani.
• The “tiles” are individually created fiber pieces, made of hand dyed cotton, silk, cheesecloth, baby wipes, dryer sheets, and painted tyvek.
• beads, both commercial and hand-made from painted tyvek knots. Oh– and a wrapped washer. Said washer was discovered on the floor of my studio under a bit of fallen fabric, and I wrapped it up in some ribbon and called it art!
• rusted, overdyed lace as a frame.
• rusted, overdyed silk wrapped lollipop sticks with wire/beads.

Keep reading my blog for some tutorials about tyvek! I’ve shared some close up photos of the work, plus some how-to photos I took. I was inspired by the process, and have begun to add more ideas to my journal for future projects!

An arty day

On Saturday, I got to spend the morning with my fiber art group, Fibervision. We had a lot of business to discuss, as we have another show coming up in March at the Architectural Foundation in Santa Barbara, and today was “quilt intake day”. I was working frantically on my piece, which was inspired by the tile roofs I saw in Italy. Yes yes– photos will follow! I was working so hard that I forgot to take a photo of the finished piece. Fortunately, my friend Judy Rys volunteered to take the work home with her, photograph it, and re-deliver it to be hung in the show! Thanks again, Judy!

After all that business, we got down to some serious fun– it was time again for our second annual re-Vision swap. We put a quilt top or finished quilt into a brown bag, and swap with each other. The idea is to give away a UFO or quilt that doesn’t work for you, give it to another artist, and see what she can make of it. You may remember my skirt named “Doris”? That was from the first annual re-Vision challenge. We are hoping to post ongoing photos from this year’s challenge, so I will keep you informed as that happens.

I don’t have any art quilt UFO’s, so my friend Mary Norton kindly donated one of hers for me. I will have to come up with an artsy gift to thank her for her generosity.

Fibervision meets an hour north of my home, so I dragged my visiting mother and oldest son to the meeting, because my mother wanted to continue further north to Solvang to see our Color & Cloth exhibit. We had a yummy hamburger and onion ring lunch, washed down with real ice cream milkshakes (swoon!). With Judy Rys in tow, we drove north, oogling the snow covered mountains. I love snow in photos or waaaaay far in the distance.

The show was still wonderful– and there were 2 women looking at the quilts for the longest time. When they figured out that Judy and I were 2 of the artists, they were very complimentary, which made us blush and preen! They told us that they were big fans of our group, which prompted more blushing and preening. Hmm– can you have a proper fan club with 2 members? YES!!

And, if that all wasn’t enough fun, Judy took us to Shelbi Ranch in Solvang. This is a conglomeration of shops; the lower level has bolts upon bolts upon buttons upon yarn upon trim, all for the grand price of $1 per yard!! Much of the fabric is “what were the designers thinking?” variety (we found not one but 3 bolts of psychedelic pink/orange/yellow Jimi Hendrix heads), but I also found some Kaffe Fassett striped fabric, some Kaufmann blue/white Hawaiian fabric, and some pink silk/linen.

Because I now feel the need to justify my purchases: the Hawaiian fabric is backing for a quilt I plan to make for DS1′s new bed, the pink linen is to try out one of the new patterns I bought at Road to CA, and the stripe is because I like to use striped fabric.

Fabric for a dollar a yard? Who could resist? Sigh– once a fabric-aholic, always a fabric-aholic!