Big Plans

Big Plans

Hand dyed and vintage cottons, fused, hand and machine quilted

17.5 x 15.75" Sold

Pearl cotton size 8 hand quilting and French Knots

The Big Plan is a packet of seeds, (even if we don't plant seeds to grow trees unless we are Johnny Appleseed) and the plot of land that we have dreams of filling with lush growing specimens. I am dreaming of tomatoes, peppers, green beans, peas, spinach and garlic.

But I am well aware of the time it takes to bring these dreams to life. This tree peony at my old house took all of 18 years to reach this fullness. Still it doesn't stop me from trying.

Quenching Rain

Quenching Rain Sold

Hand Dyed and vintage cottons, fused, hand and machine quilted

16.5x16.75"

French Knots representing the straight down deluge of a great summer rain

And the wind whipping around, with straight stitches in a swirl.

OK maybe I am getting too romantic here, but the way I have recently experienced the end of the drought has made me think like this. That rain was so welcome and life giving, and the days of summer so bright and glowing... well, it had to come out somewhere!

So what is going on with all this production? Instead of going out Christmas shopping, which mostly everyone else does at this time of year, I have had the habit of staying in the studio, making stuff. Over the years I have found that with everyone else being out and busy, the phone doesn't ring, and there are great spans of uninterrupted time to think and create. It's my little secret. Ha!

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A word about threads. I used pearl cotton size 8 and 12 for some of the hand embroidery. Or sometimes I use embroidery floss, a single strand or two or three, depending. And for machine stitching, I use anything that looks good, but the majority of my threads are thicker weights, like 30wt. I prefer a thicker thread to fill in the space left by each needle hole. Cottons, rayons, silks, or polyester. It really depends on the color or the area where it will be seen.

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My new full spectrum light has finally arrived and I shot the new piece with just it and the sunlight. Much better than my incandescent lights and the camera's flash. The bad lighting in my studio has been driving me crazy because all my pictures are dim and pinky. Now that is over!

Pine Patch

Pine Patch
Hand dyed and vintage cottons, fused, hand and machine quilted
16 x16.5"

Detail of teeny trees. The pink on purple dots are mine, the other dots are the prints.

Yes I have been bitten by Mary Englebreit, for whom dots and checkerboards abound.

It drifted in when I wasn't looking. Or when I was busy trying to be AHRTY and sophisticated. Ha! Who am I kidding? I have always loved loved loved the dots and stripes and now have 'come out of the closet' with a pile of fused prints ready to use them liberally in the new series. La dee dah!

There is a bit of a difference fusing commercial fabrics. I have to be careful not to have edges exposed. And the base fabric is a bit looser weave than I am used to, so it must be handled more delicately so as not to fray. But I am not going to finish the edges with satin stitch or zig zag.

I mean, really.

Little Things

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I brought some seeds with me to the new house and hoped that I could repeat our garden successes here. This is a sprouted Baptisia seed. With any luck it will turn into a plant like this.

Baptisia in our old garden

It made me so happy to see that little seed rise up from the dirt. Can't explain it.

And then I had another happy event. Both of the batches of bread dough rose faster than usual and I baked two perfect loaves in less than four hours. This is the recipe that is no knead, in which one waits overnight to get the results. Not this time, and I don't have a clue why. Warm kitchen? Extra yeast, better flour, warmer water? Who knows. It was just a nice event.

And for number three in this set of happy little things, I went out to the garage storage shelves and unearthed some prints that have finally aged long enough to use. Dots and stripes. Yup. Ready made dots. Ready made skinny stripes. That doesn't mean I won't be cuttin' and strippin my own patterns, just adding some others to the mix.

So I spent the day fusing new old fabrics to make use of in the new series. These are from about '95 when I got rid of all my prints but the really graphic ones. Some black and white. This is for Wanda and Brooke...

Filling a Request

48" square, Hand dyed cottons and Kaffe Fassett Striped fabrics

Machine pieced and machine quilted

Melody,
In the last photo of your post of September 16, 2007 ("Settling In'), there is an exquisite-looking quilt hanging over the back of one of the reddish-brown chairs. PLEASE could I have a closer look at it? Or can you direct me to where I can see a photo of it? I'm captivated... and can't get it out of my mind :) Karen in South Africa

Detail of the piecing. Yes. Piecing.

The quilt, no name that I can remember was made for our Artfabrik booth in Houston in 1997. Ten years ago already. Amazing.

We got this bright idea to order the newly available Kaffe Fasset woven stripes at the IQA show about a month before the show date. We ordered the bolts and began to cut them into yards, halfs, and fat quarters to get ready for the show. I thought it would be smart to make a sample of the stripes in combination with our hand dyed cottons, which was what we wanted the customers to buy along with the stripes.

At the show, we discovered that there was a big exhibit of Kaffe Fassett quilts and his books and we were the only booth that had his fabric. The customers flocked to our booth! The lines were long and the ladies were not what I call patient. They thought we ought to have come with two cash registers and charge machines to handle the crowd. It was a feeding frenzy. Then it was all gone. Just gone. A few of the same colored stripes were left, all in fat quarters. Gold and brown. Not inspiring, I guess.

That was the only time we carried anyone else's fabric.

Here's the pattern.

1. Cut a million strips of hand dyed cottons. Maybe 2.5" wide.

2. From the strips:Cut a bunch of squares of both stripes and plain colors and stack one of each. 3. Sew diagonal parallel lines of stitches leaving a big quarter inch space between the lines of stitching and then cut between the lines of stitches. The results are two half square triangles. 4. To each half square triangle add two strips log cabin style to the edge on two sides.

5. Group these small units together into a block and add more strips around the sides. And do whatever looks good with the rest.

6. Stitch in the ditch for the quilting.

Wintergreens

Wintergreens

Hand Dyed cottons, fused, hand and machine quilted

9.75"x 13.5" Sold

Teeny Pine Trees

French Knot Stars

It's starting to get really cold around here. The water in the birdbaths is frozen and I sent Dave out alone to feed the chickens and ducks. Brrr.

I stayed inside and channeled three of the Seven Dwarves. Dopey, Sneezy and Grumpy. And if there is a fourth named Chubby, I am also channeling him. Anyway I guess I needed to get into the studio and remedy my Grumpitude. But when one is feeling dwarfish, it's hard to be creative. Why is there no Artie Dwarf?

I did manage to rise to the occasion and produce this ode to the changing season. Several of the homes on our road have large stands of Christmas-y pines, and we live in the midst of lumber-producing pine forests. And now that the leaves are down from the forest I can see that we have our own pines.

Now that I have made a quilt, I am no longer Grumpy, or Dopey. Still Chubby.

Quilting/Fusing/Stacking Lessons

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I received this very nice email excerpted here:

I think I just want to be in your body for a day or so to see how your brain works.

...one of the biggest areas of growth (to be) for me has been an insatiable appreciation of color- particularly with fabric. There is not enough time in the day for me to try to express myself thru art forms.

The biggest problem for me is that I am not confident in actually trying many of them. I am particularly interested in art quilts.

So I decided to see if I could help. Unfortunately my body is already so stuffed with Thanksgiving Dinner that there is barely enough room for me alone. And does my brain work? Good question.

But the rest of her request I think I can handle. I knew I had a lesson already in my files so I have put it together with captions as a slide show. Some of you who were in my classes over the past year will see familiar pictures. This lesson can be seen here.

For a brief moment yesterday I considered making a quilt step-by-step on the blog for today, but then I lay down until that passed.

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O, I just stumbled upon my bombastic self here...

Gratitude

It's pouring rain!! I ran to get the camera before it got too dark to shoot. The pond is full of leaves and needs water like mad and now we are getting it.

The ducks are busy having a bite of dinner and are ignoring the glorious precipitation. All the farmers have been worried and now this great deluge is upon us, just in the nick of time. What superb timing. Lots of prayers are being answered.

I got back in the kitchen and made bread, cornbread and Crunchy Pear Cheesecake. Woowoo!

This spate of baking is all about trying to make the house seem like home. Cooking does it better than doing the laundry.

Outside we are taking down the vines, wisteria which threatens to de-roof us, and planting Spring bulbs. It all will go towards making us feel like we really live here and are not just visitors.

I am so grateful not to have to be in an airport this holiday and to be here with Dave and Popeye. And I am grateful to be safe and warm, well fed and healthy. And to have internet access.

My Humble Beginnings

that's my quilt on the wall behind me

O yes, it's true. Before I became the Rock Star that I am today (or, was last week) I worked in a sweat shop, making bedspreads for wealthy people who could afford custom decorator furnishings. I say 'sweatshop' but only wish that were true in the winter months, where it was really really cold . The real sweatshop happened in summer when it was really really hot, sweaty and linty all at once. Horrible. While I was there I learned an inordinate amount of useful stuff that would later become pertinant to my career, little did I know. This was before I went on to grad school, where I thought I would be learning stuff for my career. Not. A. Bit.

I worked on industrial machines that had real walking feet, nothing at all like the feet on home machines. Trust me, you don't want to work on industrial machines. The noise ruins your thought processes, so we all wore headphones and listened to music or books on tape while we sewed. I quilted bedspreads, sometimes six a day and then other days I finished them with starched bias tape and machine hemming machines. Dull as dirt work.


I also made cushions, pillows, cornices and tablecloths. Almost everything had some sort of welting, inserted cords or ruffles. I am adverse to most of that now, but I do have the occasion to make my own necessary furnishings and so we are back to the headboard construction.

Foam by itself is not a good filler to cushions. It needs to be wrapped in heavy batting. So I wrapped the two pieces of foam (after I cut one to size with my handy dandy electric carving knife) and then stitched the batting closed by hand.

The cover is simply a tube of red canvas that is closed with a zipper and then the four corners are folded and stitched at the edge to form a square corner. Easy peasy. No welting (or piping) was used in the making of this cushion, as I couldn't find any in the garage, where I expected to have packed it somewhere, sometime, but didn't.

The part of the cat is played by Popeye

Neat and snug, but not exciting. Not everything can be exciting. Some things are merely fine.

I meant to base my decor on hot pink, but when faced with an array of color choices, I automatically choose red. It is a character flaw.

If I had a TV Food Show

I confess I have been glued to the tube watching other people cook.

Giada's pair

There seems to be a prevalence for women with plunging necklines doing the cooking, like Nigella Lawson and Giada De Laurentiis.

Nigella that saucy wench

I have cooked while skimpily clad in my life, and have the burn marks to prove it. I'll stay covered up for my good health, and as a public service for the benefit of the viewer.


I think I will cook my famous Mushroom Soup for you today. Dave doesn't like mushrooms, or onions, and yet he likes this soup and soon you will see why. I begin with a red chopping block. Always a good idea. It hides the blood.

Before I chop the onions I sautee some bacon in the pan, with plenty of black pepper from a very tall hand painted (by me) pepper mill.

What the heck, bring 'em all out. The plain wooden one works better and the white one has fennel seeds in it, which adds a good something to anything frying in the pan.

Then chop the onion with abandon, or a knife. It doesn't matter how nice or sloppy the onion gets chopped. It all gets mushed in the food processor later anyway, and really haven't we seen a million onions chopped up on TV already?

Pour the chopped onion into the bacon rendering in the pan and pour the cook a glass of wine.

Peel as many garlic cloves as you like and smash 'em with the side of the knife. Into the pan they go, with the onions and bacon.

Using a clean $1 Home Depot paint brush, remove the dirt from the mushrooms before loading them into the food processor.

You could chop them individually, but what a waste of time that would be. They look the same when they are chopped in the processor.

So use your time wisely and have another glass of wine.

The mushrooms cook down to almost nothing anyway. Put them and the sauteed onions and garlic back in the processor and turn them all into indistinguishable paste. Good tasting paste that Dave will eat, but really not attractive to look at. Then you are ready to add the secret ingredients.

No. Not Sandra Lee's cleavage!

Finish with canned and boxed soup. What the heck. It tastes just as good and if you add the rest of the bottle of wine who could argue?

I have a feelin' I am out of a job at the Food Network.

The Before Picture

I love love love to sit in bed and read or blog, but I have no headboard to keep my pillows from sliding down between the mattress and the wall. So I am going to make a headboard today. I got these foam cushions, batting and red canvas last week at Hobby Lobby. The cushions are slightly too wide, but not to worry, I also have an electric carving knife which has never been used on anything but foam. I will trim the foam to fit the space.

The batting gets wrapped and sewn around the foam. And the canvas will be fitted tightly to the headboard. The cover will have to have a zipper in the bottom and I hope I have one that will work, in the garage storage...

I will post the finished product later.

Let's Not Talk Turkey

It's only the two of us and making a big turkey for Thanksgiving is not gonna happen. Dave can't eat that much protein because of his meds, so we discussed what the menu would be. His first choice? Mexican food.

No surprise.

In a way, holidays have always been a time when families bring out the ethnic recipes that require more audience participation than the daily fare. But Dave doesn't have a favorite meal from his childhood, as cooking wasn't, um, how shall I put this...a creative endeavor with his mom. We have a wonderful memory, and I hope I am not talking out of school here, but one Thanksgiving his mom served commercial frozen lasagna. As we sat down to eat she mentioned that she considered making the lasagna from scratch but then thought,

" Nahhhh".

So whenever we talk about feasting we have to bring up those memories of being overwhelmed at the thought of all that planning and work as she saw it, and we laugh.

But here at the Mexican Chalet we are all about the fuss. And Dave wants Mexican and by George he is getting Mexican.

But not too much.

So here is the start of the week of cooking. I am making Enchiladas Poblano en Mole. At our house that means the filling of the enchies will be chorizo and potatoes. I don't like to buy chorizo as there is always too much fat and surprises and a pound cooks down to two ounces by the time it's done. So I buy fresh ground pork and make my own.

A pound of lean ground pork. But in this case the store had not a bit of it, so I got some boneless pork country ribs, which I cut into dice and froze for an hour so I could chop it fine in the food processor. It worked!

Add chopped garlic, a lot, and salt, oregano and lots and lots of chile powder, enough to completely change the color of the pork to dark red. Add a bit of vinegar to hold it all together. I use some of the liquid from a bottle of pepperoncini. Zing!

Mix it all up until it looks like this. One can always add more chili powder and may I say that the best chili makes the best chorizo. No brainer.

A pound of chorizo is way more meat than necessary for our enchiladas, so we will fry half this batch for breakfast. We have fresh corn tortillas and a gas stove to toast them on, plus of course, lots of eggs. Yummamente, ole!