It's A Bird!

Come into the birthing room for a sneak peek at one member of my little flock as it makes its way into the world:

It's all so surgical. I even use hemostats to help with the delivery. ;- )

I'll be sending most of my nestlings to Regina at Creative Kismet for the Birds of Change Exchange. Remember to stop by on the 20th though (that's only a few days away!) because I'll be taking applications (via comments) for a new home for one particular winged messenger.

Meanwhile, I thought I'd show you one of the few gifts I made this Christmas. Remember the Dilbert tie I found at the thrift shop? I first showed it in this post. Well, I turned it into a decorative pillow for my sister. Dilbert is one of those cartoons she really identifies with. I didn't think the black and red color scheme would work in her home decor all that well but she loves the pillow. Score!

And the back...

We've received our tasks for week two of Jump Start January. I swear, it's like Diane is holding a mirror up to my face that shows me all the things I've never seen in myself before! Amazing.

She Ain't Kidding!

We've had one session and already I've had a breakthrough! I'm referring, of course, to the Jump Start January workshop I signed up for with creativity coach Diane Reardon.

I've known about life coaches and creativity coaches for some time now. I just never thought I would ever use one. I didn't think it would be a justifiable expense (can you say "low self esteem?"). Boy, was I ever proved wrong! I feel like a whole new person. A part of me that I thought was defective has been properly diagnosed and I have every expectation of a full recovery. It will require time and effort on my part of course, but the beauty of it is that now that effort will be fun, not a chore! Diane was able to help me open a door that, try as I might, I could never find the key to previously. There's a fresh new breeze ruffling the leaves around the Magpie's Nest. What joy. :- )

I have not done any actual sewing for a couple of days. But I have signed up to participate in the Birds of Change Exchange. Something about that opportunity grabbed my interest and wouldn't let go. Well, obviously the bird theme. I seem to have a thing these days for birds and bird related items. Not birds of prey, but nearly any other kind of bird species. I've always been fascinated by birds but they have really come to the forefront on my consciousness lately. So I guess this exchange seemed appropriate.

The deal is that I will make 5 ornament size birds in the medium of my choice (duh - fabric!), send them to the coordinator, and she will swap them out with birds created by other participants so that eventually I will receive 5 different birds back. I will also be making a 6th bird to give away here on my blog. Not all of the swappers will be participating in this little game, but those who are will be listed on Regina's blog. Mark your calendars for January 20 'cause that's the big day. I'll show you the birds I'm making and you can leave a comment to be entered in the drawing for the give-away. Hope to see you then!

By the way, our immediate area seems to have escaped the brunt of the flooding issues currently plaguing Washington and Oregon. Whew!

Itchin' to Stitch

First of all, let me share some news: Sharon Boggon has moved her blog and all of her great resource material to PinTangle.com. There are links to all of the tips and tutorials and eye candy on her sidebar as well as links to the various challenges and activities she has or is hosting. This woman is a walking, talking, blogging font of embroidery and textile information and is constantly on the hunt for something new to share with us. I stitch in awe of her.

And speaking of stitching, here's where I am so far with my Sumptuous Surfaces piece:

Can you see the bits of turkey work I added? That's the fuzzy Whisper thread I bought on my last shopping excursion. I also did a bit of feather stitching with it to sort of fill in the shrubbery on the top right side.

It needs more but I'm afraid to go any further. It's simply a fear of the unknown. I am not fluent in the language of embroidery stitches so I don't know what can be achieved. Seeing pictures of what others have done is one thing. To make those stitches yourself is another. Only after you have stitched them can you begin to fully comprehend the possibilities they hold. To that end I have made up my mind to begin a band sampler a la Sharon's and Annie's:

Sharon's is the wider, longer version on the right, Annie's narrower sampler is on the left. Sharon has been teaching for some time so she had lots of little bits of stitching that she had been hauling around in folders and things. The folders got to be heavy and at least one piece of stitching got lost along the way so she decided to piece them all together into one long strip. Now she just rolls up her sampler and takes it with her. Students can still see and touch but it's much easier to transport and much harder to lose!

Annie's sampler is unique because she has included references to historic or meaningful events inbetween her stitch samples. You can see in the photo I lifted below that she has documented the Australian government's apology to the Aborigines. (There are more detail shots on Sharon's blog post. Just click on the link above.)

Annie blogs at Annies Crazy World. You can see all of her stitching there, usually in great detail.

The idea for a stitch sampler that incorporates personal history has been tickling my brain ever since I first read about this pair of samplers. When I was introduced to embroidery it was through kits and charted projects. Samplers were a static thing that someone else had designed and really didn't perform the function of giving experience with a lot of different stitches. (Can you say 'boooring'?) I played around with a greater variety of stitches when I was doing needlepoint, and that kept me interested for several years. Now that I have a desire for a working knowledge of embroidery stitches I have the perfect excuse to start a band sampler of my own! :- )

Life is a Collage

We're in our sixth and final week of the studio journal class, and this week the focus is on collage.

Collage can be defined as "an assemblage of diverse elements" (per Dictionary.com). Of all the design techniques/exercises that Sharon has given us so far, this feels the most comfortable to me. I think that's probably because it most closely approximates the way I work: gathering and assembling an assortment materials into a cohesive whole (I hope!).

I've made a couple of collages in my journal but I don't think either of them will be taken any further into fiber. That's okay though. Practice is practice and all of it is valuable.

Speaking of taking it further, this is the challenge Sharon has posed for the month of August:

"In my chaotic and hectic life I often admire people who are able to maintain balance in their lives. What is balance to you? Do you maintain a balanced life? How do you balance aspects of your life? That is the challenge this month - balance."

The challenge of balancing our creative endeavors with the rest of the activities and demands in our lives came up often amongst the students in the studio journal class. It's an ongoing struggle, even here in the Magpie's Nest where life is pretty calm in comparison to the rest of the world!

I'm not sure there could be a better metaphor for life than collage. Don't we spend the bulk of every day trying to bring a collection of diverse elements into some kind of order? That order, whatever it looks like for an individual, creates balance in that person's life. And generally that's when we feel the calmest or most in control of our lives.

In spite of the fact that I'm trapped at home, where one could assume that my life would be very routine (ie: balanced) nearly every day brings something into my world that throws me off balance in one way or another. I don't feel that I have yet succeeded in creating a harmonious collage out of my daily life. At least, not on a consistent basis. Still working on it. In fact, I'm going to keep working on it every day I'm allowed.

Having said all that, I don't have a clue yet what I will do for my August Take It Further postcard quilt!

More Eye Candy

When I was playing with the kaleidoscope maker a couple of days ago I finally figured out how to input an image of my own work. I used this 4" x 6" postcard:


And made these kaleidoscopes:

Isn't that amazing?! I could easily spend all day doing this sort of thing! Class marches on however, and of course the whole point is to learn to translate some of the designs we're creating into works of fabric and thread. I managed to cut a motif from paper the other day that I can actually visualize piecing out of fabric. woohoo! I haven't done it yet, but it's in my studio journal, waiting for me to be ready :- )

I think the studio journal class is already bearing fruit for me, if not in the exercises themselves. Seemingly unrelated events have come together into an idea for a new project, in fact a new series of small embellished quilts. I'm loving the influx of ideas and possibilities. But all this activity in the "real" world is keeping me from the computer and my blogging buddies. Fear not, dear friends, I will return and catch up with you!

Studio Journal

Bet that got your attention!

A couple of posts ago I mentioned that I'm taking an online course in studio journals from Sharon Boggon through Joggles.com. We're in week three now, and I have to say that it's an interesting experience.

This is the first online class I've ever taken. That aspect of it is going well. Better than anticipated perhaps. (Technology is still a little scary for me.) What I'm having issues with are the exercises in design that she's giving us. Mind you, she's very good about not pushing us to do things we may not have time for. She's just trying to get us in the habit of using our journals on a regular basis. Every day if possible. So we've cut up magazine pages to do color studies, and this week we're cutting shapes out of paper to play around with design elements like repeated motifs and postive/negative relationships. All well and good. But something about these exercises makes me cranky! I love color, I love pattern; why in the world do I find playing around with paper and scissors so annoying?! Sharon also encourages us to try interpreting some of this work into fiber, whether with threads or fabric or whatever. I have absolutely no desire, so far, to do that. I do not find any of these exercises inspiring in any way whatsoever. {sigh}

This week she gave us the link to a kaleidoscope-making tool. That was fun. What you see here today are only a few of the many variations I made. You can even insert your own photo from which to make kaleidoscopic images. I haven't done that yet, but I'm sure that will be another hour or two on the computer!

I have tentatively come to the conclusion that I have actually been keeping a studio journal for several years. I just wasn't using it quite as visually as other people might, nor was I "composting" in it the way Sharon recommends. In fact, I have had more than one journal going at a time whereas Sharon advocates keeping everything all together in one volume. After the paper-cutting exercises in my journal I now have pages and pages of handwritten notes taken from Twyla Tharp's book, The Creative Habit, which someone in class recommended. I also have notes from a blog post Sharon did about how she manages her time that I'm going to add to my journal. Apparently these things are currently more important to me than the elements and principles of design. The beauty of the class is that I can go back at any time to do whatever exercises I may skip this time around :- )

Frottage

It's been sunny and warm here the last few days. While I absolutely adore the sunshine it got too warm to leave the windows closed and now I have a headache, I assume from poor air quality. That's probably the most frustrating thing about this affliction: it's almost impossible to know exactly what my body is reacting to. On the up-side, this headache is not so bad that I can't function.

I took advantage of the sunshine over the weekend to go outside and do some frottage for the first lesson of my online Studio Journals class. I'd never done this technique before (unless it was when I was a child and I've forgotten the experience!) but it's quite simple. All you do is lay a piece of paper over an object that has some physical texture to it and use a pencil or crayon over the surface of the paper. I discovered that you don't always get what you'd expect. In doing some research on the topic online I also learned that when you rub over a wood grain in one direction you'll get one result, but if you rub over the same area in the other direction you'll get a different look. (Here's the link to that site.) I'm anxious to get back outside and try that.

In the meantime, here's a commercial applique I had in my stash...

and the rubbing I did of it:

I used a Prismacolor pencil to do the bird frottage. The one above was done with a regular pencil. That's the impression I got from the lid of a plastic pencil case I have. Down in the lower right corner you can see two tiny elements I lifted from a cut glass bowl. I now have pages and pages of this stuff to put in my studio journal!