In the Studio At Last

It's been more than a month, but finally I made into my studio to do more than just look at the fabric and sigh.

I was faced with the choice of clean up this mess or just shove the stuff aside on my sewing desk to give myself enough space to finish off something creative.



Well, I didn't have to think long on that one!

So I finished the piped facing for the collage piece that was a result of a workshop with Rosemary Eichorn.

I'm calling it "Inheritance" (which is in reference to the saying that the meek will inherit the earth).

It was certainly a fun process, but already I can see things that I would have liked to to differently, but then again that is what workshops are for! Experiment, practice, learn. If you're lucky you end up with something you really like.




I really like the way the piped facing looks on Rosemary's work, but I don't know if I'll use it again myself. It was a bit too fussy for me -- probably because it was the first time I tried it!

So having satisfied my creative hunger. My next task was to put my studio in order so that I could find my floor once again and make it to the fabric shelves without tripping on something. By condensing the fabric into taller stacks, I was able to make room for all of the solid color fabric that I got for the Nancy Crow workshop.



It only took two shelves. Wow, it seemed like a whole lot more when I was lugging it around in the suitcase and bins.



I also finished another piece and took pictures of the final exercise that I did in Nancy's workshop. You'll have wait to see those because now I need to set up the new iMac we got for the office. Our office assistant has been waiting patiently for it for over a month.

Still Under Water

That's just figuratively, not literally! My studio has still not been put back together after my return from the Nancy Crow workshop. But I've told myself that I just need to go in there and put just one or two things away each day and it will be finished in no time. Well, I'm still working on it.

As soon as I can see my floor again, I have to x out a day on my calendar, go into my studio and refuse to come out! I'm hoping to get some time during the July 4th weekend.

How Do You Piece That Thing?!

Someone asked how I managed to piece the 30-color abstract that I did on day 4. Well, the answer is I'm still working on it!

The way that I am approaching it is to first piece the easy stuff - those pieces that can go together with relatively straight seams to create a "unit" that can then potential be later sewn to the unit next to it.

In the picture below I have circled two of the units that I have assembled this way. I haven't sewn the two units together yet because I'm still working out the sequence. You need to figure out in advance how you are going to fit all the units together so that you don't box yourself into a corner. And even if you do, you can always resort to applique, by I'm going to try to avoid that. It is also a good bet that the look of the piece may change slightly during the construction because I might change a shape to make it easier to piece or I might add another shape somewhere for the same reason. That is why Nancy calls this improvisation - just wing it as you go along.



But as much as I long for a bolt of fusible at this point, I am going to try to piece the whole thing together, as that is part of this project and a major part of the challenge.

It's definitely not going to be easy.

This is probably the part when I should have been asking Nancy for help. She had asked me why I hardly ever asked for help during the class. I didn't know what to say. I know I have a hard time asking for help even when I desperately need it. Probably has to do with some shyness/self-worth issue. (Did you know that in kindergarten I was forced to go up to the teacher and whisper good morning to her in her ear because I wouldn't say it out loud with the class? Good grief, what was that about. ;-) Don't worry, I can now say good morning with the rest of them!

I was hoping to get in my studio this week but we are having a bit of a heat wave here in Greenville and my studio has no air conditioning, so I am procrastinating. Maybe if I can find a small fan . . .

Last Day at the Crow Barn

Wait a minute, wait a minute. I think I'm confused. Well, just a little disclaimer - I may be mistaken about which day some of these projects began and ended. I just looked at the pictures I have for day 5 and realized that is is quite possible that some of them actually occurred on day 4. In any case, the pace was grueling.

So on the second half of day 4 we started to make fabrics composed of solids, solids and prints (stripes and plaids). We were suppose to have 5 light values, 5 middle values, and 5 dark values.

It actually takes longer than you think to sew strips together, especially when each strip is 40-plus inches long! I only had time to put together the lights, 4 middle values and 3 dark values. Below is a pic of some of these composed fabrics.



Here is some more.



Then on the dawn of day 5 we were instructed to cut up our created fabrics to create a design that featured a repeated unit. This project was the most fun for me. Maybe it was because this was something familiar, as we had done a similar project in the first workshop I took with Nancy. Maybe it was because I finally got to use some bright non-solid fabrics! (Oh, by the way, Nancy has a wonderful fun selection of fabrics in her own mini fabric shop at the barn. Lots of great prints and patterns. I did my share of shopping here!)

I created the design by pinning the units first on the design wall and then came the tricky part of putting it together without having to resort to inset seams -- I only had to do one. Whew. I think this is my favorite of all the work I did in the workshop.



The final project was, I think, the very first "stack n wack" technique, or at least I had done it in the first Crow workshop way before all the Stack n Whack books came out -- by at least 3 or 4 years. You stack four large squares (like 24" squares) and cut a certain number of lines and shapes through the four layers, then reassemble them using the different contrasting fabrics. I used 3 fabrics and cut through 6 layers. (No matter how many times I told myself to keep it simple, I refused to listen. Boy, I'm stubborn. ;-) Anyway this project is a lot of fun, too. Nancy said she saved this project for last just because it was so easy and fun.

Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of this final piece! Probably because I was racing like a fiend to get it finished before the deadline. I barely made it. I'll post a picture later this week once I clear a path through my studio so that I can get a good shot of my design wall. I'll talk about it more once I have the picture up so that you can see what I'm talking about.

The final part of the workshop was the grand "gallery showing." Each of us had to take turns hanging up all of the work we created during the entire workshop and then giving a short (3 minute) presentation about what we got out of the workshop and what we thought of each of our pieces. Everyone was encourage to take photos during these presentations as a reference. It was quite amazing to see the body of work that each person created.

Unfortunately the person who I asked to take a picture of me in front of my gallery of work did not get the whole wall of work. I guess she thought it was better to get a closer shot of me. (Looking rumpled, of course.)




So, what was the final analysis of the workshop: I loved it. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Yes, it was grueling. Yes, there were times when I thought I was crazy for doing it and working until I was exhausted (I do that at home already. I don't want to do it on my time off). But I do think I will continue to use what I learned. I do think that I final get some of the concepts that Nancy is trying to teach, and if I took a workshop from her again, I'd learn even more.

I think you just have to be prepared for hard work in Nancy's class. It is not a "fluffy" class. As she says, it is a graduate level workshop and you have to be there because you want to give it your all. You have to be prepared for the deadlines and the 12 hour work days. Of course, all of this is really self-imposed because not once did Nancy threaten to kick someone out for not completing a project! But to me, even though I desperately needed time to relax, I couldn't not try to push myself to keep up with the pace. I get the chance to take very few workshops, so I was going to get the most I possibly could out of this one, and that meant keeping up with the projects. But my words of advice -- keep it simple! I'll try to remember this myself next time.

Regarding the supply list - of course, I didn't use all 100 yards of fabric, but having that range of choice made creating the compositions much easier than they would have if I had had a much more limited palette. Also I now have the fabric to continue playing with the lessons we learns. Most important -- bring lots and lots of black and white fabric. I'd bring twice what Nancy suggests. Many people ran out of what they brought.

Some people used polaroids of their work in progress to help them with their designs, but I never looked at my digital pictures after taking them. So leave the dated camera or printer at home, but take lots of digital pictures so remembering the processes later on when you get home.

With all that piecing I thought for sure that I would be going through spool after spool of thread, but I only used up one large spool of Star thread and I used it in both the bobbin and on top. It is good to have lots of bobbins so that you can prewind a whole batch of them in the beginning and don't have to stop midway in a project to wind bobbins.

I took extra rotary cutter blades, but never changed the one I started with. Maybe because I'm too use to using the blades until they are really annoying instead of just starting to be annoying.

I don't think there was anything that I wish I had remembered to bring. I followed the supply list (except for the polaroid/printer) and used everything.

I enjoyed spending the week with like-minded women. It was fabulous to see the wide variety of work that was created. I tend to be very quiet in group settings, but I loved listening and watching.

Nancy, John, Nathan, and Margaret were wonderful hosts.

I definitely recommend taking workshop retreats where you get away from your every day life and immerse yourself in the creative process and the community of artists. I'll be waiting for my next opportunity!

Day Four at the Crow Barn

Ok, so I finally have a moment to blog to my hearts content! We had a full house at the inn yesterday which meant I was making 30 breakfasts this morning.

But back to the regularly scheduled program . . .

Day three ended with the critique and since the critique didn't hurt (I had heard that Nancy was quite strong with her opinions), I retired to my hotel room exhausted but anxious for the next day.

The assignment for day four was to create a composition in black and white using squares, rectangles, triangles, and lines in various sizes. The size was to be relatively small. You were suppose to just pin something up on your wall and then sew it together quickly. Nancy "encouraged" us by saying, "the Japanese students had the design created and sewed together in less than 2 hours."

No one in our class came close to completing something that fast!

This is what I came up with.



I'm still seeing very architectural elements in everything I've created so far! (My Dad was an architect, so maybe I have a repressed desire to follow in his footsteps. At the very least I know that I am very much my father's daughter.)

This simple little desire was quite the bear to sew together. I was still working to finish it when the next assignment was given in the afternoon. But I wasn't too far behind, so wasn't worried.

But then came the next assignment . . .

We were to recreate that black and white design but with a few little twists: it had to be MUCH larger, instead of black and white it had to use 30+ colors, and all of the shapes had to be "whobberjawed". (Whobberjawed is roughly translated to mean "Wonky" or "Larger, Twisted, Bent, and Generally Skewed".) Again, Nancy mentioned the speed of those Japanese women!

This is the assignment that caused the most teeth-gnashing, hair-tearing, and the desire to sit in a corner and cry. (Ok, I'm exaggerating about the crying, but not by much!) I think I must have put up a design on my wall and taken it down about 5 times. At one point, when Nancy came by to see if I needed any help, I looked at my composition on the wall and pointed to one piece of fabric in it and said "that's the only part I like." And then I took everything down off the wall except for that one piece.

The really hard part was the whobberjawing because you also had to maintain the design elements of the original black and white piece so that when they were put side-by-side anyone could easily see how one was abstracted from the other.

Many people commented that another difficult part was using 30 colors. This wasn't too much of a problem with me because this time I had come with enough solid colored fabrics to have a choice. It was a little tricky to keep the dark/light contrast that the original black and white piece had in the color version, though.

So, drum roll please . . .

There it is - pinned on the wall. If you're wondering which was the one piece I had liked and kept from my previous design, it is the orange and the blue piece in the upper left corner. It is still my favorite part.



I think at this point I had just started to sew it together. Gads, I think I must have paused to stare at the thing so many times just trying to figure out how in the world I was going to piece this thing together. Where was some fusible when you needed it!

Nancy is very opposed to fusibles because they are not archival. I hear you, Nancy, and while I do love piecing and will continue to do a lot of it in my work, there are times when a fusible will make things so much easier! I can definitely see the value of using a fusible to create design studies, so that you can knock out several designs quickly to find the one that works best and then maybe recreating the best one in a pieced design.

In any case, I wouldn't have dared bring a fusible into the barn! So I struggled and struggled to get this beast pieced together. At 9:45pm I gave up. I too worn out to think straight, let alone sew straight. (The next morning, I heard that a number of classmates had begged to stay past the 10:00pm barn closing and were there until 11 - 12 pm.)

I got back to my hotel to find the front door locked. Obviously I was out after curfew! Luckily, an employee who was just driving out of the parking lot saw me at the door and stopped to let me in.

I fell into bed, had my champagne and piece of chocolate, reviewed the millions of emails that my husband sent to me about a million little things and tried to reply, only to have the emails sit in my outbox because the internet connection was too slow. Very frustrating.

Too tired to even knit. I'd definitely need a double shot latte then next morning.

And Now For a Brief Intermission

Ok, Ok. I know I promised to not take so long between posts, but I have a life you know. ;-) LOL! Actually it has been so hectic and crazy at the inn with the workshops and the chocolate that I haven't been in my studio to even put away the fabric that I took to the workshop in the past 3 weeks. So actually I don't have a life outside of our businesses at the moment. However, relief is in sight. We have no workshops all next week, so I should have no problem finishing off the Nancy Crow workshop story.

In the meantime here is my intermission photos!

The Irises are in the garden at Olana, the home of Frederick Church, who was one of the Hudson River School Painters of the early 1900's.



This is the woods above the Katerskill Falls, which was one of the favorite painting sites of the Hudson River School painters.



I get to visit these places when I deliver lunches to the painting workshop groups. So, while I'm working hard and putting in an at least 16 hour days, I at least get to see some inspiration for future fiber art!

Day Three at the Crow Barn

I was raring to go on the second day of class because I was so happy to have kept up with the projects -- and I had found a Starbucks close to the hotel for my morning latte!

So that day started out like the first one, the assignment was posted on the wall, we all copied it down, Nancy explained it, and away we went.

Today's assignment was to use the fabrics we created yesterday afternoon to create two compositions. One of them was to be big, bold, and dramatic! The other was to be small and intensely busy.

I thought that this was going to be a piece of cake because this time I remembered to create strip-pieced fabrics that had "lines" (thin strips) on the outer edges. Wrong!

This is where the gnashing of teeth and hair tearing started. I started with the big and bold design because in order to be dramatic, I'd need large pieces of solid color and if I started to cut them up for a small busy piece, I may not have the right thing for the larger piece.

I think I must have pinned a design on the wall and then taken it completely apart at least 3 times. I was really wishing for that flannel sheet for the wall now. And even though Nancy thought my color choices were fantastic, the same could not be said about my design! Arrgh. The time went by so quickly. We had to have the two compositions completely sewn together by 9:00am the next morning because then we'd have a critique.

I finally settled on a design that I liked reasonably well and set to sew it together. Hmm . . not as easy as I thought, but I just tackled it bit by bit until I had it done. Whew.

But then, egads, now I had to create the small busy piece and I was running out of time. So I threw something together and hoped it would do. I think I left the barn at 9:00pm that night. (The Shaw Inn locks their door at 9:30pm so I had to get back before that.)

So here are the two pieces I ended up with. I do like the large one but the small one you can tell was just thrown together.



One of the questions we had to answer during the critique was if we were satisfied with the composition of the small piece or was it something that we just threw together to get it done! Obviously, I was not the only one who had problems with time.

For the critique we all moved around the room to each person's work area where that person had to stand by their work and be photographed (Nancy encouraged everyone to take pictures of the work of everyone else for reference -- but NOT for posting on blogs). Then the person had to answer the questions that Nancy posed in an articulate and thoughtful manner! I don't remember the specific questions but they were generally about explaining how we met the assignment requirements and how we interpreted them. I'm not sure I was too articulate, but I survived it. ;-)

I was happy to head back down the driveway to the inn at the end of the day. Ready to fall into bed.

Addendum to Day Two

Yes, indeed, anonymous commenter, there was much gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair but that was yet to come! Day Two had only a bit of eye rolling and sighing as I tried to create a connected composition with fabric that had mostly lines in between shapes. I'll know better next time -- I hope!

As I said, I left the barn at 8:30pm, which was a lot earlier that others. I was relieved to have actually kept up with the assignments at that point. The first class I took with Nancy I had to leave and go home each day at 5:00pm because I had taken the class locally and had my family to contend with in the evenings. So I got so far behind in the assignments that I don't even want to think about it. So this time I just put my head down and focused on getting it done!

I was so happy to have a good selection of fabrics, the appropriate solids, to choose from so that I didn't have to spend time agonizing over making the wrong fabrics work together!

And since I am writer who agonizes over saying the right thing, I am going to spead out the blogging about the workshop over several days. ;-) But I won't let it go for weeks this time.

Day Two at the Crow Barn

I'm doing two posts on the same day because I know some of you want to get down to what actually happened in the workshop!

But first a word about the environment of the Crow property. The minute I arrived at the property I knew that I would enjoying being there just for the magnificence of the property. First off I love old barns but they were surrounded by flowering trees and shrubs. Every morning as I walked from my car to the barn studio I would take deep breaths of the heavenly scents of the lilacs.



And I loved the whimsical sculptures created by Nancy's husband, John, that could be found throughout the property. I'd love to show more pictures, but Nancy is very opposed to photos taken of her workshop to be posted on blogs and I'm not sure how far this extends - whether includes photos of her property or not. So I'll mostly be showing only photos of my own work. But I took lots of pictures! ;-)

So class started promptly at 9:00am and the first assignment was put on the wall. We all feverishly copied down the instructions because once they were removed from the wall, they would not be put back up! Then Nancy explained the assignment and sent us off to our workstations.

The first assignment was to work with just black fabric and white fabric. We had to choose one color to be the "Lines" and one color to be the "Shapes". We cut the fabric in the strips of various widths and then sewed them together in different configurations to create new fabric. Then we had to cut up this resulting fabric into units and create an interested composition featuring the lines.

This is my result still in the design stage. (Note: I should have paid attention the suggestion to bring a batting sheet or flannel to put on the design wall. I was forever pinning and unpinning pieces to the wall. Of course, the design walls were wonderfully pinnable anyway.)



I struggled with the design until Nancy stopped by to explain that to make the lines into a composition, they needed to connect in someway. Duh, I think I finally got it.
Below is my finished piece. I'm not sure I like it -- it looks like a floor plan to me, but it at least looks like a composition. I think I needed to have more "Lines" on the edges of my made fabrics to make the composition come together. I had trouble getting the lines to connect.

We did a similar exercise in the first workshop I took with Nancy. I don't have a picture and don't know where it is (I might still have it), but believe me the result in this 2008 workshop is much better!



It is an interesting exercise and I'm anxious to try it again at home (maybe in the winter!)

That was the morning assignment. After lunch (also made wonderfully by Margaret), we were given the afternoon/evening assignment.

The second assignment was to choose two solid color fabrics and create new fabrics in the same manner as the Black and White assignment, but this time we would do two sets of created fabrics - one using color A as the lines and one using color A as the shapes. We were suppose to pick one "favorite" outstanding color and then a contrasting color. I choose a brilliant blue and a soft brown.



Nancy stayed in the studio in the afternoon from 2:00 to 5:00, but then left us to our own devices in the studio until they kicked everyone out at 10:00pm. (Dinner is served at 6:00pm and of course, can't forget snack time at 3:00.)

Sewing strips of fabric together may not seem like a lot of work but everyone was cutting and sewing like crazy and still it took all evening and then some to get everything done. The strips are all cut selvage to selvage, so these are lots of long seams. We had to have all of our made fabrics complete because the next morning we'd be getting the assignment that would use these fabrics. I think I left at 8:30pm that evening feeling very tired.

Still, when I got back to my room at the Shaw, I broke out my bottle of Mumm DVX Champagne and popped that cork. A glass of champagne and a nice piece of chocolate. What a great way to end the day.

Day One at the Crow Barn

I'm finally getting moment to blog about my experience at the Nancy Crow workshop! I was reminded to hurry up by an Anonymous reader (and you know who you are. ;-) because people are waiting! I know my mother has been bugging me about it.

Anyway, my plans to blog daily were very quickly thrown out the window due to the bad internet connection at the hotel, but more importantly by the fact that I was too exhausted at the end of the day to do anything other than read and respond to the millions of emails sent by my husband (and I thought I would be able to get away from work by driving to Ohio, right).

So what happened? Well, here's the deal:

On Sunday morning I left my comfy room at the Bedford Resort...



And drove off towards Ohio in my fabric packed car . . .



I arrive in Lancaster, OH at around 3:00pm and checked into my room at the Shaw Inn and Restaurant. While it was not quite the Bedford, it was clean and comfortable.

Next stop -- The Barn! They were well prepared for the needs of people bearing loads of fabric. There was a drive way that looped around the barn so you could pull up right next to the doorway to unload. It all went very quickly with the help of Nathan, Nancy's son, who made it look easy carrying in all the heavy stuff for me.



I was one of the last ones to arrive, but I quickly set up my studio away from home - setting my sewing machine and fabric stash in my little corner.

After set up time, the dinner bell rang and we all followed the call. A lovely dinner, created by chef Margaret Wolf, was set out buffet-style in the dining room area. With both workshops (the other workshop was taught by Fran Skiles) there was almost 40 people there.

After dinner, we were given a brief overview of the workshop plan and rules of the barn. Then one by one we stood up and introduced ourselves. There were quite a few people from New York and there was also another innkeeper! I think the furthest anyone had come was from Hawaii. It was a wonderfully deverse group of talent and professions. But what was also amazing was that two women who had been in the first Nancy Crow workshop that I took in the early 1990's in Mountain View, CA were there, too! They were both in the Fran Skiles workshop that week and were staying around for the following week for the Master's class with Nancy.

The class was to start the next morning at 9:00am sharp, so we all went home to our respective hotels to get a good nights sleep.

Off to a Nancy Crow Workshop!

I'm finally on my way to the workshop at Nancy Crow's Barn in Ohio. I am so excited about taking my first away workshop! I'll finally get to experience what everyone does when they come to our workshops.

I thought I'd never get on the road yesterday. I had not even packed anything until that morning, as we have been so busy at the inn, with the workshop, and the chocolates. Gads, it is always something!

Here is a shot of the "Fabric Beast", as Mark called it. It's all of the new solid color fabric out of the washer/dryer and waiting to be ironed. Will I get it done in time?



The answer is No. But what could I do when I ran out of time -- I just stuffed the wadded fabric into a plastic bin and loaded up the car.



Anyway, already it is marvelous to wake up this morning with no breakfast to make and no calls to answer, no bills to pay (those will come later for sure!), and no toilets to fix!

I decided to start off with an "attitude adjustment" by staying my first night away at a posh resort in Bedford, PA - the Bedford Springs Resort. I hadn't actually planned to do this, but I had had no time to make reservations for a place mid-way between home and Ohio. Also because I had no idea where I'd be when I was ready to stop for the night because I had no idea when I'd actually get on the road yesterday morning. Plus I had some stops at some stores a long the way to drop off some chocolate samples.

So at 7:00pm yesterday, when I had had enough driving I told myself that the next town I came to that had reasonable sounding lodging advertised along the highway, I'd stop. So I came to Bedford and there were several lodging possibilities, but I also noticed a sign for Bedford Springs Resort - "history restored". Sounded like an interesting place to check out. So I followed the signs and discovered this huge posh resort out of the pages of the elegant past!


I was not exactly elegant looking after 7 hours on the road, especially with a car packed to the gills with wads of unironed fabric. But I put on a brave face and left my car with the valet and went into the check-in desk. I only flinched a bit when the nightly rate was quoted -- I figured, what the heck, I really deserve and need this break/holiday and it would be my Mother's Day treat! So I said just give me a room on the low end of the rate scale!

So this is my "low end" room! I think I've died and gone to heaven. I think I danced around the room in glee for at least a couple of minutes.



It was late already so no time or desire for a regular dinner (not to mention that I had nothing suitable for wearing in the high class resort dining room), so I ordered a cheese plate thru room service. Lovely.



Then I thought of Sherry B, who was a student at one of our workshops last year. Every day after the workshop was done, she ordered a glass of champagne and sat on the porch to relax before dinner. So decadent, so deserving, and what a great way to treat yourself. I remembered making a vow that if I ever got the opportunity to go away to a workshop, that that is exactly what I would do! So here's to you Sherry!

Winter Leaves

Here is my latest creation. It is called Winter Leaves. I made it for the NY SAQA trunk show and for the SAQA auction that will be held later this year. It is 12" square.



I have a companion piece started but it may be a while before I get to work on it. I've be distracted with other things.

For the first time I got to join in the fun at one of our workshops. The instructor was Rosemary Eichorn, who I have always wanted to take a workshop from and never had the chance even though I use to live not that far from her in California. We collaged and played with tyvek, expanding paints, melting felt with a heat gun, and other cool stuff - like painting and melting potato chip bags!

Rosemary also showed us how to add piping on the edge and a facing finished border. Nice. I'm not quite finished with the piece that I created and as usual I'm not quite sure if I like at this moment. I think it needs something still.

Then the other distracting, but exciting news is that I am finally going to get to escape to a workshop myself! We had a free week in May and so I looking around the web just to see if perhaps a workshop that I'd like to take happened to be during that week and I found one -- Improvisations with Nancy Crow at her barn in OH! Yipeee! The class was full, but I put my name on the waiting list and crossed my fingers.

In the beginning of April I got an email from The Barn saying that the class was still full and would I like a refund of my deposit or did I want to wait and see if they got a last minute cancellation. What the heck, I told them to let it ride. So 2 weeks ago I got the good news! I got in! But now I had to face the reality of the infamous Supply List.

The first thing I did was post a query to the QuiltArt list about which was the best online fabric shop for quick and cheap stash building. The QuiltArt folk know everything! But, wow, I was totally overwhemed. Not only did I get a great bunch of suggestions for online shops, but a number of generous women actually sent me some fabric from their personal stash. Nancy Hinds, Sue Hill, Diane Pigg, Pam Morris -- Thank you so much! You're my heros.

The issue of course is that Nancy requires solid color fabrics and I rarely get such a thing. Below you see the entire extent of my solid fabric collection. I have some "near solids" but I know that Nancy frowns on that. Oh well, I'm taking my "non-solids" anyway, but I did just put in an order for some of the Kona solids. (I got mixed reviews on the quality of Kona solids, but as they were also the cheapest, I decided to get them anyway, as one person on quiltart wisely said, I'll be using them for class work and if they are cheap I won't be afraid to use them!)



I'll be taking my laptop with me to the workshop and hopefully won't be too exhausted to post my progress.

A Neater Studio - For the Moment!

My studio is neat and organized -- or at least for the moment. I thought I better snap a few pictures before everything goes to heck again.

All my fabric is neatly arranged and I can easily see that I need more lights and darks!



In this pictures you can see the new Elfa drawer units that I bought. Lots more storage and I can finally have all of my threads and UFOs in easy reach. (You can also see that the clutter is starting to collect again!)



And speaking of UFOs, I'm finally finishing this Crazy By Design sign that I started when I was in California and selling my work at art festivals. I wanted to create a booth sign and thought it would be nice to have an art quilt sign rather than a painted or printed sign.



I have it bound but will now add a finishing touch of beads around the color patches under the C and the D.

This past Saturday I also worked on a landscape/townscape that I'm creating in hopes of entering it in some big show. I've already missed the deadline for the exhibit that I originally intended it for (this is starting to be my new MO) and the next is fast approaching and I have yet to start the quilting. If I miss all the deadlines I'll have to post pictures here. I hate not be able to post pictures just because some venues will only accept work that has been totally hidden from view. What if the piece you enter doesn't make it in the exhibit? Then you've had to keep something your proud of hidden away (like hiding your feelings) and by the time you can bring it out into the light, you are already onto the next several projects and the elation of finishing it is long gone. Oh, well. I have no time to worry about this at the moment.

I have also been working on a redesign of my website: www.CrazyByDesign.com. It is way over due. I had been hoping to hire a web designer to do this, but after getting several estimates, I had to accept that it just wasn't in my budget for now. So I am going through the labor intensive process of doing the thing myself. I know that the prices that professional web designers charge is worth every penny because it requires lot of work and knowledge and graphic design abilities. Unfortunately, I more time than pennies and even the time is in pitiful supply. I designed my current site and I'm hoping to get the new version up in the next couple of weeks.

I still have had only minimal time in my studio because it seems like I'm working around the clock on not only our workshop and inn business, but now it is Life By Chocolate. I am glad of the business, but exhausted by the end of the day (if not sooner).

In my studio I am currently working on a piece that I will hopefully have ready to enter into one of the Quilts, Inc exhibits but because of their strict rules, I can't show you progress pictures! But picture this -- because my studio is small and has no large table space, I'm having to use my floor space (all of about 4 x 6 feet) as my design area. I sit on the floor and cut and design. I'm under the ironing board, so when I have to iron a piece, I must scoot out from under the board, then slowly scramble to my feet, trying not to step on the design, the scissors, or rotary cutter (closed, of course!). I'm making progress, but slowly!

I have finished another knitting project - a wonderfully fuzzy and soft sweater made from Dakota yarn by Tahki. The pattern is from Knitting Pure and Simple. Knitting I have time to do because I can do a little bit each day right before my eyes refuse to stay open any longer while sitting in bed with the dogs playing like wild banshees all around me. (Focuses the concentration to have to work in these conditions and not drop stitches! LOL.)




I'm standing in front of our Valentines chocolates display at the inn. We now have our chocolates in 3 local co-op or health food stores, so it is going fast, but there is still some there for the last minute Valentines gift or the "oh, no I forgot to get anything for you for Valentines" gift after the fact.

We had a tiny ice storm the other day which dressed the shrubs and trees in the most wonderfully glistening glaze.




We are lucky to be on roads that are kept very clear of ice and snow, which is why I can still be in love with the winter! Although, there hasn't really been much of anything to keep clear of. There is currently just a minimal dusting of snow and the sunny is shining this morning. The weather report is predicting snow this afternoon, but we'll have to wait and see. We are in an area that these storms somehow shift away from at the last minute.

Well, better finish up with the blogging and get to work this a.m. I have chocolate bars to wrap for a new order, and Mark just created a new variety of chocolate bar and needs a new wrapper designed.

My First Solo Exhibit

Yesterday we hung my first solo exhibit! It is really gratifying to see a selection of your work all hung together, especially at times when you are feeling like you haven't done anything worth while it such a long time. LOL.

The exhibit is at the Massry Residence, 180 Washington Ave Extension, Albany, New York. I am the featured artist on their lobby wall for the months of February and March. I was invited after a student at one of our workshops recommended me to the director at the residence.





I'm looking a little disheveled because we drove up to Albany as a "nice" little ice storm was just picking up steam and so I was dressed for mushy weather and the result was some wonderful hoodie hair!






Other exciting news is that our online store for Life By Chocolate is live! Check out the chocolate bars that feature images of some of my quilts.

Putting it in Reverse

I've come to the conclusion that working in the Carriage House studio is just not going to work this year. Already it is almost January and I haven't picked up a rotary cutter or taken a stitch all month. I did get my fabric sorted (a very satisfying task - it's a amazing to discover things you didn't know you had!) and I have set up a new set of shelves in my upstairs studio and purchased a set of elfa drawers that I'm hoping to set up today. Then the great reverse action will commence - moving all the fabric and stuff back to my third floor studio. Well, I need the exercise.

I will do my best to create something worthy of photographing for my blog in February!

So what have I been "frittering" my time away on in January? It seems that there is more art workshop business in this "off time" than ever. I'm in the process of finalizing the schedule for 2009 (if any readers have any recommendations for teachers now it the time to tell me!). I have all of the painting workshops scheduled and have just a few more fiber art workshop spots to fill. Then comes all of the associated stuff that it takes to get ready for the current year of workshops that start March 2nd.

Another winter task that has been consuming vast amounts of my time is our new chocolates business, Life By Chocolate. I am the main business and marketing person. I designed the new online store website layout (going live soon) and I also designed the wrappers for a new line of chocolate bars. It was my idea to use images of my quilts on the wrappers and so most of the names of the bars have been created to work with one of my quilts! The picture below is of the Wild Rabbit bar and it has a portion of my quilt "Rabbits in the Grass" on the side. The bar is made of a fabulous Fair Trade 70% cacoa South American chocolate and has a hint of Turkish chili.



Well, I better quit this blogging and get back to printing more bar wrappers. I'm also the chief bar wrapper and packaging expert. LOL.

Fabric Sort Has Begun

I have moved all of my fabric stash out to the carriage house studio and I started the great sorting project today. I've had no time to actually create any artwork yet, but I've at least gotten some good exercise! My regular studio is on the 3rd floor of the Main Inn, so moving all this fabric (Man, it is heavy) down the stairs and over to the Carriage house took quite a while. (Who needs a Stairmaster!)



One thing I have noticed is that I just don't have enough fabric in light and dark values. Most of it is in the middle range of values. Darn - I guess I need to go shopping. LOL.



I hope I get something more out of the studio move than sorted fabric, but I guess that isn't a bad thing either. We have been really busy getting the Life By Chocolate website and online store up in time for Valentines Day. I'm doing the web page layouts in PhotoShop and Mark is taking the photos and entering all of the info in the online store database. My brother, who is our website host (Blue Cliff Hosting) will convert my PhotoShop designs into web pages. Mark will soon be creating a line of chocolate bars and the wrappers will feature my quilts! (I'll be designing the wrappers, too.)

I have been invited to hang a solo exhibit of my work in Albany! I'm hoping to check out the site tomorrow (when I take 2 of our vacumm cleaners in for repairs). I'm not sure of the space so I need to find out what size pieces can be hung and then hope I have enough that will work!

Finally a Day in My Studio

Today is suppose to be my day in the studio. I'll let you know how it turns out because it is also Mark's birthday and he wants to set up an area to photograph his chocolates (to start setting up the online store for Life By Chocolates.)

I'll have to accept some of the blame for not spending more time in my studio because I've been having a serious "Jones-ing" for yarn. First I had to finish the gifts I was making (socks for Zeke and Mark) and then I finished a sweater for me.



(Good models are so hard to find, so I had to crop off the head. LOL)

This sweater is made from a Jo Sharp pattern (Sommerset) with RYC Soft Lux yarn (recommended by Adina). It is wonderfully soft and nice to work with AND because Webs Yarn now has it on sale I had to finish the sweater to see if I liked it enough to buy more for another!

But now I'm trying to stop myself from buying more yarn because I know I have enough to keep me busy for the rest of the year, but so many sales and so many fabulous fibers. Somebody slap my hands before I click through to the Webs site again!

Well hopefully my day in the studio will take my mind off of the yarn! I'm planning on finishing off some lingering projects and then I start putting together my teaching plan for my first workshop! I'm teaching a 3-day workshop at Hudson River Valley Art Workshops in Dec. 4 - 7, 2008. We'll working postcard-sized, exploring various materials and elements of design. Plus, as an added bonus the studio will be open to the public so that people can stop by to see the work and purchase it for holiday gift giving. I'm really excited about this workshop - should be lots of fun!

Frosty the Pumpkins

Here is the picture of the frosted pumpkins that I tried to put up early. Unfortunately, they no longer look so fairy-tale-ish. They are turning to mush and I'll have to get a big shovel to transport them to the forest compost heap.

I have nothing new to show for myself, as I have not been in my studio for about a month. I have the sleeve and label to sew on the Dwelling piece and then I'll have to figure out what I'm doing next. I've printed out the information about several calls for entry, but I may just ignore them and let my muse lead me where it will.

Is WordPress the Next Step

There is a discussion going on on QuiltArt about the relative merits of the various blogging options. If I had had the time, I would have chimed in and said that I've been using Blogger for about 2 years and haven't had any trouble with it. But then what happens when I try to add a picture to this post -- Error Message. Sheesh. And yesterday, there was a point when the pictures in previous posts weren't showing up. Double Sheesh.

So no pictures for you this time. I was just going to post a picture of the frost on the pumpkins. I had heard of this happening to pumpkins but had never actually seen a frosted pumpkin -- they are very cool. The entire pumpkins was frosted. It sparkled in the early morning light. Looked like something you'd see in a fairy tale.

I had no pictures of the Dwelling piece that I finished on Saturday because as usual, I forgot to bring the camera with me to my studio. Camera on the first floor -- studio on the 3rd floor. And on my studio day, I dare not show my face outside of my studio or be in danger of being dragged into some other "5 minutes" task that takes the rest of the day.

Laura Cater-Woods is teaching at here this week. It is always wonderful to have Laura here. She is like a breath of fresh air - always makes you feel upbeat and eager.

I love it here, even when the driveway and all of the walkways are like blocks of ice! I was out this morning at 6:30 am sprinkling snow melt on all of the walkways and luckily our snow plow and salt service arrived in time to prevent my having to salt a path across the driveway from the Carriage house to the Main Inn. I love how everything is crunchy and sparkling, and my Yak-Traks did a good job of keeping me from slipping.

I'm returning to California on Friday. My daughter is graduating from the Monterey Institute with a Masters Degree in International Security and Conflict Resolution. I am so proud of her. She is amazing. We will be in CA for just 5 days but it be enough time to have Christmas as Adina's house, dinner with friends, a mother-daughter day out, and a celebratory dinner at the French Laundry in Yountville.

Gaffitti

Wow. Two posts in one month. It must mean the workshop season is winding down and I actually have a moment or two to do something other than work!

Carol Taylor is starting her second of two workshops today. Seeing her work and watching what they are doing in her workshop sure makes me itch to get in my studio to start strip piecing!



But what did I do with my couple hours of studio time -- cleaned my studio! This is one of my favorite procrastination techniques (besides knitting). But sometimes the studio just really needs it - stuff gets everywhere in stacks and stacks until you can barely move without upsetting a stack.

Just two more weeks to go before I can move my studio to the Carriage House studio for the winter! I'll be able to stay out there until the end of February. It will be wonderful to have so much space.

Here is another piece I created for the Deconstruction/Reconstruction exhibit. It is called Graffiti and is made from Spanish rice sacks. I use acrylic paint on the sacks and then stitch it with Aurifil 12wt thread (which makes a nice thick line). When taking the train into NYC I enjoy checking out all the graffiti that you see along the way. So this is my interpretation of graffiti. I used the "traditional" paint, but then used thread as a "quilter's graffiti."



This my current project for the California Fiber Artist's Dwellings collection. It is at the phase where I'm about ready to start stitching, but I still have a few more details to ad - like the yellow dashed line for the roads between the rows of houses.



Fall is finally here and the leaves are falling! Fall is a beautiful time of year up here. The weather is perfect - not too hot and not too cold.

New Blog Title

I changed the title of my blog from "Crazy By Design - Day By Day" because who am I kidding . . . I'll never have the time to blog daily! I consider myself very lucky to blog quarterly. So now it is "Artist Interrupted" as that is how I feel my life is at the moment -- constant interruptions from whatever I'm doing.

Last Saturday when it was suppose to be my day to work in my studio, I don't think I was ever in there for more than half an hour before I would be called downstairs for some reason or another other. We had a lot of inn guest checking in that day, and while Mark is suppose to be handling this, he always picks Saturday as the day to do chocolates - a task that often cannot be interrupted without bad results. So guests are arriving and Mark is no where to be seen and he can't hear them from the kitchen. This means that because I happen to be the one seen first I'm suddenly pulled into checking in the flow of guests and showing them to their rooms and helping with luggage, and then while I'm down there I may as well take care of the dogs and make coffee, etc. Sigh.

Well, enough of my whining.

This week is our Retreat week and we have a wonderful mix of fiber artists and painters. I think the painters are getting a real kick out of watching what the fiber artists are creating. Kris Moss and Patti Turi are the fiber artists. They are doing really cool stuff. I'll have to take some pictures today.

But what have I been doing, you ask. Well, I'm working on my Dwellings piece and a lecture that I'm giving next week at the Bethlhem Art Association. It will just be a slide show lecture, but I want to show pictures of the Dwellings piece in process. I hope I have the time to get the process finished!

Below is an image of one of the pieces I did for the Recycled exhibit with CFA. It is titled Fashion Crossroads. It is made with old suit swatches and strips from one of Mark's shirts.