October 2008 Archives

When we moved here from California in 2001, our realtor neglected to mentioned that this place, Camano Island, is an artist community. One thing that artists love is an art show, or two, or many. Autumn here ushers in the holiday season of shows...big, little, private showings and public displays, art walks and gallery showings. This season is packed with wonderful shows of all kinds.

Amy and I have been busy busy busy preparing our line of Here2There fiber art and home decor for a few of these upcoming holiday shows in and around Camano Island (which is one hour north of Seattle and accessible by bridge). Today I picked up our made-to-order sign for our booth. I think we are almost ready.

Here is a list of where we will be. Come by and see us if you are in the area. We will have wall hangings, one-of-a-kind art pillows, quilts, totes, and cards. Of course there will be works of other local artists at all these shows.

• This weekend, see us at Four Springs Preserve on Camano Island. Our beautiful Bird Quilt #1 will be on display and for sale as well as other pieces. The show runs Oct 31 - Nov 2

• We will have a booth at the Stanwood Camano Holiday Gift Shop which will be inside the Camano Island Coffee Roaster facility at Terry's Corner. The show runs from Nov 6 - Dec 24.

• We will have a booth at the Rexville Grange Holiday Show..the grange is located right behind the historic Rexville Grocery in Skagit Valley. The show runs Nov 21 - 23. (and what is a grange, anyway? )
  

Right now you can see most of the fiber art we will have at these shows at Here2There.etsy.com. We'll be moving things out of Etsy for the shows this weekend.

Then, there are the shows in the spring that coincide with the tulips and snow geese ...yes, we are already thinking of what we'll be working on for those.

This one is so fun. It's an interesting challenge finding the right color balance when making something for someone you don't know. This is one of a set of 5 commissioned photo pillows. I was given a sense of color and then, basically, instructions for something that's not flowery at all... something that is unexpected in many places. In the end, I worried it might have ended up more formal than it was intended to be... but I love the colors... and I love the black and white dots. And, though you can't see the photo in the center clearly for privacy reasons, it's beautiful in the middle of this!

I just read Opal's blog entry, and she said her space looks the same... but really it doesn't. I see so much different between the photos... between the weeks. And yet my photo today... really it could have been the photo from last week. Two of the projects here are, indeed, the same. They are commissions but not for the shows that begin next week. So while I did a flurry of work on them... they still sit in virtually the same spot. I should have moved around and taken this photo from the other end of the room... the things I'm working on are there... and just out of sight from this photo, in fact. But, another pillow for H2T is here... the center completed and ready to be integrated into the top of a pillow in the way that marks my pillows as true to my own line and sense of design. And, obscured by the light in this photo is the top of my tote which sits at the end of the table near my machine.

It's been a busy week. I started a new job. School schedules were strange. I'm working on a dozen things. And, for Here2There, there is much, much, much going on as we enter the flurry of the coming weeks when almost everything we've worked on in these past two months will be moved to one show or another for the months of November and December. (Yes, we'll be taking everything out of Etsy for this.)

So, given the busy week... I inexplicably worked on my tote front... the pieces had been scattered all around... and so it was good to pull it together. Opal sent me measurements for all the pieces needed, and I worked on the front, back, and main pocket.

And, looking at her photo, I see on her design wall two pieces I completed and sent her way recently... so even though my photo seems the same to me... I know that much happened... and that those placemats are just out of view here... and that next week... the table will look different... or the same.

Here's a peek at the back and the outer pocket piece for the tote. (It's on my makeshift design board... something I'll talk about soon!)

It was agreed that today would be a good day to share...to show you the state of our sewing spaces. It seems today's photo looks much the same as last week's, with piles of fabric in the same places and my tools to the right and the box of coveted scraps of fabric behind to the right. What it doesn't show are the stories of the week that happened on and around this space. These would fill a book, as the days since the last photo have been full and busy.

There is a mug of coffee there in the center, the first one for today, but you don't see all the cups that came before or after, a story in itself. You don't know the day this week, in between projects, when I cleared the top, even if it only lasted a few hours before I began the next project. Then there was the box I received from Amy which I emptied here in this space. It was filled with pieces she had worked on and completed for our collaborative presence at upcoming art shows in this area. Each of these are stories to be told.

They say a photo tells a thousand words, but this one only tells the words in that briefest of moments this morning, a captured moment in a busy week.

If you are curious, this photo is at Flickr with notes.

In terms of line and color and feel, this looks to me like much of the rest of the work Opal and I have done in the short span of a few months. Really, our first birdhouse was mid-August... and that's hard for me to believe. Two months... give or take a week. This piece is similar... but different.

This is the central panel for a small quilt commissioned for a shop in the Pacific Northwest. I did the center based on measurements from Opal. It's for someone I haven't met and for a shop I haven't seen... both of those made it an unusual process for me. My instructions were to approach it with "our colors" but to also know that the top and bottom strip that will contain the shop name in hand-appliqued letters will use purple. I spent a good bit of time finding the houses to use from a (shrinking) stack of houses I have. I made two new houses for use on this piece... and then I didn't love the balance of them... and so I resorted to the stack... trying various sets of three until I hit the arrangement that I ended up working with.

In the end, this piece is just the center of a piece that is still to "become." The top and bottom strips will be added, and maybe a final border, or not, and then the quilting, and the binding. It may look the same on the surface, but in reality, with this piece, we took the collaboration to yet another level. I can't wait to see the final piece... and to see a photo of it on the shop wall.

I think they are pretty... I really do. I think the birdhouse centers at the heart of these four are definitely holiday in spirit but they are sweet and tonally balanced and still true to the way Opal and I work and how we approach color and line. (They are missing the black circular birdhouse openings in this photo.) These have, however, been sitting in a heap on a rolling cart on top of a stack of two Peterboro baskets... for weeks. I love the tops... and yet they were put aside because really they need to be beautifully free-form quilted (by Opal). When we decided I'd make a set of placemats for our holiday shop, we talked about me doing just some in-the-ditch quilting of them... something less elaborate. The problem, however, is that my eye knows that's not the same and not enough. I love the art of Opal's quilting. "In-the-ditch" can't compare... no way. And so, after I did one, I put the others aside.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't the best move, and now none of them are finished. Having done basic lines of quilting on one... I'd committed to them in some way. I've pulled them out several times, trying to figure out what to do. When I push something unfinished aside that way, it nags at me a bit from its place in the pile. So, today I got them out and finished up what needed to be finished up on the remaining three to get the tops in place and ready to quilt.

I'm moving them forward, out of the pile.

And, still, I think they're pretty.

And when they're done... I bet they'll be even nicer.

And then... after that... and after I clear off the three other projects on my table... or is it four... oh, no... I think there are five (honestly)... then my free-form quilting foot and I need to spend some concerted time... every day... until I get more comfortable.

Last week was a hectic one here in my little studio on Camano island...I tried to take control, to reign in all the bits and pieces of things that needed to get done and make it all manageable...and yet, it spiraled out of my control. Too much to do in too little time. We all have those days, and weeks..and we all have our ways to cope and manage. I tried two different things that week.

First I tried to make a TTD (Things To Do) list for the day. These were things that I felt had to be done...and more importantly, maybe, things I didn't want to forget to do in the busy-ness of the day. Well, by the second day, my TTD list was enormous, overwhelming, and scary. How could there be so much to be done in 24 hours, half of those waking hours? I have always responded to a list...being a retired teacher, my days were managed by lists...lists for lists...and I like that feeling of accomplishment in checking off things done and accounted for. But soon it was clear to me that my lists were controlling me. I was focused on the list...getting it all done. I was losing the moments that bring a smile to my face when I take the time to see how two fabrics play off each other...or how a piece speaks to me in line and color. I was trying to get things done within a specified time frame. Well, by the fourth day, my list making was waning...minimalist, in a sense...and still, things got done...but I wasn't feeling compelled to work, or to check off numbered items....I love what I am doing...I love creating beautiful pieces of fiber art, and taking time on this and that is the perfect way for me to work.

The second thing I tried was to work on more than one project at a time...a "twofer." If I am making a tote for our shop Here2There...why not cut, sew, quilt, and put two together simultaneously, side by side? It made sense...so I tried just that. I laid out two projects...a tote and a lovee (one of our small quilted pieces). There they sat on my cutting table, side by side, piles of fabric bits and pieces next to each one...ready to be worked on...which I did. I started with the lovee, putting it up on the design wall, moving fabric around, seaming, and enjoying the 'becoming' as it happened. I never stopped. I didn't even give the tote another glance until the lovee was almost done. A failed attempt to garner more productive time...a 'twofer' would never work for me. I love to lose myself in whatever piece I am working on....so I'll have to give up one idea to achieve the other.

And that lovee I was working on is in our shop at Etsy.com... the tote (shown above) is also finished. Both pieces finished without being items on a list or worked on simultaneously. This is how I work, even in those hectic chaotic weeks....a note here or there to remind me of this or that...and time to enjoy the process of what I am doing.

My sewing/cutting table is the hub of my studio work space. In floor space, it occupies about 2/3 of my studio. I can walk around it, and underneath are a variety of drawers, shelves, and cubbies. Thankfully, when we built this house and moved our existing furniture into it, there was a modular glass and wood armoire which had no home in the new house. I knew instantly that this would make a perfect base for my vision of my cutting table. So, today, I have my "do everything" all purpose table. The wings on each end fold out to make a table large enough to lay out a king-sized quilt. I never have it opened that big. I don't make king-sized anythings.

There are stacks of little wire storage bins behind the table. Those house my special collections, but, my collections have outgrown the tidy neat storage units from Home Depot. There are 23 huge plastic bins in the other room, each with a 'special' category of fabric in it. There is one for reds, one for black and whites, holiday, cowboys, polka dots, vintage, and, or course, my treasured box of oranges. I have two bins of oranges.

Today my table is sort of neat and organized. You see a stack of black and white fabrics. These are used almost daily in the work Amy and I are doing collaboratively. In front of that is a messy array of holiday fabrics. These are being used for the totes and lovees I am making for the upcoming shows. Right in front is the very beginning of my next Little...you see the interfacing cut to size...and a possible fabric I am pondering. Of course you see my computer..which moves around with me...and my journal, there for quick notes and sketches and thoughts. I have a bin of little scraps..there are two here. The small one is for tiny pieces. There is a small plastic box of much-used beads. My iron lives in the back corner. Behind the table, where you can't see, are bolts of fabric and more bins...Laural Birch...Amy Butler...and hand dyes....On the wall is my design wall where I 'design' my pieces.

I share my table with Kittyboy...my sweet little boy cat, who sleeps anywhere soft..preferably on some minkee or a pile of batting. He also sleeps up in the top right hand wire storage bin...he goes there when it is kinetic in my space....He, too, loves my table.

I've just finished two projects, working on a third, with the fourth one ready to begin. My table is pretty much as organized as it ever is, and usually, most of the time, it isn't. You will see it that way too. When I can't find my rotary cutter (at least one of them), then I know it is time to stop and clean and put away.

I have to take a really deep breath to post that photo, it's true. Oh, it makes me kind of crazy to see it captured in still form this way. Standing in front of it... it doesn't bother me... it's just the way I work.

Opal and I have this idea to post a weekly photo of our spaces for an inside look at the mess and process behind the art. It's a bit funny because, as you'll see, she has an actual studio space... and me... I'm working on the dining room table... and on the kitchen bar... and on a makeshift design wall I have propped in a chair in the dining room. There are many miles between us... and big differences in the spaces we have available to us.

My instinct is to take a marker and annotate the table above.... in Flickr, I'd leave a bunch of "notes" identifying this and that. But... I think maybe I should just let it speak for itself.

That's my space... today.

These days, I am so busy making things for shows and the shop that I don't have time to stop and make something for myself. Really! We've got a list of inventory we're hoping to have in place in November... and there's not a whole lot of room built in there to just make something for fun. But, you know what... those totes Opal has been making are very, very cool. And I think, really, she and I both should have one to carry in part so that people see what we're doing even as we're out and about. (You know me, I don't wear the "Look... I make things" sign as prominently on my real-world forehead as I should.) So... I've got it in my head to work on elements for a tote of my own... Granted.... it could wait until the new year. But, I started seeing it in my head... and pieces of it... and I realized I wanted mine a bit more detailed than one we might sell... more me... a bit more off-the-wall maybe...

And so, I started laying it out the other day... Saturday morning. I started with pinks and greens and a bit of orange. I got the house all laid out... looked at it... and knew it wasn't saturated enough to capture "me" these days. The pink and orange is so much more me... it sings to me... a palette I've come to love so much. So, I scrapped what I had... and did it again. The photo above shows it at one point, in progress. That's the "mess" of the way I work, in truth... and I don't have a ton of space!

Once I finished the core of the house, I did the roof and the pole... a feature I sometimes add to my houses... And as I laid it on my cutting mat to trim it, I had to laugh... do you see the "dress"-like look of this piece?

I was totally entertained in that moment by the shape of it... the outer contours and then the vertical column of the house in the middle. But, in the end, it was time to trim and square (things I've come to value highly after working even a short time with Opal!). Here's where I'm at now... a bunch of assorted elements... I'm still not sure how I'm going to arrange them... parts may end up on the back side (which is really an outer pocket).

I'm still toying with it... and... really... having gotten these pieces done, I think I can put it aside for a little bit and focus on my next Here2There piece. I got the "buzz" of it (and of that starburst-style semi-circle) out of my system for now, I think. Sometimes you've just gotta "do it."

Oh no!....Can't be! Four weeks? You say maybe five? Could I be so far behind? I counted on my fingers: the week before vacation; two weeks of travel; and two (going on three) weeks home. I am indeed behind. So, I knew that yesterday I had to finish at least one of my journal quilt pieces...the one for week #37. I call these weekly journal pieces my "Littles"... I have been making one a week since Dec. 2006. Many of these are posted at Flickr.

The word for my journal piece for week 37 was "Wish," and, as I do, and as it is, I started with an idea, just a nugget of an idea. I cut my three layers to 8.5 x 10", and started building up the layers by pulling pieces of fabric from my stash...adding this, taking away that, needing that tiny piece I knew I had hand-dyed several years ago in that class over there....finding it in one of my many plastic bins. And, bit by bit, my vision of "wish" became. Once all the pieces were secured with a glue stick, I started quilting, adding more swirls and loops, curves and circles. I held it up and realized it needed a frame...and without a second's hesitation, I randomly sewed on tiny beads around the raw edges.

"Are there birds on it?"....Oh no!....Wait!...This year I have included a bird in each week's Little....so, I pulled out my wire drawer of bird fabric, and found two that would work. I cut, fused, and ironed them on, each one sweetly embedded in the design. Ahhhh...I was finished with "Wishes"...."Find a penny (heads up) and make a wish." And, "Three wishes upon a star." Check back for Week #38....

Even as we've been working on many other kinds of pieces, I've continued to gather my loose threads and clippings and turn them into nests. It's just one of the ways that my work feels unexpectedly "green" ... as I use up even the smallest of scraps and cast-offs to sew up cards that each have their own personality, their own sense of tamed chaos, their own feeling of the 'natural.' To go along with our holiday offerings at the Camano Island Coffee Roaster Holiday Gift Shop this fall, I decided to make "to/from" tags using the nests. These are so much smaller than even the original nest cards... which I considered small! But they are sweet. I've done many sets in holiday colors already, but because I sew so frequently with orange thread (preferred by Opal), I've been putting together sets of orange ones in recent days, too.

A hole in each corner and a ribbon tied through... and you end up with a very satisfying set of tags... perfect for tying to a package any time of year.

With so many shows on our calendar for the next few months, one of which spans almost two months, I've realized there's a reality to making holiday-inspired pieces. It has meant turning away a bit from the colors that sort of make up our personal shared palette. But, it's been fun to work with these a bit, and gradually, I've played with moving my bird-art pillow style into something more holiday-esque.

This pillow... it's much more casual than my bird art pillows, I think. It reminds me a good bit of the pillow I made myself this summer to fit a super cool and soft and cushy hull-filled pillow... a case I made for it all in pinks and oranges and with pink minkee on the back. I love that pillow for its casual feel and for the all-over patchwork design, versus just a central strip.

This holiday birdhouse pillow is different from the bird art pillows, and yet the Here2There birdhouse in the middle ties it firmly into our work. I love the way the work evolves and expands and circles around themes and looks and branches out a bit here and there and then comes back to the origin... and the process begins again.

After my rounds to fill the bird feeders on the bluff, start a load of much-needed laundry, and a minute on the deck inhaling the crisp cold air of the morning and a quick glance at my trees, and, with a  mug of intensely dark steaming hot coffee in my hands, I retreated to my sewing room. On my table were several piles of Here2There projects in various stages of completion. I am anxious to go through these again, this time more slowly and deliberately. The box from Amy had arrived yesterday in my rush to get out the door, so, I only got a peek at the contents. I knew she had been working on specific things, and I can't wait to not only see her work, but get started on my part. Oh, I so wanted to do this. What caught my eye, however, was the almost finished quilted piece, a "lovee" sized quilt, a custom order, for a client.

I had attached the binding, the 2-1/2" strip folded in half, the night before, and it was ready for the final step in the making of a quilt. For me, this step, the stitching of the binding, always pulls me this way and that, as I make those tiny stitches, making a fabric frame for the quilt. As I worked, I thought of all the stories that got this piece to this point, all the discussions and decisions from here to there that were made about color and design, the sharing of blocks to be used, the right color to "pop" the letters. This lovee will be in a shop window, so it had to be made to fit in a specific space. It needed to be readable across a parking lot. And, I really wanted the soft creamy print with scattered green boughs, each with a tiny red berry. It was the perfect touch for the rich colorplay of the three little pieced birdhouses, but, it didn't "pop" the red letters of the shop. All of this went through my mind as I sat there in my chair, taking those tiny stitches, stitching the brief history of this little piece.

I love all the stages of creating an original quilted piece. I am sure, however, that this final step, the binding, is my favorite. It is then that I stitch with needle and thread in hand, pulling the story of the piece together, and, saying my goodbyes. It didn't take long to go around the four sides. I look at it there on my design wall, and I am overwhelmed. It holds a story that is embedded in those tiny stitches. It is ready to be passed on to our customer. 

It is true for me that after completing a quilt there is a bit of grieving. I feel the emptiness before I can move on to the next project. Tomorrow I'll look at the pieces Amy sent.

Amy and I have been very busy putting our efforts together to create some beautiful pieces of fiber art. One thing that defines our collaboration is that we live so far apart. So, in order to 'collaborate'...we need to talk endlessly on the phone, in email, or texting photos to each other when we need to have input from the other. I'm sure the US Postal Service is very happy with us with all our postal costs sending our work back and forth. Well, that is how it usually goes.We each work in our own spaces, and, we will share photos of those in coming days, and then, we send these pieces to each other, and combine them into  a completed piece. We are learning to work together.

 Yes, we have  learned so much from working with each other. I have learned that the computer is my friend.  Amy is learning that the quilting foot can be tamed, and will become a friend. The best part of our collaboration is that we both love what we are doing. When I look at a finished quilted piece, and I see the fusion of our work: the melding of a pen and ink bird sketch; the color choices in a block; the horizontal and vertical seams; the quilting lines that pull it all together; I am just stunned by the totality of it. I hope that you will enjoy hearing the behind the scene stories of our Here2There collaboration, and that you will visit our shop at Etsy. 

We've been really busy not only with the making of the physical pieces... the pillows and Lovees and totes and other items we have lined up for fall, many of which feature our favored birdhouses. We've also been busy getting our business materials in place. That means postcards, business, cards, enclosures, brochures, etc. Luckily, we're able to put together these pieces ourselves. That's a big bonus.

I love our first postcard. I just love it. It showcases work from each of us, but I love how it all works together... how the tone of the work included all meshes and merges and creates an overall feel. That's so much what I love about the way we work and the pieces we create. This card... I love.

We've been sending out a few here and there... did you get one?

We're just getting started here... with the Here2There blog... It's going to take a bit of work to pull things into order, but we hope this will be a joint extension of our collaborative work and that we'll get to talk fiber, art, quilting, process, and more with all of you.