WIP Wednesday

Posted on December 27, 2006 by Suzanne

Even though I’ve been busy with Christmas, I have managed to do a few quilty things this past week. I "let" myself start my new project (Peppermint Swirls) yesterday. It probably won’t get much further than this for awhile, but it was fun to do something with new fabric and easy piecing!

This is a quilt that has been pieced for several years. The color is a little off in this picture. THe green isn’t quite so light on the actual quilt. I started quilting it, and didn’t really like what I was doing at the time (using Rail grey thread on the back — even with the grey thread it was nearly impossible to see what I was doing). I did more of the quilting than I should have — note to self: if you don’t like it after 5 minutes of quilting, you probably aren’t going to like it after an hour.

Another note to self: don’t leave projects half quilted for more than a month or two. Your style changes and you’ll think of a better idea.

Yet another note to self: just because it is your own quilt, doesn’t mean it deserves custom quilting, especially if the quilting won’t show up….
Off and on over the past few days (watching TV…) I’ve been frogging the existing quilting. It’ll probably take me until next Christmas to do that (the back is black, and the stitches are hard to see on that side, too….

And last, but not least — I quilted this wallhanging that I pieced in Fall of 2005. It might be finished by Christmas 2007. That is, if I can find the 3rd strip of red binding fabric that wasn’t with the quilt top and the other 2 strips of binding. Maybe Christmas 2008.

Well, I need to shut down so we can head out the door.

Have a great Wednesday!

S is for Smiles

Posted on December 27, 2006 by Suzanne

I promise to have some quilt-related content really soon. Promise. (LOL) And that the "letter a day" series will return to being related to actual letters and words. But not for a few days.

In the meantime, here is a picture of the boys right before they were allowed to start opening presents. They had already dug through their stockings and were just chomping at the bit to start ripping paper.

You can barely see their faces, their smiles are so humongous!

Altered Book Art

Posted on December 26, 2006 by Suzanne

December 25′s post was a page from the altered book that I have started. There were a couple of questions/comments in from readers, and I wanted to say a couple of things about altered books.

First off, the most recent altered book I can be seen here. It’s by Kim who’s other blog is SkybellArts @ Blogger

If you Google for Altered books, or altered arts, you’ll find lots and lots of resources. Lots! LOL!

For a gallery of altered book projects, you can visit the International Society of Altered Book Artists

I even found a magazine: Altered Arts Magazine

I’ve also just joined a Yahoo group — http://groups.yahoo.com/group/alteredbooks/ — which seems to have tons of links and suggestions in their archives. I haven’t spent a whole lot of time there (yet), but one of the original things I was looking for was thoughts about copyright issues. Apparently, they don’t allow conversations about copyright in their group anymore (too much controversy…), but there are a few links in their Link section.

The reason I went looking is that the book I picked to start with is a relatively recent book (published in ). I had seen a few notes in various places that in order to avoid copyright issues, you should work with a book in the public domain. Unfortunately, when I got the bug in my ear to start this, I did not have any old books to use. The reading I’ve done suggests that while I’m probably OK to continue using this book for my own purposes, displaying it probably isn’t a very good idea. At least if I intend to alter it in such a way that the text is still at least partially visible. If I were to completely obscure the previous text, I’d probably be OK. This is just my opinion, and probably may not even be true, but it is how I’m interpreting the articles and information I have read.

So, I’m on the hunt for an old book to use. I thought I hit the jackpot at the library today (in the used book sale room, and no, I wouldn’t dream of using a library book!), but the copyright on the book I picked up as been renewed, so I don’t think I can use this one, either. Phooey.

As far as what to do (and how to do it…) — the short answer is to do whatever and however you want. Make it up as you go along. My plan is to try to do every page, and yes, the other side of the page might impact what I’m doing. Of course, with something simple like colored pencils, that’s not a big deal. One thing I did (and will do more of) is to glue a group of pages together and treat them as one. I punched holes around the edges and wrapped a ribbon around the edges. There are a gazillion things you could. I think the main thing is to keep it 2-D — you can’t really embellish with beads or buttons or other things of that nature.

All of the ideas that I’ve got so far have come from looking around online. I’ve also seen a variety of books at the bookstore that have suggestions, too.

And Debra was right in her comment — I want to be perfect at XYZ right NOW. Not tomorrow, not in 10 years after lots of practice — I want it NOW. What a goofball I am. I didn’t get to be the kind of quilter I am today overnight — I won’t be the kind of artist/quilter I want to be in the future overnight either — it takes work and practice, and I’m looking forward to the New Year and the new creative opportunities that I intend to make for myself.

Thanks, Santa

Posted on December 26, 2006 by Suzanne

Dear Santa,

Thank you for all of the wonderful things you brought our family. You were very generous, as usual. We hope you had a nice, safe trip and that you didn’t get too full eating all of the goodies that children left you. Do many people remember your reindeer? We hope they liked the baby carrots we left for them. Will was happy to get rid of so many. He doesn’t really like them, even though I make him eat them almost everyday.

The boys have one of the big Lego Star Wars sets put together and are working on the other one. Mark is pretty excited to work on his Batmobile sometime soon, as well. We’ll be going to Chicago for a couple of days, so it might be awhile before he gets to it. Mark had some help getting the air hockey table put together yesterday, and several lively matches have been played. He has threatened to make me play with him, too. Maybe I’ll surprise us both and beat him. Maybe not.

I need to find a good place to display my Pink Ribbon Barbie. She is beautiful. I haven’t had a Barbie in years. I wonder if I should leave her in the box or take her out.

We are all looking forward to many family game nights this winter with all of the fun board and card games. The boys weren’t really impressed with them (in comparison to the Lego sets, who can blame them?), but as time goes on, I’m sure we’ll have lots of fun playing.

Thanks for all of the other fun things you brought us, both big and small.

I suppose you have time now to rest before you need to start working on next Christmas.

Take care of yourself and the reindeer and all of your helpers.

Your friend,

Suzanne

r words

Posted on December 25, 2006 by Suzanne

I feel a little like I’m exposing my underwear when I show projects like this. It’s very uncomfortable and likely to be embarrassing, but here I am anyway.

I’m a quilter, and I have a pretty high comfort level with my skill as a quilter. I love to share quilt projects, because I’m pretty confident about them.

I’m trying to try some other things, and when I do they end up looking like I’m back in elementary school. Which, I suppose, is true in a way — my "art" skills are frozen back in the day when I decided I didn’t really have any "artistic" talent, so I quit trying that avenue of creative pursuit. (The words "art" and "artisitic" are in quotations to denote the fact that yes, I have figured out that maybe I do have some talent in that direction, it’s just different than I thought it had to be in order to use those labels in regards to myself).

After seeing a variety of altered book projects online, I’ve decided to try one of my own. It seems to fit in with the fascination I seem to be displaying for letters and words, and I hope that maybe it’ll lead to some fiber art ideas as well.

I’ve done a couple of pages. I haven’t decided if I’ll post all of them (maybe in a separate blog?) or not. At any rate, I’ll probably post the ones here that fit in with my letter a day series.

For today’s entry I turned to the next page and circled all of the words that started with the letter R. I used Prismacolor pencils to color in the grid. (Plus a few Derwent pencils, but I discovered that I vastly prefer the Prismacolor — much creamier and easier to color with). The black "R" is glued on top. Originally it was colored in with a red and purple grid (with 2 purple blue dots), but I decided to color over the top with a black Prismacolor art marker. Something about the scan makes the "R" look odd — it doesn’t look that ugly in real life. Honest. I may try photographing the page instead of

scanning to see if that might look better. Or not.

I do like that you can still see the hint of the grid underneath the marker.

You do not need to be kind if you choose to comment. (LOL) I won’t even be offended if no one feels the need to comment! (VBG).

And now, I’m ready for bed. It’s only 9:10 PM, but my day started at 5 AM when one of the boys crawled in bed with me and started to chat. He would let me snooze for awhile, but then he’d think of something else to say. He was waiting for 7 AM when he could get up and go check out what Santa brought. He fell back asleep and we had to wake him up at 7:10. It was a busy and wonderful day, and I’m exhausted, so time to go throw on one of my new pairs of jammies and hit the sack!

Suzanne Earley

Suzanne's Adventures in Quilting, Photography, Computers, and Life

Monthly Archives: December 2006

WIP Wednesday

S is for Smiles

Altered Book Art

Thanks, Santa

r words