coming into the finish line.

as an assessment of the semester, we're far from being done yet, but there are only three or four more weeks of class left. But I'm feeling like I got hit with something in the shins. Man down!


I took a little time yesterday to go to the Quilt Company East guild show. I feel like I missed a large chunk of the show - there's no way I saw 140 quilts yesterday, even if some of them were three dimensional fiber forms. And I totally missed the Martha Washington guild show in Washington... but after the events of Friday, I wasn't about to take another jaunt in the country.


*We pause for a moment to interest Lydia Kitty in a game in the kitchen where the linoleum floor allows mousie to move with decided alacrity*

P.A. Farmer's Market 2009,  G.B., Jeanette

Beach Balls, J.B., Penn Hills

                                 

Josh's Quilt

detail. that's my thumb.

                                                  

                                                                          Phoenix Rising, G.B., Wilkensburg

                         East Indian Rain Music, J.J., Oakmont

Peripatetic Album

Detail, Peripatetic, J.S., Export

Murphy's Lap, A.D., Squirrel Hill

Murphy

Color Full Trees, M.B., Penn Hills

   

                          

                          My Favorite Color - N.O., Murrysville

N.Y. Beauty loves Silky Fabrics, E.S., Pgh.

This was from the Show Challenge. The fabric they incorporated for the challenge is featured in the center of the prize rosette.

 Second runner up, Challenge category:

Lost in the Badlands, T.M., Greensburg

Nature's Triple Play

A.H., Pittsburgh, NTP

blue stocking.

So. Here's dolly. Jointed at the shoulders and hips. Kitteh is jealous.

She is a Bas Bleu! But that dress simply will not do, it is stiff with glue.

So we make something new. 

And we soak the old dress off, and look for a maker's mark. 

No marks. Just glue residue.

 

                         Alas! Too big! Take in the sides!
                               Now for an under skirt.
                         Something with a little frou-frou for
                               Mademoiselle Babette Bleu.








                                 Viola! C'est magnifique!







Que es une "Bas Bleu", says you?
Bas bleu, the French equivalent of a Bluestocking, refers to an intellectual woman; up until the late 18th century, it referred to learned folk of both genders. The term later developed negative connotations [read:frumpy]. Beliefs persist [obviously] about the need for women to dress fashionably; an old saying is "women don't become bluestockings until men have tired of looking at their legs". Another prejudice, attributed to William Hazlitt goes something like "The bluestocking is the most odious character in society ... she sinks wherever she is placed, like the yolk of an egg, to the bottom, and carries the filth with her."

settlers vom katan

you know those ridiculous "aha!" ideas you get every once in a while?

I've seen cookies. I've seen pizza. I've seen projects inspired by the game. But I haven't seen a fabric version of the game Settlers of Catan. Which makes perfect sense to me - the cardboard bits are shifty, and what would be more perfect than a mat with Velcro to secure the pieces onto? Or better still, a piece of blue, watery flannel, and the fabric tiles backed in flannel to keep them from sliding around. I'd use bits of grosgrain ribbon for the road. But I haven't gotten as how to handle the villages and towns, or the numbers for the middle of the tiles. Buttons?

Actually, what got me thinking of it was the pre-cut hexagon charm packs at the store. Not that that one could find a pre-cut charm pack with fabric of brick, rock, trees, sheep and wheat. But I'm on the look out. They would have to be instantly recognizable, so after some web searching, I came up with the following as ideas for a basic starter game:

water

brick (clay)

sheep

wheat

again with the trees

pebbles (for ore)

red brick

more trees for wood

birch (wood)

more trees

technique

For a while, at work, we were painting pieces for the dual purpose of not wasting the paper products and having a variety of examples to show people how techniques worked. First up was painting light over dark. I was going through a revisitation of an elephant 

 phase, and looked up Indian elephants and paisley designs. The mottled texture was created with a synthetic sponge using an Olive tone. The elepahant was painted primarily in Green Tea, with Cranberry, Passionate Plum, Just blue, Pacific Salmon and Blue Green details.

We moved onto large spaghetti bowls to demonstrate sgraffito. Which trust me, I can tell you already it's not something you want to try- you probably won't have the time or the patience to execute this technique. And it's a pain.

Sgraffito works by first painting a thick - about three but more is better - coats of glaze on a piece of bisque. My base coat was Olive. You then take a stylus [we use dental picks] and carve out a design. I wanted my things to match, so I stuck with the Elephant/Paisley theme. That's supposed to be a pomegranate in the middle. After the carving is done, you take a secondary color and glaze the piece again, paying particular attention to the carved areas.Again, the more coats the better because when you are done, you have to wipe off the secondary color, but not wipe so much that you remove all the glaze down to the bisque. The idea is that the secondary color fills in the carved out places in the first layer of glaze. The Blue Green paisley swirls were painted on later, as were the little blue dots around the rim. 

I sponged the back of the bowl and glazed it to look like the plate. My wood furniture teacher in undergrad was very fond of encouraging us to do the unexpected, like putting a decorative paper on the underside of small boxes and drawers. It was the little details in overlooked places that made a piece really stand out. 

a slice of random

I remain ridiculously interested in travel. Never mind that I am a broke graduate student. The siren call of Megabus' $1 fare whispers to me in the night... go, go GO! I however, am like most whimps, and don't want to gogo-ago alone.

Let's blame the wanderlust on StumbleUpon, purveyor of websites catering to my interest in travel, baking, classical history, sewing, the list goes on. Mostly images of the Maldives and the luxury island resorts there.Or awesome things like this in Germany. [To my credit, I tried to follow the links, only to discover the website is ... in German. yo no hablo deutsch.] I should just opt not to click on the little round green, white and blue icon in the top right of my web browser.

Right. And miss out on cool things like this.

A wall that makes music when it RAINS!
the Funnel Wall at the Kunsthof-Passage in Neustadt.

When I do next go, I plan on lovingly ripping [in the style of John Williams] a few melodic ideas to make my travel life a little nicer. Even if the travel is to Villa Mamma e Babbo where the shampoo, body wash and conditioner are in normal sized, easy to handle bottles and the bed linens are pink check.

Flight001
Aside from the California Roll sushi luggage tag, I was particularly interested in the heavy nylon bags for shoes, lingere, the token wet swimsuit and the like. I usually pack a laundry bag, I never thought to pack my shoes in a bag. Which begs the question of legalities concerning a small spray bottle of vodka. "Vodka?!" you say, waggling your finger, "Little lush!". I learned, in my brief stint as a costumer, that next to Lysol, plain unassuming [read:cheap] vodka is quite possibly the best disinfectant out there. So yes, a small spray bottle of vodka for hosing down said bacteria infested shoes.

3 floz
Billed as "For those who travel, for those who are curious, a those who can't commit."
Of particular interest, the "Help" line. Packaged neatly into a square tin [i'm assuming tin, paperboard wouldn't survive two seconds in any of my normal bags] Help products have you covered from aching or snuffly head to blistered toe. Pretty cool. I'm also thinking Christmas, particularly for my friends on the run in school who would sorely like to brush their teeth before arriving at choir practice.