A Mid-winter Evening's Rambling

After getting snowed out two weeks ago, I finally had my local artists and crafters gathering at the library where I work.  The event was a success, and I think that most everyone who participated is open to getting together in the future.  There are a lot of creative individuals in this rural area, and they are makers in a variety of media.  March is National Craft Month, so we will definitely plan something for that. 

In keeping with my obsession with making beautiful and useful things, I am reading the recently published Craeft, by Alexander Langlands (W.W. Norton, 2017).  I'm glad to know that the maker movement is worldwide, the book is from a British author.  In my region of the States, the Foxfire collection documenting Appalachian craft and stories is still sought after.  It appears that it doesn't take too much effort to garner interest in creative pursuits, the tough part is carrying the interest through to actually learning how to do something and keeping at the learning, building the skill level. 

Started last January, cast aside

The persistence needed in learning a skill is not easy.  As I type this, I am surrounded by piles of half-finished art quilts, all started as projects to showcase a new technique.  I had a discussion earlier today about finishing these abandoned projects.  I vaguely remember resolving in January of 2017 to get most of my UFOs (unfinished objects) done by the end of the year.  One year later, I am still contemplating the same UFOs, in the same state of being incomplete.  One solution that came up in the discussion was if another year goes by and the projects still are not finished, it is time to pitch them.  If I keep ignoring them, I'm not interested in them anymore, it is time to move on.

Two small pieces, in the embellishing stage, but I keep setting them aside.

Time to pitch them?  I'm not happy with these two.

Word of the Day

The word of the day is bedight.  According to my trusty Webster's Dictionary, bedight (archaic) is a verb meaning to deck out; array.  Also, bedighted, bedighting.  The discovery of this obscure word came about from an enlightening conversation with my mother about a heavily embellished quilt that she is working on.  Of course, I have been known on occasion to open my dictionary at random and start browsing.  There is always some discovery to be made.  I feel the same way about libraries, museums, and traveling.  What will I discover next?  What have YOU discovered lately?

Image and design copyright RPS

I'm off now to bedight some artist trading cards...

Lessons from my Food

I recently purchased a new kitchen board for making my own bread.  The board was something I had custom made by a local wood crafter, duplicating a cheaply made one that came with a cheap kitchen cart years ago.  I liked the design of the original one, so it was worthwhile to me to have one made with better wood and finishing.  I cannot help but wonder why objects that are well designed still get made with subpar materials.  I am a firm believer in "you get what you pay for."

My intent in making my own bread is part of a continuing project to eat better.  Not only does the quality of the flour, yeast, butter, etc. affect the final product, I feel that the tools used make a difference too.  I know that I am more willing to devote the time in the kitchen when I have well designed, quality, beautiful utensils to work with.  The same goes for my textile art.  My sewing machines would get packed with lint from cheap thread, causing damage to parts that are difficult to replace.  The quality of the fabric that I use will not get hidden in the final product.

Whether it is making bread, making a craft or learning the skills for these pursuits, we need to remember to take the time for them.  Our society is tuned too much towards instant gratification.  As frustrating as it may be, most things in our lives just don't work that way.

Snow Day Snow Dye

This time I have a good excuse for missing Tuesday's post here.  Over the past weekend, we had enough snow here to snow dye, and my workplace was closed Monday, so I was busy filling buckets with fabric, snow and dye power.  On Tuesday, I was washing out that fabric:

The colors are brighter in real life.  I had a few pieces that didn't take any dye, I have found that is it not a good idea to put too much into one bucket.  I've snow dyed a variety of fabrics, and the best by far for the techniques is silk and linen.  There is still a lot of winter left, I think I'm going to have to splurge on some silk noil and dupioni, I am low on fabric to dye right now!

More Alphabet Soup

I've been having fun with my stamp sets!  I started with light gray paint on my two vintage letter sets, as shown in my last post.  Then I added smaller letters from my stash of new rubber stamp letters in a sandstone paint, and a few letters in mauve:

Copyright RPS

Next, I added more letters in dark gray:

Copyright RPS

Finally, more tiny letters in black:

Copyright RPS

This is a great illustration of the design element of variety.  I have used variety of size and font in the letters and variety of value as well.  The variety here keeps the viewer's interest, it makes you look more at what is going on.  After a while, I fond myself trying to find words in the jumble of letters, even though I did not intentionally stamp any words.  Now to incorporate this piece of fabric into a collage...

Alphabet Soup

On December 21, I posted about vintage alphabet stamp sets, particularly one set that I was waiting to arrive that would hopefully replace an incomplete set.  Well, the set is not a match, it is nearly the same font, only larger!  Both sets are all capital letters, I wonder if there are lower case sets out there to go with them.  The new set will be great for larger art quilt projects, and I already like the idea of mixing fonts, even in a single word.  Maybe I will find a complete set of the smaller letters someday...

Anyway, I have been playing with the stamps, sponge brushing cheap acrylic paint on them.  Here you can see the two sizes of letters from the vintage sets:

I am going to keep going with my rubber stamp sets on this piece of muslin.  This will be another experiment with overlapping layers.  Check back on Thursday to see how the second layer went.