Studio Tour-after

I cleaned and sorted, made a hanger for my jewelery, made a book for my bio and some information about me, dug out some publications, put journal quilts in a notebook, and hung up some quilts. It looks better than it has in years. Now I'm itching to sew!

Studio Tour-before

I've spent the last week cleaning my studio in preparation for Rivertown Arts Council Studio Tour , which starts today. This is the 13th year of the tour, and now there are 50 artists on it, in 3 towns. We open our studios to the community, and then have a big party afterwards. It is kicked off by an exhibition in the Municipal building, and advertized in all the local papers. There is a website http://www.riverarts.org with directions, and maps are distributed in the towns.
Cleaning my studio was a momentous job. The before photos don't reveal the depths of my shame ( or maybe they do!). I use the archeological dig method of filing, so it is like a trip through time to uncover all of the layers of stuff. Interestingly, I find the bottom layer on my desk corresponds to the last time I was on the tour ( 3 years ago!). Maybe I should do this more often?

Diamond Sweater

After a really long time it seems, I 've finished the Diamond Sweater that I started after the Olympics ended. Was it only a month ago? Seems like longer, since now the garden is blooming and deer are eating my pansies. This mitered diamond sweater was so much fun, module by module, choosing colors and trying for a random but not too random distribution of colors. I had a few colors of tweeds to begin with, but got bored and felt limited early on, so I used some Noro Kureyon and dyed some white tweed to get a broader selectionof tones, keeping with the same side of the colorwheel. I love the result, and was so eager to finish it, I wore it to a meeting last night with the right sleeve cuff still on the needles! ha ha, we were stuck in traffic for 2 hours on the Henry Hudson Parkway, so I managed to finish the cuff and bind off, too! This was on the way to drop off the doll at the Folk Art Museum, and meet with the Manhattan Quilters Guild. We got to the meeting, late, but glad to be there and it was lovely to enjoy such exciting quilts by some of our members. Today I sewed on buttons, and now, naturally, it is 72 degrees, so I might be able to wear this in the evenings only for a short time. And now--I've come to the reason why folks often have several things in progress simultaneously--what to make now?! I find myself looking still at tweed, thinking new colors would go great with this jacket--but now it is done, so I've got to start something new. There is that blue alpaca coat, but it is really too warm to work on that, and there are lots of ideas going on, but i'm starting to think about socks. Oh, horrors! Socks? Why knit socks?? They are worn on stinky feet, wear out, need washing, tiny needles...but still, a challenge I haven't mastered. I'll give it some thought.
t mastered is always a good one. And of course I have sock yarn, in blues and greens...well, I'll have to give it some thought.
Meanwhile, what can I do with all of that leftover tweed?

Even the borders were kaleidoscopes. Lovely stuff.

Gorgeous carpeting! I couldn't wait to find Paula and congratulate her on the carpet designs!

These designs reminded me so much of Paula's book, Kaleidoscopes and Quilts that I had to snap a bunch of photos!

Kaleidoscopes? The first thing that came to my mind was Paula Nadelstern's wonderful quilts. Check her out at www.paulanadelstern.com

Here are a few of us at the Houston Hilton in 2004. Jamie and Julie admired the carpeting.

Doll Face

Definitely Not human here--she's an alien. Probably a Zyborg. An undersea mercreature who blushes from too much booze. Midori Mermaid...any other names you think would fit her?
She definitely needs her wig sewn on, and some jewelery. Tomorrow is another day...

Hair of the doll

This first attemptat hair is crocheted and knit in the round on DPNs, with Fluff. I think it looks like a toupee. And shouldn't she have blue hair anyway? What self-respecting mercreature has brown hair anyway, even if it has green highlights? Back to the drawing board I think.

Art Doll

So, the mermaid is starting to take shape! I extended the neckline with more knitting and a bit of crochet to tighten up the neck. I left the room for a moment, and my cat Sha kept the poor creature warm. I guess he knows something fishy is going on...

Now, she's gonna need some hair.

Art Doll 3

Art Doll 2

Well, the crazy quilt was a lot of fun to make, but when I finished it, I found it was too stiff to curve nicely ( I'd used dupioni silk, velvet, fusing, a base fabric and metallic embroidery). And I just couldn't bear to cut it up to fit. As I've been lately obsessed with knitting, that seemed a logical choice, as I could certainly create a fabric that would curve and form fit. I got out my favorite ocean themed colors: blues, greens, a bit of flash and sparkle and thought about fish scales and began knitting a 60 stitch panel on #10.5 needles. This was really fun choosing colors and textures and mixing chenilles, rayon , ribbon yarns, etc. Halfway through my arm muscles screamed bloody murder so I had to stop . Today I finished it and three needle bound it off into a tube, sewed up the tail and tried it on. Photos later when blogger decides to work!

Art Doll Explorations

As part of the American Folk Art Museum( www.folkartmuseum.org )s fundraising efforts, artists were invited to create an Art Doll for auction. We were given an unadorned 18 inch doll, and free reign. As I haven't made dolls before this is a challenge!
Here I've taken a few tucks on the side to make a more curvaceous figure. I tried on a few things, but finally settled on a mermaid idea, so I sewed her legs together, and started making a crazy quilt surface to cover her body.