Baby Quilt

Maybe I'll ask RJH to take some better photos, but I wanted to share the baby quilt. It's hexagons (broken into trapezoids... commonly known as tumbling blocks) in yellows, purples, grays, turquoise & teals. The front features hexagons with some of my animal linocuts including the raccoon, owl, butterflies, panda family, seahorse, nautilus, and the baby tapir - as well as some patterns like clouds and feathers. The reverse is the entire alphabet of linocut animal monograms, with sashing, and a pieced border of scraps from the front.

Quilting stripes

I'm taking a quilting course at the workroom. If you've followed the blog for a while you'll know this is my second quilt. The first one I made I a) taught myself how to make it b) use printmaking methods on every single panel and c) took me over FOUR YEARS. So, I'm taking this course and attempting to make a (much smaller, mind you) quilt within THREE WEEKS (there's a lot of 'homework' in this class). It's a lot of labour! However, I thought it was worth my while to learn the tricks of the trade, as it were. In fact, advice I've had about measuring, cutting and pressing fabric, not to mention stabilizing small pieces, in our first class, has been tremendously valuable and could have saved me a lot of grief. A lot of it boils down to using the proper tool for the job (oh! the irony! that's practically my mantra as ocean-going geophysicist) as well as (another shocker) proper maintenance of tools. So, I'm going to make a somewhat more traditional quilt and once I learn how to do that properly (which, in fairness, could be a life-long process, but I mean once I have a firm grasp of the fundamentals) then, I can mess with these tools and methods and try the crazy quilt-like textile schemes in my head.

This is the stage where the interesting mathematics of quilting starts to come into play, if you're into that sort of thing which I don't think you are, so don't panic. The basic planning is just arithmetic, but now we have permutations, tessallations, algebra and geometry to consider. We could make x's, chevrons, zigzags or diamonds. This is my plan. I scanned all my squares and then played with orientations in software, since floor space is scarce.



By 'plan' I mean, this is the way I intend to make groups of four squares, and the sashing I have in mind. There may be some more variations.

I've used a lot of my scraps and bits of nifty contemporary prints, but I've also thrown in a lot of crazy thrifted vintage fabric. I'm quite pleased how beautiful that combination can be. You can look at each square by clicking on it. I wonder if you would know the age of the fabric by looking at it.

RJH picked me up after class last week. He said a group of 'drunken party girls' stumbled by and one exclaimed, "They're quilting in there! Quilting!" in complete disbelief. They were followed by a couple. The young man said to his girlfriend, "Maybe I should ask those ladies to sew me some drapes, because you're never going to." They rent machines by the hour - I hope she suggested he could sew his own drapes. Ah, Parkdale on a Thursday night.

Block printing blog feature

The lovely textile and print design blog Okyo Love featured my block prints today. I enjoyed checking out the blog and archives (prints, textiles and fashion, what's not to love?) Check out the post and the blog here.

light emiting textiles and computational clothing

{via the craftster blog}

There are DIY versions on etsy. And check out the work of MIT professor Leah Buechley, who combines electronics with cultural products, be they textiles, like this:


or art (using conductive and resistive, or magnetic paint).

Check out the LilyPad sets! Allowing you to combine simple electronics like accelerometers, light sensors and temperature sensors into your sewed creations! You can make computational clothing. For instance, she made a bike jacket with imbedded LEDs which responds to the wearer's movement and signals for turning. Here is Beck Stern's embroidery:




They have a whole pool on flickr.

I think I need to go think about this for a while.

A Spring Handmade Market

And my view:


I most enjoyed meeting my fellow artisans. I enjoyed talking with table-neighbour Jesse of All Things Small. The elder of her two sons (at 2.5) bought (with the help of his grandmother) bought one of my magnets. He was very specific about wanting the tiger, which made me smile. Seated behind me was Pam of lurearts. She had been at the Etsy meeting at the Work Room, so I had met her before. We swapped my Urban Dodo pillow for a gorgeous green and blue ceramic ring and a pendant from her shop. I also got to meet Emily of nestingemily. She is a multimedia artist working in two of my favorite things: ceramics and textiles (especially felt). I know that she is a friend of my friend Tanis- so it feels like a community of craftspeople, even when it stretches thousands of kilometers across the country. (Though Emily and I are both former residents of B.C.) Emily has had a lot of well-earned attention across the blogosphere, so I have been a fan of her work for some time. She told me she has been a fan of my prints for some time, which is really gratifying. We swapped one of my rabbit prints for her polar bear with lace texture in ceramic, who is dreaming (shown on an embroidered felt inset) of snow. I can not wait to put it up. Pam sent me a lovely thank you note and I replied how much I enjoy swapping with other creators - especially those who create things in media in which I do not work. Also, since my work tends to be all about COLOUR and pattern, I love collecting art which might be about subtlety of texture and delicacy of colour.

Thanks to everyone who came by!

Also, a shout out to the Trans Canada Etsy Team who was encouraging people via twitter to come by while I was busy at the show! Thanks, I really appreciate that.