Ten Things I Love

I am a follower of Ro Bruhn's blog. She received the Watermelon Award for her blog and she has passed it on to anyone who would like to play along. In order to play, you list 10 things you love. I figured that would be easy enough to do since everything I have been working on lately cannot be posted yet. I am working on ideas I have stored up in my new design book. The metal one had to be sidelined because it just wasn't workable not being looseleaf. I am working on submissions for classes and magazines, and I can't let the cat out of the bag, so I have notheing else to post. I got a thank you post card for my latest submission to a magazine. I guess that is far better than a rejection letter or getting what I sent in back already. Please play along. If you want you can leave a comment, so we will know where to go see your list. And if you want, you can pass it along again. Psst... YOU're it!

10 Things I Love (in no particular order)
1. Being Nona (what the Special K's call me), the mommiest (Buff's name for me), and MH (Jeane's name for me)
2. Not being in a stereotypical relationship as a mother-in-law (Jim and Seth are the best!)
3. friends and other family
4. crushed ice
5. angel food cake
6. gerber daisies
7. thank yous and other warm/encouraging words
8. my studio
9. the hum of my sewing machine
10. good health

Project Runway - All the details...

Wanna be a judge? Participate in the weekly reader's poll? Create the fashions? Here is all the info. on how to get the scoop. Please let me know how you plan to participate, even if it is just to look in and see what everyone has done. There are links to previous competitions, too.

here is the official site!

http://www.prchallenge.sheba-kitty-productions.com/

here is the flickr site

http://www.flickr.com/groups/1137497@N24/

And there are warmup challenges, starting right now!

Project Runway Update

So, after making my PR cheesy post, I was contacted and asked if I want to participate in a doll size weekly competition for PR. Heck yeah! I knew there was more of a reason for taking Clothing Design and Power Sewing in high school than to just graduate. I'm gonna be digging out my American Girl doll from her modeling spot for doll clothes and probably get her hair cut and maybe get some makeup put on her so she will look older. Crazy, but fun, right?
Fast forward. YOU can play, too.The challenge each week will be for participants to create, doll size, according to what the designers on the show have to do. My contact is making a blog so that others can see the creations, even if they don't want to play along. There will be a poll or she will get some judges, but no one gets kicked off and participants can play only on the weeks they want to, so nobody gets tied down. She is still working on more details, so once again, stay tuned.
If you are interested, let me know.

Top Secret

I wish I could show you what I spent the entire weekend and all my free time lately doing, but it is top secret. I am getting ready for my class at Frenzy Stamper on July 25. Everyone is going to get an individualized packet of goodies and patterns with their handout, all of which takes a while to prepare. At last check, there were 11 people signed up plus Jeane who will be helping and making, too. Only one spot left! I can't wait!

Stay tuned...

for an exciting announcement about the upcoming season of Project Runway...
This is gonna be so fun and funny, too! ????????????????????????????????

Sweet Little Baby Feet

These are my newest contribution to the monthly Rolodex swap. This month, the theme was feet, so I photographed the sweet little baby feet of my newest granddaughter, "Miss Q." We have been lucky enough to get to spend lots of time together this summer. She just gets cuter every single day! And we've had some pretty good conversations about the word goo lately, too. Babies ARE amazing people.
The cards didn't really turn out like I had envisioned for a number of reasons, and they are a little scrapbooky, but I still love them, for more reasons than one!

Birds, Birds, Birds

A while back, I made a bird book. Yesterday, I got to work on giving the little guy some friends. The one with the nest holds a draft/composition book, and the owl one holds the small size steno pad with a pocket space behind that to hold photos, notes, whatever. The one I made first holds a spiral pad I made to fit the cover. I think I love making leaves.

The Project Book

The little wheels have been turning a lot lately, and I have found myself scribbling lots of ideas in lots of different places. Last night, I decided it was time to assemble all the sketches and ideas into one organized place. I spent more time picking my binder than I did everything else to have it usable, but this is what I ended up with. I bought it at a flea market type sale and wanted to do something cool with it. It doesn't have any rings, but if you fold back the top and put pressure on it, the papers or whatever inside can be taken out or more put in, so I think this will work.I cut a strip of my Dick and Jane fabric and a piece of clear plastic to fit the index at the top and then added some rub-ons. The words designs is really easier to see in real life that the photo would lead you to believe. I also made a pocketed sleeve for it to hold my new Signo Uniball pens. The sleeve will come off if I want it to. I really like the look of it better without the pen holder, but I want to have a pen handy so I don't have to go look for one when an idea hits. I taped in all the former notes and sketches, but after this, I will just write on the graph paper pages.

BAd KItTiEs!

There is just something ab0ut a bad to the bone cat that you gotta love. Last week, Jeane put a skull cling on her sewing machine. Then Buffy decided she wanted one. Jeane and I went to the store and looked at the massive collection of clings I didn't even know existed, and one thing led to another (We got Buffy a very cool monkey; haven't you always wanted a monkey? hehe), so now I have clings on my machine. Not really understanding how they work, one of my cats lost two eyeballs in the process (the cling cat, I don't have a real one), but I improvised after a lot of pain and suffering about it and drew new ones on there. It took some real effort on my part not to go spend another $4. just to get the eyes again. At any rate, my machine has now been tagged or something like that, not quite sure how many clings it takes to officially call it tagged. Jeane?

Call Me a Cheeseball.

1. I don't care.
2. Yes, yes this is my third post of the day. There are no rules here, and I strike when the iron is hot.
3. These are my new toys from PROJECT RUNWAY.
4. Refer to title and #1, please, if necessary.

On the chance that you are wondering why these are such a big deal, well here it is, well only part of it. I don't want to make you cry. hehehe When I was a kid, my sewing machine was the bomb. I made all my own clothes for a long time. I had to have 20 credits to graduate from high school. I took extra classes in clothing design and power sewing at the magnet school in our district so I had 21.5, but 10 were in Home Ec. Kids probably can't get away with that now, but back in the day, it worked for me. I wanted to be a Home Ec major in college and grow up to be Martha Stewartish, but some moron told me not to because jobs would be too scarce, and sadly, I listened and gave up on a dream. I made my kids clothes, dolls and other fun stuff, and the list goes on. Then I met rubber stamps. Fabric took a back seat. I used the machine mostly for mending. I made cards, then journals, then a million cigar box purses. Then I got Cancer. That sits you on your behind for a while and resting and watching TV took over my free time. I think my studio must have been dark for at least a year or two. Then Project Runway came on that TV. It got me off the couch and my heart started singing again. My studio is a happy place again, and I am listening to my heart. I don't really need the Project Runway gear, but it's like a tip of the hat, a thank you for helping me find myself again. Aren't those cute litte button pins adorable?

Art Fiber Fest Photos/Fun

Have you all started making your plans on how you WILL be joining us at AFF next year? About a week and a half ago, I hopped on a plane to meet Penney at the Portland airport and head over to Art Fiber Fest. She surprised me with a wonderful handmade book for my birthday, wrapped in some linens she had dyed. She put a lot of work into it, and it has some very personal special parts to ti.
Then we got the rental, and we were off. We were offered a convertible VW. I told the lady politlely that those cars are a nightmare, as I was sure something would break while we had it and we would have to pay for it, so I convinced her we really needed something that held LOTS of luggage. Penney's took up the back seat and mine the trunk area. Good thing we had no other riders.Anyway, after driving around Portland long enough to only find things by accident instead of the ones we had directions for (looooong story), we arrived at Reed College and were greeted with registration packets, Oregon berry candy to die for, peanuts, a beautiful tote bag and a great name tag.
Then we hit Teesha's yard sale, as she called it. Really, People, most artists don't have that much stuff in their whole studio, much less in the cast off pile. There were some amazing goodies like fabric, beads, fabric collage sheets, paper collage sheets, and so on. This was no time to think about coming back for it tomorrow because other people were right behind us slobbering over all the sale, too. Purchasing a whole big fat bag of stuff netted me another great totebag, this one made of fabric and woven newspaper.
We stayed in the new campus "apartments" which in our case was a double room with no door between us, so we could have privacy but still hang out together. Cool. We each had a built in unit where we could unpack our mountain of supplies and sort them out by what we would need each of the next three days. We also each had a gynormous desk where I set up my sewing machine each night and kept working on my project from day one.
Being gifted with a camera like I am, I decided to take pictures of my projects throughout the week, and wait to take pictures of my favorite places around campus on the last day. These are pictures of my works in progress. Each is nearly complete, but I didn't want to wait any longer to post about them. On days one and three of classes, the fabulous Roxanne Padgett was the teacher. Each of those days was a real treat, not just the project, but her display of supplies awaiting us each day. The way she taught fit me perfectly, even on the day I felt dizzy and yucko. She is truly an artist AND a teacher. Day one was for the Studio Art Journal which is a book that serves as a home to transport art supplies you need while you are away and want to work on a project. The topsy turvy doll from day three went over really big in Nona land. When my daughter arrived home from work after the day I went over to show it to the family, I told her Topsy Turvy took a nap with Miss K and she had had lots of fun showing it to Jeane. I was asked whether I would be able to sneak it back out of the house to get it back home. Just as I was starting to state that I would have to since I still needed to take pictures, a little 25 month old voice instantly chimed in with a very clear, "No, that is staying in the playroom!" Miss K only uses complete sentences like that when something is very important, so... What does that tell us? I hope I can take more classes from Roxanne again because I am sure I have never had a better teacher.
On day two, I took a digital photo journal class and we printed out photos on different fabric surfaces. Kathyanne showed us ways in her journal on how to alter photos, but I had photos of my granddaughters that I just didn't want to tear up, so I kind of did my own thing after Kathyanne printed my photos. We had lots of fun giggling that day to the hum of a sewing machine without any pressure to be anywhere or do anything other than just relax. I was able to make a cover for a nice fat book and at least get all the pages in and underway for more photos and work later.
Anyway, back to "camera day," and my giftedness with it, that would be the day I put my camera in my tote bag only to discover that the batteries needed a recharge. Being tired like I was, I chose not to walk back to get new batteries to get the photos. Penney agreed to give me some of her photos instead, but I don't have them for the blog. But you will see the campus for yourself next year when you come, right? Exactly.
There were demos after the first day of classes, an artist's sale after the second day (Alisa Burke was there and she had the best display and proved to be as much of a sweetheart as he she seems to be in her book and online classes.), and a big show after the third day where anyone who wanted to could put out what they made in the common living areas of the aprtments/dorms and anyone who wanted to see everything c0uld walk from dorm to dorm to see them all. Everyone registered for the event fit into three dorms that were only separated by a common green area, so this was a fun easy walk.
On Sunday after we signed out, Penney and I had the same luck with finding things, but we accidentally found Powell's book store, a real treat, and a few other places, so all was not lost, and it certainly did not keep either Penney nor I from having to repack out luggage at the airport to avoid extra fees.
Can anyone tell me why I can have two 50 lb. bags, but not one that weighs 57 lbs? Next time, we are each packing an extra suitcase that can be checked, and we are springing for the GPS and using the cell phone to call ahead. We had a great time crossing that river a gazillion times and can't wait to go back. For anyone who has ever thought of going, just turn yourself in and go. Teesha and Tracy were the hosts with the most. They made it look effortless but we really know better. Now, if they could just sell those Oregon Berries thingies in Phoenix.

Backin' Up the Truck to LA

So, I've been out of school about a month, that's half of my vacation for anyone that cares. Sometimes it feels like it was yesterday and sometimes it feels like a million years ago. At either rate, I have no where begun to get done what I had fantasized about doing other than shopping and getting out of town. I need to spend more time in the studio doing things rather than organizing, reorganizing, hiding (also known as putting away to clear space to work and then forgetting what was purchased) and making sketches and plans. Come to think of it, making the sketches may be one of the most productive things I have ever done. I need to make a book for them and get them all together organized, but let's get back to LA, back the truck up so to speak. Jeane and I went there to take a Kelly Kilmer class, and she drove us around to a gazillion stores and hung out with us in our "swanky" hotel one night when we turned the kitchenette into a studio. These are a few photos of those days including a small (really) snippet of the bakery and the view from the balcony. I'm still not sure whether I love the hotel or hate it. At least we didn't break anything and no one got hurt, so I guess you could say it is all good.