Studio Confidante

Studio Confidante

I'm a little behind the trend here, as usual, but here is my studio confidante. She is the gift I received from my lovely hostess in Paducah this year. Aside from her patchwork skirt to show us she is a quilter, she has an array of sewing notions (and a knitting book) attached to her outstretched arms as she creatively "soars". I wish I could credit the clever artist who designed her, but I can't find any name. Knitting seems to be the hot new trend everywhere, and I do mean EVERYWHERE. I have so far resisted because (A) I barely have enough time to do quilting and (B) I can't afford the space for another stash! I do confess to caressing yarn when I visit the shops, tho.......MUST RESIST!

Wassily Kandinsky

Composition X, 1939

See more images here and here.

Yellow, Red, Blue, 1925 

Beautiful and Amazing Tapestries

Sunset

Sunflowers 

Beautiful Tapestry

One of my favorite blogs to visit is Jenny Bowker's Postcards From Cairo. I'm not sure what rock I've been living under, but I'd never heard of Wissa Wassef fiber art. These are gorgeous tapestries. Check out the Ramses Wissa Wassef Art Centre for a treat for the eyes.

Birds

Over on Pat's Art Journal there are some fabulous pictures of Baltimore Orioles. DH and I like to watch the birds, although we are strictly amatuers. I keep a bird book handy, but it usually just ends up in a friendly debate over what we are actually looking at. We have some bright yellow and black birds a little like these, but I am pretty sure they are not the same bird.
Probably the most interesting and exotic birds we see are the parrots. Yes, parrots. I remember the first time I saw them. It was a few years back, and I was walking with a friend for exercise around the track at the local high school. The whole flock was lined up on a telephone wire. Now my distance vision isn't all it could be, so I wasn't at all sure what I was seeing until I got really close. But there they were, all bright yellow, red and green and squaking up a storm. Trust me, you do NOT want parrots to move into your yard, they are noisy and disruptive. When I told my son, he said they were frequently in the area and the teacher sometimes had to close the window because of the noise. Not long after that, I saw a newspaper article about them. There has been a lot of speculation on where they came from and how they started. Did they fly up from Mexico, escape from a pet store, fly away from a zoo ? Whatever their origin, someone counted, and the flock is up to about 300 birds. Amazing!

Flannel quilt

A Few Traditional Quilts

Yesterday was another fun "sewing day" with my small quilting group. We swapped stories, shared quilts and sewed and snacked all day. My idea of fun! Right now I'm finishing up a couple of traditional quilts of my own to meet the deadline for giving them. The quilts here were made and "shared" by my friends Sheryl and Carla.

Pretty traditional quilt in warm fall colors 

More From Emily Mason

Shimmer

Outpost 

Opposing Cells 

Spring flowers. This bed needs a little work... 

Sketchbook Quilt

City Slickers.

I did this fast little quilt (journal size) on Friday night. It was great fun. I enjoyed the speed and the hot, bright colors, although I'm not sure it feels like "me".

If this were a larger quilt, I might think more about how to quilt it. I still like it though. The chaotic quilting lines add something about how I feel about the big, bright and crowded city.

Chaotic quilting close view.

The Cool Kelp Forest

Progress so far....I love the textures and cool watery colors...

After all that hot, bright fabric, I felt the need to cool off, so I started a cool watery piece on Sunday night. It's a bit bigger, and I haven't done any quilting on it yet.

Start of the Cool Kelp Forest 

Happy Mother's Day!

A good read

I have had a very nice weekend so far. After picking up our little vehicle yesterday, I went and had a hair cut and a little color enhancement (VBG). Then I did a little fabric shop browsing and came home and read a very good book Light on Snow by Anita Shreve. It was one of those marathon reads where I started reading in the afternoon and was finished by the next day. It was absorbing and it made me remember and reflect, partly about being young and on the verge of womanhood, and partly about what it was like to live in a place where winter can kill you if you don't have the proper shelter. (I am a Midwestern girl with southern roots, disguised as a southern Californian. The costume fits pretty well after 30 years...)

Today my husband made me a lovely brunch, our version of Huevos Rancheros. In our version, the eggs are scrambled with jalapenos and sweet bell pepper, served with a side of bacon. The tortillas are the good ones, not the supermarket junk. To eat, take a tortilla, spread with refried beans, add scrambled egg and bacon, wrap and eat. Add extra salsa as desired. Yum! Oh yes, and at our age the meal requires both Beano and Pepcid AC, but it is well worth it. We will discuss resuming the low cal, low fat, low cholesterol, low interest diet tomorrow.

Something New in the Driveway

I know you've all been feeling that slight panic when you empty your wallet at the gas pump these days. At least I know I have. In our family, we do LOTS of driving, remember this is Southern California where they are still in the dark ages when it comes to great and reliable public transit. I take a vanpool to work but DH drives 70+ miles a day. We had a slight case of sticker shock when we looked at the new hybrids (battery/gas), not to mention the waiting list is long. Here is our compromise.

What is it? A Toyota Scion XA.

The best part, a sun/moon roof. Ok the best part is 31 - 38 mpg and it didn't cost too much.  

Back view 

Front view 

Friday At Last

I am thankful that it's Friday at last. End of semester is such a crunch and the atmosphere in the library is one of near panic and tension as exams or final projects loom. Virtually nothing is in its proper place due to an avalanche of returns and hordes of stack destroyers. Not the happy, peaceful place I know and love. In the coming weeks we will gradually discover those journals with razored out articles, and there will be a rash of orders for missing pages and tipping in of same. I cannot understand why people wantonly steal these articles, can it be that they actually cannot afford to pay for copies? As more and more scholarly material becomes available in online format (and we pay a great deal to provide it), you would think this vandalism would decrease, but it does not. Ok, enough of that, I can feel myself revving up for rant mode.

I plan to spend at least part of the weekend painting fabric, which is rapidly becoming my new favorite pastime. I have been reading about some discharge techniques over on the QA list, and I am anxious to try out a thing or two there as well. I also must do a few mundanes: binding on a family gift quilt and to finish quilting and binding a baby quilt. I do not find binding meditative or soothing, to me its merely a chore. Both of these quilts have passed the point of decision for the envelope method, but I see lots of "pillowcases" in my future.

The holiday on Sunday looms as a diffucult one, and my heart goes out to those of you who have so recently suffered losses. Mother's Day is bittersweet at our house, as both of our mothers are gone. If my son remembers, I will have flowers or a card, and I may haul out some of those very cherished treasures from the early years and shed a few tears over them. (Goodness, but I am getting sentimental in my old age.)
Whether you approach this day with joy or sorrow, blessings to you.

Emily Mason

Emily Mason is another wonderful artist whose work I love. Pure abstact expression and joyful color. See more here.

Warm Waters

Emily Mason

High Five

Heat of the Moon 

Friends of the Earth

These lovely paintings are just two by a German born American artist Wolf Kahn. I have been enjoying this wonderful book for several weeks now. One of the great advantages of working in a university library....

Wolf Kahn

Something about this painting just speaks to me. The color choices, the vertical repetition, the skillful and subtle impression of trees, the mood created, the way the whole thing works together. Sometimes it's not easy to analyze why, but I absolutely love the work of this artist. See more paintings here.