Eccentrically Crafty

2011-09-29T19:26:00.014-05:00

I've moved over to a different URL, as I wanted to change the title to my blog and start fresh. You can find me at 6 Ideas Before Breakfast. See you there!

That lion's been to hell and back

2011-09-24T17:44:00.004-05:00

Here's the most exciting thing to talk about... Mr. Lion had a bath! That poor pacifier's been puked on too many times to count, so I waited until Sophia was asleep and I put him through the wash. Here he is hang-drying.

I haven't had ANY time to craft lately, as I started back to work on September 12th. These two weeks have been extremely busy with such things as getting myself on a schedule (and attempting to actually stick to it), trying to keep up with the laundry and chores around the house, and pumping and sterilizing. It takes a LOT of dedication to keep a kid breastfed while working fulltime!

Thankfully, I get two pump breaks while at work, and I have enough time on my lunch breaks to drive to Sophia's daycare and feed her. It's such a lovely break during the work day, even if half the time I return to my job covered in spit-up!

Near the end of making my awesome baby bag, my machine started to squeak as it sewed and it began to be a bit sluggish, so I know it needs a cleaning and oiling. I'm afraid to use it until I have the money to take the machine in to the shop, so I've been strictly limited to hand stitching projects and drawing. But then, when do I have time to even sit down and enjoy such things?!

I still have a quilt to finish for my friend Jessica's baby Sunny Delilah, and my UFO (unfinished object, an acronym I only just learned!) box badly needs attention.

But when I sit down and feed my daughter, look at her face and see her smile, I'm reminded of the proverb:

Quiet down cobwebs,

Dust go to sleep

I'm rocking my baby

And babies don't keep!!!

The different meanings of "baby bag"

2011-09-05T12:18:00.004-05:00

I've been incredibly frustrated with having to sling several bags over my shoulder when toting the kid around, so I decided to make a baby bag big enough to carry all of Sophia's baby stuff, my purse, and any journals I care to bring with me. (Never know when the urge to write will strike.) I told Dane I was making a bag and showed him the pattern I was going to use, and the first thing out of his mouth was "You're going to put the baby in that?!" Silly husband doesn't understand.....

The pattern I used can be found here. There are quite a few tutorials I've found online for baby bags, but I thought this one looked like the most fun to make, and I also thought it would be the sturdiest and longest-lasting. (If I'm dedicating a significant portion of my precious time to this project, then damn it, it better last until this kid is 5 frikkin' years old!)

I decided this would be the perfect opportunity to use up the rest of my On A Whim owl print fabric that's been sitting around forever waiting for the PERFECT project. I just bought some coordinating colors from the fabric store to go with it.

After some mistakes in seam allowance, fusible fleece that didn't want to fuse (and that I ended up buying WAY TOO MUCH of), and a lost magnetic closure, I finally finished the bag. It only took me several days of frequently-interrupted work (babies don't understand patience). And I'm immensely proud of the outcome!

Behold!

I love the elastic compartments on the inside!

And if I wanted to, I really COULD fit the baby in it, a fact that concerns Sophia greatly...

I made a few changes to the pattern as I put it together. The original only has one elastic pocket, but I chose to line both inside compartments with the elastic pockets for extra storage space. I also used scraps of the different prints to make the strap, but that came more out of necessity. I didn't quite have enough left of the owl fabric, so I improvised.

Next project on the agenda is a baby book of different colors!

Sound advice

2011-09-01T18:36:00.004-05:00

1. If you want anything in this life, you must be prepared to work for it. You must be willing to put in as much effort as you expect a reward.

2. Failure is okay. Trying again is okay. Taking things one step at a time is OKAY.

3. Beginnings, middles, and ends all have the same potential to bring you joy.

4. Letting other people into your world is okay. While some people can't be trusted, others SHOULD be.

5. You are a beautiful and valuable person, and your true best friend is yourself. Other people only enhance the love you feel for yourself.

6. Allow yourself the pleasure of enjoying and relaxing in life. For as much hard work as you put in, your reward is sweeter and your relaxation more deep and meaningful.

7. Listen to the secret language of your soul. Love and accept the beautiful person you naturally are.

8. Give yourself over to emotion and creativity. Allow yourself to be swept up in the experience!

Important stuff to remember when you begin to feel like you've lost your way...

My most important project...

2011-08-12T17:27:00.003-05:00

I had a baby!

So, yeah. An entire friggin' year since I've said anything. Among the many things that have happened over these last several months, the thing I'm most proud of is the creation of that cute little thing up there.

Having my daughter has done more for my self-esteem and confidence than all the antidepressants in the world. I grow happier and more capable and self-assured every single day, because there is no way I could ever second-guess or downplay the significance of her, my most treasured possession.

I plan to funnel this incredibly uplifting boost of confidence into my crafting. There is so much stuff I want to make! I also need to do a drastic redesign of the site, something centered around owls as a graphical element. Consider this notification of impending posts to come. I've already got tons of stuff I was working on during my pregnancy that I'm just dying to show you all!

I end with little Sophia practicing her SuperBaby pose.

2010-07-25T08:35:00.004-05:00

It took me a long time to feel comfortable enough to say the words "I am an artist." How can one be considered an artist when all they do is mess around with fabric and beads and paint? Certainly I can be described as a "crafter"..... someone in the same group as a kid playing with feathers and paper plates in kindergarten. But an artist?

Artists are the elite. Artists make magic with their ideas. Artists enlighten and inspire; their work advances civilizations. The Renaissance changed society culturally, partly because the artists and sculptors of that time dared to do something different, dared to take what they were doing just one step further. The techniques and artistic concepts of today could not have evolved without such bold ideas in the area of art.

Have I ever done any of that? Have I inspired minds and nations with the stroke of my brush? Have I even made an impact on those around me with what I've created? Am I ever worthy of the title Artist?

Art is a concept, an idea, a movement. A huge waste of time from the perspective of the hunters and gatherers of the world. But dreamers are just as important to the human tribe. Dreamers bring about change and new ideas. What the dreamers create will eventually encourage the hunters and gatherers to improvise, to experiment.

I am an artist because I dream. I inspire and am inspired. I see the beauty found in the tiny details of everything around me. I find joy in taking risks and experimenting with my work. I enjoy the process as much as the finished piece. I suck up inspiring books and pictures and works of art from the world around me and I translate that into my own voice. I take the raw ingredients and I mix them around. I add a touch of magic from my own ideas and I watch what I've made evolve into something new and filled with life.

I may not come to inspire nations. I may not have a sculpture or a painting hanging in the Louvre. But I am an artist none-the-less. When I am not dreaming and creating, a piece of my heart begins to throb, so I carry my inspiring voice with me wherever I go. When I'm at work, I always have a notebook nearby to sketch ideas that come to me like lost children. I house them within the pages of my journals and they wait to be translated into real life. How can I not be an artist when it is in my blood, my soul?

I think I'm going to have to drop the Sufferings from the name...

2010-07-09T19:28:00.005-05:00

I've been wanting to start posting my projects again, but it seems that life has continued to be chaotic and busy. On top of that, our internet connection has ceased to be reliable, due in part to an unscrupulous internet provider. Our downstairs neighbor graciously allows us to leech off his connection every now and then, but I still have less time online than I'd like to get.

But let's get past that, because today I'm doing something else. I'm sharing my feelings and crap.

Several months ago, I was having a rough time of things. I was getting depressed and anxious a lot and having panic attacks. I was constantly worried about what everyone thought about me. My social anxiety was kicking into high gear and my mind was constantly preoccupied at work.

I've been on antidepressants since I was 15 and so, I was thinking I could handle things. I thought I was still doing okay, that I was just stressed from work. I thought it was normal to be this worried, that I was being responsible. But I was really just wasting my time worrying about things that would be happening far into the future. Things like kids and houses and promotions, things that wouldn't be possible for months or years down the road.... But a supportive husband and a lot of soul searching brought me to realize that something was wrong and I needed to re-evaluate.

So I ditched my happy-blob-commercial-Zoloft for everyone-and-their-dog-takes-it-Prozac. WOW, DO I FEEL BETTER. In fact, I feel more like The Real Me than I ever have before. My confidence level is through the roof. I'm feeling fantastic! And I'm also handling things at work a million times better. Everything just feels like it's clicking and making sense.

And I'm also feeling calm and easy. I've always been a worrier, much to my own undoing at times, but now I'm feeling content and relaxed. It's the best feeling in the world, to go from crippling anxiety and chronically low self-esteem to complete freedom. It feels like a switch got flipped from Broke to Fixed in my brain.

With this has come a wonderful Rush of Creativity. I've gotten more done now than I have in a long time. I've been working on lots of different projects. My ideas don't just sit in my brain anymore, growing more fanciful and impossible until they have to be moved to the dreams and fantasies pile.... They're getting used! Inspiration is slowly surrounding me as I make more and more, and I can't wait to share it!

Tonight, however, I'm going to relax for one last evening of doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Yesterday was my birthday and my husband got me a PS3. I have some serious gaming to do tonight. A little Dante's Inferno, some Ratchet and Clank, and later perhaps I'll play Arkham Asylum.

Alphabet inchies, artful interior decorating, and you!

2010-05-13T16:50:00.009-05:00

I participated in a fun little swap over on Craftster (my first ever) where we made a full set of alphabet inchies, then distributed some of the letters to each partner, resulting in a lovely mishmash of art from several different sources.

Here is the hand-drawn set I made:

I started by drawing a one-inch grid onto a sheet of watercolor paper. Then I painted different colored backgrounds using watercolors and cut out the squares after the paper dried. I ended up with about a hundred ready-to-go inchie blanks of different colors and shades. I kept them in a plain white envelope that sits next to my computer and whenever the mood struck, I'd pull one out and doodle something on it. Then I just added the letters cut from an old cheesy romance novel (titled The Spanish Bride in case anyone cares), inked the image details and the inchie edges, then strengthened them by pasting to cardboard.

The most fun part for me was the inking. It was a good excuse for me to stock up on different sizes of inking pens. I love adding tiny details to things that give it an overall unifying effect. So, I basically just sat at my computer listening to music, watching television or reading articles, and doodled on inchies. The P for Pebble inchie, for instance, came from doodling different rock shapes while planning out another project using pebbling as a quilt filler stitch.

I've never really ventured too far into the world of inchies before this project. Much like ATCs (Artist Trading Cards), where the only restriction is size, inchies can be a very fluid medium to work in. It's like a little challenge for your brain, trying to both let loose on creativity, but still hold it within a 1"x1" square. I've found it's a great exercise for pushing through a creative block. If you mess up, you've only wasted a scrap-sized piece of paper.

This is the combined set of inchies I received from my six partners. I absolutely ADORE these inchies! Lisa used coordinating paint chips to make hers, Kira made lovely little owl drawings, and Teffy even re-sent hers because I lost the first set! (With the help of a careless cat...) I love all of the inchies, especially the little owl on the W and the "and" inchie. I also think the whole set fits together as a whole quite nicely.

I haven't quite decided what I'm going to do with them. I'll probably mount them to make a nice wall piece. A lot of other crafters participating in the swap were talking about mounting their sets, and it really struck me as a quite appealing idea. I'd really love to cover my walls with art and projects from everywhere. Since I haven't decided yet how to mount my inchies, I'm keeping them in one of my little antique teacups. I love the idea of using antique china to store things in.

Arranged smartly on my shelf next to some fat quarters, my broken-then-glued-back-together ceramic jar, a coil of old guitar strings, and a love letter from Dane. (It says I love you in Chinese.)

(On a side note, I dream of a sewing room where I cover every surface with ridiculous stuff like this. I find it emotionally and creatively stimulating to be surrounded by the controlled chaos of the space around me. I also like a room to feel comfortable, lived in, and inviting.)

Spawned from the Alphabet Inchies Swap was talk in the Craftster forums about a swap of themed inchies, so I also joined that one when Lisa posted it. I had such a blast making these ones and I can't wait to do different sets. (I'll ultimately be making somewhere around 100 inchies for the Inchie Theme Swap.) I suppose I should get started! :p

By the way, I would also be up for private one-on-one swaps if anyone's interested!

The hermit comes out of her shell

2009-10-28T16:13:00.006-05:00

View the horrid state of my sewing room. I have too much stuff. Waaaaay too much. My other grandmother died and my sister moved to a different state. I got a lot of stuff from each. I've also been promoted to manager at my job, so I have not much time on my hands.

I've gotten a little stuff done... but not much. I started altering a book...

... and worked on my journal a whole lot. But that's pretty much it. I'll try and be more forthcoming with recent creative endeavors. Time to come out of my hole.

BTW, Lily Allen is awesome. I'm loving this album of hers.

Evolution

2009-04-11T08:29:00.002-05:00

I can be such an organized person that I overcompartmentalize. This goes here, that goes there. I may have overcompartmentalized my journaling a bit, and it's acting as a bit of a barrier against the flow of ideas and thoughts and streams of consciousness that I want.

In an effort to marry the concepts of my craft blog with my journaling, I think I'll write more on here, even if it doesn't seem to be about a specific work in progress. It would actually be about the work in progress of my creative journey as a whole.

If you're easily confused by the changing purpose of this blog, please don't be. I tend to do this alot with my journals. Each has to have a purpose, and sometimes the journal evolves past its purpose and I have to rename the purpose to keep it cohesive. Again, the compartmentalization. This can be a good thing. Sometimes I can use organization to incite much-needed chaos. It just depends on the day.

One of my latest entries in my art journal. Scan to come soon. (On my way out the door to work.)

"Almost sunrise at Crystal Beach. (Galveston) Tanya and I successfully built a fire and made smores. Now we're waiting for the sun to come up before we go hunting for seashells. The sand is cool on my feet. I love the feel of it, even though it means I'll be picking sand out of my toes for weeks. Although the beach is beautiful, the damage of Hurricane Ike is still evident all around us. Houses that Tanya says were here months ago and lined the streets are now gone, some now empty shells, others leaving no evidence they were ever there. Trees are permanently bent, showing their struggle to stay in the ground. There are no more dunes. But some houses still stand. People still live and work and persist."
4/5/2009

Contemplation and other words that start with C.

2009-03-31T23:17:00.003-05:00

The moon is out, a sliver like a cup in the sky. I am contemplating Creation and Completion and Cohesion.

My mind is foggy but silent. Tranquil. The air is Chill but bearable, the scent of the night carrying a very faint, almost indistinguishable trace of grass and sweet peas. I don't know where the sweet peas come from. I live in the Center of town. But it's there all the same, perhaps traveling from the small field a block away.

I feel Content and Complete. I feel Capable. I feel slightly Catatonic.

I feel Carefree.

The romantic notions of needlepoint

2009-03-17T14:53:00.010-05:00

Today has been a grand adventure so far. And when I say that, it's with a certain degree of sarcasm, but still a partial bit of truth. My days have melted into quiet routine. But today, I had errands to run, specifically paying the car insurance and making a copy of our house key because I lost my car keys and my spare set doesn't have the house key and yesterday I had to wait around for an hour after work so that Dane could get home and let me in...

But interesting things happen when you accept instinctual possibilities and follow whimsical ideas. After paying the car insurance bill, I noticed the Goodwill store across the street. Having not been to that particular location in a while, I stopped in to see if they might have a shirt or two that I can wear to work (as the vast majority of my wardrobe is t-shirts with shiny stars or Ralph Wiggum or Rocko's Modern Life or something on them). And while perusing the back area, a jumbled mess of old Easter baskets, forlorn looking stuffed bunnies from holidays past, fifty mismatched pillowcases and at least one package of The Office postie notes, I found something entirely awesome.

Ignore the buttons. I'll get to those in a minute. First, concentrate on that needlepoint kit. It looks simple enough. Even run-of-the-mill, average, unremarkable. But it isn't. It's a spark of vintagey goodness from 1974. It's a splash of color and fun with the kit entirely intact and unopened, preserving the delicious yarn within. It's the antithesis of boredom, packaged neatly in a portable bundle that I get to open for the first time.

I realize I may sound overly romantic, but here's what went through my mind at the thrift shop. Imagine it's 1974 and this package, along with five or ten of its brothers, is placed on a hook or on a shelf in a craft or fabric store. It waits patiently, the packaging shiny and smooth, without a wrinkle or a tear. Someone comes along, a nice grandmother, seeing possibilities in the kit as a gift for a small toddler.

The kit is bought, taken home, put in the sewing room... and left. Every time the woman passes by, the kit gets excited. It's going to be used. Its purpose will be fulfilled. But she never opens it. She has other things on her mind. She found a more appropriate gift, or her arthritis has been bothering her lately and she just can't do needlework. She feels heartbroken that she can't do what she loves, so eventually, she stops going into her sewing room at all. Eventually, she can't even get out of bed, not because she is pining away from lack of needlework. No, we shall not be that dramatic... but she's definitely feeling her age. And finally, she slips away.

Time passes. Items are passed down through the family. Boxes of craft items are presented to cousins and nieces and grandchildren to paw through and take what's wanted. The packaging on our dear kit has gotten crinkled and mauled. Old. The price sticker came off long ago, leaving a pale sticky ghost on the plastic. Even the paper inside the kit has started to curl at the edges. And finally, the granddaughter perhaps, going through the garage and clearing space for the lawnmower, throws the kit in with other junk, some broken, some no better than trash for the dump. She drops it at Goodwill and goes home.

The kit is now not only forgotten, but essentially homeless. Its last hope of fulfilling its destiny was dashed with this final act of abandonment. It's thrown facedown in a large tupperware bin next to dinged candlesticks and a block of dented floral foam. It doesn't care anymore. It waits to die.

That is how I rescued it. And that entire romantic scene played out in my head over a second and a half and I knew I needed this. I will resurrect the life of this kit and what it was intended for. I will be the first to open it and sort the colored strands of yarn, the first to thread the small needle, the first to weave the strands through the plastic canvas squares. Columbia-Minerva Needlepoint Baby Blocks 5 pc set from 1974... you shall live again!

Oh yeah, the buttons. I also stopped at a cute antique store and found this adorable old jar filled with old buttons. These buttons are not as forlorn as the needlepoint kit was, but they still begged to come home with me. I'll probably sort through them later and use a large portion of them to make some sort of buttons-stitched-to-fabric-in-an-appealing-pattern type project.

I'm not actually dead (an update in photos)

2009-03-11T01:57:00.003-05:00

Contrary to popular belief, I did not die. I simply got incredibly ~~lazy~~ busy with life. I got a new job, I went back to school, I cured cancer, I saved a third-world country. You know, the usual. Takes up so much time.

I've also been working on a lot of projects, surprisingly. I've been getting huge boxes of fabric from my mother, courtesy of my dead grandmother's estate. It's the ultimate estate sale, but I don't have to pay anything. (Though it takes my mom $20 a box to ship them to me, God bless her.)

Here's what I've been up to!

I've been taking all my tiny scraps and making crazy blocks. They came in handy when we found ourselves broke at Christmastime and needed quick presents. I stuck a couple of these together, whacking the sides to make perfect squares, then sewed on a quick border and sashing. Instant placemats for the mom-in-law! I felt so accomplished, and I'm pretty sure she liked them, though I did preface her opening of the bag with "Look, these were an experiment, and you're the guinea pig. I'm sorry."

The rolls of paper on the left are little patterns traced onto fusible web from this book, which was a present from my aunt one Christmas a few years back.

I finally took all of my reproduction Aunt Gracie prints and cut them into nice little squares. I'm going to stick these together with some white squares for some lovely bright nine-patches. It will no doubt make a very lovely lap quilt.

I've been drawing out different blocks that I like and looking at the pieces and how they come together. I need to figure out what to do with the ridiculous amounts of fabric I've inherited. It's quite shameful, how much I'm getting, and me with no earthly clue how to store it or what to sew it into. But when my aunt asked me what I wanted from the estate, I just said "Give me all the fabric you have! It ships well and it will satisfy my collector's OCD."

A small sample of some of the pieces I've gotten cut out from various scraps and pieces. There are exactly 1,213 triangles in that box, every single one cut out by hand without the benefit of cutting mat or ruler, while seated in front of the television and watching seasons of X-Files. I'm up to season three already.

My little work box with all that I need to cut out the rest of my triangles, along with my most favoritest pincushion in the world, a beautiful gift from Monica Magness. See that roll of pink fabric? My grandmother seemed to have an affinity for taking old pants and shirts and cutting them into ridiculously shaped pieces, then rolling them up in little bundles and rubber-banding them for some unknown purpose. I think I know where some of my mother's crazy came from.

The other thing taking up my time (besides my new job) is my Anatomy and Physiology II class. Wait, you ask me why I'm taking it again? Did I fail? No, I did not. I got a B. This is unacceptable to me. I am taking it again. And we get fresh cats this semester, so I've been really excited about dissections. I've heard such horror stories about mold and bugs infesting the leftovers from A&P I.

Finally, there is the husband. Such a wonderful, interesting man. Our friends and relations fondly remember the recent Pork Chop Incident in which Dane attempted to cook a pork chop, failed to put it under the broiler, got extremely angry, and threw the offending chop across the kitchen! I thought that was the end of his kitchen-related tantrums, but he tried to make pancakes several weeks later, with similar results. (He was able to aim the flying batter into the sink, at least.) Our friend Skylar responded by then making his own delicious pancakes and taunting Dane with photos of them posted to Facebook.

Other than that, business as usual. I've been getting a lot done, so I really can't complain. I just haven't put blogging at the top of my list. Y'all can beat me with flexible bamboo sticks later. For now, I have to go to bed.

Yield

2008-11-23T03:44:00.004-06:00

Life expands and moves in interesting directions. I have been busy and not busy, working, relaxing, doing nothing and everything.

We'll see how the holidays shape up. I have a lot of things I need to restart and finish. I made a cover for a cookbook for my good friend Les for his birthday and I really should have taken a photo so I can have some evidence of being active and alive.

Tanya and I sat at The Kettle (a good diner for sitting) and made self-improvement lists and Christmas lists. We talked about journals and their many uses (as we all know my complete and total obsession with journals) and perhaps I will come back to what I have been missing over this last month.

Don't you hate when life moves on without you and you're still trying to read the sign posts?

Boredom and an excess amount of Teh Intarwebs will do this to anyone

2008-10-16T05:01:00.003-05:00

I'm not a big meme fan, not because they aren't fun, but because I can easily get addicted to them, and they're really only poor substitutes for content. (So clearly, I've chosen to post nothing whatsoever as opposed to poor content.... )

However, I stole this from Judy who stole it from Twitchy Knitter, who stole it from someone who stole it from a clown. That's my theory. Every meme originates from clowns because that sounds silly to me and I like to spread silly rumors.

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search. (Use the advanced search and scroll down and click on Creative Commons License so you use shareable photos!)
b. Using only the results on the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.
d. Credits to photos are below.

The Questions:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name.

I'll try to give a little substance and insight into my answers.

1. My first name is Cindi, and that is not short for Cynthia. Cindi is written on my birth certificate, with that spelling. I loathe Ys. (sj and cindi)

2. Chocolate will always be my favorite food because it satisfies my inner glutton and sensualist at the same time. (Communist chocolate !)

3. I went to Sparks High School in Sparks, Nevada. Sparks is sister city to Reno, and no, I do not watch Reno 911. (IMG_2996)

4. Fav color is green. Apparently, geniuses pick green. (london green)

5. Gerard Butler is the one man that, should I meet him on the street and he asks me to have sex with him and cheat on my husband, I would absolutely say yes, no questions, no hesitations. I told my husband this before we got married and made sure he understood I was dead serious. I also have a photo of Gerry in my wallet. It is the only photo in my wallet. (Gerry Butler)

6. I love Cape Cods because they have cranberry juice in them and the vodka gets me completely smashed after only two. (My "Usual")

7. Dane and I plan on visiting Germany some day to meet his extended family. His grandmother emigrated from there and Dane still has close relatives. (germany.swabian-hall: beautiful.evening.mood.(593☺26))

8. Mmmmm, cheesecake. My love and passion. (Strawberry Cheesecake)

9. I would like to be a Dental Hygienist because they make a ridiculous amount of money for a minimal amount of time and debt. (Poly Dynia)

10. What I love most about life is the ability and freedom to do whatever I want. (Well, sans murder.) (Expression of freedom)

11. If I couldn't be considered intense, I fear to meet the person who is. (Intense Blue)

12. I searched for 'cindibee' but couldn't find anything, so I had to cut it down to just 'bee'. Cindibee was a nickname a former friend gave me. I thought it was way too cute to forget. (Soggy wet bee)

Presents are an awesome way to start the day

2008-10-14T13:37:00.004-05:00

What can I possibly say about Monica Magness right now other than, Oh my god, Amazing. I was having one of the most god-awful weeks of my life, full of stress and mood swings and fights and flu symptoms and migraines and pregnancy scares (can't afford a baby right now) and a complete and utter lack of any sort of creative spark. I can usually handle the stress when I can turn to my art for solace, but that hasn't been the case lately. (Dane taking over the spare room to play Warhammer Online all night long may have something to do with it as well...)

But this morning, when I woke up and decided to check the mail, I joked with myself that "Wouldn't it be awesome if I got something cool in the mail today?" And like God himself had thought that You know what? Cindi's had enough for one year-crammed-into-a-week-of-shite.... ta-da!

What a beautiful little package of goodies that just happened to be waiting for me. Fabric with skulls on it! How did you know I adore skulls in my "secretly Hot Topic" sort of way? Vintage-y buttons and OMG a dice bead to satisfy my Nevada upbringing. A pincushion full of I-Spy fabric goodness. I spent ten minutes just identifying fabrics and prints. Like, for a solid two minutes, I kept thinking this section right here was alien heads before it dawned on me that they were ladybugs, and then I contemplated the awesomeness of a print that can be two such entirely separate things at once.

(Are you getting the idea that I'm overly obsessed with fabric and prints of all kinds? Why do you think my husband has taken away my fabric shopping privileges? He got so tired of hearing "But look at the priiiint!!! Of course I had to have it! These owls look different than the other fifteen owl prints I have. These ones are greeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen!")

And what an ingenious tag on that pincushion. You must have the mostest awesomest sewing machine in the whole wide world.

Pardon if I'm overstating my happiness and joy, but wrapped up in this simple bundle of goodness was a ton of inspiration, love, and good will that has brought me out of a gloom faster than any amount of prescription drugs. Monica, you are amazing and a wonderful friend to have.

My fifteen minutes of almost fame

2008-09-22T10:26:00.002-05:00

I feel very flattered and privileged right now. An article has been written about my humble little blog! Linda from Top Blogs by Crafters is doing a Get To Know The Crafter series, and I was lucky enough to be able to answer her question! You can see the article here, as well as many other interviews of other wonderful crafters.

This makes me very happy! Now, I sleep. Nappy time.

Custom Awesomeness

2008-09-12T20:27:00.005-05:00

I finally got an invite to try out Spoonflower, a great website still in its beta form that allows you to design your own fabric! I've already made my first order of this owl design based on the doodle in my header. The color may not be as vibrant upon printing on fabric, but I know I'll love it anyways. (For each of these designs, click on the image to see how it'll look as a tiled piece of fabric. One mark = 1 inch on image rulers.)

I've also ordered a swatch of this row of eyes. I think it'll print out rather small and I want to see how much, if at all, I should increase the size of the eyes. I may play around with this design a bit more later, maybe with some varied sizes and placements.

Here's another workup of the eye design.

And this the last design I made, using my house doodle.

I'm so excited to be able to make some of my drawings into my own custom fabric! (If anyone would be interested in purchasing my fabric designs, let me know and I can send you a free swatch once I receive my order and you can decide how much, if any, you'd like to buy.)

(And if you're my good friend Monica Magness, I'll give you a fat quarter for free of my owl fabric once it comes in!)

Some useless contemplation

2008-09-10T18:16:00.004-05:00

I seem to have settled into the mess that is my spare room and my life. I've taken a break from many projects and plans because of a need to reorganize, and when life's gotten in the way of that reorganization, I've just let it all lie, let the dust settle, let the soft couch take my tired body and cradle it as I watch old episodes of Law and Order. I don't know if it's laziness or a forced acceptance of ennui.

My brain is still silently buzzing, and I still manage to get out my creative outbursts with short visits to my journal, cutouts and glue stick in hand... but I'm sure a vast wave is slowly building, coming closer and closer to the shore, ready to crash down upon all the innocent and unsuspecting sunbathers, maybe taking a few annoying children on their floaty rafts and giving them a satisfying faceplant in the harsh sand.....

What I meant to say was that I'm sure such little endeavors will do little to abate the inevitable overflowing of frustrated energy that always comes after a long period of nothingness. One creates, one makes, one experiences, throwing all into a feeling, an experience, an existence of doing. Eventually that flame burns out, having sucked up all the fuel and oxygen and bringing itself to a gasping, suffocating end. But there's always a little something that needs time to build up again, think new ideas and look at new viewpoints. That little something will slowly but definitely grow into the next avalanche of creation. And the cycle continues.

I've worried for some time that I've stretched myself too thin, branching out into so many different mediums of expression, but I think that when I do feel that mental ache from too many arms going in too many directions, thin and fragile like a spider's legs, these periods of calm, these eyes in the massive storm of my inspirational drive, are what help "bulk up" those thin projections. My connection to these different ideas and forms of expression just gets stronger, waiting to flex itself at the next incoming wave.

This is a bunch of useless, but enlightening contemplation.

An actual notification...

2008-08-05T23:17:00.000-05:00

...as opposed to just disappearing for a while.

Tomorrow I pick up my nephews, who will be staying with us for five days while my sister goes to our cousin's wedding, where she is maid of honor. I don't have the money to fly to Reno, so I have no problem being on kid duty for the next few days.

Summer semester II is finally done, and now I can have a few weeks to breathe before Fall semester begins. Tanya's asked me if I regret doing back-to-back-to-back semesters, and I'd have to say... ask me when I've graduated. Then I'll add up the busy weekends and immense brain-expanding headaches and calculate them against my massive salary.

In other news, before I wrap this up and start washing the dishes, my grandmother is coming to the end of things, so my husband and I have been invited to Utah over Labor Day weekend for a small family reunion. It's a sort-of last big hurrah before the colder months start to roll in and take their toll on her waning health. Tickets are already bought and paid for, courtesy of my uncle. I'll have to remind Dane that Utah isn't like Texas. He'll need to bring a sweater! And will actually wear it! He had to bring a coat on our honeymoon because he hadn't realized that Octobers in Utah act like they're supposed to, instead of oh-my-god-my-face-is-melting-off like Texas.

Later!

Tiny Seashells

2008-07-27T16:23:00.001-05:00

Something I've been wanting to do is get involved in Inspire Me Thursday. I've had the link up on my sidebar for a while now, but I keep missing Thursdays. So this will be my first, even though it's on a Sunday. The theme this week was The Beach and, looking around for something inspiring, you would think I pulled out my nearly 200 seashells from the Gulf of Mexico in Galveston. But that seems like too much the obvious choice.

Instead, I grabbed my stamp carving stuff and made some little seashell stamps, a little bigger than a dime. I think they're cute.

Knit, Purl, Whatever

2008-07-27T14:57:00.004-05:00

This semester has been killing me, so I apologize for any prolonged absence. Lots of things have happened this month. I had my 25th birthday. I went to a Stone Temple Pilots concert. I got in a car accident that left my car with many thousands of dollars of damage and a need to sue the woman who refuses to pay...

My cousin is also getting married soon, and my sister is the maid of honor. She can't take her boys with her to the wedding, so I'll be taking care of my two nephews, 7 and 2 years, for about a week. Dane and I get to be like parents for a while. We'll see whether or not it forces one or both of us to get ourselves fixed.

So, I've taught myself to knit. I found a very lovely and informative website (complete with videos!) here that really helped a lot. I've managed to walk myself through a very cute pattern for a little doll dress. I'm not done yet, but it's fairly straightforward. And I have yet to stab myself with the knitting needles, so I suppose that counts as a huge victory for me!

I like knitting. I was afraid of it at first, but now that I've gotten the hang of it and I can see what awesome things just a few stitches can do, maybe I'll finally pay attention to that expanding knitting section at the book store. Knitting is becoming a very cathartic activity. Cross stitch and embroidery are like that too, but knitting doesn't require nearly so much thinking and stopping-and-starting. I can let my right brain take over quite easily.

I've also got my charms finished for the Think Pink Charms Exchange, another crafty project that benefits the fight against breast cancer. My charms are wrapped up in a Priority box sitting right next to my elbow. Dane forgot to drop it off at the post office yesterday...

Expect another post in the next ten minutes. I'm separating them because the next bit I want to post about is a self-containing topic.

Stinky Rag Ball 101

2008-07-03T18:54:00.002-05:00

So, you have acquired a large box of rag balls. That kind of smell like an old woman's dirty clothes hamper that's been forgotten in the basement for two years. But they still look cool. What do you do?

Step One: Unwind the rag balls.

Step Two: Begin cutting the rag balls apart, collecting the individual strips in a basket...

...and the connecting bits in a cigar box, since you're too lazy to pick apart all the stitching holding the balls together...

...and come up with some ideas for what to DO with the connecting bits...

Step Three: Admire the giant pile of fabric strips. Do not admire the smell.

Step Four: Handwash thoroughly with Woolite in a bucket in the middle of the kitchen. Ignore odd looks from the husband.

Step Five: Hang up the wet strips to dry, making a really cool-looking flag banner that spans the dining room. Make it difficult for your husband to get to the washer and dryer. Laugh when he almost decapitates himself by walking into the line strung all over the room.

Step Six: Iron out all of the dried strips of fabric. Admire. Let them sit on your ironing board for several weeks until you know what to do with them.

Regeneration #135489321

2008-06-25T00:12:00.004-05:00

So, it's been a much longer break from creating and sharing and journaling than originally anticipated, due mostly to a pretty damn hectic schedule with my summer semester, much more draining than I ever thought. If I've had time for any posting, it's been a quick Twitter update and that's it.

The break probably would have been longer, but dear Jude has inadvertently caused me to come out of hiding. She spoke such lovely words on recycling and renewal, that it made me think of my Diet quilt and how it represents such a renewal, in many senses. It uses such beautiful scraps, giving them new life, and it is also a symbol of renewal all by itself. Even though my diligence in working on it is equal to my diligence in my diet, and that is not very diligent indeed, I can still say it's a tangible force in my search for a new body and a new life. Every time I look at it, the small quilt is a reminder of what I want and how I can achieve it.

I found little moments to continue working on the piece while waiting for my homework to print, and just those few stolen minutes helped me find unexpected inspiration and direction. I have more specific ideas about how this piece will reflect my current journey. I see a vision of sixteen eyes, each one seeing something different and new. I see the possibility of teeth and noses and lips and limbs and torsos and possibly a corset or two. (Because if I'm reflecting how I want to look, why not reflect what I want to wear?)

I'm thinking right now of how a feeling of stagnation followed by a renewal of goals and desires is an ongoing up-and-down motion in my life, and I wonder how many other artists experience this as well. Certainly all people who give themselves over to their own inner muse and seek to create meaningful and worthwhile things must continually go through an ebb and flow of this kind. One cannot always be carried away by the creative spirit, forever taken away from conventional thinking. Regular and important (grownup) stuff would never get done. Though I can partially blame this recent recycling of intent on Jude, I worry that I may sound repetitive with constant rejoicing of a coming flood of creation and the following melancholy when the energy's all spent until the next wave hits. But perhaps the sense of the words refreshing and renewal cannot be felt unless there is something old to renew and refresh in the first place, and new inevitably becomes old, which must then be renewed again.

I think I've just fallen into a philosophical catch-22. Perhaps I should give up making sense of it and go to bed.

I've made up my goodie bags and sent them off. I have pictures in my head and a regenerated sense of what I want. I am the next Doctor Who. I have also just realized that there are only twelve eyes on that doodle. I guess the other four are hidden.

A little surprise

2008-06-06T22:23:00.003-05:00

I find myself being bored. And surrounded by an excess of stuff as I sort through my spare room.

Anyone care for an awesomely awesome little care package of collage goodies, free of charge?

All I ask is you show me whatever you make from what I send you. And if you're interested in an ATC swap in the process, so be it.

(Judi, if you're the only one that responds, you'll be stuck with another project!)

Winners and items will be chosen by Bunny and Babydoll.

Late in coming

2008-06-02T02:46:00.003-05:00

For lack of photos, I've included some recent doodles of ideas, sketched so quickly that I haven't even had a chance to get them into my notebook.

This has been a few weeks of changing and rearranging. Starting from the back and working to the front... Lando has had his first distemper shot and is now in the hands of his new daddy Les. I already miss him terribly, but he's very happy where he is, with an entire house to run around in.

We got a nice new king sized bedroom set, and the bedroom is now all bed. It is a room meant for one thing, and it makes sure you know it. I'm already enjoying propping up my pillows, grabbing some stitching, and relaxing while watching a movie, cuddled in the vast expanse of comfort. And at night, Dane doesn't gouge me in his sleep with his pointy toenails.

Due to the influx of new furniture, this has led to a complete redesign of the spare room, and has gotten Dane to finally admit that, aside from the computer, the room is essentially mine. I have assimilated it. I am grinning evilly.

As I have been cleaning and rearranging, I have been finding many new ideas hidden, footnotes to bits and pieces of things I forgot I had. It's been very hard to not be able to instantly give life to these ideas among the mess of spring cleaning.

However, I am making progress on my Diet quilt to the point that it feels more tangible than when I started. A solid and real thing is emerging from my scraps. At a loss as to what to do when I forgot the main part of the quilt on a road trip, but still with a box of scraps on my lap, I stitched together some small squares, measured and cut right there in the car. Pieced by hand, it became a mini patchwork to add to the main piece. I have since basted it in the very center of the main body. Scraps for this new addition were kindly donated by dear Mary Anne.

We went to the Dallas area over Memorial weekend and saw my sister and nephews. We all went to Scarborough Faire together, which was awesome as most renaissance festivals are, and I got tons more ideas to add to the already overflowing box in my head. Those will have to wait until next year, however, as they're only relevant to RenFaire season.

Final order of business until next post, which should be in the next day (I'm still preparing pictorial evidence), is that Summer semester starts tomorrow, and I begin the frightening task of Anatomy and Physiology. I have some plans for this semester to keep me from missing out on the time I need to craft. Wish me luck, one and all!

Somewhere between red, green, and bananas

2008-05-17T09:52:00.006-05:00

Need to clean today. We're getting a king sized bed to replace our queen because Dane likes to sleep either in the middle of the bed, or horizontally, and the cats take up whatever room is left.

The piece I'm working on, the Diet Quilt for lack of a better term, is waiting for me to add a soft quilter's flannel backing to it to give it some substance before I start any hand-quilting or surface embellishment. Once I removed the paper from the backs of the squares, I realized just how thin some of the fabrics were. I'm going to incorporate some of the soft wool sweater pieces, and I'll see what interesting little tidbits I can find in the box of scraps that dear Mary has sent me.

I'm also drinking a lot of tea, first because it's on my diet, and second because I'm saving the used tea bags and drying them out. There's a lovely project that teaches how to use the teabag paper in the latest Quilting Arts magazine (which also has an article in it by the lovely Denise Aumick, whose blog, Wild Thread Studio Art Quilts, is listed to the side.)

It seems whenever I have free time to work on a project, I feel almost paralyzed and can't actually start. And then when I'm trying to sleep or I'm in the middle of something else, ideas hit me hard and I long to run to the spare room and either get started right away, or find my journal and sketch out the idea. Invariably, I always seem to be away from my journal at these times, so perhaps I should strap that thing to my head. It can be a very stylish hat.

I did get Teesha Moore's Journal Book Set (found here) and it has such lovely full-color representations of some of her very beautiful journal pages. I expect to get lots of inspiration from them, and possibly come up with some techniques as well to achieve similar ends. I feel that one very effective way to learn is to study, emulate, and create a version of beautiful work to get a handle on techniques and styles. By no means am I condoning stealing another person's work or infringing on any type of idea-ganking. However, I do feel that you need someone to be a role model before you can be one yourself.

Here is Lando being silly.

Untitled from Cindibee on Vimeo.

What is today?

2008-05-15T08:36:00.003-05:00

So, I hope I didn't alienate anyone in my last post. I think I wanted to share a little of my relationship with my mom for those people who didn't grow up with great parents. Kind of my little way of saying "Hey, I know how you feel. But fear not, for I turned out okay, and there's no reason you can't as well."

I almost have my spare room cleaned and reorganized. I restarted on the diet, but I'll probably put aside my diet-accompanying project so I can make a few ATCs that I owe. We'll see how the rest of the day goes.

In which I talk about family

2008-05-12T05:14:00.005-05:00

Happy Mother's Day?

I guess it's technically not Mother's Day anymore, but we didn't get back from New Braunfels until close to midnight. Most of the weekend was spent either driving or sleeping. We drove up yesterday for Andrew's birthday. My little bro-in-law is sixteen.

I like having a little brother. I was the younger sibling in my family, and my older sister and cousin did unspeakable things to me, like stuffing me in a cardboard box, taping me in, and rolling me around the house. Or tickling me until I peed my pants. Or stuffing ice cubes down the back of my footie pajamas. Now that Andrew's around, I get to treat him like the younger sibling. Dane and I like to declare Beat Up Andrew Days and then punch him. (Not hard...)

Jackie, my mom-in-law, had to work all weekend, so we didn't really get to do anything special for the holiday.

As for my mother... I don't know what I can say about her. She's kind of crazy, and not in a cool eccentric way. More like a.... paranoid annoying way. It's very hard for me on Mother's Day because I find myself torn between convincing myself to find a way to love her, and convincing myself it's okay not to call and say hi. Talking to her for any extended period of time has the effect of very mild electroshock therapy. I come out of it slightly crazier myself and with a splitting headache. And possibly my hair might stand on end and attract balloons.

In our most recent conversation, she told me about the many minor earthquakes they're experiencing in her city, and I didn't believe her until I saw it reported on CNN. She's told me on other occasions of impending natural disasters that never happened. Such phone calls usually begin with her declaring that I better have my food storage ready or else I'll starve to death from lack of granola bars.

I know she had a difficult time raising my sister and me since our father died, but she still really messed up. Every parent dreads the possibility of their child spending years in therapy blaming their upbringing. I get to be the child that actually does that. I've found myself wishing my sister could have somehow been my mom. I've gotten more real-world advice from her than I ever could have pieced together from the scattered bits of conversation with my mother.

Perhaps I'll send my mother a belated card.

To the trenches

2008-05-09T01:36:00.005-05:00

My cold is still with me. I'm waging a bitter war against the bacterial invaders that dare to steal time away from my precious three week vacation before the dreaded summer semester. For now, I feel as if the adversary and I are at a standstill. We shall see who falls first before the weapons of the enemy in this trench-like warfare. Germany will soon surrender if I have anything to say about it...

Tanya found a poor little kitty near a dumpster at her work. It was raining and he was brought into her store by a crack addict. (Downtown Bryan yields many treasures.) I brought him home, cleaned off the fleas that were feasting on him, and then Tanya and I presented him to her brother Les, who instantly fell in love and named him Lando. He is now residing in my bathroom, since the poor guy is still only 4 weeks old and needs to get some weight on him. But he already knows who his daddy is, and loves to cuddle on Les's shoulder whenever he sees him.

As for my newest project, I've started making... well, something. I'm hand-stitching some squares of fabric together using the English paper piecing method. Once I get something of the approximate size I want, I'll probably fiddle around with different scraps and stitching and make a sort-of arty quilty wall piece. I started this with the intention of giving myself something to do while I'm on my diet. Busy hands don't creep towards the chocolate.

But as I have been sick these last few days, I've held off on the diet and am getting some real meals, at least for the time being. I've been told that if I stay on the shakes while sick, I could go into heart failure, and a sick heart at 24 doesn't sound too appealing.

In any case, I've been diligently working on my stitching and plan to add some nice embellishments, like perhaps some of the wool scraps I just bought from a lovely seller called little borrowers on Etsy.

This weekend is my brother-in-law's 16th birthday, as well as Mother's Day, so we'll be down in New Braunfels. That's just fine with me. They have some lovely antique shops, and I will so be browsing them and finding many new and fascinating ways to spend my husband's money.

I thought I could take a breath...

2008-05-07T03:09:00.002-05:00

Finished my finals today, and I did pretty well. I'm predicting middle A's, if not very high B's in all classes. But then I came home and took a nap, and as soon as I woke up, I felt like utter shite.

I am now sick with what I'm calling a hyper-cold. Because it came on suddenly, progressed from sore throat to drippy nose to all of the above, and I am now so extremely tired, despite napping nearly the entire day, that I'm in a sort of sluggish daze. Pretty much how every cold works, I suppose.

However, I did manage to start on a new project today (before the great bacterial revolt) and will be posting about it very soon. Not now though, as I'm about to fall over. And I just sneezed all over the keyboard.

Still mostly incommunicado

2008-04-30T16:39:00.002-05:00

Finals haven't even started and I'm studying my butt off. Or rather, I'd like to think I am. But I needed a bit of a break, so I thought I'd discuss the State of Things.

I've started on a weight-loss shake called NutriMed 420. It's doctor prescribed, and my progress will be closely followed by medical staff to make sure I'm not dying or my body isn't eating into important tissue rather than ass-fat. I officially began yesterday, and already hamburgers are taunting my brain with their delicious existence.

I'm not allowed any food for at least the first six weeks, which may possibly turn into two months as the amount of weight I need to lose is close to 100 pounds. I seem to be incredibly dense and my thighs have managed to store the weight of a small annoying child.

Since this is the first week, I'm calling it Hell Week because of the intense experience I'll be having while my body switches into fat-eating mode. Dizziness, intense fatigue and body weakness, headaches, and irritability are on the agenda and this also happens to be the week right before finals (which are next Monday and Tuesday) so I'll be feeling all of the above anyways, but now for more than one reason.

My spare room also happens to be completely filthy, so there's no crafting on the horizon until I get my butt in gear and clean, which will be nearly impossible for a while. Because I'm so weak, I long to work on something small and quiet, like perhaps sewing up some of the beautiful scraps I got from Jude (below) but with stuff strewn everywhere, it's a bit hard... My mind gets as scattered as the stuff on the floor when I don't have a clean house.

I suppose I should stop whining. My final class of the semester is in 30 minutes and I need to run. Perhaps when I get back, I shall do a bit of studying, get started on cleaning my horrible spare room, and try to (for once) sit down and think with a bit of something crafty in my hands.

I believe this makes one of the best presents I've ever received.

Incommunicado

2008-04-22T18:15:00.001-05:00

Finals

Almost back on track

2008-04-16T12:32:00.006-05:00

Two doctor appointments this week, and two great bits of news.

I had my 3 month follow-up colposcopy after my scary pre-cervical-cancer ordeal, and I was told I have a "million dollar vagina". Please tell me someone else finds this as hilarious as Tanya and I do. We spent all morning quoting it, telling her mom, my husband, and each other about the great worth of my lady bits.

I also saw my family doc, and I do believe I shall be getting my energy back sometime very soon. I seem to have a messed up thyroid level. I suspected it when I started steadily gaining weight even though my eating habits hadn't changed and I had in fact been getting more exercise from trudging all over campus. I've also been sleeping twelve, even fourteen hours a night, and have been utterly exhausted during the day. Doctor finally took one look at the weight gain and the tiredness, and heard I was taking A&P this summer, and said "Let's check you and get you on some drugs!"

Anyways, I start on said drugs today. And this is the second-to-last week of school. I'm so relieved I'll be able to get a breather, and will actually be able to recover from the tiredness, as opposed to just staving it off for another few days.

It's such a relieving feeling to know that the reason I've been struggling is something that wasn't my fault. I've had such a self-defeating thought that the real reason I've been exhausted is because I've been pushing myself too hard just to keep up with the "average" student. I was worried I didn't have the ability to learn, which I know is a ridiculous thought.

But to hear that my body is just sabotaging itself with no input from my conscious mind, I'm just so glad. I heard about the high thyroid today, and Tanya and I cheered and high-fived. It was a moment of "Yay! An answer! A relieving change! And an explanation." I feel so much more confident too, now that I know I haven't just been incredibly lazy. Maybe now I'll have the energy to come home and actually do the laundry, put in a load of dishes, and then just relax in my room and create and experiment with whatever I feel like. I won't feel like a failure.

I really do find it strange that just the loss of a little bit of energy and some added emotional (and physical) weight would seep into every other part of my life, infecting my confidence, my drive, my mental capacity to learn, my desire to be a good wife, student, and friend. It's strange, but at least fixing the origin of the problem will help with everything else.

Listen to me ramble on... Not much else to do at this point, I suppose, at least not today. I'll be trying to clean up the spare room, get some projects either organized or stored away in preparation of the upcoming surge of creative juices that I know will inevitably come. I'll also sit down and breathe and be thankful.

Macroverse

2008-04-08T04:23:00.005-05:00

I'm feeling remarkably better. I treated myself to a facial today and it was ever so lovely...

Psychology test tomorrow (and yes, I know I really need to be in bed right now...) and I always feel better after tests because I always seem to ace them no matter how much I feel that I'm slacking, and then I can breathe a temporary sigh of relief.

I was slightly miffed over the weekend when I discovered that someone had sabotaged one of my Unknowns. The cover had been taken off my dish and it was contaminated by whatever random bacteria was floating in the air. I had to regrow a plate, but I checked things today and they're coming along fine. I already figured out one of the two organisms. The Gram negative has yet to reveal itself to me.

I also sold some stuff at a garage sale that Tanya's mom was holding, and I made $80, which I hadn't expected. I plan on using the extra money to finally buy some needle-felting materials. I also got a sunburn at that garage sale because my pesky translucent skin is very.... irritable.

Here is a lovely picture of a planet. Or is it... You tell me.

Break from non reality

2008-04-04T02:30:00.006-05:00

I really hate that I'm about to start this off with a huge bunch of text, and no pictures. I feel so guilty, because I haven't worked on anything other than some personal journaling and therefore have nothing to share. This week, as usual, has been like many other weeks over the last month or so. The stress of this semester and the intense pressure I feel (and I most likely put on myself) has led to a rather interesting point. I am beginning to feel true apathy. And I can't sleep. Or I sleep too much. Time to change up the brain drug dosage for the first time in 3 years.

These times are the hardest on me, because I don't like messing with constants in my life. I fear induced change more than natural change over time. That is, at least subconsciously, I'd rather let things stay in their current kindof-okay state, rather than risk bringing about the next personal apocalypse by screwing around.

But yet, I'll be taking two summer semester classes, Anatomy and Physiology I & II, and those are intense classes on a normal basis, let alone adding in the compact schedule of summer, and I hate the feeling I've had every day lately where I walk into my sewing room, stare at all the in-progress projects scattered throughout the room, and then just walk out again. My mind speaks gently, noninvasively, almost timidly about the things I want to accomplish that day, that week, that month, and it's oh so easy to ignore. My fear and anxiety kick in and it's much harder to convince myself to just create for creation's sake.

I suppose the reason why I'm sharing this is because of the Sufferings part of the title of my blog and what it represents. I've always been crafty, creative, good with my hands and able to think of new ideas, but I so often have lacked the self confidence to create without crippling inhibition. I've tried to change that over the last year or more, especially since I met my husband Dane, a kind and wonderful man who makes me feel so much more worthy and beautiful than I ever have on my own, and who supports me absolutely, even if he doesn't understand my need to collect fabric obsessively, sketch out the most random and absurd ideas, or make strange little things like robot paper dolls.

Since Dane has uplifted me so much, I've been on something akin to a personal crusade to alleviate some of the pressure I put on myself and to not only develop my own style of art, but let it form fluidly, and accept what it naturally becomes. Not a small feat for someone with as much anxiety and need for perfection as I have. So that's pretty much the suffering part of my "art" or whatever you want to call this constant nudging urge to create. I've been suffering under my own restrictions, worries, high standards, and I've also been struggling to shake off these feelings, with varying amounts of failure or success. I aspire to be better.

And over the last month, it's been so much harder than ever before because school has been sucking out my soul. It's absolutely worth it, with my test grades accurately reflecting the obsessive amount of time I spend on my schoolwork, but it's also intensely exhausting, and seems to have such a blanketing feeling. It covers everything else with a layer of guilt if I do anything other than live, speak, and breathe college.

So, bear with me please. I'm going to be getting my energy back as soon as I can. Doctors have to be called, dosages have to be fiddled with, but for a much quicker start to fix me up, I think I'll spend this weekend shedding some extra weight and guilt, and taking some extra time to start to reacquaint myself with the person who I have been, and continue to want to be.

Of Unknowns and possible Knowns, and Everything Else

2008-03-26T15:27:00.005-05:00

Stuff's been busy. So very very busy. I saw my sister in Dallas, took a few tests in school and aced them, Dane had his birthday this last weekend, and yesterday Tanya and I did major deep cleaning of the apartment and dyed my hair. I now have black-reddish hair and it looks awesome.

So because I've been completely unable to do anything crafty or fun the last few.... years... I'm going to catch up on some previous projects I should have posted about long ago.

This is a very crappy photo of an absolutely adorable doll that I made from a pattern made by a girl on Craftster.org. This lovely girl decided one day that she wanted a doll of her very own that she could dress up in lots of clothes. So she drew up a very simple-looking but rather impressive pattern and made the first ever Poppet. Then she shared that lovely pattern with all of Craftster and this large doll was born in my spare room. It was around Halloween, so I gave her green pigtails and a dress with ghosts on it. And a pumpkin.

I had every intention of making more dresses for my Poppet, some for different holidays, some just because, but none of that happened, and I think it may be partially because her head flops around quite strangely, despite the pencil in her neck, and it kindof unnerves me. In any case, on to the other thing.

Having fallen in love with Anne Hesse's beaded doll faces, I was ecstatic when Patti Culea's latest book (Creative Cloth Doll Beading) featured a section on how to make such lovely beaded faces. I immediately got to work, even though usually beading has been a rather scary task to think about... all those little things and they're so tiny and I could accidentally smack the container they're in with my clumsiness and then they would be all over my carpet and I'd need to pick up every single one.....

I don't do well with tiny things, but after starting this face, I found myself loving the minute detail, and the ability to fill in any little bare spot with just a few beads and have them fit so very perfectly. I guess this was the best project for someone who's a perfectionist like me.

I'm still working on the myriad of other projects that remain as yet unfinished, and I would so very much love to have a night to myself tonight to work on such things, but alas, I have laundry, and we've started our Unknowns in Microbiology, which means I get to spend many evenings running tests to see what mysterious organism is living in my test tube.

Catch up and breathe

2008-03-17T12:52:00.008-05:00

My goal of finishing is.... well, not finished. This weekend was one of those weekends where you cover your head and hope the ceiling doesn't fall on you because hey, everything else is shitty so it only makes sense that the house will implode all over your face in a shining example of "Eff you! Love, The Universe."

Okay, I'm being dramatic just a tiny bit. But it was still a fairly stressful weekend. Dane went on the beach trip that our group of friends goes on every year. I couldn't go last year because it was scheduled for the very weekend of my wedding shower (which ended up sucking ass anyways because only four people showed up. I was feeling very loved that day).

This year, I was very prepared to go, and at the last minute felt like crap in a flaming bag on someone's porch being stamped emphatically with no concern for staining of the loafers. However, as I understand it, the beach this year was incredibly windy, the zipper on our tent broke, and Dane woke up covered in six inches of sand. They all had to dig out their shoes, and Tanya told me last night that getting sick and not going was the luckiest thing that's ever happened to me. I don't have sand in unexplainable orifices, which is always a plus.

So, here is the finished owl art quilt. Isn't it beautiful?

(Go here for a larger picture.)

I clipped the wings down, since they were a little overpowering when they covered most of the lower body. I used free-motion embroidery to "paint" in the eyes and feet (here's a freaky little picture of demonish owl eyes) and to detail the quilt. There was no batting used in this quilt, just a backing fabric, since I knew the stitching would get rather heavy. I also intended for this piece to be frameable.

Also, below are the scans I promised from the book I made for Tanya's birthday. I very simply decorated several pages of a blank journal with pages from an old Biology book, images of some of Tanya's favorite things, some pictures from Johnny the Homicidal Maniac and Squee since Tanya likes those comics as well, watercolor crayons, stamping, and some other random decorating techniques. A bit of monoprinting, some stitching, a bit of white tulle, and a very lovely drawing of a human skull on the cover, and she got her book and loved it. The idea was that she could get inspiration from, and add to, the altered pages, then do some creative exploration of her own on the other blank pages in the book.

So, after such successful projects, I have little squirrels and hedgehogs running around in my head, and I shall have to immortalize them in fabric as well. But, alas, that is another day, or possibly another century.

I'd love to hear what y'all think. I welcome praise, criticism, insults, and small furry mammals in cages (possibly a guinea pig).

A goal of finishing

2008-03-12T17:58:00.003-05:00

I think I'll set a goal for myself for the rest of Spring Break. I shall finish what I have started, mainly the Escaping Bugs quilt top and the table runner. I shall also post pictures of the owl art quilt from this post as it is not only finished, but in the hands of its new owner, Heather Armstrong of Dooce.com. And remember this post? Where you can see an in-progress picture of yet another project? That book, which was a present for Tanya's birthday, has been successfully scanned. But have I posted it? No...

I am holding out a ruler and my hand. Feel free to take the ruler and slap the hand.

In any case, I was thinking for a while of making a book and calling it The Book of Finishing and writing in it all of the things I need to finish. But then I realized that I'd just be starting another project that wouldn't get finished. So I think I'll just make a List of Finishing and put it in my current art journal, because that's so much easier. And really, despite all of my lofty goals, I can be quite lazy. I didn't even clean the apartment until my mom-in-law was expected to visit.

Motivation

2008-03-09T06:11:00.007-05:00

I am trying desperately to get back to sleep. I was laying in bed and dozed off and had that nap-like sleep that doesn't leave you fulfilled. I woke up when Dane got home from playing with his new birthday present with friends, a war board game called Tide of Iron that I got for him.

So, before I try to fall back to sleep, I was thinking that perhaps it's time I shared why I got involved with the Pink Artists.

My father died when I was 4. He had skin cancer, and though it was safely removed in surgery, a blood clot traveled from the surgery site to his heart and lungs and killed him. I have his very same skin type, pale and easily burned, and have already had one suspicious site removed when I was in high school. (Though, I have a really cool scar on my arm now that looks like I got in a knife fight, which is what Tanya tells me I should say to people when they ask.)

In addition to the fear of skin cancer that leads me to stay indoors and stay as deathly pale and translucent as I am, I have had an even more serious scare that prompted me to make my own square for the Pink Artists.

Around last September, a month or so before my wedding, I received a call that, while I was assured everything was just fine, still scared the living hell out of me. I'd had a Pap smear (the bane of every woman's existence, and a simple test that has resulted in me being physically ill on at least one occasion) after putting it off for a year and a half, and the results were back. ABNORMAL. Possible pre-cancerous cells on my cervix.

Though the nurse assured me everything was fine, and it was safe to wait until after the wedding for the procedure (since, you know, having your cervix cut into doesn't lend itself to a very nice honeymoon), I was still completely blown away. The very same thoughts of "It can't happen to me" and "This isn't real" played in my head as I'm sure they do for every woman who has an abnormal Pap or mammogram and is left in a limbo until things are investigated.

The first procedure, intended to be the only procedure, was going to take a sample of the cells, then freeze them off. This procedure had to be cut short because the PA could not see all of the cells, and didn't want to leave some hidden pocket of potential time bombs (to which I am extremely grateful for her caution and diligence). I was referred out to a gynecologist, since the PA was at my family doctor.

At the gyno, I had two procedures. The first there was the biopsy. I had lots of drugs in my system, I threw up, I felt like crap afterwards, I was leaking all kinds of unimaginable fluids, but it's still one of the best things I did in my life, and I was happy to hand over the ~$1000 check afterwards (having no personal medical insurance and being a self-pay patient, yet another reason to fear the worst).

Results came in that cells were indeed pre-cancerous, and time bomb-ous. If they had been left as they were, I would have most definitely developed cervical cancer at age 24. I was assured that everything would be fine, the next cryotherapy procedure would remove them, I'd have check-ups, etc etc. But even having dodged a bullet still makes you stare at the gun with fear in your eyes.

The cryotherapy went well. I opted for full conscious sedation this time since I was in a lot of pain during the biopsy due to stinging and uncomfortable tugging and vinegar draining and you don't want to know how much else contributing to my screams. About halfway through the cryo, I was reported to have asked "When are we starting?" I remember immense cold deep in my abdomen, but I spent the rest of the time in blissful unawareness, breathing in as deeply as possible from the nitrous.

I think the funniest thing throughout this ordeal was the final follow-up visit. I was taken into an exam room, asked to strip from the waist down, and wait in anticipation of the doctor. When he came in and briefed me that all was well and all pre-cancerous cells were eliminated, he then said "So, next time we'll do an examination to check how you're healing."

"Wait... so I'm sitting here on this table, naked under this sheet from the waist down... for no reason?"

"Did you want me to examine you today?"

"I'd prefer it, just so I feel like I didn't strip for nothing." He chuckled, checked my cervix, said my scarring was looking great, and sent me on my now-worry-free way.

So, I'm safe now, with instructions for a follow-up in six months, but this ordeal prompts me to give some very important advice that some women may need to open up their ears and listen to.

Get regular check-ups. There is no excuse to miss your yearly Pap or your necessary mammograms. If you don't have time, make it. Think of this as life insurance. You will be saving yourself so much possible heartache (and wallet-ache) if you keep getting checked. The one time you let your guard down could be the one time when it counts.

Love to all, and I'm so glad I could share this with you and all Pink Artists who helped in Monica's fantastic project.

Do beginnings and middles lead to eventual ends?

2008-03-07T21:15:00.012-06:00

I started working on my first official art quilt today. This is the one where I sat down with a sketchbook and decided it was going to be completely original, with no input from outside sources. It started from a doodle I did during class, and evolved into a sketch, then a collection of colors, then a bunch of shapes.

I feel rather proud with how it's coming along. I have some great ideas for how I'm going to quilt the lines on the tree and the leaves, and how I'm going to stitch the feathers. This art piece is intended to be a gift.

In addition to this, I started a fabric art book class at Doll Street Dreamers. I'm really excited about this, because I love adding to my arsenal of creative techniques. The first lesson already has some great stuff in it.

Turning wheels

2008-03-05T15:45:00.003-06:00

I was asked what the tattoo on my ankle is, so I took a photo to share. You can see how deathly pale I am; if you pay attention to the lower left corner, you can even see some veins. I believe the term used to describe me is "translucent".

I also had an idea and was wondering who, if anyone, would want to get involved. Would there be any interest in a Scrap Exchange? I have a large amount of scraps that I like to use for various things, but getting some added variety can be a bit difficult. So I was thinking of organizing an exchange of scraps with anyone else out there who wants to share. If enough of y'all show some excitement about the idea, I'll do something official, like a banner and a fancy post and everything.

Looking towards sunset

2008-03-05T00:58:00.008-06:00

I have been quite neglectful in saying pretty much anything of late, to which I heartily apologize. I had/have three tests this week (already finished two) and have been studying my crafty little behind off. (I believe crafty behinds are particularly sparkly in comparison to non-crafty behinds.) Spring Break is next week, so my professors felt it necessary to pack everything into this week because we all know how drunk and irresponsible college students get over Spring Break. If anyone attempted to take a test after vacation, you'd see a lot of permanent liquor-induced amnesia.

So, there was a wonderful project presented over at Monica's journal, Girl Gone Thread Wild. I'm sure quite a few of you have not only heard of it, but participated in it. I was planning to send in more than one square, but the one I made was a lot more time-consuming than I expected. I used a thick green quilting thread to wrap the edges of my square (which can be seen here, precisely 22 contributors down) and it actually took close to a few hours, probably because of my self-inflicted need for near perfection. And because I joined the charity very near the end, I didn't want to risk missing the March 1st due date and so I just sent off my one square.

Besides studying and making a tiny 2x2" square, which you would think wouldn't suck up an entire week and some, I've been attempting to get a normal amount of sleep. I suspected for a time that I was pregnant, due to odd sleeping, odd random bouts of passing nausea, and some very weird dreams where I already birthed the baby and had to figure out how to tell Dane I was pregnant in the first place without his head going 'asplodey. I realize dreams are no definitive indication of condition, but I was just having so many and was seriously considering, when paired with the random nausea, if it was my body's overt way of saying "Hey! Guess what! Your college career is f*cked!" Turns out the nausea was most likely caused by the sleep dep.

Balance with chaos

2008-02-24T03:24:00.003-06:00

Initial color layout of the table runner. Any opinions?

I had some rules to begin with. No repeat patterns together, no repeat colors together, maintain a repetitive order, pair chaotic patterns with calmer patterns. Once I had it laid out specifically to that recipe, then I mixed it up a bit, pairing some like colors, some like patterns, and taking my few blue diamonds and scattering them in a random fashion. (I also needed two of the blues to complete the middle orange chevron row since the set of oranges was lacking in the larger floral print.)

One of the reasons why a project like this can be daunting to me is I have an insane fear that I am horrible at matching colors. Like, when I was in elementary school, if it wasn't an easy two-color combo like red/green or black/white, I would hesitate to dress in anything polychromatic because I was afraid of being laughed at. (I was always laughed at anyways. I was a bit of a loner in grade school...)

This fear of color followed me into my adult life. I wear a t-shirt with jeans because jeans are the universal matching pants. I rarely put on makeup. And when it comes to the color compositions of my projects, I just about have a heart attack sometimes, even with a pre-matched jelly roll where all the work's been done for me!

I need order and rules to be able to feel confident that I made something work. I followed the directions, so there's no way I screwed it up. And yet, how am I to insert my own signature into something if all I'm doing is following rules, even if they're my own rules?

The whole time I was setting out the pieces of the runner, three words were repeating in my head. Balance with chaos. Balance out the colors with a sense of ordered chaos and it will come out fine. For a perfectionist like me who expects no mistakes from herself being confronted with the real world fact that nothing is perfect, being able to embrace chaos and order and balancing between the two is so relieving.

I think I've finally put words to this thought in my head on how exactly I can approach the concept of color and layout without eating my own hat in frustration. And once I put something into solid words, words that can be written on a page, repeated like a mantra, stored to memory in its exact form, then I do so much better when it comes time to retrieve the information and apply it. Words are like rules. They can not be broken and thus are impervious to imperfection.

Starting something new (again...)

2008-02-23T20:56:00.008-06:00

A week since I've said anything? I would be surprised, but really, I know I've been busy. I love sharing what I'm working on, but sometimes what I'm working on is homework and that's never fun.

So, I took a break from the Bug Bottle Quilt and started working on another project. (I know I do this a lot. It is an unbreakable habit.) I found a cute pattern in American Patchwork and Quilting (my favorite quilting magazine) for a table runner. The pattern is designed for Moda Jelly Rolls, which are rolls of coordinating 2 1/2" strips.

I picked out a cute Jelly Roll from my favorite quilt store and set to work, setting up at the kitchen table. (I have visions of being able to have my own separate table where I can set up my huge cutting mat and leave it there. I will have my very own room and there will be a sign on the door that says "Husbands stay out. Kitties allowed in on good behavior.")

I hope to get this runner done this weekend. It's a fairly simple construction, using diamonds and strips, and I didn't have to complete the hardest part, which is cutting all of those strips. I don't know how far I'll get though, seeing as I need to study as well and I have a few assignments due at the beginning of next week.

I've started organizing the fabric from my grandmother, though there's still a huge box of it sitting in the middle of the room. I also got a wonderful present in the mail today from Judi: a set of cute little rubber stamps! One of them is an owl! They're the type you mount on an acrylic block, so I get an excuse to go shopping to pick one up. Thank you Judi, for giving me a reason to shop! That's always the best gift of all. ^.^

Now, kitties sleeping in a row!

Freedom is the ability to fill your sewing room with as much crap as possible

2008-02-16T21:50:00.006-06:00

Lots of news and fun stuff from the last week or so. I'll try to include a little bit of everything. I should break in the new blog layout with a nice long entry, after all.

Last Saturday, we went down to Lake Jackson, an area of Texas near Galveston, for a Ron Paul rally. Tanya came with us and we got to hear Ron speak, which was unbelievably awesome. There were tons of people there supporting him. He had a lot of very insightful and inspiring things to say, and I managed to capture the whole speech on video with my nifty camera. I'll be transcribing the speech if anyone's interested. If you'd like to actually see the speech, I would suggest doing a search online for the Lake Jackson Congressional Rally, as the quality of my video isn't very good. Lots of shoulders and picture-jiggling.

After the rally, we drove down to the beach, which was just 10 miles away, and I got to see the ocean for the first time since age 2. Completely amazing and very beautiful, even with the overcast sky. (And yes, the picture in my header is from that trip. That's me wading in the sand and collecting seashells.)

Tanya was quite freaked by the seagulls flipping out over the food we brought for them. They swarmed into a cloud of beaks and feathers that I have to agree was pretty intimidating.

So, rest of the week. Psych test was Thursday, and I did awesome! So I'm pretty happy about that. Grade came back from the Microbiology test, and that was a total A, and Sociology wasn't too bad either.

I got a whole giant box of fabric in the mail, courtesy of my dead grandmother. There's a lot of really awesome prints, and this photo doesn't nearly show all of the kick ass-ness of this fabric. When my mom got all of the fabric from the estate, she called to ask what types of prints I wanted, to which I replied "Just give me half of anything cotton. I guarantee I will use it at some point in my life." So she sent this giant box stuffed to the gills with tons of old fabric and, oddly enough, she included my violin from when I was in high school. My mother's weird.

I also finished the chameleon foundation block for a quilt I've been working on for some time. It's called Escaping Bugs and it's a Bottle Quilt Co. pattern. (I would link to their webpage, but the site was shut down after the passing of the owner.)

I've been saving up different bug fabrics for a very long time, and I had the majority of them stuffed into a basket with the pattern since before I moved to Texas. They sat in a box or the closet or just hidden somewhere for the last four years, and I was almost convinced I'd left them back in Reno. But I finally started on this quilt a few months ago. (I ended up having enough bug fabric for three quilts, so I sent some pre-cut blocks to my sister and aunt.) Now that my chameleon block is finished, I just have to finish the Sticky-Tongued Frog and then put the top together.

Last bit of news: I bought Dane a Nintendo Wii for Valentine's Day, officially making me the most amazing wife in the world.

And I close this post with a challenge! I want to see some artistic representations of this photo from my beach trip:

Use any medium, make it any size, add any elements, do whatever. I have plans for this picture, and I'd love to see what others can do with it!

Moving Day!

2008-02-16T05:10:00.004-06:00

So then, welcome to the new Creative Sufferings/Aspirations, which is really just all my entries moved to a different server. I decided I just needed more flexibility in my layout options. With this layout, I can make new custom banners whenever I want!

It is very late right now (or very early, whichever way you want to think about it) so I'm going to go straight to bed, but tomorrow, I shall post.... something. I'll make something and then possibly talk about it, as one is accustomed to doing when one writes about one's projects.

Or, I could procrastinate like usual, and spend all day tomorrow watching Law and Order, which ironically enough, was how Dane and I spent most of our honeymoon.

Battlegrounds

2008-02-06T02:17:00.000-06:00

There was a super awesome sale at my very favorite quilt store today. Fat quarters for a dollar! And it was madness, madness I say! I had to chew a woman's arm off to get the fabric I wanted. I walked over small children with no regard for consequence. I pushed people aside, swinging my basket and purse like dangerous weapons, gouging out eyes with my car keys. Blood splattered the floors, family members cried, I laughed with the sheer joy of the battle, bathing in the carnage that is War of the Fat Quarters.

Possibly some of what I just said didn't actually happen. I won't say what.

So, I have my first two tests of the semester this week, Microbiology tomorrow and Sociology the day after, and in true procrastination fashion, I decided that instead of studying, I would arrange my new fat quarters in lovely formations. If I'm not doing that, I'm admiring my new pencil bag that I made all by myself.

I was feeling pretty nasty last week, thanks to a sick husband that whined and moaned for me to take care of him, then passed on whatever he had because after all, I did say in sickness and in health. He's going to wring everything he can out of those vows. So, I cultured whatever was in my throat in Micro, and after growing it on a blood agar plate (made with sheep's blood, which is awesome and makes me feel a little Pagan) it looked pretty nasty. Saw a doctor on Friday, got on antibiotics, and when the prof took a look at the culture yesterday, she said something along the lines of "I'm thinking I'm really glad you got drugs for this because whatever it is, it looks mean. Could be pneumonia."

I was never more happy to throw away that plate. I was afraid it was going to eat me.

So then, what should I do with all my nifty new fabric? The option of stuffing it in my shelves and forgetting about it is always a viable choice (and the most likely), but I thought I'd allow for some enlightenment from the crowd.

Do You Has An Owl Too?

2008-01-24T01:06:00.000-06:00

A few little owls have followed me to school and made themselves known in the strangest places... I'm waiting for one to appear during a Sociology lecture.

I've been rather wrapped up with school stuff, which is really the way it's supposed to be. I'd love to spend all day creating things and cutting up fabric and just making a mess, but sadly, that doesn't get the bills paid in four years when Dane expects to be able to go for his Art and/or History degree. And it's hard to think of artsy things or just write in my art journal when I have to make cultures with my own lip bacteria or look at a slide of a gonococcus smear. (And yes, you guessed right. That is the bacteria responsible for gonorrhea. Isn't microbiology fun?)

But then, I feel fairly certain I'll see more little owls showing up to keep me company while I study. This guy flew in during micro lab tonight.

Whimsical Repose

2008-01-17T02:21:00.000-06:00

Busy last few days. I should be asleep right now since I have class in the morning at 10:35, but I needed to center myself a little, so I took some time to iron the growing stack of new fabric sitting on my ironing board and cut out the pieces for a little cosmetic-sized bag.

What is it about ironing that leads to a state of calm? Is it the repetition? The soft hiss of the steam? The smoothing of the folds that feels like completing a gentle favor to the fabric? It seems terribly domestic and 1950 of me to find such quiet contemplation from a household task, but I like embracing my inner homemaker. (Of course, in many ways, I kind of have to, seeing as Dane doesn't even know how to boil water or brown hamburger meat. If it weren't for me, that man would starve...)

The Supr Top Sekret project I mentioned in this post is finished, so I can post about it. I bought a simple journal, tore out two thirds of the pages, decorated another portion of the pages, then gave it to Tanya for her birthday. The idea is that she'll be inspired by some of my collaging in the book and add her own. Once the book is filled, along with info written in it by her friends and family on "Why Tanya is Awesome", she'll hand it back to me and I will make her a quilt based on her images. The quilt probably won't be done until her next birthday, but at least I'm honest about my procrastination. She thought it sounded pretty cool and vowed to tell her dyslexia to take a hike long enough for her to scribble some thoughts in it herself.

And of course, I failed to get scans of the book, and I'll have to borrow it back from her before I can post some of the pages here. I really am quite a shitty blogger... But then I only have an audience of like, five. Bed now! School tomorrow. Craftiness this weekend and Monday since I have that day off!

Frantically scrambling

2008-01-07T16:17:00.000-06:00

A little preview into my current state of.... stuff.

This next week is going to be extremely busy, as I only just realized that classes start next Monday. I need to finish a few projects, such as Tanya's birthday present (which, yes, I didn't have finished on her birthday last Wednesday...) and I need to finish my sister's cushion. I'm supposed to go up to Fort Worth at some point and give my presents to the nephews and return a bunch of books to Sheri.

I also need to at least look over my textbooks, so I feel a little prepared. But good among all of this is that we got a new printer last night! Which means I can finally print out all of those online patterns I found, and scan in some photos from Tanya's birthday.

I've also discovered that if I truly put my mind to it, I can take, edit, and upload a picture in a very short amount of time (i.e., before Tanya gets here for our 4pm lunch).

2008-01-06T03:07:00.000-06:00

So, it's about time I posted my first doll, made about six months ago. I must admit, I'm really not that happy with how this doll turned out, but I know that this is a learning experience, and already I've learned loads from this first creation. I know a lot of stuff that I DON'T want to do next time.

I like the fabric I used for her lower legs and how well I matched up the stripes, the fabric used for her skirt and the green lace trim, and the beads used for her joints. I don't like the type of joint used for her elbows and knees, and the fabric used for her bodice and overskirt.

I don't like the fabric used for her entire body. It's too washed out and that's why I had to paint her face so she wouldn't look like a vampire, and that's why her face doesn't match her body. I also think her eyes are way too small, and I know the face sculpting is really crappy.

This is probably the only thing I do like about this doll. I came up with a really nifty way to give her Shirley Temple curls. First, I sketched her hairline directly onto the muslin, then stitched down a length of yarn, coiling it around from the center of the back of her head, and covering her scalp up to the sketched hairline. Then, I strategically stitched long lengths of yarn in specific places so the curls would cover most of her head. For the last part, I cut lengths of very thin copper wire, attached to the top of each length of yarn, wound the yarn around the wire, covering it, then securing the end of each one. After that, it was just a matter of curling the bits of yarn-covered wire around a skewer and pulling on the resulting curls for the appropriate length. I feel quite proud of this little method I cooked up, and that's probably one of the few reasons I haven't gotten frustrated and thrown this doll out.

I know, I should learn from mistakes and keep my early work around to remind me of my progress, but I often have a sense, going into a project, that I will naturally excel, since I kind of DO naturally excel in most things. And when I produce something less than what my brain thought it would be, I get rather discouraged and embarrassed.

But then, George Lucas was unhappy with more than half of the original Star Wars.

To visualize the beginning, you must visualize the end

2008-01-02T02:32:00.000-06:00

I'm working on a top-secret project (that may or may not have all, partial, or nothing to do with the above image....). This will not be the highest priority project (i.e. I could be working on this a looooong time because I'm a horrible procrastinator) but I want it to be an ongoing 'thing that sits there in the corner and I have to keep moving it until I get fed up enough to work on it' type of thing. Did that make sense? I'll be starting this Oh So Mysterious project probably sometime really soon, depending on outside factors. Boy, I really am keeping this vague, aren't I.... Well, it's a present for a friend's birthday which is tomorrow, and once she knows about it, then I'll post about it here.

In the meantime... here are some New Year's Resolutions for 2008.

This year, I will greatly reduce the amount of extra project-less fabric purchases, as I should be acquiring a large amount of my dead grandmother's stash.

This year I will attempt to try and use my current fabric stash instead of just looking at it.

This year, I will be more diligent about working on projects daily and keeping progress going on such projects, so as to prevent my Ongoing Projects box from overflowing, and maybe even reducing the contents of said box.

This year, I will keep my work area more organized, or I will at the very least keep things off the floor. And I will vacuum cat hair off the rug more frequently, because three cats, two of which are longhaired, leave a lot of linty residue. (Never wanted to know that about me, did you?)

This year I will count my art, and the progression of, a major priority, topped only by friends and family, school, and my husband. This should make me feel more guilty about procrastinating (in an ideal world).

I have a lot of unrelated resolutions, but they're a bit more boring, things like "I will do the dishes instead of whining to Dane that he needs to do them", so I'll leave them out.

The unexpected gifts of Christmas

2007-12-28T16:08:00.000-06:00

The holidays were enjoyable and fruitful. Dane and I went to New Braunfels to spend Christmas with his mom and brother. We were both spoiled with awesome gifts, including a crock pot for me and a Nintendo DS for Dane.

The best part was the day after, when mom-in-law Jackie and I went to Wimberley, a cute little town that's 30 minutes from New Braunfels. We looked around in their cute little shops, and I found not one, but two old handmade quilts for VERY reasonable prices. They only needed some minor repairs, which I feel comfortable doing myself. The first quilt was $60 and is made from feedsacks. The second, a $30 solid colored quilt, is completely hand pieced.

I'm still learning the best settings for my camera, so some of these pictures came out a bit yellowed and unclear.

Wonderful feedsack prints, and a very soft backing. The only problems with this quilt are the split seams on some of the blocks, and a burn mark that goes completely through all layers and will need to not only be patched with a swatch of batting, but the pinwheel block will have to be recreated with a reproduction print.

The feedsack quilt spread out on our bed. The very dark spot in the center of the quilt is where the hole is.

Closeup of the hole. It shouldn't be too difficult to repair. I found a nice off-white quilter's flannel to use for the back and preserve the softness.

The solid colored quilt. The front is rather nice in a geometric way, but what really sold me is the print used for the back.

What a cute print! And this is the only picture where I got my flash settings correct, which is why it's so nice and bright.

This is the only spot of damage on this quilt. The hole isn't even the size of a silver dollar, but it knocked down the price dramatically. The antique shop owner said she was about to cut up this quilt to make pillows! Blasphemy!!!

So, I have my work cut out for me. I looked at some tips online for repairing old quilts, and I'll be documenting the origin of these quilts, what issues there were, and what was repaired, to help preserve as much as possible about their history.

Now I have little foam bits all over my rug...

2007-12-17T14:34:00.002-06:00

I finished my journal cover a few days ago and I must say I'm really quite happy with it. I did a simple whip stitch along the border in the same brown thread that was used for the handquilting.

So, the other thing I started working on is a seat cushion for my sister. She bought this chair that, I swear, looks like a medieval toilet. It even has a compartment in the seat where she stores photos. I'll try to get a photo of it soon, since I find this chair hilarious (and a ridiculously expensive impulse buy). I have the cushion mostly finished aside from a few extra details. But now I don't know what I'm going to do with the extra pieces. Anyone have any ideas?

Guinea piggin', can you dig it?

2007-12-13T14:43:00.000-06:00

I decided that white quilting thread on the journal cover wasn't showing up the way I like. The prints on the front are just too busy. So, I picked out the stitching I'd done and redid it all in brown thread. I don't have any quilting thread in that color, so I used regular all-purpose thread. (And I've discovered that Thread Heaven is one of the best products on the market!) Here's how it looks:

And on the front:

In other news, I picked up my books for the Spring semester yesterday. $300 later, and I'm lugging home a textbook and a study guide for each of my three classes. I spent last night flipping through my Microbiology book and looking at the different bacteria. Rather interesting, and some beautiful ideas for art. Those false-color scanning electron microscopes can produce some pretty awesome images.

2007-12-12T04:12:00.000-06:00

I'm giving this post a procrastination tag since I said I would post several days ago and didn't.

So, this is my Christmas present. A new sewing machine! My old one was a good machine, for what it was. My grandmother bought me a Brother XL-6562 as a high school graduation gift, and it's been a pretty good starter machine. But I've finally reached the point where I needed one with more capabilities. I originally fell in love with the Janome Memory Craft 4800QC, but seeing as it's an $800 machine, I could easily tell myself I didn't need nearly that many fancy features.

After shopping around a bit more and looking wistfully at some great machines that were several hundred dollars over budget, I found the Singer Quantum 9910. It has basic features, and a few little snazzy tricks that I like, such as the Needle Up/Down button, a computerized display, Drop Feed capabilities for free-motion embroidery, and it's very quiet. The old machine had to be repaired for something a few years ago and forever afterward, it made a loud banging-type sound when I sewed with it.

With my new machine I started making a little journal cover for my art journal (or one of my art journals, since I have about five...) I'm using a variety of vintage-y prints, some that I acquired from the quilt shop in town, some that came from my stash (which means I don't know where I got it...) The little bit in the corner that's green with white letters came from the Quilt Haus in New Braunfels.

The backing I'm using is a cute red fabric that I found at IKEA when picking up my table a few weeks ago. I'm handquilting around the edges of the hippos and should be finished with it pretty soon. I've been working on the stitching while watching Season 2 of Bones.

I think my next project after this will be to finally get prints of our wedding photos and get them framed. It's hard picking from over 300 pics! When eliminating all but my favorites, I still have about 80 and that may be a few too many to print...

Changes

2007-12-07T05:33:00.000-06:00

When I started this blog, I was worried I'd start to feel tied down to it, like an obligation I didn't want to bother with, but I'm already getting the bug. I hope to stick around for a while! I imagine entries will be a bit more spaced out as I start school in January.

This journal will be intended mostly just for chronicling my growing skills in the art field, as it will be useful for me in the future to refer back and see my progress. For all of you new visitors, don't let the initial lack of content scare you away, or the mediums in which I'm working in. I work in so many different mediums, and in so many different areas, that once I get a build-up of posts, I can't see a reason for anyone to not be interested.

Here's a list of just some of the areas I'm working in: art doll-making, textile arts, art journaling, quilting, art-quilting, collaging, toys, bookmaking, felting (if I can ever get my hands on some wool roving...), photography....

So, blah blah yada yada. I'm going to bed and tomorrow I'll post about my new Christmas present.