The Sun is Shining Brightly!

<a href=”http://www.thumbtack.com/oh/columbus/custom-embroidery/art-quilts-day-of-the-dead-living-memory-quilts”>Art Quilts, Day Of The Dead &amp; Living Memory Quilts</a>

It is amazing how a few degrees warmer and a lot of bright sunshine and blue skies can make you hopeful that spring really IS just around the corner.  It is 37 degrees (so far) today, and warm enough that I have my heavy front door open, with glass storm door.  Lucky dog is very happy about that…he’s got a sunspot to lie in.

Last night I spent a little time doing some sketches of future works. Sadly, Im still not very inspired. Back in January I was thinking of  making a pact with myself to do one small (very small) quilt per month for 2014. Some people do one a WEEK! geesh! I think I need a little more recovery time from this surgery…Im still feeling a bit foggy, and both shoulders still hurt. (They TAPED me to the surgery table by my shoulders!)

I don’t know if any of you use or look at Thumbtack.com….there’s a link at the beginning of this post that I use for my stuff.

I will try to get some photos on the next blog. Have a great week and I hope you, too, have sunshine (and if you are in California, I wish you RAINY days and wet skies!)

In Memory of Grandpa

I made 4 of these out of clothes from a lady’s deceased Grandpa. They will be presented as Xmas gifts shortly. I re-created shirts and pants, and made 4 pr. of suspenders out of his 2 actual pairs. The log cabin patches are arranged so that an “O” encircles Grandpa’s outfit, although it’s a bit hard to see because the light green in the lower right doesnt show up very well.

Snow and 50 degrees???

What a weird winter, 

What a weird winter we’ve had, and it isnt even winter yet! 6 more days till it is official.

Just 2 wks ago, it was 65 degrees here in Columbus,OH…then a couple days later, I took this photo out the window of the place where I was dogsitting.  Go figure.  We are back to snow again this week, but it is supposed to be 51 on Thursday. I dont get it.  The animals and flowers are so confused…my dog is shedding and there is (no lie!)a bud on my iris plant.

I have finally finished up the 4 custom quilts I was making for a lady who lost her Grandpa. I used Grandpa’s clothes and 2 sets of suspenders, to  create 4 lap quilts. I re-created pants and shirts,and turned the suspenders into 4 pr. I sewed the “button strip” from his shirts onto the fronts of the shirts I re-created.  I was pretty happy with the way they turned out…customer loved them. I hope it will bring back happy memories for all of her family.

I am having my neck fused Jan. 7, so I wont be sewing for awhile  I dont know for how long, and that is rather unsettling. Maybe I will be better at keeping up my blog–surely I can use the computer with a neck brace?

I will add some photos and hope you enjoy them.

Have a very MERRIE HOLIDAY, a Happy Christmas, and whatever you celebrate, may it be with friends and family, and full of fun and warmth.

PAZ,

Susi and Lucky dog

Mid-September Craziness

Well, it is now September.  Time has been flying by while I have been sewing.  I have a show coming up next week…Pearl Market in downtown Columbus (OH) on Friday, September 20, from 10am to 2:30pm.

I have all sorts of goodies for early Xmas shoppers; pretty Xmas aprons, birds, mice, hedgehogs….sets of 3 “nesting” dolls made from fabric, and lots more. I also have Halloween goodies and Day of the Dead items. I am really hoping that it won’t rain–I hate rainy day craft shows.

It looks like the heat wave has finally broken…it’s 10 degrees cooler already, and we are supposed to have autumn weather, beginning this weekend.  The local group I belong to, IMAGIN8GALLERIA will be participating in our first craft show on October 26 at the Franklin Church in New Albany, OH. I will post more on this next month.

I have my name on a few waiting lists for senior housing and hope to move sometime this year.  I don’t look forward to packing up all the art supplies in my studio.

Have a great weekend, and I will attempt to keep this more up-to-date once the craft shows are over.

Susi

In 2 days it will be August! Time for back-to-school thoughts in most communities.  I am already scouting out the school supply sales for all the goodies I like to stock up on for the year.  This year, it includes Elmer’s School Glue…that’s what I use on my batiked fabric.

I really liked making the batiks with glue and paints.  I will have a stash of small pieces to use this winter if I am able to sew.  Oh yeh–bad news for me–my fused neck has developed  a new “bad” disk above the fusion. It is setting up against my spinal cord, so I am going to have to have that removed and fused. I am anticipating a stiffer neck than the one I have now, and I am NOT happy about it.  Worse news…my lower back is disintegrating, and I may end up having Imback surgery on top of neck surgery.  I hope not–Im NOT ready for any of this!  I go see the surgeon Aug.12 to see what options I may have.

I am having an awful time with my computer…I type something, and half the letters in the word jump around and end up either in the middle of the earlier text, or they’ve floated off somewhere that I can’t see.  This is so frustrating! I have no idea what is causing it.

My geek told me it might be me resting my wrists…but Im not doing that. I tried fixing the “pointing” mechanism. That didnt work. So now I think I will have to wait till my geek returns from baseball camp and vaction the middle of August. Oh well.  If you see typos, it might not be all “me” causing them 🙂

HOw do you like this angry July sky photo? We had 19 days in a row of this, earlier in the month.  Now, we are  getting “glorious” September weather…a month early..blue skies and sun and not so hot. I love it.

Have a healthy happy start to August,

Susi and Lucky dog

The End of July

In 2 days it will be August, 

Rainy July

What a strange month this is! Last night the local news said that we had had 19 days straight of rain.  Last year, it was 101 degrees here in July.  I am glad the rain is providing my plants with the water they need–I can barely afford to water them from the faucet this year. 

I do wish it would rain at night and let me be outside during the day. I really need to work on some fabric dyeing, and I do it outside. If it’s full sun, I can only do sunprints and it’s too hot. If it’s a bit cloudy, that is great…however, we have also had a lot of wind, which blows away my fabric, paintbrushes, etc. What’s a girl to do?

In the new local art group that I helped found, we are going to make greeting cards, tags, etc. this month, to sell on our Etsy site.  This fundraiser will begin to load our treasury so that we will be able to do more in the future.  I got a book from the library called “50 Nifty Beaded Cards” by CHris Rankin, that you might enjoy perusing.  It has a lot of neat ideas for cards including stamped cards, collages, and embossing.  You don’t have to actually use beads to make them attractive, but the beaded cards are unique and would be so neat to receive!

Enjoy the coming weekend and cross your fingers for my fabric dyeing!

Susi, and Lucky Dog, who hides under a chair in the shade when I am dyeing.

GOOD SUMMER READS………….

Ive been checking out lots of arts and crafts books from the library this summer.  Here are a couple that I really liked, and would like to recommend to you!

Creative Mixed Media by Sherrill Kahn

This book has all kinds of new things to try with paint, print, stitch, stamp and embellishment.

There are 16 creative techniques to try with paper and fabric. There is a gallery of work for each technique to give you ideas of what others have done. The book teaches you to ask “what if?”–she even uses cosmetic pads…you know, those little round cottony things?  I think if you like to experiment with techniques, you will enjoy this book.

 

Creative Embellishments for Paper, Jewelry, Fabric and More by Sherrill Kahn is another one of her books that I got from the library.This book complements the first one listed, with other techniques. THis was the first, published in 2007, and the above book was published in 2010.

THis book includes things you can do with plastic, clay, paper and fabric to use on quilts, garments, journals, etc. There are over 150 photos to look over. Often, I will just take a craft book home to peruse the photos..and if there is something I don’t know about or how to do, I will read the instructions. (Did you know that the Columbus Metropolitan Library system allows you to take out FIFTY books at a time?!) Yes, I do it all the time.

This third book is one you might consider looking at before our next meeting on July 26th. It is called “50 NIfty Beaded Cards” by Chris Rankin.  You dont have to be interested in putting beads on cards, to get card ideas from this book.  It has a lot of neat photos, lists of materials and tools for each card pictured, and good, easy-to-understand instructions. Even if you don’t make any of these cards (and I’d suggest that you make your OWN original ones), the book will start your creative juices flowing and you’ll come up with nice ideas for our next meeting!

North on the Fourth 2013

I attended North High School in Columbus,Ohio 1963-1966, and every July Fourth, the school is opened to all grads from all classes, for “NORTH ON THE FOURTH”. The school was founded at another location, but the school I attended was on Arcadia Avenue, built in 1924 on the grounds of an old sewer pipe factory. (Funny we didn’t get named “the sewer rats” 🙂

This year’s open house included a ceremony that honored one of my classmates, Don Voss, who has been cleaning up the rivers around Ft.Pierce, FL for years. We were all seranaded by the alumni choir and the Clintonville Community Band accompanied the National Anthem.

I had so much fun in the memorabilia room, looking at the yearbook photos of my Aunt Dorita(1922), Uncle Gilbert(1926), my Dad(1928) and myself(1966). It was quite a credit to my grandmother that all 3 of her kids graduated with honors from both high school and college at The Ohio State University. Grandma came to Columbus as a little farm girl, to study education at OSU and fell in love with “the handsome Spaniard”. My Grandfather was from Pinar del Rio, Cuba…his father having been sent from Spain to be a minister of that area of Cuba when Spain “owned” the country. My Grandma had 2 young children and was pregnant with my dad, in Cuba, when my Grandfather was suddenly killed. She came back to Ohio after the birth of my dad, and raised these 3 kids to grow up and attend North High School.

The school was closed in 1979, but was occasionally used as an adult ed center, among other things.  2 years ago, it was reopened as an international school, and this year at NOrth on the Fourth, it was announced by the new principal that it would from now on be called “Columbus North International High School.”  He was so impressed with our alumni assn.’ that he wanted the “Columbus NOrth” to remain as part of its name and heritage.

I spent about an hour walking through the school, and visited my old homeroom, backstage, the art room and the gym. Brought back a lot of memories!

Art Class, Columbus North High School

The room I spent 2 periods a day in during my high school years. If you were chosen to be an “art major”, you could take art first and second period, daily. I have very fond memories of this place.