Update

Either there is no one out there reading this, or y'all just didn't answer my plea for help on that hand-dye. Fine. Be that way! ;)

DH Kevin just made up a little song about QA digests...
100 QA digests online, 100 QA digests! Load one down and read it aloud - 105 QA digests on line!

Sigh... how true!

Anyway - just got "off the shelf fabric painting" by Sue Beevers. WOW!!! I can use flour as a resist!?!?!? Gotta try that one!

And, despite your silence on the issue, I think that I just plain need to overdye those fabrics *again* - not much point working on it otherwise, if I am just going to be hating the lack of values the whole time!

Our Solstice festival went wonderfully yesterday afternoon - bunch of new folks showed up too, which was nice, and afterward a bunch of us went down the cliff to the beach and went in up to our thighs in good old Lake Champlain! Yummy!!!! I kept wanting to just dive in, but plastering a sundress to my skin in front of relative strangers wasn't really high on the list. Ah well... it is only 6 blocks away, and the summer is young yet!

I *wanted* to try some sunprints tomorrow - actual solstice day, so I thought it would be cool - but friends are getting married, and I should go, so... Maybe I'll sunprint on Wed - the first FULL day of summer!

It has *finally* stopped raining here, and is absolutely gorgeous! DH is going to mow the lawn today (which usually requires teeth pulling), so you just KNOW it must be nice out!

Just discovered that I need to make myself an official QA tiara for the Vermont Quilt Festival this weekend. I have some tacky silver cow earrings that a friend gave me ages ago, and will never be worn in my ears that I think can make a showing... DH says that I need a Flying Frog since that is my handle, but I don't know that I want to spend that kind of time on my tiara atm. I'm figuring that I'll make one that will suffice for a while, and then upgrade; sort of like my sewing machine!

Anyway, off to work - this is my last week of mornings at home until August, and I want to enjoy it!!!!!

Yo! Help me out here! Yes, YOU!

ok - my title promises you quandries, so here goes - I have two of them for you! Thanks in advance for your advice and suggestions!!!

Quandry #1: I had my husband dry my own hand-dyes in a hot dryer. DUH. So now they are all shrunk up, and I usually do NOT preshrink my stuff. S0 - the other main fabric that I bought for this project was a hand-dye as well - 5 yards of the stuff, and gorgeous. My question? --> Are commercial hand-dyes pre-shrunk????? This is all for a project that WILL get washed LOTS (baby quilts) and I don't want differential weirdness, and I am *already* bummed out that it won't get that lovely puckered look around the stitching from drying that I love so much...

Quandry #2: Did I mention that I overdyed the hand-dyes I made for this project? The shrunken ones? Did I mention that I am STILL not happy with the value of the finished pieces? They are WAY too close in value to the commercial, patterned hand-dye piece, and the other color is white, so it really shows. WAAAH! My question? --> Do I overdye them *again* or what!?!?!? Yes, I am going to be experimenting with paints next, and no, I don't want to do that to these, for several reasons: I want to *get on* with these already, already; and I do NOT want to mess with these fabrics while still in the experimental phase of my painting work. Not that I'm not still in the experimental phase of my dye work too, but I got results that will work, even if not hugely well...

Bonus of the day? I found ANOTHER 40% off coupon for Michaels in the freebie paper yesterday. So... off to get that *other* book on painting fabric for dirt cheap!

Comment: You may have noticed that I said I was pretty broke the other week? Well, folks - Kevin got a job!!! He has lots of apps out, but has one solid offer, so we are off famine rations around here, even though he won't get paid for a month yet. He would like some of the other jobs to come through, since the one he got was his 'backup' job, but hey - money is money, and hopefully *another* job he wants will open up for him in Oct, so he won't be at this one long anyway. Hurray!!!!

Shopping!

I went out with DH for a few quick stops, and he made the mistake of letting me shop. >:)

I got sulky threads, rotary blades, a pillow form for my Hawaiian project with Kimberly, and fabric for new pants for work (trying to get my old pants to fit was like playing the lottery - very slim chance - emphasis on slim! NOT!), all on sale!!!!

Also, got foam brushes on huge sale at Michael's, some fabric paints and a book on putting them to use (50% off with my coupon!), a little summer hat to dye up, stickers for my students (hight school kids love them, even though they think that they are for kids) and some wire for my wierd quilt challenge. Yes, I know I said I wasn't going to buy anything for that challenge, but if I didn't, I would have used much more expensive wire that I *do* have, and that would have just been a waste of money.

On other notes? We've gone back in time here in VT - from 90 degrees last week, to 50s and flooding this week! Also - Batman Begins is BY FAR the best Batman movie to date. I could have done without the snarly lip, but WAY good!!! BTW - I am very happy for Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise, and I hope their love and marriage last until they are both old and gray. It is nice to see folks genuininely, stupidly happy. Especially Hollywood folks - it must get so easy to become jaded.

I made a present for some friends who are getting married this weekend, and I am wondering if the idea is marketable. Simple and sweet, and requiring of specialized knowledge that I possess. >:) So, I'm not going to tell you what it is, since I know how many millions of you read this, and you are NOT all cool, honest QA people who wouldn't steal my idea! Hmph!

Bupkus

I have no idea how to spell that, but that is, alas, what I got done yesterday. No embroidery, no sewing. I guess I *did* overdye the fabric for the girls' quilts, but I forgot that I washed them in between dyes, so now I need to soda ash it after the fact (and I have NO idea how to do that! Dharmatrading to the rescue!)

I also spent hours working on sketches for my weird quilt, and I think that I am setting myself up for disaster. That is the problem with me - if I think about something for too long, it ends up WAY too convoluted to actually make! Honestly - 7 layers of fabric with crisscrossing threads and bead work between them - and concentric squares of said treatment... Oy.

Take 2?

Ok, ok. I finished all the machine work on the purple farm animals quilt, and (Kimberly would be proud) am now hand embroidering the lower case letters next to their appliqued capitals. And I've been doing it in fron of CSI, no less. Maybe Star Trek DS9 and NTG will be so kind as to lend themselves as my backdrop today?

I just overdyed the colors for the girls' quilts today - the colors were perfect, but just not of a deep enough value to make the suckers sing harmony. Now I get to wait and see how these turn out!

BTW - I discovered, completely by accident, that leaving my pieces out IN THE RAIN works great! I had been going for a blurred look, and WOW! I definately got it!

Now I need to go back to boring dye. I'm NOT going to use my good dyes on Maypole ribbons for friends that are getting married this weekend. If RIT was good enough for my Beltain, it's good enough for their wedding! (Plus? They'll never know the difference...)

My DH also needs to get his butt in gear if he thinks we are going camping this weekend. With all this rain and heat and me in the doldrums, I would be perfectly happy to go to the SCA event for the day on Saturday, and leave it at that. He wants camping? He gets to get everything together for it, including garb and food for ME for three days! Humph!

Opposites connect?

I just spent the evening with my new QA buddy, Kimberly, browsing quilting books at Barns and Snowballs and nattering. We have interests in common (architecture - her profession, my former major, for example) but are VERY different people. I think that will make our budding friendship more challenging - in a good way. We made a deal that she will help me to actually get stuff done and in general be more goal oriented with my work, and I am going to help her play more and try new things. I think it should be a winning combination! She also does all hand quilting, so hopefully she can help me figure it out at long last. We are planning a dyeing day for some July weekend, but, in the meantime, we are both going to start coming up with the applique pattern for Hawaiian work; something both of us have looked at but never tried before. Nice middle ground, with stretches for both of us!

I saw a flat palm-held thimble in one of the books that looks like it might be a heck of a lot easier on my fingers - any ideas on where I can get one?

BTW - I heard all of you kibitzing at me to 'show up at the page,' bored or not, so I did, at the fabric at least, and proceeded to sew right through my thumb for the first time. I changed needles and finished the motif after DH judiciously applied bandaids in a log cabin pattern to my digit, but then called it a day and went back to my book. I think I'll get the last bit of machine quilting done tomorrow, and then, lo and behold, I think I am going to use sashiko for some decorative work (Kimberly is already rubbing off on me!) and then it will be done! I'll post a shot of it in completed form, but not until then!

I did some beadwork on postcards yesterday, and had the kooky (or not so much, if I am reinventing the wheel here,) idea to make one of those fabric bowls out of the postcards I have received. I can add little triangles in the corners and make myself some baskets for the studio that will show off your fine work in a useful and visible way (and I can even look inside for the signatures when you are all famous!)

Now though? Bedtime and booktime, but I promise to show up at the fabric again in the morning. Ok? Sheesh!

Now what!?!?

Hm. The heat and humidity continue, and I have two weeks left before I start teaching HS biology for six weeks, and will basically get no studio time in!

So? So I'm in a creative slump! I have all sorts of dyed fabric around, pseudo-matched traditional quilts to design for my friend's twins out of some of said hand-dye, and several other projects in various phases, as my regular readers will know. And I'm bored with them all...

At least I have a good book and an air conditioner. And a sketchbook to doodle in...

Brick Wall

While I really enjoyed my day yesterday, and got home WAY too late, my dear departing friend slammed me hard - she painted some henna on my upper sternum (it peeks out of my sundress!), and then did some tarot for me, and WHAM - told me that trying to get pregnant is hurting my body and soul, and I should quit it, and mother my art, my students, and the children of the world instead. She was vehement, and almost angry about it.

I read tarot too, and I work very hard to present my interpretations as possibilities up for consideration, not dictates from anyone or anything. She said that she has wanted to give me this message for a long time, but wouldn't have had the guts if the cards hadn't pushed her to do so. I know that she spoke/read out of love for me, and out of a sincere desire to help me to be happy and fulfilled. She spent half of her time telling me that she knew that I wouldn't heed a darned thing she was saying, and she was right. I'm glad that she could speak to me of her truth, but her's is not mine.

One outgrowth of this though, is that I had never really considered living childfree; I had always assumed that I would adopt or foster or *something* to create our family. I keep seeing that so many of our best and most prolific artists live this way (and that many have kids too), and think about how much time and energy I have for my work now.

I use the cards as pictures on cardboard that let me look at a situation from different angles. When I do a reading for another, I am just the linguist - I suggest possible meanings for a given set of symbols, and ask if those 'resonate' with the person's understanding of their path. I don't ask if they 'understand me' but more 'does this clarify your understanding of yourself?' When a reading is done, if the person asks me for advice, I try to share of myself and my experience with the person, but, unless the person is a darned good friend, I don't presume to tell them what I think they should do, and then only if we have that kind of friendship, which Sherry and I do.

She said that the reading that I did for her (how we met many years ago) was full of hard truths, and that this reading she did for me brought it all full circle; that she and I are opposite sides of the same coin in many ways. That said, I understand that part of her, no matter how much she loves her kids, is bitter over how much of her life they have dominated. Her feelings are valid, if painful, but don't acknowledge how much one can long for a child, and the bitter nature of empty arms, even in a full studio...

Learning opportunities

Narf. I have to go today to bid farewell to a *very* dear friend who is moving to Florida. I haven't seen her in a year, for many reasons. Now I have to go say goodbye to both her and her son. Sherry is an amazing woman - tattoo and henna artist, and tarot interpreter - and shares so generously of what she has learned on her journey. Her son, Elias, is about 12, and tuned in like you wouldn't believe. They are such miraculous beings, and I am going to miss them like crazy! I know they will only be a phone call away, but missing seeing Elias grow into the wonderful man he is destined to become? No fair! DH Kevin says it will be a good excuse to go to Florida (yea, right), but I know that he would try to combine a visit with a shuttle launch, space geek that he is (this from the woman who was one of ten folks in a decade to get free access to the NASA stacks at the local federal reserve library!)

I also learned that the most important thing about dyeing fabric is the water - when, how, and how much! I like the effects that I am getting, but sometimes I like the effects and then they change on me - I think less water is called for! Hard to do when the water is *so* cool, and the air is *so* hot! All this mugginess isn't helping either - dyes are moving around just from the humidity!

Anyway, the funk is back in full force, and I just want to crawl into a hole and not wake up until I am pregnant. Again. I keep feeling like such an early miscarriage shouldn't be throwing me like this, but, after over two years of trying to get that far, I think it is more of a loss than I am letting myself believe. All I know is that I am putting tons of energy into being functional, I keep apologizing to my husband for my moodiness, and my brain and every book I look at keeps trivializing the depth of the situation. And that this isn't working for me...

Blahsville

VT is a sauna, and I'm feeling a funk lurking, so I did some more dyeing today! I got really nice sunrise and sunset pieces and am trying to think up good ways to use them. Color therapy like this is good, but isn't really getting the job done...

DD3 experiments

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Originally uploaded by Bingham-McLaughlin.

Yes, the orange is deliberate! Sheesh!

These were muslin that I treated and wrung out, but did not unscrunch. I dyed right from the bottle onto the scrunched up balls, and this is what I got!

Did I mention that I need to buy WAY more squeeze bottles?

Anyway, I'm trying to figure out how to get all those cool patterns that I see others getting...

The experimentation will continue, but Flickr says that I have already used 3/4 of my bandwidth for the month, so you might not get many more pictures until July! How do folks get to post so many pictures? I couldn't get hello to work for me at all, but maybe I should check it out again if that would let me post more work...

Ah well - Kevin is out applying for jobs, and then we go to the bookstore! Hurray! Now I just hope that it doesn't rain on my latest creations!

Dye Day #3

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Originally uploaded by Bingham-McLaughlin.

I picked up a shower cutain to lay out on my deck, and it seems to work great!

These were done with left over dye from DD2 - just playing around with different patterns, water treatments and scrunching here...

DH Kevin and results of Dye Day #2

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Originally uploaded by Bingham-McLaughlin.

These were both dyed with blends off of the orange Procion MX - one with a little red, and one with a little yellow!

I also keep mentioning Kevin, so I thought I'd put him in the picture too - he is SO supportive of my work, and is very excited about my new dyeing projects.

Gobsmacked

Ok - I get that Melody is a Goddess. We knew that.

I just picked a random year and looked to see what Michelle Hardy was up to during it. She was in *28* shows and had 4 publications - IN ONE YEAR.

I get that these are professional artists at the top of their careers, and I get that they don't have kids (not sure about Michelle, but that certainly seems to apply to MANY of the professional artists I've been reading about), and I get that they do not (or at least publicly are not identified as having) a disability.

I am NOT a professional artist (yet? yeah, right!); I am starting to think that trying to get pregnant is almost as time consuming as having a baby, and hopefully will be a Mom SOON; and that I DO have disabilities. That said, *28*!?!?!?

If I complete half a dozen challenges (I'm not Melody - they still stretch me), maybe 20 total pieces, and even GO TO three fiber/quilt shows, I will consider this a bumper year, and I might have worked my teaching gig 15 hours a week for about 15 weeks of that, and have been 'free' other than that.

My mind boggles...

Plans for a hot day

90 degrees is the forecast here in N Vermont today. Yipes! SO what to do? Spend the morning washing up from Dye Day #2 and dive into Dye Day #3 with a yard of fabric I pretreated the other day, and some more that I will treat today! Hurray!

I want to play with various direct application methods on dry, redampened, and newly-treated cottons. I figure that I will try the same ideas in series on all three, and see what I get for results. Yup - little old fashioned scientific method in action! The one 'extra' variable (bad scientist!) is that the newly treated bit is going to have to be muslin, as I'm out of the Quilter's cotton. DD1 used muslin, DD2 used QC, and I got comparable results, so I'm not really worried (I was concerned that the heavier fabric would take the dye differently, but not substantially).

Then? Off to Barns and Snowballs with DH for some air-conditioned delving into expensive quilting magazines! Yipee!!! (I start teaching again in 2 weeks, so I am trying to make these last full days into mini-vacations for myself...)

Wow oh wow

Melody is my personal hero. Pam is my Muse, but Melody is my Hero. I may never sew a binding by hand (and take FOREVER to do it) again. The Escape Hatch finish (which must be capitalized, due to it's near-divine status in my heart) is... well, WOW.

I used it on MBD #1 yesterday night, AND did all of the stitch in the ditch work with monofilament on top, cotton behind, and did it ALL in about 90 minutes. (Insert angelic choir "aahhhh" here -> :) :) :)

Now it is ready for decorative machine and handstitching, which I am actually looking forward to, now that I know that hand binding the sucker isn't the following step!

Only problem? The back is a complete DISASTER. Look up Pucker in the dictionary and get a picture of the back of MBD #1! Now I understand why someone said that I should make the back piece just a tad smaller than the top; in order to 'roll' the front fabric to the back so the backing doesn't show on the front, the end result is WAY flappy fabric on the back, and that is BOUND and DETERMINED to become a prototype for a country fair kissing booth - one big pucker after another!

Ah well. Karoda isn't a big fan of the borders on it (neither am I), but I assured her that this is only #1. I am going to leave the borders off of #2 - I promise! I was playing with balancing the luminosity of the pink and purple sort of after-the-fact with those borders and they *don't* really work, but I am trying to give myself permission to screw these up and see where they take me anyway.

BTW - I discovered another really cool thing about my new Husky Star - it isn't constantly trying to trim my bangs! I used to get my forelock (sorry, I know sheep people!) caught in the uppy-downy bit on the top of my machine, and even though I haven't had bangs cut since my last abortive attempt at short hair, you can't tell that from my hair on a humid day - frizz central, and all up front!

This reminds me of something I have been meaning to ask you all - how the heck do you get close enough to your machine to see what the heck you are doing? I keep hearing about folks who have their machines lowered down so they are flush with their tables. Heck with that - I've got mine RAISED on a DICTIONARY (you know - the one with a picture of MBD#1 under 'pucker') so that I can see the darned thing stitch, and even then, I spend most of my time with my head leaning against the top of my machine! My back obviously doesn't love this either, and it is seriously cramping my style as well! Should I get glasses with a different focal length, or what? Suggestions MOST gratefully welcomed!

Your wish is my command - at least if you are Karoda!

Ok folks - I just posted pictures of all the latest work, and it should be up soon (Flickr takes a bit)! I can't figure out how to put several pictures in one post though, so pardon the multipost format. I would LOVE tips on how to do this from anyone else who uses Flickr (I could never get Hello to work AT ALL)...

Anyway, I am off to buy more thread so I can actually finish some of this stuff. I actually ran out of hot pink thread. I'd never used that color before this recent stuff, and now EVERYTHING has hot pink in it! What the heck! It must be the hormones...

closeup of Jesse's quilt - FMQ

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Originally uploaded by Bingham-McLaughlin.

Here's some of my early FMQ - I was feeling confident enough with it by this time to use a contrasting color, and I am happy with the result.

My FMQ is a lot 'looser' looking than most that I have seen, but I like the sort of 'Lazy doodler' quality of it...

Jesse's quilt

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Originally uploaded by Bingham-McLaughlin.

Talk about UFOs. I started this about 2 1/2 years ago for my then housemate as a graduation present. He chose the colors, and was a music major, which made the fabric for the big star a no-brainer. I set the points in on this one (thanks, Ruth McDowell!) with varying success. This was also some of my first FMQ, and you can see a close-up of it below. I was pretty happy with it, overall.

Now it just needs the binding finished - and it has been in this state for the last 2 years! Maybe I'll get it to him in time for his wedding? I think he is planning to propose sometime soon....

BTW - that is Spike (aka Booger) crawling into the frame. He is half of the major reason why I don't actually use any of my quilts... at least his fur coordinates with this piece!!

Swoops and Spikes (in progress, duh)

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Originally uploaded by Bingham-McLaughlin.

Ok - this is coming along, and I'm pretty happy with the development and changes. I'm still working out a fabric to line the lower half-circle, so it is sort of stalled out atm.

However, I just got benched for this cycle (stupid estradiol), but I am not really surprised since it looks like I was retaining still retaining some of last month's pregnancy until at least yesterday. So, I'm out of running for Mommy-to-be for at least 3 weeks, and that gives me time to get back to this piece while in the requisite headspace.

I discovered a new magazine at my Dr's office yesterday (ovaries don't wait for Mondays), called Concieve - it is for folks in fertility treatment, like me! It was really good, but I wonder about their marketing plan. I mean, who is going to take out a year's subscription to a magazine they hope they won't need in just a matter of weeks? No one wants to think that it will be a year before they get pregnant... in reality though, I've been trying for well over 2 years! Ah well... I'm still an optimist, so I won't subscribe, but I *will* read it at the bookstore and Dr's office!

Mending Broken Dishes #1 (in progress)

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Originally uploaded by Bingham-McLaughlin.

Well, I am becoming a devotee of Melody's. It was bound to happen sometime, and here are my early results - this whole piece has not a single bit of piecing! All fused - BRAND new for me (rarely used fusing before two months ago) so I'm pretty happy!

It is FAR from flat, the diagonals aren't straight, and I used too much pink (luminosity balance? What's that!?!?), but I am looking forward to trying the Escape Hatch on it as well (more Melody Magic).

I'm having problems with the bare WU sticking to my sewing machine base (since I still had to zigzag all the exposed edges with monofilament top and bottom), and I'm glad that I didn't put WU on the back of the white piece as well!

I'm still trying to work out how I want to quilt this one, but hopefully I'll get it done this week...

Dye Day #1 results (just for Karoda!)

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Originally uploaded by Bingham-McLaughlin.

See Karoda? I DO take hints! Lol...

Anyway, here they are! I started with a basic orange dye solution (3 teaspoons of undiluted mix into 3 tablespoons of water) for the far left piece, diluted it by half for the next over, then divided it in half and added yellow to one, and fuchia to the other!

The small bits at the back were undiluted dye solutions through several layers of fabric. You can see some of my RIT batik experiments behind the frame.

I am really happy with the results (these were muslin, right off the cheapy bolt, with a soda ash prewash!), and am hoping to do the big, expensive fabric pieces (still not PFD, but here now, and that is important!) today or tomorrow.

postcards to date

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Originally uploaded by Bingham-McLaughlin.

The ones on the left are the ones that I've made (the bottom two are from Mending Broken Dishes's first draft, and still need beading) and the ones down the right side are the ones that YOU LOVELY PEOPLE have sent to me!

As you can see, I have some catching up to do! (I'm going to mail them all out at once so they ALL get done!)

Drying in the sun

My rinsed out dye products, and my ovaries! My dye day went great, and I am very happy with the results, although I am slacking some on getting going on the next (needed) round. I stitched down my fused applique for Mending Broken Dishes, and am procrastinating on pulling out the batting (anyone else often get stalled out at this stage? How do you bust through?).

And I had another ultrasound and bloodowork this AM, and got the call (right after DH left for the afternoon without his cell phone, natch) that my cycle has been cancelled earlier this afternoon. Lots of money down the drain, but it was worth a shot. My estradiol levels are lower than they were on my baseline day, and that is after six days of injections at $90 a day, plus labs and appointments! They figure that it is just too soon after my flash-in-the-pan pregnancy, and, since I only stopped spotting yesterday, I guess I can see their point. Oh well. Trying this cycle got me through the time immediately following my miscarriage, and that was worth it all by itself. The dye day yesterday offically pushed me out of my funk, and now I guess I just have lots of work to do to get ready for my next cycle - in July! (I'm doing important stuff, but it just feels like killing time until I finally get pregnant - for real!)

I don't have a dining room btw, I have a studio. It has 2 6x6 foot windows on the south side, a windowed door and long 3x6 foot window on the East side, a French door opening into the living room (with DH, computer, TV and air conditioner!) on the West side, and a window and door into the kitchen on the north side. It is a hideous grey-lavender, but also has 4 skylights in the cathedral ceiling.

All of that natural light is terrific for my mental health here in northern Vermont, but NOT so good for my fabrics, obviously. I have the sun fading issue beat (closed doors and drawers, duh) but dust is another issue entirely. Also, my eldest cat, Spike (aka Booger) has decided that his favorite puke spot in the entire house is on the floor in front of my design wall. I try not to take it as a critique of my work, but that gets hard when my other cat, Hagar (aka Fu), tries to cover up Spike's puke by pulling my design wall fabric (grey fleece) down to cover it up. Sigh.

Two corners of my studio are a shambles though - I have those plastic storage bins neatly organized on top of a dresser filled with drek that needs to be sorted out/gotten rid of, and an old table in another corner that is just covered with all those oddments that have no homes - picnic basket, music stand, etc. I *always* dawdle on the dragging-out-the-batting phase, and I'm thinking that having a 'sandwiching' table might be just what I need - bolts (like my budget is up to that - HA!) of warm and nartural, timtex, WU, black and white fabrics etc, all in a sun and cat hair proof container that let me open it up and roll off what I need, right onto a cutting table. Yes, I am solidly aware of the fact that I am dreaming. Plus, I saw Freida's plexiglass dying/drying area on Melody's blog, and I am in lust for a space like that for my very own. Maybe if I can't figure out a really good use for the dresser space when the drek is gone, I could replace it with drying racks? Keeping the cat hair off those would be the biggest trick!

The space is excellent, and I could get UV film for the windows to help with the sun issue even more, but I still need to move house; if/when we ever get to have said often aforementioned baby, I can't climb the stairs to the second and third bedrooms. We are going to look for a split level ranch next year (hopefully), and, while I'm not counting on having as much studio space available in the new house (unless we win the lottery between now and then), I AM enjoying the idea of actually having access to my washing machine, since now DH has to do all the laundry - down the steep basement stairs!!!

Enough of my babble. Time to deal with the Batting Beasties. Enjoy!

Dye Day #1!!!!!!

Wahoo! I just cleaned up from my first ever Procion dye day!!!! I tested it all out on el cheapo muslin, but I actually got pretty darned near to the color that I wanted on my first go! Hurray!

I get to rinse these tomorrow and see how they come out, and then - on to the expensive fabric!!!

Bummer though - too many social obligations to make many SCA events this summer. Have to figure out how to make it up to DH... he does SO love climbing into armor and hitting people!

My husband is delusional

I playfully kvetched about Melody being able to whip out 13 quiltlets (5"x7") yesterday, and to have sold one and have sale pending on 2 more out of the 5 she put on her blog 7 hours ago. $50 each. I say good for her, and - wow - it must be nice to have a following! DH Kevin? "Get working!" Like I can get $50 for an oversized postcard? I DO NOT THINK SO!!!

So now Kevin wants to be my "marketing manager." Oy. If I had product, I might take him up on it!

Off to play with dye stuff!!!

ok.. ok...

So I limbed weed trees instead. At least now I feel like I have gotten something *done*, and before it got to hot, too. What can I say? The stores don't open for another hour, and the pruning shears just leapt into my hand! Honest!

a HA!!!

I FOUND it!

I knew that if I read enough of Melody's blog that I would find that she had generously shared her dyeing 'formula' with us plebes, and LO AND BEHOLD - she did! (Fibermania, then to Lazy Dyer, incase I forget!!)

I knew about the squeezy bottles and dish pans, but Gladware? Good to know! I NEED to do some dying for the perfect pink and orange for the quilts for my best friend's twin girls (9 months old already!), but I DO understand the need to "surrender to the dye" (Melody, duh), and that I will get lots of other perfect colors long before I actually get what I set out for!

Now here is the kicker... I want to do it TODAY. I have my little pots of MX dye, in - gack! I forgot to buy fuschia!!!! Sigh. Guess I just have lemon yellow, medium blue, and black. Kind of hard to make either pink or orange out of those! Blast it! Nor do I have PFD fabric. I was planning to try this all out with some muslin first (that 'play with stuff you don't care about' theory that works for both me and my non-existant budget), but now I need to go out to Williston (30 min) to get more dye first, then go to the market and get gladware, and *then* hope that Ben Franks is open by the time I get back (those lazy scrapbookers! Hah!) to get squeezy bottles that I just KNEW I should have gotten last time I was in there? Sigh. I even have soda ash!

Hm. Can I play with the muslin without doing anything to it first (other than the soda ash wash?) I *know* that it isn't PFD, but what *makes* something PFD? I know that that means that the sizing, etc has been washed out, but I dye my muslin all the time (with RIT, heaven help me) without doing anything fancy first. Maybe just posh fabrics get the presumed 'good stuff'? Who knows.

Anyway, I can feel my funk of these last two days creeping into my day today if I don't DO something, so... (Yes, I know that I should help DH with chainsawing our yard into submission, but, whine, do I *have to*? Yardwork sounds darned right funk spreading anyway, and I KNOW that he wants me to feel better, so... >:)

SO. Now I need to bite the bullet and actually get up the nerve to go do this dying thing. Mum even kindly sent me some pin money yesterday - and in big enough quantity that I can feel even downright virtuous spending such a small quantity of it on my funk-destroying-dye-day. Heck - this is WAY cheaper (maybe not with PFD fabrics, mind) than therapy, and has NO CALORIES!!! That does it. Time to get off my keister and make this DYE DAY HAPPEN!!!!!! (If I slow down or chicken out, give me heck and a big shove, ok? Thanks!)

Tip trade?

I'm trying to figure out how much sewing down I need to do with my fused applique for a wall-hanging, ain't going to be washed application. I am experimenting with blind stitch with monofilament, but the whole thing? Would freemotion over the surface tack it down enough, or would the edges gap between stitch lines? Not so sure... Ideas would be MOST welcome!

Anyway, here's one thing that I have worked out for myself - I might be reinventing the wheel here, but it might be unknown to *someone*, eh? What is it? Scotch tape. I draw lots of my patterns on copy paper, and then want to cut them out, but how to keep intersecting curves consistent? How to make sure it all goes back the way it is supposed to with matching cut lines? I cut it up in one way (say along the diagonal lines) then tape it back together, then cut along the curved spiral that intersects all of the diagonals. How the heck does it make sense to cut lines and then tape them back together again? Because after I have cut the spiral, I can very easily tear the tape out along the previous cut lines, and voila - perfectly fitting pieces! It works for me, and maybe it will work for you. Added bonus? I get reinforced templates for all those finicky points and isthumi! (What a word! Yikes!)

What a thing to be right about...

Your Birthdate: March 17

Your birth on the 17th day of the month suggests that you are very lucky financially, because this date indicates a solid business sense. Although you are probably very honest and ethical, this birthday enables you to be shrewd and successful in the world of business and commercial enterprise. You have excellent organizational, managerial, and administrative capabilities enabling you to handle large projects and significant amounts of money with relative ease. You are ambitious and highly goal-oriented, although you may be better at starting projects than you are at finishing them. A sensitivity in your nature, often repressed below the surface of awareness, makes it hard to give or receive affection.

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

So - who wants to take a guess at what the ONE thing that this report is correct about when it comes to my personality? Sheesh!

Like you need to answer that! Lol... anyone who reads this who doesn't know by now that I start stuff and then dawdle to the finish line, if I head in that direction AT ALL, obviously hasn't been reading this blog for very long!

Truth be told, I am TERRIFIC at organizing things - in small chunks. The pencil and paper database that I put together for our wedding planning got me a job offer from a hotel manager! When I am gettting paid for something, I am likewise VERY organized. My books (when I can get to all of them and my back is cooperating) are organized by subject, and my undies aren't in with my jeans.

That being said, I want to know where all this money is that I'm supposed to be so good at organizing? Hand it over, and I'll get right to work on it. I promise!

BTW - I redid the applique for that "didn't come out the way I wanted it to" piece, actually called Mending Broken Dishes. How was I supposed to know that you can't piece appliqued bits until Melody alluded to this in her blog? Sheesh! (See? Now I can blame it on lack of info, rather than lack of precision. Much easier on the ego, if completely self-delusional...) The main lines of the broken dishes block didn't come out straight, but I had already determined that this is the first in a series, and that I can get it right next time around! Another good hint that I got from an AQ member? Experiment with stuff you don't care about - I had *scads* of purple and pink WU'd already (NOT my colors of choice) and a bolt of muslin. Presto whammy - #1 in a series! I still need to sew it down and finish it obviously (see above about my birthday - oy) but "progess in a day, not perfection in an hour" IS my studio motto!

Also? I cut up the didn't-meet-my-expectations first draft of the piece, and got the makings of two art postcards out of it! If you get a pink and purple card from me, now YOU TOO have been blessed with a little piece of my creative process!! Lucky you! Yah right. Honestly, I really like the pieces, and am playing around with beading ideas for them. This is also my first time playing with vast quantities of monofilament, and the blind hemstitch applique idea. I'm getting mixed results, but that is all part of the process too, right? Anyway, I'll put pictures up as soon as DH gives me back the memory card for the camera!

On a completely NQR note, I am on track with my cycle to get to trigger ovulation early next week. Nothing like getting back on the horse! Meanwhile, I am grossly underwhelmed by my life, but, hey, that happens sometimes...

Truth time

Ok folks - real question here:

How often do you get a given result, and convince yourself (or at least your audience)that you MEANT to get that result, even though if you look at your original design sketches, they really don't look that way???

I'm all for the design leading me, and for going with the torque of a piece, but I'm getting frustrated by having to reconceptualize the piece half way through when it isn't turning out the way that I had originally designed it. I'm getting good at leaving room for this 'planning on the go' kind of thing, but...

I guess my real question is this - does this mean that my technique sucks (and should the traditional quilt precision police get jurisdiction over my art anyway?), or that I am being a control freak, unable to welcome the serendipitous into my work?

Bits of all of the above, probably - I like to work in a relaxed, come-what-will style, and then I get irked when what comes isn't as precise as I want it to be. I need a serious realignment between my process style and my expections of results!!! I'm going to try and lean more towards the freestyle mode, mainly because I do NOT need any more stress in my life! Now if only I can make my happenstance results look polished enough to satisfy my inner perfectionist... Wish me luck!

BTW - started sticking myself with needles again last night. Painful, but good!

SOME work on swoops

Lol. I don't know if my previous analysis of my swoops and spikes piece was accurate or not, but I certainly seem to have internalized it! I got this nasty flu on Thurs night, but Friday day (betas at 4) sent me into the studio to work on it. I moved most of the rays around in the top bit, and pieced them for the last three bits, and decided to applique them with a monofilament blindstitch instead of the turned-under straight stitch approach I had been using, so all of that is out now too (or will be shortly!)

I'm not a big foundation piecer, but trying to remember how to do it with a fever? YIKES! I got my money's worth out of my seam ripper *that* day! I tried to go back in yesterday (Sat was a *complete* washout) but DH saw me swaying in the breeze and lungeing for furniture to hold myself up on and put the kabosh on that idea. No machinery, no sharp objects, no opportunities to burn myself. No fun. I *did* manage to dump the content of my scrap drawer into my Vietnamese rice basket (lovely little indulgence of mine over the winter - $20! Couldn't pass *that* up!!!) and proceeded to sort them by color groups (some by value or theme)to go into baggies. I found some nice subtleties that I didn't know were lurking there, and I think that they might find their way into some postcards as soon as I'm allowed back into my forbidden studio again.

Swoops though? I think it is benched again for a while, since I am NOT! Lo and behold, I got my period on Sat evening (after interspersed fevered sleep and FMT - funny movie therapy - all day), called my Dr, and I leave here in - gosh - 5 minutes to get my baseline work done for this new cycle! I made a bunch of headway on it, but hopefully it will just have to stay up there, unfinished even, until next March! I'm sure that even if this cycle takes though, that there will be days when I am feeling unsure of it all, so it might get some more work done then... but the spike itself might just have to wait!

Double Whammy

My beta HCG is down to 4, so hopefully my period isn't far off. Cramps continue, and my breasts are no longer yelling at me to put my bra on before my undies.

Good news? My Dr says that I do NOT need to skip a cycle before I try again. Hurray! I was benched for most of last summer due to cervical surgery (LEEP), and did NOT want to do that again this year. I mean honestly, who doesn't want to spice up the 'obligatory' aspect of trying to get pregnant with some camping fun? >:)

Sick as a dog with the flu Kevin, my DH, so kindly passed along to me. It might be a blessing that my betas, if they were going to anyway, dropped when they did; Kevin would shoot himself if my fever, courtesy of him, caused problems.

I am *supposed* to be on a medieval reenactment camping trip this weekend, where I was *supposed* to teach spinning, and *hoping* to get rid of a bunch of stuff from my studio a la the 'Clean Sweep' process we are doing slowly but surely. It is raining anyway, but this is the anniversary event of where/when DH and I had lightning strike our friendship and turn it into our partnership only last year. Between rain, his ex-wife, and my flu though, not to mention our continueing miscarriage process, both physical and psychological, I don't really mind not being there! Also, just found out that Open Studios is this weekend, and I'm too sick to go to that either. Bummer!

Ah well - we'll get there. I've been really touched by the comments and support folks have sent my way this week - I had no idea so many people even read this! Thanks SO much. I am an early riser, and DH is not. Having your voices of support at a time of day when I daren't call for fear of waking the world has meant a lot to me these last few days. I appreciate you all!!!!

Alas

My beta HCG dropped, and my pregnancy isn't viable. They need to track my numbers down to zero, then I need to skip a cycle, and then I can start over again.

I guess I'll have lots of time to work on Swoops!

Lo and behold

It looks like I am actually pregnant. It is still VERY early yet, and we'll know better on Wednesday if this is going to work out or not, but, for now at least, here I am! Positive Beta HCG blood test of 27, with a progesterone of 31.5 at 13 days post ovulation (dpo).

Who knew?

False alarm?

So - my 'period' went from barely there to not there at all in 18 hours. I wonder if it could be implantation spotting instead? I did a pregnancy test, which was *very faintly* positive!

So now I don't know what to think. More hurry up and wait, I suppose. Sounds like a day for more ice cream, and maybe some more sewing. Maybe even 'swoops', since I am feeling ambiguous today anyway!

strange humour

So, what is my response to getting my period instead of a positive pregnancy test? I watch 'The Seventh Sign'!! Sigh.

The one redeeming point about this is that I got my period only 12 days after ovulating, which may indicate a luteal phase defect, so hopefully I can get my clinic to 'placate' me by giving me progesterone next time!!!! By such fine threads are great hopes kept in the air...

No quilting today, although I did finish the applique on the animal piece last night. Maybe now I'll get back to work on Swoops? Hm. Anyway - movies, needlepoint and LOTS of Phish food today. So there.

Swoops and Spikes IP

Swoops and Spikes IP,
originally uploaded by Bingham-McLaughlin.

This is the long and narrow challenge piece that I am procrastinating on working on again. I talk about my psychological block behind working on it more in one of my posts from earlier this week, I think. I took out the block that is obviously missing in order to replace it with some plain yellow. I am not happy with the inner arc around the red - it looks too drab to me...

Postcards 1

Postcards 1,
originally uploaded by Bingham-McLaughlin.

I'm in the postcard challenge, and have received the ones on the right from other Art Quilters! Hurray! The ones on the left are ones that I've made, theoretically to send out in response.... but I'm not sure that the flap on Silver Lining (top left) would survive the trip, so... The other one is a study I did for Swoops and Spikes (which WILL get a better name, in due time!)

Farm Animals

Farm Animals,
originally uploaded by Bingham-McLaughlin.

These are the farm animals mentioned in the post below. Gotta love the little beasties kickin' it! I'm going to write appropriate sounds with dye pen for each, and obviously there is LOTS of applique work still to go, but my neck can only take so much at a time! I'm going to enclose each in the same stripey purple, then with the dotted teal, and then see what it tells me to do next to make it snuggle size for the 4 year old it is going to. She was adopted from the Ukraine, and has a purple pig doll that she adores, thereby inspiring this craziness!

Cow closeup

Cow closeup,
originally uploaded by Bingham-McLaughlin.

This is a close-up of the cow face, showing the problem that I am having with the eyes - dye pen Please!!! These are for little kid cuddles, not big art shows, or even adults, so I'm not hugely worried about 'presentation' here - just playing with new ideas and techniques for a cute and overly precocious kid! (She's 4 going on Harvard!)

If this weren't destined for the washing machine, I'd have used monofilament for the eyes (and have saved myself much toing and froing with the backstitch function) but I wasn't sure how it would handle repeated washings, so I opted out. Live and learn - from now on I will draw in the nostrils and irises!!!!

farm animal fiesta

I think I have answered a very important question, ie "at what point is a shape too small to WU and zigzag down with colored thread, even on minimum width"? 1/8 inch by 3/32 of an inch. Too darned small, and my thread pretty much covers the entire piece! Rats! Ah well - fortunately I have a dye marker the same color, so I can fudge it a little.

I also finally used up that dyebath from Beltain (please don't count how many days it sat on my stovetop, ok?), and had limited success. I figured out how to make some different diffusion effects with wax applied and ironed at different temps prior to dyeing, but the greens all pretty much came out the same color, despite leaving some in WAY longer than others. So now I have a large pile of splotchy grey-teal fabric. Hurray! not...

Off to try and post some more pictures here - art postcards that I have made and received, as well as the farm animal quilt (in oh-so-farmy purple, teal and pink!), and my swoops and spikes piece that I have made pathetically little progress on. Ah well. DH is going to an SCA demo to fight today (he'll take any chance he can get to climb into armor) and I'm going to read, sew, watch bad TV, and eat Phish food frozen yogurt. YUM!

Motivacation

I've got calls out to the doctors' offices re my escape with the ER this weekend. I don't know if it is getting better on my left side, or if I'm just getting used to it, but the fingers on my right hand went this morning, so obviously the fun continues.

Made the center panel for the kid's quilt I've been working on, only to discover that it doesn't go (at all!) with the ring of numbers blocks that I spent days appliqueing. Now I'm making four 'center' blocks instead, and am shelving the numbers blocks (and the letters to go with them) for another project for another as-yet-to-be-determined kid. Ah well...

Finally came up with designs for the quilts for my friend's twins that I actually like! I am probably going to need to dye the fabrics for the individualizing bits, and dyeing to a specific color sounds very daunting for a first Procion project! Yikes! Hints would be most welcome!!!! Anyone know where there might be a formula/color chart available on the web???? Yeah, I know - dream on!!!

My swoops and spike piece (the only artsy thing I've even remotely got going atm) has been languishing on the design wall for at least the last month, if not two. The spike represents the problems I've had getting pregnant... I wonder if I don't want to make that block (the next one) for fear of manifesting that block in my current life? Hm. I'm in what is known as the 2ww (two week wait) between ovulation and when one can test for pregnancy. I get to test next Sunday. BTW - no fairsies; I still have ovarian pain on the side of my body where my skin can't feel any but a blessed thing! Narf!

Ah well - off to find pictures of cartoon cows...

ug

Nothing like being in the emergency room until 3:30 AM to make you want to crawl under a blanket and channel-surf your day away. They guess that it is an atypical migraine that I continue to experience, but they called in a neurologist and did an MRI just in case, especially since fertility meds greatly increase the chance of a stroke... My whole left side feel sort of like that numb feeling you get on a really cold day, or like when you first take spandex off and you just don't feel things as well... skull to toe on the left side, more in some spots than others, and some cross-over to my right side, especially in my face. The wierdest thing? I took a shower last night right before we headed to the ER, and when I got out, I was only cold on one side... VERY surreal. Anyway, they aren't sure that is what it is, or how long it will last, or if I'll get a massive regular migraine when it goes. Basically they just know what it isn't. Ug. Where's my remote?

Actually did some sewing!

After spending most of the night and morning with my pelvis elevated to let gravity get to work, and many oxycodone later, I actually did some sewing today! It is hot, and GREEN outside, and I got tired of looking at the same UFO on my sewing machine, so I finished the block. Now I just need a good picture of a pig. Yup - I'm doing a kids quilt with a purple pig as the main motif. Joy.

Anyway, this recent sewing hiatus is pretty standard for me - I don't adjust to new seasons easily, and usally have to spend some time taking things in before I can creatively put them out again, even if it is a design already in progress that just needs assembling... So now that Mud Season is over, and my bleeding hearts are blooming, I can get back to work!

BTW - all the babies are home, safe and sound. :) Paley made my day yesterday, when she called to tell me that her newborn son had spent his first night at home underneath the quilt that I made for him. Yes, I know that babies that can't roll away from a suffocating object shouldn't be put to bed with one, but a) not my call to make, and b) I made it super stiff so that it will not collapse against one's mouth when one inhales. Should be just as safe as his bed sheet, but I wouldn't put my newborn under one his first night home regardless! Ah well - she objected to my carrying him in a football carry, and that is her call to make too - her kid. BUT, the next one is OURS!!!! So there! (fingers crossed to the millionth power!!!)

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all!!!

I get to see Paley again before she goes home today with husband and babe, I get to go to the dedication of my friend Tra's girls at the UU, and I get to do my trigger shot TODAY too! And, it is the one year anny of my husband Kevin and I meeting.

Good day!

Pamdora's grandma and Close Call

I just read that Pam's grandmother died last Sunday, and blogger won't let me post a comment so hopefully she'll read it here - I am so sorry. I lost my gran in February, so I can relate. Perhaps if there is a place after this one, they will meet up and knit together; I'm sure that both of our Grans will make lots of friends there! Anyway, I am very sorry for your loss...

My friend Barbara, while in an elevator alone with her daughter the other night, turned to look at her 14 mo old in her pram, only to discover that she wasn't breathing and was having a seizure. She spent the night intubated in the ICU, but she is out again now, and they don't expect the incident to have any long-term repercussions. Thank heavens! Can you imagine? Barbara said that she wouldn't wish it on her worst enemy - being trapped in an elevator when seconds count...

Off to another ultrasound in a few minutes, and hopefully we'll be triggering ovulation on Monday! Our turn! Our turn! Our turn!

Bliss

Just spent an hour and a half with gorgeous baby boy Declan fast asleep on my chest. Joy! I somehow just managed to send the pictures to folks who know her, so my brain is just NOT up to figuring out how to get it on here again, but I will soon! He is just too cute to pass up!

I had another ultrasound this AM and have 2 great follies that may be ready to trigger on Monday! Very excited, obviously!

AND, I got my first postcard from the postcard exchange! All the way from Penny Dean in Alaska!!! Gorgeous blues and golds; pictures forthcoming! I haven't even sent any out yet!!! Yikes! Too much baby distraction!!!

back pedalling

Ok, ok. Her labor didn't progress, and she finally had a C section at 10 AM this morning, and I actually heard about it just as she was going into surgery from a mutual friend. Still no word from Paley herself or her husband, but at least I am in the loop now.

I wrote a letter back to all the folks who got the message about her water breaking, and basically stated that I was ticked off at her. If I didn't love her, I wouldn't have been scared, and fear becomes anger very easily when one gets left in the dark! Anyway, I have now shared what I know with everyone else on the letter, so now they can all feel better too.

I took a potted azalea up to her room before she came down from surgury, along with some brownies for her husband, which apparently got good reviews from Mom, so hopefully by the time she gets home and reads my worried/ticked off post she'll know that I was worried out of love...

And I get to meet him, baby Declan Neil, tomorrow! Hurray! 8 lbs 14 oz, and mellow as can be... :)

It is just the hormones

Step 1: Breathe.
Step 2: Repeat above as needed until pregnant.

Sigh

One of my dearest girlfriends had her water break in the middle of the night, and I just found out from a listserve we are both on. 15 hours later, and the hospital 2 miles away, and I don't find out until now, and probably won't hear from her until morning. Like she has time to call me! I know, I know, but h e double hockey sticks! Either I'm her damned sister or I'm not, you know? I knew that she didn't want anyone there, but does that mean keep everyone out of the loop too?

Add to it that I slept most of the day, and that my husband is really depressed because he just decided to get more nursing training and all the programs are full (DUH! Its MAY!!!) so now he feels like he is spinning his wheels, and finals week is just NOT the time to crump out!!!

And he's at one of those finals as I write, so I can't even get a hug about my very mixed feelings about my friend being in labor - I'm glad and hurt, I am jealous, and I want to be able to help, even if only by sending good thoughts. I guess that I just wish that she knew how important she is to me, and that I'd want to know, darn it!

End of rant, I promise.

The Day After

The festival was great, lots of new and wonderful people, and it didn't even rain. They wove a GORGEOUS Maypole (the best I've seen); like I wasn't going to get some fiber stuff into the day? Sheesh!

I ended up using RIT dye for the green ribbons, but it came out fast and great, so all good. My first injection last night was even fast and relatively painless. But now I am exhausted; crumped out on the sofa all day napping and reading.... listening to the rain.

Happy Beltain!!!

I run a Pagan community here in Burlington, and today is our biggest festival of the year, and perfect timing for me - Fertility festival and fertility meds coincide! I still have to dye the ribbons for the Maypole (and I don't really want to waste my Procion on them, but I want GREEN, darn it!), and bake some gingerbread cookies for the picnic, but at least I had the sense to have the other founding member of the group take on the major speaking role of the day... I just fill in around and introduce her! Good thing - my voice isn't so hot, and I stayed WAY later at a party last night than I had intended to. Oops!

Anyway - May all the seeds you plant find fertile ground!!! Blessed Be!

end of the month blog watch

Sigh. I'm never going to get caught up with AQ and the blogs in the ring. I am looking at all the blogs I read last month before they go into archive again, but I haven't ever looked at half of them at all! Mea culpa! Ack!

Anyway, that doesn't mean that I can't or won't waste time. Goofiness is a necessary part of my life, so here goes the latest I saw on other's sites:

Going Around The Web This is from Debra's blog, A Stitch in Time...

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don't search around and look for the coolest book you can find. Do what's actually next to you

Oh wow - of all of the cool books on my shelf, I managed to put my blind hand on an old journal of mine that I didn't even know was there. Poor you! Now you'll be subjected to my rambling writings twice in one day! Alas!

Oh. Nothing illuminating. (I went to page 12, btw, since this book doesn't have 123 pages.) "I get to meet Terry C. tomorrow." Wow. Powerful stuff, eh? Actually, she was the Ice Queen that I did my first student teaching with; she was such a completely lousy mentor that the university actually gave me a FREE semester of student teaching the following Spring to make up for placing me with such a b----. Secondary science, btw. I teach remedial HS biology every summer. I love it!

Also - my guilty pleasure of choice: I am so NOT ashamed of this that I actually keep a nice kitchen spoon in the jar at all times - I eat Ovaltine straight from the jar. I've been known to go through an entire jar in 3 days. Tons of B vitamins, but ONLY the chocolate kind. Now you know. ;)

And, I'm a Progressive Girl, with heavy hints of Academic, Girl Next Door and Granola. I drive a mini-van so I can pack all of my camping and medieval reenactment gear and help all of my friends when they need to move. Smudge stick? Check. Water filter? Check. American car? Check (but lords would I love an old-school Saab!) Life's ambitions? Have children and make folk's lives better. Gee shucks.

Believe

Completely NQR and TMI here, so stop reading now if you couldn't care less...

I have been waiting for my period so we can start trying to get pregnant again, this time with injectible gonadotropins. I got it today, and have my bloodwork and ultrasound tomorrow, and my first injections on Sunday, which happens to be Beltain; the ancient fertility festival.

I needed to confirm to myself that I am ready for this, so I wrote a poem and made a scrapbook page of it. I also made myself a necklace with metal letters spelling out BELIEVE that I will modify but keep wearing as I go along here.

Anyway, I thought I'd share the poem here - not so much as sharing it with all of you (although that is a nice perk!) but more as a way of announcing it to the universe. Here goes:

I am a Mother, waiting to be born.
I have been 19 years in the womb of the Maiden, growing.
Months and years of dreaming have finally brought my time near.

My heart is willing and ready to love you forever.
My arms, full-formed, are ready to hold you close.
My lungs ache for us to breathe each other in, deeply,
and my spirit can feel you coming on the morning breeze.

I am a Mother, waiting to be born;
waiting for you to bring us life.

not mine

Got to be the extra pair of hands when my friend with twins went to visit another friend and her newborn. I love everyone thinking such beautiful children are mine, but OI is that bittersweet. Soon. Soon. Soon.

I'm on hormones to help me get my period, and I start injectable fertility medications then. We want ONE baby at a time, and have a decent chance of getting more than that at a shot. Twins would be insanity, and triplets? Let's not even go there. One. One. One.

Soon. One. Soon. One. Soon. One...

Bogged down in the Doing

Ugh. I love creating and designing, but the execution phase? Blech. If I leave some real mystery about how the fabrics will play off of each other, I can still get excited about the piece during construction, but otherwise?

I've had the most fun (and have created some of my best work) when I am designing as I go. So why is this so hard for me to actually DO? Hm.... It often feels like as soon as I know how something is going to turn out, I get bored with it. Am I too resistant to change things midstream, or am I just plain lazy, or both?

Laziness is a hard one for me - am I not doing something because my body/mind/spirit aren't in alignment to let me do something due to my Fibromyalgia and other medical issues, or am I just a lazy mooch who wishes someone would throw me a pity party? (Doing it myself would *obviously* be too much like work!)

I have a gorgeous studio with lots of light and space. I have time coming out of my ears. I have supportive husband and parents, and no kids (yet) to distract me. I even have an art school education and an almost-great stash.

Now granted, there are days (more than I'd like) when I am on narcotics, or am otherwise just really having physical, cognitive, or psychological issues (mostly drug and sun deprivation inspired), but what about all of the days in-between when I'm actually doing ok, but still don't do anything BUT feel moderately ok? Hm. I tell myself that I am just pacing so I don't overdo it and land myself back on bedrest, but sometimes I wonder - is that is a reason or an excuse? I have to wonder, since I have *much* less trouble actually DOING things that I am excited about...

Ah well - Progress in a day, not perfection in a hour. Off to clean off my desk.

decisions

I've finally gotten the fabrics scanned in, and I don't think that the pinkish handdye is going to be as much of a problem as I initially thought. Now though, I am having trouble making two designs that are enough alike to show that they go together, but unalike enough that they look different. I've tried taking the same pattern and changing the colors up, but no luck so far. I keep ending up with quilts with very different personalities, and I don't want to be dictating that for the girls.

I'm also sick to death of appliquing little hearts and other shapes onto that preschooler's quilt. I have mastered machining points, but I am VERY tired of doing so. Ah well. Right now I'm enjoying the costumes in Troy that DH brought home to study the spear and shield technique. Go figure.

to overdye or not to overdye

Ok, I sort of got off my butt today. I couldn't remember how to scan fabrics into EQ5, but I worked on semi-matching patterns for the twins' quilts anyway. Trouble is, I bought 4 yards of expensive handdye this weekend to use in the piece, and they are just a little bit pinker than the peachs of the rest of the fabrics.

I figure that I have two choices if I want to use the fabs I have - either experiment with overdying the hand dye to make it a bit more orange (which honestly makes me *very* nervous), or I can sew it up as is, and then use pinker threads in my free motion quilting to bring more pink into the whole piece. I could also piece a little pink into the top itself.

I think that I am leaning towards the second option, since I can always take thread out, but dye? Not so easy. Plus, I love the handdye just the way it is! I think that I just answered my own question, but I'd love your suggestions on how to execute it!

tatakilt

tatakilt,
originally uploaded by Bingham-McLaughlin.

Did this work? I sure hope so! It seems to not want me to put in lots of text, so let's see if I can get this to work. If so, how do I get JP2 the credit for the miracle!?!? Lol...

Thanks for Art 101!

But not for any reasons that you would think of - it meant that I was able to just skip right over huge chunks of the digest, and am now officially reading entries from April! Hurray!

I can artspeak when I need to (good ole RISD education), but I guess Vermont has gotten into my bones; I speak as plainly as possible about my work, as it seems to me that my subconscious needs all the clarity it can get.

Ok, confession time: I have a stuffed lion named Guntar (after Gunther Gable Williams, the lion tamer from Wringling Bros fame) who has a goofy voice and acts as my inner child. He told me this morning that if I can make baby and toddler quilts for half the folks in my address book, then I ought to be able to make one for my own inner child as well. My professional brain thought 'perfect for Art Quilts X', but if that is what I need to do to justify it, then ok. I think Gunny might be onto something here....

Oh heck

I've gotten so far behind in my AQ that I seem to have lost about 40 digests to the stale news monster that deletes them from my inbox. Horrors! Who knows how many facinating challenges I missed in that time!?!?!? Yes, I know that I can go look at them in the archives, but I'm so far behind that I seriously doubt that that is going to happen.

Anyway, the wedding was completely delightful, but I must say that I am very glad that Kevin's and my wedding and January was completely funded for about the same cost as the dainty cake we consumed this weekend. What a stash I'd have if I had that kind of cash at my disposal - can you imagine the thought process? Hm... A Husky designer or an open bar? No contest - I don't even drink! To each their own though, so power to them, and I hope their marriage is a blessed one! Vivat!

However, more bad news in my mailbox today - can you believe just how #*$#$ unfair life can be sometimes? I like to think that I have my priorities straight, and this news just reinforces that, but WOW - my life is beautiful, and I am grateful for it every day...

Thanks for the posts on time management folks - I am an early riser too, and NPR is definately better company than my husband at that hour, so I am more than happy to let him sleep and have the house to myself. SQ has become part of my morning routine since we got cable again a few weeks ago (spent 1.5 years as a televisionless Luddite), and I actually got back in the studio last Friday morning before we left for the wedding. I now have three major projects in the works - my spike piece that I mentioned before, sort of matched toddler quilts in peach that I just got some great hand-dyed for the backings of, and a brightly colored little kid quilt with numbers and letters on it to give me a chance to play with SAS2 for the first time, which I going very nicely (I like the hand) but I am very vexed by the wweb not actually going to the edge of the release sheet - I keep ending up with half-fused figures! Yeah, I'm one of those uber-frugal types (my WW2 parents still horde string and brown paper) who uses every square inch of everything, so this is really irking me! I don't like having so many irons in the heat of the fire (tons on the backburner is more my norm), but since my body is variously cooperative atm, having different projects let's me work when I'm motivated, no matter what!

Meanwhile, buds are showing on the trees here now, and I'm going to try and tackle my spring pre-moving, pre-renovating cleaning - one shelf, pile or drawer a day until my back gives out. Wish me luck!

5 down...

160+ to go...

AQ digests that is. I really like the list just the way it is, but sometimes I really wish that folks would do the chatty stuff in a blog, rather than on the main list. When I want personal stories, I read your blogs at my leisure and when I have the interest (and time - *definately* more lacking than interest since you are all so darned inspiring!!!), but when I have a huge backlog of digests to read, I don't want to skip any in case I miss some challenge news, or a cool new technique or tool. I *hate* just skimming through the posts and missing out on people's lives, so if they put their stuff in blogs, I wouldn't have to, and could read much about someone in a context where I actually have a better chance of getting to know them...

Ah well. Pet peeve of the day.

I'm back on the stupid narcotics again (colposcopy yesterday triggered me AGAIN), but I nevertheless had a brainstorm: get DH to move a bed side table over to my sofa, and then use my new cordless keyboard so I can type on my lap, and see the monitor easily on the table! Yahoo! Cords stink when I am on bedrest, since they get caught in my sheets or I fall over them... Thank heavens for my cousin's excellent taste in Christmas presents!!! (Lucky me, lucky me, lucky me - I would NEVER have been able to justify buying one for myself, but I am really excited about it! Anything to make bedrest easier!!!)

I have a near-family wedding this weekend, and I somehow resisted the impulse to make them a quilt. His eldest sister got a true lover's knot block made from excess bridal fabric from our fittings, but no one else has ever gotten a wedding quilt from me, so I'm glad I resisted the impulse. My cousin has been married for 12 years, and they might get one for their 15th, but I think I'll stick with baby quilts otherwise... Less expensive to make in terms of both money and time, so that hopefully I can actually get back into the studio for some real work at some point! Hopefully before MAY!!!! (grumble, grumble)

Question on time management

Ok folks, come clean. How the heck do you manage to read blogs, blog yourselves, AND keep up with QA all at the same time? Let alone actually get any work done on your art quilts or keep up with your homes and families, etc? I really want to know! Please?

Oi

Wow - that stupid HSG triggered my fibromyalgia and a week of hand and arm spasms that still hasn't really let up. Argh! I am 162 QA digests behind, and I will NOT delete them unread, so I guess I had better get busy!

Remember I said that I was doing a bunch of cross stitch and planned to do more? WHAT WAS I THINKING!?!?!?! If I am using my own design, or a nice British pattern (fewer outlines and blendings, as a general rule) then no problem, but Teresa Wenzler (sp?) didn't even put a cohesive thread list for the 150+ threads in her albeit gorgeous pattern! YIKES! The long and the short of it is that the same shop carries Patarnayan wools, which I thought I had lost my only local supplier of about 8 years ago, so I am now freely admitting that I am a needlepointer, and I just need to get over it. :) I started a piece last week that is already burbling along nicely, and will more than suffice when my body and brain go, but my arms are willing. My arms *aren't* particularly willing atm, but I am more stubborn than my pain is! Roar!

Meanwhile, my husband, my cats and their ensuing 1/2 gallon spill, and my varied and sundry embroidery projects have taken over my studio. I might not be up for getting any quilt art work done today, but I WILL clean up the MESS!!!

Any other medieval reenactors out there? I've been playing with the SCA for about 20 odd years now, and have amassed an absurd quantity of fabric for garb that never got made. Add to this that we hope to move next year.... trouble!!!! Part of me thinks 'get rid of *fabric*? Are you KIDDING?' and part of me says 'girl, you've had most of it for at LEAST 10 years - barter or just plain give it away, but *get it the heck out of your basement*!!!!!' So far I am doing really well at leaning towards the latter, and just read that our local chapter is even *planning* for a barter day at our next event on May 7. Might be hard to pass up the opportunity. Plus, I might even a) get some other cool stuff for DH and I, b)make a little money (gasp), c)actually get my woodshop back, d)get to see my bounty adorning our lovely local populace and thus be dubbed Albreda the Benefabricprovider! Yeah right. Downside? I'd have to ask DH to do yet another favor for me (being laid up sucks) and bring all the stuff up from downstairs, out to the car, etc, deal with the inevitable mildew that has accumulated on my sealed containers, and, maybe most importantly, just plain give up on getting my studio back for the time it takes to sort the whole mess. Sigh. I still think it is worth it, especially since it will free up the containers for general moving-related packing...

My favourite room in my house? My living room/studio (actually 2 rooms with French doors between them). Why? 6 huge floor to cathedral ceiling windows and 7 skylights, all with a southern exposure and a view out over our overgrown backyard! tough to beat the bennies of sunlight when you live in northern Vermont... (except that I have to be on constant guard to prevent fabric fading! Got some neat albeit inadvertant effects though, so it could be worse.)

Scissor ache!

I cut all of the letter and half of the numbers last night and my fingers *complained* - I can't beleive that I used to cut ALL of my pieces by hand!!! Today I cut the rest of the numbers and get started on the objects. I've never used WU before, and so far I'm unconvinced. If it gives a softer hand, I might decide that it was worth the trouble, but it seems to sort of partially stick... I think that I'll do a test piece today to see how it goes.

Laura Wasilowski gave me a hint (thanks, Laura!) in that I keep all of my fused scraps separate from my plain fabric scraps. I don't have scads of fused scraps (yet) but another thing I may do today (hopefully my last one in bed, for a while at least!) is sort out my plain color scraps by colorway...

I am itching to get really working again. I am going to pick up an afghan cross stitch baby pattern tomorrow so I can work on that when I am down, but my quilts are calling me! I realize that if I were into crazy quilting or handquilting, that I could keep working in bed, but I'm not, and figuring out how to iron from bed? Move my sewing machine onto an over the bed table? I pieced an entire top from bed when I had a brain infection once, but I don't see myself doing that again any time soon.

Anyone have any hints for quilt artistry while on bedrest? Note: I am not always at my cognitive sharpest when I'm down, so safey is paramount!

Flat on my back blues

Yeah, I'm still in a world of pain, and sitting upright doesn't really work for me, so I'll keep this short. I started drawing templates of the letters for a quilt I've been planning, just so I have something that I can work on from the sofa. I'm not really very happy with the WU-fabric-freezer paper sandwich, but time will tell. I'm getting a bunch of cross stitch done though - just wish it were on a more meaningful project.

Off to the Dr again today. I'm still on the narcotics from last week, and today I learn how to give myself several injections a day, and we'll talk about my upcoming protocol. I used to figure that I'd be on bedrest for the last trimester, but all this early process pain is making me wonder if I'll be on bedrest from day one, if not earlier! I just found out that the local stitching shop didn't close though - it just moved, so hopefully I can get in there this coming weekend and get a new project to work on. I have the feeling that I'm going to have plenty of time...

Any therapists on the list?

In a long discussion with friends yesterday about our latest pieces brought me to an interesting realization: I am using the same fabric for my spike in the current piece (representing the roadblocks between myself and pregnancy) as I did for the silver lining in my postcard piece of the same name.

Are my subfertility hassles somehow a silver lining for me? This has taken long enough that I've met and married my husband, and no one now doubts that I am ready, willing and able to be a parent. Is there more, or did I just pick the same fabric because it was silvery enough to be both a silver lining and an iron railroad spike?

Hm... I read Tarot intuitively, and a tattoo and henna artist friend of mine started reading the henna she applied for clients in the same way. Does anyone out there 'read' their quilt art?

I'd already wondered about the extremely bright colors in my current peice - NOT in the realm of my usual pallette. I hope/think that it is because I am feeling optimistic...

Guilty pleasure

Diane wants to know what my guilty pleasure is. Real no-brainer here folks - chocolate. I've been letting myself enjoy more of my Easter basket these last few days - drowning my pain in chocolate-induced endoprhins sounded like a reasonable response to my procedure!

I'm a big fan of FMT (funny movie therapy) too, but I have to say that my guiltiest pleasure, in that I just can't justify it at all, is a good modern chick romance novel or movie, a la Bridget Jones or those other modern woman gets married/has baby genre. I good solid laugh at something slightly smutty or outrageously silly makes me a happy camper. Evidence? I'm looking forward to eating bunny ears during Miss Congeniality on TNT tonight!!! (Even better? Kevin likes them too!!!)

I'm still on the narcotics, and woke up every 10 minutes or so all night (no kidding) with itchiness that can't be beat from this stupid reaction to the contrast medium used in my HSG, but I'm doing better (or maybe I'm just too tired to notice how lousy I feel...). Ah well... more sloth and pain scheduled for today, but hopefully I can start functioning again tomorrow.

I survived...

but WOW did that HURT! I'm back on narcotics every two hours. But the results were good - my tubes are clear!!! Yahoo!!! Kevin even got me a present - an ironing cover for my big table!!! (Few things better than a hubby who knows to shop for pressies in a fiber store!!!)

I'm not even going to *touch* my stash until I am off the meds - no drug-induced poor cutting choices here! I dragged out some old cross-stitch projects to work on while I'm still on bedrest, and Kevin is taking great care of me. I have my injectibles class next Tuesday, and we are go to start in on them! Hurray!

Anyway, back to bed for me. Have a good weekend everyone, and thanks for the support!

Oh. That's TODAY?

Yeah, my HSG is in six hours, and I'm really nervous. Therefore, I am watching TV, blogging and trying not to hit the chocolate.

Elle sent me a lovely little note, and her blog (hahaquilts.blogspot.com)put me onto Ami's site, with its World's Worst Quilt contest. Gods, I needed that laugh. If you haven't seen it, and your day has been... less than grand, go check it out.

I've made a few peices that make me want to barf, but mostly because what I was making was to the recipient's taste rather than my own. I have a pucker on the back of the most recent baby quilt I've completed, and my color choices could use some help sometimes. I UNquilted an entire piece since I made the top during my brain infection (HHV6 is NOT my friend) and really just couldn't stand to condemn it to wearing a polyester beard for the rest of it's life, and I still can't figure out how to start a seam on my machine without making that nasty, loopy knot on the backside. I have a lot to learn, and I'm not always the sharpest tack, but my efforts are usually sincere, if a bit... lazy. (I do that self-handicapping thing so I have an excuse if something sucks. Dr Phil would have a field day with me.) However, I don't think that I've made a quilt that would garner more than an honorable mention from Ami... I hope!

Why am I nervous about such a simple procedure? Here's a horror story for you, and it is NOT an urban fertility-clinic legend: I KNOW the woman this happened to. Instead of the saline or dye that usually gets used to fill one's uterus and fallopian tubes in this procedure, her Dr inadvertantly used FORMALDEHYDE. At YALE! You had better believe that I am going to make my Dr double check his/her solution! Plus, since I have a history of pain disorders, I expect to be a hurting unit. Am I afraid of pain? Heck no - I'm BORED with it. I have better things to do, and missing them makes me lose them, and I am tired of loss.

Enough nervous, maudlin BS. There is *bound* to be something decent on cable at 9:13 AM. Right?

Could I catch a break? Please?

Frustration mounts.

A little backstory: I've been trying to get pregnant since the beginning of 2003. My husband only came along recently, and before that I was trying with a sperm donor. There have been a lot of starts and stops along the road so far; anovulatory cycles and a LEEP procedure (to biopsy my cervix because my Pap came back positive) being the most notable.

Well, now that I have a game plan for getting going on injectible fertility meds and maybe IVF (depending on what my HSG show tomorrow - a test where they fill one's uterus with dye to see if one has clear fallopian tubes), I get a call yesterday from my NP saying that my recent Pap shows abnormal cells again, and that they want another look (colposcopy). They can do this even if I'm pregnant, and she assured me that this should have no impact on my trying. If the results are bad though, I'll probably need another LEEP to clear it up, and that will mean getting benched for another 3 months, unless I get pregnant first! (Like I needed any *more* motivation to get pregnant!)

Add to this the fact that all of my current studio projects (with maybe the exception of my most current, but even that deals with my fertility woes obliquely) are either for other people's babies, or about the lack of my own. My studio *used* to be my escape from all this craziness, and now it too is full of it.

Today I drown myself in my new cable TV and a great scifi novel I picked up for a buck at B&N. Talk about foresight...

Foundation piecing sunshine (rain or no!)

Beleive it or not, I had never done foundation piecing before yesterday. I picked up some of the Patchwork Place 'foundation papers' figuring that they were the translucent stuff I had seen others use, but it is pretty much just copy paper (at least on first inspection) so I feel kind of ripped off.

Anway, I got most of the first block (of 5) pieced and appliqued! I thought of using invisible thread and a zig zag stitch, but opted for actually ironing under a seam allowance and putting a row of straight stich applique down along the inside edge of each piece instead.

I'm using a lot of mottled fabrics in this peice, and I'm not really sure I made the right choices in terms of which bits to cut for which pieces, but I'm confident that I will be at least mostly happy with the resulting piece.

I had originally thought that I'd be using fusibles on this piece, but I don't really like the stiffness, even for a wall hanging. This change in plans means I'm thinking differently about the quilting/embellishing process (I know, I know, me? Embellish? Yeah, I'm considering it; esp gold beads. Go die of surprise somewhere else.)

Anyway, if some Plains tribes could do rain dances, I may have just done sun quilting - the sky is blue, the puddles are drying up, and the sun is shining in my east studio window, so I'm off to work.

BTW - got the new cable hooked up yesterday, so I got to watch Simply Quilts for the first time in well over a year. (I got TONS done without having a TV, but missed the images...)

Avoid Sin City and other thoughts

Ok - the movie Sin City is supposed to be very violent (like watching the news isn't?) and have cool new black and white effects. What they *don't* tell you in the previews is that it is DISGUSTING. I realized less than 15 minutes into it that I needed to get the heck out of the theatre or risk my (already strung taut) mental health. I ducked into Miss Congeniality 2 instead, and was MUCH happier. PSA ended.

I took the weekend off from studio stuff to a) celebrate DH Kevin's birthday with him, and to b) deal with my less-than-stellar fertility news, delivered Sat AM. We basically continued the celebration all weekend long, and did the same with the mental processing around my future injectibles cycles. (I am feeling much better about the latter now that we have a gameplan! hurray!)

BUT - It is now Monday, my cable TV gets hooked up today (images that my brain is starving for, and I want to watch the Pope's funeral on Friday, may he rest in peace), and I really want to get back to work on my swoops and spike piece in all sorts of sunshiny colors, but it is RAINING AGAIN!!! How much of a copout is it to say that I need actual sunshine to work on this piece? I feel like both I and my work need to be imbued with solar radiation to get this off the ground, especially since I almost NEVER work with such bright colors!

One thing that I think I WILL be able to accomplish today is a comparitive test of various fusbles, so I can figure out how and with what I want to construct this sucker for whenever the sun decides to show her face!

Washout

My ultrasound this morning was not good news. It looks like I have all the symptoms of PCOS, but not the hormone levels for it, at least as of 16 months ago. This cycle is a washout, and I'm going to need to go on to injectible fertility meds next month. I'm scheduling another test this week that will tell us whether or not we need to jump right to IVF.

Needless to say, this is NOT how I wanted to spend DH Kevin's birthday. I'm off to make a late birthday breakfast for him, and to break in our new waffle maker, but I am VERY glad that I medicated with retail therapy yesterday afternoon as a precaution against this morning's test, and that I have all the colors/fabrics worked out for my new piece.

Too bad that I want to drown myself in chocolate, but refined sugar is one of the things that needs to go if I do indeed have PCOS. No fairsies. At least fabric will still be allowed, even if I can never afford it again...

April Foolishness

Rabbit Rabbit! My DH, Kevin, is celebrating his birthday tomorrow, and I had the noive to ask HIM for a present; he is much more computer savvy than I am, so I asked if he could *pretty please with jam on it* try and figure out how to put my pictures in here. He said he'd try. (Ain't he sweet?)

I think I have decided to put the spike in the piece, and I thank Deborah and Liz for their comments on this issue! I started auditioning fabrics this AM, but feel like I'm lacking certain elements in my stash... so I thought I'd do some dying (haven't done much in YEARS) and the book I hit up for a refresher said DO NOT dye when you are hoping to get pregnant, and since I have meds coursing through my bloodstream and an ultrasound scheduled for tomorrow morning, I guess that means me! Argh! Now I'm probably going to have to 'settle' for colors/fabrics/prints less than what I want for the piece. NOT what I wanted to wake up to.

Add to this that I definately overdid it yesterday, walking with my old roomie and her twins, and that my fibromyalgia is acting up as a result, and I am NOT being a particularly happy camper today, although that long nap and DH making lunch helped.

I joined the Weirdness challenge community on Yahoo groups though, and WOW are they a bunch of wackos! I love it! Some of my ideas are a little off the wall, but theirs aren't even attached to it! Hurray!!!!

About the whole 'winners' thing on the AQ boards (yes, I am still 94 posts behind, ok?): winning to me is anything that makes me proud of myself and my efforts. Being back on this list and opening my work (even without pictures) to all of you (and the world at large, I suppose!) is a big step for me, and I'm proud of it. Making my toy turtle a 'kilt' of her very own was good for me too - it was my first piece on my new Husky, and that represents taking myself more seriously (that and celebrating that I ran my Kenmore into the ground), so even that little bit of kitsch is something that I am proud of; not for what it is, but for who am for having made it.

Wow - send me back to that paragraph next time I get snarky on myself, ok? Enjoy!