We are all in the same craft boat with our doubts, insecurities, lack of time, multiple interests.  I, for one, am so sad, in my isolated creative space,  that so many blogs are going away. Blogs I’ve grown attached to. It’s like the blog is just another craft project. that is finally finished.  Are any of you out there noticing this trend?  But people need to hear what you-all-too-busy-to-blog people have to say and what you are making to keep us all feeling okay about what we do. 

Now a yahoo list I just joined about a week ago… this is spooky!

I know there are still many of us out there, online, flickr, blogging, but I’m afraid I’m losing heart myself, with all the “endings.”  Something cheerful to close…

I’ve dredged up a old icon to spend time with lately. It goes back several years, and, as I mentioned in my last post, sometimes I revisit the sketchbook storehouse to get myself back into inspired mode.  So I decided to cut some templates and print the silhouette on plain fabric.  Then I dyed and painted more stuff.  I used my favorite green fabric paint color, with my favorite brown color and made some murky images. Then I took brighter fabric and traced the silhouette with bleach pen.  Then I dyed over some of the cheerier color and I got some murky thing again.  Some of the dresses are cut out and sewn back onto other fabric.  Some are just squares of fabric. All in all, I’ve tried to brighten them by surrounding them with more color, whether with fabric or stitching and I like what I’ve got. So far I’ve made four…and counting, I’m still not done.  These gals have become simple bags which may end up on (that labyrinth called) Etsy.

I came across the whole “copyright” issue of sorts (blog-style), which is a real hot button for me.  I am constantly producing ideas that turn into making stuff. I usually draw the idea in my sketchbook, or go backwards in my years of sketchbooks to discover an underutilized idea.   I’ve already lamented the insulated life of a shop owner a bit - not getting out much. My “excursions” mostly take the form of books (text and pictures), magazines, the prints on fabrics and notion catalogs. Now blogging. Even in isolation, creative people are bombarded with things that inspire and generate work. Being open to what is outside ourselves grows ideas. Being creative also demands a public life of sorts.  Putting our work out there is part of the process.  We are at risk as copiers and copied.

I don’t want to be scared to look for fear of being a “copier.”   On the other hand, how is a truly “original” idea defined?  

I look at the creative work I do as a commodity, especially now that I am trying to make a living with it.  I also represent a lot of creative people in that I sell their work, their cloth  and patterns.   I am constantly defending someone’s copyright and the labor that gave it to us. 

I came across liesl’s blog  “disdressed”  last night, purely by accident.  I know Liesl because I buy her patterns for the store, because she’s a talented designer who is trying to make a living too. I read her frustration and the mixed comments - pro and con,  with no easy answer.  In this visual world, there is no safe place to divert the eyes. Create honestly.

I think that my time. (EST) is the right time and yet,  the blog day ends early in the Northeast and begins its accounting too early for my taste.   I don’t know what parallel is the guide and measure for this system, but it always makes me feel like I haven’t had a chance to fully experience the blog visits I deserve. Or, I wonder if my blog is just too boring.  That folks don’t find my projects and activities interesting.

I’ve been struggling to fit all the to-do’s into my days lately.  We have another quilt show this weekend, which has crept up on my work schedule.  I barely have a personal life in this quilt business, except that I work with my husband and  being together all day, blends work and personal into a two-for-one. When our daughter visited this weekend, it caused a tiny detour, but just keeping up, maybe the extra laundry, the extra show preparations, the class we hosted yesterday, make macro picture taking and blog journaling seem like monumental feats.

But without it, I am insulated in my fabric world to the point of tunnel vision.  I’m really trying to stay connected.

I started the day with the idea that I would finish.  I’ve had a couple of open projects, and a customer who said, ” people think I’m crazy that I want to finish a project before I start another. ”  (Excuse to not buy more fabric-and I hear them all- or obsessive?)  Well, I know how good it feels to complete things, even though it doesn’t always go the way I plan.  Things interrupt the project constantly, and even the project rejects completion unless I fight back.  This is what happened today with the zipper I last-minute-decided to add to my bag. Great idea, but a whole other engineering issue delayed completion. Finished the bag - no handles, but it’s coming along (yoyo embellishment).  The apron was another story.   The story really is: as fast as I CAN work, sometimes I should just SLOW DOWN.   More coming…

I’ll have something to show for the last few days of work.  I know it’s only two days since my last post, and last night was a night out with the girls and only some blurry photos of us flitting around Cathy’s kitchen, but I can’t forgive myself (I should) for not taking a macro shot or two, or finishing a project, even though I’m close. 

I did have a great encounter today with someone who is working in her Norwalk, CT neighborhood, to have women from different generations, come together through quilting.  They are using quilt-making as the bolt around which community conversation stirs positive experiences.  I so believe in this process and wish I could participate in some way.  At least our humble fabric will find its way into the quilt. 

One of my favorite parts of being in the shop is watching all these ideas being born.  

We visited NYC this afternoon for errands and fun. One stop: The Museum of Modern Art. I almost cried in the presence of Rauchenberg’s fabrics, Derain’s color and Matisse’s composition.  The museum itself is the subject of many photographs. The Color exhibit was my goal, but we stayed to walk the other galleries and observe the crowds. What a great day, and no traffic on the way home. Oh, how I love the city!

lots of projects today and it feels good!   I got to work ready to sew my way through the day, and I did.  Yesterday’s possible pillow turned out great. It still needs the vintage button embellishments sewn on.  I used a piece of stash fabric that hadn’t gone with anything until now for the backing. I have a few strips of the fabric left to go into another orange-themed pillow some time. It makes me think of sourdough starter.  I’ve never made sourdough bread, but the idea that a small piece comes off the mother clump and finds itself in a new loaf or pillow in this case.

I made two muslin pillow inserts that fit the 9″ by 16″ format I chose for the project. (One of them is an extra.)  I put a 7″ zipper in the back of pillow one, and the muslin slipped into its new home easily. 

I photographed Shara’s Go-Go Pillow, which she will receive tomorrow when she visits. I made it last week. The fabric is from an old dress that she saved.  I have leftovers, yea!

The garden girl baby quilt got finished today, too.   It’s sourdough is the vintage chenille border.  The friend I made the quilt for, actually gave me the chenille in a big pile a while ago.  It was from her mother-in-law’s craft room.
Remember the curtains I made a few weeks back?  Well this is another piece of an old bedspread. I was able to salvage four good strips.  It makes the quilt feel scrumptious.  Her soon-to-be- born baby girl will be warmed by the grandma she will never meet.  I’m very excited about this gift.

Pattern # 2 Crossroads is officially published.  Look for it on etsy soon.

Still on the to-do list:
Japanese (Lecien) Kate Greenaway fabric baby quilt sample. The colors are amazingly subtle: dusty lime polka dot, dusty aqua storybook toile, fabric with text, taupes and images of children playing.   I’m designing as I go, so it’s taking a bit of time, but I don’t mind because I love looking at the pictures.

The Daiwabo Taupe wholecloth quilt that I am slowly hand quilting because it wants me to.

Handbag lining for a customer who knits bags.    

And so on…

is theme today,  just looking at the fabrics I’ve been working with. or maybe coincidence os the theme, reflecting on the activities of the day. Is speaking someone’s name a desire to manifest her presence? Is pulling a particular fabric from my stash a wish to sell three yards the next day? Will admitting now that I’m not sure if this project will become a pillow make something pillow-ish happen?  Back to the now…I really zoomed in on those ties.

Three days and three yards, at least, into this tiny baby kimono project that I thought would be quick.  The directions and pattern are on Martha’s craft site, but I couldn’t make sense of it - the illustrations didn’t illustrate, the directions didn’t direct- so I just went my own way on this one, the long way.   There’s never enough time to do everything and less of it now. I guess it came out okay, but try #3 has upsidedown amy flowers.  

 I’m squeezing in macro shots between/during loads of laundry. (the life cycle of fabric) Luckily one of my favorite pieces of cloth  (circa 1970) hangs in my laundry room.