Book confession

I must confess, I have a book collection that might be getting out of hand. 

These are the books in my bedroom, on my head board.

Here is one of the shelf units holding some of my collection of beading magazines.

These are on my bedside table, the ones I'm reading or plan to read soon.  I'm currently reading A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin.  I'm also reading Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls, Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides and really want to dive into Pukka's Promise by Ted Kerasote.  I loved Merle's Door by him. I believe Pukka's Promise is the only book on this table that I bought brand new.

Most of my books I buy at garage sales and thrift stores.  Here is another book case in the bedroom, along with a few photos and my Oz clock I got from Linda at Olde Baggs and Stuft shirts blog.  Still ticking away!

This is the lower half of the same book case.  Barney guards this one.

Random pile in a corner.  I also get a lot of books in trade through Paperbackswap.  If you enjoy books you might want to check them out.  You can trade books for free other than postage.

This is one of the cases in the library.  I also have 4 shelves of some of my CD's and at the bottom you can see the ragged tops of some of my vinyl albums.  The cats liked using them as a scratch post unfortunately.

Another library case.  Many of these shelves have a second row behind the first, hidden gems.

More library cases.  
About 18 years ago I helped my Dad move and he couldn't take all his books.  It was really hard for him to choose which ones to keep.  I took the ones he didn't want.  I didn't keep them all!  Heavens no!  Most of them I took to Powell's City of Books used bookstore and they bought quite a few of them.   I shared them with friends and family and kept a lot including that set of History of Civilization you can see on the bottom shelf if you care to.  Maybe I will actually read them some day, one never knows.

The last few boxes I donated to a book sale fund raiser for a public radio station.  I got a tax deduction certificate and gave it to Dad.  They estimated the value of those remaining boxes at $400.00.  I know I got about $200 credit at Powell's.  Dad told me to keep it for my effort.
Here is the final shelf unit.  Hummm, it looks as though it may be slightly bowed in the middle.  Anyway, back to my story about Dad's books.  I swore then that I wouldn't keep getting more book cases but instead would get rid of books when I needed more room for the new ones.   I've mostly stuck to that promise, getting around it by double shelving and the random piles in corners.  I'm not even showing you the shelves in the studio with my art books and more CD's.  
So now my question to you is, do you consider me a hoarder?  I don't.  I consider myself more of a bibliophile.  
Funny, as I have written this blog post, I'm listening to Pandora radio and twice songs have mentioned books! 
By the way, in case you haven't guessed, I don't own a Kindle or any other e-reader device.

Happy Spring to you all!  I know too many of you have scenes like the one above.  I took that in my yard on the first day of spring.  Poor little daffodils!  

Now, this is one I took today.  That's more like it!  I hope this will be your view too, if it isn't already, where ever you all.  While you are shoveling snow, I'm mowing the grass.  I just love Oregon!

Be well.

Blue House Cafe display

I was invited once again to bring some of my work in to hang on the walls of the Blue House Cafe in Vernonia, Oregon.

It's a nice space, serves wonderful Mediterranean food, and sometimes live music on the weekends. 

If you can stop in there, tell Eleanora, the woman who runs it, hi from Jan, and buy a Gyro platter.

I've been making quilts this winter.  Above is one, the pattern which I purchased from Keepsake Quilting, is called a Dime quilt.  

   I finished it last night.  I like it, not my usual all bright colors.

 This is another one I'm working on.  I have the top finished but keep putting off basting it for lack of sufficient space to spread it out.  It measures 90 inches by 90 inches.  The dime quilt is only 56 inches by 64 inches, much more manageable.  

So that is what I've been up to.  How about you?  Are you keeping busy this winter?  Nearly spring now.  Daffodils are blooming here.

Be well.

Journal work

I've been enjoying working in various journals, the one above is a regular hardback book I altered.  It has the most wonderfully absorbent pages in it and takes paint very well, dries so fast.  It is a book titled Married Love from the 1940's and the text is quite fun to read.  Rather risque for the time.  I cut about a third of the pages out before I began and I use them in other mixed media projects.

Dulcinea and Don Quixote

another from the Married Love book.  I haven't altered the cover yet.

These next ones are from a folded paper book I made with one large sheet of paper.  It makes a book of 16 pages that is about 9" x 6".  A nice size.  I should share the tutorial, you can find it here: folded paper journal.   They call it a Meander Accordion folded book.

Remember the paper buttons I made about a year ago?  I have used some of them here for my flower centers.

One of my favorite colors...

One final spread.  I've been doing a little doodling lately.  I made these hands on a separate sheet of paper while listening to TV, then cut them out and glued them into my book.

I made another Dooleybobber but couldn't show it until it was received by my friend Maggi.  I gifted it to her for her birthday.  I had an old embroidered cloth that I had picked up at a garage sale somewhere.  It was rather stained but it was perfect to incorporate behind the dooleybobber.

Sweet bird embroidery

close up of my hand embroidery

Finally, here is a little baby quilt I made for my newest nephew, Sam.  His mom is a professional photographer so if you like seeing photos of newborns, you should go take a look at Studio 623 blog.  Cuteness factor is very high!!!

close up of the only "baby" fabric I used in the center of each block.  (Linda, note the donkey:-)

Well that is about it for today.  I hope you all are faring well this winter.  Winter is almost my favorite season because I get to spend so much time in my studio.

Be well. 

Tiny Books

I recently signed up to participate in a Pay It Forward deal that Linda at Olde Baggs 'n Stuft Shirts posted on her Facebook page.  I agreed to post on my facebook page an offer to give something free to the first five people who signed up and agreed to do the same.  Last year I participated in this and it was fun so I was happy to do it again.  I made these little folded paper books to give away that Maggi at Hand Dyes taught me how to make.

They measure 3 by 3 and a half inches. They have all these little pockets in them that I try to put tiny treasures in.

The treasure might only be a poem or a feather.  I already gave one of the books away so I need to come up with two more things to give away.

Dooleybobber  #?
 
At the end of last year I made this on my needle felting machine.  I haven't made a dooleybobber in so long that I don't know what number this one is!  I stitched it by hand using hand dyed threads that I got from Maggi.  You might like to hop over and look at her luscious threads and fabrics and  indulge yourself and buy some, they are gorgeous.  Tell her Jan sent you.  Oh and do you see that gold colored rectangular thing in the upper right hand corner?  That was a piece of a plastic tray that held chocolates.  I put it on top of my wood stove on a safe metal tray and let it melt until it became mostly flat.  It didn't even stick to the safe metal tray, just came right off.  I stamped the word "Create" on it in Stazon ink.  I was just experimenting a bit.

I put that dooleybobber #? on the cover of a 3 ring notebook that I use as my desk calendar.  I have a folder for each month and can put in my writing and cards that I receive or whatever.  I'm liking this so far.  I have some wonderful calendar images that my friends in my Stitch 'n Bitch group made for me.  If you click on the link it will take you to our group blog.

More recently I have been playing with a gelli plate that my friend Anne at El Milagro Studio sent to me.  Above you can see the gelli plate and two texture plates I made from fun foam.  Wow, is this fun or what!?!  Thanks again, Anne!

Here are some of my favorite papers I have created so far.  I have the 6 inch square gelli plate.

Here are a few more.  The dark spiral that you see is a resist I created from Tyvek and used.  It was so pretty I want to use it on a card or in my journal or something.  Bonus!

I made these papers by cleaning my brayer off on them.  Cool, yes?  They remind me of Madras plaids.  I have lots of papers to use somewhere now and I've only played with the gelli plate for a couple of hours!  I made a card out of one of my pullings already.  Nice!  They have plenty of video tutorials available on their blog, check them out here.

Well that's about all for today.  I shall leave you with this self portrait.  Until next time,

Be well.

Within the Stream

The Seasons--The Rain  2002

 

Look at me!  Blogging twice in one month!  I thought I'd show you something I have been working on over the past year.  A friend had requested a wall quilt from me.  Years ago she had commissioned the one above (sorry for the lousy photo, it is the only one I have, taken before I went digital)  She wanted another one, the same size, but depicting more of a wintery feel.

beginnings

 

 She indicated the colors she wanted with little colorful folded papers and knitted swatches shown above, and described the feeling she hoped I could portray.  She wrote: "The idea of light /darkness continues to be important to me.  With this theme, 'Within the Stream of Providence'.  A feeling of a spiral, with a simplicity of form and color with a sense of movement.  Deeper tonalities for winter."

choices

Armed with her thoughts on theme, and her colored papers for reference, I began pulling fabrics.  I used only my own hand dyed stash, they seemed perfect for my needs.

helper


Charlie supervised the process and generously held down my cut fabric wedges.  I freely cut similarly shaped, varying sized fabric pieces and laid them down, over lapping their raw edges, on top of a layer of batting topped with a layer of fusible interfacing.  It almost fit on top of my tall library table, but I needed my ironing board space also.  This was supposed to end up as a 36"X68" size wall quilt, so of course it had to be made larger, leaving room to cut off and even up the edges.

I spent many hours choosing fabrics and arranging them in a flowing colorway.  The top was the darker area and I tried to meld the colors towards lighter, sun splashed area as I reached the lower zones.

I was imagining an ocean flow, caught during the change from stormy to the return of sun splashed calm, with one rolling wave that was my interpretation of her theme of spiraling.

With the fusible interfacing underneath, I was able to fuse my raw edged fabrics down when I was happy with the flow, and move the piece to my design wall so I could get a different view.   There are bits of other works that can be seen around the edges, try to ignore those.  You can see the ribbon I pinned down to show me the area where I wanted to enhance the spiraling wave flow.

Within the Stream  2012

I worked on this off and on for a year, although there was a lot of off time.  This past week I finally made time to make a label for it, and mailed it off to my friend.

close up showing the dense free motion stitching using variegated thread I used to hold all the raw edge fabrics down.

I used a pillowcase style  backing application using an old sheet that I dyed to match with the front colors.  My friend called me soon after she received it and said, "It is fine!"  She loved it.  I had not shared any photos of work in progress with her so she didn't know what to expect.  She pointed out how different my style was in this one compared to the earlier one.  She thought it had a more collaged look to it, almost like it was made of paper.  Which is funny, seeing as I now work mainly with mixed media, collage and paper.

I'm glad to have that piece out of the studio but now am wondering what I shall do next.  This is normally my most productive studio time, in the winter.  I shall ponder the next big thing.  In the meantime, I am working in my journals and making little books.    I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into my work process.  Till next time, 

Be well.