Weekend Plans

School Vacation is almost over. Yippee!! I'm already looking forward to (and by "looking forward to" I mean, dreading) the next week long vacation in April.

Actually, it was fine. But, on to the weekend...

Friday Night

• Eat taco soup that Claire and I made.
• Work on the self portrait if I can drag my ass off the couch. (The last two nights have been filled with West Wing, Alias, Project Runway, Survivor and The Apprentice.) I'm a tv whore.

Saturday

• Watch the recorded episode of The Avatar: The Last Airbender with Jeff and the kids.
• Work on the invitations for the "meet the artists" night at our Frayed Edges quilt show.
• Go back to the grocery store and pick up the items that were not on the list for the major trip we made on Thursday.
• Go to Portland to go to the party store to buy stuff for B's party, also Toys R Us to buy B some birthday presents, maybe find something that I can't live with out at Michael's and eat Silly Chicken at the Food Court in the mall. (This is what my kids call teriyaki chicken from the Japanese place. It's in "silly" shapes.)
• Make cup cakes for our little family birthday party to be held at Chuck E Cheese on Sunday.

Sunday

• Stop by Panera for a Bacon Turkey Bravo sandwich to eat at the ...
• Get together with the Seedy British Gentlemen. This is the new name for the Portland Women's Artists' Group. It's a long story. I'll be working on some hand work for the self portrait. Others will be making shrines.
• Meet Jeff and the kids at Chuck E Cheese for pizza and cupcakes.
• Take Jeff to the airport.
• Try to get the kids in bed before the red carpet kicks off.
• "Watch" the Oscars while also working on the self portrait and maybe some new small pieces for the Frayed Edges show.

Perfect Motherhood

I started this post this morning. Then I got unduly wrapped up in saying what I wanted to say, then feeling bad because I could/should have been playing with the kids or refining the grocery list, or any number of other things that may or may not have been more productive. And I realized I was in the trap. So, I'm rewriting IN BRIEF...

On the cover of last week's Newsweek is "The Myth of the Perfect Mother," with a picture of a woman with eight arms juggling eight parts of her life. Claire explained to me that she didn't really have eight arms, there were just three other women with the same shirt sitting behind her. Thanks for clearing that up for me, sweetie.

Sister bloggers, Kim and Christina, both wrote about the article.

I saw the author of the article, Judith Warner, on the Today show today. She was pimping her book, Perfect Madness, which I will not link because I don't want you to buy it. I'm not saying she's wrong and I can't really judge because I haven't read the book. But, I'm sick of the media grabbing any topic that is juicy and inflating it to sell magazines, gain viewership, etc.

I think the real myth is that all mothers are drowning in stress and anxiety. I'm not drowning.

I have good days and bad days. As do my husband and my kids. We are real people. I want us each to become the very very best we can be. Usually we make some progress toward that goal. And even when we don't, we learn from it.

No one really asked us to be the perfect mother. The media draws of picture of her, but we don't answer to the media. We answer to our families. Our spouses and kids don't want us to lose OURSELVES in sacrifice for them. Then everyone loses.

Every one makes their own choices. Some of us have more choices than others. I choose to spend a good bit of time playing with fabric. I also choose chapter books, Happy Meals, puzzles, the My Little Pony board game, and meaningless knock-knock jokes.

I don't like to do laundry. But I choose that too.

Self Portrait In Progress

Here's my sketch. It's much more fleshed out in my head and I changed the color scheme a bit. I needed to "tighten my color palette." They always say that on Trading Spaces.


This is the beginning of the center piece -- a house with pictures of me in the "windows." I couldn't track down all the right pictures to represent all the points in my life. Oh well...


And then this will be the panel on the right. Have a mentioned my affinity for green and purple?


I'm thinking of constructing the whole thing in sections. So I'd have several small quilts (using Melody's escape hatch method of finishing) then butting them up to each other and sewing them together. This would allow those spaces where I have the leaf shapes drawn to be completely open. I'd just butt the house to the two side panels and to a more substantial piece across the top. Plus, I think by constructing in sections, the quilting and embellishing will be more manageable.

Snow Shoeing

On Friday afternoon Jeff and Benjamin and I joined Claire's class for snow shoeing. It was really fun. I didn't have very high hopes. I was concerned that Ben would poop out and I was worried it was going to be too wet and slushly like it had been earlier in the week. Ben did poop out a little, but over all it was a perfect day. On the other hand, Claire was really looking forward to it and we had barely gotten started when she said, "This is not as much fun as I thought it was going to be." She persevered, but not with much enthusiasm. You can tell she is wiped out in the last picture below.

Hey! I've got orange snow shoes! Check me out!



Nineteen kindergarteners and first graders, one teacher and about eight parents snowshoeing through the woods. I can hardly believe this is literally our back yard. I feel very lucky.



I wish our photographer would have panned down a bit so you could see the snow shoes... it was the point of the picture. Oh well, enjoy the tree trunks instead.

Winter Fun

Finally, the snow was just perfect for snowman-making!


This is Benjamin (the neighbor, not our Benjamin who was napping at the time), Claire and Emma. We had a fun time building. When the snow is just perfect, it can be quick and easy and you can make a tall snow man as long as you don't make the middle section too heavy to lift onto the bottom. We built one in Ben and Emma's front yard too. I really need more pictures of our Benjamin on the blog. He and I are joining Claire's class for snow shoeing this afternoon, so I'll try to get some good pix of the little guy!

Fabric Collages (at least that's what I call them)

Last week I made three small fabric collages. I was inspired by the Valentine swap pieces I made earlier for the Art Quilts Maine swap and by the one Kathy did for the same swap. Her's was marvy! Kate was lucky enough to receive it so maybe I can get a picture of it when Frayed Edges meets again.

I was also spurred by our impending show at the Little Dog coffee shop. I thought these might be particularly marketable. Plus, they were a blast to make. I feel they are much better than the Valentine pieces. I took more time on the both design and construction.

I know the pictures are kind of small and even when you click on them, the larger version doesn't show much detail. Oh well. I guess that's not really the point of the blog. Some day when (if) I get my own website, I'll have nice quality pix.

This one is called Flourish. It's about 5 x 8.


Transform, 5 x 7


Grow, 5 x 7

Art Quilts Maine Challenge

Every year Art Quilts Maine (our state wide "creative" guild) has a challenge. This year we voted on the theme "self portrait." The quilts are to be shown at the April meeting, exhibited at the state quilt show in July and then we pick 8 to send to Houston for their guild challenge catagory. I'm stuck.

Ok, maybe I'm not really stuck. I have a sketch I like. Maybe I'll post it here. In fact I really really like it. It's got lots of elements I'm really interested in, though I'm not sure I'll be able to execute what I have in my head. It incorporates pictures of moi printed on fabric. Sticking point #1: I can't find the right number of pictures representing the right points in my life. Ok, so I tried to just let that go and pick some pictures that would do.

Then I tried to print them. Sticking point #2: Apparently my printer is trash or we're having pilot error. I think I can persevere here, but I may have to settle for images that were not quite what I hoped. But, I kind of like the idea of "fixing" them with paint, embroidery or beads.

I began piecing one panel a couple of days ago and I don't like it. Sticking point #3. But, actually I think I've already come up with a solution for that. I was going with lots of colors, novelty fabrics and things that I loved, but had no cohesion. Clearly I need to tighten up my color palatte. So, I'm planning to repiece that section and stick with purple, green, orange and hmmmm.... maybe black and white for resting spots.

Sticking point #4. This one is actually sticking up lots of areas of my life. Jeff is job hunting and we may be moving as soon as this summer. Or maybe not. It's all totally up in the air. So, do I really want to finish a quilt to culminate in events that I might not even be around for? I don't know.

And am I really interested in making this quilt anyway? Is this challenge going to help me develop new skills or ideas or is it an obligation? And do I really want to do a self portrait at all, or is that putting myself out there too much? (Well... at least I wasn't planning to do a nude like some other brave souls I know!)

And if I don't do this quilt, what is the project I do really really want to dive into next?

Claire got her cast off last week! Hooray! She even got to help pry it off. Her Doctor told her when her two front teeth grow back in she would be welcome to come join his practice. 

Horror

Friday, February 11: Newborn tossed out of car window

Thursday, February 10: Girl locked in room for over a year

Saturday, February 5: Pair accused of child torture arrested in Utah

and all the others who were not in the news...

We must take better care of our children. And by "we" I mean ALL OF US. And by "our children" I mean ALL CHILDREN.

Edited: Sunday, February 13. I see now that the first story was false. The woman who reported seeing the baby tossed out the window was actually the baby's mother. It's still a sad situation and seems to be a reflection of our society's ignorance about the real needs of children and mothers.

Snow Pictures

These are for all you bloggers who have been posting pictures of flowers blooming! Here's what's happening in my world. The captions are above the pictures. I think I like them better below. I need to adjust my Hello settings.

Here's Claire out in the snow yesterday. We've gotten at least another foot since then. Benjamin was out too, but he didn't last long and was tougher to get a picture of.



That's Jeff using Joe's plow to plow Phil's driveway. Aren't we all neighborly?



This is the view out our back door. I squeezed open the door just a bit so I wouldn't have the weave of the screen over the whole picture. The best perspective for the depth of the snow really would be a picture of a five year old standing in it up to her thighs. Or a two year old stuck up to his waist crying! I'll try to get that picture later today. (Well, not the crying one...)

Arg! Another Snow Day!

Luckily, we have great neighbors with super high tech snow plows. I think they have plowed the four or five collective driveways in the neighborhood at least four times since yesterday afternoon. It's a lot of snow. So, of course, school is cancelled again today. Yesterday not much had accumulated in the morning and I misread the postings on the tv, so off we went. Benjamin had school (since his preschool is in someone's home, the teacher doesn't have to plow or shovel to get to work). But, we when drove over to drop Claire off, clearly something was amiss. I first noticed when I saw only one set of tire tracks in the long driveway. Apparently, there is only one other clueless parent in the neighborhood. So, we stayed home. Got to work on Valentines. Watched a bit of tv together. Played some computer games and then went to pick Benjamin up. I'll have to come up with a whole new set of ideas for today. But, since at least I know school is cancelled today -- we can spend a bit more time in our jammies.
I really should take some pix of the snow... look for that later today.

The First Frayed Edges Get Together

Frayed Edges... apparently, artsy-pendant-necklaces were the order of the day.

We had a great time sharing books (and food) and discussing lots of works-in-progress and hopes our group.

Kate's "The Brady Bunch Plays Tiddly Winks" How's that for a bullseye?! There was much discussion here about plastic pony beads. Hmmmm.

Oh, that's me with my new bag. Made from amazing hand-painted and stamped fabric from my friend Sonji, quilted and constructed by me. I get comments about it every time I carry it. And look for a future post about my obsession with purple and green.

Kathy's Egret. Isn't it marvelous? You just can't go wrong with the amazing imagery in nature.

Sarah's in progress piece for the Straight and Narrow challenge. Stunning. It's only part way done and I'm in awe. She plans to add lots more three dimensional water and some foam around the rocks. Have you seen what you can create with celephane and a heat gun?

Yes, they are all a bit wonky-shaped.

I made three smallish fabric collages today. Art Quilts Maine meets tomorrow. We are exchanging postcards/ornament/small quilts. (A leftover agenda item from our December meeting which was snowed out.) So I made some Christmas ornaments way back then, but it seemed silly to exchange those now. So, I moved on to Valentine's inspired colors and embellishments.

This one includes a bunch of fabric beads I made. I think they look a bit Asian.

I've received some wonderful exchange stuff in recent swaps -- including this background fabric, some of the beads and the "love" tile. That red screen is from a box of clementines. Delicious fruit and crafty stuff all in one purchase!

It's All About Me Me!

Diane tagged me. She also enlightened me on the proper meaning of meme. I had no idea. Actually, I thought it was a bit of slang about these lists which end up being all about "me me!"

Total Amount of Music on your computer? No idea. I don't do much music. Though I think if I got in the habit, I would enjoy it more. My husband has lots of music on this computer and sometimes (if I'm doing some mundane task, like manipulating photos) I track it down and get it going. He's got a lot of Linkin Park which I am not thrilled about. But there is also some Evanesence there, which I like.

The last CD you bought? Bought? Nothing recently. But I'd say the last one was Shania Twain's "Up." I heard her sing "Not Just a Pretty Face" on Oprah a long time ago and logged right on to Amazon. I listened to that album a lot during some challenging times and it helped.

What is the song you last listened to before reading this message? Well, Benjamin has Laurie Berkner's "Shady Tree" in the player that he listens to at bed time, so it was probably "I'm Gonna Drive My Car" while doing all the hand motions in the bed with cozy-pajama boy! (You can see some great Laurie Berkner videos on Noggin.)

Write 5 songs you often listen to or that mean a lot to you?
Well, like Julie from High Fiber Content, "In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel is *our song.* Jeff and I shared a wonderful winter weekend in Lawrence, Kansas in 1989 and we went to see "Say Anything." I know you've seen it too, so I don't have to explain anymore.
My all time favorite song is "Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves. And I've loved it way longer than it's been used in Fisher-Price commercials.
"Somewhere Over the Rainbow" by Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwo'ole It's just entrancing. Just a tiny bit of it was in a commercial for life-savers or something a long time ago. Then I heard the extended version in Finding Forester. (Which is a fantastic flick.) We downloaded it the same night we saw the movie. And then the first day I volunteered in my daughter's kindergarten classroom, Mr. Horne had it playing. I knew all was right with the world.
The songs we sing to our kids at bedtime "Barges, The Pearl Song, I'm a Little Froggy, Edelweiss, Kum Ba Ya..."
Lastly, I'll have to say some hymn. After 35 years of regular church attendance many many of them are well-known, loved and recognized. How about "All Glory Laud and Honor" which we sing on Palm Sunday while parading around the church?

I feel a bit shallow in my tastes. I also enjoy The Bacon Brothers, Indigo Girls, Melissa Etheridge, Broadway musicals, Lowen and Navarro and some occasional Top 40 Pop crap.

What 3 people are you going to pass this baton to and why?
Laural at Thimble -- because her blog is a kick and apparently she's reading mine, I saw my link on one of her side bars. (!!!) And she's not in the Quilters Web Ring, so she's fresh meat.
Claire at Little Fish -- Because she has a lovely name, and we've been doing a bit of cyber inspiration and I'm eager to hear where she is with her music.
Kristi at Designedly Kristi -- because I know her from some Artella groups and because she does so many creative and interesting things that surely her music taste will be eclectic and inspiring (and she's more fresh meat).

Anthony Avenue Quilt

Anthony Avenue: The quilt about which I've written all that blather about quilt judging below.

Quilt Judging

At our Frayed Edges meeting, we briefly discussed entering quilts in the judged portion of our state quilt show. Sarah is planning to enter two quilts and is budgeting for the entry fees: $15 per quilt. I asked her why she was entering quilts to be judged? You can also enter quilts just to be displayed at no cost. There are no cash prizes for this show. I entered a quilt to be judged last year and offered to share my judges sheets with the group, but I was unable to put my fingers on them at the moment. I thought I'd share the details here because I am interested in this topic of discussion and I think I need to refine my ideas about exactly where and why I may enter shows in the future. (I mean for not much more than $15 I could pre-order the new Quilt National catalog on Amazon!)

We agreed that entering a show and winning a ribbon can give you good exposure in this area, which is valuable to Sarah as she begins to teach, sell patterns and quilts. It also can increase the value of the quilt which may help sell it. These are important -- if intangible -- factors to consider.

Maine Quilts has three judges and each evaluate each quilt on a 100 point scale. The average score is tallied and if it falls into the following categories, the appropriate ribbon is awarded. Yes, this means there may be no Exceptional Merit quilts in the whole show, which was the case last year. Or there might be a zillion second place ribbons.

The 100 points is made up of Overall Impact: 15 points; Design: 40 points; Workmanship: 45 points. (Design and workmanship are further broken down into categories that I won't bore you with.)

Award categories
Best in Show: Highest score
Exceptional Merit: 97-100
1st: 90-96
2nd: 83-89
3rd:76-83
Honorable Mention: 70-75

There is also a Viewers' Choice and each judge gets to pick her (or his) Judge's Choice.

Here's what I received for Anthony Avenue last year.

Judge One
Overall Impact: 14
Design: 35
Workmanship:37
Total: 86
Comments: Intriguing design, fun to explore, embellishments add interest, good variety of quilting designs, machine quilting problems with stitch length and tension

Judge Two
Overall Impact: 12
Design: 25
Workmanship: 31
Total: 68
Comments: Nice use of imagination, appreciate use of unusual materials, technically piece could hang flatter, exciting, like that you ventured out!

Judge Three
Overall Impact: 7
Design: 27
Workmanship: 26
Total: 60
Comments: good use of embellishments to explain theme, some ares of interfacing distort the piece

Average Total: 71
I received an Honorable Mention Ribbon (though individually, one judge awarded me a 2nd and the others no ribbon at all.)

It should be said, I have a thick skin. I am proud of the quilt -- and I know it has strengths and weaknesses. I love having it hanging in our stairwell. And it is a treasured piece of art commemorating a certain time in my family's life. It wasn't made to be sold.

So, I guess I'm asking...
What do you think of this format? Is it worth $15? What are your personal criteria in entering shows? How do you place a value on the cost of entering (fees, shipping, etc.)?

Preparations for Frayed Edges

I had a great time preparing for the first meeting of small art quilt group: Frayed Edges. Kate brought ginger scones to have for morning munchies. I made a pot of coffee and set out the various fixin's -- including our nice china. I mean, gosh, we hardly ever use it, so this seemed like the perfect time. Claire saw it all set out before she went to school and asked if I was having a tea party. As a matter of fact... I am having a tea party!!

I planned Hot Ginger Chicken Salad over Puff Pastry with a light salad with red pepper strips and feta for lunch. I was delish and everyone cleaned their plates. Which meant we were permitted to have cookies brought by Sarah: pumpkin spice cookies, chocolate/nut/chip and chocolate/pecan/toffee. Yes, three choices!

I also had a fun time setting the table. I made a simple centerpiece with jars and scraps of blue and white fabric, which somewhat coordinates with the china. And the placemats were made by my great grandmother, Mabel. She was a true multi-media artist and an inspiration. Those placemats must be nearly 100 years old.

More about the actual get-together soon.

Table scape for the first Frayed Edges meeting

Paper Collage Picture

This is the paper collage I made at the first meeting of the Portland Women's Art Group. It's made with several layers of paper, paint, gel medium, glaze... etc (all supplies that are pretty unfamiliar to me, but the hostess, Deb, was happy to share. Yeah!

First Meeting of PortWag

Last year I took a great ecourse called Goalar Energy through Artella. That experience morphed into a lot of stuff -- including this blog, indirectly. And I "met" through the internet lots of great artist-types. One of those gals has started a women's art group and she invited me. Yeah! For now, we're called PortWag. Port for Portland, Maine since that's where we're meeting and Wag for Women's Art Group. I really think we need to put an item on the agenda for our next meeting to come up with a better name.

Anyway, we had our first meeting on Sunday afternoon and it was just delightful. We talked a lot about the importance of community, the healing power of creativity and art and the value of connecting with like-minded souls. (This is big stuff, not taken lightly... but still sprinkled with lots of laughter, silliness and mania.)

I didn't know any of the other six gals who were there. One of them did not know any of the rest of us -- the remaining 5 all knew each other before, so that was a bit odd, but ok. I"ll be eager to see them again next month.

Deb lead us in a great collage technique. It was described in the last issue of Cloth Paper Scissors, but I promptly skipped over it since "I don't do paper." But the opportunity to use someone else's supplies (paper, paint, gel medium, stamp pads, dyes, pigments, etc) and to have someone walk me through it was delightful. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to get back to fabric, but it was really great. I was pleased with the results. Actually, everyone's work was stunning.

Next month we're going to work on shrines. I might end up making a shrine/box in which to put my guardian angel (for the QA challenge). That's a month away, in the mean time....