Heal My Life

It Was a Good & Busy Weekend

Sort of sounds like it was a dark and stormy night.  Only without the dark and stormy.  And the night. Right. We had a good weekend.  We drifted in the boat on the pond, saw two of the new fish, but no turtles, it seems like they've gone to the mud.  We baked, made cheese, went to a poetry reading, I worked on my Go Figure quilt and a bit on the shard pins, which I'll show you when I have them finished.  So photos, yes?

First, the printed and tea bag collaged quilt sections. I only have photos of two of the sections, the other two were too dark to post and I didn't feel like taking more, but I think you get the idea.

 

Now, the St. Lucia Buns.  Anthony made these absolutely delicious soft rolls and they were gone practically before they were cool.  We didn't eat them ALL, mind you, we did give two away.  There are recipes for these all over the Internet, if you want this one, email me.  I'm too lazy to type it right this minute for the post.

And finally, the cheese.  We swapped eggs for goats milk with a neighbor up the street from us.  I don't know what they made with our eggs, but we made two types of cheese with their fresh goats milk!  First, a simple Lebanese Chevron, a hand molded cheese made with vegetable rennet. After draining it and molding it, we cut it into cubes, rubbed it with salt and Zaatar (a spice Lebanese mixture) piled them in a little jar and covered them with olive oil. YUM!  *Note: we heated the curds and why further, after they had formed, to encourage a firmer textured cheese we could cut). 

Then, after allowing the remaining whey to sit at room temp overnight, this morning we made ricotta  (means re-cooked in Italian and no photos of this, it looks pretty boring).  How cool is THAT.  Two cheeses out of one milking.  Granted, there wasn't much cheese since we only started with a gallon of goats milk, but it's still always incredible to me that while we waste continually, our ancestors wasted nothing.  Oh, and I fed the whey leftover from the ricotta to the chickens.  In this case - nothing wasted at all!

   

So back to work today.  Catch you later!

Fabric Collage Redux

So I've been busy with several things, some quilted pot shard pins for my quilt guild's Quilt Show coming up in October.  They're collecting things for the gift shop and our sig (special interest group), The Art Quilters have done several things in addition to the pot shards to donate for the shop.  The Go Figure project, and some random knitting, though I have just realized thatI need to knit Suleiman a coat for the cold weather.

If anyone has suggestions for a nice synthetic blend, I'm all ears.  I'm SO done knitting dog coats out of wool for various reasons.  I really want to knit him the Stegasaurus Coat that I did for Toby a couple of years ago, but I seriously don't think I'll get Anthony to go for it.

Here at Heal My Hands, we've also launched a new line of products that we created for Natural Soda.  They are truly amazing, with delicious fragrances I created from essential oils and absolutes.  I particularly love the Moisturizing Body Polish which fizzes as you rub it on.  Incredible if I do say so myself.  I'm pretty darn proud of us! 

We've also launched a client website (albuqcookie) and have two new clients.  Needless to say, I've been a bit wrapped up lately.   

And now that I've typed redux, I can't actually remember if I posted my first fabric collage.  Well, if it turns out I've only posted it to Flickr, I'll post if here tomorrow.  I've finished another fabric collage and truthfully, I'm lovin' this.  I think maybe I didn't get enough glue time as a kid or something, because cutting and pasting these bits of fabric and getting something to hang on the wall without picking up a single spool of thread just thrills me.

Though on this one, I did burn the poppies to get the fabric to curl, and I did use sand... but still, it was mostly glue. Cool, huh? 

  

Go Figure - the backgrounds

After endless fiddling, switching and switching back, I've finally decided on the backgrounds for all four quadrants.  These backgrounds will be faded to about 15 - 20% and printed directly onto the fabric with my inkjet printer (I have a Canon S9000).  Once that's done, hopefully today, though I'm having guests for barbecue so I don't think I'll actually get that far (still have to test the prints), I'll be able to collage the teabag tracings on top.  Stay tuned!

Go Figure - the Structure

I now know more than I ever needed to know about corsets, their history and the making of them today.  Yes, that's right, there's a thriving corset community out there making corsets of all colors and complexity.  And WEARING THEM!  All I can say to that is wow - I can barely manage to get my rather utilitarian underwear on right-side out every morning.  I can't even imagine lacing myself into any sort of anything.  I mean, I wear crocs most of the time.  No laces, see? 

Well anyway, I had my daughter and granddaughters here for a week, hence no progress on the quilt.  We did have a really good time though and there are several photos of my adorable girls on my Flickr if you're so inclined (there's a really cute photo of Anthony and Charlotte in there).  I did think about the construction of Go Figure quite a bit even though I didn't PhotoShop  or stitch a thing.  And I had an idea.

You know the story about Grandma's ham and how subsequent generations all cut the end off the ham because Grandma did it that way so it must be better somehow?  It turns out that Grandma's pan was too short and a whole ham didn't fit into it.  Thats Grandma - that gives me a great idea!

The fabric I bought to run through my printer is from www.colorplusfabrics.com and it comes in a sample pack of 8 1/2 x 11 sheets.  When I ordered it, I thought our specified size was 8 1/2 x 11.  Not so!  Turns out it's 12 x 12.  Right.  So I have this fabric specially treated to run through my inkject printer and it's all too small.  And yes, I know I can buy Bubble Jet, treat my own and iron it to some freezer paper.  But did you read what I just typed?  I don't think I'll be doing that any time soon.  So on to the problem of fabric sheets too small for the project.  Hmmmm.....

I guess I'll have to cut them up! 

This is how I figure I'll do it.  This way, the largest quadrant is 7 1/2 x 9.  Brilliant huh?  But don't get too excied, this is only the photoshop version, I have yet to print or cut any fabric.  I did find corset style hooks and eyes and I'll be making the eyelets myself with an awl.  Yikes.  But even though I'm sure the real thing won't be nearly as neat, anything less seemed like a cop out to my subject matter. 

So after I figured this out, I started to lay my images on top of the four quadrants and that's the next installment.  Let's just say that with the exception of chasing a coyote from the chicken yard, and eating tomato sandwiches made with our own Japanese Truffle tomatoes (which were knee meltingly delicious) this is pretty much all I've done all day.

The Doodle & Trace

As I promised: here's what I'm thinking, my initial doodle, for Go Figure. I did this in PhotoShop with images from Wiki Commons.  At this stage, I'm really just playing.  I know what I want to say, but I'm unsure of how the statement should look. 

There will be several more revisions before I'm done, and a shape change.  The challenge rules require the piece to be 12 x 12, but there is no stipulation as to the shape.  Good.  I'm thinking corset shaped, with eyelets and lacing down the center. 

Of course, this will change the imagery and placement, but we'll see how it all plays out when I draw the shape in Illustrator and start placing images.  I want to try and use  the pregnancy corset, the child's corset and the movement opening (double image).  I'll most likely lose the metal brassiere and the bustle, but I have another project idea for those.    

I've also started to trace the illustrations onto dunked, opened, rinsed and ironed Lipton teabags with Pigma Micro pens.  I'll trace them all, since I plan on using the others at a later date.

Oh, and by the way, all these images are from the US patent files (yes, they're now in the public domain - I haven't stolen anything).  They're actual garments or, rather, devices of torment. And women actually put these things on every blessed day of thier lives.  Incredible isn't it?    

 
 

More Fences?

I've begun my next project, and you guessed it - it's about fences.  Not the kind that keep animal in, the kind that keep women in.  The kind made of whale bone.  Here's a sneak preview:

I'll be publishing the process as I work on it, so stay tuned!

You Know I Hate to be Judgemental...

...but there are times when I scratch my head and wonder why anyone would spend time making the article in question. It's not that I consider my arts and craft choices to be superior, and I certainly realize that everyone is entitled to my their opinion, but seriously...

Thanks to Flickr. They have some VERY unique pools, including this one: Tacky Craft Tuesday.