Quilting on a deadline. With pets.

The good thing about quilting with a deadline is that I get the project done - none of that getting derailed when my craft isn't quite measuring up to my artistic vision. The bad thing about quilting with a deadline is that I don't have a chance to fully explore either my craft or my artistic vision - the quilt must be completed on time! This quilt was one of those projects that I love, but didn't quite "get it right" in my eyes. It also challenged the relationship between craft and tranquility, but tranquility mostly won.

The wall-hanging is of troth, or Indian Potato (Hedysarum alpinum), a powerful symbol at our campus of culture, tradition, strength, and continuity taken from the words of traditional chief Peter John of Minto when he spoke about Troth Yeddha', Indian Potato Hill, the traditional Lower Tanana Athabascan name of the hill that the University of Alaska Fairbanks now occupies, and the importance of education to Alaska Natives. It was made to give to a retiring colleague whose leadership has been instrumental in the growth of our campus, the expansion of education for rural and Alaska Native students, and the elevation of Alaska Native knowledge and interests within the university education system.

I started on Sunday morning (after a few days of thinking about what I wanted to do) with a Wednesday at 12:30 deadline. Working on such a tight deadline meant that what would normally be small setbacks became major issues. My first mistake: using tear away stabilizer for the threadwork. I hate tear away stabilizer. Such a mess. Plus, I had forgotten my tortie cat's crinkly fabric obsession (an obsession that has cost her at least three of her nine lives). Tear away stabilizer counts as crinkly fabric. I woke up Monday morning to find the piece mauled on the floor with chunks of stabilizer chewed away, a couple of holes in the fabric itself, and a number of tooth marks that didn't make it into the "hole that needs to be patched category." Amazingly, I did not panic, scream in rage, or freak out in any way. I calmly tucked it out of her reach and made plans to repair the damage with patches or trimming.

Monday night I designed the folded flowers for applique (troth is a member of the pea family), appliqued the root, and tried out some appliqued leaves as well, which I didn't like so removed. With a stash like mine it was no problem finding appropriate border fabric so I got it all put together and sandwiched for embroidery/quilting on Tuesday. The free motion machine embroidery and quilting turned out to be a nightmare! My wonderful Bernina needs servicing - I've worked it hard this month - and one of the threads I used had been wound wrong by the manufacturer. I had thread breaking, stitches skipping. I must have tried 10 different needles, cleaned and oiled the machine multiple times, re-threaded it. I finally did make it through, but for a while there I actually thought I would have to give up just because of thread problems. I actually considered running over to my mom's house at 1 am to pick up my other Bernina that I leave there for her so she doesn't have to carry one back and forth from the Lower-48.

Then Ziggy decided to get into the act. While I was putting on the beads I noticed a length of nymo thread trailing from his mouth. Thankfully he hadn't swallowed any, but he did chew it up and slobber all over it. This was after Jeanetta had discovered that he had gotten into some chocolate earlier in the evening when I was downstairs sewing. He is completely fine. Stomach of iron, apparently. I finished the piece at 3 am and got a little extra sleep by skipping my yoga practice in the morning. The final touch was a label with Chief John's quote that everyone in the office signed.

I do love this piece, but would have liked more embellishment and more balance between the root and leaves. Materials used were batiks, Cherrywood cottons, Sulky blendables thread, glass beads and dyed fresh water pearls.

Do I get to count the zombie cupcakes?

Crows feast on maggoty zombie flesh.

The costume that started it all.

This weekend marked the beginning of our family's, no, my girls' and my Halloween obsession. No doubt my husband would be just as happy to never see another pumpkin. So, we spent quite a bit of time at Jo-Ann's and Michael's on Saturday. I ended up ordering a Halloween costume pattern online because we couldn't find what Jeanetta wanted here in town. I'll be mostly winging it on Lynneva's sea monster.  I'm going as a sea witch, or sea weed, whatever fits. We got into the habit of making costumes in 2007 when I went as Rita Skeeter. The girls got such a kick out of it that we have made something every year since.

The cousins and their zombie fare.

So far we have created a small graveyard (I spent two days trying to get Ziggy to pee on a gravestone for a picture, but no luck yet) and made our first round of zombie cupcakes from the book Zombie Cupcakes by Zilly Rosen. I had my niece and nephew over and thought they would make a nice activity for the kids while I sewed downstairs. Yeah, right. Zombie cupcakes require a great deal of adult supervision. If anyone is wondering, fondant and the fondant/gum paste mix required are easy and surprisingly tasty. Italian meringue buttercream is a pain in the ass to make and tastes like whipped sugar and fat. Yuck. We'll be making a traditional buttercream or cream cheese frosting next time. Our favorites so far are the eye poppers and crows.


I did manage to complete one UFO in all the chaos. This technique comes from "Transformations: From Crafty Silk Flower to Sheer Sensation" by Peggy Holt in the Quilting Arts Fall 2006 Issue. I completed it except for the binding a year or two ago in a Quilting Arts class with Corlis Taylor. I decided to use a satin stitch instead of binding to get a more organic wavy border. This piece is low contrast, but is actually more interesting than this photo shows. I plan on doing more with this technique next weekend. Wish me luck!

Forget writer's block, I think I have life block

Last week I realized that I was treating the development of this blog like I treat my crafting - mostly in the planning stages, rarely in progress, and even more rarely completed. So, I'm forgoing the perfectly crafted opening post in favor of just getting started. It helps that I'm fresh off my annual shopping spree at the Bad Girls of the North art show in Fairbanks. Nothing like an arts show and a little retail therapy to motivate.

I have what really amounts to an obsession with arts and handicrafts, particularly fiber arts and other wearables, but also pottery and paintings. I try not to buy things that I can make myself, even if I rarely get around to doing it. This year I bought two paintings by Dee Carpenter. This one, "Evening Glow", with the chickadee and fireweed was the girls' choice. I also bought this lovely set of wool mittens by Nancy Nolfi of PIZZAZZ Fiber Arts. I could definitely learn the techniques to make them, but that won't happen anytime soon and these were irresistible. I also bought several new pieces from one of my favorite glass bead artists, Elise Krauss of Koi Creek beadworks. This polar bear pendant will go great with the polar bear wearable art vest I'm planning to make this year (and last year, and the year before that...but this time I mean it!).

One goal for this blog is to get me going on finishing some of the 70 plus UFO projects I have (photos of many of them can be found in the gallery) and start the many projects I have rolling around in my head. I do best if I have someone around to talk to about my projects, but I don't have a chance to share in person very often so I'm hoping writing a blog will help. I will also use this blog to occasionally discuss the relationship between art, craft, and culture as that is a special interest.

This weekend I hope to paint one wall orange (not really a craft project, but a project nonetheless) and make some small wall quilts of my girls school logo using a fusible stained glass technique to sell as a fundraiser. That means my UFOs will have to wait for another time, but at least I'll be creating.