Sunset, May 14th 08

Sunset, May 14th 08
Originally uploaded by darinhercules

Wednesday was the start of a projected 4 day heat wave. The particulate matter in the air, the heat and the likely several other factors combined to create this stunning sunset.

I've spent the last couple days in the South bay, working at the Internet Identity Worshop. While the discussions were way in the deep end of the pool, the people were all friendly, passionate, and a joy to spend time with.

But now it's back to my regular programming.

Mothers Make Us.. and We Make Back.

(crossposted at BlogHer)

Do you remember the first crafted gift you made for Mother's Day? I think I was about 6. I painted and collaged the frame from a free stand-up insurance company calendar, then ripped the calendar out and replaced it with a "happy mother's day" note. We shall ignore that the paint was the inexpensive water color found in tin boxes, the colored paper from her new magazines, and that nothing totally obliterated the insurance company advertising. I think it was still wet when I gave it to her. I don't remember her being thrilled my artistic endeavor, but who recalls the past that clearly??

We Who Make love the doing. We love the thought of creating something special for those in our lives. And even as we grow, we still look to the making for Mother's Day.

Kathy Cano-Murillo, aka Crafty Chica, tells a sweet story of her mother as she explains why she made her custom games.

About, oh, say, 35 years ago at my parents' house, this is what you'd hear my mom scream out every Saturday night:

"Yahtzee!!!"

Back then, my mom loved playing all kinds of board games, Yahtzee, Aggravation and Bingo.

To this day, every time I walk by the game aisle in a store, I see Mom kissing the dice, saying "Come on, baby, give me a Yahtzee!" She'd wink at me, and then toss them on the kitchen table as if she were at a swanky Vegas casino.

Now that I'm an adult, I wish I had made my mom a personalized game. That would have made her triumphs all the more empowering. But, hey, it is never too late!

A Warhol-esque picture on Craftster, by Bewitched 2982, highlighted her photoshop skills to turn a great photograph into a pop memory for her mom.

A Mother/Daughter crafting night gave Kerri patience.. or something like that:

Last evening we had a Mother-Daughter Sparks meeting. Jennifer informed me we were going to make a craft together for Mother's day and then we were going to do some dancing.
We arrived at 6 and got started making our craft.
We were given a clay pot and the girls were to paint something on it that they like to do with their Mom's. Jennifer painted her and I gardening, it was a masterpiece, she painted the sun, butterflies, a rainbow and some beautiful flowers on it.
The next step was to plant some impatience in the pot, she chose a wonderful cheery pink color.
When all was finished(dancing and all) we left for home.
Just as I was driving home she piped up in the backseat "I'm so glad you could come Mom"
I said "I was so pleased that we had such a nice time"
The she added"Do you like the patience I gave to you in the pot"
I broke into laughter and told her they were called impatience.
She replied with a frown "Your already impatient"
I love this child, LOL.
Giving me a pot of "Patience", if were that easy, he he .

Beverly, aka Beestamper, was enthralled with the $1 buckets at Target. She and a friend turned them into these Mother'd Day gift containers for themed little extras.


Nathan Bowers is giving his mother a custom painted canvas sketchbook. I think his masterpiece looks great!

You need a blank canvas sketchbook from your local art or craft supply store and markers or paint. You also need years to hone your artistic ability, or if you’re like me and skipped all that pesky training, you can embrace abstract art.

Not super confident working directly with markers? You can do a design in pencil and fill it in with ink. Present for mom? Draw like you did in kindergarten and she’ll probably love it even more.

If all that’s too hard, just drop some paint on the book from about 3 feet up Pollock-style. That’s what’s great about the improvisational arts. There is no “wrong”. There’s just “do”.

While this was written several months ago, but I've holding on to it because it speaks of everything good about Mothers Who Craft. A perfect tribute on their day! Anna, younger sister to BlogHer Goddess Lisa Stone, acknowledges that her mother, who taught her how to sew, is a saint.

My mother is a saint. She taught me how to sew…’nuff said. If you do not sew, you can not fathom the patience, focus, and combination of geometry, second sight, and straight up luck it requires. It is truly an art from an era where people had endless hours of time void of distractions like television, cell phones, and email as well as a lack of unlimited, affordable, store-bought clothing made overseas.

My mother is a woman who, after spending several hours (probably about 10 or so, total) on the pattern I’d selected for my 8th grade graduation dress (a tea-length dress with a full skirt and strapless with fan-like, wide pleating in the bodice in a peach cotton) almost throttled me when I said I’d rather have store-bought. I’m not sure what possessed me, I think I was just wanting to fit in more. What a fucking princess! I would have been so much more proud to wear her handiwork. Instead, I felt like someone I was trying to be (that was new, not) instead of myself. I’m sure there’s a picture somewhere (unless I’ve burned it). I wore a strapless dress from Maurice’s, jealous much?!, with a short-sleeve shirt over it…I’d decided the strapless was a bit too risqué. Honestly.

Mom had put in several hours on The Dress in between teaching, raising 4 kids (my oldest sister was in college at that point), driving 2 of us to every sporting and musical event we were involved in, and studying for her master’s degree. Good lord. What an asshole. I remember the look of rage she shot me as she bundled the almost completed dress into a paper bag and muttered, “I’ve been sewing for Goodwill for 10 years!” I was a thankless wretch.

Happy Mother's Day to you playful, artful, impatient, creative, under-appreciated, over-inspired, buried-in-stash-and- supplies spirits. May you spend part of your day making something wonderful.

I also blog at: Deb's Daily Distractions and BlogHer on Mondays and Saturdays.

New Mattresses and Old(er) Quilts

Hey, I'm in the middle of trying to research what (to me) is an interesting question. I'd LOVE your input in this if you can give it to me in the next couple days.

I made quilts for all the beds in my house about 10 years ago. Some older, some newer. I still have a couple bags of standard bed-sized quilting batting in a cupboard if the notion ever strikes me to make a new one.

Yesterday I replaced the old mattress on the double bed in our guest bedroom. The replaced one was purchased in 1978, so it's lived a good happy life. Since most of it's time was spent as a guest bed.. it probably had about 10 years of real sleeping on it in that time.

The new mattress is a new mattress. Which means it's deeper than the old one. And the quilts I made to fit the old bed no longer fit. They are about 10-14" too small in both directions. Check out the photo with another quilt underneath.

This side shot really shows the problem. Major mattress gap-osis:


I've "solved" the problem by moving a queen sized quilt onto the bed. It's not perfect, but it seems to work OK.


But it led me to think:

Are publishers adapting sizing recommendations for bed sized quilts to accomodate the new deeper mattresses?

Are batting manufacturers adapting the size of their batting?

It looks to me that we are in another period where the quilts that we have made no longer fit the beds that they are being made for. I remember the adjustment period when everyone switched from full to queen and then king. It was not joyous! I'm looking for answers, solutions and directions from both the industry and the quilters concerning this.

Please leave a comment with your reaction. If I'm thinking about this, other people are too. Can you point me to any good discussion or information online that I've missed? I'd appreciate it.

I also blog at: Deb's Daily Distractions and BlogHer on Mondays and Saturdays.

Maker Faire. Permission to Play

Saturday, I left my house at dawn and headed down to San Mateo for a day at Maker Faire. It was my first experience with this extravanganza, but it won't be my last. As the sign says: the day emphasized the permission to play.

I started with a four hour volunteer stint: first directing the Bizarre Bazaar crafters on parking their cars (whee! fun! I felt like the Safety Patrol all over again!). While at my station, Tamie Snow and Missy Ballance wandered by wearing these fabulous aprons! The vendor who sewed them sold out to other vendors before the fair even opened! Check 'em out!


Afterwards, the killer opportunity to help set up Make. Play. Day. The guys running that show admitted they were not crafty-types.. much more into the makey part, so they welcomed my crafty enthusiasm! Boxes of papers, googly eyes, dingle balls, stuff were divied up (half for Saturday, half for Sunday) and spread out on the supply tables. Then the "project" tables were "salted" with goodies to kick-start anyone's imagination.

After the doors opened, families would wander innocently wander in, find a space and begin to play. Violet Blue (site NWS), said of her time working there:

Play Day was so much fun: there’s nothing as cool as watching kids smash keyboards with mallets and hammers, or seeing little girls make elaborate buildings out of circuit boards (or make their own armor and stage combat with weapons made from colorful industrial scrap). I think Play Day needs to be happening somewhere every day.

At one point, I revisited the room, stood in the center and quietly filmed the experience.


After putting in my time, I began my wanders through the Craft Section. The Crafty Chica was there helping people make beautiful little matchbox alters, complete with images from her new line, paint and glitter. LOTS of glitter. I wandered through and until I found myself in the Swaparama.

Swaparama! Imagine a cross between GoodWill and Project Runway with a maximum 8 hour time limit. People were invited to bring clothes they no longer used, then choose items from other people's donations. You could take whatever you wanted with a catch: they wanted you to refashion the clothing that day! There were people slicing and stitching, embossing and screening, creating something new and wonderful from a pile of discards. I saw someone making what looked like it would be a fetching corset from the top of some overalls. (now why didn't anyone think of THAT during the PR denim challenge?).

Again, a quiet (by me) look around the room. Note to self: learn to talk while shooting video:


Finally I hit the great outdoors. There was so much to see!

A pedal-powered shuttle bus that carried folks from one part of the fairgrounds to another! All the travelers looked happy as they cheered their way along.

A Jeep covered with "lego base material" plus hundreds of legos for kids to add! This is Art Car 101!


Janine, the fabulous glass bead maker. Check out her necklace!


A variety of contraptions turned into bicycles. This lawn-mower bike was not as easy to manuveur at one might think!


Corey Fogel, a musician and performance artist, whose knitting needles play his drums.


Power tools (like this Ryobi circular saw) turned into racing vehicles!


And impressive Heavy Metal sculpture abounding:




There was a little fire, this courtesy of the Flaming Lotus Girls.


I made through most of the exhibits in the day, though I never caught the robot wars. In the Maker Shed (I think) Lion Yarns set up a demo area, complete with a "living room"-like knitting area. It was jam-packed with women relaxing and sharing.

This year, Maker Faire made the decision to add a number of fire exhibits in the evening. After my early start, and without gloves or a jacket, I just couldn't make myself stay there and wait until the sun went down. But next year? Next year.. I'm throwing extra stuff in my car and hanging out till close to the bitter end!

And if you couldn't make Maker Faire in the bay area this spring, you might plan to make to Maker Faire Austin, October 18th and 19th.


What others said about the event.

Again Violet Blue:

What I love about Maker Faire is that it has gone from an outcropping of a seeming O’Reilly side project into a full-blown arts festival, in the most serious and international sense. On the surface it has the feeling of a homegrown arts and crafts fair slash outsider arts gathering: in truth it’s the closest thing we have to something that reflects current, modern American artists (and contributors from other countries) in their most essential, non-hippie or homogenized state. Really: it’s the nearest we have to an authentic , slightly guerrilla international arts gathering. Simply for the sake for sharing and growing with other artists, not for some BS highbrow grant-gathering art machine, or for impotent bourgeois conceptual salvos onto an empty landscape of Kooons’ and Barney’s. And I’m not just saying this because my friends organize it and produce it: I’ve been there every year, I’ve worked international arts festivals and orgs since 1996, and I know what I’m talking about. It’s a place to *be*.

Matt Cutts shares some great crafty photos and explains it all:

Man, I love Maker Faire. It’s almost as if Burning Man mated with Slashdot.

LifeClever says: Maker Faire is the Magic Kingdom for Geeks.

I also blog at: Deb's Daily Distractions and BlogHer on Mondays and Saturdays.

Wrap-up and Make Me Giggle!

Hey, I'm slaving away on my post about Maker Faire. I wish I had had the technology (read phone) to blog it while I was there, because by the time I got home it all faded into a blur of people and cool things. I'm checking other people's blogs to remind what I did.

In the meantime, how about this tasty little wrap up post I did for BlogHer on Saturday? Refashioned sweater (just like what they were doing at the Maker Faire Swaparama), a clever decorating idea with cheap frames and whatever cool stuff you have around the house (from Betty, who I was supposed to meet up with at Maker Faire)! Looblylu's Friday Archives sounds like something we could all grow to love! And today begins Virginia Spiegel's Collage Mania! Check it all out.

I intentionally left Angry Chicken's clock to mention here. I LOVE her non-traditional icons used for the hours. I Love her husband's reaction about half-past soup. And I'm going to challenge you: Check out her clock and find your best reaction to an icon. Leave a comment here with your wittiest reaction. The one that tickles my funny bone the most will win a small prize. Come on, now.. put on those thinking caps and make me giggle!

Now to the article, previous posted on BlogHer:
One Pearl Button wrote a wonderful tutorial on refashioning a sweater. In five quick steps she turned a stained pullover into a cute, embellished cardigan.

As I was getting dressed this morning, I thought "a yellow cardigan
would go perfectly with this outfit." Unfortunately, I don't have one.
Then, an old yellow pullover caught my eye. I used to love this
sweater, but I haven't worn it since I spilled soy sauce down the front
(I'd like to say that I'd had too much sake, but honestly, I spill
stuff on myself all the time). It has probably been over a year since I
last wore it. I grabbed it, did some quick alterations, and threw it on
to run errands with Nate. I love getting new clothes that aren't
actually new at all!

Angry Chicken posted photos of a great clock using small, non-traditional images for the numbers. Her husband's reaction: "Now we can say it's half-past soup." which looks like supper time, to me. Mine? Like a clock that tells me it's "wine bottle hour." Comments on this post continued to show how each person found meanings in the images. How many different meanings could you apply?

Inexpensive frames are used for ever-changing decor in Bitter Betty's house.

Frames without glass come cheap, Homosote board (noise dampening fiber board) bigger than your car is 10.00 and batting and fabric tend to be spilling out of the craft cave.. . .It takes about 25 minutes and a box knife, straight edge and a staple gun to make these. . . .Grab those frames! Make yourself a gallery of delights. Just buy every little print you see on etsy and change them out weekly.

The Friday Archives is a new weekly feature for Loobylu and Claire is encouraging any crafters/artists to join in. First, check out her archived "if my life were a romantic comedy" comic in two parts. Then consider joining the fun:

I have started this thing where every Friday I post some work
(illustration, art work, craft, writing) from my past and I invite you
to play along. This week I’ve even made a button.

Virginia Spiegel kicks off this week next week with Collage Mania 08. While this is the newest fundraiser for the American Cancer Society, Virginia's Fiberart for a Cause has raised over $150,000 in the last several years. This year's two day art-aquisition-fest offers 235 collages created by over 100 artists. Instead of the auction Virginia's run in the past, these collages are offered on a first-come-first served basis. The minimum donation for a piece on Monday is $80; Tuesday it drops to $40.. but will your favorites still be there?

I also blog at: Deb's Daily Distractions and BlogHer on Mondays and Saturdays.

Brief Update

#1. My legs haven't died and given up the ghost on me. I'm please.

#2. I was volunteering right around the wall from where Steph spoke. Did I remember to check my watch so I could watch her? Nope.

#3. Never found Garth and his paint ball project.

#4. Saw a little fire, but most of it was going to happen after the sun set. When I left after 7pm, I was already getting chilly and sunset was an hour away. I missed most of the fire (pout).

#5. Met some new people, saw some old acquaintances. None of the folks I expected to.

#6. The guys who run "Play.Make.Day".. basically a giant room with stuff where kids and families can come a create to their hearts content? They want me back next year as one of their volunteers.

#7. I liked the entire day.

#8. I didn't eat well or enough or drink enough water, but I survived.

#9. I timed it to avoid all traffic jams on the drive both ways.. and got there early enough that I didn't have to pay for parking. W00T!

#10. I'll be there next year. Look for a mention to put it on your calendar.

I also blog at: Deb's Daily Distractions and BlogHer on Mondays and Saturdays.

Off to Maker Faire

Saturday I am spending the whole day at Maker Faire. First a couple hours of volunteer work there (they call my position a runner. Glorified name for a Go-Fer).

The rest of the day I'll be walking around, taking pictures and gawking like all the other folks there.

I hope that I need to "run" close to the Yarn Harlot while she's speaking.

I want to do some zen paintball art with Garth from Extreme Craft.

I want to see robot wars, and the mouse trap, and Swap-a-rama...

and I've got phone numbers of some of the people I met at CraftCon, so ideally we meet up for something to eat and drink.

and there are lots of other crafters and makers and people there

and I am almost as excited as a little kid of Christmas Eve.

One local tv show called this Burning Man meets Martha Stewart. But I'm thinking it much better than that.

There may be a "OMG my legs have died" post on Sunday. There will be photos and story by Tuesday.

I also blog at: Deb's Daily Distractions and BlogHer on Mondays and Saturdays.

Best Story Ever!

I don't care if you like baseball as much I do. I don't care if you like sports at all. There is humanity and character and strength of purpose and honor when players exhibit the level of sportsmanship and honor that most games hope to inspire.

I don't know if you've heard about the story of the Washington college softball game played last weekend. When Sara Tucholsky hit her first home run ever, she looked up to watch the ball go over the fence and missed first base. She pulled up quickly behind the base to turn around and seriously injured her knee. She had to crawl to first base to touch it. In the meantime, her two teammates who had been on base ran and scored their runs.

There were none of her teammates on the field to help her and the rules strictly forbid anyone not on the field already helping her to continue. They could have put in a substitute runner, but to do so would have erased her home run.

So two members of the opponant's team volunteered to carry Sara around the bases. In doing so, they helped her score a run that would eliminate their own team from advancing in NCAA competition. I can't think of a better example of sportsmanship or better examples of how exactly we should all live our lives.

I also blog at: Deb's Daily Distractions and BlogHer on Mondays and Saturdays.

Pull Up a Seat at The Ragged Cloth Cafe

(republished from BlogHer)

There is one sad thing about working in my studio at home: the isolation. While the proximity means my work is always available, too often I am pulled away by other demands (hello internet!). While the quiet encourages introspection, too often I end up having conversations with myself. I miss the concentration of knowing I have THIS time and THIS time only. I miss the community of spirit that broadens my perspectives. Often I yearn for a spot where I can discuss the meat of hand work: design, repetition, color, scale, form. Where I can gain another's perspective. Where I can think deep thoughts and share them with similarly obsessed folk.

I have found such a place online at The Ragged Cloth Cafe.

The Ragged Cloth Café is a place for serious artists (who are also serious talkers) to verbally circle ideas about their own work, the visual arts, and the theories, histories, definitions and philosophies of arts while relating these to the textile arts. The group was begun by textile artists and most, but by no means all, of us continue to have textile art as our base of reference. We are prone to go deep into any given topic, likely to go on for hours circling an idea, bringing in tangent ideas, never entirely resolving any issue, but seldom descending into boring repetition. We are practicing artists by day; thinking artists by night; verbal artists whenever we see the chance.

The café invites civil discourse, discussions which probe and prod, and which aAngela Moll Art Quiltsre well-salted and sugared with references that will expand our horizons.

The Cafe is built of invited regulars who submit monthly posts and guest contributor who add spice to the conversations. Among the regulars are:

Angela Moll, whose Secret Diaries Series draws me in...
Gabrielle Swain, creative teacher and artist, and a friend..
Jane Davila, who blogs at Chary Sprouts.
Linda Frost. and
Terry Grant.

What I like about the Ragged Cloth Cafe is the variety of conversations started there; kind of like BlogHer with a fiber arts concentration.

Linda Frost detailed the dilemna of a quilter donating to a charitable event. These are artists who might normally receive hundreds of dollars for their work. Would you feel differently if you knew:

Artists can only deduct the cost of supplies used in the creation of the art. In 1969, Congress repealed legislation that allowed artists, writers and composers to take a fair-market value deduction for their work. Yet, while artists can no longer donate work for market value, collectors who come to own those works can take the full market value deduction if they donate to a nonprofit institution.

So, an artist’s donation of work must give its return in the satisfaction of supporting a worthy cause.

Catherine Jones recently contributed a two part essay on Repeat Patterns. She started stating the obvious:

In Western art especially, they’ve often played a subordinate role,
serving merely to fill a patch of unwanted vacant space, frame a
composition, or supply some texture to a pictorial scene. Repeat
patterns commonly function as elevator music: background to the main
conversation. Except, of course, when they are the conversation.

She goes on in Part One to discuss the kinds of repeat patterns found in wallpaper and yardage: how a repeated pattern fills space and becomes, as she said, background music. In Part Two, Jones analyzes pieces of art that combine repeat pattern with unique image. The repeats add dimension to the work and occasionally (such as the John Muafangejo piece discussed) another layer of meaning. Next month, she'll try to bridge the gap between main stream fine-art and algorithmically created art

imagery generated by computer procedures without reference to art history and without active intervention by the artist at every stage of the creative process.

I can hardly wait!

In Aesthetic Appeal: Is it in our DNA?, Kate Themel's finely researched piece, she suggests some of what each of us find appealling in a piece is based upon our cultural survival of the fittest. Those whose ancestors needed to recognize poisonous snakes may be drawn or repelled by the jagged line; florals appeal to those with a "gathering" past because flowers can indicate the eventual presence of food. While it seems that these genetic preferences make up only a small amount of our personal aesthetic, it's an intriguing concept to consider.

Jude Hill commented on Themel's piece at Spirit Cloth:

personally i think the things that comfort you are learned. taught or experienced. and ultimately remembered and therefore familiar. and why you choose certain forms of visual representation, well it has a lot with what you are comfortable with but it has a lot to do with the limitations of your technique.

some things seem universally beautiful or pleasing. it could be because there are certain things that are common to our experience. this is a comforting thought.

And Deb Lacativa at More Whiffs, Glimmers and Left Oeuvers wondered:

what does this say about people like myself who have never had a single qualm about critters of any stripe. Did our ancestors survive because we ate better? Did our ancestors come from another planet.

I also blog at: Deb's Daily Distractions and BlogHer on Mondays and Saturdays.

BSG.. the best drama nobody's watching

Have you been watching Battlestar Galactica? The new series began 3 years ago and just started its final season.

While I'll admit there are elements of the show I don't like (people in/out of a character's head to be precise), it's been the best sci-fi offerering since Fox pulled FireFly off their schedule. It's resemblance to the original does not extend far beyond some similar names.

BattleStar Ponderosa (it starred Ben Cartwright after all) premiered in 1978 during our "culturally corny" hey-days, but, being a sci-fi gal, I wanted to watch it. (Disco and corny TV - now I remember why I became such a big fan of PBS then!)

When the new program premiered as a mini-series, it was dark and personal and a very serious drama. Maybe the programs something of the times, but I was drawn into this story early. Most of the main character names remain: There is an Admiral Adama, hotshot pilot Apollo (Adama's son, Lee) and Apollo's best friend, Starbuck. This time, however, Starbuck is the call sign for the blonde female hell-raiser Kara Thrace.

Katee Sackoff, who plays Starbuck, also played the first "bionic woman" when that TV show premiered last fall. I love watching Katee act and will keep an eye out for her name as a guide to future viewing. She's strong and fearless as an actress, but this is about her character...

It's been rare to see strong, damaged women being portrayed in tv or movies. Women can be strong OR damaged but seldom both. This seems to be changingas we characters like Kara Thrace and Grace Hanadarko, from Saving Grace. I am not going to suppose what these characters show about our current society. Maybe it's more honest to admit these characters are real so we can move away from the Madonna/Whore dicotomy?

I'm rambling.

Starbuck is damaged, so she lives full balls-out and out of control when she's not on duty - even when she is on duty if intuition makes it "feel" right.

She is the almost the exact opposite of me. I doubt I could ever live like her, but there are days when I envy that recklessness.

I also blog at: Deb's Daily Distractions and BlogHer on Mondays and Saturdays.

Spring Cleaning My Soul

Spring. Spring Cleaning: cleaning out what you don't need anymore. Putting a fine polish on what you have. Taking stock. Appreciating. And laundry dried on the line.

I'm in the mood to do some serious spring cleaning. Spring cleaning my soul, my heart, my life. Letting slip the self-centered, energy-draining, loud, demanding, unreliable or unhappy. Appreciating those things that bring value to my life: the dependable, reliable, humorous, loving, affectionate, authentic.

Taking inventory of my soul. I am ready to give up:

Settling for less than I deserve.
Pre-supposing others' reactions. (so tiresome).
Part-way friendships. (yes, I've often done the limiting)
Remaining silent.
Hiding from the dark and unknown. (small steps here).
Expecting nothing good.
Exaggerating possibly great outcomes. (take what comes, whatever it is.)
Tight control. (it's exhausting).
Maybe any control. (it's an illusion).
Kentucky Fried Chicken.
TV during the day.
Bigger than I need.
More.

In spring cleaning your soul, what are you ready to give up?

I also blog at: Deb's Daily Distractions and BlogHer on Mondays and Saturdays.

The Sun Will Come Up Tomorrow...

I know I've been quiet this week. Quiet, actually, a lot longer. This week, however, there has been a good reason. I've been cleaning.

Why is it when I start to organize my sewing room, I can only get so far along with the job? I get part done, and usually pile "I don't know where to put them" items in the part I still haven't straightened in a while. Then things get out of hand, again, and I'm forced to make decisions and sort and move things back to another spot I'm not organizing at the moment.

(and how does the room get so messy if I'm not in there working that much? Oh yeah, I use the room as a holding station for everything that comes into the house.)

This week I started going through items again: what are the projects that I've been piling on top of the sewing machine? In what order do I work on them? What about the rest of the clutter?

I decided that many of these projects are simple things: lengthen a pair of jeans, fix a zipper in a hoodie, sew a panel dress, bind a quilt, finish a felted purse. I am tackling these projects immediately. Work on one, get it out of the room, straighten a little more, work on another, get it out of the room. I'm making real progress here.

Others need decisions made: a quilt I pieced several years ago really needs borders; I dont' have any of the fabrics left. Do I finish it as is or seek out alternative fabrics for the borders? When I'm down to the pondering pieces, each one will get time up on the wall. I will sit with the project for an hour or a day and make a decision. Go forward or give up.

I should have a handle on this part of the project in about a week.

The weather is getting nice enough to consider heading outside to do some dye work and improved screen printing. Getting the visual distractions of the "fix me" pile gone should finally free up some visual space for designing.

Bout damn time.

I also blog at: Deb's Daily Distractions and BlogHer on Mondays and Saturdays.

Terrific Tees.. Signing Party

Sunday I went to a book signing for my friend. Roberta's book, Terrific Tees, was published by C&T on Feb. 14th, and has been selling quite well. No surprise, it's a great book concept. Imagine making t-shirt quilts that look imaginative; where the t-shirts are an element of the design. NOT simple squares of t-shirts sashed and bordered and tied (or minimally quilted).

Like that Cal Bears t-shirt quilt in front of Roberta that has bear paw blocks mixed in with it. Get it? Bears and bear paws? Yeah.. great idea.

One of her latest creations is very Roberta.. completely insane medallions (inspired by Karen Stone's phenomenal designs) with Hell's Angels t-shirts in the center. The idea I think started as the wheels of the cycles.. and kind of got taken to the extreme. One thing you can say about this quilt: it's not your boring t-shirt quilt.

Here's the center. Look at the density of the quilting:


I also blog at: Deb's Daily Distractions and BlogHer on Mondays and Saturdays.

Put Your Money Where It Does Good

I'm an admitted Twitter addict. Those of us of who work in isolation seek it out for the "companionship" that others get in inner-office conversations, in lunches with the ladies, in some real-world interactions that we're missing.

On twitter, I keep on track with projects (GSD [Getting Sh*t Done] races during the day with others are fun), I share my healthy dinners.. and get lots of requests to become someone's live-in cook/room mate. We share good and bad moments.

As you might have read, one Twit-head, Andrew Baron of Rocketboom, is auctioning off his twitter accound including his followers. Silly idea, really. And I'm not getting into all that. If you're interested in a discussion/wrap up go read Virginia DeBolt's piece on BlogHer: Reputation, Friends, Follwers: What's It Worth In Dollars and Cents?

Note a big part of that article points to Odd Times Signatures, Karoli who points out what could be done with the money bid so far on this Twitter account. She used as her guidepost the BlogHer's Global Giving campaign to Save Women's Lives Around the World. I have the same widget over on my sidebar.

So here's the deal: I am going to place a post to this link up on Twitter and invite my followers to come here, click on that widget and give a little something. Those who regularly read my blog, you can show me some love, too.

I'm not asking for a lot. Can you spare $10 to run a Women's and Children's clinic in Nepal for 2 days? Would you ratherspare $15 to feed 50 girls lunch in poor west Africa? That's all I'll ask from you.

Or choose one of the other initiatives. Give what you can. I'd like to see that "Total Given" number grow to $1800 by tomorrow this time. Come On! Show a little love; I love you all back.


I also blog at: Deb's Daily Distractions and BlogHer on Mondays and Saturdays.

The Week Ahead

Anymore I swear on Monday I look at the next week on the calendar and it's completely blank. Come back to check it out on Thursday and it's grown into something almost approaching a monster of logistics. I think part of the problem is having 3 different calendars (the one on my laptop, the paper one by the phone and the paper one in my purse.) that I don't take the time to compare every day.

I used to carry a cheap PALM that would sync to the computer, but I couldn't get that calendar to show up on my desktop or work as a reminder/alarm, so they were still independent programs that require my physically updating them all. PIA.

There are plans penciled in that aren't firmed up; I hold the space open as long as I can.. but when do you give up on tentative plans and just figure that the other parties involved don't care as much about the activity (or you) as you do?

This month I've suffered the MAJOR frustration of doing my best to communicate with people.. that is to send information OUT. Yet many of the people then suck my communication in like a black hole.. nothing is returned. What is the opposite of a black hole? That's me this month. And I'm getting tired of it.

This week: I have a tentative lunch tomorrow, an appointment Wednesday afternoon that's had the time changed twice. I had also accidently scheduled a dentist appointment for the same time; had to push that 2 hour plan to next week. Thursday has tentative plans; Friday my singing workshop has been changed up by 2 hours. I didn't find out about that until I showed up at the right time last week, so missed the class completely! (that blackhole thing...).

When these set/tentative plans work through, I have to hit the gym, walk the dogs, clean up my newly established office space, clean my studio so I can start sewing again, make a few phone calls, blog and write a proposal.

Could be a busy week out in the world.. or could be a long week working at home. Wish people would let me know if I indeed fit into their plans.

Grump.

I also blog at: Deb's Daily Distractions and BlogHer on Mondays and Saturdays.

CraftCon 08: Truth- Story- Maker - Do

I spent the weekend at CraftCon, a business development conference for the craft community. There were craft fair organizers, online and real world publishers and authors, Etsy shop owners and more there to learn and share. Before the first hour of the event had run, I had my THEMES for the weekend; they held with every valuable person I met:

TRUTH - STORY - MAKER - DO

That is every individual showed up in an authentic way, sharing their own TRUTH.
Each of us had a STORY to share that others wanted to hear.
Whether we use tools or our hands, we are the MAKERS of our lives and our crafts.
We were there as attendees and presenters because we believe that Craft is what we DO. It's Active not passive. It's process more than product.

Rather than yammer on about my experience, I'd like to instead simply introduce you to some of the fabulous folk I met this weekend. Please click through on every link and fall in love in the people I spent this weekend with.

First contact: Show organizer, shop owner, crafter and power woman extraordinaire is Rachel Lyra Hodspodor. Online, you can find Rachel at Medium Reality. There you will notice her shop info, Pandora's Trunk, her studio log and her paintings. Rachel is the embodiment of Make and Do. I stand in awe of her competence and grace.

First Love: Betsy Greer of Craftivism. Warm, intelligent, engaging, obscene, opinionated, honest, approachable, funny, believable. Now If you ever meet her, give her a big warm smack for me.

Now in no particular order:

Reverend Callie Janoff from the Church of Craft.. Beautiful, confident, engaging.

Garth Johnson from Extreme Craft. I kept thinking that Garth and Mo Rocca were separated at birth. That might explain it all.

The Pittsburg Contingent. My brain (and body) was freezing, but let's see: he travel to camps to work with hemophiliac kids and makes shrinky-dink art from recycled plastic. She in the middle just closed her Pittsburgh shop and can't wait to open a new one. And Jessica is all the warmth.

Jeanee Ledoux is the author of a book and co designer for Honeydoux jewelry.

Julia Cosgrove from ReadyMade Magazine. Spoke about getting published and gave us all hope.

Natalie Zee Drieu, Senior Editor of CRAFT.

Autumn Wiggins. Owner of Etsy shop String Theory, creator of websites extra-ordinaire (she designed CraftCon including the cute button button!), one of the show organizers. She can half-a-dozen hats at once and do so with grace.

Faythe Levine. I didn't actually meet Faythe (my disappointment), but she showed a new clip from the movie Handmade Nation that I've written about before. Faythe hopes to enter it into maybe SXSW or SunDance next year; let's cheer that she gets accepted! Here's a preview of the movie that's been running on YouTube:


Girl on the Rocks. She knits, she's a geologist, she likes cocktails. If you are a real life knitter friend (you know who you are Pickle pals and Blogher Babes...) STOP READING NOW. (are they gone yet? Good.) The rest of you go see her Etsy shop because she makes knit markers with instructions on them. (like a kitchener stitch marker), and I think that many of my friends should get these; yet I want to them always wonder who my "top secret source" is.

This is it so far. Some of the people I met. They are all passionate and wonderful and seem to be living out my take away from the meeting: They Tell, Make, Do. And let me tell ya, they have stories!

BTW, the sessions that were held in the main theater were recorded and will eventually be available as podcasts for everyone to hear. I'll keep ya posted as that happens. My little session was in the second theater (no recording) but Vanessa from Etsy live-blogged the weekend. Her wrap is published as part of Etsy's Storque.

And, I think I rocked it.

I also blog at: Deb's Daily Distractions and BlogHer on Mondays and Saturdays.

Normally Programming Will Continue Shortly

Just a quick note. I've been catching up on real life, getting some rest and in general living away from the internets for a while. Just need me a short break.

I'm working on the mother of all posts about the people at CraftCon, and I've got assignments for BlogHer that are taking the spare bits of attention I have.

Normally blogging will resume shortly. Probably bigger and better than before.

I also blog at: Deb's Daily Distractions and BlogHer on Mondays and Saturdays.

Just a quick note..

This is CraftCon weekend, so I'm spending 2-2.5 hours/day (round trip) commuting into the city. But it's worth it, so far.

My talk on thinking about social media tools for the professional crafter ROCKED.

The people I'm meeting there are all cool.

I was neither the oldest one there, or the more boringly dressed.

You can catch the photos by checking Flickr photos tagged CraftCon.

They recorded everything in the main hall (I was upstairs in the dance studio), and it will available as podcasts in a few days at the website.

I forgot the card for my camera yesterday so only took a couple phone pix.

I can't wait for MakerFaire, and may make myself stay for the evening programs.

I wish I could have stayed for the gala last night, but I get home to feed the dogs. (does that sound lame?)

I also blog at: Deb's Daily Distractions and BlogHer on Mondays and Saturdays.

In The City...

(from hand written notes this morning)
Doing this really old skool at the moment, using pen and paper to record my thoughts. I'm standing in an auxiliary space at the Brava Theater waiting to accept delivery of tables and charis for CraftCon this weekend. So wish I had a mobile phone, yet also know I cherish being free from the constant "noise" of the internets.

Instead I'm standing here watching the street. People walk by quickly with purpose, or casually sure of their destination and knowing that no clock applies. Cars and trucks go about their business. There is almost constant motion.



This is a Latino neighborhood. mixed in with the standard city taupes, beiges and white are buildings of bright turquoise or deep gold. There are murals on nearly every block. The sun - the sun? in the city? really! - pools where it works down below the street trees. I can't identify the species.


It's noisy yet quiet. There is LIFE here that I do not experience living in the suburbs. I'm drinking it in.

I also blog at: Deb's Daily Distractions and BlogHer on Mondays and Saturdays.

Sidewalk Series: North Berkeley

Sidewalk Series: North Berkeley. Taken with my cellphone.

I was a couple minutes early for a luncheon at the Hillside Club last Friday, so I took the time to walk around the block and see if anything inspired me. I was surprised at how interesting the architecture for some of the houses were, but how boring the yards were. Little to say anything about the people who lived there.

I'm hoping it's just because it's early spring.

But as I walked I kept hearing this cat meowing; she did not move, sitting here in the middle of the porch and talking. Balanced by the orchid next to her, framed by the archway, in front of the gold door and above the red steps, I had to capture this.


I also blog at: Deb's Daily Distractions and BlogHer on Mondays and Saturdays.