Yeah boyah

That's right, tomorrow is P-day. I can't wait! I feel like a kid...

I made this in the spirit of diy concert gear, but am unsure if I will make it into a cuff as originally planned or something else.
Regardless of what I end up wearing, I am going to enjoy this! I haven't been to a concert since well the last farewell tour of one of my favorite bands, Big Sugar.
Only one more sleep! AaAAAaaHHhhHHhHhhh!

Svather

I have been on a roll lately. I finished the sweater that has been sitting and awaiting the left arm since last spring. It turned out pretty well! It's supposed to have long arms that fold back-but of course I am one of the monkey people, so they don't fold back much on my arms. Still, I love the colour-and the people at work liked seeing the thing I had been working on while I was there at night... :)
Here it is :



I got the pattern for free from interweave knits magazine (here).

I have to admit I will always associate this sweater with the mind-numbing tapes I had to watch for my classes-the only thing that kept me awake was working on it.

Least of the Recons

Many years ago, my mom bought me a skirt.
The ugliest skirt ever. It was a full-length wrap around skirt. Ewwww...But the fabric was nice, so I kept that skirt for years, thinking there had to be something I could do with it. I got into a mood to 'make' recently and finally reconed it...into another skirt (yeah I know, imaginative).
I made a ten panel skirt with a tulle underskirt, which I wanted to do tambour on. My mom's reaction was one of shock; 'you're making a crinoline?' as if it were skinny jeans or something. Hardly that dark force of satanic power.

Anyway, this is how it turned out:


Me standing in front of my closet. It turned out shorter than I had intended, as I had not meant to make it sit quite so high on the waist. Still, I think it looks pretty decent for being made by someone who never sews clothes-I do seem to have a hankering lately to change that though.


Here are some detail shots, as I know the affinity you spammy guys have for decent hand embroidery...
the waistband:


And the tulle underskirt, which I decided to cut rather raggedly (I do like that):

And no, no one is going to see that embroidery; I just really wanted to do it.

Fashion apocalypse

I was reading fashion blogs at work the other day (I know...but much of the aim of my job is to stay awake all night.) anyway, I unearthed a most ominous and frightening trend: fashion bloggers talking about skinny jeans...favourably.

Of course they've (minions of Mephistopheles in the fashion industry, that is) been trying to push this evil on us for awhile, but so far we have fought the good fight. We remember the days of freedom, when like the Ephesians with their books of magic, we burned our skinny jeans on a multi thousand dollar holy pyre, jubilant that we were no longer under their dark influence.
Too quickly it seems we have begun to wear down, to forget the tyranny.

Even now you may hear the honey-dipped voice of El Diablo whispering in your ear, telling you how thin your ankles will look in those skinny jeans. "Jeans are just jeans aren't they?" whispers the seductive voice. Listen not to the father of lies!

We well know that for all the beauty God has given, the devil has a twisted horrible counterfeit. The LORD in his wisdom gave us bootcut, straightleg, and all manner of comfortable attractive jeans. Only the darkened mind of the Evil One could mar something so good as the jean into the hideous beast known as the skinny taperleg jean. Only old scratch could come up with a jean that looks good on absolutely no one-NO ONE-and so disfigure the human figure made in the image of God. Don't be fooled-the Accuser only awaits the day when he can post full size pictures in the courts of the heavenlies of you in those skinny jeans. There will be nowhere to hide from the shame.

Repent now! If your skinny jeans lead you to sin (which they always do) cut them off! Arise and wake-for the skinny jeans will infiltrate the church and lead many astray. We must fight this tide!

Appendix: Out of morbid curiosity, I had to read comments to see how many had been fiendishly deceived. What I read made my blood run cold. Someone suggested skinny jeans best asset is that one can tuck them into one's boots. There you have it, dispies. Between that and leggings, living proof that the Great Tribulation is upon us. You can't say you weren't warned.

hammerquilt

hammerquilt
Originally uploaded by char111.

Yeah, we got another digital camera and now I can post a pic of the Hammerquilt!

Yay Quilts

I've got a quilting bug again lately. This makes me happy, as I had been rather burnt out for about a year, and have done little work. I hate being unproductive!

I finished the Hammerquilt-no pic of it, but man it looks really good, all that lovely silk. I just free motioned all over it, tried to keep it a little dimensional in the center, as the original is.

I then got on a quilt version of the blue and red portrait for the Quilting Arts magazine Creative Self Portrait Challenge:



I swear I am not a narcissist! I just thought it would be fun to enter the challenge, and I really love that red and blue pic mmm redandblue....that combo also describes my temperament quite well, though I made the embroidery messy to represent me a little better. I doubt I will get into the magazine, but I know I won't if I never send. It gave me something to quilt, anyway.

And the newest entry for CIP, Yahweh Love, which is also a small quilt. I had to do at least one piece in fabric, and had decided to make this one a quilt, in the same vein as the Biblica Hebraica pieces. It is off center because there is a one inch-margin on the left side.

what I'm doing...

Well things are moving along on all my projects. I wish I could take pictures, but mama left the digital camera in a restaurant, where it was taken. Curses! It's back to film and taking far to long to get it developed for me.

I have relatively good concepts for roughly half of my CIP songs (about 100 of them) and I just have to decide on the page layouts and execute the 70 I haven't done (yes 70 ). The other ones are going to be harder. I hate praise songs. They do not lend themselves to anything as the interesting imagery of Bob's own songs do. And they aren't as good of songs. So there. I'd love to get it done before they finish the final tour though.

I am also finally working on the Hammerquilt! My jar of rust has finally been put to good use and with the help of fusible interfacing, I finished the completely silk top. I wish I could post a pic, it does look lovely. Only one minor mishap of ironing it to the design wall... Here is the original piece that Reed (hammerquill) did in metal. Both he and his father do stunning work.

I have also become totally enamoured of this coat (which was in the film A Series of Unfortunate Events). I already have an army greatcoat, not dis-similar, but I am hoping to make this one a bit lighter-the army coat weighs 10 pounds and has a very hot quilted lining in it. It is also double breasted. Ah well just another thing to make. I always have at least 10 projects going at once-and I wouldn't have it otherwise.

I'm somebody now!

Millions of people look at Pyromaniac every day!
Ah the Jerk. That show was classic.

Anyway I got blogspotted after a manner by the Pyromaniac (okay I know it's just because I commented there, but still). I'm on par with 'Satan'!
This blog is quite interesting-I enjoy the posts (and Phil spells his name with two l's-well I guess his mom did-my mom did too, for my brother), but the amount of squabbling that goes on in the comments over even non-controversial subjects is truly amusing.
One of my favorite reads. Especially the comments!

Okay...

I will make the effort to post more often. Really really. I need to move beyond the idea stage for so many projects. I especially need some spare motivation. I wish I could buy some from a more ambitious person than I-they sell everything else on ebay, why not motivation?
Anyway, this is what I made today:



Simple, yeah, but I think it's cute. The petals are silk fusion-I love silk fusion SO much-I have some tussah fiber that I hate to spin just because it is so lovely as is, and fusion doesn't seem like such a drastic change to it to me. The center is punchneedle. I do hope the person this is going to likes it!

Self Portrait in Blue and Red

Another Deco! For a 'true colours' challenge, which stipulates using a very narrow palette-one or two colours. I blurred the image abit to take some of the paint lines off, but it looks a little weird from that, doesn't it?
I was looking over my artwork about a year ago, and noticed how often I used red and blue-I've since tried to move away from it. See the fabric and paper deco for an out-of-comfort-zone colour combination.
However, since these are still my favorite two colours and favorite combination I entered the challenge just for the pleasure of using it again! :)
I used a photo of myself, and altered it to get the high contrast and so on. Then I painted from that with acrylics-went a little wonky though. Ah well, I think it turned out okay-except that my nose doesn't look sausagey enough.



ETA: here is the original picture (yeah I always look weird in pictures) see the distinctly sausage-like quality of my nose-->
short and fat.

Back to Arty Stuff

My paper and Fabric deco is turning out pretty well. Most of the green backgrond is fabric, the girl is drawn on paper with pens, coloured with pastels.
I wasn't too sure about machine embroidering through paper, but I backed it with some sew on interfacing, and it's come through all the embroidery quite nicely, really. A bit holey, but that's to be expected. I'm actually getting relatively decent at machine embroidery! Yay! (Now I have probably cursed myself by saying that.)

I think I will have to go over the pastel colouring, as the intense varigated thread really overpowers her right now. I have to say that even though it is terrible for lint, I really like the valdani thread. I think mostly because of it's heavy weight, especially compared to the fine rayons I used with it. I was never that much for subtlety in line.
Now how to actually make it into a deco...

EEeeeEE!

Petra might be coming to Winnipeg on the farewell tour! A week after my birthday! If this goes through, nothing will keep me away!
I'm so psyched up about this-I thought I'd be broke and of course unable to go a really long distance to a show, and therefore never see them again-but it looks like I will be gainfully employed and...Winnipeg! It's like right there! And I have relatives who live there!
Ah man, the last time I was this foolishly giddy was when I was 15-and found out about the last Petra concert I went to. I'm such a nerd.

heheh this is changing from an arty blog to an 'I reallyreally love PeTrA' blog.

Adonai

The latest entry in my CIP project. I had a sketchy idea of what I wanted to do, but it didn't really crystalize until I stumbled across the beautiful pieces at Hebrew Art. I fell in love with them! No mine is not nearly as lovely as those. I use the fact that I have no professional training as an excuse. It's not my fault! I do want to buy that artist's calendar now. So pretty.

The background is based mostly on two lines:

Adonai master of the earth and sky (hense earth and sky-duh) and

When the storms surround me speak the word that they will be still.

They were the only two lines that kept running though my head as I did it!

I had some problems with the masking fluid (simply not proficient with that stuff yet!) but over all it turned out okay. Better than I thought it would half-way through, that's for sure.
Not perfect, but I do like it very much.

I'm so glad this one turned out okay; this was my favorite song to sing. :)

Third Time

Was indeed the charm. Yeay finished the panel! Finished with those weird S-like horrible F's! (I had to match a previous panel.)
Here's a pic:



And a close-up of the I which I finally just decided to make completly different from the original-so there.



and yeah I warned them I might do that...ooh I have to show something 'different' to a bunch of old ladies-I'm beginning to get aprehensive.

Grrr

I managed to get the commission I am doing about 75% done before making an unfixable mistake. I had to do a large lettered memoral panel and had about 60 names finished before I realized I had mixed the names from 2003 and 2004 together. How can I fix that? I'll have to start over again, ruling and all.
I have to write sideways (I'm left-handed)-my hand and neck are killing me and I have nothing to show for it. I am to tired to be as pissed off as I should. I have to admit I had thought I should stop for the night before I got to that part-why didn't I listen to myself?!

**Edit-by the time I get this done I will be a gothic script master! (oops almost wrote mater heheh )
The second time around I decided to widen the bottom margin by one row, and yes that's right, I got to the last five names or so and realized I did not have the room. Attempt three seems to be going better, and the cat now enjoys playing with mistakes one and two on the floor.
I have too many other things to be annoyed and stressed about (Canada freakin Post) to really be bothered by this. This is a new feeling for me...

I do however think that if it gets into the double digits for attempts, I'll start getting a little unhappy (ie throwing things) about it.

I love New Ideas

It's finishing them once they get old that's the problem.
The beginnings of my Complete Illustrated Petra, which I am staying up nights with good ideas working on. Just wait till I start that tempera piece of St. Augustine.
Oy! Are all artists this obsessive?

More thoughts on Petra

Outside of just AAAWWWW.
For you non-Petra lovers (weirdos!), just move right along...

I was playing with the idea of creating a Complete Illustrated Petra about a year ago (before life fell in on me) and now that I know they are retiring, I am once again considering it (even with all the smoldering ruins about). Well it may be therapeutic to revisit things that have made me happy, and the music of Petra was certainly one of those things. Plus now I can truly make it 'complete'.

The plan was to compile all the sketches I had done of their songs, add new ones to finish it out and send it to Bob-maybe he'll enjoy seeing some of the odder takes on his tunes. This is what I spent most of my school time doing, BTW; illustrating Petra songs. Petra rocked and school sucked-so not like I felt bad about it or anything. Some of those drawings go all the way back to when I was about thirteen-and no I never throw away priceless treasures like that. I have boxes upon boxes of old drawings. I have no more room and so am now trying to train myself to a sketch book-it is a slow process.

Anyway, at the Guide to Petra site, they set up a tribute page. I decided to write one and it unexpectedly became rather horrendously long-I got all longwinded at the end especially. Then I forgot to add line breaks-duh. **They fixed it! My tribute is now here all nicely formatted. There are a ton of them there now.

Hee, everyone else's is all 'they meant so much to me' and 'they were a big influence on my life', and mine is all theology and Soli Deo Gloria...I'm such a freak. Hopefully I didn't sound like a pretentious prig. I didn't, right? Right?

AAAAWWWWWW.....

It is Finished

My favorite band since I was 12. Their last album really rocked after a long period of mediocre stuff too...
Ah all good things must come to an end.

New Sewing Projects

As if I don't have enough of them.
I've decided I absolutely can no longer stand the despicable vertical blinds in my bedroom (I am counting the days till I may burn them!) They always fall down, manage to open up when I'm in my room naked, and are generally uglicious.
So, I am now sewing a curtain. I couldn't possibly have a plain old one, so I am piecing it in a log cabin pattern (basically squares of colour). I'm using a blue and dark brown palette (the colours of my room). The blocks are 16".
I'm not sure what I'm going to line it with yet, but so far the blocks look pretty good.

I Finished One!

A little quilt named "Hotter Than 'Ell" after the incredible Fletcher Henderson song of the same name. I was attempting a 30's deco/cubist style (indicitive of the era of the song itself).

I designed it originally as an ATC, and liked it so much that I translated it into a quilt to send out as a swap with another quilter. It went together quite well considering that I had all these little tightly curved pieces. I do hope it does the song justice. :c)