10 years from now I'll be even older! And more cantankerous.

Stan tagged me to do a short meme with a bizarre mix of questions. They are;

Q1. If you were to be in ministry 10 years from now (whether you’re in ministry now or not) what would you like to be doing and where?

Q2. If you could wake up tomorrow with a degree and all the learning that would have gone with it from any seminary which one would you pick and why?

Q3. What’s your poison: donuts, beer, wine, pizza, chocolate, twinkies, key-lime pie?

1. The Lord is a compassionate and gracious God slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness. Therefore I surmise that due to this great love for his children, he would keep me out of ministry of any kind, both now and 10 years from now.

As an aside I am hoping he does this by quickly returning 10 years before 10 years from now. Like say September. Now I'm not predicting that it will be September, make no mistake-because as my life quote says "God often works by contraries" and therefore I am sure he would make certain not to come back in September just because I said he would. I tend to think that as soon as someone gives a date I can rest assured he is not coming then. So I'm not saying he will, but I wouldn't complain if he did.

So I'm crossing my fingers for new earth...

2. Uh Oxford at the time of Owen? Then I could see if he actually talked like that also. I am convinced he really thought in latin all the time.

3. I consume theology books. Next to that I react badly to caffeine, but I still drink tea and pop.

I don't think my readership extends to five, but anyone who reads this and feels like doing it can consider themselves tagged.

It's That Season

It's May long and not bad outside. This means one thing.


(silk in alum on the left, logwood being extracted and reduced a little on the right)

That's right: dyeing accidents experiments!!


I was so happy to have found the big canning pots this spring after having lost them two years ago by putting them somewhere "safe" to winter. I thought I could extract my logwood in a little pot and transfer each extraction to the large pot. Happiness dissipated when I discovered the one had a hole rusted right through. And I always find these things out the hard way, like coming out to wonder hey why is there dark liquid leeching out from underneath the pot...?

Look at that hole. Damn. Now I have to find some new ones.


And now I also have a nice purple ring on the step. Glorious dye-wasted!>:(


I told mama "dyeing accidents!" She said "wood makes that colour?" Such things no longer phase her. Then again the porch always was a catch all for messy projects and I think the wood has been every colour it could be. One time an entire 5 gallon pail of blue fibre reactive dye spilled on the floor. I can't remember how that one happened...I think it was the dog. Well whatever it makes the place more interesting, and we have another story to tell to go along with the others. At least it isn't india ink.

Logwood is an indicator though and I'm tempted to throw some ammonia and/or vinegar on the step. Just to see. ETA: so I did. The vinegar made it fade to yellow. The ammonia darkened the purple and ate what paint was left on the step. Heh.

I can be productive occasionally. I Just don't like it.

I am sick. And alone. So I decided to avoid going out or cleaning by making something. I had planned to make a dress out of eyelet lace with a silk bodice last year and like everything never got around to it. Since it is now kind of attempting to be warm, I thought I would try and make it. I was going to draft the pattern, but had recently bought the Hotpatterns Weekender Monaco dress pattern, which looked much like the idea I had so I decided to use it instead.

It worked out pretty well. It was a simple pattern with little shaping so it was difficult for even me to ruin. I originally added the optional sleeves, but the first try on with them had me immediately ripping them off. (they are gathered and looked nauseatingly precious with the lace) So now it is a sleeveless dress. I don't like sleeveless dresses so much but at least it doesn't give me the same queasy feeling that eating an entire bag of cotton candy does.



Here be the dress. Well me wearing the dress. Ignore the fact that my hair is not straight and looks like a lousekitch (before anyone asks, I have no idea what a lousekitch is, beyond that being what my grandma called your hair when it looked terrible). I am also reminded of how much I hate those new fricking glasses. Bah.

Because I used the lace edge for the bottom, I didn't even have to hem it! Surprisingly I actually did all the rest of the finishing for it. That's unusual for me and one of the reasons I don't frequently sew clothes (besides that I'm terrible at fitting).

Here is the back yoke on which I also used the perty silk. I would have liked to have gotten more of the back of the dress into it, but hey it's not particularly special. I also wish I didn't look stoned, but the fix red eye does that to you (well crack does too, but I don't have any of that). When I was a kid I closed my eyes in pictures all the time because they always went red.

I hate that Hotpatterns no longer drafts their patterns in different sizes anymore (though I understand why they don't for practical reasons). They used to draft for women who were well endowed, ones who were average sized, and girls with smaller chests than a lot of men (guess which group I fall into). Anyway this was the first multisized pattern I tried and once I had finished it I realized that a good inch needed to be taken out of the front insert. I am terrible at altering patterns but I did attempt to redraft it in case I make another in the future because it is a nice pattern, and not too difficult to make. Maybe it will work, maybe it won't.

As it is mostly eyelet fabric, I decided to make a separate slip rather than line it. originally I made the slip too big so I brought it in and it is now too tight in the butt. Well fortunately it's stretchy. I admit I was getting lazy at that point.

When I took the pictures of the dress I also took some that tell a little story, it's like a vignette. Remember the Continental? It's kind of like that but more violent. I call it Two Books, One of Life and One of Death:




Hello my friend it looks like you have some heavy books that you might like to offload and leave at my house for ever awhile...I'll keep them as a favour...






Oh they are your old Seminary textbooks? You don't want them and want to share them?? GIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sweet boookssmmmmmm are they Owen? Carson? Schaff's Nicene and post Nicene Fathers?






They are The New Measures, Good Morning Holy Spirit and Your Best Life Now?! Where the hell did you go, Crackerjack School of Divinity?

What do you mean I just need see God move through these works? I don't think he has bowel movements.



Then at this point there would be lights flashing from my eyes to kill so I left the red eye in that one. I thought I would leave it at that to avoid an R rating.

Somewhere around here I wondered if I wasn't overdoing it on the pain medication. You know looking at that second last picture I really do look like I'm on crack don't I. Maybe the complete works of Origen is in there.

As Brightness from a Light

We believe in one Unbegotten God, Father Almighty, maker of all things both visible and invisible, that hath His being from Himself. And in one Only-begotten Word, Wisdom, Son, begotten of the Father without beginning and eternally; word not pronounced, nor mental, nor an effluence of the Perfect, nor a dividing of the impassible Essence, nor an issue; but absolutely perfect Son, living and powerful, the true Image of the Father, equal in honour and glory.

...In humanity He was crucified and died for us, and rose from the dead, and was taken up into the heavens, having been created as the beginning of ways for us, when on earth He shewed us light from out of darkness, salvation from error, life from the dead, an entrance to paradise, from which Adam was cast out, and into which he again entered by means of the thief, as the Lord said, ‘This day shalt thou be with Me in paradise’...

Statement of Faith of Athanasius

I hope you take some time to remember our favorite Church Father today peeps. Praise God for preserving his doctrine by means of earthen vessels such as he.

And if that seems like too much, well we could always make an effigy of Eusebius of Nicomedia and burn the crap out of that sucker.

Two Ways

Didache 1:1, folded book

I got this idea a while back and today I decided to see if it would actually work. The answer is yes...and no. It folds up to about a 2.5 inch square. The folding is not the easiest thing and the join in the middle is rather fagile-I backed it with a skinny little piece of fabric hoping it would hold. Also as I used relatively thick watercolour paper (unlike the plain bond paper of the mockup) I found that I had to cut the top right open and add a piece behind to make it actually close.

And of course the lettering is not as exact as I might like, it never is. I lettered partly with the parallels and partly with traditional dip pens (the white side). The gradation was overpainted once I had the letters in place. That turned out kind of meh. All in all it could have been better and I am tempted to try a second rendition as this one didn't take so long (it did eat up the best part of my day and much swearing was heard over the small size of the art room when things kept getting tipped over...)

I do like the way the background painted, I used Sennelier inks (they are very nice) and Caran D'Ashe Neocolour crayons (also very nice). I hit it with the blowdryer to get some patterning also.

These pictures are from my camera phone because when I went to take a picture with mama's camera it crapped out with the lens half exposed. This is the third time this has happened with the powershots, twice with mine and now with mama's. I thought maybe they had gotten banged or something, but I didn't do anything to this one. This is very irritating.

Anyway teeny cell phone pics:


This is the way it is supposed to lie when open, I had this opposing folds idea very much in my mind, but am now wondering if a flag book style would not suit the idea better (simply because it is fragile)? How would I add the words right though. Hmm.

And this is just what the cover looks like (this one's rather yellow-the cover is actually covered in silver/blue duppioni)

Spring

It's turning spring which generally means mud and seeding and shaving the cat. It's really unusually warm for Saskatchewan at this time of year, but I'm not going to complain-especially since we are due for snow on the weekend. Nothing gold can stay blah blah. I got to get some of my dye stuff out and muck with that, so I'm relatively happy. I would be more happy if I could find my thiourea dioxide. Ah It'll turn up eventually, my misplaced chemicals usually do (and not always in the ground water).

Someone found crocuses and brought them to work so I went to look for some today without success. I did manage to find the first crawly bug of the season on my neck however and take some pictures while out wandering. I like the mud pool in this one:


I admit I am ambivalent to my home. Sometimes I think I would like to live elsewhere, but I don't know if I could ever get too far away from the prairie sky. At least I'm not sure I could do this and guarantee that everyone would survive it.

Hey look, it's also time for the grader to throw all the gravel in the ditch.

Tekhelet

While roaming the internet looking at obscenely high priced murex pigments, I found this site, describing how dibromoindigo of the murex trunculus snail becomes indigo in uv light, thus arguing that it is in fact the tekhelet of Torah.

I just wanted to share a site that puts the Bible and dyeing together-all the things I like! AAAHHHH-I think my head just exploded.

The Pledge and Token of his Victory

Fitting indeed, then, and wholly consonant was the death on the cross for us; and we can see how reasonable it was, and why it is that the salvation of the world could be accomplished in no other way. Even on the cross He did not hide Himself from sight; rather, He made all creation witness to the presence of its Maker. Then, having once let it be seen that it was truly dead, He did not allow that temple of His body to linger long, but forthwith on the third day raised it up, impassable and incorruptible, the pledge and token of His victory.


On The Incarnation book 5

I Love This Stuff

I've coveted a needle felting machine since the Embellisher hit the market however many years ago, so many things you could do with one! People were always making cool things with them. This week the quilt store I frequent had the Pfaff version on sale. Though it only had five needles (some like the Embellisher itself have seven) I liked that you could change individual needles, and it was a little less chere than they usually are so I bought one.

I have been playing with it all day and I want to go back and play some more. I've done a landscape, a flower, some abstractions, whatever I can think of. I have already broken oh five or so of the needles in my playing, perhaps I am a little too, uh, enthusiastic. I am learning. I haven't gotten to any fancy techniques yet, but I have enjoyed working with it. Oh yeah this is why I used to love to do this stuff-it's wicked fun. I had totally forgotten that little detail.

Now I wonder what I will do with the experiments. Anyone want a needle felted postcard?
ETA: Here they are ready to go. Yay I found a use for the beautiful sari silk yarn I bought awhile back. Now I have to go buy more needles. I have discovered the problem with the needles is that the presser foot is not stopping the machine as soon as I lift my foot. In fact it is sticking pretty good sometimes. I'll have to see what I can do about it.

The Golden Decade

Constantine's sons favoured opposite sides in the controversy. The first return was brief for Constantius again deposed Athanasius and after hiding out in the city for awhile he escaped to Rome. In the intervening years the Arians held counsels and wrote their own creeds while the Nicenes countered, many of whom had ended up in exile in the West under the protection of Constans and the Bishop Julius.
At the end of his second exile, Athanasius had been from his people for about seven years and now the Arian bishop who had replaced him was dead. In those years Eusebius also died. Constantius finally offered to reinstate him and Athanasius returned to his beloved flock In Alexandria. The Golden Decade had begun.


Aren't you glad we're to the part of the story where we get rid of Eusebius? Happy turning point there. Ding dong and all that.

It hasn't been seven years but this piece has languished some-though I have regularly been building highlights on it. Particularly given how the test piece worked out, I was afraid of embroidering it as I had originally planned. I still think that would have looked awesome, but I love the piece too much to take many risks with it at this point. I mean I'm sure we can all agree that the test piece looked pretty awful.

Anyway I think that Athanasius would not be impressed to know that fear of ruination would keep me from moving forward, so I decided to abandon the original idea for the embroidery and did running stitches by hand instead. these will be built up in the quilting which I have decided will also be done by hand. The contrast and texture I had intended is simply not there and while I think this does hurt the piece, I can live with this as opposed to an unmitigated disaster of threads.

Perhaps I will expand that coptic theme until I am better at it-companion pieces! Anyway here is how the piece stands. The dupioni has been added and stitches done for the moment.


Because I had chosen to make the halo and the world basically the same size, this meant an unusually small halo, and it is set oddly in the picture because of the shading. That was the thing I played with again and again in the original layout.

I was leary of my original idea of applying gold leaf in a deconstructed manner, but decided to go ahead with it. Now I am regretting that a little...Here is a close-up of the way the halo turned out. I think I can still do some salvaging once paint has dried. I still need to apply the 96th layer of paint to even the intensity out, and some other things.



As mentioned, varying intensities in the paint at the moment are leaving it looking a little wonky, and I have a good amount of work to do on that halo to fix it. But once I decide whether I want to do the edge treatment I had considered then forgotten about then found again, ( I like it but am again leaning against it) I can move on to quilting. Then it's only a few more exiles until finishing.

Light of the Sun...and Heat of the Soldering Iron

Love, embroidered fabrics on fabric/paper ground

I saw this technique in a magazine not long after I started the project (literally years ago now. Gah) and chose it for this piece. It consists of a painted paper/fabric combination, covered in several layers of synthetic sheers, embroidered from the back and cut with a soldering iron.
I did a test one which I sent to someone as a postcard. It was a valuable experience as that one looked more deconstructed than I wanted, particularly in the sun. So I altered my method a little in the final work.

Things went well until I went to cut the picture down and while moving things to get to the cutting mat I burned my hand on the still hot soldering iron. Damn even being better organized than I have ever been in my entire life makes no difference, I still have to move everything from here to there whenever I want to do something. The cutting mat and sewing machine occupying exactly the same space is not working, I need them both at once. There just isn't enough room in there.

Anyway outside of whineyness, it turned out quite nicely, pretty much just how I wanted and certainly better than the last few.

Like a Spotless Lamb

Clean; discharged.

The concept for this is all in the technique. Can anyone recall boring classes in school about how the medium is the message? It was discharged with bleach gel, which is of course a cleaning agent. That's about it.

The paper buckled quite badly and when I applied it to to the black piece it didn't go on straight. I also ironed it and this caused some staining to the piece (because bertha is always covered in goo of some kind). I applied a blur filter to the background so that this would be less distracting in the scan, as it was most noticeable.

I originally was going to do it in black and discharge it out to a gold tone. The black wouldn't discharge enough. Curse those scrapbookers and their insatiable need for the archival and fade-resistant!! But conceptually I felt red worked just as well if not better, even if it doesn't look as well. I did have some problems with discharging the bleach in some places as it was simply drying too fast and I ended up applying it thick and so lost some detail. But ultimately I managed to get the image so I am mostly okay with it.

The Cavalry Arrived Five Years Later

I never got Hebrew font on this computer so I can't write the title. Sorry. And I think I might have forgotten it anyway. It works out to the horses and chariots of Israel-the words are all on the bottom there so look.

I have not bound it-I initially determined I would bind only the bottom and perhaps the sides, but I wanted the jagged raw edges on the top. I am thinking I might use an organza to do a loose binding however. Before anyone asks, it is not square and the pieces were not meant to match up or look the same.

So I had it in my head that I started this piece in 04-then I looked at my journal and discovered I had done it in 03. Oh man. I had the top finished, the wheels finished, everything. It languished because I could never figure out how to add the quilting design I had chosen of horses and wheels. I didn't dare freehand and I couldn't mark the top since it is mostly handpaints and hand dyed fabrics and there is no way I am ever going to wash it. I have never been proficient enough to quilt from the back and anyway I needed to see where Elisha was. So fast forward nearly five years.

When I was scouring the internet for storage ideas for the abbreviated art room (which is still not done because I sent mama to buy me drapery lining and the woman there convinced her to buy batting. She was all "The woman told me to buy this warm and natural stuff..."I said "that's batting!" Well I can always use it for other things. Damn this parenthetical aside is long) I came across someone showing the process they used for quilting with Glad press n' seal wrap. I realized that this was finally the perfect vehicle for my horses and bought some with the intention of using when I finished the art room (which I now realize isn't going to happen for at least five years so what the hell. This one was shorter).

When I got teh noo masheen I decided to try its quilting powers and pulled the press n' seal out. This stuff sticks. It did not shift, heck it didn't budge. And I drew the design right on the top with a sharpie-no bleed through-the sharpie marks did turn the jumping foot pink though.



Here it is with the press n seal, laid out and ready to go. Mama actually asked me why I was taping it to the floor. "The same reason I always tape them to the floor" I said. That woman's memory is so bad, she must be in the early stages of dementia already. Of course it's been a few years since I've done it with life getting in the way.


Close up of the sharpie marks. As you can see I just layered one sheet right over another until I had all the top covered. I stuck them on there before layering the quilt and they did not move at all. I did however remove the press n seal after finishing only the main horse shapes because I didn't want to be picking out five hundred one millimetre sized pieces off of it. I had some trouble with the quilting and am unsure if this is due to the press n seal or the very heavy valdani thread (valdani 30 wt is much heavier than the same from sulky. Where are the standards? I actually like the weight of the valdani better) because the thread broke frequently, even after I started using a metafil needle. I swore at teh noo machine a lot because you can't get into the machine anymore. Who's genius idea was this?

Here is a picture without the flash to show the quilting a bit better. Can anyone see the horses? I think I can only because I know where they are. Still they are there so that makes me happy. I like the way the wheels ghosted in this picture.

Uhh should I mention what this is a quilt OF?

Well...it's complicated. The least complicated version: when I was going to do Biblia/Biblica Hebraica I planned several pieces of which this was one so it is tied conceptually and stylistically to that. It is a depiction of 2 kings 6:17 with nods to the declaration made of Elijah and Elisha as they left the world. The basic design of the top is that of two stylized chariot bodies which were meant to look random and offset. It has a companion that I started and then ripped to pieces in order to overhaul the design completely. That one got stalled at that point while this one progressed to the quilt stage-I also never got around to writing all of the name of that one, heh. The wheels are rather the design focus of both pieces, they are netted lace.

This uses a number of hand painted and some dyed fabrics. The letters in the base are sunprints. It is completely pieced and turned out smaller than I intended because the paper I used as foundation was only that large (heh).

In my quilt journal entry for this piece I babbled for a good page and a half about the might of God and types of Christ and blah blah. Of all of that I'm going to say Elisha was always one of my favorite people in scripture. And of course I always thought Malachi's well worn prophesy was actually saying the Lord would be in the mold of Elisha. I mean really who followed Elijah the first time people? I also tend to pair he and Joshua together as a specific type because of their names and duties, and the transfiguration. It also speaks for the might of God which is never in the things we think it is. That is the mercifully abbreviated version.

ETA: I thought maybe I should add a close-up of Elisha so you can see what he actually looks like. The shoulder in particular was placed weird, but could have been worse. I sketched it, altered and then printed directly to the fabric. The lines were done with a twin needle.

In The Cloud of Witnesses

Kenaniah, felt tipped and ball point pens, watercolour wash.

This is one of those ones that I like and I don't like at the same time. The main problem being the figures which I did much too quick like and tried to knock back with blue washes, which makes the piece in general look much too sombre. While meant to be singing they look too sad and pained. Damn it would look good if it weren't for that. I knew I shouldn't have done that part while tired at work.

Of course once more I played the partial iconoclast that I am by using the tetragrammaton. This time I tried to tie it into the bizarro notes above, all of which I am reasonably pleased with.
I always thought of this one as Petra's song until Sacred Trust came along. So now there's two of them I guess. Or something. Ha.

The Twelve Shifts of Christmas

On the first shift of Christmas, a resident gave to me
a diaper full of pee

On the second shift of Christmas, a resident gave to me
emesis x2
and a diaper full of pee

On the third shift of Christmas, a resident gave to me
three spit wads
emesis x2
and a diaper full of pee

On the fourth shift of Christmas, a resident gave to me
four escape attempts
three spit wads
emesis x2
and a diaper full of pee

On the fifth shift of Christmas, my boss gave to me
FIVE MORE SHIFTS

four escape attempts
three spit wads
emesis x2
and a diaper full of pee

On the sixth shift of Christmas, a resident gave to me
six yelling fits

FIVE MORE SHIFTS

four escape attempts
three spit wads
emesis x2
and a diaper full of pee

On the seventh shift of Christmas, a resident gave to me
Seven pounds of poo
six yelling fits

FIVE MORE SHIFTS

four escape attempts
three spit wads
emesis x2
and a diaper full of pee

On the eighth shift of Christmas, a resident gave to me
....

Okay by this time I'm not sure I'm going to be coherent or alive, so as Bob and Doug said, Welcome to shift twelve.


When I told Phil I was working twelve shifts the first thing he said was "hey the twelve shifts of Christmas." and he totally gave me the best line (five). Ha.

No Other Name

What's In A Name, lettered in india ink with various pens

Really what else was I going to do for this one? I did get to try out the expensive drawing board I bought a while back which I had been unable to really test run until now since grandma was driving me too crazy to want to. It's wonderful BTW and much better than the North American ones I've seen, good working angles.
The few b nib (oval) lettering styles really evidence how infrequently I use the b nib, and the second go around spaced the words a little differently than the practice one (from which I liked the layout better). Letter spacing also got rather wonky at times-more on this one than the practice one in fact-still the right justification while not great is also not hideously bad. Really there isn't much opaque white on this piece, so I consider that pretty decent.

Peekturs

Richard and Avery came down this weekend and Richard treated us to a fresh application of his own special brand of annoyingness-mostly by taking many terrible pictures this time around.

This is the picture Richard took of me (I am standing at the bathroom sink) while I was trying to tell him how to work the camera.


He thinks terrible pictures of me are somehow funny.

I retaliate with this.
Okay terrible pictures can be funny. If they aren't of me. Don't you love the horns his toque made in his hair? Right at this point we were discussing how cool it would be to play the labour day classic as nonchalantly as possible and then make a round about Taylor Field (yes TAYLOR FIELD) with the cup.

Since we're posting terrible pictures of everyone, here is one of marvin k haggler (aka mumbley peg/hieme h manush/mothra) and my hand. This picture made Richard and I both laugh.

Mama hates it and when auntie linder tells her I posted it she'll probably give me a beating. I know she can still do it because about five minutes after this I said to her "see if you can catch me Mama!" and jumped on her-and she did manage to do it so even though she's getting all super old and true seniorhood looms imminently, she can still carry my weight-which means she can still whip me around. Having said that I probably weigh below max lifting weight for labour standards.

And Grandma and Avery.


Well at least it's a good picture of Grandma anyway. I think Avery is trying to be a raptor or something. I got partially cut out of the picture.

Avery squealing as I did the old "don't smile-tissues" routine. I had to leave the red-eye in there.

This kid does not know how to take teasing-I blame only child syndrome. He gets very angry so that we laugh and do it even more, just like we used to do to Liz-the best cure for only child syndrome is the tissues routine. He was so mad. Bwahahahahaha perfect.

Me laughing while we teased Avery.
I wanted to post this one simply because mama's camera flash does not make my hair look orange. I am trying to get her to trade cameras with me now based on that fact alone.

Richard sitting in dad's chair looking like dad. When I told him that he said "hey better that than the milkman."

Here I Am

Take Me In, felt-tipped marker and watercolour wash.

I like this one. I maintained from the start that it would depict a coal in a golden tong, but the deco/cubist look evolved in my mind over sketches until it became this in the last rendering. I was altering the design to the end. I am annoyed that my favorite grey brush marker has dried out, so I had to go with the next lightest for the lines in the background, and I don't like that grey as much.
I did the final rendering at work, because the full moon is past and the psych patients behaved themselves!

AHH

..hhhh!
WE WON!!!

Bleed Green Baby

Boo YA

DEATH TO WINNIPEG!!!

I still hate Kent Austin, just so you know. But perhaps he will prove himself useful once again. He does seem a little less arrogant these days.
Now back to the regular schedule...

KILL THE BLUE BASTARDS!