Self Portrait

Self Portrait in Brown

11-1/2" x 11-1/2"

2010

This is a piece I made this week for a collaborative project our new artist alliance is doing for First Thursday next week  I talked a little bit about this project in my previous blog post "A is for ..." 

That letter "A" is also for the same project.  Members can do a letter (T,V,A, A for Treasure Valley Artists' Alliance) and/or a self portrait.  I did both because I wanted to try this self portrait technique by Maria Elkins which is shown on the Quilting Arts TV series 400. 

The pieces are mounted on a 11-1/2" square board because they will all be hung in a giant grid outside the Modern Hotel.  I stapled this around the board and maybe when they are done with it I will take it off and finish it in a regular, rectangular way.  But I'll have to figure out some way to cover the holes I cut in the fabric to go around the eye screws.

I would have used green fabrics as that is one of my favorite colors, but I thought green might just look a little sickly.  

Maybe a turquoise color would have been o.k.

Does the picture look familiar?

Found!

The two little brothers (Chester and Rocky) have finally been caught and returned to their cage.  It only took until about 9:45 last night.  The one stayed under the t.v. unit all day and I had apparently trapped the other in the laundry room all day.  Frank had come home and put his biking shoes in the laundry room and later found that the hamster crawled right in.  Of course, he escaped behind the washer and dryer again when Frank tried to pick him up.  But eventually, Frank put the shoe down again and he crawled back in.  Phew!

Missing

It looks like it is going to be one of those days.  This morning Anna woke up and when she turned on the light in her bedroom, she discovered that the hamster wheel to one of the cages broke and her two Robo hamsters were nowhere to be seen.

The hunt is on.  Anna still had to get ready and go to school.  I searched her room and a few other places.  We have a book that says to set up a bucket with some food in it and a ladder that goes up to the edge.  The hamsters are suppose to climb up the ladder and into the bucket. Then, they won't be able to get out.  I don't think that's going to work.  But I have a bucket set up and a foam core ramp leading up to it.

Robo hamsters are the smallest in the world.  Hamsters can squeeze into the smallest of spaces.  Even Anna's regular size hamster managed to squeeze under the piano one time.

After she left for school, I was going downstairs to get a flashlight and one of the little hamsters scurried across the floor.  It went under the couch and then squeezed under the t.v. center, which has about a half an inch clearance.  Laying on my stomach with my face smashed to the floor and trying to see in a half an inch gap, I saw and heard the hamster scratching.  I tried sliding a piece of mat board underneath to try to flush him out, but it did nothing.  After awhile, I figured he wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.  I went to look for the other one.

I've searched all the rooms on my knees with a flashlight.  No sign of the other, yet.  If I was pretty sure the hamster wasn't in the room I closed the door and blocked the crack of the door with books or something.  So he either won't go in or maybe he's trapped inside.

Since hamsters are suppose to sleep during the day, it will be even harder to find them if they are not making noise.  I don't know what to do now.  I came back downstairs and am not sure if the one is still under the t.v. or not because there is no noise and I can only see him if he is near the front.  I was hoping to work on art today but it may be spent hunting hamsters instead.

(I was going to post a picture of the escapees, but I see blogger has changed the way to add images and I cannot get it to work right now.)

Bruneau

On Saturday, we took my sister out to the Bruneau sand dunes.  It had been years since we had been out there.  We had a really nice day (although a little windy and cool).  I thought we were going to kill my sister by making her climb to the top of the large dune.  It is a steep climb and much harder since you do it in sand.  I'm proud to say she made it to the top and lives to tell the tale!  We also tried a bit of kite flying, glider tossing, had a picnic and casual rock finding.

I'm the one with the green shirt amidst two grandparents climbing with their granddaughter.  Jill and Anna are the "dots" at the bottom.  And, of course, Frank is the one already on top taking the picture.

We made it!  It was much more fun to go down.

It's a First

When you're thirteen, you have already had many of your firsts: first smile, first tooth, first step, first haircut, first day of school, etc.  The firsts may be slowing down some.  But Anna had another first on Friday night.  It was her first time at a "rock" concert.  When I mentioned that to her, she said, "Mom, I've been to many concerts."  Yes, but dance concerts, bluegrass concerts, musicals, orchestra concerts are not the same as a "rock" concert with its deafening, ear ringing music and large venue. (I think my first rock concert was in college.)

My sister and I took Anna to see Cavo, Lifehouse and Daughtry on Friday night.  I was mostly going for Lifehouse.  We were in about the farthest seats away from the stage but it really wasn't that far away in the Idaho Center (and I had brought the binoculars).  Before the show was over, I had earplugs in my ears.  Before we left, Anna was asking for one of the $35 concert t-shirts.  I really did not want to spend that much for a t-shirt.  But with those pretty eyes and sly grin she says, "Well Mom, it is my first concert." 

I'm sure she will be wearing the shirt to school tomorrow. With that first taken care of, I will be happy to wait quite awhile until the next first, . . . like first boyfriend!

Happy Earth Day

In honor of earth day, my sister and I went for a hike in the foothills.  We also did a little shopping downtown.  And, of course, I brought my own bags to use.

This last picture is from downtown.  It is what we like to call "the hole" because it has been a defunct construction project for years.  But this tree is staking a claim. Very appropriate for Earth Day.

Convertible

I have been noticing the convertible cars coming out of the garages and driving around town as the weather here has been very nice these last few days.  I got so caught up in yard work and being outside on Sunday that I forgot about going to the dance concert for which Anna and I had tickets.  (I've done that before, but 2 p.m. on Sunday is sometimes hard to remember when you're in the middle of something).

We weren't driving a convertible around because we do not have one.  But the convertible I want to talk about is my sewing room, which also serves as a guest bedroom.  I'm very excited to have my sister coming for a visit today (just in time for the weather to change to cloudy  and cooler tomorrow).  So, the sewing room has been converted.  I have a sewing cabinet that folds up and is on wheels.  The cutting table folds down and has wheels.  This makes it very easy to change the room. 

Here's the guest room.  No I did not make the quilt on the bed (It's a Target purchase from years ago when I wanted my daughter to have a warmer quilt and knew I wasn't going to get around to making it.  I also liked it for the holiday season).  The quilt on the end was finished by me.  My mom had some blocks she made in the 70's (or at least with 70's fabric) and I ended up piecing them and finishing it up. Oh, and that's an inflatable double high Aerobed which makes it easy to put away when the guests leave.

A is for . . .

. . . art.  Yes, I have been working on some art.

. . . artists' alliance.  I made this "a" for a collaborative piece with other members of the Treasure Valley Artists' Alliance.  Members will make a T,V, or A (initials for the group) on a 11-1/2" board.  They will be hung together at the Modern Art event at the Modern hotel on the First Thursday in May. 

. . . Anna.  I had drawn this "a" on a piece of paper and asked Anna when she came home from school what she thought it looked like.  Being a pencil drawing on paper and just an outline she said, "Some kind of arch thing."  I had the right side of the bar across the middle of the "a" thinner than what you see. I think my "a" was a little too abstract.  Then I asked her if it looked like an "a" and she said, "Now that you mention it, yes." 

I like how this turned out and will tell you what I did.  When I took Melanie Testa's online class, we layered two fabrics (right sides up) on top of a piece of batting.  We sewed around a picture outline that we had drawn on tracing paper and placed on top of the fabrics (you can probably find detailed instructions in her book Inspired to Quilt).  Then we removed the tracing paper and cut inside the top layer only. After that, we could add more stitches or whatever.

I did something similar and a little bit differently with this piece.  First I chose a background fabric (yellow) and fused little bits of fabrics onto it.  I layered it on batting and went ahead and free motion quilted over top of it.  Then I layered the navy piece on top and my tracing paper with the letter on top of that.  I had marked with pins on the bottom fabric where I wanted the edges of the tracing paper to line up so I could match them even though I could not see the bottom fabric (did that make sense?).  I sewed the outline of the letter and removed the tracing paper.  Then cut just the top fabric inside the stitching.  I went back and satin stitched around the entire letter.  I plan to put some free motion quilting with navy thread around the letter to give it some texture.

I liked using the bits of fused fabric and quilting first.  I think this might be a good technique to use on some of my older pieces that are "finished" but I am not happy with.  I definitely will be trying this again.

A Few More

These are the last beach pictures from this trip that I will show you. 

How Could It Be

"We interrupt our regularly scheduled beach pictures to bring you some breaking news.  It is official.  Lisa Flowers Ross and Frank Ross are now the parents of a TEENAGER.  We wish them the best of luck and will return to beach pictures tomorrow."


How could this possibly be that our beautiful little baby is now a beautiful teenager as tall as me? 

Birds

Today I share with you pictures of some of the birds we saw in Florida.  On one of the first days we there, Anna was out on our little patio with her cousin.  This bird flew up, landed on the railing and startled them.  Obviously, it wasn't too worried about people.  We were able to get quite close to it.  Eventually it flew away, but I think it was looking for some crumbs.

On our last day after checking out of our condo, we went to Stump Pass Beach.  It was long and narrow and we were looking for shark teeth.  But Anna saw this heron on the edge of the beach sitting in the grasses.  We got fairly close before it flew away.  (We found some small shark teeth. But one girl had found quite a large one which I understand is rare.)

We saw lots of pelicans.

Sea Creatures

Jellyfish on the beach.  We saw quite a few (even a huge one that was about a foot wide).  They were in the water, too.  But I don't know if they sting or not.  We didn't want to test it out.

Dried sea urchins.

Barnacles on a rock, which now remind me of garlic.

Back from Break

We are back from our spring break trip from Florida.  For a week, we stayed at Siesta Key and visited with Frank's parents, sisters and their families. Today is our first day back and it's time to get back into the swing of everyday routines. Here are a few pictures.  Over the next week I will post some of my more "artsy" pictures.

The beach had beautiful white sand and the color of the water was pretty.

It was spring break in Florida and there were lots of people.  You can't tell from this photo because it was taken in the morning on one of the "cooler" days.  But the beach was very wide so it wasn't too bad.

Sunset view from the condo.

Another Quote of the Day

"Nature is painting for us, day after day, pictures of infinite beauty if only we have the eyes to see them." 
- John Ruskin

 

Quote of the Day

In celebration of spring and thoughts on the garden.

"In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt." 
- Margaret Atwood

Revised Edition

Meadows and Streams

 24-3/4" x 29-1/4" 

 fabrics hand-dyed by artist,

machine pieced and quilted

©2010 Lisa Flowers Ross

$350

Detail of stitching

The title of this piece is Meadows and Streams, although I think it should be called Heartache because it was such a pain in the puttuti to make into existence!  I ripped many seams, inserted and re-sewed.  As I was pin basting the sandwich with safety pins, I jabbed my finger.  That's par for the course. I just suck on it for a second, look at it and then continue on.  Then I saw a spot on the fabric that hadn't been there before.  It wasn't a piece of fuzz and wasn't coming off.  What is that?  Oh CRUD, it's blood!  So first I went and got a BandAid so I wouldn't bleed all over the piece.  I was upset because I did not want to have to rip out any more seams.  I grabbed some club soda (because I had read that that would work on wine. I was just about ready for a glass of wine at that point.) and managed to get the stain out.  Phew!

I had picked out all the colors of thread to quilt with and started with a variegated thread.  After about a minute of free-motion quilting the thread broke.  I changed needles, tension, etc. and it kept breaking. I asked for help on the Quiltart list.  While waiting for replies,  I picked out some of the stitching I had done, switched threads and continued on.  With all the help, I eventually figured out a way to make that thread work, but it is not in this quilt. So after much ado, it was completed.

Thank you to all who left comments about the first posting of the piece.  Here's the before shot again for reference.

I knew something wasn't right and I thought putting on the border would help.  But my brain said that I haven't used a border in awhile so that's interesting that I would need one on this piece.  

Well, it didn't need that border.  But what the border did was to help me focus in on what was bothering me.  Many of you hit on the same things. It was too light in the bottom right-hand corner and too dark in the lower left-hand corner.  The blue sections didn't seem in balance to me. 

I guess you can see what I did to fix it.  I inserted a light strip of color in the lower left corner.  I added another blue section on the bottom to make it darker, more weighted and to balance out the blue.  Someone had mentioned maybe adding a bit of complimentary red to give it some sparkle.  Obviously, I did not use any red, as I was going for a more subdued, calming effect overall.  But I did insert some white pieces in the blues to give it some more "excitement". 

The border is gone, but I did put a binding on it because I still thought it needed a little containment.  I'm sure some will not like my binding choice of color and having two different colors.  I thought it needed the dark green on the bottom to ground it.  I am happier with the piece now, although I think the original intention got changed somewhat.  But that's art!

Please feel free to leave comments about what you think of the changes, good or bad.

A Little Spring Cleaning

These are the "before" pictures of my "work" desk.  The desk where I plan my week, keep my files, keep track of my art business, etc.  It is also used to work on art or scrap booking when needed.  Above I was just finishing up my exchange prints. They were, at one time, laying all over the desk to dry.

The after clean-up pictures are below.

It has actually stayed this way for awhile.  One corner clean, the rest of the house to go! Yeah, right.

Below I wanted to show you the inside of my one drawer.  I have made an organizer using plastic canvas.  I have one I made in my bathroom drawer for hair things and it has stayed organized for years.  I like these better than the store bought organizers because I can customize the sections to what I want to keep in the drawer. I need to make one for Anna's bathroom and one for the kitchen.

Reflections

Reflections

33-1/4" x15-1/4"

fabrics hand-dyed by the artist, tulle,

machine pieced and quilted

©2010 Lisa Flowers Ross

$250

This is a piece that I have had finished for a little while.  It was inspired by a photo of her pond that I saw on Melody Johnson's blog, Fibermania.  You might recognize the stitching as I showed a picture of that here on the blog previously.  That is one piece of orange-y rust fabric.  It is the color of the threads that make it look like two different pieces.

Distracted

There were lots of things I should have done yesterday.  But I got distracted by some shiny objects.  I made a necklace for my yoga teacher who turned 60 last week.

There are two metal rectangles here.  One is a cut out of a lotus flower and the one underneath has the word "karma" imprinted on it.  That was one thing on my to-do list.  But then, since I already had the stuff out anyway, I decided to make a necklace for myself.

This one has a cut out symbol and underneath it says "namaste".  Of course, I had to make some earrings to go with it!  Then Anna came in and wanted to make a necklace.  I said o.k. but she had to get some stuff together for a sleepover first.  As I was waiting, I made another pair of earrings (they are so easy to make when you already have all the tools).

There was a free project sheet at Craft Warehouse to make these angel earrings.  Of course, I had to buy the beads because they were so cute.  (That was before Christmas.)  I like to think of them as my earth angels but they will work for Christmas, too.

Anna didn't have time to work on her necklace yesterday, so she is doing it today.

In the Hood

Yesterday was mostly spent ripping out seams and re-sewing. But it was a very nice day so I decided to take a walk down to the pond (read: drainage ditch).  I thought I would try to get some pictures of the brown grasses.  Lots of red-winged black birds like it there.  You can't always see them, but you can hear them.

The grasses had lots of interesting angles, but the position of the sun made it hard to get many pictures.  But look what I found on the ground!

A skeleton leaf! I've seen where you can buy them for collages.  And I've seen instructions on how to make a leaf into a skeleton leaf.  But I don't think I've ever found one before.

Anna was with me and we decided to walk back through the "field" (reserve area).  The rocks had lots of beautiful colors.

The hills are alive with funny faces.  Of course right after I took this picture, she had a nice smile on her face.

It's a Process

I thought I was done with this piece I've been working on, until after I put on the border.  I thought it needed the border to "contain" all the lines.  I don't think that was it. Now I see it needs something else.  What do you think?

I have several ideas on what to change, all of which will require ripping seams.  Sometimes it just doesn't come together very easily.  And yes, I realize the lines are "wonky".  I did not use a ruler for anything but the border (something Nancy Crow wanted us to do in the class I took from her).