Word matters (part 2)

September 6, 2017 ~ Liz A ~ 9 Comments

So, I’ve never been a big fan of my own handwriting. Somehow the letters always end up different sizes and there’s no consistency in their formation. A calligrapher I will never be.

But I did pick up one very useful tip in my middle school library teaching days: don’t even try to align letters on a bulletin board … stagger them instead.

Both these truths are realized here …

Heck, even when I draw a guideline (here done in water-erasable pen), I can’t manage to follow it. But at least the lettering is uniquely mine. And I’m very happy with my new set of permanent markers, purchased on sale from Dick Blick. They are 0.05 mm (half the width of an XS Pitt pen) which is fine enough to hide behind the single-strand split backstitching I favor (aka “splitting hairs” in Jude Hill’s lexicon) …

Speaking of Jude, I have to credit her “Flower Power” post

http://spiritcloth.typepad.com/spirit_cloth/2017/09/flower-power.html

with pulling this peace patch out of my brain (where it’s been germinating for a while) and onto a piece of indigo shibori … not exactly tie-dye, but close enough.

A couple of seams later, I had the latest peace shawl patch …

which I like even better on the b-side …

P.S. I always wanted to be a hippie, but I missed the boat by a few years. Still, my kids and grandkids might argue otherwise, especially after receiving the books detailed here:

http://imgoingtotexas.blogspot.com/2014/12/tis-season-continued.html

Word matters (part 1 of several related posts)

September 5, 2017 ~ Liz A ~ 8 Comments

Words matter, but actions speak volumes.

In the heat of the #Charlottesville moment, I forgot a very important principle: that each of us has a copyright to our words. And so, I offer a public apology to Marti for using her words before seeking her permission.

Since then, I have reached out to many of you who left words in the form of phrases for the Peace Pin Project. Thank you to those of you who graciously gave me permission to use them for my peace shawl project … especially Marti!

As it turned out, my initial peace patches turned out to have insufficient margins …

so they are currently winging their way to their authors.

In their place are the latest versions, back …

and front …

Eventually, these will be stitched together, along with many others, to form a two-sided peace shawl. The seams are variously known as Korean Pojagi or French seams, both of which conceal all raw edges …

I’m particularly liking the idea of wearing the shawl inside out, creating an asemic statement of peace (with thanks to Mo for that concept). Therefore, I am taking care not to use any knots and to clip all loose ends …

This cloth came from Mo, part of a wonderful package that arrived early this summer with cloth dyed by Ulrike (Nemo Ignorat) in Europe …

and Geminid birthday greetings to Don and me (our birthdates being one day apart) …

a wondrous gift from Mo’s Honesty/Lunaria series …

Which is to say, I continue to be amazed by the love and care that come from the community of stitchers and dyers, writers and readers, who visit this humble space. One can’t help but be hopeful, and for that I am most thankful.

– Playin’ around

September 16, 2016 ~ Liz A ~ 4 Comments

Retrospective (9/26)

Patch #260 Pectens irradians

Original Post

I told Deb Sposa I wanted to do the optional assignment that she gave her students here: http://artisun.blogspot.com/2016/08/jen-mullen.html

I started out by playing with Inktense pencils (in place of water colors) …

rubbing the pencils on damp tea bags that were molded over sea shells …

Then I played a bit with the ones I didn’t like as much, just to see which background fabric might work best in place of batting (are you noticing how much I’m not following the rubric?) I also wanted to see how small and tight I could make stitches before the tea bags tore. I even tried using a coffee filter (middle right), but it didn’t have as much personality as the tea bags (plus, there was the rubric to consider) …