Thinking

My mother used to tell me, "You think too much".  I was a pretty serious kid, and still don't enjoy pranks, or most surprises.  I wanted (and still want) everything and everybody to be peaceful, happy, contented, gentle with each other, responsible, organized, on time...

Being 'thoughtful' in this way means I also internalize a great deal, which is why I no longer watch movies or read anything horrific or dark.  It's too painful.

And it means that till lately I've been making only pretty art.  I will still make it, because it makes me -- and often others -- smile.  But Mark on the Body has begun, and my first full week -- 8 days of stitching, if you count both Fridays, yesterday and the day it began -- and so there are updated photos on that page now.

Other Work is all over the place!

• Three Christmas presents have been finished.  I can show you only one -- for someone I'm pretty sure has never looked at this blog:

Shepherd's Finger-less Mittens
Pattern from Welsh for Rainbow by Brenda Dayne
Yarn: Amitola - Lisa Harding - Colour #109
80% wool, 20% silk

Yes, the pair was knit from approximately 25 gm of a single 50 gm ball.  Buttons were found in my stash but I believe they originated in the bargain buttons at The Crafty Lady, Lacombe.  Don't think there are any more, but the shop has several colour variations of that yarn.  Lovely stuff!

• The Magic Tiles quilt top was finished, with only a pieced border; it's about 45" square.  Because the border piecing picked up on the wonky construction of the blocks, I used 2 1/2" strips, cut at weird angles, and joined together with 1" "grout" strips.  I had to remember to move one strip up just slightly -- by 1/4" -- in order for them to line up evenly when actually sewn together.  See the tip of the right-hand piece of fabric, lying just a hint above the corresponding edge of the left-hand (B&W print) one?

Here's what the top looked like on my design wall before I sandwiched it to a black-on-red wide backing ( from the "Stonehenge" line of fabrics):

Alas, however, the quilting of this piece is on hold for now.  It was to be a baby gift for the first grandchild of cousins of mine Back East...but I found out earlier this week that the wee babe was miscarried at 25 weeks.  The baby was due this month, so Christmas will be a sombre and tender time for the family this year.  I'm told the young couple will try again, so I will bide my time on this one and wait for good news.

• In happier news, I also found out this week that two of the four pieces I'd completed for the first year of the 15 x 15 Group's challenges have been selected to go to Quilt Expo in Beaujolais, France, running April 10 - 13, 2014!!  The selections are "Tree Study I" and "To Everything There is a Season".  I'm thrilled!! You can see these pieces -- and all the pieces submitted by the group -- on our blog HERE.  Click on the Quilt Gallery tab, and you will get a drop-down list of the themes for the year.  My pieces are found in "Texture" and "Time". 

• Also in good news, a few days ago I received an e-mail from a SAQA member and delighted viewer of SAQA Western Canada's touring Exhibit, The Burgess Shale Project, which is hanging in the library at Turner Valley School till December 11.  Her nephews go to the school, so she and her parents drove out at -20 C to visit them and the exhibit.  The librarian was effusive about the exhibit's impact on all who'd seen it, and so was our viewer.  She gave me permission to post her e-mail on the SAQA WC blog -- and I sent a copy to Desi Vaughan, the SAQA Regional Rep Coordinator.  I'm tickled!

• As for what's going on in the studio...3-4 more knitted gifts, 2 more miniatures, and 1 more piece for the next 15 x 15 challenge on the theme of "Rhythm".

So...even though it's Saturday, I'm linking up with Nina Marie's Off-the-Wall Friday...and wish you all a fine weekend!

I'm Late! I'm Late!

Photo courtesy of
Disney White Rabbit Gallery

Or at least it feels that way!  I worked yesterday, was in town at music practice till late last evening, had a drive home that alternated between "white knuckles" and "this is a breeze!", took 2 hours to unwind, slept in...and have felt like I've been running behind myself all day.

Furthermore, I leave in a half hour or so -- if my car, which I plugged in 3 hours ago, starts -- to go back to town for groceries, Evensong, and another shift at work.

Maybe the Evensong will calm me down!

In the meanwhile, it's December 6 and I'm committed to this short (3 Fridays) blog hop...The REAL Studio Tour...and have to tell you what my favourite non-traditional tool is.  Hmmm...Well, the thing you can't buy in a fabric shop but which is indispensable to me is my design wall, constructed of a slab of blue insulation material, covered with thermolam quilt batting.  Here's a picture of it in my sewdio; it's that white slab in the centre of the cream-coloured wall:

The tables have been re-arranged so my sewing machine now faces the window, but the design wall is still in that location, flanked by a peg-board on either side -- another non-traditional tool.  I use these peg boards for hanging tools and patterns; I have another on the wall of the closet on the other side of the room, that holds knitting needles.

So there you have it -- not one but two non-traditional tools to start off my REAL Studio Tour!  To see what others use in non-traditional fashion, click HERE, and enjoy!

NOTE: Mark on the Body update shortly --- but like I said, I'm late and I gotta make tracks!

Hopping Along

...with my cyber-friend elle to The REAL Studio Tour -- a bit of wintry December fun that starts Friday, and runs for 3 Fridays in a row.  You can check out the details HERE and hop along if you like!

Off to the Sewdio now for some Magic (Tiles, that is)...a pieced border is on the agenda this morning!

Minis Finis

The two miniatures I began a few days ago are now finished and packed up with two from inventory, ready to be mailed to Different Strokes Gallery in Olds...once the blizzard stops!

Gone South (C) 2013
Commercial cotton, fused applique, beading

Statuesque (C) 2013
Commercial cotton, fused applique,
silk thread, hand embroidery

I Promised You Pictures

...yesterday.  Sorry -- too much going on.  But late yesterday/early today was the "Reveal" of the 15 x 15 group's latest themed challenge:  "Connect".  It's another wonderful assortment of interpretations -- some quite literal; some, rather abstract.

Here's my contribution, which you saw while it was under construction (scroll down):

Concatenation! (C) 2013

For the...ahem!...connection to "Connect", you can read more about it in my artist's statement, and see the work submitted by the other members HERE.  Enjoy!

Mark on the Body

begins HERE.

Other things tomorrow...I promise!  :-)

Making a Mark

It is time.

Remember all that math I was doing a couple of months ago?  It's time to put it to use.

Sometimes I get pieces given to me -- whether all-of-a-piece or in sections, they "come to me" from (in my faith-view) the Holy Spirit.  Tomorrow I'll begin the main stitching on such a piece.

It "arrived" in my mind in September after reading one of Judy Martin's posts.  Fittingly, today, as I opened the Blogger Dashboard to begin this introduction, there was another one of her posts.  I got to thinking about November which, in Canada, is also "National Diabetes Awareness Month" -- with a major focus on Type 1 Diabetes.  November was chosen because it's the birth month of the principle discoverer of insulin, Dr. Frederick Banting.

It's also my late husband's birth month, and tomorrow marks the 61st anniversary of his birth.

I got to thinking about the impact of insulin injections on the body, and did some math to see if I could figure out how many injections he would have taken from diagnosis at age 7 -- using his birthday, November 29 -- to the day he died.  In other words, November 29, 1959 (turned 7) to August 9, 2006.  For many years, he took only one injection per day, but for at least the last 10 years of his life, he took two.  Thus  at minimum he would have poked his body with a very fine needle 24,326 times over that period (I estimated the number of leap years and added those in too).

Then there would have been the pin pricks to test his blood sugar -- at least once a day for all that time, or an estimated minimum of 17,021 more needle pokes.  That's a total of 41,347 "routine" needle marks, not counting extra ones in hospital stays etc.  Each one made a mark on the body, barely visible to the eye, building up a type of scarring on the skin and deep into the tissues, even when the injections were carefully monitored.  And those blood sugar tests? Marks on the finger tips.

By yet another "co-incidence", this year's introduction to National Diabetes month is all about the numbers.

I wanted to express the impact of T1D in stitch, and so have prepared a foundation piece.  I'm using a very lightly patterned batik in a Caucasian flesh tone simply because my husband was Caucasian.  It's sandwiched with very thin batting and backed with a light white-striped synthetic drapery remnant.

It occurred to me that I needed some sort of shape or reference in which to place the stitched marks.  For this, I enlisted the help of my children, who at my request -- and without really knowing why -- created a paper pattern  Yes, it's life-sized -- and as my son is the same height (or so) as my husband, perhaps the most accurate part of this project!

Paper Pattern

I traced the pattern onto sheets of recycled laminate plastic, which I'd taped together, and given the size of fabric I had to work with (I'd bought the end of a bolt and that's all there is), I decided to trace only neck, torso and part of the legs.  These would be include all the sites used for injection and blood tests with one exception.  This tracing is two-dimensional, so there's no back -- no buttocks, which are also injection sites.
The stitches will go through to the back of the piece, so that will have to do!

Plastic pattern

I used the plastic template to transfer the image onto my fabric.  Then I sandwiched the fabric with thin batting and backed it as described above.  Then I stitched around the image with white thread -- white on white to keep it subtle.  I want the focus to be on the stitched marks, not on the outline of the body.

None of this happened without sampling, using some of the same batting and backing but a different cotton, and trying out silk and polyester threads for fineness and colour.  During the sampling, another "aha!" -- I could prepare the piece for the marks and better show the scarring if I distressed the piece in the areas most injected with insulin.  Enter my embellisher (needle-punch machine).

Sample -- stitches and distressing on cotton sandwich

I was very pleased with the results, so after assembling the sandwich, stitching down the image, stay stitching the edges (1/4" from each) and trimming the excess batting and backing, I went to work.  Below is just part of the distressing -- showing abdomen and upper thigh.

What of the hand stitches and all that math?  Back to the dates I mentioned above.  My husband was born November 29, 1952 and diagnosed with T1D at seven (assumed date: his birthday, 1959).  This means there were seven years "Before Diabetes" -- and I've decided to include one mark per day for each of them -- 2,556 days/marks.

The "BD" marks will be in blue silk thread, for that care-free, peaceful time in his life.
The insulin injections will be marked with pale peach silk thread.
And the blood tests will be marked with a deep red polyester thread (fine weight).

There are 984 days between tomorrow and the tenth anniversary of my husband's death on August 9, 2016.
There are 43,903 marks to be made -- or about 44 per day between those dates -- 6% (3 marks per day) in blue, 39% (17 marks per day) in red, and 55% (24 marks per day) in peach.

Type 1 Diabetes leaves its Mark on the Body; hence, the title of my piece.  Its intended as a commemoration -- an honouring of my husband's life, and a recognition of the mark this disease makes on the lives of those who cope with it, day in and day out, from diagnosis to death.

For the most part, T1D's mark is invisible -- even with the impact on the skin and underlying tissue.  There are marks no one sees except on autopsy -- the internal damage to the body done by the disease, not by the insulin per se.  And then there are the marks it makes on the hearts, minds and souls of those who have it, and on their loved ones -- especially their parents, spouses and children.

T1D is a quiet disease.  It doesn't shout for funding.   But despite a plethora of research -- some of the best in the world done right here in Alberta, in Edmonton -- there is no cure.

T1D made its mark on my husband's life, on my life, and on the lives of my children.  Every day more children and young people are affected.   I have no idea what will happen to this piece once it is finished; I only know that I've been inspired to make it, and tomorrow, I begin.

It is time.

The Blanks - circa 1985*

*Editted to add: See the blanket on my lap in the photo?  That's the very first quilt I ever made -- a Log Cabin crib quilt for my son (the baby on said lap).  :-)

Beavering Away...

Yup, yup, yup...a true Canadian, that's me... at least, according to a quiz I stumbled onto not once, but twice in the past few days (second time, courtesy of my friend elle).  I'm a Beaver, through and through: "Analytical, self-disciplined, industrial, organized, aesthetic, self-sacrificing" - just ask my friends.  (Don't ask my kids; they expect me to be this way -- I'm a MOM, after all! ;-) )

And so I've been steadily working in the Sewdio, despite a head-cold which has me longing to lie down and sleep, sleep, sle-e-e-ep...

What's In Progress, you may ask (being as this is WIP Wednesday, after all!)?

Well...the Magic Tiles (nine block version) has been assembled and awaits its borders:

I'm thinking about a narrow (ish) pieced border (2" finished) and a wider solid border (4" -- likely black...with a subtle pattern).

And there are two new miniatures on the design wall, awaiting thread painting and/or a bit of hand-stitch:

Top: "Gone South" (WIP)
Bottom: "Statuesque" (WIP)

Before these could be finished, I had to get some more batting and a backing for the Magic Tiles baby quilt.  Off I went to Homespun Seasons in Stettler this afternoon, and I wasn't disappointed.

BUT I was distracted... by the latest from Husqvarna...

Husqvarna Platinum 16

Uh-oh.  At about $6,000 ( before discounts)...including (I believe) the table...it's almost the price of a decent used car.  On the other hand, I might just be in love.  However, as I actually need a new car within the next 2-3 years, and want to travel to Scotland for my 65th in 2017...this is not going to be an Immediate Purchase.  Still, it's lovely to know that there is a dealer nearby who carries something I might just be able to use...

***TAKE DEEP BREATH HERE***

Okay!  Back to reality via The Needle and Thread Network...WIP Wednesday, and the reminder that Christmas approaches, the Gallery calls, and The Beat Goes On!