Here’s a peek at the sampler I’ve made to audition different wools, different threads, different patch sizes and a few forays beyond the blanket stitch. I love French knots! As for my cross between a traditional sheaf stitch and a bookbinder’s longstitch, I’ll probably boost its size to run the full diagonal of the woolen patch. You’ll see the beginnings of the real thing soon. Just two weeks from now, maybe less!

It’s been rainy nearly every day for the past three weeks, with excellent results.

This newly completed quilt, 53 inches tall and 25 inches wide, started out as a sampler for practicing machine-sewn reverse appliqué. As circle after circle turned out surprisingly circular, I decided the sampler might be quilt-worthy. And its odd shape made it a good candidate for experimenting with irregular borders roughly in keeping with the golden rectangle.

I just entered it for jurying in the Quilt Visions 2010 show, along with Harpswell Caprice and Damson Blue.

Siegret Moonsong was the moniker of a certain correspondent of mine about a century ago, and in my recent bouts of domestic archeology a cache of his letters, drawings and other ephemera has come to light.

I am posting a sampling for your amusement on the Working Artist’s Daybook because SM and his circle were pretty damned good at the art of living!

Click here, then keep clicking the “Gimme More” button to see the resolutions this gizmo has to suggest. Let me know which one(s) you like by writing a Comment. These thumbnails show some of my favorites:

Much of my house looks like the wreckage* to the left, I have daylong classes with 60 kids tomorrow, my final session with my eight students from hell is on Wednesday, and what am I doing?

Sewing a Diamond X pattern through goat parchment!

Parchment is my new love. Well, one of my many new loves. It takes an unbelievably crisp fold, remembers it and emerges unscathed from the manhandling that this sewing pattern entails.

This parchment cover is actually more bone-like in color than the photo indicates. Inside are six signatures made from greeting cards sandwiched around plain paper. I love the shadowy image of the strawberry showing through the parchment.

*You can read more about the wreckage here.

There’s an interesting juried show in the works at 23 Sandy Gallery in the other Portland and I’ve entered a series of book models for consideration. It’s called The Assignment and it features work created in response to classroom assignments or to self-imposed exercises.

I like that conceit; I’m always conjuring projects, investigating materials, exploring new techniques, practicing skills. Rarely do I wind up with exhibition-worthy bookworks. But I’ve got lots of models, happy examples of what went right, reminders of where I went spectacularly wrong and inspiration for yet more experiments. So I’ve submitted two slipcased groups of models, the two-section books you see here and the one-section books pictured in this post.

Click the link for the narrative part of my entry. And make sure to look at the Sample Assignment section on the Call for Entries page; some are intriguing!
|Read the Rest of the Entry…

For more lovely letterforms spotted during our recent travels, read this.

I’ve now made more than 20 sewn one- and two-section booklets à la Keith Smith. I’ve punched a bajillion holes. I’ve discarded more spine pieces than I care to admit. My hand cramps up whenever I even think dividers. But now that I’ve found incompetech.com, my piercings are tolerably accurate.

The site has a free graph-paper generator, among other goodies. You make choices among such parameters as lined or dotted grids (I like the dots), spacing for the lines/dots, thickness, etc. A final click produces a PDF.
|Read the Rest of the Entry…