Necklace by Amanda Davie sent as a giveaway

I confess: I read a lot of blogs. I enjoy meeting people and getting to know them through their daily lives, their artsy endeavors and blogs. Sometimes, of course, bloggers offer fabulous give-aways. Amanda Davie’s blog is one I read regularly.

About a month ago, Amanda posted a giveaway – a lovely necklace she made. Amanda describes it “Lots of wire wrapping, Swarovski Crystals, antique chandelier crystals, freshwater pearls, quartz, semi-precious stones, and a handmade bird cage pendant.” I was in love with it and I immediately commented as such. Well, earlier this week, I received an email from Amanda lettingme know that I had WON this gorgeous necklace. Yesterday it arrived in the mail in a lovely handmade art-quilted pouch. It’s even more gorgeous in person and tomorrow, I have a family brunch where I will wear this beautiful piece of art proudly.

Sneak Peek at Crazy Quilt - hand-stitching

Thanks Amanda!

In other news, I’m getting stronger each day, and the past two days, I’ve even been out to run some errands and I’ve not needed major naps soon thereafter – significant progress, let me tell you!

While at home, I’ve been working on hand stitching a crazy quilt. I’ve never done one before, but I had all these brightly colored scraps and fat quarters and I was inspired to just start putting the quilt top together just before my surgery.

Sneak Peek 2 at crazy quilt in pogress

I had thought I would stitch it during my convalescence. It took longer than I thought for me to be comfortable enough to sit up and stitch, but I’ve been working on it daily for the past week. I have always found stitching relaxing.

Monday is my treatment again. I suspect it will hit me pretty hard, as I’m just starting to get back into my regular routine. But it’s all good. We’re counting down two weeks until our vacation in Italy, so I’m more than happy to relax next week and get my strength up for the trip.

Now I’m off to learn Italian phrases and to stitch some more!

]]> http://www.fransaperstein.com/2009/04/18/a-beautiful-gift-and-a-quick-update/feed/ 6 http://www.fransaperstein.com/2008/09/12/landscape-quilt/ http://www.fransaperstein.com/2008/09/12/landscape-quilt/#comments Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:02:42 +0000 Fran http://www.artsyfran.com/?p=577

Desert Sunset Landscape Quilt: Completed?

Yesterday, while I watched MSNBC and listened to the 9/11 memorials, I needed some sort of creative distraction to balance out some of the horrors that were being relived on my television. I didn’t want to hide from it, I just wanted to be present, but not without a way to work through it. I’m not sure that makes sense to everyone, but for me, my art has always been a sort of therapy – a way to work through tough things – and on a day as filled with emotion as 9/11, I felt a need to keep my hands moving on something beautiful.

I am also still recovering from my treatment, so I needed something that was grounding for that. Enter hand sewing my landscape quilt and then adding embroidery. Yesterday, after I’d embellished with all the embroidery I felt the quilt could handle, I knew it needed something else. So, I raided my supply of beads and I added them between yesterday and today, finishing up this morning. (Click on the image for a larger view, where you can sort-of see the beading.) I’m happy with it, but I’m going to let it sit on my design board for a day or so until I can be sure it’s done. At that point, I’ll consider adding a border and then adding the backing.

In the meantime, I’m going to relax and get through the continued fatigue and nausea from the treatment. I am really ready for it to go away now…

Desert Sunset Quilt in progress

I realized that I haven’t been updating much other than with the CreativeTherapy catalyst responses. But I’ve been doing so much more.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been doing lots of journaling and collage “just because”. I often do this just because I have a lot on my mind that I just need to put down and work through. Don’t you do the same? Teesha Moore’s method of journaling, for me, is a very healing and intuitive process. When I was younger, my journaling was a good escape from, well, growing up! I used mostly free association writing and did no art as part of the journaling. Now I use collage along with the free association writing to work through things. I’m feeling much more centered from the quiet week of introspection and, well, right now it’s not really something I want to share.

Desert Landscape

I am, however, happy to share two projects I’ve been working on.

I’m getting ready for my treatment tomorrow and I will be going to the infusion center for it. So, with five hours of treatment ahead of me, I needed a project to work on. Yesterday, I attacked my fat quarters and pinned together two landscape quilts to work on, shown here. I used the method that Jane LaFazio taught at Art Unraveled. It’s a really neat process to watch the quilts come together.

I’ll update more as they develop. I hope your week is off to a great start!

Quilt of Shipwreck Beach, Kauai, Hawaii

I’ve been hunkered down in the studio this week. I needed to just sit in the studio and be with myself and not out and about. And I’ve learned to honor those needs.

This week, I’ve been working on some projects that have been sitting around unfinished. For example, you may recall the quilt top I started months ago when Angie and I took a quilting class at a local retreat. It has been sitting in my studio moved from place to place until this week. The technique was quite different from what Jane taught us earlier this month. We used glue to baste the pieces together and then we were to do hidden hand stitching to finish it up and ready it for quilting. However, I found that the glue made the hand stitching tedious. Also, I had used many small pieces, which made it even more difficult to hand sew. This week, I decided I wanted to finish it and so I took it to the sewing machine and pieced it and then quilted it. I let it sit for a few days up on my bulletin board and I decided it was done and just needed a border. Today I finished up the binding and it’s finished!

Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz fabric collection - quilt in progress

I’ve also been working on a personal sewing project. I have always been a huge fan of The Wizard of Oz. And “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” has always been one of my favorite songs. When I saw that Quilted Treasures had Wizard of Oz licensed fabric, I came close to purchasing it several times, but I couldn’t figure out what I’d do with it.

Well, finally, after seeing the fabric in real life at my local fabric store, I caved and bought some of what they had. I don’t regret that decision at all! Quilting up these images makes me smile. The hope and dreams evoked by the scene in which Dorothy sings “Over the Rainbow” always makes me smile. Having it hang in my studio will be extremely uplifting! To the right is the beginning of this project. It’s in process, so there’s a lot more to do. I think I finally figured out how to make it work, but it will require some experimentation. When I finish, I’ll be sure to share it here.

I’ve also been working on some CreativeTherapy catalysts. You’ll see those in the next few weeks, when they are published on the CT blog. I hope to do more drawing and painting in the next few days.

In addition to the work in the studio, I’ve had some housekeeping stuff to do – the car needed service; the sprinklers and French doors will be installed next week. The following week is my treatment, so I’m glad to get it all done in the next week.

Overall, It’s been a busy but good week. I’ve been feeling pretty good and I’m looking forward to a quiet weekend with Dave.

"Under the Sea" Landscape quilt 11" x 8.5"

Today I am happy to say that I completed my landscape quilt from Jane LaFazio’s class at Art Unraveled. The whole thing is hand stitched. It’s the first time I’ve ever hand-pieced a quilt and then added lots of embroidery. It was the perfect project for sitting and recovering from my treatment. It’s an abstract landscape, which was what I was going for. The embroidery added to the abstraction, and as I just went with it, I found it becoming an undersea landscape. I had thought about adding beads or buttons, but right now, I think it will stay this way for a while. I might change my mind at a later date, but for now, this is just what I want.

I got ot see Angie today for the first time since Art Unraveled. We spent the morning talking and catching up. Then we went to lunch. It was so nice to catch up with Angie and to just be together!

Let me start with the low point. On Wednesday, I was still feeling quite ill. My balance was still off, but I was determined to get some work done in the studio. Daytime TV is just not uplifting and I couldn’t leave the house, nor could I read for very long with my vertigo. Angie and I had planned months ago to attend Quilt Camp hosted by Quilting in the Desert, and I had to pull together my supplies. I was in the studio, slowly moving and trying hard to make sure I had everything. Angie called, and we were coordinating our heavy supplies. We knew I’d be using my walker and that Dave would be driving me to Angie’s for us to go together.

As we were talking, I was standing up at the table putting some things in a bag for the class. I guess I turned my head without thinking (when having vertigo, I have to move carefully and with deep thought before I move at all or I could lose my balance). The next thing I knew, I was grabbing onto the studio table with my left hand and I fell into my chair. Still on the phone with Angie, I was relieved that I hadn’t hurt myself, but I turned the chair a moment later and realized that, though my Starbucks travel mug was about 3 feet from my lifeline of the computer, had flown across the table and onto my MacBook. I panicked.

I told Angie I’d call her back, and I hoped that the iSkin I covered the keyboard portion with would save it from what I my gut told me was sure was to be a terrible destiny. My gut was right. The MacBook was dead. I was freaking out. I called Angie back and I was fairly hysterical. The computer has been my lifeline to my friends and a way to work with and share my art. Spending 3 weeks in the house can become quite depressing when you don’t leave and no one is home during the day. This was not a good combination. This had broken my spirit. And I was afraid of how long it would be before I got myself back online.

I sent a text message to Tracey, who I usually chat with all day online I had suddenly disappeared from IM, and I wanted to explain why. I sent a text message to my husband who needed to know that I had fallen and that I wasn’t doing well. I knew he was seeing patients at the hospital, doing his rounds, and that calling him would mean that I would likely catch him with a patient and that’s not fair. Dave called me and I was, well, pretty hysterical still. I am not one who cries a lot. But I cried and I felt terrible for bothering him during his work day. My husband, though, is pretty much a saint. He was amazing. He just told me to be calm, that he was glad I wasn’t terribly hurt and he’d call me in a little while.

About an hour or so later, Dave called me from his car. “I’m coming home now. Should I stop at the Apple Store and pick up a new MacBook for you?” I was shocked. I saw the light at the end of my vertiginous and dark tunnel of isolation. He asked me for the specifics about my MacBook and said he’d call me from the store. About an hour and a half later, he called and said that he got the one I used to have, but with a faster processor and more RAM. I do realize that I truly am one of the luckiest women on this Earth. I can say that despite the vertigo and the balance issues. I can say that because I have a man who loves me and wants me to be happy and not to feel isolated.

Dave came home and we talked. We decided that I needed to get on prednisone to try to stop the vertigo. That puts me on three immunosuppressive agents. And if THAT doesn’t knock this vertigo out of me, we’re not quite sure what will. Soon after we talked, he handed me the new MacBook. I opened it and hooked it up to my external hard drive, which has Time Machine on it (a Leopard OSX feature). Within an hour and a half, my new laptop was up and running with all my programs on it, most of my preferences saved, and no major issues. I think I could be on a Mac commercial!

So on Thursday morning, I started on prednisone. It gives me energy, which is good. But it takes a while to get rid of the vertigo and has all kinds of other side-effects. If it gets rid of the vertigo, it’s worth it. I’ll be on it at this dose for at least a week, or until we find that the prednisone is helping. And the timing was good. Angie and I had our class on Thursday, and all of us were concerned that I might not make it through an entire class with the medications… Thanks to the prednisone, for the most part, I did.

We took Fabri-Scapes with Martha Nordstrand, a local quilt teacher, who has won awards internationally from her fabulous art quilts. She doesn’t do traditional quilt piecing, and Angie and I don’t, either! It was a good way for me to get out of the house and for us to spend time together learning something that has interested us for a long time.

Martha taught us an easy way to piece the layers of the quilt and also taught us an applique stitch. She creates her pieces completely with hand stitching. No machine applique, no machine quilting. They are amazing to see, especially the full sized quilts. To the left is my quilt in progress. It’s just been pieced, and I’ve started to stitch it together. I’ve never done anything like this before, so it’s interesting. To the right above is the original photo I used as my reference. When I look at the quilt up close I cannot see the design yet. But when I took this photo, I was pleased with it. It’s on the right track. I’m going to try to create it completely by hand, but I don’t know that I’ll make it through that. We shall see!

Yesterday, Angie came over and we watched Project Runway and Quilting Arts TV on TiVo. She was kind enough to also cut my hair, which desperately needed it. It was good not to be home alone all day. Today Dave and I will be visiting his parents. It’ll get me out of the house and it will be good to see people. The vertigo is still there, but I’m being extra careful and I’m doing some stitching after I publish this post. It’s been a roller coaster of a week, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

While we’ve been going back and forth to the hospital, the only thing that has kept me calm and sane was the ability to continue to do some art. I did lots of embroidery on the little quilties Teesha taught us at the Fabric Journal workshop. I’m not quite sure what I’m going to make of them, though my mother-in-law kept asking me all week! My goal was to just keep my hands busy, to continue to create, and to stay present. I learned a long time ago not to fight the urge to create. It’s cathartic for me. It’s useful, and eventually, I turn the art into something that I love or someone else will love. It’s part of working intuitively – at least for me. I like things to build organically. That’s what was happening here.

I’m not going to share any photos today, since I haven’t had a chance to photograph what I’ve been doing, but I will photograph them some time soon. In the meantime, Monday is my treatment. I’ve organized some of the quilts and embroidery thread to be able to take them with me. I’m hopeful that, though I’ll have an IV in my left hand, I’ll be able to use it enough to hold the quilt. If not, I’ll nap with my iPod lulling me sweetly to sleep.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Teesha is such a great teacher. She teaches the way she creates – intuitively and with lots of love, passion and generosity. She so willingly shares all her work and her learning with those of us in class. And she even creates while we create so she is also in the creative spirit.

The first class, on Saturday, was The Unbound Journal. I found this a very freeing class. Teesha used index cards and fun foam as the canvases for her journal pages. To the left is one I made using some of my old journal pages and some fun wrapping papers I purchased at The Paper Studio. You can see more of these works in progress here.

One of my favorite things about taking a class with Teesha is that I’m energized after the class, not completely exhausted and spent. Since Andrea was in town and Dave and she had had little opportunity to get to know each other, I decided it would be great for the three of us to go out to dinner. We did. And we had a lovely time.

Sunday’s class was The Fabric Journal. This is Teesha’s most requested class. It embodies all that makes Teesha’s fabric style so unique. She uses (with permission!) the techniques she was taught by Susan Shie many years ago. We created journals in class, but I wasn’t thrilled with mine. However, I’ve posted it to the right. It’s all hand sewn and quilted with fabrics and embroidery floss. I enjoyed the class, and decided to try some more of this sort of sewing and quilting when I got home. To the left is a sample of one of the new pieces I’ve done that I’m much more pleased with! It’s interesting to me that I haven’t had an opportunity to do crewel embroidery for many years, but now I’m really enjoying it again.

Dave and I celebrate 15 years of married bliss today. We’re just going out for burgers tonight and tomorrow night we’re doing the fancy dinner. Tomorrow is also Dave’s birthday. Yes, he chose our wedding date! Said he’d never forget the date that way. Of course, he’s not the kind of guy who forgets important things like that. I’m blessed, really. And I know it.

Today I also finished up my May Journal Quilt. I know… Just after doing April’s yesterday… I guess I’m just motivated. And, well, I’m feeling good, so I’m going with it! LOL. So here’s the story behind this quilt: The May theme is bloom, and the image might not seem to be a “bloom” in the usual sense. But as I discussed in an earlier post, last Friday I agreed to teach some friends’ kids how to paint faces. And they did an awesome job! During the afternoon, I watched their talent and interest in art BLOOM. So this portrait, which I painted as the example, is representative of that. There is nothing more beautiful to me than to see someone’s mind open up to the possibilities they have with their creativity. I hope this makes sense.

On Create a Connection today, it’s Photo Sharing day. And the theme is water. Well, I have a ton of photos with water. And some I’ve shared here, including several from Hawaii. I decided that I needed to focus on something that is closer to home, since the idea is that summer means water. (Well, not quite here in Phoenix, where we’re in a drout, but we do run for the pool often!) So, I’m most fond of this photo from this past weekend. It’s of Dave and Cody, our friends’ youngest. Dave an Cody are splashing with each other. Cody could have splashed with Dave forever. I think he wore out Dave! LOL

And last night I did another drawing. This is a drawing of the den coffee table. Dave and I have routines that we celebrate by continuing them. Each evening, we on the floor next to each other and eat dinner at this table while we watch our “shows” and spend time together. We sometimes check email, so I brought in my beloved MacBook. The most fun of this whole drawing habit is that Dave has been pleased to see my progress and can now figure out what I’ve drawn. LOL

OK. Now I’m off to make Dave’s Birthday card! Have a great day, all!

I’ve been drawing the past week. Every chance I get I have my little (4″ x 6″) sketchbook and a pen with me. If I hit a spot where I don’t know what to do next, I find something in the studio to sketch. I’m using the Danny Gregory books as my inspiration – everything in life is worth recording in some way. Slow down and see the world. Take moments to practice drawing. In just the past week, i’ve noticed that things are getting easier for me to “see”. I look at my studio differently. I see the compositions within the everyday art supplies.

So here are three of my drawings:

To the left is a picture of my door to my studio. I have some purses on it that I plan to alter. I’ve not done it yet, but they’re there. LOL

To the right is a picture of one of my supply shelves. It’s in the middle, right in front of the desk, and it’s the area where I store my acrylic medium and other things.

To the left here is a photo of my kitchen counter with our two coffeemakers, a bag of additional coffe, a carafe, and some other miscellaneous things.

I have also been involved in a monthly Quilt Journal challenge, but you have not heard anything about it from me for a while. I have gotten, well, behind. April’s quilt was finally completed today. I thought it had been completed yesterday, but after staring at it and mentioning it in yesterday’s post, I knew there was something still wrong with it.

See, back in April my month was mostly about painting. I had painted this fabric that was beige with some sort of white design printed in it. I cannot remember how I got this fabric, but I had it and it wasn’t speaking to me as it was. So, what is an artist to do, but to alter it! I took out my paints and started to paint. As I painted this fabric, a landscape seemed to come out of it. it reminded me of an Arizona Sunset. (So many things do these days, don’t they?) But I felt it needed more definition, so I added in some black paint. Well, the black paint started to look more like an animal. As a result, I decided it was going to be my April quilt. I used FMe to outline the “animal” and then I aded some fibers to give it a mane and a tail. But my error was adding buttons for eyes and a nose. You see, I had actually seen this “animal” as a horse. Adding the eye and the nose made it look more like a dog. Now this is not so bad, but not what I wanted for my quilt.

So, today, after staring at the quilt all morning, I ended up removing the buttons and I am much happier with this quilt now. Now I have one more day to work on May…. And I have to put together a card for my anniversary, which is tomorrow. I better stop blogging and get creating!