Drag and Drop...

I used to paint in oils...then came acrylics...I spent a few moments dabbling in watercolor... all of which I never really conquered.  My last painting still hangs on my living room wall, the last vestige left of my pseudo Van Gogh brain. I made a fabric art quilt too, and even have one in a half-finished state in my sewing room. I gazed over at it on the wall, thinking I should finish it. That was last week.

Scoff if you will, you true artists, but I will say it again - I love Polyvore. Sure, it's mostly about fashion, but there is a whole world of dark and twisted people who create the most amazing digital art using this web application. It's more addicting than blogging, per se, as results are pretty instantaneous. People view your creations (sets) and with a click of the mouse, they "Like" it. If they Like what you create, then they "Follow" you, just like blogging. I just surpassed 200 followers in a relatively quick 3 months...my blog has eked out 77 followers after some 4 years. Go figure...

So am I better Polyvore than a writer? Who knows or even cares, for that matter. I still love to blog (write) AND I love digital artwork...and right now, I seem to be a Polyvore addict. It takes me the same length of time to create a Polyvore set as it does to write a blog post. I am all about creating something beautiful, something fanciful, something thought provoking, using digital images available on the web, Pinterest, etc. Drag and drop, cut and paste, clip and crop. Some of my art works have as many as 50 unique little images. It's like collage or scrap booking, only less messy.

Okay, there are some of my fellow Polyvores who must be designing for paperback Romance novel covers, but even those sets are amazingly complex. And you have to wonder where their minds are going...for me, it doesn't involve any brainpower whatsoever. The finished images just make me smile. A few of them I wish I could hang up on my wall...but then there's this whole digital pixel sizing limitation...maybe someday I graduate into creating in Photoshop...

Here are some of my favorites...and I say, don't scoff, until you've tried it.

 

 

 

And finally, this set is my very favorite..."Perchance to Dream"

 Laurel. Drag and Drop Queen.

Dress a Girl Serve Day

Imagine a world where every little girl has a new dress...that's the theme of Dress of Girl Around the World.

Every parent of a girl can identify and every parent understands the world is not a safe place for some girls.  The threats of slavery and abuse are very real for girls in parts of the world that we, living here in our warm safe homes can't even imagine.  A new dress on these little girls says "somebody cares about me...I am special."  It may not seem like a big deal to us, but it's a detractor against that abuse and it matters.

Some 200 men (yes men!), women and children gathered together on Bayside's annual Serve Day to make dresses for girls. It was a flurry of activity, even for those who don't sew. The room was alive with hope while little silent prayers were sent up to the "music" of the laughter, the making of new friends and the hum of the machines.

We all believed we will make a difference in a life. Here is our Serve Day story in pictures...

Sue packs up the day...Looking for a new home for our Sew Fests at Bayside.

Laurel. Loving Dress a Girl.

California Harvest Quilt

I don't often re-post, but I always have people who ask me if I quilt, so I thought I would re-share this post from 2012 featuring my one and only art quilt.  As you may know, I've started another quilt, but I haven't been inspired to get back to it...it's takes a lot of strength to machine quilt, so I'm working on my push-ups for now.

Enjoy,
Laurel
______________________________________________________________________________

I had a whole list of things I was going to do when I retired: travel, read, sew, make jewelry, paint, etc. Upon retirement, I purchased two things that I had coveted for years - an 6' ebony grand piano and a Viking sewing machine that all but talks back to you. My goals were to take lessons on the piano and make an art quilt.  I had visited a fiber artist's studio loft downtown and was impressed by the creative way she worked with patterns, textures and colors. Her pieces were huge and in demand in commercial office spaces and hotels all over the world.  I wanted to try my hand at making a large "quilt", as is my style - to jump in way over my head when trying something new.

My hubby had planted sunflowers several years ago in our back yard, and together with some heirloom tomatoes, I created the prettiest still life on my kitchen counter one summer evening.  I wanted to capture the beauty so snapped a couple of pictures. Just for fun I started messing with the image in Photoshop, blurring the background. I loved the result and I decided that this photo would be the subject of my first art quilt.

Hurdle No. 1)  Create a pattern.

I took the digital file of the photo and entered it into a cross stitch pattern maker called PC Stitch.  The computer program converts a photo into a mass of tiny pixels and if you had every DMC floss color in the world (which I do), it would take you a year to stitch it.  So I simplified the color palette and created white borders around the shapes that I wanted to eventually convert into fabric. When I printed out the pattern sheets for the whole picture, I had twenty-five 8 1/2" X 11" pages.









Hurdle No. 2) Matching the pattern pieces

Because I decided to do this quilt in squares (not sure that was the wisest of decisions) the individual elements of the bouquet and background overlapped into multiple squares.  So each fabric piece, each petal, each leaf had to be matched with it's adjoining sections.  What a pain.

I decided that I wasn't going to use the traditional applique technique, but just pin the pieces on a white backing and use a machined blanket stitch.  That's actually a slight fib - I didn't know how to do the traditional applique techniques.  But it all worked out.  I started on one row and quickly discovered that I probably should have gone left to right and top to bottom.  It was difficult and time consuming to match the elements, especially with the detailed flowers. I changed threads on each element to match each new color of fabric. Lot's of tag ends to clip!!

Hurdle No. 3) Every quilt needs a back!

Choosing the batting was easy.  Since my squares were rather weighty and thick in some areas, I wanted the batting to be light weight.  Someone recommended a natural cotton.  The fabric for the back of the quilt was a little harder to pick.  I thought perhaps a batik with a pattern might camouflage my irregular and erratic machine quilting.  I used a multi color cotton thread for the bobbin, so the stitching on back would be somewhat uniform.

Hurdle No.4) The quilting

I knew that someday I was going to have to face the actual quilting of my project.  My new Viking was capable of free motion quilting. but I had never done it before.  The Answer - take a class! I practiced and practiced to get a good rhythm and learn how to work the fabric through the feeder foot, but I was totally stymied by the many patterns within the project.  I wanted it to look like a painting with thread, but didn't know how to get there.  I had a friend who is an excellent quilter come over and give me some ideas of stitching patterns, and after quite some time (I must have just stared it for over a month), I decided to dive in and just start sewing.  The more I stitched, the easier it became, and the farther I got, the more fun and intricate my patterns became.

Almost one year from the start, I finished my quilt, and dubbed it California Harvest. It measures 38" X 48" and hangs in my dining room. I still enjoy looking at it.

It's been a couple of years since I completed California Harvest.  A quilting friend of mine sponsored my work in a regional quilt show, and it was so gratifying to watch the  seasoned quilters gaze and admire it. It's not perfect by any real quilter's standards, but it was an accomplishment for me just to actually finish it! Amazingly, I am just about ready to try another one. I rather doubt I will use the same technique - there's got be an easier way:)

Laurel

Happy quilting!

And so I write...

Write about it...it's the only way to sort through the clashing, banging dissident symphony that sometimes is my brain. This brain that God gave us is both a blessing and a curse: a blessing in that we are the only creatures of his creation with the power to think, to reason; a curse, in that we can not shut it down...at least not without great discipline.

Today, my undisciplined brain is concocting..actually re-concocting for the thousandth time, the agony of losing a son. It doesn't take much for this movie to start replaying, even after some 20 odd years. But hearing of another mother's loss, especially in an automobile accident, is a sure trigger and this morning I am devastated for another Mom. And so I write.

I can think of a thousand things to that I would say to my daughter's friend, but time has taught me that these things, this wisdom that I have garnered over two decades is not what a grieving person in the midst of personal agony needs to hear. For years I thought that God gave me some special power to speak to other mothers in their tragedies, but that is not the way He works. He knows there are no words to say. There is no Grief for Dummies to refer...no slick tricks to get through it. And so I write.

Last night I prayed for my daughter who lost her brother years ago as she drove to visit her friend. "It's okay to go do that, isn't it Mom?" Yes, my sweet girl. Go and "weep with those who weep." No words. Your presence is all that's needed. And I will write.

This is where we rail against God.  We shake our fists in the air and ask why. Only through years of sorting through this clashing, banging dissident symphony of thoughts and prayers have I come to understand, as cruel as it sounds, that's life. We are born, we live and in our time, we return to dust. Some quicker than others. Time is your friend, but I can not say that to her.  She doesn't need to hear it.  Nor does she need any preachy Romans 8:28 version of her tragedy, even though it is my own personal Bread of Life.  I KNOW for a fact that God can do it.  She doesn't, and it's okay.

And so I write.  Not to depress my scant readership, but to work it out in my own head. Her grief is my grief. All those Nigerian mothers...isn't their devastation ours as well?  How do we reconcile the horrors of life? Some are calls to action.  Some are just calls to prayer.  Life cannot be lived apart from hope...hope is the one thing that God gave us along with our clanging, banging symphonies of a brain. Without it we are no different from the creepy crawly things of the earth. It's how He set us apart.

Hope is eternal. Love is for today. So if you've a mind to, quiet your clanging banging brain for a moment and pray, thinks good thoughts, whatever it is that you do, for my daughter's friend. Go ahead and be angry on behalf of the Nigerian mothers. Go ahead and rail and shake your fist in the air.  It's okay.

I'll write.

Laurel. Writes.

My "Serve Day" Apron

I love going to a church where serving the community is a top priority.  Every year my church shuts down for the entire weekend - no services at all - and sets out to serve the communities in which we live. On Serve Day, there are over 150 opportunities for men, women and children to give back to their communities, outreach organizations, schools and non-profits by helping in some meaningful way. Thousands of people sign up to join in giving back to the community.

My favorite give-back group is Dress a Girl Around the World. Because I love to sew, I have enjoyed making simple pillowcase dresses for little girls in impoverished countries.  The dresses are made up at monthly sewfests where women like me can spend the day sewing, chatting and laughing. The sewfests are great for teens and youngsters too, as those who can't sew can cut out pockets, iron hems, cut bias tape and elastic or put together kits. Each adorable dress is folded and bagged, with a pair of new panties in the pocket. As missionaries and fellow travelers head for these third world countries, many of them take a suitcase full of new dresses, all lovingly made by hand.

I've made a lot of dresses in the past year so I decided to volunteer to help out on the Dress A Girl Serve Day sewfest.  We are expecting 200 men, women, teenagers and children to come together on May 17th.  If you are participating on any Serve Day project, including the Dress A Girl sewfest, you can pick up a Serve Day T-shirt to wear that day.

So here's the deal: I do not like t-shirts...especially if they are the typical man's cut. But since I am volunteering for this project day, I thought I'd better wear one. As I was standing in line to pick mine up, a great idea popped into my head: You can embellish it somehow! I remembered that our area coordinator Sue had fringed hers at the bottom last year and it was cute. Then it came to me just as I was stepping to the front of the t-shirt line...

"What's the biggest size you have?"

"That would be a XXXLG."

"Okay, I'll take one of those"

It's Dress a Girl, Laurel...make a "pillowcase dress", aka Apron, for yourself. 

1) Cut the top off the t-shirt above the graphic...

2) Cut off the sleeves and turn them into pockets...

3) Add some embellishments to the pockets and casings...

4) Sew that double-fold bias tape on  the armholes just like the girl's dresses.

And Voila!!!! My apron is ready for Serve Day! And by the way, this pattern idea is so easy it would work for anything - a kitchen apron, a swimsuit cover-up, a nightie, or a long sundress.

If you would like to join in on the fun, let me know and I'll get you signed up. Saturday, May 17th! You can come for the morning or afternoon session...or both! You don't have to know how to sew - there are plenty of other tasks to be done to make these little dresses a reality. 

Doesn't every little girl deserve a pretty dress?

Laurel