1000 Journals Project Visits SF

You Tube Video of 1000 Journals Project

I have never been to a film festival that I can remember (my parents took us to a lot of strange and culturally significant places), but I went to the San Francisco Film Festival last night to see the 1000 Journals film. It made me really excited to go and to see an indie film.

I am so lame about celebrities, never knowing who they are and who is sleeping with whom, but at the film festival I felt how other people must feel about TV and movie stars. The director, Andrea Kreuzhage and Someguy were both there. After the movie, there was a Q&A and people asked thoughtful and good questions. Of course, everyone wanted to know where the journals are, but people also asked about whether they kept journals (both do to some extent), the exhibit that Someguy is working on getting together.

Today I went out and bought the book. I haven’t read it yet, of course, but I glanced through it and am already more excited than I was.


There is something about this project that is so great. First of all journals are close to my heart. It isn’t just that I have been stumbling along trying make visual journals for the past little while, but I have kept a journal since high school. They can be really powerful and helpful. It means a lot to me have somewhere that I can just blather on about the stupidities and irritations as well as the triumphs of daily life without worrying about my handwriting, grammar or vocabulary and spelling.

I was excited to be at the movie and see the celebs, because it is a collaborative project that Someguy started in his living room. Someguy works. He is just a regular guy. He looked the same *at* the movie as he did *in* the movie. No tux or entourage. It shows that one person can REALLY touch other people’s lives. It is inspiring. It also showed that people are really creative and can take a project and help. It also showed that people cared about the journals and the project. You can see a lot of other footage about the project on YouTube, including interviews with Someguy (above with Andrea Kreuzhage) and Andrea Kreuzhage.

I think people just want to be part of something greater than themselves.

Towards the end of the Q&A, a woman stood up and said she had one of the journals! She said she had had it, I think, since 2003. She had been giving it to people, but it had continually returned to her. As soon as people started leaving I jumped up and asked Someguy if I could have it. Sadly, someone had beat me to it! She, kindly, offered to send it to me when she was done, so I gave her my address. Life happens so we will see if I ever get one.

Here are some photos from the event.
This is Erin with journal #270 right after she told Someguy that she had the journal to give back to him.


Andrea and Erin with journal #270.Someguy, Erin and Andrea.

Someone was there with a Flat Stanley and wanted to take a picture of Stanley with Someguy and a journal.

Two Bag Day

I had resolved to look at all of the Pineapple blocks yesterday in order to see how many I need to remake in order make progress on the Pineapples. It has been kind of a Pineapple disaster couple of weeks and I wanted to get back to it.

But, I didn’t.

Instead I worked on the easy project and finished a bag and made another whole bag. Yes, start to finish. I am going to use it today.

This is the bag that I had been working on. It is kind of part of a small series of bags made from fabric that I bought from Fabric.com. I was going to keep this one for myself, thus the dots, but I don’t think I will. I like it and find it to be well made, but the colors aren’t me. I need a another bag for a gift and will probably use this one as the gift. I also decided that I don’t really like the paisley fabric that much. I was happy with the way I centered that one paisley on the pocket.

The white dots had been languishing in my sewing room for awhile and I wanted to get them into a bag. I, originally, wanted to make an entire bag out of them, but didn’t have enough of the dot fabric. One of the fabrics I bought on Saturday was destined for the inside of this bag. I also used the webbing straps I bought at Britex for this bag. They made the sewing go REALLY fast. However, I melted one part of a strap and got goo all over my iron, so I may not use them again. I also don’t like the limited color selection. Anyone know of a good source for these straps? How about nice colors and NOT made from plastic?

This is the inside of the bag. Isn’t it fun!?! It is a very sedate bag until you open it and then it gives you a little punch. I love this fabric, because it makes me feel cheerful when I look at it. I was shocked to find that it is a Judy Rothermel Aunt Grace fabric!

I cut out the pieces for another bag and will use this cheerful flower fabric for the outside of a bag as well. Yes, I am going bag crazy.

Another One Night Stand, Part 2

At the end of the Nance O’Banion class today, we had to talk about what set us off in the direction we went and the themes we saw emerging our work. Both of my pieces were driven by the beginning of the class when Nance said to be open to serendipity and surprise. Because of the “personal pieces” I chose, the themes that emerged were themes that I had worked with in the past: One Night Stand and the Goddesses.

Nance’s class was full of different types of supplies and things to inspire us.

Rubber stamps lined up and ready to use in the books.

The book on the bottom is full of wonderful bits of embroidery and quilted books.

I was intrigued by the way she lined up everything.

This was waxed linen thread that she offered for our use. I used my own hand dyed thread.

We were supposed to bring three meaningful things with us. I wasn’t quite sure if she meant things we could use in our work or just things in general. I chose the former definition and these are the items I came up with.

Dots, of course.

The little woman figure is very like Desiree and I like her shape.

I am really into taking time for tea right now, thus the cup.


Cover: Here is the cover of the finished piece. I made this one MUCH smaller. We had less time for this second book and I wanted to accomplish a lot, if not finish the piece.
Page 1 and Page 2: First I went through and drew all of the figures. I alternated between the shape from the bead and the Desiree shape. The little figure on page 1 said that her name was Paulina. Not sure why or what her goddess responsibilities are, but there you have it.

After I was done drawing the figures, I went back and modified colors, sewed a bit, added beads. I think I want to stiffen the pages on this book as well.

Page 3 and Page 4: I merged the two shapes in the figure on page 3.

Page 5 and Page 6: Page 5 may be Referencia, but may be someone else. She did not reveal herself. The wings are a flash of brilliance, I think. The house in the Little Mother’s tummy is supposed to be a Gwen Marston house.

This is the end. I used a rubber stamp that I bought from Karenlee (finally!). You can also see the binding very well. It is called a stab binding. I still need to sign and date it.

Another One Night Stand

Today I made fast art again, which, on this blog, is called a One Night Stand. Start to finish is all one session. A One Night Stand here has nothing to do with sex.

EBHQ, the East Bay Heritage Quilters, had a workshop with with Nance O’Banion. She is the head of the printmaking department at CCA (formerly the California College of Arts & Crafts) and teaches, among other classes, book making. I mentioned, earlier in the week, that I thought this class would be interesting in the visual journaling department. I was correct.

Nance O’ Banion doesn’t teach many workshops, as she is a full time faculty member at CCA and doesn’t really have the time. She taught this workshop for EBHQ as a special favor and it was fantastic!!! First, of all, we worked quickly. I finished two books today.

Second, we worked with a limited “palette.” It wasn’t a palette in the sense of colors, but a palette in the sense of materials. She gave a us a group of materials and our job was to make something out of the materials she gave us and what we brought. Since I couldn’t bring my entire sewing room, this limited what I had to work with, but it was fine. It was actually great. I think working with rules, even if they are self imposed, makes for more interesting projects/pieces.

Third, Nance was a very nurturing instructor. Not in a gooby, “I want to be your best friend forever” kind of way, but in a “you can do great work and I will support you” kind of way. I would love to take a semester long class with her. She normally teaches bookmaking with paper and I don’t think I would mind taking that with her.

Fourth, she was really organized. She had a packet of stuff that she had prepared for us (magazine pictures, pages ripped from books, blank paper, etc. She also had a schedule, let us k now what it was and stuck to it. I really enjoy working in that kind of environment. I am good with deadlines. I am not bothered by deadlines unless I don’t know what they are.

Cover. My book came out a little big for the first exercise, but I used it anyway. I wanted to play a bit with the double meaning of One Night Stand. Remember, I didn’t have much time, so I did what I could. I could always add more to the piece. I think I will shore up the pages with some interfacing as they are very floopy.

Page 1 (left) and page 2 (right): The red and white motifs on page 1 are on the back of the fortune card (Nance’s words) that was in my prepared packet. I didn’t want to lose them by gluing the card onto the page, so I sewed it on with Laura Wasilowski hand-dyed Perl cotton and cut the back out so the motfs would show through. Page 2 just plays more with the meaning of One Night Stand.

Page 3: Here I wanted to get the reader’s mind out of the gutter and tell them that a One Night Stand is about creating quickly. It allows things to happen with my work that wouldn’t happen if I thought too much about it. I also tried to incorporate a piece of the motif of the iron grille with the shadows I saw in Seattle. I was a also trying to reintroduce the woman shape I used for Desiree. This was the first attempt of the day and she looks a bit wonky. This page had a bit of a problem, because I had cut a piece out of the yardage and didn’t realize it was in the middle of my book until I was well into. I had planned to have the camera peek through, but I didn’t line it up properly. I may leave it but I may fix it somehow (door? sewed on ‘patch’?) . We’ll see.

Page 4: At this point, things started to pop into my head and I would write them down. I was feeling like the piece was a bit word heavy, but just went with the flow. The pink card with the compass came in my prepared packet.

Page 5: Here I am back to a little bit of wordplay with the double meaning.

Page 6: The ‘think,’ ‘try,’ ‘do’ are relevant to creativity, I think, but they are also a take off on something that Yoda says to Luke in Star Wars, Episode 6: Return of the Jedi.

Page 7: While you see this page in the same orientation as the other pages it is actually oriented 90 degrees to the right, so you have to turn the book. This is one of my favorite pages, because it just told me what to put on it and I like the layering of the leaves.

Page 8: I wanted to have a closing credit, so I started on a “The End” page. They I thought of the phoenix rising from the ashes and new beginnings came to mind.

I’ll write about the second book later.

I stopped at New Pieces to see if they had interfacing for the bags and bought, in addition to the interfacing, the following:


The turquoise dots on the bottom will be a bag outside and the pink flowers with the black will be a bag inside for the white dots that I bought from fabric.com.

Weekend Inspiration + Updates

I have been driving around and seeing all the cherry trees blooming and never have my camera with me. This is a photo by my friend, JeanneN (aka TFQ!). I though I would put it up to keep up the tradition of welcoming spring and celebrating these beautiful cherry trees.
This photo, also by TFQ, is the historic dome in the San Francisco Center. It used to be above the restaurant in Emporium Capwell’s. You can see some information about the raising of this dome when the SF Center was remodeled.

We stopped by Black Cat Quilts to look at their fabric.
This is a quilt we saw there. Apparently you can find the pattern in Quiltmaker’s Color Workshop: The FunQuilts’ Guide to Understanding Color and Choosing Fabrics. TFQ commented that the above color choices were better than the one on the cover of the book.

I also finished this bag. It is a gift, but I am making a similar one for myself.

This is the inside of the bag. I love the stripes! In being with TFQ this weekend, we realized that a pocket for a glasses case would be really useful. I may try and add one to the next bag.

Gifts Bags Spread

It is a little too early in the year for me to be encouraging you to get out your fabric and make fabric bags to wrap your gifts in (though it really is never too early), but Deirdre pointed me to the site below and I thought I would share another option for wrapping gifts in fabric.

clipped from www.env.go.jp

Minister Koike created the “Mottainai Furoshiki” as a symbol of Japanese culture to reduce wastes.

Ms Yuriko Koike, Minister of the Environment, has created the “Mottainai Furoshiki” as a symbol of Japanese culture to reduce waste. Furoshiki is a Japanese traditional wrapping cloth which is used repeatedly in a stylish way. (The utilization of this “Mottainai Furoshiki” will contribute to reducing household waste from plastic bags.) The Minister presented the “Mottainai Furoshiki” at the Senior Officials Meeting on the 3R Initiative held in Tokyo, Japan on March 6-8, 2006

blog it

Bags Return, Part 2


As I mentioned in my previous post, I bought fabric to make a bag for my SIL for a gift.

TFQ and I were emailing back and forth about the EMT bags and she mentioned an easier way to make the straps. The method she found on another pattern has you make them quadruple the size of the finished strap, fold in half, open, fold each raw edge towards the middle and press. I used this method for making straps for my latest bag (above) and after about an hour of work I am ready to apply the large outside pocket and sew the bags together. The straps are on the outside, the pockets are positioned. TFQ’s method, while using more fabric, made the process amazingly fast. I didn’t think that the process explained on the pattern was terrible, but making the straps was terrible and this is much better. I think I will have time to make a couple of other bags for people I will visit this summer. YAY!

This is a good example of why collaboration is so important. As you can see, I have made a lot of progress on the project.

Bags Return


Here are some recent fabrics that I bought from Fabric.com. The bottom fabrics are all home dec fabrics. I am going to use them to make another Eco Market Tote. I have a running list in my mind of bags I’d like to make for friends, so this is crossing the first gift off the mental list. I may have enough to make a dotty bag for myself. I had planned to use the stripe as the outside, but DH said that he thought the blue dot outside would be better, so that is what I will do.

The violet dot at the top was me attempting to replace the fabulous violet dot I got somewhere about a year ago. The color is absolutely right, but the weave (what is it with the weave thing I have going??) is really thin and the violet bleeds into the white dots.

Note to online retailers: don’t buy thin fabric and sell it as first quality quiltmaking fabric. Thanks!

Switchplates….

I have been looking at my switchplates and cringing…well my whole house, actually, but the switchplates are totally doable. I happened on to PCS and found this post. Thanks!

clipped from pinkchalkstudio.com

Switchplates

Switchplates were the March 2008 theme for my Out of the Box creativity challenge. I took some in progress photos but not a full-blown tutorial. I even forgot to take a stylized photo of the one I traded that night, very unlike me! Fortunately making these are extremely addictive so I had plenty more for that purpose. Guess which is Leil’s and which is Caitlin’s?

blog it

A Second Cup of Tea

I was incredibly pleased for The Child when he received a package from famous quilt artist, Pamela Allen last week. In it she had created a quilt-let inspired by a drawing that The Child did while she was doing a teaching-visit last year.
It is so fantastic to see her interpretation of The Child’s drawing in fabric. I especially love her quilting designs. Can you see the trees at the top?

The Child, admittedly, was a bit mystified, but I told him that Pamelala was a famous artist who had interpreted his fabulous design in her medium. I think that his reaction was a good example of how we, as a society, devalue, and as a result squelch, what children can do. I will hang the piece in his room to remind him that he has value and that other adults, besides his adoring family member-fans, think he does good work.

Normally, Saturday mornings, if I am not rushing off somewhere immediately, are filled with Qi Gong, cups of tea and bottles of water, Saturday morning cartoons, and me trailing around the house in my pajamas picking up the debris from the week, loading the dishwasher and generally reveling in being unfocused. This morning is somewhat different. The boys took off at the crack of dawn for a hike, so I have the house to myself for several hours. The peace and quiet are a treat.

I have been struggling for at least a week, probably longer, with an exhausted kind of malaise that has no discernible medical cause. A large part of it stems from my day job, which has turned, somewhat, into a source of anxiety and stomach problems. I am on the BRAT diet almost full-time now, daring to eat salsa and guacamole only on Friday nights, so I have two days to recover before the week starts again. Some of it stems from the creative juices that constantly inhabit my mind, demanding attention, about which I have no time to do satisfy their greed. Some of it stems from the fact that my wireless network is not working properly so my workroom does not get Internet access very well anymore (those of you with no wireless or who have dial-up connections are calling me a spoiled brat right now and you would be correct). This forces me, if I am working up there to constantly run up and down the stairs to look up something on the web or write in my blog. With the malaise, I haven’t been doing it and you, dear readers, have suffered. Some of it stems from the constant drudgery of modern living. Finally, the constant blaring of bad news on the radio and headlines creates a feeling of limited options that produces further anxiety and is not conducive to anything more than going to sleep early or writing book reviews on Goodreads.

On the positive creativity front, I think there was only one evening this week that was so packed that the Child and I did not engage in our creativity time. Oh the Fury and Wrath of the Child for the few activities he deigns to engage in that prevent him from drawing with me at night! The other nights, though, while The Child draws cartoons furiously with his Sharpie in a giant drawing book, I have been cutting purple squares for a new sibling to Feelin’ Blue and Seeing Red, called, for the moment, Passionate Purple. I may change it to the Passion of the Purple, but I don’t want people to think about Lent and the death of religious figures when they look at my quilt, so I may not.


Friend Julie and Friend Adrienne have already cut their squares. The ones I need to work on arrived from Julie yesterday. Thus, I am the only slacker in this project right at the moment. Despite my incredible exhaustion, it was mentally easy to allow The Child to drag me upstairs for our creativity time. I have to cut 40 squares of 10×10″ each. I was able to cut about 25 last night, so I am well on my way. I can finish today and send them off on Monday.

One fun thing about this project (and all of the bullseye projects) is that I get to look at fabrics that I haven’t looked at in a while. I cut into some fabulous purple batiks and looked at some pieces that had strange shapes cut out of them, trying to remember what I made!

In the last little while, I made two more of the Eco Market totes in 15 minute increments over the period of several weeks (damn straps!). I did spend all day last Sunday sewing the bags together, breaking the cycle of 15 minute creativity.


This is my bag. As I mentioned in a previous post, the idea of these bags is wonderful to me. These bags make a relatively easy series (except, of course, for the damn straps!) and they use fabric in a different way than quilts. They are also useful.

In this version, I made the straps with a piece of fabric filled with batting. I like them even if they were a bit fussy to make. The straps are a bit fluffy, but don’t look fluffy. Since I usually drag around two books, a journal, and a bottle of water MINIMUM, I am glad to have straps that aren’t digging into my shoulder.

The fabric was a gift from a friend, who lives in France part of the year. She brought me back some big pieces when she first bought her French house. Awhile ago, I used some bits of the fabric for a small decorative bathroom curtain before we remodeled, but had large pieces of it left. I decided that those big pieces would be great for a bag, so I made two!

Above is the bag for my friend. It came out well (above), as well, but the thing I learned is that it is too confusing to make two bags at once. I had a problem with the fabric (not enough!), so I had to dig around around to find some fabrics that would go with the real French fabrics. If I had made one bag first, I would have known I wouldn’t have enough fabric to make the second and could have arranged the fabric differently when making the second bag.

Nevertheless, it should come as no big surprise that it was no problem to find a couple of extra fabrics that were suitable. One was an old fabric (see the blue kind of swirly fabric next to the fabric with leaves in the picture below? or the straps in the full picture of my bag a couple of photos above). That blue was one of the first quiltmaking fabrics that I bought. I found that I could never cut into it, because I really liked it. I wanted to use it in a project that I could admire frequently. The color blue is not really a color that I use or wear a lot, so it has been languishing. Now I know why. 😉

The gold with the blue jaggedy, swirls motif is another I found as well as the one from which I cut the vase motifs.


At the last minute I decided to add the large pocket to the outside of my bag. A large pocket is very useful and I don’t know why I considered NOT adding it. As you can see from the photo above, I had to piece together some leftover pieces of fabric to get a piece large enough to make the pocket. You need double what you see there, because the pocket is lined. This task, though frustrating, because it felt like I could never finish these bags, was great because it allowed me to fussy cut that little vase and use it on the outside. Also, instead of finishing the pocket with a button, I sewed down one side of the vase to create two pockets out of the big pocket. There is a smaller pocket on the inside and by sewing over it, it was divided and I created a perfect spot for a pen or pencil.

The smaller pocket looks like the above, but the one pictured is inside of the bag pocket not the inside of the big pocket pocket — if that makes any sense. I turned one of the bags inside out in order to get a picture of the pocket. Shooting into the bag didn’t work very well for various reason, especially because I don’t have four hands.

This is the entire bag turned inside out so you can see the placement of the pocket. This pocket is not in the pattern and I realized, as I was about to sew the bag together, that since the inside pocket was not part of the pattern it didn’t remind me to sew the raw edges. DUH. I turned under the edges and sewed them neatly so that pocket wouldn’t fray apart with use. This pocket is good for a transit pass and, perhaps, a bit of emergency cash.

This is the same vase as is on my bag. I did the same fussy cutting for my friend’s bag as well.

So, dear readers, I am on my third cup of tea and if you have made it this far, I hope you haven’t given up on my musings. I am still musing away. I’ll try to figure out the new work processes that I require so I don’t leave you hanging again.

Follow-up: Series of Bags

In case you didn’t have a chance to read some of the recent comments, Laume wondered about the sturdiness of the Eco Market Tote that I discussed in a previous post, by asking “I’ve been wanting to make some bags for awhile now and have been resistant to actually buying a pattern – a bag – how hard can that be I think. But I know I really do need a pattern and so instead I just talk about making a bag some day. Are these sturdy? Are the shoulder straps comfortable when they’re weighted down? They all look wonderful, especially the first one with the big art deco print.”

TFQ saw that comments and answered:

“I’ve been using the red/white/black one for a couple of days and the straps are pretty comfortable — not cutting into my shoulder despite my walking a mile and a half to work with about 10 pounds of stuff in it.

I think the straps would be less comfortable if we had not made them wider, and interfacing the handles for the lighter-weight fabric definitely helps. The bags are completely lined — in fact, they are reversible — which helps with the sturdiness factor, but for a bag you’re going to use to haul around a lot, I agree with Jaye, choose a fabric with a little body to it, like heavier linen or a lightweight home dec fabric. ”

The Eco Market tote comes from Favorite Things. Watch out for the errors described in the previous post. The company said that they have fixed them, but the patterns with errors are still in quilt shops.

Series of Bags

TFQ and I went to Quiltworks Northwest in Bellevue on Friday. At the shop, TFQ saw this bag made up and bought the pattern. The pattern is called Eco Market Tote and is from Favorite Things. I don’t normally buy or even think about non-quilt things, so I didn’t pay much attention. I was interested, but not from the making point of view. I am not sure what lit the spark, but after we visited the Quilting Loft and saw the Alexander Henry Home Dec fabrics, I knew I wanted to make one. TFQ suggested that we make them and it was a great idea. I would have never finished mine if TFQ and I had made the first ones together/at the same time. While we were working with our own fabrics, we puzzled out the directions together. We, unfortunately, got the first printing of the pattern and there are a few mistakes, which have, since, been corrected (TFQ contacted the company). We also made some adjustments, like making the handles wider than the pattern calls for.

The fabulous thing that I found is that this is a great opportunity to work in series. No, it is not a quilt, but it is a great canvas for showcasing fabric combinations. There is also a lot of room for creativity – different types of pockets, different fabric combinations, different fabric ratios and even embellishment. I know that TFQ has picked out fabrics for two more and I would like to make more as well. I have several large conversational fabrics in the quilt backs stack that would really be great as bags. I also have some great French fabrics that a friend brought me from France that would make excellent totes.

This is my bag. As mentioned, the fabrics are from the Alexander Henry Home Collection. They feel like canvas, but may be a kind of cotton duck. I am actually kind of stunned that I picked them out as the accent fabric has a lot of brown and all of the fabrics are very 1960s looking.
This was a great project to branch out in the fabric department and try something new. I wouldn’t buy these for a quilt, but for this bag, they are great!

Back of the bag in construction phase.Front of bag with pocket pinned on. The back and front are the same until you put the pocket on. The above picture is how that back looks and the picture below, as you can see from the picture of the finished product, is how the front looks.

This is the third bag. TFQ made it today.

She added two more pockets on this side to break up all the black. The new pockets do a good job of bringing the red fabric back into the limelight.


The lovely piece below has the distinction of being the first bag we completed. It is TFQ’s bag, but I think it was a real collaborative effort – at least int he brain power department. This was also the bag we learned on. The fabrics are fabulous and it turned out really well.
Detail of the the reinforcing X stitching to keep the handle secure.

One Night Stand

I don’t know what got into me last night, but I had a one night stand. Not the kind you are thinking of, but an art encounter where I finished a small book. I am calling it the Be Brave book.

What happened was that I had a few spare minutes while Darling Boy took a shower and my Artgirlz order was still on the floor where I had left it after I photographed it last week for you to see. I picked it up, opened up the Artgirlz creativity packet and looked at all the stuff. I was surprised to find a little bound book. I thought it was a bunch of paper. All the pages are different colors, which is fun and cheerful.

I sewed the felt to the front and did a bit of handwork on the flowers. Then I got out my rubber stamping ink and tried out many of the stamps in the Artgirlz rubber stamping pack. Then I just kept stamping and sewing and suddenly I was done.

I don’t know how long it took, but not very long, perhaps a half an hour. I could do more, but it is not a project that is sitting half done on my worktable. I can still do more later if I want. Close up.

Finished product. I also used some of the Stampin’ Up letters on the little marker/tag.

Pink Chalk Pencils Rolls

I followed a link to Pink Chalk Studio’s blog and found these lovely pencil rolls. I would love to say I will run up and make one right away, but it probably isn’t going to happen. I love the way the stripes of color interact and will really have to think about that for inspiration. That lady is NOT me. See my profile for a pic of me.

You can still buy this pattern at Pink Chalk Studio.