The Known World by Edward P Jones

We often check out audio books from the library before going on a trip. Our recent drive to see our son was no exception. We listened to The Known World both going and coming - it was that long. I always prefer unabridged, which this was, so it was 12 CD's. It was a very interesting story, set in Virginia 20 years before the start of the Civil War. It was about a former slave who owned slaves of his own. The story jumped around in time a lot, so it took awhile to get used to - it might have been easier to read than listen to - but it was really good. I had no idea that any blacks owned slaves - it's an incomprehensible idea.

Face Quilt

Progress on my face quilt - I'm actually caught up now. At least until the next lesson comes out on Monday. That will be painting the face. You can't tell in the photo, but the petals are loose - only stitched down in the centers. I also just realized that the flowers are HUGE in relation to the size of her face!

The white line around the edges is the approximate trimming line - I like to make things a bit bigger and trim them down to size, but I also like to see what the actual size will be. This one will be 12 X 12, because that's the size required in the swap that this is for. I'm going to hate to send this away, but the quilts that have been received by the swap hostess to date are all wonderful, so I'm sure I'll get something even better in return!

Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson

This is the story of 67 year old Trond Sander, who has decided to spend the remaining years of his life alone in a remote cabin far from civilization. His neighbor turns out to be someone he knew over 50 years earlier, which brings back memories that he would prefer to forget. The story moves smoothly between the past and the present. I thought it was very well written and would rate it 4 out of 5. I read this as the second book for my WWII Reading Challenge, and the subject of WWII is a secondary, rather than primary, theme, being a part of Trond Sander's memories.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

I have to start out by saying that I never would have read this book if it hadn't been the current month's selection for my book club. I'm not sure how to write a review of it, other than to say that I really didn't like the book at all. I didn't understand it very well either. I had a really hard time finishing it, feeling the way I did. If I had liked it even a little bit better, I might have been willing to put in the time it would take to study it, but I didn't. I hope that doesn't make me sound shallow or illiterate, but if it does, it does. The part I had the hardest time with was the third chapter, when the main character attended a 3-day spiritual retreat. This went on for page after page after page after page, and since I am not a Catholic, or even a Christian, I really couldn't read it all. After this, I pretty much lost any interest in the book I'd had up to that point. I rate this 1 out of 5.

Quilt

This is the quilt that took me so long to finish quilting - not because of the quilt, but because of problems with my machine. But it's finished now, and my son and daughter-in-law are holding it up in their apartment. We're visiting them this week. You can also see a quilt I made for my daughter-in-law folded up over the chair in the right of the picture. I don't know what's on top of it - maybe a scarf that she knitted for my son. Anyway, we're having a good visit, and we'll be home on Wednesday.

Faces on Fabric

I worked on the Faces on Fabric class today that I'm taking from Terri Stegmiller. I've got my face fused to the background:



We're going to be adding stitching in the next lesson and painting in the lesson after that.

I'm going to be adding flowers on the right side of the quilt.



I fused two fabrics wrong sides together and cut out some petal shapes. I hooped a water soluble sticky stabilizer and attached the petals (if you didn't have a sticky, you could use a spray adhesive, but the sticky makes it easier). Then I free motion stitched around the edges of the petals and in the centers. That's as far as I've gotten, but the next step is to remove the stabilizer. Then I will put a vase with stems to the right of the face (I haven't chosen my vase fabric yet, nor have I named my girl). The petals will be attached to the tops of the stems in the centers only so that the flowers will be 3D. I will also probably put some beads or crystals or french knots or something in the centers of the flowers.

Ultimately, this quilt will be sent to Lenna Andrews for her Fabric Techniques 12X12 swap. This is the first time I've participated in one of Lenna's swaps, but they look really good. The deadline isn't until April 22, and she's already received 3 quilts. I would be happy to have any of the 3 she's received so far. We have a couple of trips planned in the next few weeks, so I'll be working on this quilt every chance I have in order to have it finished in plenty of time to get it mailed by the deadline.

And speaking of trips, we're leaving in the morning to visit our son and daughter-in-law in Minneapolis. It's a lot colder there than it is here in Oklahoma! I just hope we don't hit any bad weather on the road. I was making them a quilt, and I finally finished it over the weekend. I'll try to take a picture of it with them and post it from there. I had hoped to finish it much earlier, but I was having trouble with my sewing machine. I solved that problem last week by trading my machine in for a new one. The problem was in the electronics of the machine, and the repairman was just going to have to start replacing circuit boards one at a time until the problem was fixed. As he was telling me this, all I could think of was a car we had several years ago that had an intermittent problem that we were never able to fix. After spending much money trying to get it fixed, we were told the next item to replace was the computer. That's when we decided to trade cars. I didn't want to start down that path again (you know - been there, done that).

Two More Faces

This is the face I drew yesterday:



And this is the face I drew today:



I think this last one may be my new favorite.

The Tortilla Curtain by T. Coraghessan Boyle

This is the story of two couples in Los Angeles: one, a wealthy writer and his real estate agent wife who live in an exclusive hilltop community; the other, illegal Mexicans, just trying to find work to survive. They are thrown together by a freak accident and series of events. The story is alternately told from each person's point of view. It explores the issues of immigration and racism in a very compelling story; it is very well written. I rate it 3 out of 5.

Faces

I didn't have a chance to post yesterday, but I did draw a face - it's my favorite one yet.



And here is the one I did today. I'm still struggling a bit with the mouths. Yesterday's is a bit better to me. But this is really good practice - and I'm proud that I've drawn at least one face every day. It's been really fun to see what the other students are doing too.



Terri created a Flickr group for us to post our progress, so if you're interested, you can see more faces here. There aren't a lot of faces there yet, but I'm sure we'll all be adding to the group over the next few weeks.

2 More Faces

Since I signed up for the Faces on Fabric class, I've decided to draw at least one face every day, at least until the next lesson comes out next Monday. So far, I've drawn more than one face each day; here are the two I drew today. Since they will be turned into fabric, that's why the hair on the second one looks the way it does - each section will be a separate piece of fabric. I'm thinking about taking my watercolor pencils to these.

Faces

I drew 2 more faces today. Practice, practice, practice!

Faces on Fabric

OK, these aren't on fabric, but that's the name of the class I'm taking from Terri Stegmiller that started yesterday (I know, I'm addicted to online classes). We're starting out by sketching faces on paper - we'll work up to getting them onto fabric in the next few lessons. I've never really drawn faces before, so I don't think these are too bad. I know I need LOTS of practice, but hey - these are my first 3 faces!! They look weird because I drew them with a 3H pencil (very light line) in my Moleskine sketchbook, which has cream colored pages, meaning there wasn't enough contrast to see them very well in the scan. I desaturated them in Photoshop so that you could see them at all.

More Visual Journalism

I've done some more pages in my visual journal. This first one is the first page in my journal - I had left it blank until I decided what I wanted to do, since it's the first page you see when you open the journal. A friend had given me a set of napkins with these cats on them, and I only had one left, so I decided the best use of them would be to glue them into my journal. I wasn't sure what the best way to glue them in would be, since after I separated the layers, the paper was very thin. First I ran it through my Xyron, but that didn't work well at all; some of the paper stuck to itself. I managed to get the top three cats glued in with just a bit of wrinkling. Then I remembered seeing Pam Carriker put Golden's gel medium directly on the page instead of on the paper that was being glued in while watching her class video, so I decided to try that. It worked much better and I was able to glue rest of the cats and the fishbone border in that way. I really like the way the paper of the napkin almost disappears; I'll be using more napkins and tissue paper in the future. I stamped the pawprints, and did the lettering and hearts by hand. Then I added some shading and I think it's done.



I've shown the next page before, but I've added some outlines to the title and some shading.



I've shown this page before too, but I've added some more doodling and shading to it.



And this last page is new. I've mentioned before that I attend the Tulsa Ballet; they performed Cinderella last Sunday.



I highly recommend this course!

The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde

This is book 3 in a series, and it is just as witty as the first two. It helps to have an appreciation of the English language and/or literature. The story is quite unusual - set in an alternate England in the 1980's where the prevailing culture is based on literature. Thursday was a Special Operative in literary detection. In this volume, she takes refuge in an unpublished book by the name of Caversham Heights in the Well of Lost Plots. She must battle with Aornis Hades, little sister of the master criminal Acheron Hades, whom Thursday vanquished in The Eyre Affair. Aornis is a mnemonomorph, meaning that she has been changing Thursday's memories. I rate this book 4 out of 5.

Cyber Fyber Random Trade

These are the ATCs I received from the Cyber Fyber Random Trade. The one on the left came all the way from Annica in Sweden, the middle one is from Sarah in South Carolina, and the one on the right is from Barb in Florida. They're all beautiful - thanks ladies!

Valentine ATCs

Terri Stegmiller posted some ATC's for trade on her blog, and I really liked them, so I told her I wanted to trade for one. This meant I had to make one for her, of course. So while I was making one, I made eight. I made them with my embellisher - I love that machine! I haven't used it in awhile, so it was a great excuse to use it again. Here is the one I'm sending to Terri:



I've saved out three for some friends:



And here are the other four:



If anyone would like to trade for one of the last four, please leave me a comment with a way to contact you. I'd love to trade!

New Journal Page

I worked on a new page in my journal yesterday - it's my favorite one so far.

Visual Journalism 101

I've added a quote about nature to the page I posted a few days ago.



And I've started on another page:



I'm having a lot of fun with this!

A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell

I finished this book Monday night - it is my first read for the WWII Reading Challenge. It "tells the little-known story of the vast underground effort by Italian citizens who saved the lives of 43,000 Jews during the final phase of World War II." (quoted from the back cover) It was very well-written and followed the stories of several different characters. While this book and The Madonnas of Leningrad were very different stories, I was struck at the end by the similarity between Claudette (in this book) and Marina (in Madonnas) - how neither would talk about their experiences during the war and how their children didn't feel like they knew them - and even thought they were cold. I rate this book 4 out of 5.

Visual Journalism

Here is one of my pages from my Visual Journalism 101 class with Pam Carriker. This is after 3 lessons - background, collage, and doodling. We've still got 2 more lessons to go, so this page will change some more, but it's a lot of fun.

Diamond Jubilee

I've been intending to play along with the GPP Street Team's Challenges for quite some time now, but this is the first time I've actually done it. GPP stands for Green Pepper Press, and the challenges are "monthly creativity crusades hosted by Michelle Ward." Now, I'll admit to being just a bit put off by the term crusade, but I know that that is a personal thing, so I'm trying to get over it. It certainly isn't the reason I haven't gotten the challenges done before now. This month's challenge (Crusade No. 27) is called Shape Up, but it isn't about getting in better physical shape; it's about choosing a shape and studying it in your journal.

I chose the diamond, which is one of my favorite shapes. I have a diamond punch, so I punched some diamonds out of decorative scrapbook papers and glued them to the right page. I also used the punch to make both a stencil and a mask. I used the stencil with white paint on the left page. I used the mask with black ink on the left page as well (that one doesn't show up very well, since the background is so dark, but I doodled dots inside the diamond). I took some fun foam and cut a diamond out of it. (I know, it looks just like the punches, but I didn't punch it. The foam was too thick to fit in my punch. I used my mask to draw on the foam and then cut it with an exacto knife.) I stamped my new stamp on the right page. I glued harlequin scrapbook papers to each page. I used a commercial harlequin stamp when I created the background. I doodled some diamond shapes on both pages, and I doodled around the other shapes. I found a quilt pattern that uses diamonds and glued that to the left page. This was an interesting exercise, and I think I'll probably play around with other shapes in the future.

Below is a scan of the fancy tools I made. On the left is the stencil. I took a piece of a magazine page and punched the diamond in it. The white you see around the diamond is the paint. In the middle is the mask, also using a magazine page (it's very thin, which is good for both stencils and masks). I used repositionable glue on the backs of both the stencil and the mask so that they would stay in place while using them. On the right is the hand carved stamp. I took a piece of a transparency and laminated it to make it stiff then taped the stamp (fun foam) to it with permanent tape. This could then be mounted to an acrylic block with repositionable tape if desired; I just used it as is.

Inspiration Journal

The idea behind this class is to create what Paulette Insall calls an inspiration journal. This is basically a journal with pictures of the things that inspire us. Then if we're feeling uninspired, we can just look through our journal to get inspiration.

I have 4 backgrounds painted (earlier posts), and now I've added some pictures (lesson 2) and journaling (lesson 3) about a few of the things that inspire me - flowers, tropical fish, butterflies, trees, and colored pencils. I think that many of my pages will have quilts and/or fabrics on them, but not this page. I'll be adding some more embellishing to this page for lesson 4.

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

This book follows a young Bengali (Indian) couple who come to the United States right after they marry. When their son is born, the letter from Ashima's grandmother naming him is lost in the mail and never arrives. They end up naming him Gogol, after the Russian writer. We see the effect that this unusual name has on Gogol as he grows up. The writing style was a bit distant at times, but it was well written. I had read the book a few years ago, but since my book club was discussing it in January, I reread it. I rate it 4 out of 5.

Visual Journaling

I'm taking a couple of online journaling classes right now. I mentioned the one I'm taking from Paulette Insall a couple of posts down. I signed up for another one taught by Pam Carriker at Creative Workshops - this one is called Visual Journalism 101. I made another journal for that class. Here is the front cover:



And inside the cover (I painted one sheet, cut it in half, and glued it to both sides of chipboard for the covers):



And here is the first page spread inside:



I'll be adding more to the pages over the next few weeks, but this is a good start. I actually used baby wipes to apply some of the paint - pretty cool technique.

Blog Awards and Some Thoughts

Elizabeth of The Last Door . . . Down the Hall was kind enough to award me this Kreativ Blogger award a few days ago. I am supposed to list 7 things I love:

1. My family - husband, son, and daughter-in-law.
2. My friends.
3. My cat.
4. My home.
5. Creating (sewing, art, etc.).
6. Reading.
7. Learning.



And then Fannie of Imagine, Create, Inspire passed these two awards on to me.





I'm supposed to pass these awards on to others. I love the blogs I read, or I wouldn't read them. But I don't read a lot of blogs anymore - I have tried to reduce the amount of time I spend on the computer (not very successfully, I might add). So two of my favorite blogs are Elizabeth's and Fannie's, and several of my other favorite blogs I've sent awards to recently. It's not that I don't appreciate these awards - but after awhile it begins to feel like the same people send awards to the same blogs. I really hope that doesn't sound ungrateful. So I will just say thank you very much to Elizabeth and Fannie, add that any and all of the blogs I read deserve these awards as much or more than I do, and hope no one gets mad at me. (If you want to see what blogs I read, you can see a list of them in the right hand column - under the heading Blogs in my Reader.)

Inspiration Journal - two more pages

I finished 2 more backgrounds in my inspiration journal yesterday - I'm really happy with the red one. The green one is ok too, but my favorite so far is the first one I did in blues and teal. I really need to start looking for images to glue onto these pages now - but it's so much fun doing the backgrounds!

Inspiration Journal, page 2

I finished another page spread today for my inspiration journal. I say finished, but actually I mean step 1 is finished. I'm going to be adding to it with collage and embellishing, but I'm through with the background painting. It's a lot of fun, because if you don't like the way it looks, you just keep adding to it until you do.

Inspiration Journal

I'm taking another online class - this one is from Paulette Insall, and it's called Enjoy the Journey. It's about creating a mixed media inspiration journal. You can read about it here. It's a different type of journal than I'm used to, but I'm having fun with it so far. This is the start of my first page spread - I'll be adding to it over the next few weeks, but I like how it looks so far.

Paper Collaboration

I just read about a fun paper collaboration on Marci Glenn's blog, Simply Artistic Pleasures. People send 50 - 70 papers to Sweet Jessie, she binds them into journals, and sends them back to you, all for $8.00. Sounds like a fun way to get a new journal full of interesting papers.

Dewey - The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron with Bret Witter

Dewey was stuffed into the book return slot of the Spencer, Iowa, library on the coldest night of the year and found the next morning (Jan. 18, 1988) by the library director. It was love at first sight for both. Dewey spent the next 19 years charming the people of Spencer. It's a heartwarming story of a special cat. I read it for the January selection of Bookworms Reading Group. I'm not sure that there will be all that much to discuss. I rated it 3 out of 5.