Captured Moments
…dancing with my shadows
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Entries Tagged as ''
The Swap Zine is done!
It’s HERE! Yippee!
My first zine is finished and on it’s way for the zine swap. Soon I will be swimming in zines…well..maybe only 10 of them but a happy day that will be. I’ll probably maul the mailman as he drives by.
I have followed Alma Stoller’s blog for about a year now and she kept talking bout this “zine” thing. This past July she put a call out to all zine-sters, new and old and I decided to just jump right in. How hard can it be…right? (famous last words indeed).
Let me go back and do wiki def for you. A zine (pronounced zeen) is a small self-published booklet. It’s an opportunity for the maker to explore a topic, express feelings, encourage, share, educate and, especially, connect with others.
So off I went to create. It took a while for me to come up with my topic but, in the end, I kept coming back to the same thing.
I call it “the Inner Eye”, that something deep inside of us that helps us bring forth our art.
So my zine is a little inspiration to propell you along your art-y way.
One of the things we were to include in the zine is an interview. Only problem was….I couldn’t choose just one person.
That when the idea for a series of interviews took hold. I 
asked a few of my quilt artist friends to answer a few questions and included some answers from each of them.
I chose to call them “Inner-views” (remember the name of my zine—”The Inner Eye”), because these words are the innermost thoughts and perspectives about how each artist soul manifest itself through her art and throughout her life. 
Each page is created separately using the cut and paste method, then photocopied to make the 10 zines. 
To paint the covers, I spritzed water on poster boards and then washed in two of my fav colours….red and golden yellow to create the 2-colour cover.
Included in each zine are bits of inspiration, articles, projects, exercises, the “inner-views” (of course) and a bag of yummy extra bits.
This zine was a labour (NO KIDDING!) of love. I so enjoyed writing the articles and designing the layout for each page. I made a few extra of them to put in my etsy shop so YOU too can have one to enjoy as well. When I get my parcel of zine goodyness, I’ll post the pics of them.
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See ya next time “In the Hayloft”,
Captured Moments 2
A few weeks ago I asked my son what he wanted to do on his day off from school. He said “something fun please”. Now the pressure was on…what to do to entertain an 8 yr old????
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I decided on a “Picture Day”. and he was all for it. We took our cameras and I drove way into the countryside, pulling over whenever we chose to take pictures of nature, dilapidated buildings, gigantic rocks in from of an abandoned cemetery…anything was fare game.
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on the rocks
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the artist
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cool car huh?
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wish we could have gotten closer.
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Se ya next time “In the Hayloft”,
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Captured Moments
Over the years I have discovered that I like taking pictures. I love the spontaneity and the serendipity of the moment.
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By far I am not, nor do I profess to be, a professional photographer, just a lover of images….those single, fleeting moments in time that are captured by a camera.
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I am especially drawn to those photographs that evoke a response of some kind from the viewer, whether a smile or laugh or even tears.
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So, from time to time, I will post one of my captured moments. Sometimes it will have a caption…..or not.
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Here’s my first.
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self portrait
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(a very rare occurrence , let me tell you)
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See ya next time “In the Hayloft”,
Wedding Guest Book
My friend, Delane,\’a0 had asked me to make a wedding guest book for the marriage of her son Ted to his bride Lauren.
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I really wanted to make a special gift especially for Lauren, she’s the photographer who took those wonderful pictures of my work a while back. Her favorite colours were red, orange and brown and colours of the wedding were in the Fall colour range.
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I had no idea where to go with this at first and took some time mulling over a few ideas, I remembered that she wanted me incorporate the words “our wedding, underneath the trees” in her wedding book so I started with that.
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Using a Stewart Gill stencil from their Flowers of Scotland collection, I reduced its size and cut out a new stencil out of freezer paper.
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After ironing it to a piece of white silk dupioni, I painted it with Stewart Gill Brass Gold metallic paint.
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I now needed to get Lauren’s words on the fabric. Because I don’t have access to a thermofax machine, I decided to try a new product
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I had recently bought, Photo EZ silk screen. This was way cool and easy to use.
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Photo EZ sheets are made from a silk screen mesh coated with a light sensitive water soluble polymer.
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Using a saturated black image printed on plain white paper, it only needs sunlight and plain tap water to develop. Off I went and developed 3 separate screens for the front of the guestbook.
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The silkscreen was taped down with masking tape (above) and metallic paint was squeegees through the mesh with the edge of an expired credit card.
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I added Lauren and Ted’s names to the front of the book as well. After drying, I was now ready to make the book.
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Cutting 2 boards for the front and back, I covered them both in the silk dupioni.
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For the spine of the guestbook I used two coordinating batik fabrics and staggered them on the left edges of the boards.
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Lasty, I glued a passion red bookcloth (afterall, they are newlyweds aren’t they?) on the inside for the lining.
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I cut papers for guests to sign and then decided to add some black cardstock so they 
can also add pictures to personalize their book. It was finally coming together.
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Using a Japanese stab stitch method, I sandwiched the papers in between the covers and stitched the book together, tying a gold ribbon at the spine edge for a touch of embellishment. I named this one “Beneath the Trees”.
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I wrapped the guestbook in my signature brown paper and tied a red ribbon around the gift.
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I was very pleased to hear that Lauren squealed with delight upon opening\’a0 the package.\’a0 Check Delane’s blog for some pics of the absolutely beautiful bride Lauren made….and Ted looked dashing too!
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See ya next time “In the Hayloft”,
New Work
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\’93Under the harvest moon,
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When the soft silver
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Drips shimmering
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Over the garden nights…\’94\’a0\’a0\’a0\’a0\’a0 –Carl Sandburg
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Our Guild logo is the sailboat to coincide with our name, Lake Norman Guild. One of the themes for a guild challenge this year was “Sailing under the Harvest Moon” (which also happened to be the name of our Quilt Show this past weekend).
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Instead of using the whole theme though, I decided to concentrate just on the harvest moon.
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In my research I learned that the harvest moon is the fullest moon occurring closest to the autumnal equinox.
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An equinox, which happens 2 times each year, occurs when the centre of the Sun spends about the same time above and below the horizon at every location on the Earth.
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Therefore the night and day are equally as long with no long period of darkness between sunset and moonrise.
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The moon shines brighter, takes on a beautiful golden hue and looks larger than it appears because it sits so low in the sky.
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It is so very bright at night that farmers work thru the night harvesting their crops working by
the light of the moon, hence the name “Harvest Moon”.
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To depict this larger than life phenomenon, I painted 2 different Stewart Gill metallic paints along the edge of the hand dyed gold fabric, creating the illuminating moon.
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Using a silver grey Caron D’ache crayon, I extended the haze of the light around the moon and onto the field of wheat to show some reflection.
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The thing that stumped me for a bit though was the fabric we had to use in our finished piece.
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Originally I cut leaves out of the fabric to float on water (sailing theme) but they really looked out of place. In the end I liked the way I used it to portray a suggestion of a fence line across the field.
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The quilt measures 20.5″ x 17″, a small piece again but the smaller size enables me to try out new techniques without committing to larger pieces.
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I have been told lately that my work is taking on a particular “style” (big smile here) and that’s definitely something I’m striving for, to create a body of work that represents the essence of MY creativity.\’a0 I’ve got much more work to do to reach my goal and, in fact, I am a part of the year long SAQA Visioning Project to help me move forward.
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See ya next time “In the Hayloft”,
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Lake Norman Guild Show
This past Saturday wrapped up our guild show. What a hoot we had! We are a small group (about 55 members) and did we put on a show!\’a0 And to boot…I won a few awards.
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Here’s the wrap up….
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This was our regular group picture taken just after the show closed and before we do Take Down. Michele Sheets (reclining in front) was our Show Chair so we gave her a special space in the pic. These are some of the best bunch of ladies and am so happy to be in this guild with them. We have way too much fun together.
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My group, Pandoras, won 1st place in the Group category, and below as we accept our ribbon. From L – R: DeLane Rosenau, me and Susan Brubaker Kanpp (missing is Lushorn Millsaps).
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I won Best Innovative Quilt for Red Moon (below). What a nice surprise!
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Here I am accepting my ribbon for it. Liz always cracks me up with her hilarious stories but, for the life of me, I can’t remember what she said here that had us giggling so much. Considering that this happened only 2 days ago, one would think I was having an early senior moment.
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“At Odds” won a 3rd place award in the Art Quilt category. Yay!
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A couple of pics of the quilts hanging….
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Donna Loebs looking at the “Roots”Challenge pieces,
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DeLane and her\’a0 “Birds of a Feather” jacket that won an Honorble Mention in the Wearable category,
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Here’s our ribbon table. The smaller ribbons below the large ones are yo-yos that Jean Newman made as a new thing this year. Each winner got one that corresponded with the ribbon they won. We pinned them on our name tages so that show attendees could easily see who the ribbon winners were.
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My husband brought my youngest son to see the show. He walked around really looking at all the quilts and came back and literally pulled me from my duty at the admin table to show me his favorite quilts.
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This next quilt by Jeane Knick won Viewers Choice Award and a 2nd place prize for large bed quilt. This was one of the ones he pulled me to. He was so very animated as he told me how he loved how the colours moved in this Bargello pattern. It was really a beautiful quilt.
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Sandy Palmer’s quilt “Shake Your Tail Feathers” was picked as Judge’s Choice by judge Scott Murkin. He absolutley loved it because he thought it was “ridiculously cute”.
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“Till He’s Cute” by Joyce Mullis won a 2nd place ribbon in the Art Quilt Category. We all had a good laugh when we saw this one with the martini glass.
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Towards the end of the show I realized I hadn’t gotten many pics of our guild members working the show so at one point I turned to see Liz (on right) and Jean checking out some quilts.
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I couldn’t get a clear picture to I snuck around to the back of the quilt they were looking at and poked the camera thru. I surprised them and they both burst out laughing but, I got the perfect picture.
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One of the new things we tried this year was a thing called “Playpen Frenzy”. We loaded a playpen (quite a few times too) with lots and lots of fabric (books, magazines and ribbons too).
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Quilt show attendees got to fill a gallon size bag for $3…BUT…. it had to zip completely closed to count. This was a giant hit! Guild members got to recycle some of their stash and some lucky quilters got some “new” fabrics.
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The Flight of Fantasy Doll Club set up a table at the show. I wish I had taken more pics of them but I just had to get the Witche’s trio. Look at how innocent they look.
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…and what about this little elf popping out of the tree stump…he was way tooooo cute. (I apologize for not recording the names of the makers though).
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and because the last day of our show fell on Halloween we had people walking around in costume (check our our one Charlotte Sloop as Reggedy Ann in the group pic at the top of the post). My son decided to dress as a “cool” vampire. Here is in full make up and in character…
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Cool huh!
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See ya next time “In the Hayloft”,
