as she ordered her drink i heard her ask for extra pumps in her chai tea latte…my drink of choice.  i usually keep to myself but, remembering my effort to be more myself, more open (all the time, every day), i asked her about what she had just ordered.   we struck up a conversation about how sometimes the chai is a bit weak and she told me about how she regularly takes her drink now – 2 extra pumps of chai (she’s up to 6 now) with non fat milk and no hot water.

so this stranger/new friend, seeing that i was a newbie at customizing drinks, told me to “go for it” and that she was gonna stick around until i had a sip of my zipped up drink.

growing up i had always been one of those cautious individuals but, having come into my own and knowing that i was now choosing to live life to the full, i went whole hog!  you might think this is a small feat but i cannot telll you how i’ve dithered over the years (still do sometimes) about making the teeny tiniest of decisions.

OMG…..can i tell you……that tea was exactly how i always thought it should taste!   she and i chatted and laughed as we walked out of the store then parted ways.

when i began painting a few years ago this was one of my first pieces.  still have no idea why i painted it but i did and hung it up in my studio nonetheless.

as i drove back home this morn, going over my this encounter with my new friend jill, this painting came to mind.  even though this time i took a small risk, it reminded me that i must jump more at the chances i encounter, even those that push me the tiniest little bit.

I believe we should all take more chances and wear red shoes more often.  patti digh, author of “life is a verb” tells us in her book to ‘rent the red convertible” instead of the ho-hum 4-door all the time. She says that “being practical, safe and logical is way overrated”

so go forth my friends and

wear the damn RED shoes ( as Dani would say)!

show em off….feel your sassy…..be a risk taker!

take the bull by the horns!

and let me know….what have you risked lately?

toodles all,

G

it was a very nice surprise when i opened an email and saw that a friend i made online, Isa, had given me an award.  i have been awarded a ‘gorgeous blogger’ award. I am honored and, at the same time, tickled pink!

how way cool is that!!!!!!

now i have to answer 5 questions…

when did you start your blog?
i started my original blog back in June 2007 (wowsa!) …had to go digging for that long ago bit of info. this means that 5 yrs of blogging is coming upon me…must do something bout that…..mmmh (she says quizzically)

what do you write about?
my blog is about my art, my life and all the things that happen in between………and there have been some doozies!

what makes this special?
what makes blogging special to me is that i have a chance to share a piece of me…my art and my life….with online friends i’ve made over the years (but not had a chance yet to meet) and keep my local friends up to date with my goings on, especially if we haven’t seen each other in a while.

my original blog was named  barnyard chatter (long story short..company name is redbarn studios…get it?) and i always signed off each post with “see ya next time, in the hayloft”. I used that because the hayloft reminded of a cool place to hang out together for friendship, laughter and lots and lots of chatting.  soon i’ll have to invite you all to my real barn…when i get it that is (hee hee)

what made you start writing?
i have always wanted to write in a diary and have started many a journal over the years, but writing that way never really stuck. one day my impish side decided she needed to challenge me, so i took the bait and……my blog was born.

the impish grace

i want always to be authentic in my words, to keep things light and that kinda comes out in my posts. i write like i talk…like i’m sitting with some friends in a cafe…..sipping on some java……shooting the breeze……contemplating life and all that she’s cracked up to be.

what would you change in your blog?
in the last few months i’ve been moving toward more ‘be real’ content as opposed to just about ‘art’.  although i love, love , love creating, my life these days is not just about the art and i needed my blog to reflect more of that. I believe what we write should be part and parcel of who we are.

as for the technical side, funnily enough i’ve recently been thinking bout updating her looks. a few years ago i changed from blogger to wordpress.com then moved to wordpress.org where i now host my own blog.  been thinking it’s now time for a revamp…..give this girl some more me style, maybe bring on some more RED!

next, the nominations…

wasn’t gonna nominate anyone else cause i know sometimes other bloggers don’t want to be bothered, but i had a rethunk and decided i would rather share these people with you rather than keep them to myself.  they are but a handful of the bloggers out there who make me smile and laugh each day.   c’mon now, i had to pass on this ‘make-you-feel-real-good’ gorgeous blogger award.

the first one that came to mind is my friend Delane….she is inspirational, creative, supportive and the definition of friend.
http://delanequilts.wordpress.com

next is funky, no holds barred Sasha…she is a soldier girl, living in the UK, paper artist, venturing out into a new, somewhat old thing…. professional photography
http://sassysasha.typepad.com

karoda, one of my fav quilt artists.  her art and words can invite the most sacred introspection.  don’t remember how we came to be online friends but it just happened and i like it.  she is as real as you can get!
http://karoda.typepad.com/seamless_skin/

i happened upon evalicious one day bout a year ago and have been reading her blog ever since.  she creates and sells innovative, spirited art journals….not your regular kind mind you.  must check out her ‘about’ page for heads up on her name.
http://shop-evalicious.blogspot.com

last (and by no means least….you’ll read why) is francine.  self described as a scrapbooking, west indian mama, her creativity oozes out in all she does. i think her best creative moment by far (according to moi) is her son kieran.  full disclosure here….she also happens to be my cousin! yeh baby!!!! it runs in the fam….ha!
http://francineclouden.typepad.com/

hope you enjoyed the trip with me as I accepted my award. have a gander at the other blogs…you might find yourself bookmarking a few.

Toodles all,

hope everyone enjoyed their Easter Celebration!

today, before prepping dinner, we headed out for a drive.  after all the bank and forth weather we’ve been having it was wonderful waking up to a beautiful easter sunday morn.

in fact as we were eating breakfast we noticed outside the window, on the green across from the house, a family with their young son flying a kite. magical indeed!

only last night my neighbor, originally from Guyana, told me that on easter sunday, Guyanese from all over, to celebrate the risen Christ, fly kites…the skies are chock full of them.  had never heard of that tradition before and it just so happens that we see a kite flying this morn.

anyway…i’ve been working on a new thing. youtube has issued a challenge that members vlog (video blog) every day for the month of april (got this from Tam over at willowing.ning.com).  so i decided to chime in on this.  with only nine days left in the month it seems an easy feat.

so go go check out my youtube channel and see what’s up. it’s weird being in front of the camera but i kinda like it….it’s not as hard as i thought it would be….much like talking to you guys thru this blog.

wish me luck with keeping up with it.

toodles,

p.s. on our drive we ended up at university of nc at charlotte’s botanical gardens where I proceeded to take lots of pics..the orchid above was one of them…gor-gee-ous!

hello spring!

RBS update…on thursday i’ll be doing a class on my newest pattern…the ‘chelsea vintage mini‘…over at donna downey studios.

if you haven’t signed up yet….what you waiting for??? come hang out and have a night just for you, creating and having fun with some new peeps……see you then!

also, just made a new video of what i’m working on in my studio lately.  it includes an update on items i’m adding to my etsy shop this week….including some new items.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

toodles all,

been on the computer for the last few days uploading new pics of journals and other items to update etsy shop.  poor shop has been so neglected of late.

since my digital camera is now officially broken (boo hoo) i’ve been taking pics with my camera phone.  altho i do love the fact that i always have a camera on my hip, at the ready, it’s just not the same as taking pics with a digital SLR.

what’s missing?

I actually miss figuring out how to maneuver the controls to take that perfect (yeh right!) picture even tho i still can get a little frustrated in the moment cause i’m still learning.  so right now, after uploading these pics, i’m finding that i have to adjust lighting and other things a bit more on these camera phone pics to make them more presentable for showcasing my artwork.

so, this is all to say that my eyes feel like the picture above…..a big blob of blurred vision.….especially after a couple hours on the Mac. I don’t know how IT people stay on the computer all day long.

on a good note I have researched (extensively as usual) and know which camera i’ll be getting next.  i finally decided to stick with the canon…

sorry nikon

…and will be purchasing this

Canon EOS Rebel 3Ti

sometime this year (i kid you not, this one ain’t in the budget right now).

so me and my blurry eyes are going to get some much needed rest.

toodles all,

today i went back and re-read more posts from one of my favorite, inspirational bloggers.  some of you may already know her….kelly rae roberts. she is exceptional at letting go, showing her vulnerable side, being her authentic self and still creating in the midst of chaos and deadlines (see this recent post as an example).

between her and a few other bloggers i read regularly (christine kane, karen walrond, brene brown to name a few) i find i am able to ask the questions of myself that reveal the truth of who i am, bit by bit.

in one of my last posts i listed some the things i resolve to do this year. one of those is to write more personally.  one reason is so that my connections are felt more deeply.  in the last few months i kinda went into this hibernative state without ever know that it had occurred until it dawned on me a few months into it that i was seeing no one and no one was calling.

i’ll be honest, this decision of mine to write from a more personal level has left me feeling absolutely scared and very vulnerable.  i know that it will scare some away and, guess what, i am okay with that. I’ve always been an extremely private person, having a couple of good friends i confide in but, STILL,  i always seemed to remain stagnant creatively.

re-reading kelly rae’s blog these last few weeks (sometimes going back as far back as 2006!) i noticed something…..she wrote about life. Period!  she didn’t constantly edit out her what happened in her life.

so, in order to put my life in more order I will be writing more about me — my thoughts, dreams, wishes, ideas AND life happenings — along with sharing more of my creative work as i work and when pieces are completed.

Yippee for me.

p.s. as you can see from the date and the post title it took me 3 tries to get the gumption up to push that send button.

the piece i donated this year is “amidst the fire” (on page 1b).

here are a few other pieces for your perusal…

“Under Cover” – Diane Marie Chaudiere

“Chiapas III ” – Pam Lowe

“Elysium” – Deidre Adams
(one of my absolute favorite fiber artist…love her work!)

“Deconstructed Flower II “- Deborah Weir

“Voila” – Olga Norris

“Gray Study” – Norma Schlager

how to bid
all the funds raised during the auction support SAQA’s ongoing mission to create exciting exhibitions, full colour catalogs and to fund outreach programs.

take a moment now to peruse all the wonderful artwork on SAQA’s website.   here you’ll find beautiful photos of each piece, info on how the auction works and a bidding form.

bidding starts today at 2pm (eastern time) and ends October 9th.   check out all the pieces and note which ones you’d like to see hanging in your home then go to the bidding form and send it it.   soon you too will be looking at 1, 2 or even 3 pieces of beautiful fiber art gracing your walls.

toodles,

but….best laid plans came into play again cause my mOjo somehow reappeared and ya know we gotta work when the muse hits.

so with out further ado here’s the results of my in the zone dye day, yippee!

don’t ya just love the gradation thing going on????

see the three yellow ones on the top…i actually did a 5 gradation run of  Dharma golden yellow  but this time, boo hoo.  because i did so many fabs i tried rinsing them all in the same wash in the machine (i usually separate the lighter colours).  ix-nay on that one and i should have known better.

splotchy won’t do for NC’s workshop so i’ll either over dye it or do some screen printing.  as a matter of fact, a bit of both might be in order.

the drudgery of ironing
when have lots of fabric to iron i set up my ironing board with my large studio board on it in front of my bed with the board at a comfortable ironing height and then have at it.  i figure there’s no sense in standing and shifting from foot to foot…sitting and ironing can only be a good thing…you guys should try it.

anyway that’s how I got these pics.  was trying to get a good angle on all the newly dyed fabrics all in a row and couldn’t, so tried a spiral.  love it!!!

gradations came out fairly evenly from one fab to the next.

remember this:

here’s the shirt that resulted….and i’ve worn it already i might add…..ha!

when i first brought the fabrics upstairs to begin ironing i just dumped them on my bed. Connor came in and, seeing a chance to play, dived right in throwing the fabrics everywhere.  had to get my camera for this one.

see the how excited he gets with newly dyed fabrics? Not!

my cutey pie

toodles,

When you host your own blog you decide the content that it contains…all the things that you think are pertinent to you and your readers.

Some of you may know this but each of those things in my sidebar is called a widget.

—a widget is a stand-alone application that can be embedded into third party sites by any user on a page where they have rights of authorship-– yada, yada yada

In other words I search for widgets with a code that someone else has written, plop it into a text box and that’s that! The thing with WordPress.com that I found so very restricting is that they controlled some of that content by not allowing certain java scripts (the script that makes up the code) to be embedded in my blog (mainly commercial activity widgets)

One of those widgets that I found and love for this blog is the Fun Facts widget (a WP widget). Every time you visit my blog a new fun fact is displayed like the new ones I got today….

• did you know that a person uses approximately 57 sheets of toilet paper every day (yeh, like you really needed to know that)
• that Happy Birthday, the song, is copyrighted? (so much for observing copyright on that one)
• or that in medieval Thailand, they had movable type printing presses. The type was made from baked oxen dung (Yummy!)

Now if you so choose you can keep hitting the refresh key on your browser to get new and interesting fun facts but I think your time will be better spent on art.

When you do visit my blog however, don’t forget to scroll down and check for another bit of  useless neat bits of information waiting there to fill another brain cell that could instead be used to listen to all the mindless drivel on the TV. Take your pick.

I’m going For the Fun Facts.

p.s.

Here’s are a few places I’ve found some of the widgets I used (disclaimer…I am not affiliated with any of them nor do I vouch for their reliability)

Widgetbox
Widgipedia
Google Gadgets

Last year in October I made a video of my studio for Cloth Paper Scissors Studios‘ virtual tours (check my studio tour here). I had so much fun taping it and even more laughs trying to put a cohesive video together with all the retakes I did.

Anyway, I knew I needed to clean –REALLY, REALLY, REALLY clean my studio (a 2nd floor bonus room).  Of late I’ve had to search high and low for items that were always readily available and that has made working on new art pieces a hit and miss thing at best.

So I mentioned to hubby in February  (okay, okay…..I whined about having to CLEAN) and he approached me a few days later about completely revamping/redoing my studio (now that’s what I’m talking bout!)

So he started redesigning use of the space and I started on my closet…figuring that in order to effectively and efficiently redesign the  studio I had to tackle the closet first.

Took down the regular wired shelving, bought 2 new heavy duty shelving from local DIY and put those up. I did not, however, like the gun metal gray so I also bought a couple of cans of spray paint to change the colour to white.

Next step is to start on one corner of the studio and work our way around so that I could still work even if I had work around things for a bit. Now that I have the shelving in the closet, a lot of my “stuff” can be housed in there, freeing up some valuable space in the studio itself (are you seeing the BIG picture yet?)

As well, this will give me an opportunity to inventory ALL my supplies for business purposes of course (whooee…getting faint just thinking bout that task)…been a recent conversation on one of my art list about that. So that’s the long reason why there is no artwork to show you.

But there’s more…..

What has kept me from really pushing forward with the studio revamp is my position as Co-Chair for the 2010 NC Quilt Symposium, to be held June 3rd – 6th. This is a big event for our fair state of North Carolina AND, our guild, Charlotte Quilters Guild, is hosting it this year…..in 5 weeks! Yikes!!!!!

As well as being one of 3 co-chairs I am also the Teacher Chair so I’ve been working with a great bunch of teachers who will be teaching at Symposium this year. Look at this line-up (names are clickable):

Charlotte Angotti
Cynthia Corbin
Melody Crust
Patti Culea
Kim Diehl
Karen Eckmeier
Ellen Anne Eddy
Robbi Joy Eklow
Flavin Glover
Bonnie Hunter
Janet Lasher
Susan Purney Mark
Velda Newman
Jenny Raymond
Paula Scaffidi
Pat Sloan
Karen Stone
Carol Taylor
David Taylor
Laura Wasilowski
Elin Waterson
Terry White

We are all racing to get things finalized so that we can put on a fantastic event. We are soooo very excited to have everyone over our way.  There’s still space available in some classes so be sure to check out the website.

So now you know…I am officially tired but still keep trucking on. Ideas for art pieces still flood the brain but it has been told to put them on hold…at least till I can catch my breath on June 7th. Ha!

Toodles,