Search Results for: zine

Motif Maker’s Zine and an Etsy update

I am excited to announce the release of my new publication, the Motif Maker’s Zine. What is a Zine? It is a non commercial offering! It is hand drawn and illustrated, self published and focused on textile design and motif making. Each volume is 16 pages, with a full color cover and centerfold.

The Motif Maker’s Zine has three volumes so far. The first volume showcases how to make a motif, while working in various media and a change of scale. Volume 2 discusses making motifs that interact and play well with one another (unicorns, feathers, pinking sheers-oh my!). Volume 3 discusses how pattern and texture can interact with motif to elevate and enrich your design. Each of the Zines references pages from my book, Playful Fabric Printing, drawing upon and expanding the knowledge found there, while helping you build and use motifs of your own creation.

The creation of my Zine included designing several new prints, where Fleur de Lis, unicorns, feathers, and pinking sheers are featured. I have printed silk hankies using these designs, which can be found in my Etsy shop! Stuff them in your coat pocket- dab an eye when you get cold, tie one onto your purse, use them as pocket squares!

It is my sincere hope that you will join in the fun and become a Motif Maker!

Purchase your copy today!

StencilGirl Stencils (a SALE) and The Motif Maker’s Zine

StencilGirl Stencils and The Motif Maker’s Zine

Tomorrow!!!

June 20, 21, 22, StencilGirl Products will have a

Melanie Testa stencil SALE!!!

21% OFF Scroll to end of post for the discount code!

If you haven’t already bought every stencil in my line, I wanted to let you know, it’s time to make a purchase or two!!

I am writing the Motif Maker’s Zine -as we speak-. I plan to print the first three within the month. In this offering, I am using my StencilGirl stencils as a jumping off point to discuss repeat design and motif making skills, for the textile/surface design artist. The zine is a visual feast of pattern, motif, texture and prompts to get you printing and creating your very own motifs.

The Zine is written in such a way that it relies on the text of Playful Fabric Printing as a support and learning opportunity. At 15$, this book is a deal. So please! Stock up on my behalf. Every sale is appreciated.

And soon, we will get to learning all about motif making, repeats, single color designs and designing textural elements through, The Motif Maker’s Zine. Please, stay tuned.

Zine Volume 2, possible covers

I have just finished printing four possible covers for The Motif Maker’s Zine volume #2, a zine focused the Unicorn, as motif. In an upcoming post, I will share two quilt tops that feature Unicorn prints derived from the this same collection of prints.

In the meantime, here are two printed hankies for you viewing pleasure.

Stay tuned!

Zine Making, what? why?

A Zine is a short & sweet version of a magazine. This printed material is often made by individuals, be they artists, activists, enthusiasts, fans or groups. These booklets are traditionally created by way of photocopy machines, an easily accessible and generally inexpensive means of printing.
On March 31 of this year, I went to a Feminist Zine Festival held at Bernard College in NYC. The Zines at this event ranged from 4-12$, more or less. I was so excited about what I might learn and whose Zines I would collect, I arrived early.

I am glad that I did because I was able to nab the brightly colored Zine named ‘Making Your Mark’ at upper right, in the photo above. That Zine is subtitled, ‘Women, Queer & Gender Non-Conforming Tattoo Artists in their Own Words’. It was printed under then Diaspora Savant Press. But I purchased Zines from many interesting people on topics like body positivity, breast cancer, trans poetry, and penpal Zines for incarcerated women and gender non-conforming people.

Then, I got bit by the bug!

I buckled down and began creating a Zine of my own, and I am calling it, The Motif Maker’s Zine.

Of course my Zine needs to be an artful exploration of motif, textile design and printing. I am drawing and lettering the entire Zine myself and I plan to release three at once, ASAP. I have two Zines complete and have started a third! I find I like communicating by way of drawings and written word. I like the format and I hope you do too.

So, please stay tuned. This will be fun.

McCall’s Quilting Magazine and a Meadowlark Giveaway-a guest post

I am hosting a guest post by Stephanie Forsyth, my quilt designer for Meadowlark. We are both really happy that her delicate, groovy, lush, and chic designs using Meadowlark, are going live! What follows are Stephanie’s words:

Ladies and gentleman, I am in McCall’s Quilting Magazine! I still can’t quite believe it!

This is the closest I’ve gotten to being a “Covergirl” so far! As many of you know, I was working on some quilts that I wasn’t able to share (this was for Market this past spring!) Well, I was designing and making quilts using Melanie Testa’s fabric from her Meadowlark line put out by Windham Fabrics. I’ve been sitting on this news since this past spring – and now I can finally share it with you!

This was an exciting process, as I was able to see Melly creating the line, and then her excitement when Windham picked it up. It’s a special feeling to be one of the first people to ever cut into, and create with a designer’s first fabrics!

The Meadowlark line is Melly’s way of raising awareness about the plight of the 20 Common Birds in Decline listed by the Audobon Society. She has a post about it on her blog!

The original name of this quilt is “Lark Star” for the Eastern Meadowlark on the list. For publishing reasons, the piece goes by the name “Starling” in the magazine. They are offering a FREE alternate pattern of the quilt in king size! (You can also order a kit of the 60.5″60.5″ from them, that has the fabrics I used!)

I wanted to really be able to showcase Melly’s fabrics, so I approached the design process asking myself “How can I show these fabrics as they are, and still cut them up and piece them?” The answer was “THINK BIG!” and I did. At 60.5″x60.5″, the blocks in this quilt are 15″ blocks! I might be biased (that’s not a pun, I swear!), but I am in love with this quilt!

Stephanie has an AWESOME prize opportunity for a lucky reader! I have arranged for Stephanie to give away a fat quarter of every fabric from Meadowlark!

Leave a comment on STEPHANIE’S blog to win! She will close commenting on December 7 at 11:59 P.M. She will announce the give away on Monday, December 8.

I have closed commenting on this post, so click on over to Stephanie’s blog (<——click it) now!!

Grace, Running Stitch and the ten years between.

I recently listened my Quilters Save Our Stories (QSOS) interview from 2010, where I heard my own voice, an echo of my past, discussing quilt making and hard times. I did this in preparation for a new podcast interview called Running Stitch, also a Quilt Alliance offering, that seeks to highlight and expand upon their rich backlog of quilt history interviews, mine among them. Unrelated to this, I posed for my second Grace portrait by Charise Isis, recently. This convergence of happenings allowed me time to ponder time spent between that November day in 2010 and this August 2020, ten years apart.

In November, ten years ago, I was establishing myself, heck, -I was- established, as an artist, a quilt maker, a surface design artist. I was attending Quilt Market in support of my first book, Inspired to Quilt by Interweave. I was doing well, my artwork was being seen, I was published. I had aspirations of creating a textile line, I felt driven.

I was also, unknowingly, two months away from a Stage 3 breast cancer diagnosis.

No breast cancer story is complete without a discussion of reconstruction. Long story short, I chose breastlessness. My chest is a perfect expanse of scarred, but well healed, ‘aesthetic flat closure’, as it is becoming known.

The growth and the gathering of knowledge, acquired over this decade, has sculpted a more rich, vivid and authentic version, of the Melanie or Melly, I once knew. This new version of Melly has stood naked in front of world class fashion photographers, portrait artists, syndicated news programs and in print magazine articles too. I have used my voice and my flat, breastless, body to make change within the breast cancer community and beyond.

Supported by my queer, artist identity, I asked myself, ‘what would an artist do, when faced with a dearth of visual representation for their bodily choice’? My response, an artist would harness their power and say ‘the thing’. So, I stepped into that uncharted space and said the thing.

I have made explicit, by way of participating in photographic projects, that not all people have breasts. I have made explicit that beauty, or ‘female beauty’, is not dependent on breasts, or even the known hourglass shape that is reflected back at us in media depictions. I have also continued to make artwork that includes female bodies with less than two breasts.

In 2011, my reconstructive choice did not have a name. Researching imagery related to choosing ‘no reconstruction’ or ‘mastectomy without reconstruction’ yielded vapid, headless images, which offered lackluster entry into what it might mean to be breastless. I sought to populate this space with with images that convey laughter, love, determination, grit and out loud proud sex appeal.

I challenged myself by saying, ‘Yes’, to walking Rainbow Fashion Week in NYC, I participated in a movie called the Avant Gardener by Lindsay Katt and I traveled to Berlin, Germany to be photographed for PerfecktUNPerfeckt by Uta Melle and Esther Haase. I have reached into my personal depths to reveal my changed body, while saying the words, ‘my body is good enough’, -to millions- of CBS Sunday Morning television viewers.

All, in order to create a cultural context for people who choose to forego breast mound surgery.

In all of this, I have sometimes felt vulnerable beyond my ability to cope. Sometimes too, I was just as happy to thumb my nose at the assumption that breast mound surgeries were inevitable, for people in my situation.

What I really learned during this time is, my actions, my art and my voice, -my words- are important!

My passionately held ideals are now, thankfully, a shared and community endeavor. I have joined forces to create Flat Closure NOW, where we maintain a gallery of images of breast cancer patients around the world, with printables to bring to your doctor. I also join my voice to a cacophony of fellow advocates, who seek to change the narrative of what it can mean to have breast cancer and choose… aesthetic flat closure.

Just this month, the National Cancer Institute adopted into its dictionary of cancer terminology, the words, ‘aesthetic flat closure’ and given it a clear definition. My choice, now has a name and a specific description of outcome, so that no person need face what I did ten years ago.

Prior to this experience, I did not fully comprehend that one person can, indeed, change the world. I did not understand fully, that using my voice and speaking my mind, could have profound impact beyond the scope of my own personal, earthly bubble. Neither did I understand the importance of visibility within breast cancer community and beyond.

And, along the way, I continued to make artworks that speak to my experience.

I encourage you to check out the Running Stitch podcast interview of me and my mask making endeavors. And then, check out my Etsy, where you will find snazzy masks, hand printed nudes, my latest book and more.

Piecing Unicorn Prints!

I really could not be happier. Last year, I printed gads of cloth. While my new color triangle is not yet complete, I do have Unicorn Feather Prints, Fleur de Lis Prints,Unicorn Prints and more fabrics to be cut and pieced. I love making quilt tops from my handprints.

During holiday break, I cut Fleur de Lis fabrics for a Mini Double Wedding Ring quilt top and a mixture of Feather Prints and Fleur de Lis prints in Drunkards Path. On the horizon, I will be cutting down more Unicorn Prints for a Florrid Bloom quilt top that I have deemed, ‘too small’.

In the meantime, I have found out that Double Wedding Ring blocks take great care and attention, while Drunkards Path blocks are quick, fun and um, addictive. 🙂

I do need to substitute in one semisolid single color print, and one new unrelated print, in order to have a rectangles worth of Drunkards Path blocks.

So, you can see I went for a textured yellow. You will need to wait to see what print I subbed in! Please stay tuned! Also, Happy Holidays! I hope yours were fun, you ate good food, hugged good people and did good things!

I am excited, because I await the shipment of a new sewing machine table! Gratitude!!!

And hey! I discuss these prints in my new offering, Motif Maker’s Zine. Get your copy today!!

Prancing Unicorns for sale!

Textile design and motif making are my absolute favorite things to do. While my latest book, Playful Fabric Printing, illuminates how to go about printing in full detail and using many differing tools, it’s focus is more about the tools you need to use -to make- a print. This is why I have begun the Motif Maker’s Zine.

Within the pages of the zine, I discuss and unpack how to make your own motifs, how to gather similar ideas together to create a collection of motifs, and also how to use texture and patterning to bring sparkle and depth to your drawn imagery.

Unicorns, it turns out, are ripe and ready for interpretation as a motif. I had little idea how much lore and fantasy surround unicorns. But once I began researching them, I fell in love with them. For instance, why, when entering a forest of known unicorn habitation, must you carry pinking sheers? What do soft serve ice cream or gumball machines have to do with unicorns? hmmm.

The zine format allows me to discuss this extensive research with you! Each zine is 16 pages, is hand drawn and illustrated and each has a beautiful centerfold. This is a creative jumpstart for the home studio and surface design artist!

This deep dive into motif making spurred the creation of hand printed hankies, unicorn T-shirts, prints and more. I am hoping you might gift yourself some Melly made items today! Please check out my Etsy!

New Color Triangle in the Works

I am feeling the pull of having access to a new color triangle in a gradation of four values!

Playful Fabric Printing contains a color triangle that Carol Soderlund calls ‘Sunshine’. It’s a great group of colors, and I appreciate being able to draw from all four values of these colors when multicolor printing. But, I would like a new group of colors!

Having taken Carol’s class called ‘Color Mixing for Dyers’, I now want a color triangle in her ‘Juicy’ color way, so I am setting up the necessary items to swatch these new colors using the information presented in our book (page 48, Playful Fabric Printing).

Last summer I printed a new ‘bright’ color way using fuchsia, turquoise and lemon yellow. At that time, I mixed all 28 colors in all four values, all at once. This time, I am going to break it down into two sets of 10 colors and one set of eight, and I am going to try do it in such a way that I can print a new collection of fabrics using the prints I created for the Zine. This is taking some organization and I look forward to being able to complete this project and mount the swatches in my master color book.

Wish me luck!

Motif Making

I have been skittering down a rabbit hole of exploration into Motif Making. Its been fun. Check out my insta to see a fuller picture of this print and it’s fellas.

I am creating a Zine, an artistic, hand written and printed offering, called the Motif Maker’s Zine. These will be 16 page booklets that speak to how to make and use motif in your printed work.

And, while I do that, I am printing hankies using the motifs discussed in the Zine! I hope to get all of this into my Etsy really soon!

In the meantime, I am updating this website, simplifying it, and learning to maintain it myself. I have been disheartened by social media and look forward to occupying this space again.

My life has been morphing and shifting. I am studying to become a personal trainer! I love working out and I would like to get an additional Special Populations certification, so that I can work with cancer patients who want to engage in fitness.

I have broken up my Instagram accounts! I now have an Melly Testa artist insta, my breast cancer advocacy insta and my Flat_and_Fit insta. Please follow me there!

And hello. It feels good to use this space again.

Common Tern

Years ago, I began working on a series that I call, The 20. This centers on the Audubon list of Common Birds in Decline. Because I love birds so much, I decided to highlight these common birds and to give them my voice as an artist. Common Terns are coastal birds whose habitat is being lost to humans and climate change. If you live near or visit the coast, please clean and remove any detritus you find! Especially plastic.

Since I first created the ATC in the upper right corner, I have thought of this image as depicting David and I.

My good Man and I have been married for just over 24 years and we’ve decided to get tattoos to celebrate (our appointments are in less than 2 weeks!!). I have chosen the Common Tern image. This image is so loving, shows such connection between the two birds, it communicates the love I seek to honor. David plans to get a portrait of our good feline, Peach.

So all three of us will be present in the honoring of our time together! That’s what I call family.

The Avant Gardener by Lindsay Katt

Last night my Good Man and I met up with a friend, ate a delicious meal together, then headed to Joe’s Pub, for the NYC premiere of The Avant Gardener by Lindsay Katt, watch the trailer, here (I made it into the trailer!). WOOT! Check out Lindsay’s Music page on FB too.

I remain consistently amazed that I placed myself as a Genderless Fairy, in a MOVIE. As in, I have a mention in the INTERNET Movie Database.

See the glittery awe? That misty dew of OMG, Yes? I got to play the part of The Genderless Fae, again. In person. I got to watch Lindsay’s movie and listen to Lindsay sing.

I got to walk the streets of New York City, as The Genderless Fae.

I hold every instance of artful engagement -like this- in very high regard. Our fellow humans need to -see- the touch of the freak. We need to see the embodiment of showing up and having fun with it. We need to see people doing ‘the thing’ that makes their heart sing. Conformity is encouraged at every turn. It is hard to remain independent.

But, it is great. And fun. And worth it.

I am listed as, ‘Melanie Testa as The Genderless Fairy’.

In. a. Movie.

And the thing is, the motto of the movie, the underlying message of The Avant Gardener is, ‘You can tip-toe through life and get safely to death, or you can really live.’

I mean, I said YES, to this part, during a year where I committed to saying, Yes! ‘Yes, I want to paint my body gold and flit on camera!’ Yes, I will pose in magazine articles and participate in video content online, go to Berlin. Yes, I want new people and different things in my life.

It was one Heck! of a year.

To see myself in this project. To allow myself to feel Lindsay sing on a beautiful night, in the summer, with my Man and friends?

It was magic.

SaveSave

Lost and Stolen 2 sided, handprinted Quilt

Last year, I made this two sided quilt and gained its entry into two well loved magazines, International Quilt Festival Quilt Scene 2017 and Fons and Porters, Modern Patchwork, both magazines are owned by F+W media. The front, pictured above, was completely handprinted using Melly Marks stamps and thermofax screens.

The back of the quilt, is half handprints, half commercial prints. The hand printed aspect of this quilt is what made their entry into these magazines so exciting for me. While I understand folks might be hesitant to print the fabrics used in their quilts, both magazine articles highlighted the handprinted aspect by talking about color value, varying use of texture and motif size. And both magazines showed off the quilt beautifully. Neither showed the back, as I had hoped to discuss this in a future magazine article.

Placing this quilt in a magazine is a huge deal for me as I so often feel like an outlier in the more traditional quilt community. With this quilt in particular, I felt honored to be embraced and showcased as a quilt maker, despite my penchant for working from the ground up, designing the tools to print, mixing the dyes, printing the yardage, piecing, quilting and then getting the work seen.

Unfortunately, when the quilt was shipped back to me, it was left on my stoop, by the shipper, and was stolen off my doorstep. I live in New York City. My doorstep opens out onto the street and there is nowhere to discreetly hide a package.

I contacted the magazine and we discussed my quilts value in addition to the companies shipping policies. As restitution for the loss of the quilt and to honor our longstanding working relationship, they paid me a fee for the quilt, though not its retail value, for which I am still grateful. They also changed their shipping policy to require signature for every shipped item. I am glad they made this change.

I am deeply sorry to have lost this quilt. I am sorry this event overshadowed my ability to support and highlight this quilts foray into print media. I wish I still owned it. I honestly hope it is being used and loved.

SaveSave

Women’s Health

Recently, I participated in an article in Women's Health magazine called How my Body Changed… And How it Changed Me. This is the September issue, whose theme is Strong, Sexy and Naked. For this article, the magazine interviewed three women in total, myself, Sarah Lee Strobel, an amputee and a Lindsay Washburn who has Crohn's disease and an ostomy.

Later in the magazine, the editors asked several women to complete the sentence, 'My naked body is…' to which I would respond, 'the best and most beautiful it has ever been.' Breast cancer facilitated my need to invest in body positivity and body love. And although I would not choose to be diagnosed with cancer, there is grace, there are blessings and there is beauty here.

I did not always think this way. Rather, I adopted these ideals. I faked it for a while, until it became my reality. I invested in finding beauty in all body types, fat and thin, black, white, yellow and red, female, male and everything in between. Prior to breast cancer my ideals were much more narrowly defined, less questioned; I made a conscious choice to embrace body positivity and body love, because my body would forever be changed. This is the blessing.

If you have found me through the Women's Health magazine article, welcome. I help run a support group called My Flat Friends. We don't care what type reconstruction you choose, but you must either know your BRCA status or have been diagnosed with breast cancer. You are welcome to join.

And as always, remember: Stage 4 NEEDS More. If you are inclined, please donate to Metavivor to ensure responsible use of money for breast cancer research that benefits those who need it most.

Modern Quilts Unlimited, Designer Spotlight and Ziggy Star Dots pattern!

Wow. I am in awe of this entire experience. I have never been featured in a quilt magazine, never had a pattern of my creation featured in a magazine and now, I can say both have occurred in the same magazine. Modern Quilts Unlimited did a fantastic job. I hope you have a subscription to this magazine, it is worth it. My quilt resides among other fabulous quilts by Melissa Dunworth, Sharon McConnell and more.

The feature article tells a far reaching story, from prior to going to FIT up until now, mentioning the books I have written, including an image of Playful Fabric Printing and sneak peeks of my upcoming line with RJR Fabrics (which will release in October). The article mentions my breast cancer advocacy work too. I think they did a great job with all of it.

And I am so happy to say, you too can make a quilt like Ziggy Star Dots. This quilt combines fabrics from Uppercase‘s first line of fabrics (Oh goodie, they are coming out with a second line!). I made the quilt specifically to show that you need not print all of the fabrics in a quilt, that pairing handprints with commercial prints really helps expand the quilt tops story. It takes some of the pressure off you as you learn to print your own fabric and helps you whittle your stash away too. It’s an all around win.

I hope you like the playful name as much as I do, what better way to honor your favorite rock and roll superstar than to name a quilt after them?

Flat-Out Fabulous, the New York Post

Today, an article about my breast cancer journey appeared in the New York Post. The hard copy version is named Flat-Out Fabulous, which is, of course, my preferred headline. 🙂

And just to brag? The quilt pictured in the article is my latest! I printed the dot fabric and combined it with commercial prints and it is slated for a feature article in a fabulous quilting magazine. You have seen it first, here!

All of this aside, I would like to say, it is important to me to tell my story. I do it for myself, it helps me heal. But I also do it for those who come after me. I am glad to be strong enough to withstand what I did during my diagnosis and time of need. But no reconstructive option should be weighted more heavily than any other. Bias should not play a role in the options a doctor presents.

I want the words, ‘flat reconstruction’ to be part of the breast cancer lexicon.

If we start using this term, doctors will use it, if doctors use it, insurance companies will use it-and pay for it.

Also? Flat is reconstruction, it takes skill to deconstruct breasts and create a flat surface. When we ask to forego (breasted) reconstruction, we do not mean that we want skin sparing mastectomy, we mean ‘Flat Reconstruction’. Flat. Too many of my friends have asked for ‘flat’ and gotten skin sparing mastectomy (which, in my estimation, is unethical). Neither do we want ‘dog ears’, or flaps of skin under of arms or in the center of our chest. We want flat.

It’s hard enough to come to terms with a changed body, chemo brain, medications and the effects cancer treatment takes on a person. Struggling to accept surgical results should be the least of this equation.

Between the Post article and the CBS Sunday Morning piece, ‘my secret’ was revealed (I hadn’t intended to maintain a support group, but CBS caught on. So there you have it! ).

I have begun a group called, My Flat Friends. This group is intended to support women (we are LGBTQ inclusive) who have been diagnosed with breast cancer, or have been made aware of their BRCA status and are also artists-whatever that means to them. Although the name of the group references ‘flat’, ALL reconstructive options are welcome in the group, because we all have flat friends.

If you need or want support and you fit these criteria, friend me on Facebook and Private Message me through FB, and I will add you to the group.

Check out the My Flat Friends Pinterest Board.

And thank you for standing present to my needs and wishes for the breast cancer community at large.

Great big thanks to Bethany Kandel, the reporter who worked doggedly to present my story in such a great light.

Take a long sigh, steam and boil.

This week in Studio Melly, processing has been happening, it is time to steam and boil fabrics! I kind of think about these things as, designing, printing, processing. And right now, I am at the processing stage. The studio needed some clean up and neatening too. So I went through my backlog of printed fabrics, and liberally placed as many pieces in the steam pile as possible. I got through most of it. I have one more soak and boil, and I will be done for a while. Phew.

I boil fabrics, I prefer it. I am an apartment dweller and we do not have a washer and drier. It is just easier to soak and boil fabric, if you ask me.

While sorting through my back log, I came across this gem, it is a ‘rag’ or trial piece. A piece of fabric where I try out dye viscosity, stamp ideas, ghost printing, whatever crosses my mind. I curate these pieces and tuck them away from myself judiciously. 🙂

I think it will lend itself nicely to embroidery! …Do I feel an embroidery fit coming on?

I came across this print, featuring a Loggerhead Shrike. I drew this bird, originally, from the pages of Birder’s World magazine. I have used this image in so many different and varying pieces, I love working with the same image over time and in series. This Shrike print was featured in a quilt seen in the link above.

And I have a Speed Print session drip drying in the shower. The tiles make that snapshot a bit yellow, but I assure you, the colors are much more bright and snappy than what you can see here.

You know, this is part of processing!

Out and about while binding a quilt

When I was a child, one of my favorite books was called, We Were Tired of Living in A House. Much like it sounds, the children in the family, packed their bags and headed out to make house in a tree, on the beach and so on. Ever in my life as an artist has this concept been of great favor. I do everything in my power to Gather my Sew-plies, or bucket as the case may be, and hit the town.

And today, I must complete a quilt slated for a magazine article. 😜

What better way to drink a bit too much coffee and get out of the apartment, than this.

Round Up: Playful Fabric Printing Blog Hop

As you know, Carol and I are hosting a blog hop to celebrate the release of our book, Playful Fabric Printing. Today’s post is a Round Up of each participant on the hop, with stories of how we met, why we chose each person to participate with links to their websites and social media hubs. I highlight four hoppers on my blog and Carol is highlighting the other four on her blog.

Lisa Chin and I met through social media and have become in-person friends as a result (who doesn’t love making friends in this way?). Lisa’s web presence is called Something Clever about Nothing, a pithy and fun name for the great explorations found within it. Lisa has published articles on topics pertaining to Gelli Plates and Sun Printing, has contributed to books on Zen Doodles, and made an appearance on QATV series 1700. I have been watching Lisa grow and expand her skill set and I am amazed by her commitment to the progress, she has made such strides in such a short time. Please follow Lisa on Facebook, insta and Pinterest.

Judy Coates Perez and I met in the green room on the set of Quilting Arts TV many years ago. We have become teaching roomies whenever we travel to the same event. I have come to love her like a sister and can honestly say her daughter, Indigo, is just as talented as she is (Indigo Perez was the photographer for Playful Fabric Printing and her photos are luscious). But, back to Judy… Judy’s art is amazing. Although I have visited Judy’s home twice, this last visit was the first time that I have touched both these pieces of art. The detail Judy is able to convey is amazing. Judy has self published two books, both of which I highly recommend, Alternatively Bound and Stitched and 10+ Techniques with Acrylic Inks. Please follow Judy on Facebook and insta.

Chris Dodsley, whose brand is Made by ChrissieD, is a local friend and fellow member of NYC Metro Mod Quilters. Chris is a firebrand of creativity and is quick to contribute to Call For and requests for help. Each time I have made a call for help in our community, Chris is ready and willing. Her work is strong, her voice sings through and her presentations and images are tight and professional. Well they should be, as Chris is a sample maker for fabric companies that we all know and love! Chris has been blogging for a long while and has some great tutorials on her site. Please friend her on Facebook, insta and Pinterest too!

And now, we turn to Pokey Bolton. Patricia Chatham Bolton, that is. For this stop on the blog hop, I may just go a bit poetic. I first met Pokey while attending Quilt National 2007. Where Repose had gained entry. While there, Pokey asked to speak with me and proceeded to ask if I might be interested in writing a book based on the techniques used in my winning entry. I said yes, and Inspired to Quilt is the result.

Similar to Charlie's Angels

In preparing to write this post I asked each Blog Hopper for two photos to feature in this post. I told each that it could be of a connection between us or it could be a favorite project. Pokey sent this image of ‘The Gang’, or rather from left to right: Jamie Fingal, Judy Coates Perez, Leslie Tucker Jenison, Pokey Bolton, myself and Jane LaFazio. This is a small grouping of Pokey’s Angels. Pokey’s Angels, as I am currently calling all of us, is an ever growing, expansive and amorphous group.

I am unsure, but I think this is Long Beach 2009? Correct me if I am wrong.

See where I am going with this? Pokey’s Angels makes me think of Charlies Angels. Maybe because we are all gorgeous? 😉

Anyway. Pokey brings together people of diverse artistic background. She gathers people up and creates events, publishes magazines and books, Pokey is a passionate whirlwind of great accomplishment. When Pokey asked if Carol and I might be interested in publishing with her, we felt honored. Honored to earn Pokey’s loyalty. Honored to trust that Pokey would make our content shine. I am confident in saying that every person in the Long Beach photo would say the same were they in our shoes.

Last year Pokey had her inaugural Craft Napa event (January 2016):

and we recreated the photo from so many years ago. The second annual Craft Napa Retreat just unfolded, read Pokey’s recap here. I am happy to say, I want to return to Napa to experience Craft Napa retreats for years to come.

In the meantime, Pokey began publishing again! Playful Fabric Printing, coauthored with Carol Soderlund is Pokey’s first title under the name, Crafting a Life, LLC.

I know as an author, I am tooting my own horn here? But tootin’ needs to happen.

This book is photo and content rich. There is a 28 color triangle of repeatable color, in 4 values, combined with thoroughly tested techniques including the use of Fun Foam, Carving Rubber, Stencil and Thermofax Screens. We present all of the information with an eye toward small space printing, because we know that many of us do not have gads of studio space in work in. Then we go on to present six quilts made with handprints!

This book is huge! And pretty. And it feels nice. It’s a dream come true.

Also? Playful Fabric Printing is published in the U.S.A. <—— This is really important. Pokey has chosen to employ U.S. workers to provide her content. A win for everyone!

This tender photo was taken at Houston Quilt Festival a few years back, when a group of ‘Angels’ honored Pokey’s 40th. We met up for a dinner that included friendship, dressed up Barbie dolls, wine, awesome food, and a whole lot of love. Every time I look at this image, I mist up.

It was my first Festival after a year long slog of breast cancer treatment. I went for no other reason than to be among friends and give myself a treat. And to heal. Because that is what we do for one another. As friends. And community. The very thing Pokey is so good at creating.

This picture, these memories, and so many more, encapsulate what Pokey means to me. Thank you Pokey.

Blog Hop Schedule

Remember, each blog hopper will give away a copy of Playful Fabric Printing, you must comment on that post to enter your name in the giveaway. Comment on every post!! (Most hoppers will close comments in one weeks time, which brings us to February 7. Check each blog for specific dates. My blog comments will remain open until the 7th). Please keep hopping!!

ALSO: Carol and I have also begun a Playful Fabric Printing Facebook Community page and would love for you to join. This will be a space for you to share images of work inspired by the pages or our book, ask questions, receive feedback and participate in print-alongs.

January 23: Melly Testa
https://melanietesta.com/blog/

Jan 24: Carol Soderlund
http://www.carolsoderlund.com/blog/

Jan 25: Lisa Chin
http://somethingcleveraboutnothing.blogspot.com

Jan 26: Julie Fei-Fan Balzer
http://www.balzerdesigns.typepad.com/

Jan 27: Judy Coates Perez
http://www.judycoatesperez.com

Jan 28: Carrie Bloomston
http://www.carriebloomston.com/blog/

Jan 28 Chris Dodsley as made by ChrissieD

http://madebychrissied.blogspot.com

Jan 29: Lynn Krawcyzk
http://smudgeddesignstudio.com

Jan 30: Leslie Tucker Jenison
http://leslietuckerjenison.blogspot.com

Jan 31: Pokey Bolton
http://pokeybolton.com

Art Quilt Collage: A Creative Journey in Fabric, Paint and Stitch, Book Release Blog Hop with Video Chats!

First, I just want to say, I love Deborah Boschert, her art and her person. I feel blessed to know her and great gratitude that her talent calls her to write about her process. Deborah is just releasing, Art Quilt Challenge, A Creative Journey in Fabric, Paint and Stitch.

Deborah asked me to read Art Quilt Challenge and to have a discussion with her about symbols, which really turned into an eye opening endeavor for me.

Deborah and I both use symbols and symbolism in our work. Deborah clearly lays out how to find and access symbols that resonate with you, helps you attach meaning to those symbols and then illustrates different methods to using those symbols in your work.

Within the pages of Deborah’s book she uses chairs, a bowl, a ladder. These all have very different meanings to Deborah, than they do for me, or you-probably. Symbols are a means of visually communicating idea. As we learn to express ourselves artistically, it is a good idea to apply meaning to the symbols we use, even if we never tell anyone what our intended meaning is! And, of course, the viewer of the artwork brings their own history, interpretations and personal connections to what they are seeing.

Chairs, in my own artwork, speak to the human form. Chairs are made for humans. Walking into a room with chairs lets you know, you can relax. There is symbiosis between people and chairs. And so, when it comes to my art, when I use a chair in artwork, I am working with ideas related to people, bodies, and -who- might use that perch.

Deborah thinks about the -activity- that can be done in a chair when she describes ‘quietly embracing the opportunity to be restful, but not idle or inactive’. This was an ‘aha moment’ for me, that illustrates, symbols really do have a wide array of meaning, artistically speaking. And each of us applies meaning in ways that are meaningful to us individually.

So, if you are feeling like you would like to explore your own use of symbols, and would like to unpack and use some innovative and fresh techniques, I do hope you will purchase a copy of Deborah book. Deborah’s book covers design, composition, collage, surface design, stitch by hand and machine, as well as finishing techniques, walking you through the entire process, while helping you understand it with deeper meaning. Beside which, Art Quilt Collage is eye candy!

I am happy to be giving away a copy of Deborah’s book! Leave a comment here on the blog telling us about symbols that you often use in your artwork. I will choose a lucky winner on October 7. ________________________________________

Check out the other participants in the blog hop:

September 19: C&T Publishing and Editor Lynn Koolish

September 20: Teri Lucas, Generation Q Magazine

September 21: Susan Brubaker Knapp

September 22: Sue Bleiweiss

September 23: Lyric Kinard

September 26: Lori Kennedy

September 27: Maria Shell

September 28: Jane LaFazio

September 29: Judy Coates Perez

September 30: Melanie Testa

This Shrikes my fancy!

I really can’t wait for The Book that Carol Soderlund and I have been working on to come into print! While I can’t go into specific detail about this, I can give broad overviews as to what you might expect to learn. So here goes.

As artists, it is suggested that we find a subject matter we are passionate about and to apply ourselves and our artwork to this. We do this in order to work in series and to show continuity of subject matter. I have chosen birds and even more specifically, the Audubon list of Common Birds in Decline as my focus. (Unfortunately, Audubon has not updated their web site in such a way that all the links work properly, the above link shows the full list of birds, at least).

Loggerhead Shrike is number 18 on this list. Delving deeply into acquiring knowledge of this bird began by drawing a Shrike from the pages of a birding magazine. From there I went on to inform myself about this bird, learning that it is a meat eating songbird who uses tools, like barb wire to kill it’s prey. This bird can sometimes be misidentified as a Northern Mockingbird, because of its color and size. It can also be mistaken for a hawk because its meat eating beak is sharply curved, to make it all the easier to eat its prey.

When bringing these facts to the design table, it is important to illustrate just the essentials. As you can see, when looking at the stamped image of the print, above, I chose to illustrate the curved beak and this birds propensity to use tools to kill it’s prey. These are two things that distinctly differentiate the Loggerhead Shrike from the Northern Mockingbird.

Note: A ‘strike off’ is a first printing of a stamp or tool.

I love printing cloth to be used in quilts, so the Loggerhead Shrike print was paired with two differently sized feather prints and some commercial solids to help fill out the yardage necessary to make a quilt.

And while, I have not illustrated how to make the tools for this particular design, the above quilt will be featured in our upcoming book with Crafting a Life, LLC. Directions on how to place your own most favored subject matter into repeat will be covered-in detail.

I know that I often choose some pretty detailed imagery to work with, so I followed Carol’s suggestion to teach the effective use of motif and repeat by using more simple and approachable motifs than Loggerhead Shrikes! That is what working with a coauthor and friend does!! I hope you are as excited to learn these techniques and ideas as we are in being able to share them with you!

Nudity, Art and Quilt Art

Recently the quilt world was aflutter with talk of penises, and I became embroiled in the discussion-of course.

The American Quilter’s Society, known as AQS, chose to pull Kathy Nida’s artwork titled, I Was Not Wearing A Life Jacket, from a SAQA show because of a complaint that there was a penis depicted. In Kathy’s own words, ‘There was no penis‘. Abby Glassenberg wrote a great essay on How AQS Mishandled the Online Fallout After pulling Kathy Nida’s Quilts, which is a great introduction to how the story unfolded. SAQA responded with this statement, which, in my opinion, is serviceable with a noticeable wish to connect and explain. AQS, on the other hand, buried its head in the sand.

In an effort at full disclosure, I am hesitant to speak about SAQA’s part in this debacle, because I stopped renewing my membership with the group years ago- and I feel my points would be stronger, were I to be an active member. Even still, I have been reevaluating what groups, magazines and venues might help me get my work seen while also helping me connect to our shared community. I have not yet renewed my membership to SAQA, though they are top on my list of possibilities.

I would like to back up to 2007 or so, when I put the label on Gentle, seen below.

When I began making Gentle, I was a member of SAQA, and I was showing a lot of work with my local group. It was fun, I met great people, we were able to find some great venues, and my confidence bloomed while my resume grew. This is everything an artist could want in a membership of this type.

While quilting Gentle, a friend remarked, “Why make an image of a nude male with penis visible, it will never get shown in the quilt world”.

And alas, it never did.

I entered it into as many shows as I could, both through my SAQA group and in the larger quilt show community. But it never gained acceptance into a quilt show. Conversely, Repose and Wandering in the Garden have not had any problems with gaining visibility or acceptance into shows or magazines. But, we are conditioned to see and accept the female nude body, so it is easy to see why they both gained acceptance.

I understand that AQS has their own agenda, one that does not seem to be aligned with embracing artistic expression to the degree that Kathy’s artwork might require. SAQA, at least, took ownership of their part by admitting their contract allowed for this to occur and suggesting that they will continue to look for galleries and museums to show works.

But, the fact that the artwork was taken down?

That is censorship.

Women and women’s art isn’t always pretty, it’s not always easy to view, but it -is- pretty hard to see (this Gorilla Girls poster was created in 2012). Head over to the Gorilla Girls website for more interesting but sad facts about women’s art getting seen.

I must acknowledge, the quilting world does a great job of getting quilts seen. So when a show instantly backs a single viewer and removes a piece of art without question, it’s it is both startling and disheartening. And for them to remove a piece of art for containing -a nonexistent- penis, is questionable (and sad too).

I don’t really think the censorship we have experienced with AQS has much to do with male nudity but rather with difficult, uncomfortable, and devisive subject matter within a predominately female artistic media. To remove Kathy’s work based on the false premise of a penis depiction, is tantamount to saying, ‘that is not pretty enough’, ‘that makes me uncomfortable’, because there was no penis.

I love and appreciate that we quilters have made a huge community of traveling quilt shows and venues. We have created our own subculture and we are making sure that quilts get -signed and seen- as the art they are. But I would hope that we would think long and hard before censoring the subject matter we see at these shows. All it takes is -walking past work that does not resonate with you-.

Kathy’s artwork was removed because of a false accusation. AQS did not question the validity of the claim, did not contact the artist, and it refuses to acknowledge the issue through social media. This type action can result in questioning the content we choose to explore as artists, forcing us to answer difficult questions like, ‘Do I make this piece, even if I won’t be able to get it shown?’ ‘Is this subject matter too difficult?’ ‘Do I follow where my muse takes me, or do I make work that is safe and acceptable?’

I know from personal experience that these questions have great impact. I have not made another male nude because I was so bummed about not being able to get Gentle seen.

Fortunately, this will soon change. Spool owned by Maddie, Flaun and family, have invited me to show Gentle along side Kathy Nida’s two pieces, I Was Not Wearing a Life Jacket and Fully Medicated, during AQS Quilt Week, September 14-17 2016.

Social media has had a unifying affect on the quilt world. I have been really excited, invigorated and happy to be a member of the quilt world in the face of these happenings. The rift created by Modern Quilt Guild (I am talking about the derivative discussion) paired with this AQS debacle have shed light on the passion, connection and strength contained within our diverse community. It also serves to illustrate introspection and a willingness to grow and change.

All great stuff!

Because of all of this, I want to stress, DO NOT allow the censorship of Kathy Nida’s artwork to have an effect on your willingness to discuss difficult subject matter in your quilts and quilt art. It is not our job as artists to appease our audience or to make our work palatable to venues (and viewers) who do not have our best interest in mind.

And, you never know, you may find an advocate for the beauty of the human body, wanting to show your work, during the same week as the AQS show. All because you showed up, voiced your thoughts and opinions, and you care.

And to that I say:

Please stop by Spool to see Kathy Nida’s two works, I was not wearing a Life Jacket and Fully Medicated and my own piece, Gentle! Say hello to Maddie and Flaun.

AND! They will have pins with the above sentiment to wear to the AQS show!

I would love it if you wore a pin, photographed yourself in front of Kathy’s work and post it to social media with the hashtag #AQS. You might also choose to point out the penis in Gentle, to give them an anatomy lesson. ♥

LESS, a documentary and help with funding it

Hello Good People, Friends and Family.

Many of you know that just over 5 years ago I was diagnosed with breast cancer and I chose to forego reconstruction and to embrace my body as it is, without wearing breast forms or presenting a shape that is not my own.

Since my diagnosis and much to my chagrin, I have learned that almost 58% of women diagnosed with breast cancer, like me, choose -not- to reconstruct their bodies. Where many find comfort in reconstruction or the use of breast forms as a means to resume life after breast cancer treatment, many do not. I am happy to be a part of a growing group of women have chosen to embrace their bodies as the beautiful vessels that they are, simply and without the need or societal pressure to present an hourglass shape.

In the last two years, I have worked to increase visibility for the breastless female body. I have written articles on my own blog, worked with Play Out underwear and FlatTopper Pride to create editorial content that went viral twice, I have also posed for HuffPO and Women’s Health magazine. I was filmed by CNN and the Great Big Story, telling my story in video format.

I have done this in an effort to reach as many women as possible and to make space for those who, like myself, chose not to reconstruct their bodies after breast cancer treatment.

Last September, in Berlin, I participated in a fantastic photoshoot with Esther Haase, a high fashion photographer, where footage for a documentary called LESS was also shot. Myself and 13 other women were interviewed, we poured out our souls, made bonds of friendship and created a tellingly beautiful array of images to help us embrace our own bodies while also giving us imagery for editorial content to be used in our social circles, countries and web sites.

LESS Trailer from Nondual Productions on Vimeo.

LESS, the documentary, needs funding in order to make it to the big screen.

PLEASE HELP US AND SUPPORT OUR DOCUMENTARY(!) and the Crowdfunding Campaign for the documentary LESS that features breast cancer survivors on the photoshoot of Esther Haase. LESS is not really about cancer so much as about these brave and beautiful women who – with the absence of breasts, quietly question society’s presumptions about what a woman should be and are calling for something all of us desire – an accepting and compassionate society where we can all be ourselves, no matter what.

Click here to donate, please.

Check out our LESS trailers and PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD & SHARE the Crowdfunding Campaign for this important project on fb, twitter and with your email contacts. Every little bit helps.

PLUS! I have donated three pieces of artwork to this fundraiser, I would love to see my work on your wall!

😛 THANK YOU!
Melly

Gathering my color.

The Gather your Sew-plies!! purse is just the right size to stitch, explore and complete. It is 6″ wide and 14″ long and given how it folds to make the purse, that can mean that you can stitch just the front area, making the stitchable area 6×7″ or so.

Of course, I like to stitch the entire purse.

The above blank, which is what I call these before they are heavily stitched, is a combo of my own quilted work and some previously stitched Indian cloth (at least that is what I think). The colors are rich and compatible. I seek to amp up the textural element, meaning my stitchwork, to integrate the Indian cloth with my own quilted fabric and soften the difference between the two. I may need some new thread colors…

You may remember that Carol Soderlund and I collaborated on an article called Thread Dyeing 101 for Quilting Arts magazine last year. In the article we took two approaches to dyeing thread, we offered a color wheel, solid dye approach and a more fluid and playful manner of dyeing threads too.

And while I think this thread is a bit bright for my current piece, I do like having all my threads ready to be used and accessible. Getting these floss off the StitchBow makes me want to wind some new hanks and dye some more thread in appropriate colors! I would love to have some browns, beiges, tans and soft, earthy colors in my thread stash!

Gather your Sew-plies!! Part 3 and beyond!

The Gather your Sew-plies series continues with this video start, part 3. Above.

Intro, Click Here. Youtube VIDEO Content.

Part 1, Click Here. Youtube VIDEO Content.

Part 2, Click Here. Youtube VIDEO Content.

Pattern found in Quilting Arts Holiday 2014

Above links embedded in similar order:

and also:

and then, Part 1:

Part 2

Phew. Are you still with me?

I have added more video content to the Gather your Sew-plies!! purse series! In the next few weeks, I am going to be updating my blog with post about stitch, acquiring inspiration for stitch, thread and needles. I will talk about building and sewing Thimble Pockets, Scissor Pockets and Straps.

I hope you will follow along.

I have hit a snag in teaching through The Clever Guild, please stay tuned on that account. It is coming together. Just slower than I would like.

So, will you follow along? I would love it if you did. Stay tuned here, at my blog!

For Christmas, I was given a set of Personal Training sessions. 😀 Haha!!

I chose a young woman, a really neat person, to organize my training for the next few weeks. My overarching goal is 10 Pull Ups and 10 Push Ups. An underlying goal is to efficiently and proficiently perform the Get Glutes program that I am now a member of. Since joining the gym, I have moved right into the hugely supportive community, forums and group run by Get Glutes; Kellie Hart-Davis and clan.

I love the Get Glutes members. Love checking in and getting inspired by my fella friends in glutes! I love lifting heavy and learning to use my body.

And, my goodness, every push-up and pull-up is so hard won!! Winning accomplishments in the use of my body is very exciting to me. I admire those who pump out a bunch of push-ups! I am getting there. (I jumped rope for 140 consecutive jumps!!) And cable rowed 32.5 pounds this week!! I am becoming a gym bunny! 🙂

#breastlessbeauty

If you are coming here after watching the Great Big Story piece about me, welcome.

Check out the Great Big Story video here.

I am an artist and an activist for Flat Re/Construction due to breast cancer treatment. Going flat, not wearing breast forms, is a beautiful and vibrant option, one option among many-due to breast cancer diagnosis. Some women relate to and need reconstruction, some do not. All of us could benefit by investing in body positivity, love and respect for the one-beautiful-body you own.

Welcome to my blog and web site.

I am working to bring 30 hand printed Breastless Beauties up to completion and hope to sell them directly from a gallery page, here on my site. I will be making a donation from the proceeds of the sales to a well researched breast cancer group, I will let you know the specifics soon.

The Beauty pictured above os Breastless Beauty 1, which you will see, by comparing the gallery image to the above image, has been stitched upon and appears different than the original. It is my hope that you might follow along, by reading posts here on the blog, as I finish hand stitching each of the Beauties in the gallery!

They are coming along quite nicely, I hope you agree.

If you would like to follow along and read some of the articles I have contributed to over the last year, please do. Huffington Post invited me to pose for an article called 24 Women Bare their Scars to Reveal the Beauty in Imperfections. Women’s Health magazine invited me to contribute to 4 Women Show the Reality of their Mastectomies in Stunning Photos. I participated in a Play Out underwear photoshoot with the essay called, Shirts Off, Underwear On: Play Out, Breast Cancer and Gender Expectations. And I participated in Grace, debuting that photos release with this essay called, The Grace to be Flat & Fabulous. I also participated in Jamie Courville‘s audio portrait called Squirrel Stories. I keep a Pinterest board specific to flat sightings across the web!

I would very much like for you to use the hashtag #breastlessbeauty. If you are a flattie, a uniboober, if you wear prosthesis or not, tag yourself with #breastlessbeauty. That way, we can find one another!

Wow, a whirlwind.

These last few weeks have been amazing. Hectic crazy, fun, well worth it.

My creative stand still came to an end, thank goodness.

I went to quilt market while visiting my Bestie. I learned a lot.

And the Play Out (click this link to see a sexy, hip commercial for the undies) and Flattopper Pride underwear photoshoot went viral. It started with HuffPo, then it shifted and became a sprinkling of articles, then I started seeing my photograph under Japanese characters, in Norwegian online magazines, BuzzFeed, Mashable, People. I was interviewed for an article in Women’s Health (apologies to my husband, it just popped out.). I don’t know what, ‘in association with the New York Times means but, I think it got very close to being in the New York Times, if not officially in it.

I was able to meet Barbara Rosenblat, the actress who played Ms. Rose in Orange is the New Black, a favorite show of mine. In season two she was in cancer treatment. I won’t tell the story, I just loved the character she played. Rain Dove, the androgynous model I am pictured beside in a few of the ad campaign and on the red carpet event at the New York Women in Film and Television, where I met Ms. Rosenblat.

I was thrilled. I love the above scene. Just love it.

I experienced vile and bullying comments. That wasn’t a treat. But my self esteem is not tied to other people’s opinions of me, so that is that. I am thinking up a post about this, having to do with allowing love in, opening your heart to all body types, breasted, reconstructed, flat, fat, thin and differently abled.

Let me know if you are interested in this.

OH! And, I am printing the border for my next quilt top! Next up, green!! Photos to follow. Let me just say, I want this quilt top done by Saturday, Quilt Guild! I am very excited about it.

And, hey wait!! Brave? Well, yeah. Determined. Willing. Beautiful. Brave is the least of it.

#BreastlessBeauty

Please comment. I miss you all. It has been a good few weeks and better to get back into the flow of creative living.

sewing wherever I go.

I have been preparing myself to be able to sew wherever I go. A few years back, I began to make the Gather your Sew-plies purses, in the hope of being able to keep all essentials at the ready, in a neat and tidy package. (In case you are wondering, a pattern was published in last years Quilting Arts Holiday magazine.) Along with this, I have gathered an array of colorful embroidery thread, several hand-work projects and I even bought a protective, sturdy case for my iPad, so that I do not have to worry, too much, about it being bumped and joggled.

In addition, I am researching the best coffee shops in New York City (with free Wifi), so that I can really experience sewing wherever I go and documenting my experience. Today, I am again at my local coffee shop, 61 Local. I bet I come here a fair amount because it is local and easy, but I also want to see and experience different parts of the city, especially as the weather improves. I love sewing in public, or public displays of sewing, as I like to think of it. Many folks sew in a privacy of their homes or studios, but for this project, I would like to think of the city as my studio.

And! I love watching tv as I sew, as long as I have access to wifi, I can watch tv too! Here I am watching The Connection, a (short term) free streaming movie, promoted by Food Matters about the mind-body connection. Watching tv in public (I wore my headphones) seems silly, though also fun. And why not? Normally, I listen to music on my headphones. Watching tv in public isn’t all that different! Odd, maybe.

Do you sew in public? Do you draw wherever you might be? How about knitting in public? If, you too, have interest in busting out of your normal space, with your everyday activities, I would love to hear about it.

Magical Peach +

This is a reminder to all: There is much magic in the world and you never know where, how, or in what shape/form it might reveal itself.

The above is a typing that occurred when Peach, our cat, walked over my keyboard. I don’t think this was a mistake.

Just a moment prior to this configuration of syllables, I saw the correct spelling of the word,

“magical”.

And Peach, is, most certainly magical.

This month, we have had her for two years, she was a rescue, a city cat, she had kittens, she got caught with her babies. Her babies were placed in homes. Peach caught ring worm at the veterinary office, which placed her in solitary confinement for two-months-straight, this caused her to modify or shorten, her tail. She had plastic surgery (her tail is very cute!), she healed.

Then.

We found one another. We all fell for one another immediately.

When we met Peach, she was a charmer, whenever someone, a new person, came into her presence, she would charm them. It makes sense that if she were in ‘solitary’, that charming people would become necessary. She must have been lonely.

Everyone needs love and care.

In the last two years I have worked with her to lessen her fear of loud noises. Peach is becoming interested in sitting in our laps. She shows trust and love. She is much less a charmer. I appreciate this, as I prefer her needs are met and that she knows it, without feeling as if she needs to charm anyone.

Now, I will change subjects.

Over the last year, I have been working to write a book with a good friend. It has been a lot of fun, I am learning new things. Making great art. Learning to collaborate. Unfortunately, the book was cancelled a few weeks ago. We retain full rights to our materials (no worries there). I will not go into details as to why this occurred, let me just say, the publishing industry is changing quickly. I have mentioned the book a couple of times here on my blog and I reference ‘the book’ in the article about me and my studio in Generation Q (Issue 14). The book will be published, in some form. I/we will not stop working to promote it. But as Forrest Gump says, “That’s all I am going to say about that.”

Life happens.

Even still! This interview about me, my studio and use of space, is quite interesting. I do hope you will purchase a copy and share your thoughts with me. I have been putting a lot of thought into what a home printing studio ‘needs’ in order to function well.

Pardon me for the less that awesome photograph. This quilt top is a few months old. I have been sitting on it and waiting for quilt #2. (I am making two sided quilts.) The quilt I was working on over Holiday Break is the mate to what you see here. I am not ready to talk about that one yet. I will clue you in soon.

But this, one.

This is fun right? This is a total stash buster. I cut swaths of squares at 4″. Commercial fabrics, hand printed, I chose fabrics from my entire stash. I grouped these together and randomly sewed. Playing with light and dark was a bunch of fun, I wanted it to sparkle and think it does. I love loosing myself in mindless, though highly rewarding, tasks like this. This quilt is about 7o” square, I did not make it as a bed quilt, not for my bed, which is a king. It is just that my bed is the largest flat place in the apartment.

A four inch square stack of cut cloth is so rewarding. I want to use my stash up completely and start acquiring when needed rather than stashing and storing. I think this part is great. (Use The Stash–). I have been printing cloth for quite a few years, but I have not been using it. Using the things you have and make causes you to make more, doesn’t it? It is a complete circle.

I like circles.

And dots.

(Hey! I have begun using Instagram!! Friend Me, please. This year, I will communicate more through photograph, than words, I am going to start using Instagram a lot this year. Let’s have fun together and hook up over there. Shall we?

Oh, and Quiltography for iPad? Best 15$ I have spent in a very long time. Christopher Oxley? Brilliant!!! And again, that is all I am going to say about that. Buy it. I am not making money for saying so. But, I am sold; hook line and sinker.

Oh, AND!!! I have mentally bought Jen Sinkler’s Lift Weights Faster 2 already. I anxiously await it. March 10.

Winner Announcement? Sonja Mclane

That is all the news that is fit to print.

Let the Sew-along begin.

Above you see a quilt sandwich, a scissor pocket and two tabs which will hold the strap in place. We will be making a quilt sandwich that is big enough to cut all of these pieces, in addition to a thimble pocket.

The pattern in Quilting Arts Holiday magazine states to cut your quilt sandwich to 6″ wide. I have made many of these purses, some that start with a quilted sandwich, some that don’t. I find that the batting in the quilted Gather your Sewplies!! purses takes up a bit of ‘room’. You may want to use flannel rather than batting for this reason-or choose to forgo batting altogether.

If you choose to use batting, I would suggest adding a half inch to the width of the pattern.

This week, your task is to piece, batt, back, baste and machine quilt a quiltlet utilizing the information I have presented in this post.

Here you see the start of my mini quilt. I have not added batting yet. The striped rose pattern peeking out will be the backing of this mini quilt. I have placed a rose print at what will become the center front of the purse and have used a pink floral print at the bottom of the quiltlet, this will become the flap that will securely close the purse.

SEW!

I made the executive decision to forego batting in this version of the purse. What you see here is the purse body, where I brought some of the 1940’s vintage stripe to the front of the quilt sandwich. This sandwich consists of the backing, the top and several rows of machine stitching using free rayon embroidery thread. To the right are two tabs to hold the strapping, which is also pictured. The additional piece of vine fabric will be used for a zipper pocket.

This week your task is to make a quilt sandwich, a top, batting and a back, or follow my lead an create some made cloth. Next week, we will make the spaghetti straps, place the tabs, fold the pattern properly and sew it closed. Stay tuned.

A reminder: Here is a link to the magazine, if you don’t have a copy already. I will reference the magazine article throughout this sew-along, though I cannot post the pattern or send you a copy. You must purchase the magazine in order to sew-along with us.

Here are links to previous blog posts related to the sew-along:

The announcement

The tools you may need

Please excuse my camera and color issues. I have been away from blogging for so long that I need to catch up with myself and the technology.

Gather your Sew-plies!! sew-along.

I am so happy that there has been interest shown in having a Gather your Sew-plies!! sew-along. I love making and using these little purses. I find them to be incredibly useful.

To tell you the back story, if you own a copy of Inspired to Quilt you will find a pattern for a sewing holster. For years, I used a sewing holster, which is a finished strip of quilted fabric with pockets that could be draped around the neck. The sewing holster worked, but presented problems. If the objects stored in the pockets were not balanced, the holster would pull heavily to one side. When getting up and down, I would need to hold the holster in place. You get the idea. A few years back, I decided to work on the pattern and see if I could correct the imbalances.

The Gather your Sew-plies purse was born. At first, this purse had several pieces, the main pouch, a scissor pocket, a thimble pocket, a flap closure, a strap tab and strap. When I started thinking about making a pattern for Quilting Arts Gifts, I decided to simplify the purse as much as possible. The Quilting Arts Holiday version of the pattern works almost like the plastic sandwich bags that have a flip top closure. This turns out to be quite sturdy manner to close the bag, leaving no open areas where your trusty sewing thimble might otherwise escape. I removed the thimble pocket entirely, though during the sew-along, I will go through the steps you need to create one.

One of the things I like about the old pattern with the flap closure was the fact that I began covering earth magnets with cloth in order to securely close the flap closure. That is a dandy method of closure and I will talk about that during the sew-along as well.

I have come to think of my varied collection of Gather your Sew-plies purses as an art collection! I hope one day to have 30 of these bags, because it is nice to make one, but when you make 30, it definitely becomes Art. Or at least a showing of obsessive compulsive glee. I don’t know which.

So, let’s get started. First, you will need a copy of the magazine, please use this link if you intend to purchase a copy. Using that link will help Quilting Arts track how many copies are sold through my web site. I do not make money from this. As the pattern is copyrighted, I cannot post or email a copy of the pattern to you. I can expand upon what has been published in the magazine, which is what I intend to do during the sew-along.

Beside the magazine itself, you may need a 3/8th inch 3/8″ release clasp buckle, I have come to love these buckles, they pleasingly clip and pop open. I bought many of them, because I apparently need at least 30 of these purses. But. I must say, finding a notion or solution to finishing your purse without this buckle will be a worthy adventure. I am sure we can find some interesting ways to enable you not to purchase the release clasps, if you do not want to purchase them.

Another notion you will need is a Loop Turner . That link shows the loop turner that I use. I am not ‘married’ to this loop turner and if you know of another turner that might work better than this one, I would like to know about it. The thing that holds me back from unequivocal love is the fact that we will need upwards of 70″ of spaghetti strapping to make the straps for this purse. 70″ of bias tubing does not fit on this loop turner, so I make my loops in two pieces and join them after turning them. So post a comment if you have a better tool for the task.

Beside the above items, I bet you have all of the necessary fabrics and notions to make the purse. Because some of you may need to purchase a few items, I think we might start this along in a few weeks time. I am working on the posts related to the -along right now. I will let you know just how I plan to present the info quite soon. I am thinking several posts over the course of a week might do it, though weekly posts might be nice too. Your thoughts?

Leave some comments and help me get back into the swing of blogging! Please?

Gather your Sew-plies, Quilting Arts Holiday edition.

I am happy to have published in the Quilting Arts Holiday gifts issue, which showcases my Gather your Sew-plies purse.

This sewing purse is the Bee Knees, if you ask me. These purses were designed with movement in mind. The bag itself embraces a reverse pack pack styling, so, it sits at the front of your body, safe and secure, as you move around your sewing studio.

The pattern in Quilting Arts Holiday has directions for a scissor pocket, though you need not stop there! As you can see, I have also included a tiny pocket to hold my thimble.

Sometimes the purses themselves become a canvas on which to stitch and embroider.

And sometimes I include fancy bits of fabric in the lining. I have also been known to clip rounded bits of plastic from milk bottles and juice containers to tuck into the scissor pocket-which protects the fabric from being punctured by my embroidery scissors.

See? You can even swing while ready to sew.

All in all, I can’t live without these little functional bits of beauty. So far, I have made about 15 of these purses, each has thread, embroidery floss, some Thread Heaven (An Amazon link, I LOVE Thread Heaven as a thread ‘conditioner’), and the pattern has evolved over time. Sometimes I make them with flaps as you see in the above photos, sometimes I make them with a fold of fabric that flips over and closes the purse (this is the pattern that Quilting Arts Holiday has published). I also like to thread string through the bias straps, which strengthens them.

I would love to have a Gather your Sew-plies sew along if you are interested!?? Please post a comment below and tell me know if you would like to do this. You will need to purchase the magazine to access the pattern, but I have many additional ideas and notions that will make this quite the fun sew-along.

Check out these other posts on the blog hop too!

Friday, September 12, Vivika Hansen DeNegre, http://quiltingdaily.com/

Saturday, September 13, Lyric Kinard, http://lyrickinard.com/blog/

Sunday, September 14, Claude Larson, http://randomactsofpiece.blogspot.com/

Monday, September 15, Linda McLaughlin, http://notesfromstudiob.blogspot.com/

and Kathy Kerstetter, http://artndl.blogspot.com

Tuesday, September 16, Lori Miller, http://lorimillerdesigns.wordpress.com/

Wednesday, September 17, Melanie Testa, https://melanietesta.com/blog/,

and Liz Kettle, http://www.textileevolution.com/index.php/our-journey

Thursday, September 18, Susan Brubaker Knapp, http://wwwbluemoonriver.blogspot.com/

Friday, September 19, Lisa Chin, http://somethingcleveraboutnothing.blogspot.com/

Saturday, September 20, Sarah Ann Smith, http://www.sarahannsmith.com/weblog

Sunday, September 21, Catherine Redford, http://catherineredford.com/

big sigh of relief.

Let me tell you, it feels good to be printing for no one but myself. It feels good not to be working under a deadline. It feels good to take a break in the middle of the day and feel no guilt what-so-ever. It feels good to leave the house. It feels good to write a blog post. I have been busy. I miss the commeraderie and interaction that blogging provides. I miss saying, ‘Hey, this is what I am up to.’

Big deep sigh.

I am happy to say, I have a few articles available through our favorite quilting magazines-I will be posting about two others later in the week.

This quilt was featured in Gen Q magazine. I love this quilt, as I dyed, surface designed and printed every piece of fabric within it. This quilt taught me to cut into and use my own hand printed cloth (again-this seems to be a lesson that I need to relearn periodically).

In my ideal world, I would not have a stash of fabric, though I do. I continue to whittle it down, as was my intention when I made this quilt. But, I do not like the concept of stashing, I would much rather know what I have on hand and use it before hand printing and storing, additional goods. For many years, I printed cloth, in loose repeat, using a plethora of techniques and tools, all of this cloth has been stored in the cabinets you see behind my workbench and in some other boxes not photographed for this post.

Rather than use the cloth, I immersed myself in learning other techniques, and I moved the cloth from one house or apartment to another. I would take the cloth out, now and again, and sift through it, wondering what I might do with it. I don’t know where the disconnect lay. Perhaps I felt, that because I designed the tools to print with, printed the cloth, washed and admired it, it was ‘too good to be cut into’. But if this is the theory, then that says that I am unsure I can print more cloth that will satisfy me as much.

And I know this is not the case.

So, I have begun whittling down my stash of hand printed cloth, making quilts with it, and then printing more cloth. This is purposeful. This suits my intentions and space needs much better!

I hope you like the quilt too.

American Patchwork & Quilting ((Podcast))

I am really happy to say that Pat Sloan and American Patchwork & Quilting did an interview of me to discuss Meadowlark and some upcoming projects. I would love for you to listen to this podcast as you are able. You can subscribe by itunes (search American Patchwork & Quilting) if you weren’t able to listen to it live, and please check out Pat’s post on her personal blog here.

This was a 12 minute interview and boy do 12 minutes go by quickly. Because of this, I have decided to upload and answer some of the other questions that Pat might have asked me if there was time to do so.

Pat Sloan wanted to ask: Your fabric line Meadowlark is very painterly and is your signature style.. I love it! How did you develop the fabric line? (explain your motivation with the Audubon list of birds in Decline)

My line is named after the Eastern Meadowlark found within the bird print in the line. I have always been enamored of birds and when I found the Audubon list of Common Birds in Decline, I knew I needed to add my voice to those seeking to help save the birds and bring light to how to manage the habitat that supports them. The Eastern Meadowlark needs prairie grassland to lay eggs and nest. Smart management of both public and privately owned grass fields can really help. Mowing these fields in late August will allow Meadowlarks the time they need to help their babies jump the coop.

Pat Sloan wanted to ask: Did you have to narrow down the colors, or did that happen naturally?

After I shopped my portfolio at Market and was taken on by Windham fabrics, the folks at Windham chose the designs they wanted and asked if I might tighten up my printing and color choices. I thought about this for a while and decided the only way to proceed was to print a whole new group. I chose a new palette, mixed my dyes and printed a tighter, cleaner, more cohesive group of prints. At that point I thought I was finished. I met with the folks at Windham again and was asked to please print some tone on tone or semi-solids. And again, I went home, and printed more cloth.

As you can tell, I went through a bit of a learning curve with this whole process. I trust my next line will be much easier to create, print, and submit to Windham because of this.

Pat Sloan wanted to ask: What is your favorite project you’ve made (or seen made) with your fabric so far?

Well, while you can see images of the projects on the Windham website (I can’t link directly for technical reasons), I love the quilt called Lark Star, designed and made by Stephanie Forsyth. I am happier still to be able to say, this quilt is being written up for an upcoming McCall’s Quilting. But this really isn’t a fair question. Many of my friends and sample makers made awesome work and several of them have been taken on for editorial placement in out favorite quilting magazines, Generation Q, Modern Patchwork, McCall’s Quilting and Fons and Porters Easy Quilt, and Quilting Arts too.

I feel blessed.

Pat Sloan wanted to ask: I’d love to know what style quilts you drawn to?

The pretty ones!

I love modern quilting, which is so clean and crisp, but the textile designer in me balks at too much solid, unpatterned cloth. Because I like designing and printing patterns, when I begin to make my own quilts, I want to use lots and lots of patterned cloth.

Recently an editor at a favorite magazine said that my quilts are contemporary. As a result, I have been researching what this means and how my quilts might fit into this category. I feel like the doors are wide open for me at the moment. I considered myself an art quilter for so long that now that my sites have swung back to my more traditional roots, the quilt world has become my oyster!

I hope you enjoy the podcast and my additions to the content. Please let me know what you think in the comments.

for the birds

The small quilt sandwich seen above is an accomplishment of conversational prints! It is a pun, do you get it?

Armchair Birder.

Total geeky cackle over here, this is great birding humor! 🙂 I got into textile design because I fell in love with conversational prints. So, I particularly like this combination of fabrics. But I am also an armchair birder. My bird magazines come and it really is all about the pictures!

I mean.

Just sayin’. 😉

Years ago, I found the Audobon’s list of 20 Common Birds in Decline during an internet search. I sat reading the article, tears rolling down my face. But just as strongly as the tears themselves was the belief that I could do something to raise awareness for these birds. I felt resolved. I don’t know how this occurred, just that it did.

I began scouring the net for information about the birds’ habitats and the needs of that habitat (and it’s inhabitants) to maintain symbiosis with these 20 birds. I decided to make artwork for each of the twenty birds on the list. Meadowlark’s bird fabric contains six of the twenty birds on Audubon’s list. I have tried to contact their corporate office to inform them of my project, but they don’t answer the call.I wish they would because I don’t want to unintentionally misinform, but, oh well. I will do my best.

Cancer treatment really made me a different person. It is a big deal to go through. But it has also served to motivate me. It gave me time to think about what I wanted and to daydream about how I might achieve it. It showed me how little time I have and that I want to make a difference. As I lay in bed during treatment, I watched David Attenborough’s Life of Birds. I watched it over and over, except for the burrowing parrots. (Those birds are mean little birds. I didn’t watch that segment hardly at all.) But I lay there watching and wondering how I could do to help the birds that I so adore. I drifted off to sleep, came back, watched more. It was dreamy. But in viewing the show and thinking about what is important to me, I kept coming back to the list of Common Birds in Decline that affected me so deeply.

I have been exploring the imagery of The 20 birds in all media, paper, cloth printings combined with hand embroidery. So when it came time to start designing fabrics for release in my line, of course, I decided to feature some of the birds on the Audubon list. I hope to be able to create a fabric for each of the birds on the list, we will see.

I will be blogging about these new works and the birds themselves in the next few months.

I hope you enjoy my ramblings on the topic of birds.

The Eastern Meadowlark is on the List, unfortunately. It’s numbers have decreased by 73% in forty years. Here is a good place to start learning about Eastern Meadowlark and what you can do to help this bird.

And remember, I’m hosting a blog hop giveaway of Fat Stacks of the Meadowlark line, here is the list of participants (leave a comment on each posts related to the hop). Today is Leslie Tucker Jenison’s day to post and I must say, I love the ingenuity of her design! The quilt is more like a throw, it has a great ‘hand’, please go check out her post:

Melly – June 2
Vivien Zepf – June 2
Chrissie D – June 3
Sue Bleiweiss – June 4
Leslie Tucker Jenison June 5
Jamie Fingal – June 6
Lyric Kinard – June 7
Jen Eskridge – June 8
Jacqui Holmes Calhoun – June 8 <——-Jacqui will be guest posting here!
Stephanie Forsyth – June 9
Victoria Findlay Wolfe – June 10
Teri Lucas – June 11
Scott Hansen June 12
Helen Eckard – June 12 <——-Helen will be guest posting here!

Grace

The images that follow may be considered too-much-information, which is a perspective I understand. If you feel this way, you should skip this post and come back another day.

Breast cancer has changed me. It has changed me physically as well as mentally. It has made me question feminine behaviors and expectations, it has made me question what is important to me, it has reordered who I believe myself to be.

I knew from the start that reconstruction was not for me. I did follow through and go to a plastic surgeon to discuss ‘my options’, and I did my best to remain open to the idea of reconstruction, so that -I could- reconstruct if I came around to feeling the need. But honestly, I did not like how that plastic surgeon touched my body, I don’t like the thought of inserting silicone under skin or muscle, do not want the multiple surgeries or ‘exchanges’- a euphemism for additional surgery to ‘swap out’ the silicone implants every 7 to 9 years, will not move muscle or fat from any other place on my body to form an insensate semblance of a breast.

I won’t do that. I can’t. My body is enough.

Believe me when I say, I faced strong opposition to my decision to opt out of reconstructive surgery. I was asked to see a psychiatrist to make sure I was making a sound, well founded decision. I was told that just the month previously that my breast surgeon saw a woman who demanded testing for BRCA, which came up negative, and that she continued to want preventative mastectomy and reconstructive surgery, and that as a result, the hospital asked that all women wanting preventative or profilactic removal of a breast needed to see the psychiatrist. Being compared to a person who neither had cancer, tested negative for BRCA, and demanded preventative mastectomy does not help. Being questioned about wanting symmetry after being told you -need- a radical unilateral mastectomy, doesn’t help. Being told you will ‘suffer’ gender confusion, doesn’t help. Being told women who choose reconstruction settle back into life more quickly after breast cancer surgery, doesn’t help. Especially when the psychiatrist on staff is not covered by insurance and you will need to pay $500+ out of pocket to help your hospital perpetuate their disordered thinking on what is ‘right’ for the breast cancer survivor.

I would not have been asked to see a psychiatrist had I chosen the ‘conventional, ‘acceptable’ path’ of reconstruction.

I have extracted a quote from this interesting article, which I hope you will read:

A study in the Psychology of Women Quarterly reported that sexual minority women face considerable pressure to have reconstruction, and those who decide not to have surgery often feel like they have to justify their choices to their doctors. The researchers argue that these women’s reasons for and against the surgeries highlight sexist and heterosexist assumptions within the medical management of breast cancer, and particularly mastectomy. As Naomi Wolf points out in The Beauty Myth such assumptions affect women in general. Wolf questions whether cosmetic surgery is really a choice in the context of a society that routinely reduces women to appearances and sexual usefulness. For women diagnosed with breast cancer, societal expectations to look and act the part of the thriving breast cancer survivor/fearless warrior (while appealing to some) may add to these pressures in ways that are just as disempowering as those from decades ago that forced women to keep breast cancer hidden beneath a veil of secrecy.

Ca-ching!

I would rather redefine femininity in the face of a diagnosis that is so closely tied to body image, a diagnosis that shoves societal expectations smack up against the individual woman and her one precious body, one that forces us to make decisions that are uncomfortable at best.

And, I would rather not keep quiet about it.

When I heard about The Grace Project, I contacted Isis Charise, the photographer, quickly. I wanted my portrait taken. I feel compelled to ‘represent’ for all the women who opt out of reconstruction. I feel compelled to ‘represent’ a beautiful image of the female body, no matter how ‘unconventional’. I feel compelled to help the women who are diagnosed after me, to understand that reconstruction isn’t for everyone, and for those who cannot or will not reconstruct, I feel compelled to simply live in my body as it is shaped without putting on breast forms or presenting an image that is not my own.

Since my diagnosis, a sea change has begun, we flatties have begun to band together to support one another. Had I not stumbled upon Sentenced2Live‘s portrait, and seen the ease and confidence with which she used her body, I would not have thought I could opt out of reconstructive surgery in the first place. The strength that Barbie exhibits in her Scar Project photograph has been a balm to me-and to be a Marine too? Barbie has a strength and hutzpah that I admire deeply. Seeing Margaret Smith in Fitness magazine a few years back strengthened me beyond measure. Reading about Jodi Jaecks fight to swim topless in a public swimming pool helped me normalize my flat and beautiful chest and to experience and evaluate the battle we women face when we make decisions related to our bodies that goes against the mainstream.

And I assume that, at least in part, all of these women did this work for people like me.

So when the opportunity to participate in an awareness raising project like The Grace Project came around, it was an easy decision. I opted in! I am committed to helping improve my own sense of body image while helping to normalize a simple, beautiful, less invasive form of reconstruction. This option makes me (and us) no less female, no less beautiful, and I see no need to ‘make like’ I have the shape of breasts. Societal expectations be damned (I am sorry to swear, but I mean it).

I prefer to be the role model I needed when I started my ‘breast cancer journey’.

And I choose to do it while remaining in alignment with my own values, needs and standards.

If ever you find yourself being told you have breast cancer, know that you can choose what is right for you, regardless of what you may be told. Flat is an option, as is reconstruction. Not wearing forms is an option. Switching out your breast forms every day with a new size is an option (yowza!)! Just don’t allow yourself to be talked into reconstruction if you know it isn’t right for you.

MellyIsisPortrait

And remember, your body is beautiful, no matter what.

being human and having a body

I was diagnosed with breast cancer three years ago this week. This requires some acknowledgment and some introspection on my part. In this last year, I have come to a turning point; my body, it’s pain, is no longer directing my experience, neither mentally, nor physically.

Thank goodness.

Becoming used to being a flat chested woman is a journey. I have learned a lot about myself, it is almost as if I have been emerging from a chrysalis, unwrapping the leaves of societal expectation (breast cancer patients are encouraged and expected to reconstruct or wear breast forms). I am learning to love the shape I am. I am learning to embrace this stronger, more fortified version of myself. This is a fantastic journey, really. By opting out of creating a semblance of a breast, by opting out of wearing the shape of a breast within a garment, and learning to love my body, my way, I am rebuilding my idea of my self, body image and my personal capabilities.

Cancer, the treatment to rid the body of cancer, is harrowing to say the least. Luckily for me though, during the time that I was going through the worst of it, I came to the thought that, if my body could withstand the almost lethal dose of medication called chemotherapy, what else could it achieve?

I came to the realization that although my diet was pretty good, the one thing that I was not doing was exercise. Between opting out of breast reconstruction and wondering what this might do to my self esteem, I decided that exercise was a great way to create a mind/body connection. I imagined that connecting the mind and the body would help bolster my confidence and help me to accept the new shape of my body.

But how do you go from never really ‘investing’ in exercise to helping yourself embrace it? Exercise is drudgery, isn’t it? No, not at all. Actually, and I can say this in all honesty, now that I have been lifting weights three times a week for more than a year and a half, exercise makes everything better. My mood has improved, my scars do not feel as tight, I have a better understanding of what foods will pack on pounds, what foods will feel great. And lifting weights sure does sculpt and streamline your body, I must say, I like the aesthetics of weight lifting.

So back to it: how do you change the idea that exercise is drudgery? This is what I did:

I started out by researching free workouts, fitness blogs, and basically, body types. I used YouTube for this. From there I realized that I like the shape that weightlifting can give the female form. Finding an exercise regimen that you like is key!

I found a few websites that I like and continue to follow like, MyOhMytv, Fit and Feminist, GoKaleo, Bret Contreras, to name a few. Reading about and keeping your mind focused by reading books, blogs and watching YouTube videos is great reinforcement of your commitment and you will learn a bunch, just make sure you find quality sources, I don’t suggest reading fitness magazines that promise to reveal your abs in 20 minutes, with a restrictive, unfun diet. Beside which, fitness and fashion magazines promote a body ideal that has negative connotations, you can trust yourself on your own journey to know when YOUR body looks and feels optimal to YOU.

But here is the most important part: It is crucial to to tell yourself as you begin to work out, that exertion feels good. Remind yourself that your body is an amazing machine, that you take part in maintaining and helping it improve. You are not a victim of your body, but a participant in its abilities. And after each workout it is essential to compliment yourself on a job well done. Writing these compliments down in a workout journal can help a lot.

Creating a mental atmosphere that supports active commitment and participation to exercise is essential. I certainly do not want to go overboard-there are no ‘beast workouts’ for me, I workout three times a week and all together, each workout takes no more than forty-five minutes to one hour. This is easy. Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, preferably before 9 a.m., I lift weights, here, at home.

I am consistent.

I keep track of my reps and weight lifted so that I can look back on my progress and encourage myself to lift heavier when the time and numbers of reps seem right. I date each entry. I compliment myself (especially when I did not want to workout but did so anyway). And when someone compliments me, I write that down and date it too (I got a great compliment about the shape of my arms a few months back and I still enjoy seeing that entry in my workout journal).

I used to think that exercise was all or nothing, that if I didn’t do a workout, I would spiral into not wanting to workout ever again. This is not true. If I miss a workout, or two, or a few weeks of working out, I choose a date to begin working out again and I am patient and methodical about getting back in the game. I do not punish myself for needing, or taking a break.

I am grateful that my cancer diagnosis had the effect of encouraging me to invest in a fit body. Not only do I want to help my body resist disease, I want the confidence that comes with the commitment to getting my workout in. I want the strength of my glutes, propelling me down the street, as I rush to catch the subway, I want beautiful shoulders and I like having a metabolic ‘safety net’ when I go on holiday and eat one too many pieces of chocolate (you can’t out-train a bad diet, but if you are mostly clean in your food choices, all will be well). Most of all, I want a sense of body image that is filled with love and compassion and working out helps me connect all of these dots in the best of ways.

So, I thank my diagnosis for helping me integrate exercise into my life, but goodbye and good riddance! Let the door hit you in the ass, cancer! And hopefully, perhaps you, dear reader, might be inspired to exercise without ever needing to face the words, “I am sorry to say, we found ____________(fill in the dis-ease)”.

Print, print, steam!

Today is a day for steaming, soaking and washing finished work. I will print as I am doing this. I have the windows open, the high will be 77 degrees today and printing in warmth is a good thing.

What you see here is 4.5 yards of cloth (layered, three deep in newsprint). I love seeing my sample pile grow larger and larger.

But honestly, it is time to start thinking about quilt block patterns and how to use the cloth I am printing. Last week I went to The City Quilter with Teri Lucas. I leafed through books and magazines and I realize, I am out of the loop. I have not quilted in quite some time and I feel like I need a refresher course in quilt blocks, settings, styles.

My fabric bits are small, measuring about 9×10″. I want to feature the prints but also want to use every inch of cloth. I have not yet decided on a block, and do not know if I will even try to create a specific block. I love the look of lots of white or light colored fabric alongside bright and cheerful prints, I like darks with bright cheerful prints. I also love busy prints side by side. I just don’t know!

When Teri and I were hanging out, I threw several of my least favorite prints her way. This week she has been my ‘Tricky Quilt Fairie’ and has been making the cloth into a 9 patch blocks and setting them on point (she has been updating her facebook page with pictures). I love seeing the cloth in this way and it is helping me to get to the cut and sew stage.

Hey! Help a girl out! If you know a quilt block or quilt that you think would show of my printed cloth well, please comment and leave a link! Pretty please?

Four more for The 20

The20Group

I am plugging away at the images for The 20 Common Birds in Decline, in fact, I have 10 more images to go-I am half way there. But they are small, measuring 2.5×3.5″, so it won’t take very long. I am making them in groups of 4 and printing them onto cloth in one session. It is fun, in a very obsessive, compulsive way. I find a photograph that I like, I draw the image, scan and resize it, cut it out of Fun Foam, print it on watercolor paper, then using the printed card as inspiration, I print using procion MX dye on cloth. All while taking notes in my inspiration journal.

Today I printed (from left to right), Little Blue Heron, Rufous Hummingbird, Common Tern, and American Bittern.

This is an American Bittern, a private bird of marshy areas. Its coloring and mannerism can make it fade right into the landscape, making this a challenging bird to experience in the wild. I printed at least 4 of this image and I could probably print it again, to get it just right, the color is not fully realized.

It feels good to work with images of birds again. I love birds and want to affect change in the way people think about them. This list was put together using citizen science by the Audubon Society. Chances are, you will recognize many of the birds on this list, if you are interested in helping them secure viable habitat, check this page out. Or maybe you have a bird feeder and would like to contribute to a citizen science project, check out Project Feeder Watch by Cornell or the Great Backyard Bird Count by Audubon (which happens in April and February respectively).

Many of the 10 images that are in my future are tough birds to make images of, the like Whip-Poor-Will, a bird most often heard, but not seen, at night. And the Whip-Poor-Will is a primal looking bird too! So finding an image that will say, “Whip-Poor-Will” is a challenge. There are four Sparrows on this list, and I look forward to learning about and identifying them. Making art, exploring imagery that is interesting to me is a way of learning, I love taking out books, reading, searching the web and helping the data settle into my knowledge base. I have worked with so many images of birds, I now recognize them as I read my favorite birding magazines, because I am, for the most part, an armchair birder who longs for a feeder (and backyard) of her very own.

The monsters in my studio

The above cabinet is really a monster. I jam pack stuff into and need to pull stuff out and rearrange things every time I need something stored in it. My intention for this cabinet is to store items that will be used in wet work, In other words, soda soaked cloth, urea, textile paint, brushes that cannot be hung on peg board, aprons, soy wax tools, stamp pads, and a few other things that need to be in the studio room, like my wall projector, scale to weigh dye and so forth.

The way this looks when I open those two doors drives me n-u-t-s. Not to mention the books and magazines above. The soda soaked cloth at upper right? I can’t grab soda soaked organza without pulling every little stuffed bit out with it. I use those plastic bins (blue and white) all the time and each time, I take everything out, place it on the shelf where the bins were and go about my business. Below that is were I store my handmade stamps, which I rarely take out because that means I also need to take out my freezer paper, parchment paper and zip top bags.

A few months back, I identified this space as a potential staging area for acrylic painting and I bought and installed the peg board, which you can see under the plants. I began gathering the items that ought to go in this area but then, I did not finish the job and this table became the catch all for all things not on my workbench. And the area underneath became the place to stuff items I didn’t want to see. But I see them.

And here you see, oh gosh, a mess. I keep stuffing things on top of the bins, just to have a place to put them. Just looking at this photo makes me sad. Up at the top? I call that ‘deep storage’ That is where I put things that I want access to but don’t need in a snap. Sadly, I don’t use the stereo very often because my music and podcasts are in the computer… which, if I can wrap my mind around storing or getting rid of the stereo, could be more space for storage bins.

And here is my workbench with peg board attached. And although this looks decent, (I loves me some pegboard), there sure is a good deal of space that could hold more tools!

So:

What staging areas do you need? Do you have to hop out of your sewing chair to grab a new spool of thread? Are your pens, paints, rulers and brushes close enough to your journals and canvases that you can simply lean over and reach for the fancy tool? What do you keep piling up and where does it need to be in order to use it effectively?

Take all of these messy piles off their unintended surfaces and place them in a single pile in the center of the room. Get the trash bin, recycle bin, and a bag for the thrift store too. Deconstruct your piles by making more piles! This is going to look a whole lot messier before it looks better. For now though, if you find thread, place it on you sewing machine staging area, move on, this part of the project is about the big picture.

While you are ripping through your studio and putting stuff in its appropriate area, assess areas that could be used as ‘deep storage’. Look for small spaces that could neatly hold a thing or two (look under my workbench- there is a wooden wine box with a lid that holds all of my stencils and potting soil, both fit nicely and don’t scream, “Mess!”)

And remember, ‘Like Things Together’. Also remember, it is OK to donate, recycle and trash things.

My cleanly obsessions have inspired Pat Spillane to join in on the cleaning fun, please go tell her I said, “right on”.

Jingle McEver

Last week I was contacted by Morna McEver Golletz through Facebook. She asked for me to put a name to a pocket. And when Morna told me her mother was named Jingle McEver, I knew I needed to put more than a name to this pocket, I had to honor Jingle’s memory with a full blown and beautiful pocket. Jingle was mother, a teacher, a watercolorist and an inspiration. Later in life, Jingle became a Uniboober.

Morna said these things about her mother:

“Her name is Jingle McEver. She’d be so happy to be doing this.”

and

“…she’d love that you’re from Brooklyn. Her favorite grandmother (and great grandmother and family) settled in Brooklyn after coming to America from Germany.”

“…my mom was an artist from early in her childhood. She taught art and painted, largely watercolors, until she could no longer. She was also a grand encourager of creativity and art in her five daughters.”

I feel honored to make a pocket for a woman who is so highly esteemed. I feel honored to make a pocket for a woman named Jingle. Thank you Morna.

As I get used to being a flat chested woman, I seek imagery of other like minded women. Jodi Jaecks made international news for fighting to be allowed to swim in her local pool without a top. Margaret W. Smith had a preemptive bilateral mastectomy because she tested positive for the BRCA2 mutated gene and members of her family had been treated for breast cancer as well. There is also the Scar Project which shows some mastectomies as well as some reconstructed images of women. And then there is the photographer Carly Ries who is working on a series of photographs of women who have gone through treatment for breast cancer.

I am glad that women can have their bodies reconstructed after breast cancer treatment, many women need and want these options. But for those of us who do not, I am happy that we have some trailblazers who are putting images of their bodies out into the public realm. Seeing images of women who choose not to reconstruct their body is important, beautiful, simple, empowering.

We, as women, are bombarded with images of how we should look, products we should use, exercise programs to loose weight, fashions that will only look good on size 0 models (0?? What. Who wears size 0? Should we dissolve into the ether next, become totally invisable?) We see these images and headlines so often, we can forget that they are telling us to be something other than what we are. I have yet to see an ad by the ‘pink ribbon people’ that uses imagery of a single breasted or flat woman. This needs to stop.

It makes me happy that women are bucking the norm and going flat. Putting their images out into the public eye. Normalizing the choice that many women are forced to make in a lifetime, without pandering to the need to fit in and have an acceptable body image. It is about time.

Round Up!

I participate in a pool program, offered by my hospital to help survivors recover. I love this program, I go once a week, I connect with other survivors in a predominantly physical but also, at times, emotional level (which works best for me, I can’t go deeply into the emotional side or breast cancer or its treatment, I would rather enter into a more physical connection with other survivors) and we stretch, play and laugh together. Teri, our instructor is well versed in Range of Motion issues and the exercises that will help with them.

I made sure to ‘represent’ for us Flatties, and I squealed when they mentioned me specifically.

I would never have thought that an aspect of the cancer experience would madke me feel so passionate. I firmly believe the ability to ‘Go Flat’ is an issue of women’s rights. This is an issue of body autonomy, women must have complete control over the only thing we can control, our bodies. As a result, Going Flat must become normalized. Women who forgo reconstruction should not wear breast forms for any other reason than having a preference to do so.

When the beautiful, deminuitive 75 year old fella pool program attendee, looked at me and pinched her ‘bubby’, which is what she calls her breast form, telling me she hated wearing it for the last — years (more than 2 decades). I fell in love with her, and fell in love with being a feminist, again. Her daughter keeps telling her to put the breast form away. But she does not feel able to leave the breast form behind!

She called me brave. A teacher. She looked at me in awe.

And I am brave, many women cannot imagine leaving home without their breast forms. Others very much want to leave them behind, but feel pressure to wear them for their jobs, and for the people in their lives who expect them to look a certain way. As more women like me, Margaret W. Smith and Jodi Jaecks put their bodies and their choices out there, normalization of this bodily form, this aspect of women’s lives, will occur. Society will re-member the full array of shapes that an individual woman’s body can take in a lifetime. But no woman should feel compelled to wear forms because our society is misogynist and ignorant and has set up an expectation of what the female form should look like. Especially in light of breast cancer.

Breast Pockets are being made around the world!! I have put out a challenge for folks to make 1000 breast pockets to raise awareness for the women who choose not to reconstruct their bodies after breast cancer and to pave awareness for those who would like to put their forms aside entirely. October 22 is the deadline, you can make pockets in whatever way you choose, paper, cloth, mixed media. You can use this pattern, if you feel the need. If I have not answered your email (they are piling up) on where to send them, please be a greasy wheel! 😎

The above pocket was made by my good friend Elliot (who will be turning 9 on October 31) and can be seen here with her sister Alex, snuffling.

Alex (who is 5 years old) and Cricket (we will leave her age up for debate!) also made some pockets. I have heard from folks as far ranging as Hong Kong, Australia, Finland, Canada and here in the U.S. I really hope to get 1000 pockets made in a very short period of time. Will you please help?

To update you on my knitting world, my Boardwalk is coming along just fine! I need to knit about 5″ of stockinette stitch before the neck detail will start. I love the Malabrigo yarn I am using. The color stacks up beautifully. I am hoping this pattern will become a favorite, one that I can knit again and again.

And one last thing.

My mother has begun a new venture, a store featuring ‘Coastal Inspired Items for You and Your Home’ (I love this summation) called The Captain’s Chest. I am so very proud of her for doing this and would love for you to click over and see what she has in stock, perhaps you’ll see something you cannot live without! My mother is passionate about coastal living, entertaining, food and family and she does a beautiful job combining all of these into this new endeavor. Please check it out.

Breast Pockets-with deadline! 1000 pockets in 3 weeks?

I feel passionate about being a ‘flattie’, a woman who chose not to reconstruct after breast cancer treatments and doesn’t want to wear breast forms either. I am getting used to being flat and am experiencing the stares of curiosity that is a normal part of our humanity but also a showing of how few women chose to ‘go flat’ after breast cancer treatment. You may have read a recent article I wrote for Role/Reboot, an online magazine questioning gender in society. Here is the link:

http://www.rolereboot.org/life/details/2012-08-i-chose-to-live-as-a-flat-chested-woman-after-breast

The article pretty much sums up why I think women are hesitant to put their breast forms aside. I am active in an online forum for breast cancer survivors and the women on this board really would like ‘Flat Awareness’ to occur. We cringe at the thought of Plastic Surgery Reconstruction Day (October 17, search google-!) We don’t want foreign objects in our bodies. We don’t want to wear forms to maintain a ‘socially acceptable body image’. We want to be accepted as women who have decided against reconstruction and we want to push this image into being widely accepted in the societal visual lexicon of what a female body can look like over the course of a lifetime. This isn’t just a choice for women who are ‘of an age’ (i.e. having no stake in the game, and believe me, this is often the response I hear when I say that I decided against reconstruction, it goes like this, ‘Oh! My mother (aunt, grandmother) decided against reconstruction but she was _ _ years old.’). We want to turn the repressive body image pressures off and create a new sexy, strong and beautiful but we are flat or half flat!

Today, I participated in a taped segment about my hospital’s Breast Cancer Survivors Pool Program. This is a local ABC News at 5 program. And believe me, I made sure I would be taped with no towel covering up my beautiful flat chested body. I went to represent me and my fella flat chested survivors. Hopefully, my interview will make the 90 second segment! At the same time I spoke with the reporter about the Breast Pocket project to raise awareness for those of us who decide against reconstructing our bodies. The reporter said, “If you can get 1000 pockets, contact me, we will try to do a story.”

—

I seek a physical representation of the women that you know, who made the decision not to reconstruct their bodies after breast cancer by way of making breast pockets (explained below).

Women who decide against reconstructing their bodies often wear prothesis or breast forms, as they are also called. These breast forms need pockets sewn into bras, camisoles and swim suits in order to hold the form in place. These forms can be quite heavy, uncomfortable, they shift, rub against our scars, often contribute to the dreaded, under-studied and life long struggle with lymphedema. Many of the women on the cancer boards I frequent do not want to wear forms, these women often feel compelled to keep up a ‘good image’ in their workplace and on the streets of their hometowns. We want to see acceptance of our choice and to let other women who have to make this decision to know that it ain’t all bad! So, won’t you please make a breast pocket in the name of your friend, mother, aunt, sister? Lets break the walls down, stop being quiet and making nice, lets build a world where it is acceptable to go flat after breast cancer treatment. With this call for breast pockets, I am using the idea of the shirt pocket, also called breast pockets to make an artistic statement about breast cancer and deciding to forego reconstruction.

Please, help me to take this reporter up on her offer to build awareness for us ‘flatties’.

Call For Art: Breast Pockets (pockets as you would find on your favorite button up, pocketed blouse). There are many shapes of pockets, the western, patch, button down flap, choose a style!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocket

If your aunt had a unilateral mastectomy without reconstruction, make just one pocket and/or flap. If I am the only ‘flattie’ you know? Oh, well, you will need to make a pair! The point is, I would like a physical representation of how many women forego reconstruction. I am lifting the curtain and peeking in. How many women do you know? Make pockets for each one, unilateral or bilateral. Each pocket should have a name attached to it, first names only. Please use the pattern on my site (see link below), or make your own pattern, because breasts come in all sizes and shapes, make them with your tools and media, don’t think twice about it. These pockets can be cloth or paper or.

And please, invite your friends, in fact, forward the link to this post freely, please speak up, talk about it on your blogs.

Email me when you have your pockets completed and I will tell you where to send them.

Deadline: Please send the pockets to me during the week of October 22. Comment on this post and I will put your name in an already growing list of participants. I will let you know where to ship your pockets in a private email.

Noodles, eat, shop, play.

Yesterday I went to the Fashion District to poke around in trim shops. This was the first time I brought my video camera and I was shy to whip it out. M and J Trimming was all for it, I asked if they were OK with my filming, yes. No questions. In fact it was almost as if they were saying, ‘No need! It is all on the web anyway!’

I love M and J, they have so much stuff packed into that store, it is arranged and managed beautifully. It is where I go to find stuff, then I try to source it elsewhere to get a better price. Yesterday I went for the clip closures I am using on the Sew-plies purse. They also have these snaps that I have my eye on. But I think I can find them at Pacific Trimming at a better price. Pacific trimming had these safety pins that I find adorable and have been using in the Sew-plies purse, so those came home with me too.

Both stores had stuff that I would like to mull over. I like to mull over and process how I might use a thing before I purchase.

I would like to do this again, let me know if you think it is fun.

When I was flying to Arlington Texas last week, I traced off an image on an airplane and embroidered it to the center back of the Female Magazine blouse. The blouse is piling up the embroidered stitches. The fabric is changing to the touch. Very nice. I will post overall photos soon.

Last week I went and played with Victoria Findlay Wolfe (whom I love and sorta have a crush on, she is creative, gentle, awesome, smart and she is coming out with a book!!). She keeps a site called 15 Minutes Play (also the name of her upcoming book). She sat me in front of a machine and got me sewing without specific purpose in a playful way. Oh my goodness! This was so good for my soul. I have been moving away from intense dye use in my work and using cloth in this way-piecing and playing, really helps to loosen a girl up.

So this weekend I put the idea to the test. I gave myself 15 minutes to play (it turned into hours and hours). But. Here were the ideas I applied to the 15 Minutes of Play:

Use new materials, in this case wool batting

Use stitch in an unexpected way

Combine one piece of hand made cloth with mostly commercial prints

This sew-plies purse is so yellow, it glows! As I have said before, I want to make one for everyday of the week. I may need one for each day of the month. I think this is going to become something for me. I want a piece of clothing to embellish, embroider, print and surface design to go with each purse! I am going to take the Gather your Sew-plies purse off the web and update and fix it, so if you want version 1, download it now.

Soft Light

I am back from teaching at The Great American Scrapbook Convention and oh my goodness gracious. Those scrapbookers? They know how to play right into my obsession for neat, orderly and functioning workspaces. Scrapbookers seem to really like efficiency. And they have some toys, inks and supplies. They use punches, gadgets, embossers, and the inks! I felt overwhelmed. I am going to have to see how all I saw and experienced in the vendors center integrates. I wonder how I would use their tools! I am not one to step in feet first. I like to research and walk around back and kick the tire. I need to understand before I can proceed, so I will be looking into one of the things I saw.

I am preparing a post for CreateMixedMedia. I have to say, I really like what they are doing at that site. I think it offers real content and is colorful and open minded in exploring its themes. I am an author of theirs, just for your reference. But they have not asked me, nor are they paying me to say so. I am just putting my two cents in.

AnYway. I am preparing a post for them and it involves a Rumi quote and a certain collar.

In the meantime, I show you one of the latest purses. Leslie Tucker Jennison named it The Bellybutton. Will discuss soon. I have been bitten by the fever to create many of these purses. I want them as accessories. Maybe I need one for my iPod. Hm.

A little help from my friends.

So, I am on a sewing bender. I have always wanted to find a few patterns and perfect them to fit my body and just keep making them. I like this blouse garnered from the pages of Female Magazine, but it has its faults. See those red dots? That is where the shoulder seams fall. It makes wearing the shirt sort of off-putting. This is a big boxy blouse. Or should I call it a huge boxy blouse? Does anyone know? Is there a way to fix this, or is it just that the pattern is so large that the seams need to go somewhere.

I removed the collar, redistributed the excess cloth, made sure the shoulders were attached to the right snip marks and reapplied the collar. The above blouse fits much better than perviously and the seams hardly make themselves known compared to before. But. Help?

I would even consider a creative idea like gathering up some tucks where the shoulder turns. Creative suggestions anyone?

I keep talking about a sew along but not acting on it. Here is the reason. I am working like mad to get The Clever Guild, my teaching web site, up. I am creating content, uploading how-to’s, and working like mad, behind the scenes. The site is almost together, and the workshops are almost entirely uploaded. Soon, I will have a few moments to breath and have some fun.

In the meantime, my new book is being shipped this week! I will post a paypal button (tomorrow) and sign a few copies if any of you would like to buy direct!

And my friend Victoria Findlay-Wolfe interviewed me about color and posted it to her blog today. Please check it out and tell her I said hello.

P.P.S. I have been blogging in the last two weeks but forgot to categorize the posts properly, so you have not been able to read them. I was wondering why no one was commenting!

Art Journaling: Exposed

In celebration of the new eMag Art Journaling Exposed, we have decided to have a blog hop and talk up our experience of creating artwork and working with Interweave to present this new and exciting magazine.

I wrote an article for a column called Background Check, because we all need to start somewhere. This article was a lot of fun to work on and the magazine itself is really quite exciting, I love this new medium, the spontineity and link-ablity of it. eMags allow for video embeds, links directly to artist web sites, they are really slick. It’s pretty amazing. The cast of characters who wrote alongside me are great. Please check out all of the links below and get your copy today.

In alphabetical order:

Melanie Testa

To purchase the eMag for your desktop computer, visit InterweaveStore.com:

PC download or MAC download.

And here is the link to purchase the eMag for the iPad on the iTunes Store

Sew Along, Podcast and fun.

Female Magazine Blouse

I have been having so much fun sewing. A few of you have said you would join me in a Sew Along. I have been looking for non-Japanese and FREE patterns.

Dixie DIY is a GREAT web site and she has several patterns to download. Here is the link to the free Nano Iro (Japanese) patterns I mentioned before. Check out this cool, pretty tank style blouse called Sorbetto. And if you feel you need your tank top to have sleeves (huh?), here is the additional sleeve pattern for that blouse. Look at what other people have done in making this blouse. And if you want to go all out and buy a pattern, buy it. I want to choose something simple and I want to surface design some aspect of it because that is my thing. Choose what works for you and lets have some fun.

Ricë and I recorded a podcast on clothing and garments. I think it is a lot of FUN!

Comment and let me know if you are up for a sew along!

Where we began.

Earlier this week, I asked you to tell me how you began sewing. The comments are fabulous.

I honestly think I was destined to work with my hands, I have always had an aptitude for it. I can close my eyes and visualize how something should go together. At a very young age, I remember my mom cutting a skirt pattern out, and I caught the fact that the plaid would not match up at the side seam. Also around that time, my mom had a friend who was into sewing and helped me make a vest. I sewed beads and trims by hand to the front border. It was meticulous work that I take pride in having done to this day.

I am so glad I had Home Ec in high school, kids these days don’t even know about it! I am showing my age!

I also think it is funny that so many of us who sew will hold onto a restriction, like fear of zippers and buttons.

When I was given the serger I spoke of, I took lessons in how to use it. It is a scary machine, having 4 threads two of which stay on the top, two that meander through the inner workings of the machine. If one gets broken, it can be a tricky, fiddle-worthy event. The teacher looked at me and reminded me that I was working with a machine and that I was in control. That bit of advice has gone a really long way for me.

It helps that this Bernina 550 replicates buttonholes with advanced and simple controls! Ha.

Check this and this out. I think I may have to look into Alabama Chanin’s books! Do any of you own one of her books? Can you recommend one? This one? Alabama Studio Sewing + Design: A Guide to Hand-Sewing an Alabama Chanin Wardrobe

Tell me.

How did you start sewing?

I think I was maybe 20 years old when I decided to set up my mom’s sewing machine and started making bags. I remember feeling overwhelmed by the pattern I bought. Soon after this, I found a sewing teacher. She was a retired Home Economics professor. I took weekly lessons from her, she taught me to iron, cut, sew, she gave me a serger (a friend of hers needed to find a home for it, and I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time).

I was a sewing machine operator at a furniture manufacturer for a few years, that was dull but taught me some good sewing work habits, how to keep the cloth moving straight through the machine, how to hold my scissors for quick clips, how to cut squares to make pillows with welted corners.

Then I found a job as a sample cutter for a women’s fashion house. I loved that job! It was a fast paced job and I drank up techniques, approaches and ideas. I worked with some fabulous pattern makers, sample sewers and people. I watched as my boss came back from fittings, kept an eye on her as she would add volumes, shift darts, lengthen, shorten and fix garments. It was a very interesting job.

During this time I began quilting, put the sewing away, even told myself sewing clothing was too fussy and difficult. Normally, I sew clothing in the summer time. Skirts, dresses, reconstructions. I don’t know that I have the skills to sew a silk blazer, but I do know how to set a sleeve. So here I am, living in NYC, near some of the best fabric stores in the worlds and the clothing sewing bug has bit me hard.

If you would like to do a sew along with me, I have been looking for free and interesting patterns for you. Can you handle that? Japanese sewing patterns for women, men and children!

I will reveal the entire blouse soon.

So, tell me about you. How did you get into sewing? Did you always quilt?

And take my survey and sign up for my book giveaway!

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