Jelly Roll gives Soul.

We bought a couch. For years we have had chairs, or more recently a sofa and none of them were flat out comfy or inviting. After I was diagnosed I started thinking about the ‘nesting habit’, and I began thinking how very important having a comfortable, let it all hang out, home is. Then I started thinking about what I like in hanging out with my Man. And the bottom line is Snuggle Time. At night we watch rented movies and TV shows and we love nothing better than putting our heads in each others laps and getting strokes and attention as we watch. 

With Jelly Roll peeking.

So when I walked over to a furniture store near us, I had criteria for a smaller couch, one that could be laid-on with a flat surface, one that could take a flop and a nuggle. You know, you see couches in the movies and they look so lush and comfortable. This ‘couch’ is really two chairs-I think it is actually supposed to be a ‘sectional’, we could have bought them in a single color, the delivery guys were quite confused, but why not have a multicolor couch? The pillows are fabulous too, they are sturdy and they act as arm rests that are more comfortable than the back rest pillows. And the open end? Fabulous for a small apartment.

Back of Jelly Roll Quilt showing.

When I gathered up the fabric for my Jelly Roll Quilt, I was super happy that it pulled all the colors in our living room together. This is the first time in my life where I feel like our home matches our intentions. And it is so good to have a throw that ups the Nuggle Ante. I had enough fabrics to piece a back, so our Jelly Roll is two sided, I am not sure which I like better! In less than 3 week, I made the top, sandwiched, quilted and bound this easy and fun quilt. It made me fall in love with quilting again. In fact, I love this brainless project so much, I think we might need another throw. A pile of them.

But, Mom gets one first.

Artist+Clothing=Adorn?

Gather your Sew-plies!! Purse

So here is the story.

I have been quiet on the home front of cancer. I don’t know how to frame a discussion about my experience last year, all I know is I am just beginning to land and unwind, and integrate what I have learned from being ill. But at the same time I think it is important for me to be plain with you as well as myself. Perhaps you have already noticed but I chose not to ‘reconstruct’ my body. I think having a body, healing and moving into life after cancer is enough. I am still all woman. I am just a flat chested woman.

I am being up front about this because I am exploring clothing as a form of artistic expression. This is a creative theme that I need and want  to explore, both metaphorically and physically.

Clothing my body has become an adventure. I am an artist, I have always wanted to dress ‘singularly’, uniquely. And what better way to explore artistic, healing and integrative themes about the body than to adorn myself. 

I have fallen in love with the word, Adorn. 

Adornment. 

 Suggestions? Anyone? 

for Gather your Sew-plies Purse.

This purse recipe is a lot of fun, it is a sewing/fashion accessory. Big and bold when paired with a white shirt and skinny denim jacket. I purposely made this purse in such a way that I could continue to work on it until I had perfected the design. Do you know Cat Bordhi? She is a sock knitter and a creative thinker. She wrote a book about starting the sock… ‘from the middle’. And this got me thinking. What would happen if you started a project in the middle rather than tucking in all the loose ends at the get go? So this little purse is being completed as I go. I started in the middle. Will you make one too? I would love to see how you proceed alongside me. Mini Sew Along?

I am making an add-on pattern for the Gather Your Sew-plies pattern…A thimble Cinch Sack! More on this later.

Thank you and Welcome

If you are coming here from Create Mixed Media, thanks so much for stopping by and welcome. I have created this downloadable PDF pattern for the small purse (below) as a welcome and thanks to all of my readers. 

Gather your Sew-plies!! <——Click it.

I will be posting once a month on the Create Mixed Media website. This month I am exploring embroidery and ‘journaling’ on clothing. In the days to come, you can follow me here, on my blog to see what I come  up with and next month I will post a recap on the Create Mixed Media site. I also plan to extract ideas from my journals to stamp, stencil and surface design clothing, I hope you will join me in both places.

Wear them close.

The Gather your Sew-plies pattern is really more of a ‘recipe’, as the bag is a work in progress and I will be making additions and changes to it in the month to come. If embroidering on cloth is of interest to you and you would like to have fun and make you own marks, perhaps you’ll whip up a purse, it keeps your supplies close at hand. The first change I will be making to my purse is the addition of a button to keep the pouch closed. I have come up with an ingenious manner to do this and I will be discussing it within the next few days.

mess is managed by neat arrangments.

In the meantime, I would like to tell you what I carry in my little purse. A small plastic thimble-I love thimbles and I usually carry a silver thimble, my favorite thimble, but until this bag gets its button closure, the plastic thimble will remain tucked in my pouch. Scissors, these are a pair from Kai and they are an economically priced scissor that is super sharp and pretty awesome. Again, I have a prettier pair of embroidery scissors that I cherish, but these are my travel scissors. Thread (Auriful #12, have you hand sewn with this thread? It’s like butter). Thread Heaven, I am loyal to this stuff, it really helps to ‘prepare’ your thread. And do you see that gray paper that holds some black embroidery floss? That is 400 grit sand paper. I think it is a great idea to carry sandpaper with you. Just yesterday I noticed a burr on a needle, I had the paper at the ready and sanded that burr right off.

So please use the link above to download your copy of ‘Gather your Sew-plies’ pattern and I hope you will join me in making marks on cloth this month. Welcome.

And please, register for the free webinar next week.

Free Webinar!

Webinar Promo from The Clever Guild on Vimeo.

I am teaming up with Create Mixed Media to offer a free webinar to celebrate the release of Dreaming from the Journal Page. Please sign up using this link. The Webinar will be Thursday, April 26th at 1 p.m. All registered participants will receive a recorded transcript that can be listened to and reviewed at your leisure.

See you there!

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.

It's not quite right

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! 

Melly’s Jelly

Jelly Rolls. Who knew? I for one am ignorant of these things. I rarely shop and I have come to understand that I am a quilter like I am a fish out of water. Yes, I quilt, but I don’t deal with 1/4″ seams, commercial fabrics or the latest new ‘thing’. 

So when I went over to Lisa Chin’s blog and watched a link to a woman ‘tutorialing’ (her word), Jelly Roll quilts, imagine my surprise in finding myself smitten with the idea. It helps that my Man and I will receive a new couch this week, I mean who wouldn’t want a pretty throw draped over a comfy couch? I am really taken by the blue in this line from Benartex. And I love the pattern on pattern effect. The color is somewhere between these two photos.

And the idea just snowballed.

I have to say, using an entire line of fabrics together sure does take the guesswork out of creating a palette. And when they say you can race to the finish and create a quilt top in no time flat? They mean it. This project made me want to do a Jelly Roll race! That sounds like super good fun, especially if I get a quilt top out of the whole deal.

Piecing the back may have taken longer than strip piecing the front! It isn’t complete yet, but it is really close and I started this on Sunday! Amazing. Thank you Lisa.

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:

Julie Fei-Fan Balzer

Traci Bautista

Jane Davenport

Dea Fischer

Jacqueline Newbold

Jennifer Osborn

Joanne Sharpe

Melanie Testa

Diana Trout

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

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!

http://player.wizzard.tv/player/o/i/x/133311445297/config/k-7aabc07deef835f2/uuid/null/episode/k-ee013dbe62de560f

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