Yikes, how did it get to be December?

 

In all the flurry of November and my trip to Santa Fe and out of towners for Thanksgiving, I continued to sew, just without blogging.  I’m utterly thrilled with a quilt I just finished, but I’ll do an entry tomorrow about this quilt.  It is just too special for a little mention.  The Santa Fe trip was wonderful.  The landscape of this area is intriguing.  It’s so unfamiliar to me.  The clarity of air is noticeable.  So is the aridity and the elevation.  

Our first Thanksgiving in Oak Brook was a good one - we had 8 around the table.  We are just so happy in this space.  And we’re hoping to get a bit happier - we may have found a buyer for our house.  

Small projects for perfect when sewing time is so broken up.  And I've been wanting to make bowl cozies.  We use ours all the time and they need updating.  Several of these were for gifts, and someone bought two pair although I really don't intend to sell them.  They are satisfying to make and use up the cotton and wool batting scraps.  

But the month ended on two very sad notes.  One is the death of Stephen Sondheim.  He was a brilliant artist whose work spoke deeply to me.  I've blogged about Sondheim before.  The ambivalence he often wrote of is akin to Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn.  And his music? Just wonderful.  I felt this same sadness when Julia Child died.  Alexa and I have been going through the Sondheim canon.  And I'm still doing it.  But more importantly and sadly the chief cheerleader among Sew Powerful volunteers and purse makers, Shirley Utz, died.  Pancreatic cancer.  She s leaving a huge footprint.  Her grace during these last few months is a model of how to live.  

My life rhythm has been off with the move.   We love where we are but are realizing that the move was not easy.  And the biggest unease has been the house not finding its buyer.  But I'm snapping out of this irregular rhythm.  I'm very good at sewing my way through grief and sadness.  My December intention is to sew a purse a day and get them in the mail.  Being married to the guy to who all the Christmas allows me the luxury of the commitment.

Work vs Art vs Play

"Work is what you do for others - art is what you do for you."  I love these words of Stephen Sondheim from his musical Sunday in the Park with George.  For today I am changing the word ART to PLAY.  And here's what I've been playing with today.  I have cut into my last yardage of Art Gallery Fabric's Hello, Bear line by designer Bonnie Christine.  Last week I gave my good friend the Sloan Travel Bag made from this fabric, but I need to make another one for myself - and one for another  good friend who just had a birthday.

After two days of "play" I have all the bag parts prepped for sewing.  What you see above?  Exterior pieces, interior pieces, pockets (there are SEVEN with each bag, pocket flaps, zippers - 4 for each bag, magnets, d-rings - ok, ok, you get the idea. 

The interior of these bags is another Art Gallery Fabric - all cotton but with a nice "slidey" feel - from Pat Bravo's Floral Elements collection.   The lighter grey is the interior of a rather large inside pocket.

Because I had a fixed amount of the feature fabric, I had to get creative with the straps and bottom of the bag.  It's hard to tell from these photos, but the stripes on this dark fabric are wonky and match the feel of this feature fabric.

Making purses and bags is like solving puzzles in 3-D, a task which for me isn't work - it's just wonderful play. 

Finishing the ...

I've talked about Stephen Sondheim and his lyrics before.  I have to go back to Sunday in the Park with George but this time to the lyrics of the song Finishing the Hat.    In this musical the French Impressionist artist George Seurat is working on his large painting "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" but his girl friend Dot want to go out. He just can't tear himself away from his work.   The fictional Seurat sings "more red, more blue blue blue - finishing the hat."  We've leaving town for a week, and I'm frantic to "finish my hats."  Only it's quilts - and purses.

The quilts for Sheila are finished.  I'm hoping to photo and blog about them before Saturday.  The shirts to the left all belong to Bradley - they were given to me by his brother Christopher and will be quilts for Bradley's mother and sister.

And there are always the purses.  Finishing the purse.  And starting a new one.  And finishing that one.  And on to the next one...

Update 11/4/10 Gave my sister Paula a purse fashion show this morning and she chose this one. Perfect! Happy Be-earlied Birthday!

Stephen Sondheim and Me...

I love the music and lyrics of Stephen Sondheim. My favorite musical of his is Sunday in the Park with George, a beautiful view on the life of an artist. The lyrics of one song: Work is what you do for others, art is what you do for you. This week I finished my work, the series of grief quilts. And I let the art begin!  My Moonscapes is in process.  While the body is complete, the borders are not.  There are a couple of vivid reds on the sides, there's a toned-down murky red on the bottom, and I'm also considering adding a series of borders, using something yellowish and bright to frame the body before going into the red/s.  Notice the spools of threads - I'm trying to decide what color I want use to quilt the moons.  All of this will just remain on the studio floor and percolate as I wait for my chairs to be upholstered.  Since this piece will hang above the chairs, it's crucial to make sure the borders - whatever they are -go with these chairs.

Next, an envelope bag from Jinny Beyer. I'll admit I bought this kit mostly for the directions, but I do like these fabrics. It's a birthday present for buddy Marge. It was quick and fun, starting with an 18" quilted square. There was more handwork than I care for; however, I'm pleased with the results and will try this again. I want to look for cording and magnetic closures I can use for future projects, including something for a black envelope bag.

The odd thing about this envelope bag is that it has a front (with the metallic button), a back (with the stone button), and a nice middle pocket - you can see an envelope sticking out of the middle pocket.

Another Jinny Beyer project that I've been wanting to do is her Mini Palette, but as usual I've been reluctant to spend the money on the kit. Her website has made the swatches for this kit available - 150 swatches precut 1.25" x 3.5". Yesterday I assembled these three columns with some intense assembly-line sewing, used black for the sashing, and a wonderful blue-green Handspray for the outer border. I love how this piece looks. It's going to hang in my studio when it's finished. Jinny Beyer's sense of color and light is represented by the range of these fabrics, and this mini-palette glows. Which brings me back to Sondheim and Sunday in the Park with George in which the artist George Seurat sings about art in terms of color and light as he "finishes the hat." This palette gives form to color and light.