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Sweetheart G's birthday luncheon was a lovely success.
Ah, the healing properties of coffee, muffins, generic advil, and (the not to be underestimated) power of admitting you are in a totally skunky mood so you can give yourself a chance to wallow and write run-on sentences, before moving on to (metaphorically) sunnier skies. Of course, knowing that some of my favoritest people were coming over helped a lot too.
As an adult, I am not often in a Bad Mood.
(I think this is the reward for having often been in such a bad mood as a teen.)
And, as a definite rule, I LOVE having parties and feeding people,
so it is a particularly unfortunate convergence of the planets and stars that I woke up this morning,
the morning of Sweetheart G's birthday luncheon,
in a wretchedly Bad Mood.
This might have something to do with the sinus headache that I woke up with,
or that the tail end of this cold is still sapping my energy,
or that I just broke one of Big E's models trying to tidy the computer table,
or it might be the after effects of the Taekwon Do tournament we participated in yesterday.
(I tried, really I did.
Tournaments are NOT my thing.
It's like the state of Arizona.
Sure I can see what other people might like about it,
but please don't make me go again,
because it just feels like an unnatural state of being.)
So, I made good coffee for myself.
I baked muffins (which were not in the Plan).
And, I am trying to steal away ten minutes to myself to pistol whip myself into a good mood.
Really, Chickie... snap the hell out of it.
This is the third panel in the alphabet series for the 1st grade auction project.
From left to right (loosely), salamander, tiger, unicorn, viper, watermelon, xylophone, yodeler, and zebra.
And here is the quilt with background images.
I'm just about ready to start backing, fusing, and sewing the images down.
The first panel of the tryptic is stalled, however, because when I started to sort the images I realized I had no letter H. Apparently the slip with "H" never made it to a student, I'm going to have to tap my local first grade representative for an image and some fabric chooses.
In the last week before Christmas, I spent three days working with Little e's first grade class.
On the first day, we brainstormed ideas for the project, I detail that process here.
The second day, each student was given a slip of paper with a letter and the ideas the class had come up with for that letter. They were asked to draw a pencil sketch of one of those ideas.
Here is a zebra for the letter Z.
And, an owl for letter O.
On the third classroom session, the children were pulled from class one by one, so they could choose fabric to "color" their sketch. This is a process that really is best done with one on one attention. An adult helper encourages the children to pull out the fabric, to make a mess, and to really look.
The trick for the adult is to encourage, to give gentle advice about contrast or pattern (ie: "that fabric detail may not appear if you use two yellow fabrics."), but no editing is done by the adult. This process is about the child, and if they choose yellow dots for their tiger that is their artistic expression.
This is the Zebra complete with playful, plaid head and polka dotty stripes.
And here is the Owl with its colorful plumage.
I give detailed instructions on using fusible web to go from sketch to quilt here.
With first graders, their part of the process ends here.
They've given me the story in their pictures and fabrics, and all I have to do is assemble their sketches in fabric form and lay out the images in a quilted format.
So I have these wonderful images, and I just need to figure out how to arrange them.
I decided to make a tryptic of quilts, and divided the images into three groups. This cluster represents the letters K through R.
With this project, since the images represent the alphabet I set the images according to their letter order from left to right. So, I start with the kite, then the leopard, the monkey, the the newt, the owl, the pea pod and the possum, the quilt, ending with the radio and the rose.
The order is a loose interpretation, so there can be more interesting interplay between the images. Then, I fill in the background a bit. Since the possum was drawn hanging from a tree limb, I create a tree using the fabric chosen by the student, which makes a great place to place the monkey and the owl.
I will leave the elements of the wall hanging pinned in place for a couple days, so I can move bits, adjust arrangements, and fine tune things. I take lots of photographs, so I can see if I liked an earlier version better. When I'm satisfied, I'll take final photos, take the whole things apart, and then begin to fuse the elements down. After the background is in place, I will topstitch the edges, before laying down the next level of detail. After everything is fused and sewn in place, I'll add final details, like the possum's eyes, and the details on the radio.
I know this sounds like a lot of work, but it really goes quite quickly. The best advice I can give to someone who wants to do a project like this is to remain calm. Take it bit by bit, and remember the children are the artists, you are just assembling what they have created.
This is a week in flux.
It is the pause between my birthday and Sweetheart G's.
Little e's classroom auction project is moving along;
all of the children's drawings have been rendered into fabric,
and I'm beginning to figure out how they will work together to make a wall hanging (or two).
And (take a pause here) I have begun to tackle The Closet.
Yes. The Closet of Doom.
The one with a personality of its own,
which periodically vomits forth previously unknown items,
and that seems to generate egg cartons and shoe boxes out of thin air.
Yes. That closet.
For my birthday I was given drawers and shelves for the Closet.
Who knows, perhaps.. eventually.. after rehabilitation..
The Closet of Doom might be a place of organization and happiness,
replete with beneficial spirits.
It could happen,
but right now the closet is in a middling ground of being emptied and reorganized.
I've taken photos, but they are too scary to show without a final Finished state to balance them out.
And, I'm working on a little knitting project,
'cause, of course, I needed something to do.
In short, I'm in the middle of everything,
with very little to show.
I suspect I am not the only parent who occasionally looks at a project her child brings home from school and thinks, "I want to do that!".
In December, Little e's class was visited by a glass artist for their Artist in Residency program, and as I watched the class make ornaments I thought...
"I want to do that!"
So, I snagged the artist's contact info
and sent her an email asking if she'd do an adult event.
Then, I sent out invitations to sixteen women, and to my delight everyone said, "Yes!".
Chrysanthemum came down,
Bunny and Auntie I came up,
Grand M, Auntie O, Gray Girl, Sweetheart G, and Little e,
joined four local Momma's I know, and two more little girls.
We were quite the gaggle exaltation. (I think I'd rather be a lark, than a goose.)
Now some of these women I know well,
and some I want to know better,
but all of them (I thought) needed a bit of art.
For example, my dear Gray Girl may make art all the time, but she rarely invests in an entire afternoon of new art all for herself.
This was art purely for the self,
and perhaps best of all, there was no technique to learn.
It was just play. Color play, shape play, with near instant gratification.
Lisa, our wonderful teacher, will take our pieces home,
fire them in her kiln, and return them to me this week.
All of the women I invited are creative,
but it never ceases to amaze me how many of them don't consider themselves artistic.
More than one, told me they would watch, but not make.
I'm happy to report that everyone created.
Everyone made Art.
And yes, and there was edible art as well.
Shawn, my sweet friend who is part of the Lady's Friday Art scene, made me the most delicious homemade lemon birthday cake!
Had I mentioned yet that it was my birthday?
Why yes, this is how I chose to celebrate my birthday this year.
It was a wonderful birthday gift,
this gathering of women, the talk, the laughter, the art.
In years past, I've wanted to feed my friends on my birthday.
I've made huge dinners for 18 to 20 people, and we've feasted with abandon.
This year, I guess I wanted to feed the soul a little instead.
It was a very, very good day.
It is that time again, the wintersweet is in bloom.
I wish you all could smell it.
I've been working on Little e's class auction quilt, and should have some photos to share soon. It is going to be wild! We have a black, starstruck unicorn and a zebra with a plaid head, as well as a spotted tiger. I've almost gotten to that point where all of the pieces are assembled, and I discover what the puzzle will look like when it's all put together.
My childhood had a soundtrack,
and Kate McGarrigle, with her sister Anna, sang most of it.
The McGarrigles were always playing in our apartment.
As an adult, I was able to see the sisters play live a couple of times.
My Mom said they were they same as they'd always been,
with their banter and lovely voices.
Kate McGarrigle died of cancer on Monday.