Last of the Japanese Dolls

There are a lot of Japanese dolls I could make, but this one lent itself to my very cute (kawaii) theme. This is a "teru teru bezu" doll. These are made from cloth and given a little drawn-on face and hung much like Halloween ghosts. They are supposed to ward off rain. My little teru teru bezu is soooo cute! He's a bit dimensional, as his head is stuffed and raised up a bit. I had a great time making him on the plane to San Diego.

"New Work" pages updated on my website and some non quilt art

The new work pages of my website are updated with weekly and monthly quilts. What's nice is to be able to see the themed works grouped together.

I do occasionally do non quilty art, and here is one of those things I did. Kelli Perkins had a tutorial on altering silver spoons in a recent back issue of Cloth Paper Scissors. I traded these online with friends. I plan to alter a few more and attach them to a quilted background. It would make a nice Christmas kitchen gift.

Almost back from San Diego

Well, its almost over... I'm at the airport and ready to go home. I finished my weekly quilt and can focus on sleeping on the ride back. I had a frustrating roommate, but the rest of the show was fantastic. I will post a picture of my weekly when I get back. Its quite adorable!

Amazing but exhausting

I have had an amazing time here in San Diego at the comic con, but I am exhausted!
As for my secret news, I was a judge for the Spirit of Retailing Award for the Eisners this year. It was a very cool thing to do. I was sequestered for judging for many hours, and we judged the winner by assigning points. At the Eisner awards ceremony, we judges were named and it was a great night with real celebrities and everything. Working the booth is hard but fun. I even met a fellow quilter and talked crafts with a retailer/gallery owner. I can't wait to get home though...

On the way to the nerd prom

I'll be away from my blog for a week due to attending the San Diego Comic Con. I might be able to sneak in a couple of blog posts, who knows? I did bring the next work in the weekly series with me to sew on the plane ride. See you in a week!

Kokeshi madness

I have a lot of pages in my notebook dedicated to Kokeshi designs. They are so cute and easy to do with their legless, armless body. It's all about the head and hair with these dolls. I almost made her a "Cute but Evil" doll, but that was not the theme. I also firmly decided that the beautiful soft yellow chrysanthemum batik (of which I only have a fat quarter) would be the background for all this month's themed quilts. It's so pretty.

I watched "Curse of the Golden Flower" and loved the costumes in that movie.

Went to see "Wall-E" this weekend with my dad. Bring a hankie. I needed mine! But I cry at tissue commercials, for what it's worth. There's a quilt somewhere in that EVE design....

Kawaii Hina Matsuri

What Japanese doll theme would be complete without Hina Matsuri dolls? This set of dolls of the emperor and empress are brought out for Girl's day in Japan. I could not find a "kawaii" or "cute" version, so I was on my own for this one. After a few sketches, I found a design I liked. I added sleeves to the emperor because he looked like a shmoo otherwise.

I have lots of vintage kimono fabric, mostly "chirimen" or a rayon material made for kimono and crafts. I fused these down, and was happy with the results. The material did not get hard or stiff as I expected.

So cute!

Tough decision

I made a difficult decision on a juried quilt "call for art" last night. I am really disappointed with myself for not paying better attention to the entry dates, and I won't have my entry done in time.
With San Diego Comic Con next week, I won't be able to finish it. It's a tough decision for me, since I could spend every waking moment from now until I leave for the show to work on it, but rushing it will not be my "best work". And, I would be ill prepared for the comic show, which is the "nerd prom" and kind of a big deal in the industry. I'm even doing something super secret (for now).
I have the design sketched out, but no time to make it. I had really thought the deadline was Sept 1. My husband and I discussed it, and he has had similar painting deadlines he has let slip by for similar reasons, so it was very good to talk this over with him.
We both agree I still need to make the quilt this year by Sept 1 so that I can still accomplish the finished work. I wanted to focus on getting entries into shows this year, and this is one opportunity that I was really looking forward to.
I could write a whole blog post about "best work" and juried shows (and magazines) showing the same few artists over and over, and the downside of wanting to be an artist but working a (admittedly cool) full time job. Some other time perhaps. Later this weekend I will have a slew of art to show. That's positive, right?

I have a PHD in Horribleness

A black hole, or Portal, if you will

No, I did not fall off the face of the earth again. Bunches of things are happening:

-I got a Crack- I mean, BlackBerry. They are addicting. I had no idea.
-I'm getting ready for San Diego Comic Con. Largest in the US for comic shows.
-DH's birthday was on the weekend, and lost a day to celebrating.
-Got DH an XBox 360 for his birthday, and got the "Orange Box" game to go with.
-Have spent an inordinate amount of time playing Portal which you may remember from this weekly quilt. Now I get the song and the idea, and it was a great game.
-Getting my hair rehighlighted for the big comic show.
-Project Runway started back up this week!
-My neighbor is an excellent gardener and is helping me get my garden into shape.
-Spent a long time this weekend at a nursery buying plants.
-Went to the Nationwide series race with my dad on Friday last week, and the car I wanted to win did actually win, which never happens to me.
-I've been getting some family tree research together in order to go to a research library in October. Yes, it really does take that long to get ready to go if you're not working on it full time.
I swearz I will get to posting some artwork soon! I swearz!

test from my blackberry!

If this works, how cool would that be?

July's weekly theme is Japanese dolls

I love Japanese culture. I especially love the idea of Kawaii (Cute) and Zakka (Simple living). This week's doll is a daruma doll. I first learned about these from a Nohohon Zoku special edition I have that was made as a gift for "good luck with studying for tests". The idea of the daruma doll is that the doll comes with white eyes. You make a wish, and fill in the one eye. When your wish comes true, you fill in the other eye and hang proudly in your home. I made my wish and sewed in the one eye. If my wish comes true, I will fill in the other eye and post it finished here.

I like this kawaii version of the daruma so much that I might offer it as a pattern. What do you think?

Art Quilt Workbook homework for Chapter 2

Using the practices in the book, this was the quilt I made. My theme is Pomegranates. After all, it's the year of the Pomegranate for me. It uses some of the principles and elements of art. My scanner cut off the borders, which are only a half inch. Also, this is not quilted yet, but I did "pillowcase" bind it.

Last of the June Weeklies

June turned into a long month. It has 5 weekends in it, making my weekly quilt project have an extra June quilt. After travelling so much for work, this theme ended up being a blessing. This week's is squared off filler quilting, as the rest of the month of June was all curves. It was also the only black background, with a nice light pink thread. July should be lots of fun with the theme I have picked out.

Shrine to Nohohon Zoku

I love Nohohon Zoku (Hidamari No Tami) dolls from Japan. I collect them and put them in my office. I find most of them at the comic book shows my company sends me to. Gives me something to look for while I am there. I have about 10 of them now. This month's journal shrine quilt is a funny little Nohohon Zoku. I outlined him in grey because I thought black would be too harsh for this little guy. I am particularly proud of the soft pallate and my satin stitching. Not a fan of the leaf quilting I attempted, but, what can one do? The below pic is just some of my Hidamari, including some other "solar" toys on my desk.

Lots of Updates- Long Weekend

I have lots of updates as I had the holiday day and alos an extra vacation day that made this weekend very fun. In addition ot the quilts I will post shortly, there was much work on my online art classes. For the Art Quilt Workbook group, I did the exercises and quilt for chapters 2 and the exercises for chapter 3, but not making a quilt from those. I also finished catching up on my painting for the online color theory class.

I had originally thought that the color portion of the chapter 2 from the Art Quilt Workbook would overlap the Color Theory class nicely. They were very different exercise. The Color Theory class is only theory. The chapter from the workbook is about color "feelings" and choosing based on warm and cold. Two differnt exercises but I'll be well versed when both are finished.

My Delicious Mistake- Wizard World Chicago

Once again I attended a comic book show for work, and met bunches of artists. I had a few draw me some custom "chicken" art, for my work-related "chicken" theme. Thanks to Trin Gutierrez of Ronin Studios, Katie Cook, and Becky Grutzik, who all drew me a chicken.
Trin also drew My Delicious Mistake, which is what happened after eating a humongous Italian family style dinner at Maggiano's. We felt so stuffed we joked we could give birth to an Italian baby. It was our delicious mistake. I hope to post a picture of it soon.