Pisces Moon Studio

• The quilt show was last weekend, and I’d call it a moderate success. Not much in the way of sales, but I don’t think any of the vendors was doing a brisk business. I made some good contacts and have four new teaching gigs locally for later in the year, so that’s great.

• Orange Guy is winging his way to Kentucky to take part in Galeria Aynex’s Quilts of Today show.

• I am recuperating nicely from the tumble-down-the-stairs on Sunday, the result of barefooting it down the steps with a double armload of laundry. The only good thing is that when I slipped, I must have instinctively thrown myself backward and it was a relatively short fall. I did most of the way down the steps on my butt and I have the technicolor bruises to prove it. But it could have been much, much worse.

• I have a little breather for the next couple of weeks. Only two website updates and one new quilt that *have* to be done (although there is, of course, another one not on the schedule that is crying to be made, and there’s that whole “badly need to update my own site” thing to think about).

So life is good, and things are getting done, and I’ll go back to updating this poor neglected blog a bit more frequently.

I’ve spent much of today looking for a large (24″ square, or thereabouts) shallow tray or pan to use in gelatin printing. It needs, obviously, to be watertight, or I would just make up something out of foam core or cardboard. (I’m very handy with a utility knife, and *no one* surpasses me with the duct tape.)

I’ve looked in paint stores, garden centers, even plumbing supply places for a shower pan. I’ve called restaurant supply stores to see how big jelly roll pans get. (Not big enough; they have this odd idea that jelly roll pans should fit into the oven.) I’ve looked at photographic suppliers for darkroom trays. So far, the biggest thing I’ve been able to find is about 16″ x 20″.

It’s possible to use a glass base and build up a clay dam to hold the gelatin — I’ve done that for plates about 14″ x 18″ — but that’s way more trouble than this project is worth.

So I don’t know where else to look. Any bright ideas out there?

The return of the mannequin.

June 3, 2005: This was not one of her best looks, in my opinion. Maybe it’s just the color of the dress that I’m not crazy about.

But then, on June 10, 2005, she appeared in this:

And she’s been a bride ever since.

Now that the quilt show is over, I promise to keep you much better informed about her comings and goings. Plus, of course, any little doings of mine that might be of mild interest.

I know I haven’t talked too much about it, but since the beginning of May I’ve been nose down in “The To-Do List from Hell”â„¢ and I’ve actually accomplished a great deal.

I’ve made two new quilts and a number of postcard-size pieces; I’ve entered and been accepted into a juried exhibition that opens July 9; I’ve signed up with Artisans International (who have already sold two of my quilts since mid-May); I’ve set up three new web sites and have three more in the pipeline; I’ve kept the household running reasonably smoothly (defined by my dear husband as “never running out of Diet Mountain Dew and dinner’s on the table at 7 pm”); and I’ve been working to get ready for the Birmingham Quilt Guild show this coming weekend.

At this show, I will be one of three judges on Friday. On Saturday, I will be doing a half-hour program on fabric postcards. I also, in a rash and energetic moment in April, sent in my fee to be a vendor of hand-dyed fabric for the weekend.

I try not to talk much about it because it doesn’t define *who I am,*, but I live with a couple of autoimmune disorders that tend to wreak havoc with my strength and energy levels. Stress and fatigue also cause flare-ups, and I’ve been running myself pretty ragged these past six weeks. I’ve gotten an incredible amount done, but I have not been able to dye nearly as much fabric as I will need to sell this weekend.

Autumn II
Click on image for larger view. (88KB)

So I have about decided to back off on the fabric thing. I’ve put together some sample postcard kits — not patterns, but envelopes with the Wonder-Under, fusible stabilizer, batting and base muslin for two postcards, plus basic instructions on how to put a card together and some suggestions on making the decorated side. This, I think, might be popular with people who are mildly interested in the concept but don’t necessarily want to go invest in a lot of supplies that they might not use again.

Another thing I might do is use some of the fabric I’ve dyed and printed already as advertising for classes. One of the things on that To-Do List is to set up some local classes in surface design, and maybe this is a good opportunity to gather some names of interested people.

As an example, I finished this quilt top, called Autumn II, to show some of the monoprints I did a year or so ago when I was teaching a class on gelatin plate printing on fabric. Not high art, but pleasant enough to look at and may pique some interest in the process.

I can also use this as informational time — talk to people about what I do rather than concentrating so much on selling “stuff.”

This will be easier on my body; I won’t start out the weekend exhausted and yet I won’t waste the fee either. Yet I am feeling a bit guilty about lowering my expectations of myself.

If you were going to the show, would any of this interest you, or would you be disappointed if I didn’t have 200 yards of hand-dyes ready to sell?

Carol Logan Newbill.com

Pisces Moon Web Design

Two new websites, just finished. (Links open in new windows). :)
Now you can see how I used that purple logo monstrosity on the web design site. And yes, I also did the trapunto background for the Carol Logan Newbill site.

I’m currently working on a complete and total overhaul of my own web site, Pisces Moon Studio. I’m ashamed to say that, even though I design and maintain web sites for others, I haven’t significantly updated the poor thing in almost a year. (What was that saying about cobblers’ children and shoes, again?)

Yesterday morning it occurred to me that I could do a trapunto-y version of my logo for the site. Quilting, graphic design, art, cool web presence — what could be more fitting? So I printed out the line drawing, traced it onto fabric, and sat down at the sewing machine right after lunch, with a two-hour tape in the VCR to watch.

When that one was done, I put in another.

By the time that one was done, I had completed what I wanted to sew. I scanned it, pulled it into PhotoShop, dinked with it a while, loaded the resulting image onto the page, and decided that I didn’t like it. Why didn’t I…. and Hm, if only I’d…

Stopped for a while, cooked dinner, ate with my guys, did minimal kitchen cleanup, and headed back to the studio. Put in another movie and went at it again.

I finally finished the sewing at around 10 pm. When I turned off the machine and stood up, I knew I’d made a mistake. My back, neck, and shoulders were one solid mass of knots, and when I tried to move my neck to loosen it up, a full-blown migraine shot through my head and I was suddenly afraid I was going to throw up.

I did get upstairs okay, but the headache and muscle spasms didn’t begin to loosen until about 4 am. This morning I feel like I’ve been beat with a large stick.

And what did I accomplish in return?

The two pieces together measured a total of 100 square inches.

Ten inches by ten inches. Six hours of intense machine stitching.

Yeah, you could say that I am a trifle obsessive. But doesn’t it look good?

(And, yes, that is actual size.)

Not mine, not yet, but that of a bunch of talented people who have been very busy this month:

Postmark’d Art

Go pay them a visit.

Still busy and haven’t had much time for blogging, but I wanted to comment on Red Shoe Rambling’s delicious DebRism: “…there was a distinct sound of rock suckage in the room when I saw what I’d accomplished.”

I love this phrase. We have a similar one in the Newbill household. When something is bad, it sucks; when it’s really, really bad, it sucks on toast.

I have no idea why “on toast,” and I honestly don’t know where the phrase came from. But I thought I would share, so we can all — in times of descriptive need — call upon our expanded Art Quilters Web Ring Vocabulary of Massive Suckage. Or Suckitude, as you prefer. Just call it my gift to you for the day.

Ugh.

The remnants of Tropical Storm Arlene passed overhead yesterday. Don’t worry, there was no damage and not really much of a storm here; just an additional ton of rain after a week of soaking rain. I have mushrooms lurking under my azalea bushes.

However, I am attempting to dye (actually paint) fabric for a couple of purposes, and the silly stuff is taking forever to dry. Even the new dehumidifier, which pulls at least ten liters of water out of the air every twenty-four hours, can’t get the humidity in the studio down below 50%. Can’t put the drying racks outside or in the garage, because the humidity there is currently 89%.

Before someone suggests that I try Procion dyes, I’ll just say that I have a couple of autoimmune disorders and am highly sensitive to all manner of chemical stuff, so I have to work only with nontoxic materials. This is not necessarily a bad thing, because it requires some ingenuity in developing surface design methods. Except, of course, when I need the dadgum fabric to get dry, now!

I’m ready to start the next quilt, doggone it.

Thank you very much to everyone who commented yesterday. Jeannie, you probably didn’t know it, but you hit on exactly the right point to encourage me to keep on writing: “…you are actually providing a service for those of us who have doubts about our own creativity, talent, etc.” (You can always get me with the guilt. Heh.)

Debra, I like your thinking. Put the unfinished things on the To Do List and then get ‘em done and get ‘em out of here. Yes’m, you may now consider them in the queue with deadlines.

Sadiebelle, my friend, I love you. :) (in a very sista girlfriend kinda way.)

On to the news that SueU was waiting for me to announce.

Just over a week ago, I entered the two Orange Guy quilts (here and here) into the “Quilts of Today” show at the Galeria Aynex. The official calendar called for artist notifications to be made on June 9th, which is today. I’ve been holding off until now to tell you about it, but now I feel that I can.

My entry made it to the gallery on June 1. On the morning of June 2, I had an email from Aynex telling me that Color Theory had been accepted… and that she wanted to use the detail shot (right) on the invitations! Orange Guy is going to be famous!

I called my husband and told him about it right away. We talked about driving up to Paducah for the opening on July 9, but he is so swamped at work right now that he’s working weekends and didn’t feel that he could get away. Even so, I’m really pleased; this is the first time I’ve entered a gallery show in quite a few years and I’d have been happy just to be accepted.

So… onward! And here’s to crossing off a few more things from the To Do list today.