"What Color is My Soul?" - Valenzuela
We’ve had one of those long body pillows in the house for awhile now and really have no idea where it came from. I don’t recall buying it and you’d think I’d notice if someone showed up at our house with a five foot long pillow, but at the risk of channeling the famously memory impaired Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, I truly have no recollection. Zoë had it on her bed for awhile but in our recent clutter clearing, deep clean and bedroom switcheroo, she jettisoned it and guess where it landed? On our bed, of course.
Have you ever tried to make one of those things look nice and tidy on your bed? Pretty much impossible, unless…fabric stash to the rescue! I had saved the “Dream & Reality” graphic from one of my favorite t-shirts and have been looking for just the right place to use it. Too many morning coffee drips and car braking spills end up making most of my t-shirts entirely unwearable (at least in public), and out of guilt more than thrift I try to recycle some of my favorites.
In addition to the shirt, I found a length of black velvet in my stash, so I really just needed a nice print to create a frame for the t-shirt graphic and so that (happily!) meant a trip to the fabric store. I say “happily” because for me, “fabric store” means the granddaddy of them all, Michael Levine in the sweaty, chaotic, almost impossible to find parking in, heart of the garment district in downtown Los Angeles. So fun! Anything else is just running errands!
Pudgy little black cat or pile of velvet?:
Both! (As you can see, Mikey loves that gorgeous bit of aqua and orange Amy Butler fabric that I found for the next quilt which is in the cutting process! If there's any extra, I promised him a little cat quilt.)
But back to the t-shirt–you may think it odd that I would save an old coffee stained shirt, but I love that “Dream & Reality” t-shirt because it perfectly expresses my way of thinking. I think that the only thing we can truly possess and have any type of control over are our thoughts. Yeah, that constant and exhausting perpetual chatter that runs through our minds is actually controllable and even better, once we get a handle on it, life can change very quickly in the direction we want to go. I think that the tenor and shape of our thoughts is perfectly entwined with the colors and forms that emanate from our soul and both deeply affect the way we dream, the things we dream for and our ability to achieve them.
Wow, speaking of spiraling thought processes, how did I get from covering a pillow to mind chatter? Oh, yes, coffee stained t-shirts, fabric and that crazymaking cornucopia of fabric, Michael Levine, downtown. It’s all connected! I love Michael Levine–picture a cat rolling around in catnip totally oblivious to all else–complete with claws stretching and retracting, nose sniffing and tail twitching–and you’ll have an idea of what I look like as I wander and weave through aisles lined with bolts of cottons, silks, poplin, ribbons, zippers....aaahhh, heaven! Although I do try to abstain from the actual rolling in the fabric for fear of being escorted out...Woot!
I found a gorgeous print imported from Japan that has a strong enough graphic for the bit of patchwork framing I wanted to create between the black velvet and the t-shirt. I loved the bold drawing of the Geishas and background patterning contrasted with vintage kimono colors. My Geisha drawings like the one at the top of this post and the little Geisha Ghost below tend to turn out more abstract.
"Geisha Ghost" - Valenzuela (in the style of Kiyonaga)
This is a weekend project because sewing velvet is like
sewing butter to butter–buttah to buttah, baby–and I’ve got velvet side panels,
a full 56” velvet back and a zipper to install–on the velvet. Talk about the wide berth between Dream & Reality, the final product might be very different than the intention and expectation! Well, I’m off to sew…next post, maybe
I’ll have a pillow cover!
p.s., I'm so lucky to have two such hardworking Personal Assistants!:
Comments