a surfacing light

Dream & Reality

"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!:

 

Colors, Quilts & Clawfoot Tubs

"Fall FLower" - Valenzuela '08

In a few years I’ll be fifty and my kids will be gone to college and/or busy enjoying fulltime jobs (we hope!) and Nutmeg and the cats will be old and sleepy.   My husband and I grew up in households that told us we needed to find a job and stick with it, perhaps even retiring from a long-term position with a company of good repute.  Good advice and we followed it…or tried too.   As we all know now, companies come and go and we need a lot of diversity and continuing education in our lives and jobs in order to remain employed and maintain a reasonable life style.  So as Tad and I look down the road to the next stage of our lives, we have decided we want to truly follow our passion.  For Tad, it’s advancing his photography work and teaching computer animation/graphics.  As for me, I’m passionate about the illustrated book that is nearly complete, drawing, handcrafts like knitting and FABRIC.   I love fabric, more than just about anything.  Yup, more than chocolate even.  I really enjoy drawing on the computer with a mouse, as in the clawfoot tub below (which is the style I'm using to illustrate my book) but after a full day of living in the abstract brain of the computer, I find that I crave texture, tangibility and actually holding something in my hands.

"Clawfoot tub" - Valenzuela, 08

I’ve been looking for a way to combine those passions and I’m thinking I’d like to use my drawing and computer skills to design my own textiles.  For example, I think my clawfoot tub drawing would make a cute fabric pattern, maybe for a shower curtain or bathroom print?   But first things first!  The initial step in designing a line is understanding how different fabric patterns work together–because unlike paint, charcoal or collage, I can’t simply change a fabric I don’t like by adding a bit of cobalt blue, a strip of beautiful paper or a photoshop filter–what you get is what you got.  Very tricky for someone used to being able to change the medium with the click of a button or the swish of a brush.

For me, the best way to master a medium is to use it, and use it alot, so I made a quilt.  I’m calling it a quilt because it has a front, a back and batting in between, but it really should have a different name because I declined to make the binding (a HUGE, boring, painful job) and just made a “quilt sandwich” by sewing up the side seams and turning it right side out.  After all, if I’m gonna be following my passion, I can choose to leave out the stuff I don’t like. I also didn't do hand or machine quilting on it, I finished it off with "stitch in the ditch" quilting which I think is more than enough.  I have found that actual quilting can become more important than the fabrics and I prefer a simpler look.  

The pattern I chose called for using the quilt back material for long strips down the center front, but when I finished the quilt front I found that not only was the green backing material I had chosen the least favorite of my fabrics, but that it had become the central fabric, overpowering the entire quilt.   Yuch!  See below!

Quilt Making Lesson #1:  Try to find a big, full sized picture of the quilt in addition to the small, artsy, staged picture shown in the pattern book before going to all the trouble of making it.

Quilt Making Lesson #2:  Make sure to use your favorite fabrics as the central focus.  I liked the floral print and the yellow paisley, detail below.

Happily though, my dislike of the green fabric became one of those crazy accidents that can change the entire trajectory of a project/life.   After the front fiasco, I revolted against using the hated green as a backing, so I found some wide, heavy muslin that cost about $3.00 a yard (versus the $9.00 for the green) that works beautifully for a quilt back.  I’m going to use that same easy to find, inexpensive muslin as a backing on all the quilts I make–I think it adds a sense of continuity by tying each individual quilt to the other quilts I am making with a large element and also reflects the simplicity that I love.  In fact, I’m thinking about naming my small line of handmade quilts “Muslins”.

"Muslin Backing"

All in all, it looks okay on a bed and the cats love it, it's one of their favorite nap spots!  Of course, that's not saying much as they tend to nap anywhere and everywhere, although they do enjoy helping with the quilting.  Here's Leonardo (Leo) below, pitching in by getting lots of fur all over a pile of freshly washed and ready to be pressed muslin.

Michelangelo (Mikey) getting ready for a well-deserved nap after having to get out of bed for breakfast, below:

Well, I’ve been nattering on here for awhile–in the future I really am going to send out little bulletins with pics so I don’t bore you all with these long, random posts!  I would LOVE to hear from you about what you are thinking of as far as lifestyle and philosophy changes.  Anyone else thinking about moving in a different direction?  Or have you already?  Leave a comment or if you like to be private, just email me.  I always love hearing your thoughts.

Right now, I’m on to finishing the drawings for the book and have started the next quilt!  Pics soon!  Also, we really enjoyed the pumpkin patch, but it has to go this weekend because we’ll be planting bulbs and some other seeds in our flower beds, so here are a couple of goodbye pictures: 

(I love the tendrils in these pumpkins!)