Monday in Seattle. Picture and Quote for the Week, What is Your Dream?

art quilt made to honor our daughter Emma and her dreams

(she is almost 17 now, by the way...)

I have a dream...

~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Monday in Seattle. Picture and Quote for the Week, Ideals Are Like Stars

art quilt post card

hand dyed fabric, stamped, painted, stitched, glittered

Ideals are like stars; you will not succeed in touching them with your hands.

But like the seafaring man on the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides,

and following them you will reach your destiny.

~Carl Schurz

Monday in Seattle. Picture and Quote for the Week. Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

A very happy Canadian Thanksgiving to all!

May you find your true north, your native land, your glorious glowing hearts!



Antique and Vintage Kimono Fabric: Visual and Tactile Inspiration

I just have to share some photos of the gorgeous antique and vintage kimono fabrics that arrived yesterday from Japan.

Even the stamps on the package are gorgeous...

I got these from togei, a shop on Etsy. I purchased them because I am making inspiration canvases and boards with some of the supplies from Bumbershoot Supplies and I want to pair the Japanese beads and cabochons with vintage Japanese textiles.

Plus, my hands have been itching for fabric. Even before mixed media, my deepest roots are in sewing and embroidery and crochet, all of which I learned as a child.

On the left is an antique cotton, with gorgeous flying cranes. This one dates to Meiji-Taisho, where Meiji = 1868-1912 and Taisho = 1912-1926.  The two other pieces are pre-WWII silk, dating roughly somewhere between 1912 and 1939.

Plus, I was also able to purchase some lengths of very old vintage, possibly antique silk "fringe", a scalloped ribbon.  Just look at these colors! 

I've even managed to clear off my work bench and clean up my studio, so I should be able to start working with these textiles very soon. Can't wait!

Song. Three Muses. O Canada!

This is my piece for the challenge at Three Muses this week, which is "song".  The song I picked is the Canadian National Anthem, or Hymne National.  Two national languages, you know :) Scroll down for the words.  This is a 6x6 inch art quilt, once again using some of my hand dyed fabric, one of my maple leaf photographs transferred to fabric, stamped, stitched and foiled. 

I love the Canadian National Anthem. It is filled with incredible words and phrases like: glorious, free, true north, strong, home, love, glowing hearts. It is a powerful and moving piece.

I have lived in the United States for many years now.  It is truly a privilege to live here, and I deeply appreciate many things that living in the United States has brought to me.  It's interesting, one thing it has shown me about myself is this: you can take the girl out of Canada, but you can't take Canada out of the girl. I am so grateful to be Canadian.  Thank goodness for Canada.

And yes, I can sing the national anthem in both national languages :)

National Anthem

O Canada!

Our home and native land!

True patriot love in all thy sons command.

With glowing hearts we see thee rise,

The True North strong and free!

From far and wide,

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

God keep our land glorious and free!

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

Hymne National

Ô Canada!

Terre de nos aïeux,

Ton front est ceint de fleurons glorieux!

Car ton bras sait porter l'épée,

Il sait porter la croix!

Ton histoire est une épopée

Des plus brillants exploits.

Et ta valeur, de foi trempée,

Protégera nos foyers et nos droits

Protégera nos foyers et nos droits.

Floral Tribute. Mixed Media Monday, Earth Laughs in Flowers

This is my piece for this week's theme at Mixed Media Monday, Floral Tributes.

My tribute is to our Earth, which during this time of year, as Ralph Waldo Emerson so famously said, is laughing in flowers.

This is a 6x6 inch mixed media art quilt. The base is some of my hand dyed fabric.  I have stamped and layered vintage buttons and vintage and contemporary trims on top of the base fabric.

Personal Symbols. Mixed Media Monday. Nature Inspired Art

This is my entry for this week's challenge, Personal Symbols, at Mixed Media Monday.  This is a 6x6 inch art quilt. The base is an image of some of my handmade paper, scanned and manipulated in the computer then transferred to fabric.  I've added scraps of the original handmade paper, mica, net ribbon, a transparency with a poem, all stitched, and finally some local shells added as an embellishment. 

We were asked to reflect on the images, colors and/or themes that recur in our art.  For me it is nature, hands down.  When I look at my art, I see lots of flowers, trees, forest themes and of course the sea.  I often bring home bits and pieces of the place I have walked, be it beach or forest, to use in my art, or just to keep close (see this studio snapshot).  I feel at my best when outdoors and close to the elements, and I often use the ocean as a theme in my work.  There is a timelessness to the ocean, a sense of eternity and peace that I derive from being near it.  It helps me see myself, like ee cummings eludes to in the poem I use in this piece (see below).

In addition to images, words are also really important to me, words are powerful and evocative.  I often use them in my art, whether they can be seen by the viewer or not.

maggie and milly and molly and may

went down to the beach (to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang

so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star

whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing

which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone

as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)

it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

~ee cummings

Three Muses. Relationships. Love the One You're With

This is my entry for this week's challenges at the Three Muses, "relationships", called "Love the One You're With".

This is a 6x6 inch art quilt made with more of my stash of hand dyed fabric, which I sun printed, then wrote on with white pen, stamped, stitched with metallic thread and finally foiled.

The one you are always with is yourself.  I've always found that my relationships with others, be they humans, animals, and even the plants in my garden, are so much better when I am in good relationship to myself.  This art quilt is my reminder of this personal reality.

Three Muses. Legs. Kitten Art Quilt.

This is my entry for this week's theme of "legs" at the Three Muses.

For over 8 years now, we have fostered kittens for the Seattle Animal Shelter.  We do not do this all year round, just during kitten season.  I thought I would honor all the four-legged creatures who have passed through our home and blessed us with their presence.

Hand dyed fabric, photo transfer, vintage charms, stitched transparencies, stamping.

It's so much fun to watch the really tiny kittens find their sea legs. Their legs are so tiny that we have to teach them how to use the litter when it is in an old cookie sheet on the floor - they can't handle anything higher. The bottle babies have to practice just walking at first.  And they walk through everything, litter, food, water, it's pretty messy for a while. Pretty soon, though, they figure it out and start tearing around the room we reserve for our fosters, and then it's just crazy fun to watch them slip and slide on the hardwood floors.

Our family came to this choice after losing our 17 year old brown tabby, Alu. She was really my cat - I got her when I was in graduate school. I really did not want another animal, but my children really did want a pet, so we compromised and decided to try fostering, and it has worked out wonderfully well for us. To see one of our foster babies, see this Monday in Seattle post.

Mothers. Mama A Rainbow. Mixed Media Monday

This is my entry for this week's Mixed Media Monday theme of "mothers".  This art quilt is my attempt to capture a very special moment in my life, a unique Mother's Day present from my son Eric. We're not big on Mother's or Father's Day, we basically try to approach every day as Mother's Day and Father's Day and Children's Day. So it was a real surprise when Eric sang me this song (lyrics below) on Mother's Day a couple of years ago... I still get a bit teary every time I read these lyrics as I hear his incredibly beautiful clear boy soprano singing this song for me.  I deeply value my role as a mother to Eric and my daughter Emma, and I can't think of anything that has blessed me more in my life than the presence of three very special people, Emma, Eric, and my husband Jim.

Hand dyed fabric, ribbon, transfer of Eric's heart drawing, then stitched, photo transfer, stamping, crystal, vintage rhinestones.

Mama A Rainbow 

~Jim Nabors

What do you give to the lady who has given

All her life and love to you

What do you give to the reason you are livin'

I could window shop the world

Before I'm through

Mama, a rainbow

Mama, a sunrise

Mama, the moon to wear

That's not good enough

No not good enough

Not for Mama

Mama, a palace

Diamonds like door knobs

Mountains of gold to spare

That's not rich enough

No not rich enough

Not for Mama

Mama, a life time crowded with laughter

That's not long enough

Not half long enough

What can I give you

That I can give you

What will your present be

Mama, young and beautiful

Always young and beautiful

That's the Mama I'll always see...

That's the Mama with love from me

What can I give you

What will your present be

Mama, young and beautiful

Always young and beautiful

That's the Mama I'll always see...

That's the Mama with - love - from - me...

Look What I Found. Mixed Media Monday

Oh my. All you have to do is go to Bumbershoot Supplies to see "what I found" :)

But for this week's Mixed Media Monday challenge, I focused on one of the most special places in the world to me, the ocean. We are blessed  in Seattle to be very close to water everywhere, including salt water in the form of Puget Sound. And the Pacific Ocean is not too far away.

This is a 6x6 inch art quilt using my hand dyed cloth as a base and featuring some of the treasures I have collected in my trips to the beach.

One of my favorite poets, ee cummings, captures my feelings about the sea so well:

maggie and milly and molly and may

went down to the beach (to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang

so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star

whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing

which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone

as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)

it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

Three Muses. A Nice Cup of Tea

This is my first ever posting for the challenge blog Three Muses. I absolutely had to create for this theme since tea is so very, very important to me.  We live in Seattle, home of Starbucks, and there is no coffee in our house. None. Nada. Zip. Only tea.  And only the good stuff...

For this 6x6 inch art quilt, I've used tea stained fabric, overstamped with a beautiful teacup stamp from Stampington, a strip of my hand dyed fabric, used tea tags, ribbon that I trimmed to mimic tea leaves, teacup and teapot buttons.  And one bit of vintage: the celluloid carved roses with vintage brass headpins in their centres.

Party Animals. Mixed Media Monday

This 6x6 inch quilt square is for the Mixed Media Monday theme "party animals".  I live in Seattle, on the Puget Sound and quite near the San Juan Islands, around which reside well studied pods of orcas. They migrate every year, returning to the Puget Sound and it is a cause for celebrating this life rhythm. I took a holiday with my daughter to try to see them return.  We did not see them, I guess they were on holiday for the day too.  We did, however, see otters and porpoises within a dozen feet of us at our whale watching spot.  And at the Whale Museum in Friday Harbor, we saw video of the orcas playing and splashing, surely looking like they were having a party, celebrating their return home.

This quilt square is made of silk, embellished with silk ribbon, vintage sequins and vintage seed beads.  It is stamped with letter stamps and stamped orcas were fused to the surface. The  beautiful orca stamp is a design by the Haida artist Paul White.

Enchanted. Mixed Media Monday

My first ever posting for the challenge blog, Mixed Media Monday. The challenge was "enchanted". This is a 6x6 inch art quilt, with sun printed cloth, bits of bark and twigs collected on my walks through Seattle's Discovery Park, with vintage sequins, beads and glass pearls and a bit of stamping and foiling. To me, the forest is an enchanted place. The inspiration for this piece was my imagining of the forest in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream and my daughter's performance in that play.