Embroidery Tutorial : Running Stitch

Things that rock.

1. Read this post

The society that doesn't value handwork is wrong. The magazine article that suggests you are less than human because you prefer an evening with your cat and spinning wheel to dinner at a noisy new restaurant is wrong. The company that doesn't believe you can enjoy a knitting circle and also chair a board meeting is wrong.

This is from Franklin Habit (see below). I think I like Franklin.

1,000 Knitters is a long-term photography project undertaken by Chicago photographer (and knitter) Franklin Habit, who blogs at The Panopticon. The goal is to celebrate through portraiture a creative community whose members have historically been either overlooked or sentimentalized, and whose work is often undervalued.

In the series, self-identified knitters are photographed singly while at work on the same wool scarf.

The first knitter cast on in May, 2007. As of June 14, 2008, 928 knitters have taken part.

The final format of the work is yet to be determined. Possibilities include a book and/or a gallery exhibition. Showings of the work-in-progress will likely take place online.

2. My summer camp this week wrote me a note on the white board, because I won't be there tomorrow. It says "Thanks Becka! You Rock!" with some accompanying artwork. (This isn't even a class I taught, I just checked them in and dug out cool and funky materials for them.) When your class is taught by a "sassy art goddess" I think some of it must rub off.

geekery

That last little post was from my class on Tuesday night. We were talking about "Intro to Website Design" - how to put together a nice looking and functional website. I posted as a demonstration of how easy it is to update some kinds of websites.

My sister Rachel arrives on the scene here tomorrow for a visit. Gotta clear off a bed, which is covered in photo equipment. But it should be a fun time.

The official start of summer camp season was yesterday. We created some zipper bags, much to the amazement of some parents. I love when that happens.

hi there

This is from Technology Tuesdays!

Marbled

Friday, I spent the day learning to marble on fabric and paper. A very thin layer of acrylic paint is floated on top of a layer of carageenan. You drop the paint with an eye dropper and then pull long combs through it to create the patterns. I had a great time in class - it was so much fun to just be a student for a change.

These are scans of fabric pieces that I did. The fabric is alot easier than the paper and I got better results, but the alum (mordant) in the fabric contaminates your carageenan tank and the way to get it back in balance is to do a couple of pieces of paper in between your fabric pieces. I mostly cut up my paper pieces in to small bits to use as thank you cards.

Meme

1. Becka'sButterflies, 2. Pasta Flower, 3. Departure, 4. pea boat, 5. Gene Kelly, 6. quench your bokeh thirst, 7. English Countryside, 8. mocha coffee soft cream, 9. The Photographer, 10. March 30 - My Story, 11. Apple Juggling by tongue, 12. Paddlefish Silhouette

The Questions:
1. What is your first name? Becka
2. What is your favorite food? pasta
3. What high school did you go to? Stevens
4. What is your favorite color? lime green
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Gene Kelly
6. Favorite drink? iced tea
7. Dream vacation? English Countryside
8. Favorite dessert? coffee ice cream
9. What you want to be when you grow up? an artist
10. What do you love most in life? creativity
11. One Word to describe you. prestidigitation
12. Your Flickr name. paddlefish

If you'd like to do it too here's what you do:
Open three windows. One with the list of questions, another open to Flickr and ready to do an image search, and a third to Big Huge Labs' Mosaic Maker (create a mosaic with 4 columns and 3 rows). Answer the first question, put your answer in the search field on Flickr and choose one of the images from the first page to represent your answer. Click on the photo then copy and paste the url into the #1 spot on the Mosaic Maker. Do that for all 12 questions, then click create and post the results to your blog!

Things that caught my eye today...

Pretty things. That's all.

Vacation!

I have been away from blogging, not because I was really on vacation, but because of...

...aka the Shibori Symposium. Many fantastic artists from all over the country descended upon my art center in a frenzy of shibori goodness. As Overseer-of-all-Things-Shibori, my presence was greatly in demand.

Just before that happened, I found a fabulous sheet at a thrift store and whipped up this dress, while Andy was kayaking with a friend...

...I wore it to the opening reception for the shibori show. The bonus of making a dress from a sheet is that it cost me all of $1 and it is a nice poly/cotton wrinkle free blend, so no ironing. But just before I made that dress, I worked on this shirt...

... with the help of Dolores the Dummy. She is new to me but has "seen a few seams" if you know what I mean. She isn't pretty but she is amazingly helpful. (Dolores was named by my friend Nancy, who had her over for a visit before she came to me.) It took me about 5 weeks to make the shirt - not because it was hard, but because I only had the opportunity to work on it for 45 minutes at a time for that long.
And finally, somewhere in there, Andy and I celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary. I took him to see "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the Guthrie (totally fantastic) and he bought me these charmingly silly shoes as a present.



I can just see them with black tights and cute skirts this fall. Love it! (apologies for crummy pictures. I just didn't feel like photo styling today.)

My latest etsy purchase

Back when I worked at a summer childrens' theater, we did a production of the Three Billy Goats Gruff. Because I had a friend (through my dad) who was from Romania, we had her translate the goats' dialogue in to Romanian. The troll spoke English. It has always been one of my favorite shows. It was silly, but so fun. The story has a happy ending where they all order vegetarian pizza. We built a huge bridge set piece that we could walk over. We spent a few minutes at the beginning of the show teaching the audience a bunch of the Romanian words (iarba is grass!) and they helped the troll figure out what was happening. I got to be the "Great Big Billy Goat", which if you know me is pretty comical all by itself.

So when I saw this "O Capra Mititika" (Little Billy Goat), I HAD to have him. He is crafted by Mark at MNSCeramics.etsy.com. ( I also have a verdegris colored rhinocerous by Mark and my sister has a pair of bears)