What has been going on during this quarantined pandemic

Since I last wrote I have been wearing a mask

 and using disposable gloves whenever venturing forth.

It almost seems normal now to see empty streets and grocery stores.

I get some deliveries and have curb picked-up at a couple 

of restaurants that are closed to all else.

It has been two months since I last wrote. 

Several celebrations, birthdays, anniversaries, and Mother's Day

have past with many greetings On-line,

many Zoom meetings, conversations, and games

have been played.

 For Mother's Day, I received these plants

for the two very empty pots on our front porch

 Also, this lovely indigo and white Shibori tea towel, card, and book,

 found on our front porch.

And in the mail delivery, 

a stand that can connect to a table and then hold my iPad.

 In March there had been a call-out for sewers 

to create hand-made masks to

 then be delivered to several hospitals.

 I made just 20 for Suburban Hospital and 

then a couple for neighbors and our use.

 Then, another Call to Artists by ArtWatch for 

a project to thank hospital workers for everything.

 This project was to create a small (4 by 6 inch) 

piece of art on an index card or cardboard..

 Remembering the note cards I made months ago 

I used the same idea, slide frames, 

painted and filled with fabrics or colored pictures. 

 I had been enjoying pleating the foreign money, so,

 added to one of the index cards. 

These were then sent to a staging address 

where they will be delivered, as our thanks, 

to all the hospital workers in this area.

 Each day that I take a walk, I absorb such beautiful colors..

 I always come home wanting to use colors any way I can, quickly.

So with the machine just waiting for me, 

I add a small bit of color and lay it aside for another time.

I hope to get back to three other embroidery projects, soon.

There has never been enough time for so much 

I want to do despite the fact that we all are staying at home.

A small gift

During a day at the National Gallery of Art I was enjoying 

seeing many  trees like this surrounding 

the center fountain in the rotunda.

 Seeing all the decorations there and then 

at our daughter and son-in-law's (Vicky and Alan Fogg) home,

I found an acrylic painting I had created,

 probably 50 years ago.

 That made me think of the many gifts I used to make

when our children and their cousins were small.

Thinking of the three tiny great-grandchildren we now have 

there is one great granddaughter, now two years old.

 So, I thought she might be the one I could make something simple for.

Found this small soft knit dress that was cotton 

but it needed a bit of decorating. 

 These fictional butterflies have been machine embroidered 

and are pinned on styrofoam and drying. 

(I always boil away the stabilizer I use 

when embroidering on the sewing machine)

 Sewing them on to a knit fabric is not an easy trick. 

I did not want to put a stiff non-woven fabric on the inside 

of the dress so used lots of paper, inside, during the sewing of the butterflies. 

This then took tweezers to pull out all the bits of paper. 

No child wants bits of paper inside their clothing 

and their Mother does not want bits of paper in the laundry.

So I hope it works, fits, and wears well.

This tree with gifts was at the Fogg's home 

where we spent the day having lots of fun, much gift opening,

 and wonderful holiday meals. 

Their home has festive (not Festivus) decorations in every room.

To end the year in humor or humour since this

Aphorism came from a grand daughter (Hayley Adams) 

who had found a box of these aphorisms in London.

From Anton Chekov (1860 - 1904)

"Any idiot can face a crisis.

It is this day-to-day living that wears you out."

Have a creative 2019

Cheers

Scraps Patchwork Workshop

On Thursday, 11/9/2017 a group of us took a workshop at the 

GWU Textile Museum. 

This workshop and the lecture that followed was in conjunction 

with one of the current exhibits at the museum,

SCRAPS 

 As we walked into the workshop room we were faced with hundreds

 of pieces of beautiful Nuno fabrics. 

Three artists were shown in the Scraps show and 

Reiko Sudo was one as well as being our instructor for the day.

She gave us each one instruction sheet and then we were 

to choose 7 pieces of fabric to create our own scarf.

This is when we would have liked to spend a day just choosing 

from so many beautiful fabrics. We were like children at a candy store.

I wish I could have photographed the long tables full of all our choices.

 I finally had to choose, although I could have spent all day choosing, 

and then began laying out and rearranging my choices on the floor.

 We did have to stop choosing and taking things back and choosing 

different fabrics again and again because we had to sew it in one day.

Pictured below is my table of four sewing or deciding to sew.

 Scissors, and threads were provided and all we had to do was create.

 Several hours later Reiko and a helper

 (wearing a beautiful Nuno fabric jacket)

started laying out each person's scarf. Here they have arranged 

my finished scarf to be photographed

 They did this for everyone.

 Below, you will see the legs of another helper wearing 

an Issey Miyake jeans design. Very unusual seaming 

when you saw them from the back. 

Sorry but I did not get a picture of him.

 My only photo of a group of scarves, but......

Here is Reiko taking pictures of all of the scarves.

In the evening, she had a lecture for the members of the museum.

Reiko Sudo is the director of Nuno in Tokyo and told us of the 

beginnings of the company and showed photos 

of the development through the years. 

Nuno is primarily interested, now, in using everything with no waste. 

Reiko used the outer-most layer of the silk worm (kibiso)

as an example of waste that previously had been thrown away. 

She continued to work with this thrown away material. 

First she made a paper of it, and now it may be used in screens.

Reiko works at developing and using materials so there is no waste. 

She gave us more examples and is an example herself....

we won't forget her and this philosophy.

New York Adventures

Going to the Met on Fifth Avenue always has unusual and surprising exhibits. 

The Rei Kawakubo, Comme Des Garcons show was a total surprise 

as I have not always been a fan of her designs. 

This show titled Art of the In-Between was indeed 

so full of so many wonderful uses of fabric and more, 

I am so glad to have seen it.

 Absence/Presence, 2 dimensions, 

Autumn/winter and Spring/summer 1997

 High above our heads were these Clustered Beauties.

 Details from 1983, 1998, 2009, 2010 and some from 2013

I wanted to list all of the titles and dates

and there was so much more material to read.

 Ballerina Motorbikes from the 4 seasons, 2005

 I wanted this one because I liked the back.

 Abstract/ Excellence, Spring/summer, 2004.

This was a group of skirts and I never could 

find out what the tops were made of.

 Good Taste/Bad Taste, Autumn/winter, 2008-9

 Broken Bride, 2005-6

 Broken Bride, Autumn/winter, the other side of the exhibit.

 18th Century Punk and  Delinquent, 2010

 I was fascinated with the manipulation of 

the bands of fabric on the model on the left.

 Life/Loss, Ceremony of Separation, Autumn/winter, 2015-16

 Object/Subject, Body Meets Dress, 1997

(details)  Dress Meets Body, Spring/summer, 1997

 East/West, Cubism, 2007

 Lost Empire, Inside decoration, 2010-11

 Child/Adult, Not Making Clothing, 2014

with a self fabric stuffed bear.

 Male/Female, The Infinity of Tailoring, 2013-14

 Not Making Clothes, Spring/summer 2014

With sculptural head pieces designed by Julien d'Ys

 Beautiful/Grotesque, Monster, 2014-15.

I was fascinated with the heavy lacy leggings 

but we were looking at sweaters with holes.

 War/Peace, Blood and Roses, 2015

 Details, above, of so many unusual manipulated fabrics.

There was so much more to see and 

I did go back to look at it twice, feeling that I still hadn't seen all of it.

The all white sets were remarkable 

with high and low views of the sculpture and fashion

and so much more to absorb. But, the Met had several other 

exhibits I wanted to see so this is all for today.