Picking out furniture!!

The painter’s arrive on Monday morning and hopefully my expanded studio will be finished early next week. As the end has come closer, I really started thinking about how I wanted to arrange things and also make decisions about what furniture I wanted to add.

My first decision was about fabric storage. Previously my fabric has all been stored in plastic boxes which get HEAVY and, when I am working with many colors, REALLY messy. I knew that I wanted to have everything out on the shelves and easy to see (and get to)

After LOTS of searching online, and reading TONS of opinions, I have decided to go with Ikea Kallax shelves…..

…and have figured out that I have space for 2 sets of 5×5 shelves. From what I have read online, I can fold my fabrics to be 5 inches wide and get two columns of fabric into each cubicle.

Next was a way to store threads….. again I went to Ikea and decided on the Alex drawer system…..

I have some ideas about how to set the drawers up but will have to try it first before I tell you about it!!!

Finally, I wanted a new cutting table. Because I am taller, I really wanted something that could be 38 or 39 inches tall. Those are NOT easy to find. I had planned how to build one but knew that it was going to be difficult, time consuimg and fairly expensive to do!! My plan was for it to be 36″ x 60″. The first step was to buy a cutting mat that was the correct size……PROBLEM…..they don’t make them anymore!! I only found one online and it had horrible ratings!! I did find the Martelli mat and knew that it would be a good product, but it was only 30×60.

I took this as a sign that my cutting table should only be 30×60!!! When I started looking for cutting tables I ran across the idea of using a standing desk…..and magically, they are 30×60!!! I have ordered this one…..

It comes with very high ratings and, when I tried one in a local store, it seems to be very sturdy and steady. It can rise to over 40″ tall but can also be lowered if I ever want to work from my chair.

So now I wait…..and wait……and wait!!! Not really…… most of this should be in next week and I can finally get it all in place.

I can’t wait to get up there!!!

Saturday at the High (Part 2)…..

As I said in my last post, my daughter-in-law, Amber and I spent a fun Saturday in December visiting the High Museum in Atlanta. We had a great time wandering thru the special collections that were on display!!

The first gallery featured the works of Romare Bearden from his “Profile Series” These paintings begin with Bearden’s earliest memories as a boy in North Carolina in the 1910’s and concludes with his life as a young artist in Harlem in the early 1940’s.

Most of the art was mixed media and each included a short comment from Bearden’s life. This piece said…. “During certain times of the year I would get my last view of daylight as I entered the subway on my way home”…..

His colors were vibrant and exciting!!

As we left the exhibit hall, Amber drew my attention to a plaque about QUILTS!! How did I miss that one!! This is fairly long, but I like what he had to say…..

“For African American communities in the rural South, quilting was not only a practical domestic art but an opportunity to gather and socialize. Bearden wrote, “I feature the quilt because everyone had a beautiful quilt. And the ladies used to gather in the church and all help each other to sew their quilts.” Some scholars have associated Bearden’s own process of collage with the quilting traditions that had impressed him in his youth.

After reading this, we backtracked to find the piece entitled “Miss Mamie Singleton’s Quilt”.

He said of this quilt…..”She was famous for her quilts”, highlighting the status a skilled quilter could earn with her craft. The picture shows not Miss Mamie, but her quilt, laid out in a domestic interior. The picture is as much about the quilt as the home environment it was made for.”

As we continued thru the galleries, I was excited to see this piece by Frank Stella. It is part of his “Protractor Series”…….

….and reminded me of a sister piece that I saw back in the fall in the Kunst Museum in Basel Switzerland…..

One of these photos is blurry and the other is cut off……sigh!!!

This full wall piece (“Winter Landscape” by Alex Katz) was stunning……

One of my favorite pieces of the day was this folk art church scene……

It was created by Carleton Garrett and was called “Church Revival”. It was originally motorized and I would have loved to be able to see it in action!!

Amber and I are both drawn to shadows and immediately pulled out phones to take a photo of this piece (Latin Study by Al Taylor)…..

We also laughed at this piece…..

It is a gorgeous art piece with lights and metal and this picture does not do it credit. However, what we both noticed was the cord in the background. Surely there was a better way to plug it in!! It really detracted from the beauty.

Our final gallery was artwork by Virgil Abloh. I knew nothing about this person but Amber filled me in. He trained as a architect but moved into fashion design. He has brought his design ideas into many other disciplines and has made many people aware of his work thru the use of social media.

The exhibit entranced reminded us to clear our perceptions before we entered…..

I particularly liked this architectural drawing from one of his sketchbooks…..

…and this dress designed for Beyonce was amazing…..

…although I was interested that the edges were not finished…..

Amber quickly pointed out that this is another example of his “breaking the perceptions”.

We ended the morning with a late lunch at a local bistro….wonderful warm soup for a cold day!!!

Amber….I can’t wait to see where we go NEXT December!!!

Saturday at the High

In December of 2018, my daughter-in-law, Amber, invited me to go to the Atlanta High Museum to see the art of Yayoi Kusami. You can see the blog post HERE. Then, in December of 2019, she called and said that she had heard that there were quilts in the Permanent Collection and that we should go see them!! Gotta love have kids who are on the look out for quilts!!!!

The first thing that we saw wasn’t a quilt, but it sure looked like one….

There were four quilts in the permanent collection and each was interesting and unique!!

The first was a strip quilt made in the 1930’s by an African American artist in Texas. The information suggested that the strips were aligned in construction and appearance to “Kente Cloth” and that this quilt demonstrates a belief that evil travels in a straight line and must be disrupted by irregular patterns……

The second quilt was similar to a log cabin design and was made in the 1940’s by an Alabama quilter……

This quilt was a Courthouse Steps design, created in the late 1870’s in New England. It had an amazing array of fabrics…..

….the strips were TINY and the edging was amazing…..

The last quilt was made in the 1940’s in Tennessee and carried a definite Americana theme…….

I wish that I could let go and use stripes and polka dots in this way!!!!

On the way to the museum, we had to make a quick stop at my son’s office and I got to see the studio where he makes his musical magic. It was fun to see all of his instruments just waiting for the next recording session…..

There was much more to the museum, but I will save that for another post!!!!

Having a ripping good time…..

At the end of this past week, the builders were working on the drywall in the room and doing lots of sanding, etc so I didn’t really think that I should try to sew in the dust. I wanted to move my machine downstairs but couldn’t figure out where to sit so that my rolling chair wouldn’t ruin the wood floors.

Then…..I thought about setting it up in my office and just move my office chair over a bit and use the same chair mat. It was a bit cramped, but it worked…..

….and the biggest plus…..it is right there and ready whenever I have a few minutes to sew.

The first sewing that I did was on her arms, finally just deciding to do 1/4 inch echo quilting…..

Then I decided to tackle her face….the part that I have been dreading since the start of this project!! While I may be able to draw with fabric, I am NOT an artist where facial contours are concerned!! I spent one evening drawing on 20+ photos of her face, trying to get an idea of what quilting needed to happen…..

And then I quilted…..

…and it was YUCKY!!!

So I spent that evening carefully taking out every single stitch in her face!!! Fortunately, I was having a good day with my machine quilting so the stitches were pretty even.

Now I am stuck with what to do!! I cant decide if the problem is my line placement or the fact that the thread is too dark!!

I KNOW that her nose isn’t good, but I feel like the other lines are okay.

I may try printing her face onto fabric and do several tries before I work on the actual piece again.

And, if any of you have the artistic bent to tell me what I am doing wrong on her nose, PLEASE speak up!!!

Finally….my friend from India, talked to the girl’s grandmother and found out that her name is Mahek. It is an Urdu name and means perfume! How perfect is that!!!