My snakey, slithery ikat

For this weeks Spoonflower contest the theme is Snakes.  I choose to do an ikat design. I wanted earthy and it needed to be heavily textured to mimic the warp and weft of a real ikat.  Here is a good wiki entry about ikat if you'd like to read about the real weaving process. 

It was pretty fun to do and gave me all kinds of ideas for future designs.  This pillow shown above is available at Society6, along with a cell cover, skin, laptop skin and a canvas.  Or it's available as fabric in my Spoonflower store (or rather it will.be as soon as I proof it).  Go on by and give it a Like or make a comment about it.  :-) 

I'm back!

I took the rest of December off to relax.  It was nice to have those 18 days off!  During that time I participated in a Secret Santa exchange, did the whole Christmas thing with the family. Spent ALL our money for the month of Dec., and generally sat around the house playing on the computer and chatting with friends.

Look! My secret Santa was none other than Cynthia F, renowned fabric designer, quilting extraordinaire and all around nice human.  Really, go check out her blog to see how talented she is and what a nice human she is. And she blogs all the time which gives me fun things to read on a regular basis.  

I must resolve to post to my blog more often!

I'm quite in love with her stuff, have coveted it and wish I could sew as well as she does.  I've sewn for decades but really, I don't have the patience she does because her work is perfect.  

I also sent off a few things to my Secret Santa person; she does a lot of hand drawing so with that in mind;  I created a quilted cover for a drawing pad and a pencil bag, and I stupidly didn't take any photos so I lifted the photos from the person who received the gifts.  

I love those technical pens and I love Strathmore paper. Those are my fave pencils and while the erasers are ok, the black pearl eraser is standard in my drawing kit.  Oh and have you ever had those white chocolate candies? OMG, they are to die for. Melt in your mouth goodness.  In any case it seems like she liked the gifties. :-)

I still owe some gifts to some people...I think I have an aversion to the post office. I resolve to get those things out the door too before too many more weeks go by.

Tomorrow I go back to my 8-5 daily job and must close so I can get my stuff ready for the week. The best part about going back to work tomorrow is getting paid tomorrow. OMG, running out of money and having to wait for a paycheck is the worst!  So yay for tomorrow!  

k 

A snowflake solstice

I have 2 children, both are adults now and I'm thankful every day they've grown up to be fine humans.  I remember every age; the trials and tribulations of rearing them and keeping up with their ever-changing personalities and physical needs.   I loved all of those moments.  I still love those moments; they are my babies no matter how old they are.

I love the kindness of children, their innocence, their unfettered joy of being.  I feared for their safety, their well-being.  I mourned the loss of innocence when my husband and I discussed how we'd teach them to protect themselves as they learned that in addition to very nice people the opposite existed as well.  Mean people, hurtful people, evil people. My kids have been lucky - most of the people that have been in their lives have not been of the latter ilk. I do not fool myself that I can keep them safe from all things. I wish I could.

This week has been exceptionally hard for me.  The Sandy Hook children and their family and friends have been in my thoughts all week long.  It makes me profoundly sad that they and their parents/families will not have them to teach them, to learn from them, to love them.

As I thought about my snowflake design I couldn't stop thinking about all of the children. Each one the light of a family. That no two snowflakes are alike, they swirl around for a very short time and melt away.

In remembrance I created this design. The background is storm clouds. The snowflakes are the fleeting moments we hold; perfectly individual. The candles the children that shine light for us. The light we light to remember them by.  The groupings is all of us, together we are humanity, together we must be the light for others.  The title is A Snowflake Solstice as we move from innocence to a new year where we can hopefully learn the hard lesson that we must do everything we can to keep our children safe and have conversations on how we can do that.

Hold your children and kiss them. Be brave enough to say all lights should be considered sacred and worthy of shining forth. Be the light and do what you can to keep them as safe as you can. 

Sick computer :-(

You know your computer is sick when the monitor is on but the screen is black and it won't boot up.  I broke out in a cold sweat trying to figure out what was wrong with it. I'm perfectly able to figure things out if it's software related but hardware? Nope, have no idea.

I could see the fan whirling around.  That means nothing really...I just like the words "whirling around".

The very nice thing about Facebook and having very nice friends is the generosity that is offered up.  My friend Jackie offered up her husband; he's apparently a hardware kind of guy and she somehow talked him into doing the diagnostics for my poor computer.  What a girl! What a guy!

So far the data is recoverable. Which is a relief since ALL my artwork is on it. All my programs...some of which I no longer have the disks for. All kind of photos are on that hd.  A fan is broken and based on what Jackie said I'm betting the power supply is toast too.  I hope it's not too expensive to fix as it's my daughters 21st birthday tomorrow and Christmas is right around the corner and I don't get paid again until January.  Being on a strict budget doesn't allow for computer crashes.

I may not be doing any designing until January. That fills me with fear and loathing. Drawing every day is what keeps me sane.  A different friend told me about an electronics recyling place not too far away where maybe I can get parts really cheaply. All my body parts are crossed.

So I'm using a Mac laptop.  I've installed my Intuos tablet which helps a lot and I do have a really old Illustrator ap on it so maybe I can adjust to using that. I find a laptop a pita tho.  My fingers just hate the keyboard!  And I an so awkward with the touchpad.  But I am thankful that I have a laptop to use.

Hopefully I'll be up and running in no time. I'm keeping all my body parts crossed!

Gators on your pillow!

How nice of Jamie B to send me a photo of a pillow she made using my fabric design Alligators are Evergreen in the Everglades

Isn't it so cute?  I rotated the horizontal photo so you can also see the print without getting a crick in your neck.  :-)

I really heart customers and when they take the extra time and effort to show me their work I swoon!  I <3 head="head" lay="lay" my="my" nbsp="nbsp" on="on" p="p" pillow="pillow" this="this" to="to" want="want">

Those are my naked alligators, I also have clothed alligators. They're on vacation so you know they needed to dress up just a bit. Gators on Vacation  Oh, and I also have a 4 for 1 design where you gt 4 fat quarters on 1 yard of fabric and it does include the Gators on Vacation design.  Gators and Snakes for the Adventurous!

Thanks Jamie B for buying my alligator fabric and thanks so much for sending me photos!

My Riveria Tee Detail

Partial view of my entry for the Riveria Tee contest at Spoonflower

My designs on pillows

Oh look...Pillows! Now you can buy pillows at My shop at Society 6

My surface design page on Facebook

Why yes, I DO have a Facebook Fan Page: Click here to go there! Click the Like button! I hope to see you there!

The worst Christmas gift

The worst gift I ever received was this very scary doll. My MIL loved church craft fairs and wanted to support the ladies at whatever church.

This, she so happily pointed out to me was made by a BLIND woman!  Isn't that nice?

Nice, no I don't think it's nice, I think he meant to terrorize people with them. See for yourself; Do you agree with her or with me? Don't worry, you won't offend my MIL, she's done the celestial  check out and won't be commenting here.

A pom pom full of sparkle for a nose.  Matching shoe pom poms. A festive one piece jumper complete with upside down designs!  Medium blue plastic beads adorn the appendages...I'm guessing those are where terrorizing cardboard/styrofoam headed clowns indicate where their joints are. Googly eyes! A styrofoam head with marker tattoos in it's face.  I think the red/white and blue yarn pom poms are to indicate that this was made in American, for Americans.  

What's not to love? 

A slightly closer look at it's face.  Ok, look, the danged thing was in the garage full of dust.  It scares me. It scares anyone who ventures into the garage, my camera was scared and didn't care to really focus on it.  

You see the evil eye it gives you if you move over to the side?  It's terror-inducing.  btw, you can't see it in the photos but there is spray glitter on it's hat. 

I do apologize, you might not be able to sleep after witnessing this gift. I probably should have warned you at the beginning eh?

Now, what is your worst gift you've even gotten?

My Facebook page

the Caper Chase detail

The detail to my entry for the Timeless Treasure/Spoonflower contest.

Whoa little dogie!

It's been a while since I posted. My only excuse is my daughter has been sick and there for a while all I was doing was running her to twice a day doctor visits and attending to her. But she's on the mend (fingers crossed).

In the last year or so I've been putting designs up on My profile at Society 6. I do ok there, not as well as at Spoonflower tho.

Just a couple of products by me

You can also find laptop skins, teeshirts and tote bags.  I can't really decide if the single subject items such as the vampire girls (hard to see their little teeth in this photo but they have teeny pointed creepy teeth) or the seamless repeat designs do better.  I'd really like to crack this market better.  

I often change things up a little for the Soc6 products.  The girls at SF have a spider and skulll background that they don't have at Soc6.  

I'm undecided whether I should continue on doing Soc6 stuff as it's harder than anything to get noticed there amongst al the really fabulous art.  One day I think I'll just not add things and then the next I get all gung ho.  What a quandry ya know?

Eagle eye spots my fabric design in an ad

Do you know how nice it is for someone to spot your fabric out on the web and let you know it's there?

Connecting Threads is a sponsor of True Up (a realllly great site) and Samarra Khaja, textile designer extraordinarre spotted the flashing ad while reading True Up.  Do you see it there on the right side?  Go check it out live in person by clicking the True Up link I posted.  

I know I'm still so tickled to see my stuff out on the web!  So if you see something...or you make something out of it I'll post it in my blog!

Thanks again Samarra! You made my night! 

Vampire Twins!

I've decided I need to really start paying attention to my Society6.com stuff.  Mostly I've been concentrating on fabric design and a lot of what I do can be modified to adorn cell phones, laptop skins/covers, etc.

My only wish is that they had cell covers/skins for my Razr Maxx.  But I'm tickled that there are iphones out there with my designs on them!  A recent fave of mine is this one.

Titled "Meredith and Delany: Vampire Twins".  They're kind of fun and quirky and I want them on my own phone!  Wah!  Oh well, I'm thinking I'll make them into a fabric and perhaps they'll be in a slightly different setting.  I'm sure these 2 girls are trouble in the making despite their innocent looks. I'm thinking I'd like to make a Kindle cover using these two...I've been waiting until I came up with a design that is a little darker (I use my Kindle alot!) so it doesn't show grime quite as quickly as a light colored fabric.

Oh, btw, this week only you can get free shipping on my stuff at Society6!

Off to design something fun.  If you have suggestions on what you'd like to see in my Soc6 or Spoonflower shop just leave a comment!

Virginia

Status Migrainous, DHE, Lyme

Again I have to apologize for not being around on the blog.  Not that I'm very good at posting regularly but I've been really scarce lately.

I've been learning about Lyme disease and Status Migrainous.  Having a very sick daughter who's being treated for both of these things at the same time.

The doc (a neurologist) is treating her for the Status Migrainous with DHE and antibiotics for the Lyme.  The Lyme is a possibility as she has a positive titer and one band showing but she apparently needs 2 bands showing (this might be Greek to you but that's ok..it's a PITA to be diagnosed without the 2 bands).

Most everyone has heard of Lyme so there is a sort of passing knowledge about it - it's not a good thing to have. Her neuro is treating her for it so that is at least being managed with antibiotics.

More worrisome to me is the protracted migraine. She's had it for 31 days now.  Yes, 31 days.  She's been in pain and has had severe nausea for all of this time.  She's getting IV DHE as well as steroids and a anti-nausea medicine 3 times  day. Her arms and hands look like pincushions.  The nausea, the vomiting and the heat is making her dehydrated and she's had to get IV fluids to keep her hydrated. Next week she gets a IV and a home nurse to administer the drugs and keep the IV cleaned a few times a day. Hopefully that will help so she's not getting 3 different IV sticks a day. More if they can't find a vein that will take the IV.

This is managing her pain to a certain extent but not curing her so far.  Her head hurts at a level 3 once she gets the meds. If the meds wear off she goes up to a level 8 (btw, I'm using a 1–10 scale).  She feels a 3 is manageable.  I've had migraines, I don't know how she can function at a level 3. Maybe because she's had migraines her entire life and has withstood a lot of pain over her lifetime. She's only 20 but that's a whole lotta life with migraines.

If you know someone who is a migraineur please be sympathetic and please do not minimize it as a "headache".  People have often given her a casual: "Oh  come on, it's just a headache" to either make her feel guilty that she can't just shake it off and do whatever they think she should be doing or think she is just trying to shirk off work/play/whatever. People like teachers, friends, strangers, etc. The number of people who are ignorant of migraines is a pretty large percentage of the population.

I know most of them don't mean it as a mean thing but because she forces herself to continue on with a migraine they don't always understand when it becomes too much for her.

I do want to thank every single person who understands or even if they don't understand are sympathetic to anyone who suffers from migraines.  Your graciousness and generosity is a beacon of light.

Hardest of all is watching her go thru this pain right now.  I can't fix it, I can't control it and I am totally frustrated and yes, I am worried. She's my baby.  Today I sat with her for 10 hours while she got IV fluids and meds.  She was actually there for a few hours longer as I was at work until she got admitted and then I left work to be with her.  Tomorrow we go back, rinse and repeat. I am hoping the headache breaks either from the DHE or if it's Lyme that's causing it, the antibiotics will break it.

If you read this I'd rather not hear horror stories of how long it COULD last.  I've already heard them or read them and I'd rather not focus on that...I already worry enough about it.

Maybe later I'll add links to all the things I've posted about here...education is always a good thing but tonight I'm just too tired to go looking for all those links.

After the interlude..or where I have been...just call me Mama Bear

I've been incommunicado since my last post because life got very complicated all of a sudden.

My daughter got ill.  2,500 miles away from me. Luckily she was with my wonderful family and that was immeasurably helpful.  Still I turned into a mama bear on the phone constantly trying to understand what was going on and what we all needed to do to get her stable.  She finally got on a plane to come home, had a medical emergency on the plane (was met by emergency personnel at the airport which totally embarrassed her) but got home safely.  We're in the midst of figuring out what the problem is; she's got great doctors so that's been a godsend and has kept me calm.

Because of that situation I have totally neglected my blog.  I still have exciting things happening around my fabric and now that I'm not in mama bear fighting hard for my daughter quite so much at the moment I thought I'd sit down and show you what's been going on.

The Connecting Threads and Spoonflower contest is coming to a close tomorrow, winners should be announced at some point tomorrow. If you want to read about it go here to my last post.

Connecting Threads put up an interview with me here in their blog Notions.  How freaky weird to see myself staring back at me when I open the page.  I would love to see your comments on the post so go comment.  I'm tickled pink that quilters at CT are commenting and best of all the design strikes a chord with them.  Best thing ever. I hope the fabrics sell like hotcakes!  One day I hope to be somewhere and see someone who is walking around wearing something they made out of one my fabrics!  I wonder if I would dare to say hello?

Speaking of walking around with one of my fabrics...CT also did a post yesterday that was written by guest poster  Barbara Talbert.  She did a fabulous post on making your own quilted bag.

Photo taken from the Connecting Threads blog.  All rights reserved.  

Aren't they just darling?  She used Sunkissed Flowers and Windblown Dots. You can buy the patterns at Connecting Threads if you're dying to make something fun over a weekend.  I love the post, it's got great info and I must say...great fabric choices!

I was also highlighted in a blog that is written by Patty Sloniger aka Beck and Lundy.  She's a fellow fabric designer and she designs for Michael Miller, take a look at her oh-so-cute-and usable fabrics here. Not only did she write a post but she bought a boatload of my fabrics too and is going to make something out of them!  Wooot!  I can't wait to see what she makes..she sews quite well ya know.

I have a lot to be thankful for...my family in PA who took care of my daughter while she was there, my daughter making it home when she was so ill (all the parametics, firement, police, doctors, nurses and airline personnel get many thanks from me), my designs highlighted in blogs all over the web, my friends spreading the word about my designs, my my work for being understanding about my excitement over my collection being released and letting me off of work to attend to my daughter. And really many thanks to my friends who've been such good listening ears during all of this.  You know who you are.

I have great bounty in my life.  On many fronts.

What a week!

It's been quite the week! First my collection of fabric designs - Hello Sunshine - was released by Connecting Threads.

Woot!  There I am with all 19 fabrics on the first page and projects on the second page

Gorgeous projects to purchase! 

The back cover of the catalog! 

Are these not the most fantastic items?

Oh look!  The name of the collection by me on the selvage! 

Now that's not all...Connecting Threads and Spoonflower  have paired up to do a fantastic giveaway for 5 winners.  You'd get fat quarters of all 19 of my Connecting Threads designs and 5 of my Spoonflower designs.  And here they are here:

That's a total of 24 fat quarters.  That's a lot of fabric!  

So do you want to win them? You'll have to go here to the Spoonflower blog and make a comment for a chance.  Oh come on, go on, you can't win unless you do it! And you know you want free stuff right?  If you're a Facebook user you can go to the Spoonflower fan page and comment there as well. You can also go to the Connecting Threads Facebook page...there is a link to the contest there too.  While you're there you should LIKE them...because they're both worthy of likes!  Oh and go cruise around both sites; tons of fabulous buys! 

If you win I'd reallly like to see what you end up making. Pretty please? Nothing gives me more pleasure than to see finished projects.  Ok, maybe there are other things that give me that much pleasure: dark chocolate, really good cheese with fruit, latte, my husband (ahem), my kidlets...but seeing those projects is right up there on my list!

I hope you you like what I created because I'm always busy creating more!  I'm mad for fabric design! Mad for fabric! If you want to follow me at Spoonflower go to my profile there, rather here, sign in at Spoonflower and click the Follow This Designer link. And don't forget to comment! I love comments!

Ok, I'd better get going before I go way off the deep end!  

Virginia

Dreams do come true

Last Aug I won a fabric design contest.  At Connecting Threads, a really fabulous Internet (and catalog) fabric company.  I was so excited to win!  I had some worthy competition and that made it nerve-wracking and thrilling at the same time. Like watching your kids on a roller coaster. You know they'll be ok (right?) but you're just not sure that they can handle the fear of the loop to loop and up and down so you sort of close your eyes but you peek out between your fingers.

That's how it was for me.  After I won it took me a concious effort to breathe again! I started working with the staff at Connecting Threads, they were so easy to work with and I totally enjoyed every tweak I did (which they made so easy–it was minimal).

Well, all that roller coaster fear and thrill came back to me today. One year later. Served up in a tall glass of OMG, Look at that~my designs online with my name on it.  It was totally worth the wait.

Shut the front door as the youngsters say.  Errr, maybe that's what the oldsters say!

Hello Sunshine by me for Connecting Threads

Aren't they beautiful?  I think they are.  The colors are juicy and summery and I'm dying to sew more stuff with them.  The fabric has a gorgeous hand; I sewed my first quilt (see it here) with it last week. I must learn how to really quilt.  That said, I almost always think of quilters when I am designing fabric.  

Oh, so do you want to see the entire collection?  Well, don't wait any longer click here! There are kits to make, 19 different fabrics in the collections with a number of colorways. They've also made it easy to see other coordinates that you might be interested in. And thread! Don't forget to buy thread to match!

When I first started designing surface design I hoped I'd get good enough for someone to actually buy some of my fabrics.  Other than my family that is.  Today I get to pinch myself and say, "Yes, I guess others will buy my fabrics!"

I have so many people to thank.  My family of course. My friends who didn't laugh and point but said, "Oh, those are pretty good/cute/funny/beautiful."  My designer friends who always have encouraged me and gave advice when I asked.  I even have to thank those who were indifferent to my designs because I fought to win them over.  I owe a debt of gratitude to Spoonflower where I experimented; even the crash and burned designs taught me something.  My customers at Spoonflower! Every sale is thrilling and I always want to see what they've made!  And finally Connecting Threads...you've made a dream come true for me.  Truly and wonderfully I hope not to wake from this fabulous dream.

xo

Meatloaf anyone?

My fellow Spoonflower designer, friend, designer for Robert Kaufman and all-around fabulous quilter Cynthia created the best meatloaf pillow ever. She included my bacon design in her pillow and I couldn't be happier to be part of her household that way.

Go take a look at her blog entry about her pillow here Cynthia Frenette's blog

And then check out her art quilts here  She creates the artwork and quilts them as well as embellishes them with amazing textures using beads and crystals and all kinds of fun stuff.

Her stuff makes me want to hand sew.  Speaking of which last week I made a quilt. Yep, I did.  I've never made a quilt before...I've made things that are like a quilt but never really pieced anything together.  Mostly I've done cheater quilt type things.

It's a really, really simple quilt and I didn't use a pattern.  I tore strips of fabric into varying widths and then sewed them into a quilt.  I used a lot of white because I wanted it to be somewhat minimalist.  As I sewed it all together I found the balance of color was off some so I tore it in pieces over and over until I got something that looked balanced.  I stitched in the ditch for the quilt.  Here it is below.  See? Simple.  I did hand sew the binding which took longer than I thought it would but by golly you can't see any stitches so I'm pretty danged happy!

I made the quilt for some friends who expecting their first baby.  I can't wait to see him all wrapped up in it...although it might be some months since he's not expected until Sept and it'll still be hot here.  But he can lay on it!  LOL.  

I hope seeing Cynthia's stuff makes you want to do some quilting.  I hope you do because colder weather is just around the corner and you'll be glad you made it now. Happy sewing!