She loves me, she loves me not...

Its no secret (mostly due to this blog) that my sewing machine is the devil.

For whatever reason, we do not get along. Its kind of one of those relationships where there's a lot of door slamming and making up and then just kind of suspiciously eyeballing each other whenever we are in the same room.

I've tried everything I can to to woo it. I talk nice to it, I pet it, I named it. (Her name is Helinka, which in Polish means "calm." I don't think she likes it, though.) I think perhaps she does not care for the fact that I still do 90% of my stitching by hand. I mainly use her to speed along the basic construction process, as that is my absolute least favorite part of everything. (Or it could be that I call her evil and other colorful unflattering names.)

My mother steps away from the studio door when she sees me sitting down to Helinka. It will either go swimmingly well, or there will be cussing of a most violent nature oozing from my creative sanctuary.

Helinka decided she liked me yesterday and allowed me to produce these.


They are leaves, in case you are wondering. I got a little carried away, there are 43 total. I realize they look like little nondescript blobs right now but give me some time, they'll get there. They are (hopefully) going to be transformed into an art quilt or two for a botany art quilt exhibit that I am participating in next year. I had another piece started for that show but I think I must have been smoking something when I started that one.

Its a cool concept but I've managed to make the layers so thick that I get carpal tunnel just looking at it. I may end up taking scissors to it and rearranging it. Not sure yet.

I've also been working on a concept that would take my Where I Stand Sunday posts into fabric. I'm not 100% sure yet how it will pan out so I decided not to post a picture of the paper prototype I've been goofing with all evening. But it shows promise and I'm pretty excited about it. There is the issue of making them not too expensive to construct/execute as I would like to do each one in fabric. That oughta keep me busy. 'Cause you know, I have nothing else to do anyway...

The goal was to start a lot of projects while I'm off. Its the starting that requires the most energy, at least for me. Once I get past the laundry list of picking fabric, picking thread, picking colors, picking sizes, blah, blah, blah....then I have fun with it and don't really think as much. Its all the practical junk that just gets annoying.

Its definitely going to be all fabric/art quilts that are getting started. The assemblage pieces aren't really something that need to be done is so many steps. I can knock those puppies out in a day so I've decided to leave them for now.

So is my evil plan working? Maybe, we'll take stock of everything at the end of break. I want to lay the foundation for two more pieces for the Fragile series (with hand dyed fabric from Cathy) and maybe get going on that political art I was babbling about.

Tonight I'm going to do some research for a quilt that is due in July for the Michigan Quilt Artist Invitational. The theme for 2008 is Italy. I likes it. But I know nothing about it so there is much internet browsing to be done. (Whoa, wait a second. I just went back and read the first sentence of this paragraph. That's thinking ahead, that's planning. That's.....so....unlike me....I feel lightheaded....)

Tomorrow I go out with Mary and get into trouble. That should be good. I've been a hermit since I got off work and I'm starting to get a little too attached to the Dexter reruns on Showtime. (Oh, and I totally entered the contest to be a walk on in a future episode. I can only imagine the joy at being told, "You've been chosen to get chopped up in episode four." Don't worry, my mother is worried too...)

I see yarn and fabric and photos in my future for tomorrow. Should be good...