embroidered diary

as an incoming student, at the maine college of art, each new student was asked to make a six inch quilt square which will be put together as a whole quilt to be silent-auctioned off for a school benefit. i made two squares, similar to my embroidered diary. i made two squares and overlapped them. one has my date of birth and the other has the year 2007. each student's block is supposed to indicate 'where the student is from.' this was how i interpreted where i am from. since i will be in school with students who were born in the late '80's, i like the idea of putting my date of birth as part of showing where i am from.

a quilted diary block

back in the day when i was making weekly diary blocks, i made this one for my son, who was working as a bike messenger in nyc. there had been a big power blackout in the northeastern usa that summer and this block was my tribute to his adventures during the blackout. it says 'mercury meets the ne (northeast) power grid.' this was one of my first experimentations with mixed media - stuff i had found on the ground. the background of the block is painted - my first time doing that, too. guess i was feeling adventurous. it's still hanging in his apartment, so i took these photos while i was visiting this week.

nyc

all dolled up to go to nyc and see dan perjovschi at the MOMA and to bike the big apple. see you in a few days. LOVE!

embroidered shirt as sampler

another thrift store shirt saved from being mundane. this one i did as a sampler - trying different stitches for each set of words. the theme of this shirt shows my cynicism for alumni newsletters. the words in colorful lettering are how our fellow classmates describe themselves. the red lettering is what we might really be underneath of all those outside accomplishments...including having bad breath! when i wear this shirt around, people stop me so they can read it and don't seem to get it...they want to insist that it is a shirt i made to list my own accomplishments...? i wonder what they think of the 'booger head' or 'bad breath' accomplishment? i love this shirt. and it's an on-going project.

maggie in needlpoint

for an opus assignment on stitch and image, i tried the techniques of sue dove. my version is a little crazier than hers. i limited myself to materials i had on hand - a few colors of acrylic yarn and a piece of needlepoint canvas from another project, that i painted black. first i did a blind contour self-portrait and transferred it onto needlepoint canvas with a silver sharpie. everyone should own a few silver sharpies - they are useful for lots of stuff. ok, so then i used oil pastels to play with the various tone and values in my face to use as a guide for stitching. but i really just followed my own ideas of what the colors should be, as i didn't like any of the oil pastel sketches i made. i think i like the back the best - very messy and colorful.

quilts from the '90's

bad buddy took a trip to charm city, for a photo shoot of some quilts maggie made in the 90's. he also attended a very special birthday party and got lots of good lovin'! all in all a great trip.

embroidered hubby:)

based very loosely on the work of shizuko kimura, this is a piece for my current opus assignment. you can see what my hubby really looks like in the photo - not such a charicature, and beautiful. i love this photo of him. he is intently inspecting the portside hull of an old boat we are thinking of buying. i got between him and the boat and snapped a pix. the embroidery is a blind contour drawing on linen, stitched with one strand of wool. i could do pieces like this all day long.

about blind contour drawing...if you are a person who is afraid of drawing, as i have been, blind contour is the way to go. it's fun. it's loose. and the results are always pretty good.

love you monkey

love you monkey is not a member of the seven deadly sins family. she is distant cousin. she will love you no matter what. occasionally, she feels like jumping off of a high place and landing on her face. loving is confusing some days. so the love monkey is feeling like a philospher today and remembering a version of a quote that has been attributed to mother theresa - we can do no great things, only small things with great love.

embroidered faces

working on an opus assignment entitled 'stitch and imagery' and focusing the face in stitch. these are a few experimental samples. more to come...

my new best friend

as a part of an opus assignment, i am exploring the figure in stitch. the work of tadek beutlich inspired me to make this. there will be many more dolls like this coming. it will be great fun to embellish her and make clothes and hair for her... she is made of pipe cleaners (chenille stems) woven together with acrylic yard and dmc floss. her legs and arms and head are wrapped and i used a tight blanket stitch at the end to secure the threads/yarn.

you can see images of tadek's "cheering crowds" made of grass and wool in the january 2003 issue of embroidery magazine.

old quilt we bought

one of my lucky indulgences in life is buying hand-pieced and hand quilted scrap patchwork quilts. we have ...alot of them. i fell in love with this one very scrappy quilt, while on vacation. the backing with the scarecrows on it was irresistable. the most fun i had on vacation was watching this quilt spin around in the front end loader at the laundromat with the colors spinning and changing, it was like watching a twirl-a-paint at a carnival. i got a little sad when the scarecrow appeared in the window of the washing machine and was spinning uncontrollably in circles, but she looks no worse for the wear.

the blue quilt, i coveted for days, but now it belongs to someone else.

friends we brought home from vacation

here i am with barry colpitts' wife, bettianne. no we didn't bring her home with us. but this other fun artwork, made by barry, is now hanging out in our place! we HEART barry and bettianne.