hmmmm.... see if you can find anything wrong with the above statement under the photo. win a free trip to Manhattan if you figure it out and comment me. I also have 1/2 price tickets tonight at the Comedy Club times square. ....tonight only

Bright Lights Big City

I finally made it to Times Square tonight. Snapped a few pics, ate some bad pizza and went to the Gap. Blogger and hotel slow-speed internet not letting me post pics.

I did check out the MTV store and watched a few "movies in the making" on the street. My hotel is about 3 blocks from Times Square and 4 from our office, but the blocks here are looooong! I've only seen the Meat Packing District, Times Square and a bit of Greenwich Village and had a $15 coctail with my training buds on top of hotel. More pics of my adventures to come but Blogger or this hotel high speed aint all that.

Here are a few of my observations so far:

1) New Yorkers Really do speed walk...everywhere. Perfect for me since I already walk like I'm late.

2) In every shoe store I see, I love all of the shoes. There are no ugly shoes here.

3) They wear black because every thing is dirty. I went to work today with black smudgies on my grey slacks.

4) People here are not at all mean or rude. They're just late and we visitors take too damned long.

5) The women here are beautiful, young and dressed perfectly. Even the no-so-attractive women are stylish. Classy bitches are everywhere. I've not seen one blinged out redneck. Well, I'm in a disguise to blend in.

6) Cabbies will kill you. They don't care, get the hell out of their way!

More later with pics from last nights happy hour and tomorrow nights happy hours!!

Peace ya'll

Big Buttons in the Big Apple Baby!

da da dada dum...
sssstart spreadin' the neeews
...I'm leavin Mondaaaay.
I've -
got -
to
- be a part of it.....NEW YORK NEW YORK!!

My darling new company is sending me to Manhattan for a couple of weeks. I can finally check off one of those "places 2 go before I die." Before I knew which city I'd be sent, I thought I'd need to find a mini sewing machine for hotel evenings but...FuuughGet About IT! I'll be too busy shopping in the Garment District. They have entire stores that only sell...imported ribbons, or just trims. There's even one specializing in feathers. There's only one quilt store called The City Quilter but at least the place is open until 7! And a block away is The Fashion Institute of Technology which is open until 8:30pm. That's all exciting in itself, but also worthy: Greenwich Village, SoHo, Little Italy, Timesquare, Central Park..blah blah blah. I just hope I don't act like a crazy country girl in the big ole city! Yeehaw Ya'll!!! My family will join me for the weekend and I think they're even more excited than I am! Look for pictures and a posts as I'm sure to be bloggin-in-thecity...baby!

Chloe's Art Quilt & Jim to be Immortalized in Fabric

Chloe wondered why I hadn't yet published this work of her's so here it is. She chose all of the fabrics and yarn for this project and she did the freemotion stitching while sitting in my lap.


And my current QuiltU class, Realistic Fabric Portraits, is not so easy. I'm debating on the right photo and made Jim brush his hair and change shirts for these pic today. Ain't he handsome! It was a struggle but who wouldn't want to be immortalized in a family heirloom forever? Our instructor, Marilyn Belford encouraged us to use a "mature" photo rather than a child because of the thread painting. Mature faces are more forgiving for beginners.


mmmmm...is it me or does he look a tad like the deliciously evil Dr. Christian Troy from Nip Tuck baby!

Why blog?

Ahhh...wish I had made this....but alas- taken from an artist's exhibit from a Quilt Guild show a couple of years ago. Dang beautiful!



And today I found

an Artist's perspective on blog rationale

that I can totally relate to.

By anonymously stalking their blogs for quite some time, I've been filled with knowledge, inspiration and awe... but have quite often suffered intimidation by these incredibly talented women.

Sharonb's "In A Minute Ago" Blog

is one of them. So while surfing stichery blogs across the world, I was sewn through her's again and to her excellent perspective. She discusses the community of blog creator's, the reasons we blog, and how blogging motivates us to finish all of those UFOs. Maybe this will help some of my peeps understand why I do this! Read it ya'll!

Abstract Emotional Attempt

Still in the midst of my Art for Quilter's class and I'm way behind. I forced myself to do the abstract challenge tonight. I just hope they don't vote me off. (watching too many Project Runway DVDs lately)

We were to use geometric shapes to create an abstract in fabric that represents a feeling or tells an emotional story. How you do that with abstracts? I still don't know. I kept finding myself wanting to paint a full-blown picture of Lucifer in the corner. Ok, now you can guess my "feeling" was not happy! Actually, looking at it on my black blog, it does kinda convey the sorrowful tone I was aiming for! Good times.

My original "emotion" was too ugly to even post so here is the lightened up version: This is about grief and the loss of a loved one. Kind of a snapshot of early grief and pain of loss shooting in. For the longest time you feel as if a spear is stuck in your middle...very deep and it may never come out. Then, the grieving squeezes tears out and the long healing process begins. The blue circle represented the lost love in the beginning but transformed into myself. I wanted to depict the lost one disappearing into oblivion but my skills lack and I wanted to finish and move on. Before I started I kept saying to myself, "Do something pretty and soothing and fun....come on you don't have to go THERE." Then It just wouldn't go away and hey it works, it's done and out.


This is my original sketch. The results are similar but I just couldn't pull my "vision" off since 1) I'll never have enough fabrics 2) I really wanted to get her done and move on from this unhappy place.

My extremely talented instructor
Marilyn Belford
wrote:

This is a strong piece. It is well thought out and the eye moves around the work perfectly. It expresses everything you said, and more. Those red arrows moving in, changing direction and getting smaller, add great depth and suggest the three-dimensional roundness of the circle, as well as the transition to tears. The whole piece evokes a feeling of healing. Nice going! I notice in the lower left some squiggles in red. Is that a compositional ploy (which, by the way, works)? Or a symbol, or letters... or?

But I just had to respond,
could it be....Satan?

I was thrilled she got the "healing" aspect of the piece!

Project Studio Make Over

Taaa Daaa! Internet magic makes it look like just yesterday this place was a mess. Now I can easily pull my cutting table to the middle of the room and rock-n-roll that rotary all day baby!

I bought two sets of clear drawers and arranged my cottons by color and tone. I even reserved a drawer for "Chloe's Scraps" so my daughter can be allowed access to ONE drawer only. (But really, I'd stay out of mom's sewing room you know because of all those sharp pins sticking up from the carpet.)

No more Fortunes and Business Weekly's to chop up! I can also sleep soundly knowing my Quilting Arts and Cloth Paper Scissors issues are present, together and arranged chronologically.


I have room for more stuff and at this moment in time, I pretty much know where everything is! Time to make something.