Monday, May 26, 2008
Wrapped In Tradition
Last week or two weeks ago or something I saw a really cool exhibit at the local art museum. The exhibit was American Indian Trade Blankets from the collection of Dale Chihuly and glass works of his inspired by the blankets. The glass was not that exciting to me, but the blankets were gorgeous. The color combinations and patterns were really unusual and fascinating and gave me more than a few ideas for potential quilts. Sadly photography was not permitted, but I found an online slide show of selected blankets from the collection that you can check out here.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Linen Closet
I always have this feeling like I can't post here if I don't have any pictures to post. I know pictures are crucial to a quilt blog, but I guess that doesn't mean EVERY post has to have them, right??
I'm back in Texas and life is busy, but good. I do feel refreshed by my vacation and much cheerfuller about things in general. The difficulties and intensities of life here surely haven't gone away, so I know I will continue to struggle with that to a certain extent. Ultimately, however, life is good!
My sewing machine did come back from Illinois with me, but in the week since I've been back it hasn't made it out of the case yet! Things really have been busy, and this next week will actually be worse. But I'm glad to know that it's here whenever I do get around to it.
The day after I arrived back in Tejas we had what is affectionately known as a "gran limpieza" in the shelter - a.k.a. a day long festival of deep cleaning. I skillfully managed to get myself switched from the guest kitchen cucaracha den (blek!) to the linen closet. The linen closet was, seriously, way too fun. First of all, pillowcases. We had about 400 pillowcases (literally) for our shelter with capacity of 60. That's obviously not including the ones that are currently on people's pillows. We pared it down to about 100 to stay in the linen closet, the rest to be donated elsewhere. About a hundred of the funnest ones with cool vintage patterns etc. got set aside for a series of "pillow case quilts" that I instantly started planning. My co-worker was also fairly insistent that weed out all the flannel sheets as being inappropriate for our desert climate, so I naturally took all of those. I love flannel sheets as backing, and also as a lightweight batting. So I see that as a major score. Add to all that a few particularly interesting non-flannel sheets and a wool blanket or two, and I am suddenly the proud owner of a MASSIVE amount of salvage fabric. So I really hope I find the time to get sewing soon, b/c it is all taking up too much room in my tiny shoe box of a bedroom. I do, however, love it.
Ok, hope to be back kind of soonish, but in the meantime...happy quilting.
I'm back in Texas and life is busy, but good. I do feel refreshed by my vacation and much cheerfuller about things in general. The difficulties and intensities of life here surely haven't gone away, so I know I will continue to struggle with that to a certain extent. Ultimately, however, life is good!
My sewing machine did come back from Illinois with me, but in the week since I've been back it hasn't made it out of the case yet! Things really have been busy, and this next week will actually be worse. But I'm glad to know that it's here whenever I do get around to it.
The day after I arrived back in Tejas we had what is affectionately known as a "gran limpieza" in the shelter - a.k.a. a day long festival of deep cleaning. I skillfully managed to get myself switched from the guest kitchen cucaracha den (blek!) to the linen closet. The linen closet was, seriously, way too fun. First of all, pillowcases. We had about 400 pillowcases (literally) for our shelter with capacity of 60. That's obviously not including the ones that are currently on people's pillows. We pared it down to about 100 to stay in the linen closet, the rest to be donated elsewhere. About a hundred of the funnest ones with cool vintage patterns etc. got set aside for a series of "pillow case quilts" that I instantly started planning. My co-worker was also fairly insistent that weed out all the flannel sheets as being inappropriate for our desert climate, so I naturally took all of those. I love flannel sheets as backing, and also as a lightweight batting. So I see that as a major score. Add to all that a few particularly interesting non-flannel sheets and a wool blanket or two, and I am suddenly the proud owner of a MASSIVE amount of salvage fabric. So I really hope I find the time to get sewing soon, b/c it is all taking up too much room in my tiny shoe box of a bedroom. I do, however, love it.
Ok, hope to be back kind of soonish, but in the meantime...happy quilting.
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