Sun Ra Costumes at Columbus RibFest!!

So, I sing a little with the great local band Honk, Wail and Moan, which is a jazz band doing about half their own original compositions, and half Sun Ra compositions, with a few Mingus tunes thrown in for good measure. If you look up Sun Ra, he was a crazy composer, used a B3 organ, wrote poetry, totally cool!

Anyway, this time of year, HWM always does a birthday tribute at Dick's Den (local Bar) but the Columbus Jazz & RibFest was the night before. So, in honor of the event, I made psuedo-Egyptian collars for all the band members! I used a LOT of lovely trims, and finished them out with old CD's, they reflect the light in a beautiful way, and then added beads and stuff to embellish them.



I wasn't at all sure the guys would be into wearing them, but to my surprise, they were like little kids: "I want the blue one, I want the red one, no that one is mine"


Here they are on the big stage at Bicentennial Park; don't they look great?

Guerilla Knitting 2

I vacationed in Vermont, and amongst the beautiful scenery of Tinmouth Mountain, I left a small token of affection!!

Update on Guerilla Knitting 1: my first tag in the city of Delaware is now gone, so sad!

Earth-Friendly Fashion!

I finally had the time and drive to try my hand at a new style for my original clothing. I have several nice cotton sweaters from the thrift store, and some shirts that coordinate. I don't really like pullover sweaters, but I do wear alot of cardigans.

SOooo.....I started with this nice periwinkle blue cotton sweater, that I purchased from the thrift store for $2.99. It still had the store tags on it! I slit it up the front and took the ribbing off the neckline. I stay-stitched all the cut edges.

Then I took a nice blue plaid shirt in a linen/rayon blend, and cut a big ol' hunk off of it. I cut the sweater off just under the sleeves, and sewed the shirt to it. I used one of the shirt sleeves to make some bias binding for the neckline and front edges of the sweater. I wanted some type of closure, and was going to make ties, when I noticed the sleeves had tab/buttons so you could roll them up...voila! I sewed the tab and button to the front of my new cardigan!


I put the front button placket on the left side, which hangs lower than the right side. I like the diagonal hem; I think it adds interest and is a bit slimming.

Anyway, the part of the blue sweater that I cut off is destined to be sewn onto something else! More later!

Art Quilt in a Juried Exhibit! Ohio State Fair Fine Arts Exhibit

Well, I was thrilled to receive notice that one of my art quilts has been accepted to the Ohio State Fair Fine Arts Exhibit!! Yippee!!

I had a jewelry piece accepted about 5 years ago, but nothing since. It is one of my new series, based on some tiny watercolor scraps that I bought from a local artist about 10 years ago, and carried around forever until January 2007, when in the period of 2 weeks I completed 10 new works!!

This particular piece is called "Contemplate" and incorporates 2 of the scraps of watercolor. The pieces of paper are actually sewn right into the quilt, and there is alot of couched yarn embellishment. I started with the watercolor squares, then layered fabrics to "complete" the picture. All the little snippets of fabric were then machine quilted, then the last step was to take some cool hand dyed yarn and sew them into the picture to give it added dimension.




I loved these 2 little pieces of paper, they looked like they were intended to be a window of some sort. I had some lovely batik fabrics that coordinated perfectly, and I just went from there. This piece is small, maybe 11" x 13". And it was juried in!! Yay!