Oktoberfest: an essay in pictures

Last night, a couple of siblings, my father and I went to Oktoberfest.

We listened to polka music (a rarity in Dayton, OH),

saw among other things, impeccably crafted, warmly decorated pottery by Rick Paladino.

made Annie try on a hat that made her look like a extraordinarily cute snow bunny,

and admired the scenery.

A moment before I snapped this picture, this woman was stirring a large, steaming pot with a paddle, like a scullery maid of yore.

The lighting was spectacularly fun to photograph: both warm and mysterious at the same time.

My photography got progressively more moody and atmospheric.

We drank wonderful, deeply flavored beer, smoked cigars, 

and toddled home, just as it started to rain.

PS. Oktoberfest is still going on today, until 7, I believe.

a pattern for you!

There's an increasing number of babies in my life.  I love this.  Their bright eyes, pudgy hands, cute feet, not to mention the awesome faces they make when they yawn.
So, when a new life is anounced, I want to make something for them. The problem is, what to make.

Well, stuffed animals work pretty well, but you never know if the child's going to like them in, say, 2 years.  Blankets take too much time, at least the ones I've been making. Clothes are complicated.  Bibs however, are both pretty, useful, and are sinfully easy to make.
So I've been making a lot of bibs.

I used a free pattern from Burda.com to get the approximate size, then sketched out what I would like the bib to look like, traced it, and have been using that pattern ever since.  Now, I've scanned it and digitally redrawn it so I can share it with you.
It prints out on two 8.5x11 pieces of paper, which you tape together, matching the gray dots.

Fields of Color

Beautiful, isn't it?
It's possibly the most successful example of a Tumbling Block quilt I've ever seen.  The colors are so perfectly chosen, and the design so bold. A halfway decent quilt is a thing of beauty and a usable object.
A great quilt is, well, Art.
I came upon this quilt through the book "Treasury of American Quilts" It's my favorite book of quilts. It's full of quilts that transcend mere craftsmanship.
Don't get me wrong, I love craftsmanship.  I'm utterly intrigued by the relationship between folk art and so called "real" art.  I've also found it easier to sew, paint, and collage useful objects with people rather than cloistering myself away and making "high art."  It's easier to get paid too.

Anyway, back to quilts
Some of my favorite quilts are color field quilts, mostly Amish.  These women, forbidden from wearing bright colors, cover their beds with them instead.
The quilts, interestingly enough, pre-date color field paintings by as much as 100 years.  The similarities in concept and color-play are startling.
It makes me wonder where artists really learn about color theory: whether it's the collegiate level science of Josef Albers and Hans Hoffman, or something learned much more fundamental, learned as we explore our natural world from a very young age.

This last quilt reminds me of the entire room of red Mark Rothkos at the National Gallery.  I love those paintings.  You'd think a room full of red paitings would be downright threatening.  However, they're warm, and somehow soothing. 

I couldn't find an image of them, so you'll just have to use your imagination. 

I also love these Gee's Bend quilts.  They were created by a family of women and their social circle starting in the 1930s.  The put in mind Piet Mondrian, Joan Miro, and Hans Hoffman.

I could go on for a while about the historical context of these quilts, they've been written about fairly extensively, so I'll just include links to informative sites at the bottom of this post, rather than badly paraphrasing someone else's work.

gallery selling Gee's Bend Quilts

 official Gee's Bend website

Mennonite Heritage Center

New room choice #1: To paint or not to paint (and if so, what color?)

 This was not what my bedroom looked like as a child, but I wish it was.

I think I'll just gaze at it for a while...


Sooo... I am probably switching bedrooms in my house.

Due to, er, difficulties, I'm living with my parents. But, now my little brother's moving out, which means he's vacating his man-cave of a room, which is, incidentally, the largest bedroom.

You would think this would make the room automatically up for grabs. Not true.  All sorts of other family members get a vote in what happens to this room, including ones that haven't lived at home for years.
So, a great deal of discussion, and, to put it frankly, haggling, has ensued.

My father is mostly concerned that there are enough available beds should the youngest two boys suddenly move back in, or if one of my sisters wants to stay overnight, or both.  My siblings are mostly concerned that I not paint over The Mural.  I want to.  I'm not allowed to, or I don't get the room ( and boy howdy could I use the extra space).

The Mural is a product of my youthful (8th grade thru Freshman year) enthusiasm, and has a long history behind it.
Back when I was very young, my siblings and I would switch rooms every year or two.  I thought this was normal.  Much later, I realized that we switched rooms whenever a new baby came along and mom and dad had to figure out where to put him/her.  By the time I was 11, I was in a 12x13 room, along with four other of my sisters, ranging from age 8-21, and was sharing a full bed 8 months of the year (we were on a rotation, so that each sister got 4 glorious months of sleeping alone).  We were like sardines, pickled in dust and estrogen.
So, I guilted my two sisters nearest me in age into saving money with me.  We used the money to buy lumber for a loft, and paint for the walls.  We lofted three of the beds, and designed the bottom two beds so that they could be removed .
I picked out the paint colors.  It was not a discussion.
We painted the walls a sunny, buttery yellow with tomato-red trim.  On one wall, we painted a mural.  My sisters weren't happy with the original colorfield abstract landscape I designed, so, communally, we ended up finger painting in pine trees on the hills and adding a sunsetty glow to the dabbed on clouds.
This is The Mural.
it's ugly.

The thing is, they love it.  And now, the two younger boys have been in that room for a while, and they're attached to it too.
I too am sentimentally attached, but that just means I want to take a picture before I paint over the gawdawful thing.

We've reached a compromise that I think will work.  I get to paint the other walls and the woodwork any color I choose, but I can't paint the central panel of the scenic overlook.  I'm going to tack up some fabric, though, so I don't have to look at it every day.
Problem solved.

Now, on to wall colors.

This is the wall colors I'm currently thinking about, but the wood trim would be a pale gray, rather than white.  Also, I'm painting the ceiling cobalt blue with stenciled gold stars scattered across it.
I've always wanted to have a ceiling like that.

Here's the other options that have been tempting me:

that robin's egg blue is calming, but yummy.  the thing is, the room faces Northwest, and is well shaded, so I'm afraid that it won't look nearly as good when the incandescent or flourescent light mixes  with it.

I love these luscious zinnia pinks!  They're so warm and summery, and wood looks so good next to them.  I think this would be my first choice for a sitting room or studio accent wall, but it might be too visually stimulating for a bedroom.  

So, what do you think?  I'd love to hear your opinion!

"Serve God, Love Me. And Mend."

-Much Ado About Nothing, Act V, scene II

I love that line.  Benedict says it to Beatrice to help comfort her. Beatrice is freaking out about the plight of her cousin, Hero, and also suffering from a bad cold, as I recall. I find it a great mantra when I'm recovering from, well, anything.

I sometimes think it's a holy act to mend something.

There's just something about the remaking of something.  I like it better than sewing an item from scratch.
When making something new, I have to destroy something perfectly good, (a length of cloth) with infinite possibilities, and limit it down to just one possibility.

Giving an old thing new life, however, that's just lovely. 

There's nothing destructive about it, only constructive.

Last month I mended a hanky. I've never been so proud of myself.
It was a beautiful vintage hanky I'd gotten from my Aunt with diagonal drawn thread-work that makes my sister B go weak in the knees.  I accidentally caught it with the end of a scissors while I was working on something else.  Good mending is very close to embroidery.  It requires careful, even stitches and a certain sort of patience.  The mend, having been done successfully, is only visible from a few inches away, doesn't mar the hanky, and keeps the rip from slowly destroying the hanky.


It's especially nice when I can, through my own ingenuity, make it better than it was.

For example, grease stains are the bane of my existence.  They can happen at any moment, and I can never tell if I've gotten them out until the piece of clothing is dry and it's far too late to budge that stubborn stain. A couple of my favorite shirts would've gone the Way of All Flesh, if it weren't for a little ingenuity on my part. Instead of pitching them, I decided to embroider them.

Now I have a couple of shirts that look like they came from Anthropologie.  Simple crewel work does wonders, and stitches up pretty quick. Well, pretty quick for embroidery.

Inspired by this, I mended a couple pairs of my brother's pants.  One I hand mended, but the other had huge bleach stains at the bottom (why mom uses bleach I'll never know).  So I turned them into shorts.

I've also been transforming some pieces of Annie's.  She gave me a pair of sleep pants that she'd worn out the cuffs on (they're far too long, so she's been having fun stepping on them).  She thought they were scrap-worthy, but I used the printed edging of an old pillow case to make new cuffs and a patch pocket, and gave them back to her instead.  She's excited because they're sooo comfy!

I also installed a drawstring waistband on a skirt to help it fit better, and turned a housedress into a smock top with a tie back.

Isn't the strawberry print totally cute?!  I'm using the bottom for quilting, and for a baby bib for a friend.  She's wearing her new shirt backwards in the picture.  The pipings supposed to go in the front.

I also replaced a strap on a purse I got at the thrift store.  It's doing time while my purse made out of ties gets a new strap, sides, and lining.
the original strap was a thin leather thing that did nothing for the purse.  So I removed the clasps at either ends, and used them to make a new strap out of this gorgeous ribbon and a heavier woven strapping.  It didn't take too long, and now I love this purse so much, I may not go back to my old one, even when it's makeover is completed.

I love being productive.  At night, it makes me feel as if I've earned my rest.

A finished project: wedding invitations

 So, peoples, I've been working my tail off on a number of different projects (pics coming soon), but the #1 project that I've been working on this month is finally finished:
my sister's wedding invitations.

I printed them for the better part of three days.
Then we had a "party" were we got suckers, er, friends and family, to come over and assemble them.

We cut, folded, stuffed, and assembled until we could assemble no more, then sent the rest home with Rachel. (Insert evil laugh here.)

It was exhausting, but I'm very, very happy with the results.

Here's some pictures of them, for your viewing pleasure:

All images are copyrighted by, well, me.

The following rondel of St. Joseph can be used as a printable.  I thought it would be a fun coloring project for Sunday school, or just for kicks.

Enjoy!