Art Strikes a Pose Exhibition Opening & Retail Show

When: Friday, September 9, 6 - 8 p.m.
Where: Valley Art Center, Bell Street, Chagrin Falls, OH
One night only, at the opening of the wearable art exhibition, Art Strikes a Pose
I have several pieces in this exhibition, which opens tomorrow night and is on display until October 13.

Tomorrow night, at the open, all of the exhibiting artists will be participating in a retail vendor's mall.
This is Magic Baby's first retail show. Hope to see you there!

If you can't make it, please visit my etsy shop for my Magic Baby Designs and my artwork.

Wearables for Spring

 I finished this jacket recently for a client, so thought I would show it to you. It is custom made completely: she picked the design, shape, sleeve length, and the colors she wanted from a selection of fabrics. I did the rest, and it came out beautifully.

The jacket is assembled in my personal collage style. I create my art quilts, Magic Baby clothing and wearables for adults in the same way: put bits and pieces of this and that together to create a quirky, fun and beautiful finished design. Hope you like it!


Detail of closures, jacket front



Jacket back in beautiful batik

Next up: a busy week ahead. I am giving a lecture and book signing for my book Thursday evening at the Medina Public Library. On Friday, I need to pick up my work from the exhibition Piecing it All Together: The Art of Collage. That means also either rehanging it or preparing it for storage once I get it home. I really need to schedule an appointment for professional photography of the pieces I finished for the show at the last minute, too!

Speaking of exhibitions, my friend Terry Jarrard Dimond is participating in an art quilt exhibition at BookSmart Studios. I received her invitation this week. I also received the Call to Entry information for The Artist as Quiltmaker XV from the new curator, Ruta Marino. The entry deadline has been pushed back from September to January 23, 2012, so get busy with your entries now.

Mother's Day Update

Howdy stranger! I have been absent a bit this past week or so, as I have been heads-down working, and trying to balance paperwork, computer time and actual studio time.

Oh, yeah, and Happy Mother's Day to all of you out there who are mothers. We had a nice, quiet day here. The sun even came out, so I was pleased.

Rearranging closets recently, I came across this handsewn silk jacket that belonged to my mother. She has been gone twenty years this year; hardly seems possible. Anyway, she had given this to me many moons ago, and I have tried to care for it to preserve it. It is absolutely gorgeous in its construction and detail, especially the hand quilting and the hand made trim.

My own Mother's Day and upcoming birthday are made special by my sweet daughter helping me to set up a website and separate blog for Magic Baby Designs. I am so excited, and I hope you will also check it out when you get a chance. The website isn't 'live' yet, but the blog is begun. More to come!

Details, details, Part One



Detail of my Sgt. Pepper-esque
Jacket for Peter B. Lewis

 By nature, I am oriented to details. I have found this to be an odd quirk of my otherwise creatively driven personality. Some of my artist friends don't seem to have this side to their personalities, and it only seems to apply to many artists when it comes to their work. For me, I inherently pay attention to the details. It doesn't matter what I am doing. Planning a garden? Learn every name of every plant. Measure the amount of sunlight in every area of the yard at each time of the day. Do this for a week. In each season of the year. Writing a book? Interview every person in the field who was alive at that time. Read every issue of Quilter's Newsletter Magazine from its inception, (and make detailed notes by subject) so you can have the proper questions prepared for your interview subjects. You get the idea. I'm not what is fondly called these days, "anal"; I'm just thorough, and obsessively so. It's just the way my mind works.

When I am creating a new art piece, after the thrill of creating the actual composition has passed, I love the layered stitching and embellishment part of my process the best. 

Recycled tags for my TagTalk cards wait to be taken to my downstairs sewing spot. On the right, a four drawer catcher for fabric scraps takes the overflow from my wire fabric storage. Knits and flannels are at the ready under my pinning wall, while a holiday order waits to be ironed at my mini ironing station.

You can see this on my Masks III, below.



When it comes to construction by stitching, my love of details transfers easily from creating my artwork to my designing my Magic Baby line of clothing. You would never know I am focused on the details, however, by looking at my studio at the moment:



On my sewing table, various "piles" wait their turn.
The embroidered black velvet is up next.



Here, a snowflake swing dress waits for its binding,
while a design experiment sits underneath until
I have more time.



My studio only looks like a mess. Since I have little space, I make piles, then work my way through them each week.





Inspired by my own Magic Babies

It's been a busy fall so far. Here is a quick post showing you what I have been up to the past few weeks.

Here is one of my Magic Baby muses with her daddy's guitar. She is wearing her fruity flower dress, one of my early prototypes. Since the knot shoulder closure proved to be difficult in dressing her, I have redesigned the shoulder closure. Still, she looks adorable, don't you think?

According to their mothers, all of my Magic Babies are growing like weeds, and need new clothes. I have gone back to my upcycling ways from thirty years ago, when I was a young mother and had to refashion existing clothes for my children. Here are a few examples that I made for the new crop of babies in the family.


This is a cute swing top with matching pants. I upcycled a sweatshirt for the top, then added some applique and a knit contrast edge. Can't wait to see her wearing it. For the pants, I had some matching stretch baby wale corduroy. Perfect!

For this next three piece outfit, I used part of a stash of clothing my sister recently gave to me. This was made from a sweater skirt and top that had been my mothers over two decades ago. I paired it with a paisley challis, made matching buttons, added some lace, and voila!

The challis was tricky to work with on top of the knit, but I just moved slowly, and it worked. I used the existing sweater neck edge, but sewed it on separately. The challis band extends around the back into cute ties. I talked my husband into filming a tutorial while I made the matching buttons. I'll post a link to that later.



The matching sweater skirt has a soft waistband and a challis and lace edge.  I added a pleated skirt from the lightweight challis, which hangs underneath the knit.

For my other little Magic Baby girl, I took an existing onesie and added a double ruffled skirt with the pre-made sheer trim. Then, from the remnants of a purchased fleece blanket, I couldn't resist whipping up the polka dot jumper!

There are many more to show you, but that is enough for now. I will finish with two new designs, not made from something else. The first is a layered skirt made from sheers and tulle. My daughter calls it the "Prom Dress." The last is a custom order I just finished. It is a size 8, and is a version of my Little Frenchy design for toddlers. I call the bigger size the Frenchy Girl.

I just finished a new coat design made with polka dots for winter. I call it the Twirl Coat. More to come!

Hanging a Rug and other stuff to figure out

Magic Baby booth at a recent event.

Now that the Artist as Quiltmaker exhibition I curate has opened, and my daughter's wedding is over (I know, I never finished posting the pictures of the dress and jacket made for her...soon, soon, I promise!), I am back at work on my Magic Baby line and other artwork on my etsy store. I recently finished up several things I had cut out before the wedding. (Have you noticed my life has been defined by "pre-wedding" and "post-wedding?")

Although I had made several prototypes of this adorable little jacket for my granddaughters, I wanted to make one for little boys. This one is made out of snuggly flannel, is hooded, has adjustable sleeve lengths, and is completely reversible, part of my signature style. The first picture shows both sides of the jacket completed and ready to be measured for buttons before sewing it together.

One new thing I wanted to do on this jacket was to perfect my previous attempts to make completely handmade and baby-soft buttons. I have tried several different ideas previously, but wasn't completely happy with the results. This time, I used recycled plastic bottle cap rings covered with layers of quilt batting and flannel to create matching buttons. They turned out wonderfully!


I used the same style of handmade buttons on the inside. Since they are soft, they won't chafe the skin!



I also just finished a prototype for a new design, but will post about the separately. Suffice it to say that, each time I create a new pattern prototype, the goals are to a) have fun with it b) to solve some new problems and c) to try something new.


More on that later.



The other project that came my way in the past few weeks was designing a hanging sleeve. Because I have made art quilts for exhibition for the past 25 years, making a hanging sleeve isn't anything new. The twist for this project was that I needed to create an appropriate hanging sleeve for a very large needlepoint rug. Not only is the rug heavier than a quilt of the same size would be, but there is not backing layer of fabric to stitch into, and the entire large piece is stiff. I couldn't exactly curl up with it on my couch to work.



So, here you see my tools gathered, and the top sleeve pinned in place. Because of the weight of the rug, I opted to use unprimed, pre-washed and pre-shrunk canvas for the sleeves, both top and bottom. I needed very long, thin pins to be able to just graze the needlepoint canvas to hold the sleeves in place while stitching. I used glazed quilting thread that matches the canvas in a single strand to attach the sleeves.

In my next post, I will detail the logistics!