Home Is Where The Heart Is

Home Is Where The Heart Is, Linked Brooches

wool blend felt and acrylic felt, thread, silver embroidery floss, silver chain, metal pin backing

82/100 in 100 days creative challenge, and August Everyday #30

Can I tell you how hard it's been to post every day? It's hard. I think I missed a couple of days this August, but I managed to catch up to myself in the challenges.

Even if sometimes I count a piece that was almost done, and was just waiting to be finished... like this one.

This pin set was started months ago. I finally finished it this morning. Phew. I have some more I need to finish, too.

And then there is even more to do. Because this should be going into my shop. I have so many things to put into my shop and so little time to do it all.

Oh but here we are where we are. And Home Is Where The Heart Is, and Happiness Is Where the Love Is, and Love Is Where The Attention Is.

In all the things you have to do, are you paying attention to what IS?

I'm trying.

Hand Sewn Skirts from Upcycled T-Shirts

Easy TShirt Skirt

upcycled tshirt, hand sewn with thread

size M, approximately, but probably more like one size fits all.

80/100 in 100 days creative challenge

I kept waiting to post my skirt because I wanted to add some embellishments. Perhaps some

appliqued flowers or a ruffle. I tried to make my skirt without sewing anything but the waist, but in the end, I had to cut off the sides of the t-shirt and cut out a vaguely A-line shape, and then stitch it up together again. I double sewed all the seams to make sure it lasted.

It's really comfortable, and great to throw on after coming home from work. But the hem is weird, because I left the t shirt hem the way it was, and it turns out, I should have cut it off and curved it just slightly. So last night, after the girl asking me for her own skirt every time I wore mine, I finally started hers, and I tried to take the lessons from the adventures of the first skirt.

She wanted pink, but I only had a purple t shirt, so I decided to use contrasting pink thread, since I like the way the hand sewing looks. I also set aside an old pink dress to use for trim, although I wasn't sure at first what kind of trim I would do. Notice that in this picture, I am basically just using the t-shirt as fabric. I have gotten rid of every seam and hem already.

After sewing together, using annekata's hints for hand sewing strong seams, I turned the skirt inside out and realized that I had meant to sew the skirt so the graphic didn't show. Ooops. I should have sewn the skirt right sides out, so when I turned it, it would be inside out and hide the graphic. Sometimes, you might want to have a graphic on your skirt, but I thought this was a little creepy for my three year old to wear on her butt. So.

So, I had to find a way to fix it so that I could hide the graphic and still have my nice neat right side out felled seams.

First I put in the waistband. I folded the fabric and double stitched it over an upcycled waistband from an old pair of leggings, then I set about fixing the problem.

My solution? The little pocket, which is actually made with the sleeve of the original tshirt. I kept all seams intact where I could on that. I'm sorry I didn't think to photograph that stage, as it was not planned.

If you'll notice, you can see that I simply cut out the underarm seam and trimmed the loose fabric off of the shoulder seam. Then I cut two little moons out of either side, for the pocket entrance. And I left the sleeve hem as is and used a blanket stitch to attach it to the waistband. And I double stitched the bottom of the pocket, which used to be the shoulder seam, to the skirt. I like the way the extra stitching makes a little ruffle.

When I finished the waistband and pocket, I decided that I didn't want to sew flowers all over it, that I liked the design enough to not fancify it, but I did want to sew a ruffle to the underside of the unhemmed skirt, to give it a hint of girliness and to echo the pink stitching. Plus the girl wanted pink.

For that I cut out a two inch strip of pink fabric from the old baby dress, then I gathered it roughly and pinned it to the hem, where I double stitched it on. It doesn't really look double stitched because I was running out of pink thread, so I did the second stitching with navy thread. Then I trimmed the ruffle so it was close to the skirt on the inside, near the stitching. The ruffle is far from perfect and isn't even at all, but it doesn't really need to be with all the exposed stitching and all. It definitely has a hand made feel to it, and that's what I'm going for.

Girl Skirt

handsewn, upcycled tshirt, upcycled baby clothes, thread

81/100 in 100 days creative challenge.

The last detail was the little ribbon, which was actually just another strip of fabric that I used for the ruffle. When I stretched it, it curled up and turned into a cord, so I tied it into a bow and stitched it on (along with a bit more double stitching to make the pocket more secure.)

Some action shots.

If I were to do this again, I would choose a slightly larger t-shirt. This was a size 8 girls shirt, for my size 3 daughter. My skirt was I believe an XL for me, who would normally wear an M. But if her t shirt was larger, I could have made it more A-line, which would give it more of a flow. It looks a bit straight, for my liking.
Who knows, next time I try this, I might get a little more ambitious and go for a gored skirt so she could do ballerina things, twirling and such.

One of the things I learned from this is that hand sewing is not as hard as you'd think. I did this in one night. That's it. One night. While watching Mad Men. And it was a lot more involved than my skirt was, what with the pocket and the ruffle. And taking the elastic waistband out of the old leggings took more time than sewing the actual skirt.

It seems crazy that I could whip up a skirt while my kid naps, even without a sewing machine, without even being that great of a seamstress. But I did. And maybe that means I could try some more complicated designs. My son has asked for a pair of pants. Yipes. I don't know. Maybe I'll make him a shirt, first.

Anyway, next time I try this, I'll try to keep better photos so I can do a clearer tutorial. Maybe I'll even make a pattern, instead of just cutting a skirt out freehand. This post is basically just a "hey you can do this too" post. Because, well, you can do this too.

Solo Flights and Community Fairs

Ivy on the Carousel

casio exilim digital camera

78/100 in 100 days creative challenge

This weekend has been so busy I haven't had much time to be creative. I worked, my best friend from High School came to visit, I cooked pot roast, there was a parade, and we went to the community fair.

So I was getting ready to skip posting this weekend. And then I thought, well, hey, why don't I post a couple fair shots.

And then, I couldn't in good conscience ignore the photos as part of my creative output when, well, I took them, and edited them and posted them.

Why don't I ever count my photos as part of my creative output? For that matter, I never count my blog entries as part of my creative output. And I made dinner from scratch, a pot roast with coffee sauce (don't scoff, it's surprisingly easy and good.) I also turned my partially finished basement room into a cozy guest room, and I didn't count that either.

I suppose I am starting to value the creativity that I use on a daily basis. That's quite and achievement. Now I have to work on celebrating my various accomplishments.

Gabriel on his first solo flight

79/100 in 100 days creativity challenge

I wanted to also show you this photo.

Gabriel was big enough and old enough to get in this little plane and go for a ride all by himself. I was far more nervous about it than he was.

Call me a silly mama, but I imagined this as practice for his soon to be solo flight into kindergarten.

A thing to celebrate, not just for him, but for me. I managed to raise a kid who was ready to go out into the world and be a big kid. Not a baby. Hurrah. What a long way you've come. I'm not going to get all weepy. I swear.

Feather In My Cap, Two

yesterday's feather... in my cap

I wanted to show this feather again, in better light, not in a panic to get it posted so using the picture from the middle of the night under the lamp.

And in addition to the feather in my cap here, I want to celebrate some other feathers in my cap.

First of all, I'd like to say that, once I recalibrated my 100 days challenge to the day I actually STARTED my challenge (June 14th) I actually discovered that today is the 74th day. And that makes me perfectly even with my challenge, in fact, I'm going to be ahead when I count all the creativity of the last couple of days.

So for number 75 I am going to tell you that I have just finished the third revision of chapter one in my novel. That makes me uneasy, because I don't think it is ready yet. I think I need to go back over it. There's so much I had to do to the new chapter 1 once I deleted the whole of the old chapter 1. It's still rough around the edges and there are moments of too much exposition and other moments where it is totally en media res. Now, I generally like starting in the middle of the action, but I haven't managed the balance between en media res and helping my reader know what is going on. Actually, now that I think about it, I think I should stop trying to get all the exposition in and make it truly en media res. That might make me feel better. The next time I go over it, I'm going to think about just dropping the reader in the middle of things and letting them come to know that this girl is not "just a girl." I think I might change the title of the chapter to "just a girl," too.

So this is a double feather in the cap. First because I have actually managed to get to the end of chapter one. Second because I am actually counting my writing as one of my things for my creative challenge. I said at the beginning that I wanted to count all my output, not just certain things. How can I not count writing a novel? That's just crazy.

So. Although there's no picture, just take my word for it.

Chapter One. Just A Girl, or El Lobo and The Wolves

approx 28 pages in Wolf Run

75/100 in 100 days creative challenge, day 26 August everyday

Woo Hoo! Go me!

Name Cards

recycled menus and Pitt Artist Penn, 4" square. 8 cards, plus 4 cards for Ivy (not shown)

76/100 in 100 days creative challenge

Gabriel is starting kindergarten in a few weeks and he is terribly excited. When we got the placement list, we read him all the letters from the school and his new teacher as his bedtime story.

He also has decided that he wants to learn how to write his name. He is at a little bit of a disadvantage over Joe and Tom, though, since his name is so long. And he isn't quite ready to write out all his letters. We tried some at the beginning of the summer, and he wasn't really enthused about the big task ahead of him. So I decided to break it down a little.

Learning to write is a big challenge. He wanted to write his name, but that's a bit much, so I wrote out a card with his name spelled in capital letters and lowercase letters. Then I wrote a card with each of his name's letters and I gave him the cards and told him to match the order.

Dadum!

He did it. Very quickly. He is almost ready to read and write and it is just about time for him to start kindergarten and get away from pushy mama always trying to get him to do something with a crayon.

Okay, so it's his accomplishment. But it's my project. Thus #76.

Feather in My Cap, too

felted wool, wool blend felt, acrylic paint, thread, embroidery floss, metal pin backing

77/100 in 100 days creative challenge.

I forgot to tell you yesterday that I had already made another feather. I didn't post it because the photo was simply unacceptable and I had to wait for day light to take a better shot.

One lesson I learned about these feathers? Commercial felt, wool blend or acrylic, takes the acrylic paint much better than does the felted wool. When I make more feathers, I think I'll go straight to the store bought felt, although it's not as charming as the idea of hand felted repurposed wool. Oh well. We need to work with reality here, not just the charming ideas of how we'd like things to work out.

And that draws my post to a close, nicely.

The theme for today, folks, is to give yourself credit for what you actually do and accomplish. And also to pay attention that your ideals or goals are not outstripping the reality of where you are and what you are ready for. If you're a part time waitress/part time stay at home mom of two kids without help, don't then think that you should also, without startup capital, be running a full time professional enterprise all by yourself and up there with the big boys.

Don't beat yourself up for being who you are, and being where you are on your journey. You are who you are and you are right where you need to be.

A Feather For My Cap

A Feather for My Cap

wool blend felt, felted wool, acrylic paint, embroidery floss, thread, acrylic gel medium, metal pin finding.

74/100 in 100 days creative challenge, day 25 of August Everyday

This is a new feather I created. It's for the hat I got the other day to replace the fake leather button that came with it. It was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be, but it was fun figuring out how the media would react together. I also realized that perhaps I didn't know exactly what a feather looked like, not exactly. This feather went on quite a journey to get to it's final state.

It's not quite the teal feather that I was envisioning. The felted wool I started with was actually an emerald green. Can you see it in there? And when I was trying to figure a way to make it more sturdy, without making it weighty (since it is a feather after all) I decided to add the purple felt to the back, which meant I could attach the pin finding without disturbing the painted feather. But then when I was trying to attach the purple felt, I wanted it more sturdy than just the line of the quill, which was my original plan. That's when I lit upon the idea of the embroidered dots. I used both navy blue and teal. So there's no shimmer on this feather, but all the different colors give the illusion. Yay me.

Actually, I should have shown the other feather that I made and decided I didn't want to use on my hat. Yes. I did two feathers. And I missed posting yesterday, so I really should have done two pieces today.

Honestly, I keep running out of time to do things. I want to post every day so I can keep up with my creative, and push myself to make more things every day. I'm still trying to catch up with my hundred things.

Come to think of it, I started off behind, so the entire time, I was trying to catch up to myself. I have just decided that is not a good way to start.

You've got to start where you are. You've got to, or you are automatically not "enough".

Dare I say it? I am extending my 100 days challenge to be 100 days from the day I actually started, rather than the day I should have started, June 1st.

Look. There's another "should". Why should I have started on June 1st? Because I did last year? Because someone else did?

This whole creativity thing is not really about shoulds. It's about the journey that I am on personally. My creativity is my journey. Just like your creativity is your journey.

Just like this feather started off one thing and turned into another. Just like I thought my life would be expected and smooth and it turned out to be something, well, not quite like what seemed to be the logical path.

Such is life? A meandering path. Detours, delays, scenic overlooks, occasional pile ups, truck stop snacks, running out of gas, speed traps. Oy. That's a lot of things stopping the trip.

But still we travel on.

This is the Path

I decided to be happy

acrylic and pitt artist pen on repurposed paint chip

71/100

This looks like it's folded, but it's not. It's just how the paint chip reacted when I painted it. I guess the paint strips deal with paint better than the tiny lines between the colors, where it's just paper.

I actually came up with this after encountering Illustration Friday's prompt "atmosphere" again and again this weekend. I might like to start doing IF again.

The quote is by Voltaire, and found amongst my collected quotes. I just picked one that resonated with the picture, even though it's not a direct illustration. I don't think it needs to be.
It's the Little Things, or Magnified

acrylic on repurposed paint chip

72/100

This is actually a drawing of a tiny tiny flower that my kids brought me. It was probably one inch from tip to stem. I blew it up and made it work.
Traveling where I am or This is The Path.

ink on repurposed menu

73/100

This was started while I was at work and finished yesterday.

Somehow, all these pieces I did fit together.

Maybe together they begin to make sense. Maybe they aren't little worthless pieces. Maybe the little bits of this and that add up together to make the path and by accepting the path that we're on, may we get to be happy. Maybe the happiness makes the path enjoyable, whether or not we get to the end point as soon as we want.

Maybe.

Hmmmmm.

Traveling Along, In Photos, In Life

Traveling with Tree

digital photo casio exilim

69/100 in 100 days creative challenge

My traveling series was inspired by some of the photos that I have taken from a car window while I was-- wait for it-- traveling, so I thought as long as I was trying out different media, why not go to the original? I don't generally take my photos very seriously. Every time I've posted one here, I usually don't consider it, quite, my art. I use photos more for documenting my life and my creativity. I use them to tell stories. I use them for emphasis. I use them for a kind of editorial commentary. I've forgotten most of what I learned about film photography in my High School photography class. I use a crappy point and shoot. I don't remember what aperture or shutter speed does. I almost never actually even print out my photos. Lame-o lame-o, but I continue to take photos. Almost every day for most of the last five years. And I enjoy photography. And I like the images I post, mostly. Don't get me wrong, I delete a whole heck of a lot of photos. That's actually kind of my process, to take as many pictures as I can, and then to get rid of most of them, and then to edit the ones I have left.

Traveling with Wildflowers

digital photo, casio exilim

70/100 in 100 days creative challenge

These latest photos here are cropped to match the latest painting/drawings I've been doing. A square format. I always have loved the square.

I think of them as if I could have painted them. I particularly like the round tree shape in the first photo, and I wonder about that giraffe looking shadow in the second one.

I have some more things that I did today. Three pieces actually. But I ran out of time to post them because we went to Ann Arbor and did some thrift shopping.

I got this nifty chapeau. It's nothing all that fancy or even all that vintage, but it was the first thing that I saw when I walked into the thrift store and I never took it off the entire time I was there. It came home with me. Don't worry, I paid for it. I think I need to get rid of the leather button on the side. It wants a teal feather. Now where am I going to find a teal feather?

We also stopped downtown where we had New York style pizza. Not quite Joe's on 7th Ave in Greenwich Village, which is still one of my favorite pies, but it is decent. Then we got a little ice cream and on the way back to the car, passed by a little vintage shop where THIS happened.
Yes. It looks like we might have a budding Vintageista. She fell in love with this mannequin in her Pepto Bismol pink dress. I certainly won't discourage her if she declares a love for vintage, and if she ends up hating vintage, well we'll just have to see what happens.
This is a budding marine biologist. The smudge in his hand is a toy hermit crab. Nothing to do with art or vintage shopping, just giving the other kid some equal time.

Well stay tuned tomorrow. I'll show you the three pieces I did. They wanted to stay together, so I went photos for this late Monday night post. I'm proud of myself for getting any post up at all.

Dream Roll, Sully's Black Irish Public House

Dream Roll, Sully's Black Irish Public House

Acrylic Paint, Gesso, on Found Wood approx 11.5" by 19"

68/100 in 100 days Creative Challenge, day 20 August everyday

I have been very resistant. I don't WANT to post every day. I don't WANT to be creative everyday. I want to be a big baby and do nothing. Maybe surf the web all day. Pooh.

But that isn't what I want in the long run.

In the long run, what I want is to reach my dreams, to create, to be happy, to raise strong happy kids, to enjoy my life.

So basically I have to suck it up and keep going, even though sometimes my eventual dreams, the destination I am aiming for, seems to be so far away and hard to grasp as an actuality.

I made this Dream Roll for S, like the bus rolls you've seen around here and there, one that says the stops and destination of the bus route. But the dream roll is not about a bus route, but the route we take to reach our dreams. He's decided he'd like to open up a pub some day. It doesn't seem like it is in the cards for the near future, but I made this remind him of the destination of HIS dream. I wrote down some of the places he's been, a reminder that where we've been gets us to where we're going. And then I wrote the dream, the final destination.

Does writing something down, declaring it for yourself as a reality make it more likely that it will become a reality? Does it help you focus on your dreams? Does it draw your dreams to you?

More Girl, of the Ivy Variety

64/100

More pictures from Ivy's photo shoot. I don't know how good they are, but these are my favorites.

65/100

This one I left with a slight colored tint. I don't know why. I just felt like it was important.

66/100

This one I liked because of the smile.

67/100

This one surprised me, because although it was out of focus, I still liked it. Goodness look at those fingernails. Time to tie her down and clip those.

This little girl really refused to sit still and give me a plain, no fancy stuff shot. When I look at all the pictures, I can see her just irrepressible personality. I don't know what she will be when she grows up, but if she's an actor trying on a million different emotions and characters, I wouldn't be surprised.

Ivy the Girl

Ivy The Girl

Casio Exilim 7.2mp

63/100 in 100 days creative challenge

A quick post before I run to work today.

I did a little photo shoot with Ivy yesterday and this morning, I tried to do some editing for black and white.

I did a photo shoot of Gabriel once, but for some reason, his fair coloring and the orange shirt he wore did not work out for the black and white, so I never posted any of the resulting photos. That of course is ANTI my challenge, because my 100 in 100 creativity challenge is supposed to include the imperfect, the odd media, and the experiment.

So WHY am I still not counting some of the work I have done in the past couple of months?

Oh because being an artist is mainly about struggling with your own inner demons, your gremlins, your vampires. It's about telling the stories of your soul, and documenting the travels of your life and imagining the future and dissecting your dreams and sometimes just going with the flow without any deep meaning. But to get to all that, you have to get through your insecurities and fears and neuroses and self critical tendencies that say things like "that doesn't count," or "you're not good enough."

So, onwards and upwards. Keep doodling, taking photos, making kid forts, drawing, painting, sculpting, sewing, cooking and everything else that allows that creative urge to get out, whether or not anyone pays for it, or says it's good, or you think it is even important enough to count. It does count. You count.