My Visit to Cyber Fyber in Columbia, South Carolina

I returned last night from two days in Columbia, South Carolina, visiting the Cyber Fyber exhibit and enjoying the gracious hospitality of Susan Lenz, Fiber Artist and coordinator of the Cyber Fyber Exhibit, and her husband, Steve Dingman. My visit was beyond expectations. I truly enjoyed every single moment I was in Columbia: meeting Susan, meeting other fiber artists, dining on the Southern cuisine, staying in an historic downtown hotel, the friendliness of everyone I encountered. Awesome!!!

One little anecdote: I was returning from having dinner at the Blue Marlin, heading for the Gervais Street entrance to the hotel, walking with my cane, all bundled up for the freezing weather, when a black man in his 40's (also bundled up from the cold) riding his bike up the sidewalk, said to me with a smile as he passed, "You almost there, Mama."

I will tell more about my visit further on in this blog, but I believe in serendipity. The day I left Columbia was January 20, the day of the Inauguration. The moment President Obama was sworn in I was sitting in an "English Pub" at Washington, D.C.'s Dulles airport, dining on Fish and Chips and a cup of English Breakfast tea.

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE



















Susan and I pose in front of some of the postcards. (I never can smile for the camera!)



















Susan is soooo enthusiastic about explaining the exhibit to show visitors.



















Working on one of her Decision Series art quilts.



















Ellen Kochansky and Susan check Cyber Fyber email. (The weird abstract wall of postcards was adjusted in Photoshop to cut down on the contrast.)

Susan allowed me to photograph her studio. These are a few of the photos I took of her work.















The Blues Series



















The Doors Series


















Quilt-in-progress: "Crazy Blues." The person portrayed in the quilt is Mamie Smith, the first African American to record a blues song (1920) titled "Crazy Blues."



















Two of the Embroidered "Architecture" Series (I may have the title of the series wrong.)



















Susan's stash for making art on the Embellisher.








TO SEE THE COMPLETE CYBER FYBER EXHIBIT GO TO THESE URLs

To see the Invitational Art go here:
http://cyberfyberexhibitioninvitationalart.blogspot.com/

To see the Postcards go here:
http://cyberfyberonlinepostcards.blogspot.com/

To see the ATCs go here:
http://cyberfyberonlineatcs.blogspot.com/

Catch Up Time

I haven't been posting for awhile because on December 3, 2008, I had a complete knee replacement. It's now January 7, and I'm am glad to say my rehabilitation has been most successful. I can walk without a cane (except outdoors where there are more hazards for falling) and can go up and down stairs. I've yet to try driving my car so my daughter has been a wonderful help in buying me groceries. On January 3, I had my 80th birthday. I took my daughter, granddaughter, grandson, and great granddaughter to lunch for a celebration. The event turned out to be more tiring than I had expected. We should have stayed in Sonoma instead of driving all the way to Corte Madera (about 50 miles roundtrip).

I may fly to Columbia, South Carolina, to see the Cyber Fyber exhibition coordinated by Susan Lenz. I am most excited about seeing all the wonderful fiber art on display. I may also meet up with Susan Sorrell (who lives in Greenville, SC) for a chat and a cuppa tea. I won't see my surgeon until January 16 (I plan to fly the next day) and hope he will okay my trip. The only difficult part would be having to sit so long on each leg of the trip (a stop in Dallas) so I'm going to try to get an aisle seat on the port side so I can straighten out my leg when necessary. If I go, I'll take lots of photos to post on my blog.

Our Cruise Ship, the MS Ryndam and the Explorer's Cafe - Post # 5

The MS Ryndam is one of Holland America's smaller ships suitable for
cruising the Sea of Cortez.







I spent many pleasant hours in the Exploration Cafe sitting in comfortable leather sofas, drinking lattes, listening to my iPod, and knitting. Oh, and also using the computer.




We had a luxurious Deluxe Verandah Suite. More about this later.

Macyn and Nancy in the Lido pool Post #4

Grandma Nancy teaching Macyn to love the water.

More coming soon! Post #3

I will keep posting photos and information. Please notice that the posts are in reverse chronilogical order. Go to the first post and work your way up.

Lifeboat Drill Post #2

As you can see, Macyn refused to put on her life jacket. I'm the only one who wasn't pissed at having to go through the drill.

Mexico Cruise Aboard the MS Ryndam Post #1

We began our cruise in San Diego. I brought my daughter, my granddaughter, and my great granddaughter along on the cruise. We started out with the airlines losing Macyn's stroller. They gave us a loaner to take with us on the cruise. Because of my arthritic knee, I had a wheelchair at the airports in Oakland and in San Diego. We all got to go through security ahead of the waiting line. We also pre-boarded the plane because of my being in a wheelchair.

Flickr Flash

www.flickr.com Go to freeflyinglady's photostream

Colors for April TIF Challenge

I found this image of an Aboriginal painting that has a brighter version of the April colors. I think I will go with this palette instead of the dark and gloomy palette Sharon posted for the April TIF Challenge

March Tif Challenge

I needed to do something fast so I made my piece for March on the Embellisher. There's a bit of magenta fabric paint on the yellow pieces (to tone them down a little), but otherwise the whole thing was put together using my Embellisher. I may still attach it to a larger piece of black felt with running stitches around the edge.

Original (altered) Image

This is the original image I started with after squaring it up with Photoshop. The background will remain the color of the felt (green), the heavy black lines will be black embroidery, and the rest of the spaces will be embroidered with colored silk thread. (See former post)

Colors for the Primitive Embroidery Piece

Vero, in answer to your question, these are the colors of silk thread that I've chosen to use on my Primitive piece. I will leave the green background as is and fill in the design spaces with the colors. I may do a "mock up" on paper, first, to see which way I want to go. The lines will be heavily embroidered over with black silk thread. As you can see, the thread is Splendor's 12 ply silk. The thread easily separates into 4 ply strands which is how I use the silk. I love the feel of pulling silk thread through wool felt - very satisfying.

Primitive without Embroidery Paper

I tore off the embroidery paper, and because I hadn't knotted the thread, some of the treads pulled out. If I were to do this again, I would use a thinner paper such as tissue paper. I would also use only one strand of thread instead of three as I intend to embroider over the outlines.

New Project

My new project is an embroidery on light green felt. The design is from a book on primitive art. I attached a piece of embroidery paper to freezer paper and ran it through my printer to come up with a design I could outline on my piece of felt. Now, I'll tear away the embroidery paper and begin the actual embroidery.

February TIF Challenge Finished

I've finished the stitching on my TIF February Challenge piece. I hand stitched the running stitch around all the pieces. I'm not happy with the way it looks -it needs something more, but I don't know what. I might try images printed on organza to add on. I'll see how it goes.

February TIF Challenge Ready for Stitching

I've pinned my fabric together and it's ready for stitching. This little quilt is for the Take It Further Challenge for February. The concept is "What am I old enough to remember." I chose metal roller skates. The piece measures about ten inches square. I will use batting and another fabric to make this a "real" quilt. I will also leave raw edges on all the pieces. Scroll down to see my "Thoughts on Roller Skating" post.

Quilting Arts Magazine "Go Green" Challenge

The challenge was to recycle materials to make a mini-quilt five inches square. I use a piece of raw canvas for the drying cloth to place just-painted Lutradur monoprints on. The paint is usually quite thick and a lot soaks through to the canvas. I cut out a 5" piece of this canvas, embellished it with beads, silk floss, and other threads leftover from finished projects. I used a scrap of white wool felt instead of regular batting and backed the quilt with a scrap piece of gold lame'. If the editor of the magazine likes my quilt, it might end up in the magazine (with others, of course)!

Fabrics for February TIFC

I'm going to make a mini-art quilt for the February Challenge. These are the fabrics/colors I will start out with. From top to bottom the blue stripes are upholstery fabric, the next two are batiks, the next red is cotton, the dark blue on left is a Japanese cotton, and the bottom light blue is Japanese rayon chirimen crepe. I still have to figure out how to create the roller skate. I'm thinking appliqué.

Thoughts on Roller Skating

I wonder how many pairs of shoes I ruined with my roller skates. The skates had these clamps that tightened onto the sole of the shoe. We used our skate key (which we carried on a ribbon around our necks) to tighten the clamps. The sidewalks where I grew up (the Mission District of San Francisco) were rough concrete; the asphalt streets were smoother, so we skated out in the street. A few blocks from my house was a small industrial area with train tracks, trains, and large buildings for businesses selling all kinds of large equipment. The brand new sidewalks in front of the buildings were smooth - almost as smooth as glass. This area was our favorite place to skate. We didn't have need pads or wear helmets then, so I had many scrapes on my knees and elbows. I still have a skate key in with my mementos. I like to think it is the same one I had as a youngster growing up on the streets and sidewalks of San Francisco.

TIF Challenge for February

Sharon has posted a wonderful challenge for February. The concept is "What are we old enough to remember." There are so many things I remember: Shirley Temple dolls and paper dolls, my Schwinn bicycle, coloring books and Crayola crayons, my grandmother's summer cottage on the Pacific coast just south of San Francisco, driving there in my grandfather's Buick - passing the pig farms while holding our noses, reading fairy tales and the Book of Knowledge, street cars, and finally, the item I've chosen to work with: roller skates.

Photos are the Challenge colors.