Wolf's Den

Back in June, my Vet was moving away. She'd sold her practice and was going back to her home state. She'd been our vet for the last 10 years. She was the one who took excellent care of Dante-Inu right up to the end. She was the one who saw Caena at her first vet appointment her, and nearly every one thereafter. Dr Eick was one of a kind.



I decided to make her a going away/thanks for everything gift. I wanted her to take a bit of the Star City with her, to remind her of the good things here. So I made a Triple Star Quilted Wallhanging, using both commercial cotton print fabrics and hand dyed cotton fabrics.

( Onward! )

Everything in my shop is now marked down, 50% off!




That's 50% off all hand dyed silk scarves!
50% off all handmade beadwork!
50% off all ArtQuilts!

And so on!

Get it while it lasts!

July 1st through July 7th!

http://Dantesspirit.etsy.com

Managed to come up with a second entry for the Old Church Gallery Quilt Show and the Mountain Comforts XX Quilt Show, both in Oct. Both had been originally started several years ago, one really only needed the binding, then finish quilting to be complete, but like usual , I procrastinated on it. The other, needed everything, except the top made. Heh.



( Quite a few pictures. Large. )

'Indigo Ferns', Sunprinted 100% Stonewashed Crepe De Chine Silk ScarfSOLD

MOST CURRENTLY Listed Items are now 50% OFF.

All Silk Scarves- 50% OFF

All Chainmaille- 50% OFF

All Fabrics- 50% OFF

SELECTED Beadwork- 50% OFF

Everything not mentioned- 50% OFF


Prices have been adjusted already.

Since when do the corners on an ARTQUILT have to be exactly 90 degrees?? They weren't made to have mitered corners. That's not part of the overall design.

Since when does the binding on an ARTQUILT have to be exactly straight?? They weren't made to be perfectly straight, for crying outloud. (On Fire At Dawn, FIRE itself isn't straight, and the design wasn't made to be straight either. Nor was it made to have an overabundance of quilting.)

Since when does there have to be, on an ARTQUILT, tons of quilting?? No one ever heard of less is more???

In otherwords, I just got the critiques from the first of 2 shows, and all of them say the same thing. And yes, I stated in the submission forms all of this. I don't think they read them.

Also, why can't they have an artquilt catagory intead of simply a Miniature catagory. Grr.

Overall, I got 'Satisfactory/Satisfactory+' across the board. Which is better than last year. So I guess that's something.

Oh wait, wrong song. Sorry.

Actually, I have 30 cups of dye in the closet.



See? All lined up in a row, each with a piece of Kona cotton in it. Stewing away. In a few, I'll had a solution of soda ash. No, I'm doing that tomorrow, that way I don't completely exhaust the dye and render it useless before I get every. last. bit.. erm, sorry. That way I can dye up a few silk scarves with some of the colors in there.}:P

The list reads like a grocery list actually- Butterscotch, Mocha, Eggplant, Vanilla Bean, Hollandaise, Harvest Wheat, Curry, Spicey Plum, Sage, Golden Pineapple, Cranberry, Pumpkin Spice, Watermelon and so on. Heh.

Why?, you may ask. Well, I'm auditioning colors for the only 'traditional' quilt I'll ever have a hand in making. This one as a matter of fact-



Cool, huh? I've always wanted to either make a Mariner's Compass or own one. Now I can do both. My friend, Jess, up in Vermont will be doing the actual piecing. See, it'll be a collaborative work. I'm dyeing the fabrics, she's doing the machine piecing and I'm doing the quilting and actual putting together of the quilt.}:P I'm thinking that maybe if I really try, I can get it done in time for next year's quilt shows. Which is why I'm really glad to have that quilt frame now.


Speaking of quilt shows, I went to Alpine Sewing to drop my entries off today. Man, I've been here over 6 years and always thought that place was just a sewing machine store. Not only do they have sewing machines, they have embellishments such as Angelina fibers, books and thread galore. I restrained myself and walked out with a nifty package of Angelina-




This stuff will look awesome on artquilts. Might even do a few FiberArt Postcards with it. Hmm...

Random shot of Dante-



She's got so much grey around her muzzle now. Her mask has faded so much. My beautiful girl. She can'tr get on the bed without help anymore. And has started occassionally having trouble with the stairs. I suspect she'll only be around a few more months at best.

Where were the Boys during all this picture taking?



On the 'storage' side of my design desk. In a rare moment, they were actually sleeping together. Technically, Aries is sleeping, Max is glaring at me. Heh.

Hopefully by Thursday, I'll have a few new scarves to list in the shop. I think I'll run the 10% off chainmaille again next month as well as a 10% off the scarves too. Might take the test Kona in the closet and make up 'grab bags' for artquilters and fiber artists and list them too. We'll see.

I think I'll go back to bed.


Ok, not really. I won't go back to bed. But I did successfully depress myself.

First I have 3 containers of fabric in dye to rinse out. After Aries decides to move off my arms again. Goofy boy is trying to cheer me up, methinks..I pissed Mark off abit. He asked if I was still coming over to Dale and Kat's for dinner...I replied that I never said I was going over for dinner. He gat all pissy and asked if I was going to come over for dinner. I said I hadn't decided yet.

I did say I wasn't going over there anymore. How hard is that to understand? I could careless what she's cooking for dinner. I said I wasn't going over there, I won't go over there. Deal with it.

But that's not what I depressed myself about.

People are always telling me, not so much anymore, that I need to enter quilt shows, I need to join this club, or that group, etc..

But then I look up quilt shows on the net, and what I see depresses the shit out of me. I enter local shows(1 last year, 2 this year) and compared to everyone elses's entries, I feel so damned out of place.

For example- this is one of the B IG quilt shows- check out the quilts along the top there..


I don't do stuff like that. Compared to things like that, my stuff is so damned plain, I'm surprised anyone wants it. Oh wait, outside of my family and the one person who commisioned a piece, NO ONE DOES. (Seriously, outside of GIVING AWAY pieces to my family, and the one commisioned piece, I've yet to sell any on Etsy or anywhere else.)


Another example..

This was last year's Mountain Comforts Quilt Show, in Ferrum, Va-



Mine's the dark blues, greens and yellow one in the center-ish. Want more examples of how much I don't fit in? Here.. a couple more...




(Did I mention that the person who made this piece was FOURTEEN??!?? 14!!!)



And that's just a few. (I'd link the entire album, but I had to make the entire Photobucket account 'private' because PhotoFuckIt is a pain in the ass sometimes about screenshots.)

Then I get this month's issue of QuiltArt in the mail, and it makes me depressed.

And I see stuff like this(second one down), which is so damned similier, in idea and execution to my unfinished piece , that it disgusts me. And certainly doesn't make me want to finish the damned thing now.

But anyway.. I was browsing around the net, looking up quilt shows for next year, that possibly, maybe, don't require me to be a member of SAQA, or any other 'exclusive' club, and I see stuff on the websites , such as this one that only serve to further discourage me, because I don't do quilts or artquilts like that.

Call me insecure, call me a coward and yeah, I'll probably agree with you. But honestly, something like these, is too busy for me. And I realise that alot of people like 'busy', crowded looking quilts. But I don't, and I don't like making things like that.

I prefer simple, letting the fabric tell the tale with the quilting or beading embellishments being a side story, not the main focus. I don't like busy, I CAN'T DO busy, I've tried. Yet, everytime I look at something , it's got myriads of colors, hundreds of embellishments, and the fabric itself is nearly lost in the chaos.


Hel, I can't even do whole cloth quilts like this et alone 'thread painting'. I know, I know, it takes years to get that good. But then Ihear about people who've just started out and are being accepted into big shows, and even sometimes winning, and they look like they've been doing artquilts for fucking years.


So I guess I'll just putz along like I've been doing and keep doing what works for ME, some day, my style will come back around again, I guess.

In the meantime, I have fabric to rinse out.