Month: December 2020

Winterfair Gifts: Possibility out of Darkness

| ellenanneeddy

We didn’t really do Christmas this year. We didn’t have money for presents. A tree seemed like far too much work, given that walking from the chair to the kitchen is a five minute trial. Dear friends will need to understand some packages will arrive possibly later than Epiphany. They know about that.

Don is fixing my old computer to be my new computer with some new parts and that frees up a new computer for him. It sounds much worse than it is. Both of us lack nothing for stuff. Merry Christmas!

Sarah and Donna Hinman sent me calamity ware mugs and a teapot that have me over the moon. They have dinosaurs, monsters, Sasquash, and zombie poodles! Merry Christmas indeed!

936 Swoop Dive

All of the really big gifts in our lives, a love, a job, a passion, a pet, a child, a studio, are invitations to be something different ourselves. A love teaches you how to be a lover. A pet or a child teaches you how to love someone or something past it’s problems and messes. A studio, well a studio teaches you how to dance with your creation.

For those of you who don’t know, Don gave me his house as my studio last year. I have never had a gift like a studio. The space to do what we do without interruption or criticism is a place to practice art. And with art, we never really do anything but practice, one phase into another. Art is a byproduct. What we create in a studio is skill and vision. Thank you, Don! Merry Christmas!

Real gifts change us. And I have been give some of the best. Here is a bit of what I did this year, in my studio.

  • Very Brave Little Bugs
  • Roses and Lettuce
  • Fly Delight
  • Lady Mantis 3
  • Leafy Ladybug
  • In the Reeds 2
  • 934 Lily Rising
  • 931 Stag Party https://www.ellenanneeddy.art/portfolio/931-20-stag-party-2/
  • Jump at the Sun
  • Sunflower Ladybug
  • 910 Hummingbird
  • On Ancient Wings
  • Lady bug Dance
  • Moth Mandella
  • 911 Damask Rose

I hope Christmas brought you gifts that change you, help you grow, help you see your world differently. And make us all so much richer in ability, in who we are and what we have to give.

The Miracle of Cheesecloth: Not Just for Turkey Anymore

| ellenanneeddy

I love sheers! I love the ability to have my background peak through the sheers to create the connection between background and an object.

But most sheers don’t paint or dye well. They are poly or nylon. They come in bright colors, but they have other problems. You can paint them in pastels. They don’t dye with fiber reactive dyes at all. And if you get your iron temperature wrong, they melt.

But cheesecloth does all that well! It’s all cotton, and woven loosely. And you can iron it on fry and it behaves like cotton.

You know cheesecloth. You just aren’t used to it in the sewing room. It’s an airy woven cotton people used to use to make cheese (hence the name). Or on turkies to keep the breast moist. You may have used it to make Halloween ghosts or Christmas angels.

But dyed, it can be any color in the universe. I include it in a regular dye batch and it dyes like a champ with fiber reactive dyes. And it washes out easily in your regular washer in a nylon lingerie bag.

It makes amazing leaves! The weave in the cheesecloth looks like the cells of the leaves and the stitching defines the color.

My favorite thing to do with cheesecloth is to make mushrooms. Child of the 60s that I am, they are a flora that fascinates me. And they are an excuse for eye popping color

I do make them in batches. I’ll line up a set of mushrooms on a piece of felt, using Steam a Seam 2, pull out my brightest polyester embroidery thread and stitch up batches of mushrooms at a time, that I’ll use in many different quilts. The bright colors and zigzag stitch pop the the colors to a peak intensity. Now, who doesn’t want that?

What I did differently, is I made some smaller ones for pins and patches for my friend, Sherrill Newman who owns the South Shore Market in Porter, Indiana.

I almost never make these available to people except as finished quilts. But she talked me into it. I made a small batch for her store. Some of the left overs I’ve put on sale on Etsy. They have pins backs on them, but if you wished to use them as a patch, it would be a matter of a moment to remove that with a seam ripper.

Hand dyed cheesecloth might just be the sheer you’ve been longing for. Bright, cotton, and beautifully texturized, it makes great flowers, leaves and ‘shrooms.

Body Blocked: And Now for Something Completely Different

| ellenanneeddy
With Friends in the studio

I finished four quilts this week. Partially for the joy of it, Partially to fill the time.

  • Swirling Leaves
  • Butterfly Pond
  • Ginko Butterfly
  • Heron Pond
  • Heron Pond Detail

My body is betraying me. I have an infection in my replaced knee and we’re going to have to clean it out, let it heal and replace the knee. It’s a three month process.

Can I quilt? I don’t know. The question is, can I walk into the car and the studio. We’ll find out. We don’t know.

I hate the words, ‘We don’t know.’

What I know is that time forced away from your creative flow doesn’t stop it. It finds a way. Through quilts, through words, through my hands, through my dreams, through my prayers.

We came back from the surgeon who told us that instead of doing surgery now, we need to wait until January 19th. More we don’t know. And waiting for the covid vaccine.

If you’re a praying person pray. If not spare me a good thought. I guess the first trial is the wait. Thanks!