Thursday, August 19, 2010

On the verge

Life is spinning out of control when I got a check and can't recall depositing it. Nor can I find it. Oh-oh.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Over the rainbow

A local tv station use to televise Wizard of Oz annually. Always on a Sunday because I'd always missed a section due to the family dinner hour. That movie started me on a reading adventure through every Oz book at the library.

The local jazz station (publicly supported  & you can listen over the web) recently played Somewhere over the Rainbow - though sung by Eva Cassidy, not Judy Garland. Nevertheless it stirred up an old memory once again.

I am on the roof of my parent's house to hang laundry on the clotheslines. It's a beautiful San Francisco mid morning with sunshine and a mild breeze. But I am very sad and long for a happier place. I wish for ruby slippers . . . to click three times . . . to be elsewhere.

I don't remember why I was so unhappy but my childhood was not the best. I've had this vision many times. And the same emotions with it. Everytime I hear this song. Such is its power.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Possible madness

I was just there in May. But in less than two months I'd be off to the Crow Barn once again. I'm taking a dip in the dyeing waters with True Colors with Carol Soderlund followed by a week of Strip Piecing & Restructuring with Nancy Crow.

Last time there I got a very clear message: make pieces between workshops and concentrate on tops rather than finished quilts. So I'd started here with a black and white study. Then I got off on a tangent. 

First circle was shown here. Yes! a circle is piece-able with only straight lines. (Don't listen to naysayers calling it a multi-sided figure.) The struggle with bulky seams around a second smaller circle showed I needed a little more method for this madness. 

I draw the circles with a compass and then locate equidistant points for the tangents. Points too close together mean struggles with bulky seams. Points too far apart call the naysayers out of the woodwork.

With a little math, I pieced two more circles, one smaller, one larger.

Ooh boy, possibilities!