Taste of Chicago

Yesterday Bill and myself went to the Taste of Chicago. This was the first time EVER that I had been. It is something that I've been wanting to do for a long time but we just never seemed to be able to get there.

It was an overcast day which actually worked out well as it was also cooler than it had been. So much cooler that I had to wear a cardigan!

Before we left, we had picked up a map so there were two things we wanted to try: Bill wanted to try the corn and I wanted to try something called Pork filled Banana Dumpling.

Here is Bill eating his corn. It wasn't too bad.

For my Pork Filled Banana dumpling (which I'm trying to eat here) I was actually a bit disappointed. Maybe I was thinking more of a Chinese dumpling. It wasn't too bad but it didn't really seem to have much taste.

Here is a close up picture of it.



We walked around trying all sorts of different things. New this year is what they call "Taste". For between 3-4 tickets, you can get a small version of one of the items that the stall offers. Where we could, we did get this. It allowed us to eat more things than we would have otherwise eaten. Actually, from what I could see, it was a big hit as most people were getting the Taste version. Unfortunately the stalls didn't have all of their items in a taste portion, otherwise we would have stuck to that size.

We had a great day. I'm glad we did it.

Here are some pictures of some of the other items we ate:

Potato pancakes with apple sauce

Pulled Pork Sandwich

Sweet Potato Hashbrowns

Funnel Cake (this was not as good as I would have hoped for as it was a bit tough. While we were sitting on the curb eating it we figured out why, in the back of the stall they had boxes of these that were frozen. They were not making these fresh but instead heating up pre-made funnel cakes. Funnel Cakes are ALWAYS best when made fresh.Here is a picture of Bill taking a picture of the food for me. I was making such a mess of my eating that he took the camera away from me :)

October BJP

OK this is my October piece. Some of the words that came to mind while working on this piece are the same as the previous month and actually the same as November. But that's OK. These colours are in the same colour family.

The reason Vitamin C came to mind was because I remember eating Vitamin C tablets that were this colour. They actually had the words "Vitamin C" written on them.

This is still on of those colours that makes me smile. Happy colours.

BJP September

For all of you who think you are way behind, I'm here to make you feel good! :) I have FINALLY totally completed my September piece. I have been working on other months but they are not in that "final, post on the web, show to the world" stage.

My goal/theme/journaling has been about colours & how they make me feel and the things that come to mind when I'm working on these colours. As I've been beading my butterflies I have been writing down these words and thoughts. For some words they may not make sense to others but they do for me.

If you had seen earlier posts, you would note that I was originally going to put these butterflies onto a patchwork background. I loved working with the patchwork and pulling out all of the fabrics to give me all the colours of the rainbow was just a joy! But when it came to completing the piece, I just couldn't get the words conveyed that I wanted, plus the butterflies were disappearing into the background. I like this format. Yes, I'm very visual with the words but I like that.

Here is a close-up of the butterfly.

I have also been working on other projects this past year and decided to continue with my theme of colours; the things that pop to mind when I look at a colour, or how different colours make me feel about different things. I will try to start getting some of these things posted. I know, I've been slack about posting. sorry.

I have more butterflies to add but I still have handwork to get done. Now that I know how I'm going to finish off the pieces, I'm rolling them out. Once I get the handwork finished for the edges, I will post more of these.

So, if you are behind, you can't be as far behind as me! But I'm catching up quickly! :)

Oh, and I love the idea of doing a new project. I already know what I'm going to do. Make journal covers for each month and use the journal to write my thoughts for the month, using it from year to year. I thought it would be interesting to see how my thoughts during a particular month change from year to year, particuarly when the first 3 months of next year I will be in Australia! Who knows where I will be the following year during those same months.

Popppies

The other night on the news I saw a photo someone had taken of the poppies at the Chicago Botanical Gardens. As I live just a few miles away, I had to get there for myself and take my own pictures. They were nearly over so I'm glad we had a nice day. My daughter went with me and she kept taking photos with her phone for sharing with others.



They also had lots of beautiful coloured flowers. The tulips & daffodils were already finished but there were lots of wonderful violas and many other plants full of colour. Here is another one of my favourites.

Felt workshop

OK, life is getting away from me & twitter, which will automatically update Facebook from my phone, is about what I seem to be able to get to at the moment. Anyway, here are the pictures of two of my pieces from the workshop. The first one is a bit washed out, I do need to try & get a better photo. The shapes were cut out felt glued on top before I gessoed over the whole thing. I have been trying to do another piece the same way but it seems that the gesso actually does go off over time!

My second piece the colours are actually richer than they appear. They have that lovely sparkle to them. I have all of the photos on Flickr so if you want to see more, click on the link to the right.

Felt workshop

Today & tomorrow I am doing a felting workshop with Michelle Sales. We are having a lot of fun. I will post completed pictures tomorrow but for the moment, if you want to see some photos, check out my Flickr page.

Drawing with Paint

While doing the class with Judy Coats Perez at IQF, one of the things that we discussed was a ruling pen. It is a pen that, pre-computers, was used with mechanical drawing. Now that computers do most of the work, they are hard to come by.

Well, I found something similar in Michael's! It is called a Fine Line Painting Pen by Lowe-Cornell, Inc. I found it in the section where they sell the inks.

This is a close up of the nib.








And here is a picture of what it looked like when I was drawing.

I had to thin the paint just a little with a bit of water but once I had it flowing, it worked beautiful.

I also tried using Tsukineko Inks. I like to experiment but there are no pictures as it was a disaster! It ran and would not give a smooth line. I also had a little bit of trouble getting the ink into the nib as I didn't have the little squeeze thing to do that with. I tried by using a syringe. Don't do it! It was a disaster.

On a related note, does anyone know how long it takes for red Tsukineko Ink to wash out of hair?

IQF 2009

I have just spent the last 2 days in workshops taught by Judy Coates Perez. They were wonderful classes!

The first day we did Tsukineko Inks. I still need to take a photo of what I did for that class.

Yesterday the workshop was about whole cloth painting. This is my piece to the left. I am happy with the painting as I have tried this before & it never seemed to work. Now it does. Judy is a wonderful teacher. Next I have to quilt it which will add more detail. Once that is done, I may come back in with some more paints.

These were wonderful classes. If you ever get the chance, take a workshop with Judy. You can see photos from the class in my Flickr account. Still learning the camera so some of the photos didn't get the flash that they so desperately needed!

The show itself was wonderful. They had vendors selling everything that I just had to have! And even though we were in the classrooms, we felt like we were right on the floor when Pokey's Tweet came through saying she had spilt green paint all over herself so they were obviously having a good time!

Dyeing with food colouring

For those of you that are just dyeing to know :), No, it is not possible to use food colouring to dye Fabric Dryer sheets. For some reason the colour will just not stay, even with a good amount of citric acid.

So, next try. I know that tea bag dyeing works really well but those vibrant colours would be so much more fun!

I'm finally getting some time in my studio. Hopefully soon I'll have pictures of work.

Xi'an, Shaanxi Provence, China

We had a great time in Xi'an. Well, I did. My husband still thinks it is all a scam. I still think it is amazing that these soldiers were found after being buried for so long. Just imagine what else is out there.

The first photo shows some of the soldiers in Pit 1. There are 3 different pits.

We also walked the city wall. We thought it wouldn't be too bad, but after walking for 3 hours from one exit to the next and only covering 1/4 of it, we decided it was time to get off!

The trip was amazing and made me appreciate very much what I have at home. Everything is so backward, just getting around can be difficult. We were trying to find a taxi at one time & it took us 2 hours! We finally walked into a Hyatt hotel & pretended we were staying there to get them to get us a taxi. Taxis would stop but they wouldn't necessarily take you where you wanted to go!

I have more pictures on my Facebook account if you want to see some. I took 592 photos! If you don't have facebook, e-mail me and I will send you a link to my google photos.

Newspapers

I do not have a lot of my fiber related supplies here in Hong Kong. I have some but more importantly, I don't have the space I have in Chicago where I can lay everything out & not have to move it until I'm done! So I decided to take a different approach to what I'm doing for the few weeks that I'm here. HK newspapers have the most wonderful colourful pictures! I have been collecting all the pictures I can find & yesterday I started cutting them out. Some pictures and stories I am just pasting into a sketchbook. These are my inspiration pictures, things to look at to remind me of the colours of HK & China. Others I am cutting out to use in collage work when I return to Chicago. I will post pictures of my sketchbook later. After I have pasted the photos into the sketchbook, I'm planning on going through with my coloured pencils and adding drawings, etc. I love looking at the sketchbook, the colours that pop off the page and so vivid.

Hong Kong

Well I finally finished one sock but didn't get a picture of it yet so I thought I would post a couple of pictures of Hong Kong instead. One thing you will notice, though. The pictures look a little hazy. That is not because of a bad camera shot, that is Hong Kong! It is always full of pollution, unfortunately. Days with nice clear blue sky are very rare. And if we happen to get one, I will be heading out all day to take photos. Checking the 7-day weather forecast on the Hong Kong weather page, is actually tells us that next Monday will be fine but hazy. Actually I just noticed that they changed it, thank goodness. It was a little picture of HK that was yellow - now would that be considered haze or pollution! :)

This is the star ferry from Kowloon side with HK in the background. This shows very nicely the "haze" I'm talking about.
This is one of the old time junks. Unfortunately she didn't have her sails up. When she does she is even more beautiful. We were walking along the water front on Kowloon side and were just about to head to the MTR (train) when she came along. Next time hopefully I will see her with sails.

Taken on the balcony of friends house. They have the most fantastic view of the other side of the Island, as it is know. The view behind us is Deepwater Bay with the yacht club. They were having some sort of race.

A view of Repluse bay.
Another view of Deepwater Bay. There is a golf club to the right and we have friends who have a membership. When I lived in Hong Kong from 1982-1992 with the kids, we used to have many birthday parties there.

Socks

Being in Hong Kong is a little frustrating artistic wise as I have only brought my knitting with me. It is the easiest thing to travel with. But I am keeping a sketch book & have all these wonderful ideas of things to work on when I get back to Chicago. I will have lots of things to get caught up on when I get back but the kids will still be in school and my husband still in Hong Kong so I will have the time.I have, though, been knitting away. I have not yet finished this sock but this is the bamboo yarn that I hand dyed. I am loving the look and the feel. I'm hoping that it will also feel good when worn.

I have also started on a knee high sock. So far I'm also loving this too.
I still have a ways to go but without having to worry too much about shaping, it is the perfect thing to be working on when riding the escalator home. Hong Kong has this fantastic way to get from Central to Mid-Levels. It is this really long escalator system. There are lots of fun things along the way to see. We live about 1/2 block from the top of the escalator. The biggest problem is that it can only go one way. Until 10am in the morning it heads down. The whole thing is then manually turned around to go up the hill. I have seen them do it. It takes about 20-30 mins for them to go to each escalator & turn it around. It really is an amazing form of transport.

Happy Chinese New Year

I know this is a couple of days late but better late than never. Here is a money tree to bring you good fortune for the year.Here is a lion dance out the front of one of the buildings on our street.
This year is the Year of the Ox. May it be better for you than forcasted!

Food Colour Yarn Dyeing

OK, when I should be packing for my 2 month trip to Hong Kong, I'm dyeing yarn with food colouring! I bought bamboo & footscray from The Yarn Workshop. Incidentally, the person who owns this actually lives in Hong Kong. She directed me where to get the powdered food colouring & I couldn't return to Hong Kong without having used it!

Anyway, here are my results & I'm kinda impressed! Both yarns were dyed the exact same way and yet both of them came out totally different! Here is a photo of both of the yarns painted.

Of course, I was not thinking. It was food colouring. I could do this in the kitchen. I didn't need any safety precautions! Here is my reminder that next time, I need to wear gloves!

I microwaved both of these. Then rinsed, washed & balled! These photos don't show the actual beautiful colours but you can certainly see the difference! The bamboo is the lighter colour but it is actually very, very cool! I love the way both of these turned out. I will definitely be picking up more food colouring dyes while in HK

This is the bamboo in the skein
and then in the ball.

This is the footscray which is mainly wool in the skeing & then in the ball. During each process, just as with dyeing fabric, the colours were always changing.

During each process, just as with dyeing fabric, the colours were always changing. I loved the way these turned out & will definitely be doing it again soon!

October Done!

Here is my October Butterfly. I have really been zipping along! Once I got all the Christmas gifts completed it was a little easier to find the time to catch up. The colour of the photo is not perfect but close. I have a new camera (Nikon D60) but I'm still learning so I'm sure I'll get better photos soon. The words with this have been interesting; including things like Vitamin C! The colours here remind me of oranges & we have been eating them to combat a cold. It is interesting to see that some of my words from last month & this month were the same. I'm sure that will happen constantly & I'm letting it brew. I know that the words that repeat themselves will end up being used more promently in the final piece, I'm curious to see where they will lead.

I actually have worked a lot more than just my butterfly. I have also finished the background patchwork that will go with this. I have realized that I am not perfect when it comes to doing the patchwork but I really don't mind. It is me. I am not perfect. I still don't know how all of these will go together but the thoughts are flowing. Seeing this piece sit with last month's piece, they really flow together. I am going to enjoy beading these as well. I think I am leaning towards making them 12 individual pieces so that I can move them around to create different colour patterns but still haven't decided on that yet. Until I do, I can't actually work with this background piece, but give it a little more time and it will come to me!

I have also been spending a lot of time getting things prepared for the 12 months of the project.
On this last picture you will see all the colours that I have pulled out to use for the butterflies each month. What you can't really see is that behind these colours I also have the strips that will be used to create the patchwork. Cutting the strips took a really long time but now I have everything set & ready to go. It will make the beading process flower better.

It all just emphasizes how much I love colours & my journey this year to actually record what each colour makes me think of is already putting lots of smiles on my face! Just pulling all the fabrics together made me smile. I have put the rest of the fabric that the strips were cut from into their own drawer. Opening the drawer & looking at the rainbow of colours makes me smile. It is easy to work in my workroom when I can look up on my design wall & see these strips, just waiting to be made into patchwork to compliment my butterflies! There is something about looking at a rainbow of colours that really gets my energy levels up!

BJP September Part 2

OK, I couldn't stop! I had to finish the quilting part of my idea. This took a lot to get sorted out but now that I know what I'm doing, the rest of them will be quicker. The darker fabric in the middle is the fabric for my September butterfly. One of the colours on either end are the fabric for October 2008 & August 2009. My goal is to be working with colours for the year. I have found a way to make the colours flow from one month to the next using fabric and the beading on my butterfly. For my beading, I have decided that one of the beads from this months butterfly will also be used in next months butterfly. I couldn't put this down. I'm already nearly done with October. It will not take long for me to catch up!

As for the quilt part, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this but I'm sure by the end of the year it will come to me. Maybe everything will be put in one big quilt. Maybe my September Butterfly will be on this piece or maybe it wont. I will have to see. I will definitely be putting my words for the month on this piece but I'm realizing that some of my words for September and October were the same. I thought it might be interesting to see where that goes before I start adding the words to the fabric.

BJP September Done!

Well, it is finally done! I could say that I'm all up to date & that I just haven't taken the pictures yet but then that would be robbing myself of my process. My problem was I had this idea in my head & I kept mulling it over & over & over. I wasn't sure it was going to work but until I had the time to actually sit down & figure it out, it would haunt my mind.

I have been extremely busy traveling, making Christmas gifts, having family home, etc. but yesterday I forced myself to finish & I'm so glad I did. I will be working through the colour wheel. Along with this I am working on a small patchwork piece that will also have similar colours in it. Not sure yet that I will sew this butterfly to the patchwork piece for this month but the two will work together.

I have also been recording words that come to mind as I'm working. For September, my words are: Chinese, blood, happy, strong, favourite colour family. I'm hoping to incorporate these words somewhere in the finished piece but I will have to see.

Anyway, now that I have the process actually figured out, it will hopefully be easy to catch up. Now if I can just find a couple more hours in the day!

Christmas

I've been working on more Christmas presents. I had my husband pick up some shawls for family members and today I made cases for them and tissue holders to match.

I have also been working on socks for my daughter. She will wear socks I make so I'm happy to make them for her!

Coffee Sleeve

I have been working on Christmas presents. I thought that reusable coffee sleeves would be a great idea. Then I was in Hancock fabrics & found the coffee bean fabric. The inside is the fabric that the pocket is made from. In between the two layers is insulation batting. I made the first one & then thought it would be cool to actually put a pocket on the sleeve to hold a Starbucks coffee card. I now have about 10 more of these to make. Aren't they cool! (or should I say hot!) This is the small cup, they also fit the largest cup.

I have been working on my sewing and beading projects. I just haven't been taking pictures or writing on my blog. I need to change that. Whether anyone reads this or not, it is a great place for me to document that I've actually accomplished something!

If you want directions for this coffee sleeve, e-mail me. I put together directions for myself for next time I need to make a bunch of these.