Detail from Purification No. 02

Detail from Purification No. 01

They were here a minute ago, they disappeared. Must be a glitch in Blogger…but no, I deleted the post on Quilt National.  I received some great comments on the pieces and one not so great. They are based on a very real outlawed custom in India and a few other countries of cremating the living widow on the husband’s funeral pyre.  The hands that disturbed people really did their job if it was disturbing….emotions were evoked whether you understood them or not. Sometimes we want our art to be pretty pictures with nothing disturbing in it and definitely no social commentary. But like life, that isn’t reality. If you are one of the people who were disturbed by the hands and wondered why they were on the pieces, do some research on the practice of sati and look for images of the sati gates. Maybe then you will understand why there were burned saris and red hands on my quilts.

I respect all of you for your view points…but after all, these are my babies, with all their warts and scars. I thought it was time they went back into hiding.

Indigo Dye Pot…Looks nasty, ayh?

Some of Annie’s handiwork with block resists

This is some of my day’s designs

Barb’s pants got a little spot on them

For all practical purposes, which means I can go play and deal with the rest of the boxes later….the new workspace is done. To look at it you would think I do only traditional quilts. I love my baskets and antiques, this is the only room in the house decorated this way. I use the treadle machine and the quilt above it is the only surviving quilt my grandmother made. These two things were the deciding factor on the wall paint color. I will use some of the other colors I looked at in the guest room that is behind the folding screen.

The painting behind my chair is one of mine, and the orchid painting on the right bar of my blog is mine. Both of these were painted while I lived in Sarasota, Florida and were inspired by the flowers in my garden. I have a closet full of paintings and prints from those paintings that I used to sell at art shows. Let me know if you are interested in any of the paper prints…I will sell them inexpensively. I didn’t know there were so many of them left until I moved this room.

There is room in front of the thread shelves to put an easy chair when I find the right one, another shelf goes to the right of the sewing table Ron made for me, and there is a small cabinet that holds bottles of ‘stuff’ to be hung. We are making a large design wall to sit in front of the closet door for larger pieces. The one sitting on top of the Koala cutting table can be carried over to the machine.  Behind the closet doors are shelves for batting, hanging tops and finished pieces and painting art supplies.

The floors are ceramic tile so all the pins and snips and strings can easily be swept up. I found the two brass and milk glass lights at the local Salvation Army for $8 each. Ron added the brass chains and hung them in opposite corners for great lighting. I think these must have come from a commercial building because they will take up to 250W bulbs! When we looked at new lighting at the home stores, everything had a max wattage of 60W….not good.

Hope you enjoyed looking! Would love to hear what you think.

Fabric shelves…SOME of it….

Cutting and pressing here

Space for a Chair to reverse sew.

Command Central Wireless stuff

My Treadle and Grandma’s quilt

The studio is getting it’s fresh coat of paint! I’m so excited to be moving along on this. Ron got one wall painted yesterday so he could move some of the shelves into the room. He also hung the wall shelves and got one light up on that half of the room.

I may have mentioned before that I collect split white oak baskets….handmade only, please. I use  them to hold supplies instead of plastic bins. You might see a few odd baskets on my shelves; like a bark basket that stores my safety pins, a Nantucket Lightship basket with Little Red peaking out, a square bamboo that is a little sewing basket and a Victorian bamboo that came from my great aunt’s estate hanging on the wall.  The largest basket is my grandmother’s split oak picnic basket. Then there is the Algonquin Indian antique basket that is too fragile to use.

Today’s activities while you all are picnicking and spending the last summer days on the beach, will be to sort, fold and organize the fabrics that will go on this 8 ft. bank of shelves. Then we can move on to the rest of the painting and shelving. More pictures as more gets done.