Fish tales

In between a home improvement/art display project last weekend (to be revealed soon, tease, tease), I found a little time to make some art. I painted a bunch of fish prints using my new little blue gill and made a few of the prints into fiber postcards. This small rubber fish makes me so happy! Weird, I know.

These two postcards are destined for the Wish Upon a Card fundraiser sponsored by the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show this July. I'll be teaching all five days at A Quilter's Affair in Sisters, Oregon the week prior to the show. Only the Friday class still has space left, so if you want to join me, don't delay!

Resist Painting Workshop

Join me for a class in resist painting!

Learn the Serti (French for encircle or surround) technique of RESIST PAINTING to create areas of color blocking and enclosed designs. A liquid resist is used to contain flow-able paint within a shape on fabric. Dye-Na-Flow paints and water-based clear and metallic resists make my version of this technique non-toxic, non-flammable and eco-friendly. Large and small scale multi-color designs on cotton can be created fairly quickly and easily. This technique is a unique addition to your art quilt “toolbox”. Saturday, June 21 and 28.

The bee was created with a metallic antique bronze resist and the open areas are painted with custom-mixed Dye-Na-Flow paints. Clear resists are washed out leaving the background fabric showing through your design, metallic resists are left in place and are permanent.

Portland Fish Market

Actually, that title is a misnomer. I'm in Portland, Oregon for Quilt Market and I'm posting about fish (and I'm still on east coast time, so it's after 2 in the morning and it all makes sense to me).

I incorporate a lot of gyotaku printing in my work. I use rubber replica fish instead of real ones, as traditional fish printers do. Recently I discovered small and teeny, tiny rubber replica fish and of course, had to order some. Below you can see an assortment of the fish. The one at the top of the picture is the typically sized fish, over a foot long. The one below it is about 6" long and the weensy guys at the bottom are just over 3" long. Aren't they adorable?


I played with the itty bitty fish first and made a few ATCs. How fun!



Tonight I had dinner with Rayna Gillman. After dinner we walked toward the Max (Portland's incredibly awesome public transportation system) and came across this wicked tree sculpture. We tried taking a picture of ourselves in front of it but the results weren't flattering. I think it takes a special skill to be able to snap a self-portrait with a camera and have it come out looking half-way decent. Alas, most of the people with that special skill are under 25. For proof, check out a typical under-25 Facebook or MySpace profile photo. The sculpture had a beautiful name which completely eludes me at the moment.


Portland is a gorgeous city with a lot of public art. It's very laid back and the pace feels so much slower here. And everywhere you look there are people reading. Sitting on the sidewalks, curled up on benches, on the Max, everywhere. Of course, the best bookstore in the known universe is here, Powell's. They were out of my book when we stopped in yesterday, but I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that it's because they sell them so fast.

It Takes a Village

As promised, here is the rest of the village of fabric houses.

Julie's is a treehouse with a cup of tea in every room.
2 Petit Treeanon, Julie Saviano



Mary Gay's house celebrates her family and pets.
99 Keeler Lane, Mary Gay Leahy



Nancy's depicts her second home on the coast of Maine.
545 Blueberry Hill, Nancy Mirman



My sister, Linda, was inspired by the words of her favorite authors.
1821 Textual Way, Linda Oehler-Marx



I love this interior wall in Linda's house. There are pictures of our mom and grandma and an appropriate sentiment about knitting (both Linda and our mom are knit-fiends and our grandma used to be) plus a warning that I'm next to learn to knit. I told her that when I'm 82 and we're in adjoining rooms in an old folks' home then, and only then, can she teach me to knit.


If you'd like to try a fiber house of your own here are some things to think about:

The opportunity exists for a very allegorical approach to a theme of home. While you can create a literal interpretation of “home” and your memories of it, you can also use the inside/outside aspect of the construcion as a chance to explore:

a vision of what home can be
an interpretation of self
a memory, fantasy, dream or imaginary home
hidden/revealed thoughts using symbolism and personal imagery
a specific room: a studio, a kitchen, a garden room, a library
a journal or story house
a tribute to an artist or writer
a chronology of family
a house as a character in a story

Again, the inspiration for our challenge was the book, In This House by Angela Cartwright & Sarah Fishburn, Quarry Books, July 2007

A cool preview of the houses in the book can be found on Angela's website.

13 Nightingale Lane

Ta da! Here's the completed house. Every year I issue the women who work in our shop a challenge. We've had some interesting ones -- collaborative journals, based on art movements, using found objects, etc. This year the challenge was inspired by Angela Cartwright's book In This House. We each made a house out of fabric with either batting or Fast2Fuse inside the walls. There are five houses on display at the Country Quilter during the Northern Star Quilter's show this weekend. They are all different and all wonderful.








13 Nightingale Lane

I plan to disassemble the house after the show and make it into a fiber book, probably with grommets at the sides. That way I can store it flat and still open it up into a 3D house. Now I have to think of something for a new challenge.

Part 8

Part 8. Now on to assembly.

Part 7

Part 7 - one more to go...