stuff about artstuff.

Skirts

So, hypothetical situation: let's say it's 2 days before you fly out to exhibit in a tradeshow - the tradeshow, the biggest event of your business year - the one you actually call "The Start and End of My Business Year".

Let's say you're scrambling with last-minute details, making sure your portfolios are spiffy and ready for showing off all that new art you've been working so hard on, and ensuring everything else is in order for your trip across the country and your week away from home.

What do you think would be a really smart thing to start right at this moment?

Skirts?

Yes, (ding ding ding) that is the correct answer.  In a situation like this, you really ought to sew 3 skirts to wear all 3 days of the show.  I mean, who cares if you have never made a skirt before - it's not like you have a bazillion other things to finish before you leave.  Oh wait, yes you do.  You do have a bazillion things to finish.

Honestly, I should know better whenever I realize I'm asking myself that dangerous question, "oh come on, how hard could it be...?" because that was exactly what I said after the thought popped into my head, "I know, circle skirts! With my own fabric! Genius!"

Husband Guy rolled his eyes when I stated that "the real challenge here

is finding patterns from my own collections

that actually match shoes I already own."

Seriously, with no time for shoe-shopping (although Fluevog NY is a mere 35 blocks from my hotel...) in my mind this was the challenge, not the ridiculous little detail he seemed to think was more important, "...that you are sewing 3 skirts right before you leave for Surtex."  Oh, silly Husband Guy.

I was being realistic, really I was. I knew my limitations. Like, I knew that my hems would be wildly crooked so my solution was to line the skirts with a contrasting print; my terribly sloppy stitching would disappear under the neatly ironed crease at the hemline, and how cute would that contrasting fabric be when the skirt flips around, as circle skirts tend to do? "Genius" I thought.

Well, that of course doubled the sewing, caused confusion in structuring the pockets, and made them unbelievably heavy.

Not being very good at following rules (or patterns) I found a neato circle-skirt calculator online and started to cut and sew.

Profanity and seam-ripping ensued (although I will brag at this point that only one pocket was sewed in backwards the first time, and only one waistband was sewed on inside-out the first time) but somehow, miraculously, just in time to finish packing, I had 3 skirts.

This one has an elastic waist and hangs a little on the frumpy side.  I could have probably gotten away with  half of that elastic band, but I feared a too-tight waistband could make me look like a sausage-tied-in-the-middle so I went for "comfortably loose". The sheer weight of 7 yards of cotton pulling on a "comfortably loose" piece of stretchy stuff is, well, maybe not the most thought-out plan in the history of sewing.

I had been calling this one my "Crazy Cat Lady Skirt" but one of my show friends renamed it "Your Pretty Purple Princess Skirt with Dead Fish On It" which I love so much more.

I also so love the fabulous giant vintage button I sewed to the front for that little extra detail, but it was rusty on the back when I pulled it out of the button box.  Once again I thought I was genius when, in too big a hurry to wait for proper drying time for any of the better-quality sealers I have in my studio, I chose to seal that rust with clear nail polish; but almost a month later that darn button and everything that's been anywhere near it still reeks of nail polish.

I suppose I learned a lot.

I learned about measuring waistlines (even the non-elastic ones were way too generous, especially considering the gravitational force of a garment this monsterously heavy, and at the last minute safety pins had to be employed to cinch them up), installing zippers (ok, maybe not so much: I thought I had bought 2 invisible zippers but it ends up the second one was a normal zipper that I was just looking at backwards and managed to sew into the skirt inside out - although I guess the back of the zipper facing front does make it sort of "invisible" so, whatever . . . I learned nothing).

Since I was using the Patented Beth Logan Make it Up As You Go method, what to do with pesky finishing details like, um, that flap I sort of planned to overlap the top of the zipper that I don't know how to finish . . . you'll notice my seam just sort of ends randomly because it is not sure where it would go, anyway.

To hide that fact, I decided it would be cute to add some of my Granny's vintage buttons (her button box was the inspiration for this print, after all) and would later sew in some hooks and eyes beneath them to hold that poor wayard and confused little flap down once it was zipped up.  Since there were neither hooks nor eyes at the Duane Reade across from my hotel, safetey pins would have to do - but then again, I was glad for those pins when the reality of those generous waistlines hit me while getting dressed each morning of the show.

So maybe I learned a few things from the experience, but I didn't necessarily learn my lesson, and I will most likely ignore subtle inner warnings next time I hear myself say, "oh come on, how hard could it be....?"

(and just in case you're interested, limited yardage of the patterns above, from Love to Craft and Cat's Meow, will be available from my Etsy shop when it reopens later this month)

Prickly and Terrible.

There's a huge black locust tree in my back yard.

Sort of a horrible tree, really.

It's got thorns.  Big, hard thorns.  1 to 3 inch killers on the trunk and up and down all the branches, with smaller, more rose-like ones on new growth.  I have to patrol the yard almost daily for little sticks that might have fallen off so Molly won't cut her toes walking through the grass, or even worse, I don't hit one of those sticks with the lawn mower shooting little shards of pain all over the yard.  Just picking up the little sticks I'll usually puncture myself at least once.

A nasty, prickly tree.

I had lived here about a year when a neighbor dog chased my little Coset up into it.  She had been an apartment cat before we moved here and had never been in a tree, although it might have been more traumatic for me than it was her.  She came away unscathed but I was a bloody mess from head to toe with ripped up clothes by the time I got her down, and contrary to what others who knew (and feared) Coset might think, only 1 or 2 of those bloody wounds were actually cat scratches.  I've managed to avoid climbing it since then.

Everywhere you nick the root, a new tree grows.  All you can really do is just keep them sawed down to ground level; if you attempt to dig them up, more trees will pop up all around the area you dug.

All spring and summer it spits a sticky sap onto the entire yard and nearby parked cars.

Supposedly the leaves and bark are terribly poisonous, but it's full of nests: squirrels and songbirds find it a lovely place to raise their families; its branches are an annual baby crow day-nursery, and a favorite feasting spot for northern flickers, downy woodpeckers, hummingbirds, and butterflies.

And when June comes around, this happens:

You notice a heavy perfume hanging thick like a fog on the afternoon air.  Sweet and intoxicating, you can't quite place the scent.  You peek around for blooming lilies, jasmine - anything but this big dumb tree of pain.

But then you look up, and finally notice that the entire tree is heavily draped in clouds of creamy white.  You take a deep breath, and are completely mesmirised with what this monster has created.

I wish I could share this with you using Smell-o-Vision right now.

It's amazing.

One black locust branch, a couple sprigs of bright, sweet mock-orange, and my studio smells heavenly.

It doesn't last long.  A cut sprig or branch brought into the house won't smell at all by the second day.  On the tree, it lasts a week if we're lucky and it doesn't rain. 

All in all it's a nice reminder, I suppose, and a lesson I could stand to learn: even the most prickly, unlovable, and seemingly useless among us might be important to someone else, and maybe, just maybe - they have a quality so incredibly sweet that I would forget everything else I knew or thought about them for at least a day.

Note to self: seriously, try to remember this.

May.

May.

I really should give May more credit.  I mean, out of all of the months, May is the prettiest shade of green.  It's when the garden begins to come alive.  When birds hatch and sing all day.  When lilacs bloom.

May smells good.

May is good.

But I can't help feeling a huge sigh of relief when May is finally over.  And this particular May, yeah.  That.  As most of you know, May started in this house with a profoundly empty feeling.  I found a sort of comfort pouring myself into my annual extreme crazy busy freakout that is the final countdown to Surtex.

There were little reminders along the way to be happy . . . smiles in unexpected places.

I'd like to think a little friend sent them.

Another great comfort has been the fact that She-Who-is-Afraid-of-Cameras has now taken on the role of Studio Pal.  Used to be, I couldn't get her to stay more than a couple minutes at a time in here, even when she had a big cozy bed taking up the entire floor.  The bed went elsewhere a long time ago, but when I laid her blankie on the studio floor at the beginning of the month, she decided this is where she should spend her days . . . she's here right now.

And that makes me happy.

Then suddenly, I was in New York.

I'm not kidding - the second I typed that, this song came on in a random iTunes shuffle.  How crazy is that?! So maybe you should listen to it with me.

After the gorgeous sunrise that greeted me Saturday morning,

there was the ever comforting sight of my little green box waiting for me in my booth.

I've told you before what a relief that is every single year, seeing that the displays I worked so hard on made it across the country safely and on time.

The show was great - I had super productive meetings with some of my favorite clients and met some new folks that, hopefully, will someday fall into that category.

When we found out sort of last-minute that Husband Guy would be staying at home, the Amazing and Adorable Amber Alvarez dropped everything and hopped a cab from Brooklyn to come help out in my booth.

By the way, will someone please tell me how much a cab from Brooklyn to Javits costs, she refuses to discuss this with me.

I so enjoyed some time catching up with dear friends while there, but for the most part I laid low in the evenings, getting a jump-start on my show follow-up

and quietly enjoying the view from my little suite.

Then,

just like that,

I was saying goodbye to the city

and before I knew it,

I was cuddling on my own couch with Molly and Husband Guy.

Back to my funny little garden and the heavenly goodies that are starting to come from it.

The last days of May were filled with show follow-up and starting new projects discussed at meetings, but I did finally finish unpacking and put away my suitcase day before yesterday.

And with that familiar sigh of relief, I'll say goodbye to another May.

Happy June, everyone.  It's almost summer!

xo

I Think I May Have Forgotten How to Draw...

...without help.

You see, this is how I have drawn pretty much every single thing to come out of this studio for the past 13 years.

 

We'll see if I'm actually able to remember how I did it before, after Surtex.  Until then, my schedule is completely filled with non-drawing last-minute-preparations - which I seem to be managing alright in this tiny and crowded yet cavernously empty Flossie-free room.

Oh, and - fun fact: in my sorry sentimental state, I have been physically unable unwilling to remove cat hairs from all the new art I have scanned in the past 2 weeks (a side effect of this type of assistance is ubelievable amounts of little hairs stuck in the paint or seemlingly woven into the tooth of the paper) so I guess you could say it's a new look I'm debuting at the show: mixed media designs with a rich, organic texture.  "Value added" artwork.  Yes, that's it.

And thanks again to everyone who said such nice things on Flossie's blog and on Facebook, it really has meant a lot to us and if you didn't see this when it was posted, this is for you.

xo

Pink and Spring and Other Nice Things.

Pink follows grey so nicely.  After months and months of seeing only every shade of grey possible, my neighborhood bursts out in a million shades of pink.

Daily dog-walks this time of year are usually excercises in counting pink trees.  How many are on this street or that one, how many blocks are lined entirely with them, which ones bloom sooner or last longer after a heavy rain or spring snow.

I think I trip on cracks in the sidewalk more often than other times of year because I am staring up into the pink.  It's a perfect antidote to a long, dull winter.

Happy weekend, happy spring, happy pink, and Happy Easter, everyone!

This design is brand new, but it's already been licensed for products coming out in Spring 2014.  I'll keep you posted when I can share more!

A Conversation with the Sea.

True story, by the way.