Almost done

This one is already in the recycling bin...
But I'm almost finished with the next one. You can have a (very) tiny peek at it on my blog.
And... I've chosen the new theme. When would you like to know about it?

And another thought . . .

Sorry, I'm on a roll tonight.

I was just thinking about how to post these things. I think it would look great if we agreed on a format and each post was formatted the same way.

Here's my suggestion:
Name the post (your name)'s Dandelion, ie "Terry's Dandelion". Post the photo, centered. If we each post a photo that is 400 pixels by 400 pixels, that is a good size for the blog and all will be the same size. Then, below the photo, write whatever statement you want to make about the piece, as well as its name if it has one. Diane suggested we post between Oct. 30 and Nov. 2.

I'm done!

I've been crazy busy for the last month, so haven't commented here much, but I just finished my dandelion. Here is a tease—a little bit of it.

Diane asked if we started with one idea and then headed off in a different direction. I did, absolutely. I started out with a quote in mind and a very complicated drawing that I showed here. I lost the quote, changed the image and late in the process another project I was working on gave me a whole new idea for the dandelion piece. I can't wait to show you!

Overrun by Dandelions

Francoise, pick our next theme carefully -- because whatever it is, I'm bound to be surrounded by it for 2 months!

Is this just happening to me? Or are you finding that dandelions greet you wherever you go?

I recently finished a really terrific novel by Patricia Gaffney, "Mad Dash." It's the story of a woman in her late 40's whose mother has just died, and her daughter has departed for college, and she's going through what she knows is a crazy emotional, empty-nest, mid-life crisis sort of phase. The arrival of a new puppy on the scene brings various aspects of her marriage into sharp relief, and she sets out to decide what she wants her life-from-here-on-in to be. I was totally charmed by the author's style and the character's voice and by the humorous and pointed comments about married life.

Anyway, upon finishing it I popped into Amazon.com to see what other books I might find by the same author, and lo and behold, this is the first one that came up. Charming cover, eh?!

(and, from an artistic point of view, fascinating that I associate green and yellow with dandelions and yet this is such a direct sense of "dandelion," that puff floating against a blue and white sky.)

We're SO trendy!

Have any of you been watching "Pushing Daisies?" For those of you out of the US, it 's a new tv show that just started airing, and it's very clever. It's a fairy-tale-esqe story of a fellow who discovered as a kid that if he touched anything dead, it would come back to life...but if he touches it again, it dies again forever. Discovering that his childhood sweetheart has been murdered, he brings her back to life - but now can never touch her.

I know, it sounds downright lame. But what is so interesting about this is that the program is written so well. It's funny, almost campy, and it is meant to be a light-hearted story. The visuals are gorgeous --there isn't a set or scene that looks like the real world. Everything is in brilliant, fairy-tale colors. It's really fun to watch ... and every detail is cleverly perfect. And the humor is charming. There's a big hulking detective (who teams with Our Hero to bring murder victims back to life to ask them who killed them and then bring the murders to justice and --oh yes-- collect the rewards) who knits on the sly (little socks to hide his stash of reward money!) and has been known to save them from disaster with a knitting needle. I laughed aloud when the narrator said something like, "there's nothing like a comforting stockinette stitch when you're feeling blue."

Anyway. The reason I'm posting it here is that I just watched the second episode online. (You can stream the show at your convenience from the abc.com website by downloading their player.) And the second episode was about a car manufacturer making an experimental car that runs on dandelions! The scenes in the car factory are really fun -- including the girls in dandelion costumes (see above!) And dandelion imagery and colors are everywhere in this episode.

It was highly entertaining, and great dandelion inspiration. Apparently we're ahead of the curve on recognizing that dandelions are IN!

New Look + New Website

You may have noticed that the blog has a new look. This is to complement the new Twelve by Twelve website: www.twelveby12.org


As we complete each challenge, the gallery pages on the website will be populated with images and details of our quilts. In the meantime, you will find profiles of the Twelve by Twelve artists. Check it out and e-mail me if you find any broken links or other strange happenings.

Changing directions and reveal date

Brenda's comment below made me wonder how many of us had a specific dandelion image in mind, or color scheme, or a direction they thought they were going, and then ended up going in a different direction?

That sure happened for me.

When we post our final results, perhaps each artist can talk a bit about her process, too?

Did we ever settle on a specific "reveal" date or time? How about they can be posted any time between October 30 and November 2?

Diane

Some Dandelion Imagery

I have such a busy October. I am trying to stay on task with this. Thank goodness it is a relatively small quilt. I just took a class in "Transferology" with Wendy Huhn. I took some laser copies of some dandelions and here are some of the images that resulted. The top one is a gel transfer to fabric. The bottom left is a Citrasolve transfer to silk charmeuse - quite lovely, but didn't photograph well. The bottom right is a gel skin or decal, made by layering gel on the image and letting it dry, then washing off the paper. The resulting gel decal can be glued to fabric and stitched, like fabric.

Today, I played with the fluffy dandelion in Photoshop and came up with this image which I plan to use to make a Thermofax screen. Not sure what I am doing with all of this, but something will emerge!! BTW, I don't understand how all you "blogspot" bloggers get along with blogger. Posting photos is a pain!!!!!

Sneak Preview

Here's a bit of what's going on in my Dandelion world... I'm having fun!

Finito!

I too have finished. I think its fair to say I have gone for simplicity, but I have tried several things that were new for me and I like the result. Can't wait for the grand reveal!

Blog Button Code

At present I am working on a couple contenders for the Dandelion challenge and still the ideas keep coming! Meanwhile I have also prepared a button for the 12x12 blog:

Here is the code that you can cut and paste into your blog side bar if you wish:

<a href="http://twelveby12.blogspot.com/">
<img src="http://serendipitypatchwork.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/blogbutton.gif" alt="Twelve by Twelve group blog" /></a>

Please e-mail me if you require any assistance. (The image url was updated on 24 November 2007 so you may need to update your coding accordingly so the image shows up in Firefox.)

The Reject

I'm done! Finished my dandelion quilt last night. I felt so sure that I would use the fabric shown in my dandelion quilt. But in the end, the poor thing, it was passed over for more appropriate cloth. The deadline is nearing, I'm getting anxious for the first revealing.

Me too!

I also have some work in progress!

Some other progress

Some progress

Been working on our challenge... Not sure I'll go further with this design. 12 x 12 is a new size for me to work with. I've often worked smaller, and I've worked larger, of course... At least, now that I've tried a design, I know what 12 x 12 means!
I've also been thinking a lot about the next theme...