phl -> atl

Recently a good friend of mine departed the Philadelphia area to start life anew with his beautiful fiancé in Atlanta. As sad as I am when friends leave the area, it is always exciting knowing that they are literally embarking on a new phase of life. I always wanted the balls to pick up and move. I mean... I'm only an hour away from home home, but it's not like I moved to an area that's easier to get to by plane then by driving. How cool would it be one day to be like I'M SELLING EVERYTHING I HAVE AND MOVING TO A DAKOTA OR IDAHO BECAUSE WHY NOT.

Anywho, I wanted to give them a going away present. I failed miserably getting it to them on time. The thing was... I couldn't figure out what the f*** to do. He sent me some photos of things that they liked. Which I guess I pretty much ignored in the end. Sorry about that John.... just realized that.

I was like, if I were them, what would I want to remind me of home? That it's not too far away? So here's what I came up with: A painting that you could flip.

I started with blocks of color, which I haven't done in years. Truth is, my hands aren't as steady as they use to be, so some lines are wobbly. <--- that could be symbolic, like "just as these lines aren't straight, neither is the road in life... HA!

Then I decided to paint the skylines of Philadelphia and Atlanta. The area in between was a little harder. I originally wanted to put a couple walking hand-in-hand to both skylines, but there wasn't enough space. So I decided to paint a PHL-> and an ATL->. One day, if they're back in Philadelphia, they can always remember the home they made in a new city. I'm happy with the way it came out, and I'm hoping that it reminds my good friends that no matter how far, home isn't that far.

NOW I JUST HAVE TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO GET IT TO THEM.

t-shirt quilts, part DUEX

From where we last left off, I had finished stitching together all of the t-shirts into two lovely quilt tops. I hate to say but I barely documented part DUEX in pictures. I was sew busy. Heh. … ok, lame joke.

SO! Choosing a batting… You want to be sure that you find one that matches the project that you’re working on. A flatter, less puffy batting is great for quilts that you want to be… well, flat and less puffy. Especially ones with intricate designs. I chose a really nice medium puff batting, because of two reasons. 1) The t-shirts and backing material had a little stretch to them. The puffiness of the batting would help this irregularity when I stitched it together. 2) WHO DOESN’T LIKE PUFFY QUILTS? You? Well, you're un-American.

PUFFY!

Luckily, the backing fabrics that I chose for both quilts were W-I-D-E as H-E-L-L. So I didn’t need to stitch two pieces of the backing together. To cut the backing and the batting to size, here is the easiest thing to do: Find a floor. Put the backing fabric on the floor, and secure it with masking tape so it stays put. Next, lay the batting on top, followed by the quilt top. Secure all that shiz together with long quilting pins or safety pins. (I use quilting pins... I have no tolerance for safety pins, plus they're too bulky.) Lastly, cut the backing and batting about 6” bigger than the quilt top. This gives you a safe zone in case you f*** up.

Here’s the tricky and painful part. You will now stick yourself with so many pins. SO. MANY. And not just on your hands. The quilt literally lays on your lap while you’re trying to machine stitch it. It’s like trying to lay down with a needle filled blanket. Very ouch. I start by machine stitching the long columns of the quilt. Then, stitch the rows. Since the rows are irregular, I usually will pick up the needle and foot, move to the beginning of the next row, and sew on. 

turns out, it's a real thing.

Next comes the binding… Binding is tricky, but once you get the hang of it, it’s… just less tricky I guess. I cut a continuous piece of fabric 2.25” wide, press it in half, then sew the raw edges to the edge of the quilt top. You then cut off any excess batting and backing fabric…. Then you have to hand stitch everything shut. It takes a LONG TIME. And your hands will not thank you. But it’s worth it, especially with wine that you CANNOT SPILL ON THE QUILT. If you're a spiller, then put your wine in one of those toddler sippy cups.

To add a personal touch, I asked my friend to send me (in her writing) a message for each of the quilts. I printed it out, then used graphite paper to transfer her message to white fabric. I then hand stitched her message and sewed this on to each quilt. So that’s it! Two quilts finished. I hope they surround their new owners in years of love and comfort. It was such a cool project, I’d be totally willing to do more of them in the future!!! 

 

F! F! F! F!

Lord knows I haven't been F'in around lately. I've been busy as F. Why the F am I talking like this? Because I have a big F'in F I'm working on. NO. SERIOUSLY. I'm making a 40" tall wall-hanging F. My sister was looking for a giant F (the first initial of her last name, not an odd ode to F) for their den, but she couldn't find something that was F'in big enough. And most were F'in expensive. So I told her I'd give an F if she'd like me to.

Onto the F'in details! First of all, I had a lot of help from an amazing tutorial over at Green Zebra Crafts. I used some different materials which I'll explain below. You know, my original idea was to use flexible wire mesh covered with paper mache. Which sounds like a horribly F'in tedious idea. Idea fail.

a giant paper F

First, I literally needed to print out a giant F. Microsoft Word didn't quite work for me, so I went into MS Paint to create my 40" tall F. Here's a F'in tip though: DO NOT make your letter in solid black. Adjust the font to a light grey tone, and print it on scrap paper so you're not wasting ink and good paper on something you're going to throw away.

two cardboard F's

Once the F was printed, taped together and trimmed of excess paper, I traced F out on enough cardboard to make two F's. Regular ol' scotch-tape worked just fine, but I think masking tape would have worked better to join all the F'in F pieces together.

Then it was onto making the two flat F's into a 3D F. Out of the F'in scraps of cardboard, I cut 1" wide strips and joined them together into a massively long 1" wide strip. I took my time and affixed this strip to the interior of the bottom F with hot glue. I used making tape to sure-up the seams on the outside. Then, it was onto attaching the top F. This I did just out of masking tape. A LOT OF MASKING TAPE.

VOILA! I had myself an F'in giant 3D F.

Crystal at Green Zebra Crafts then covered her letter with paper mache. I was on the verge of going to buy some when a 1/2 used gallon of joint compound caught my eye. F'IN BINGO. Right now I have two F'in coats of the joint compound on the front and one on the back. This weekend I'm hoping to get it completely F'in covered and textured, and paint it a glorious F'in yellow.

more bags, more glory

It's been awhile since I've sewed some wine bags. But I have to get on my game, because 12 days from now I'll be setting up my CRAFTY BOOTH for ARC Mercer in Veteran's Park with only 18 wine bags! My goal is to make another 12-22 to bring my total to either 30 or 40.  I think I can do it between my other projects going on. I think it's time for me to realistically set goals again, folks.

OK. By the end of tonight I'd like to have all of the ties for the bags' straps cut out, all of the fabric cut out, and all of the straps pinned to the fabric. I think that's a fair goal to set for myself.

Here are the projects I have going on right now:
- Make a 40" tall wall-hanging F. (I'll explain later)
- Make a mold and resin cast of my left hand (... I'll explain later)
- Make 12-22 new wine bags to sell at craft fair
- Update and work on my collaborative blog for Moxy Murals with my fellow artist Mrs. Brown!

I'm hoping that I can create a post a day detailing some of the other projects I've been working on. There's a lot going on in Nodyl's world at the moment!

signs for jumptown

Yesterday, boyfriend future husband asked me for a favor: If I could whip up a couple signs for the Jumptown Trail at Launch Bike Park. Stop looking for the trail on the map link, cause it ain't there quite yet folks. If you want to see the signs and some crazy DHer's in action, plan on joining them for the Gravity East Series this weekend at Launch, ya heard?!

Here's what we accomplished:

We did a little collaboration: Lou scoped out the garage and cut up a couple small pieces of plywood. One was 8x11 and two others were 6x14. He took care of sanding and priming, and sent me the text he wanted on the signs. So I went to work on Word 2010, just sizing and mixing up fonts. Nothing fancy, but the text we chose was effective and bold.

Now, here's a tip to save some time and frustration if you're looking paint text on signs: Make an investment in Sallys Graphite Transfer Paper. It will save you A LOT of time. I'm terrible at free-handing text. Drawing guide lines, centering text correctly... it's bullshit I say. BULLSHIT! Just print out your text, lay down a sheet of graphite paper, trace, admire and paint. BOOM. You done.

In about two hours last night, I had everything completely finished. It's nothing fancy, but if it saves a DHer from a gnarly OTB, then it's all worth it.

abcdef fail.

ring-a-ding, ya crazy broad!

(attempt 1) Let me be Frank.
Yeowzaaas! One misplaced capital F and this ol' blogsville's in the bag, baby!

(attempt 2) Let me be frank: I had an amazingly productive weekend. But I couldn't shake the nagging feeling that my current art projects were not organized, finished or as they should be. This became apparent when I went over Lauren's house to craft and drink wine... you know, whichever comes first. I brought along a small acrylic painting, similar to my Time to Eat? painting/collage. The canvas was covered in dried paint, but I wanted to collage some letters on it. Through my wine induced, SVU haze, I decided on the alphabet. It sounded like a great idea, until I tried to find all the letters to the alphabet. Sounds easy, but when all you have is Martha Stewart and Glamour, it becomes increasingly difficult to find a font that's not MARTHA STEWART or GLAMOUR. I made it to the letter F, then gave up. Here's what I ended up with.

I kind of love it. It reminds me of all the times when I try really hard, then realize that it's just not worth it. Hell, I look at it and it makes me laugh. Art is so much fun! It's nice to remember that it doesn't have to be so serious all the time.

ninja with a paintbrush.

Well, well, well... lookatdat.  I actually did manage to squeeze in about an hour of work before my nights festivities.  The text is 100% finished, I transferred the design onto the sign and painted the jalapenos green.  Just a little bit more work and I'll be ready to seal it and deliver it! 

The weather here has been glorious.  Stepping outside is like a breath of fresh air!  Lou brought me lunch today:  Eggplant parmesan, made by Paul with fresh vegetables from our garden!  It's getting me more and more excited about dropping of the sign to Gary at his farm-homestead on Sunday.  I might pass out with glory from seeing so many vegetables in one place. 

text me sometime sugar!

Last night, not only did I trace on all the text, I COMPLETELY FINISHED THE TEXT.  Well, not completely, I just wanted to write that sooooooo baaaaaaaad.  I made such good progress that instead of doing all the text black, I decided to add some colors to habanero, cayenne and jalapeno.  So the only thing I have left to do is add the black outline to three words... then I'll be COMPLETELY FINISHED (with) THE TEXT.

I also decided to add an outline to the logo... it just looked like the odd man out on the sign without it.  The one thing I have to do today is change my chili pepper design... it ended up being too small for the space I allotted to it. So instead of it being 3" tall, it will be 5" tall. At least I'll have something to do at work today. I don't think I'll be working on the sign tonight, though.  I'm hiking after work, then I'm off to meet the DTGP (downtown gal pals) for a BYOB dinner/catch up.

I should start thinking soon about my next project.  I was thinking of doing another two purses.  Maybe get on a trend of completing purses and wine bags every time I finish a project.  One thing I have been itching to work on is my unfinished stained glass project.  Some of the pieces were truly difficult to cut, and I abandoned it about a year ago.  Good things to think about, for sure.

a long post full of small details.

I've managed to keep up the good work on the pepper festival sign!  Let's see, where did I last leave off?  On Monday, I completed the triangular border design on the second piece of the sign.  I was certain to make sure that the pattern would match up where the two pieces join together.  Then I started moving onto lettering... so much lettering...

Here's a fun nugget about the lettering.  For this sign I thought it would be wise for me to print out my text, scan it as a JPEG, then blow it up to the size that I needed in Photoshop.  There's just too much guess and check when you're trying to freehand text on such a big sign.  What if I ran out of room?  No one wants to buy HOT SAUC.

I decided to paint the hot sauce text red to make it pop out.  I added a black border because the red was alas, not popping out and getting lost against the background.  Then came the logo.  I started by drawing a 12" circle where the logo would be, then primed it.  Painting the orange and burgundy around the lettering was a little difficult, but smaller brushes did the trick!  I'm still thinking... should I add a border to this as well?

I think tonight I'll try to trace on the rest of the text.  I have to make sure that none of the text fall on the line between the two pieces!!  That should keep me busy!

On other non-sign related news, I finally watched Black Swan last night!  (Thanks to Steph... I hope she didn't mind my candor too much, since I tend to ramble and shout during movies.)  The cinematography was quite beautiful and erratic.  I thought that it matched the main character's inner turmoil, which was a key element to the movie.  I'd love to watch it again, as I think I missed a lot of little things that could help me understand it a little more.

OK... maybe I'll post more tonight depending on the progress I make.  Toodles for now.