Viking Apron Dress

I promised I'd post pictures of my Viking Apron dress when finished, so here's the whole costume, as well as my elder son Ryan and younger, Coleman, in their gear. The golden apron dress is made of linen, which I hand-dyed. I purchased the two Turtle brooches from Raymond's Quiet Press, who makes historical recreations (from jewelry to helms.) I already had the strings of beads, which I hand-stitched onto the apron dress, in the Viking fashion. We had a fine time at the "Good Yule" feast, with a fantastic smorgasbord of both old Norse and Byzantine food.

Now that the Good Yule celebration is out of the way, I can get back to my regular creative life, at least until Ursalmas, the next big area event from the Society of Creative Anachronism, which my sons want to attend in the end of January. At least I already have a costume made now, so I won't have to do that, although it looks like Coleman may now also be interested, so he may want to have me make a more authentic outfit.




More to come later tonight. Now that I have this out of the way, I can focus on more of the creative efforts closer to my heart!

Questions to Ponder for Writing Your Goals

OK, I'm going to be sitting down on Sunday with my Eastside SDA (Surface Design Associates) group, which was formed out of our Washington State SDA symposium which I helped plan last year.  This month, our topic is "The Business of Doing Art" and will include goal setting. 

So, I've prepared some questions for us to think about, as we write out our 2013 goals and objectives:

• What skills do you already possess?  What do you do well?
• What could you improve on?  What do you need to learn?
• What sources do you have to learn what I need (books, online, classes, magazine articles, friends, a mentor etc.)
• What are you passionate about? How can you bring some of that passion into your work?
• Are there specific projects that you want to complete?
• Is there a theme or series that you want to investigate in your artwork?
• What professional organizations do you belong to?  What do they do for you and your artistic career?  How can your participation enhance or further your career?  If you don't have any professional organizations that support you as an artist, how could you go about finding one (or more)?
• Do you want to show my work?  What sort of shows or venues?  Are there specific shows or venues you'd like to target?
• Are you organized to show?  What do you need to do to be prepared?  (Examples- how do you track your art, how do find opportunities, what do you need to ship and deliver pieces, do you have specific instructions for hanging and displaying your work?)
• Do you want to sell your work?  What is your plan for getting sales (how would get a gallery to represent you; what sort of person or institution would be interested in the kind of art you make?)
• What is the realistic projection of the number of pieces you will complete this year?
• What additional organization of your studio or workspace do you need to be more productive?
• Do you need additional tools or supplies to create what you want?  What are they?  do you have the funds to purchase them and if not, how will you raise the money?
• What will you do when it gets hard?  How will you regain inspiration or motivation to work in the face of rejection, disinterest, or conflicting priorities?

Tomorrow I'll be at the Viking Good Yule celebration from about noon until 10 pm.  For those who haven't read this before, my 17 year old son is fascinated with Viking culture and at this point is planning to study anthropology and archeology.  So we're going to a big Viking re-enactment celebration and feast.  I finished my "Viking Apron Dress" last night,  from a 10th century design.  It's amazing to me how different Viking culture was from what the stereotypical idea of Vikings is in our society (for instance, they didn't have horned helmets, although they do look pretty fun and impressive!)  I'm sure I'll have some interesting photos to post from that and I'll make sure to get one of my dress as well.  I'll make sure to also have my sketchbook in hand and work on my Salsa! designs for the Mighty Tieton show.  Make it a great day!

Viking Tunic Completed!

Last night I helped my son Ryan finish up his wool Viking tunic.  This has been a terrific learning experience.  We went together to pick out the fabric (had to be wool for authenticity.)  He made the pattern from historic sources and his measurements.  I taught him how to pre-wash the fabric and straighten the grain, layout and cut the pieces.  I then taught him the basics of using my Bernina sewing machine (winding the bobbin, threading the machine, stitch length, type of stitch, etc.) and then let him go about constructing the garment.  We did one fitting prior to doing the final seaming, where I suggested we insert some gussets under the arms, to give him a more natural range of motion.  When it was constructed but not hemmed, he asked if I could dye it... the color didn't go as well with his under-tunic as he had thought.  We did several samples to get the color where he wanted it (and because I don't have a lot of experience with wool) and then I dyed the whole tunic. 

We were down to the final steps, hemming and adding some authentic hand-woven trim which he had purchased.  I think he really wanted me to do the hemming... but I got out a needle and thread, showed him how to do it, watched for a few stitches, and then let him finish it up.  I did go ahead and topstitch the trim on for him.

What a wonderful way to be able to contribute to him.  First, teaching him the basics of sewing and that he is capable of doing it.  Next, letting him pursue his passion-not just allowing him, but supporting and encouraging him.  Finally, being able to share this time with him... going to his event with him (yes, I'll be in costume too) and letting myself be enlightened about how much this young man of mine really knows about the era and culture with which he is so entranced.

I still need to finish my Viking apron dress tonight, as the "Good Yule" celebration is happening on Saturday.  I'm excited to be doing a Viking embroidery class at the event, particularly after getting to see the Bayeux Tapistry last June.  More on that in the future!

The Art of Organization

It's funny, how you can be really organized in one area, yet swimming (or sinking) in disorganization in another.  Like many creative types, I struggle with organization.  At our local Surface Design Association meeting a few months ago, we had the topic of Time and Studio Management.  We all brought photos of our studio in its current condition.  We even had a $20 prize for the local Quiltworks store where we meet for the artist with the messiest studio, to encourage people to really not clean up before our session.  Well, since I offered the prize, I didn't have to shell out any money when it was unanimously decided that my studio was the worst!  No, I'm not going to share those photos online at this time... maybe when I get to know you better.

On the other hand, I'm extremely organized in some areas... in setting and attaining goals; in developing organizational systems; in project management.  For instance, today I put together 3 different proposals for exhibition venues for the Contemporary QuiltArt Association (CQA.)  Two were for well-known musuems and the third for a city hall gallery.  Putting together proposals such as these requires a lot of organizational skill.  You need to find their requirements and do your best to follow them explicitly.  You need a personalized cover letter, artist statement, biography, artist resume, and images of your work.  The images needed to be picked and formatted to each venue's specifications. I've been very successful with my exhibition proposals in the past and hope that I will be here again in the near future. (I'll let you know where the museums/galleries are if we secure them.)

This year I've made slow incremental progress in gaining control over some areas of my life.  First and foremost, I lost 30 lbs that had been slowly creeping on over the last few years.  Next, I've been keeping up with putting all my clothes away (anyone else have oodles of laundry?) and making sure to keep my closet cleaned up.  Then, I moved towards keeping the corner of my bedroom clean, where my books, quilt magazines, art projects and miscellaneous junk pile up from whatever I'm working on or reading before bedtime.  And now, I'm working on the studio. 

Part of my problem is that I'm blessed with a large home.  So, whenever I run out of space, I just move on and work in another area. I also love to work in the evening in front of the t.v.  However, theis requires bringing a bunch of things from my studio into our "adventure" room (family/tv room.) I also am one of those people who just love to learn new things.  So I have supplies for all of them.  I'm working now at developing a place for each type of supply... a drawer of thermofaxes, a bin for stabilizers, all my scissors put away in the same place, so I always know where to find things. 

The outside of the old fruit processing plant

But, again, you can only do so much cleaning and organizing until you are cutting into your art time.  Today, I did some dyeing-the wool Viking tunic my son made.  Too much time has been spent in front of a computer screen.  I never did claim that I was great on the time management side, now did I?

I promised a few days ago that I'd post some photos from the Mighty Tieton gallery.  Enjoy!


You walk through part of the old warehouse...

... and open the huge Cold Storage door

To a beautiful gallery space

Thankful for project time

Happy Thanksgiving!  I am so thankful today to have had a relaxed joyous day with my family, as well as being able to do many of my projects.  My sweet husband did much of the cooking, to help keep me out of the kitchen, as I've worked very hard this year to get down to my goal weight by losing 30 lbs (and keeping it off.)  I do love to cook, but I knew I'd be tempted to taste all day long!  He did ask my support in one thing, however... clearing some space in the freezer for the leftovers.

Well, that meant that it was time to get into my dye studio- I had to use up the snow I've had in the freezer since last winter- time for snow-dyeing!  It's also a great way to use up some left-over old dyes.  While the colors may not come out quite as rich or vibrant, I'll always be able to over-dye or do additional surface design on the fabrics.  So I prepared 4 separate yards of cotton, put each in it's own container, packed the snow on top, and poured 3 colors of dye onto each one.  It looks like giant snow cones! 

Ryan, my Viking warrior

Since I was already dyeing, I also mixed up a fresh batch and dyed a couple yards of linen.  I've never tried dyeing linen before, nor is it a material I use in my artwork.  The things we will do for our children!  My son, now 17, is fascinated with Viking culture and hopes to go into anthropology and/or archeology.  He's found that there are Viking re-enactment groups, similar to the ones that put on Renaissance fairs, and has talked me into going to a holiday "Good Yule" celebration in full Viking dress.   Of course, it has to be authentic!  Last week I taught him basics of sewing on my Bernina (ok, not so authentic that we're going to sew it by hand!) and he made his own Viking tunic out of wool.  He's still deciding if he wants me to dye it or not (it's currently a beige-brown.)  The linen I'm dyeing will be for a Viking apron, the style which they wore around the tenth century.  I'll make sure to post the pictures when we have our outfits complete!

I've been working on encouraging my Mom to start back to sewing again, so she brought over her machine and a Christmas table-runner project which she had started.  She was having some problems with mitering the binding.  It's easy to get confused with a mitered binding if you are used to making a mitered border on a quilt.  The process is a bit different, since you're turning the finding to the back side.  She also some a 60 degree angles, which I admit I had to look up how to bind.  Thank goodness for Google!

Once I had my Mom going, I started working on some freemotion quilting samples from the wonderful collection by Leah Day on her FreeMotion Quilting Blog.  If you are interested in improving your quilting stitches, I can't recommend Leah's blog highly enough.  Here is the "Calm Sea" design which I stitched this afternoon.  I have several notebooks of practice samples such as this, which I  keep adding to on a regular basis.  Then, when I am ready to stitch a project, I can look through my samples and think about what would work best for the piece. 

Tomorrow I'm taking off with my husband for a few days, so I've packed my sketchbooks and look forward to looking for new design inspiration, as well as working on thinking through some of what I'd like to accomplish in the year ahead.