Friday Faces - (on Saturday!)

Abigail

She lived in a time when women were silenced,

 docile and obedient,

 not allowed to vote.

She was a gentle soul, a hard worker, 

a dedicated mother and devoted wife.

She had opinions, but kept them to herself.

Her mind was filled with ideas, desires,

questions and resentments,

but these thoughts remained locked inside.

When I was making this picture, with machine and hand stitching and a scrap of

fabric, I was thinking about how wonderful it is that, these days, after years of struggle, women are able to express themselves, vote, protest and march for their beliefs. When I flipped the embroidery over, I realized how much more expressive the reverse side was. 

Women silenced.

Never again!

Art Every Day Month is Back!

Well, I'm doing it again - jumping into Leah Piken Kolidas' Art Every Day Month November challenge. I've done it a few times before and I wonder, what is it that  motivates me to do this at such a busy time of year. I don't know, there's an excitement to it and it gets me moving creatively. I can promise you, I will skip days, but let's see how I do!

My first piece is something I finished up yesterday - 

a stitched and painted narrative portrait of a fierce lady...

Angela
"Strong willed, stubborn, never takes no for an answer,
always generous to a fault, quick to recognize an injustice."

Thanks for visiting - hope you have a great day!

Autumn

This morning I finished up this little machine stitched picture celebrating my favorite season!

This is how I feel on a beautiful, cool and breezy fall day. 

I've been practicing my machine stitching, drawing my design first with a very fine Micron marker pen and then stitching over it. I colored the figure with a combination of fine Sharpie pens and watercolor pencils. The leaves are fused fabric and the size is a little over 5"x7". 

There has been a lot of talk here in New England this week about hurricane Sandy hitting the east coast early next week. I've shopped for the recommended bottled water and batteries, will bring in our outdoor potted plants, and wait it out with the kitties.

Last night, I was chatting with my sister on the phone and commented to her about how cute Rosie and Angus looked curled up on the ottoman.

No sooner did I say it than Angus jumped up and started wrestling with Rosie!

Now he has "conquered" her!

It bothers me when they tussle - Angus is usually the aggressor. No biting or scratching, but I always worry about poor Rosie's peace of mind. However, she does manage to hold her own ground.

To all my cat loving friends - is it normal for two cats to attack each other like this? Any suggestions?

I recently bought a pheromone diffuser which seems to calm Rosie down a bit - she's very jumpy. And she does find her own little corners in the house for afternoon naps.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give me about this!

Hope you have had a great week!

New Work and a Learning Curve

I'm finally finishing up this piece, which I'm calling Nora's New Kitten.

It started out as a quick fabric sketch...

but I wanted to take it further, although I did like the original piece. I wanted to teach myself some new things about outline stitching, composition, and bringing a picture to completion. In fact, I have one more thing to do to this, and that is to finish off the edges and mount it on canvas. I have a couple of shows coming up, and I'm looking for a clean, consistent way to present work. I'll show the completely finished piece when it's done.

I do apologize for being so absent from my blog, but I've tried to keep up with friends' blogs and to see what everyone else is up to! It's hard to believe that this is the last week of August. Where does the time go?

I hope that you are enjoying these last days of summer and that you're having a creative day!!