In case you haven't seen it yet, I wrote a hell of a book! :) (I stole that line from Ron Burgundy). https://designstudiopress.com/product/how-to-paint-landscapes/ Great for painting in the backyard or solo out in nature, there's even a section on “shut-in” painting out the window. Spring is here and it's time!

Last week on Art With a Needle

I may have sewed my last mask, and delivered it Sunday afternoon.  And to celebrate, I spent most of the weekend cleaning up my studio.  Not that it will ever get "clean," but all the fabric from the masks has been folded up and put back in the drawers, and lots of other bits and pieces have been sorted and put away.  I'm doing make-work while trying to discern what I want to do next -- sew or make sculpture.  Both of them call to me, but neither voice is loud enough to drown out the other.

Meanwhile I've been doing some hand stitching onto silk scraps, some of them from the kimono project that we did in our local textile art group a couple of years ago.  Here's one piece in progress:

I'm also auditioning some bits and pieces of old textiles for another hand-stitched piece.  When I sent a photo of this composition to my dear friend Uta Lenk last week, she wasn't very impressed.

She wrote back:  "The current setting looks so much like flower pot on the balcony that it's not really Kathy."

I wrote back: "I agree that the quilt and edging are a bit sweetie for my usual style, but you're allowed to change up your style now and then, don't you think?  Maybe I need to make a smaller composition with the quilt block and edging and a little bit of something else, and save the kimono scrap and red doodad for a second piece.  I guess I will let this simmer for a bit." 

She responded:  "I am all for developing new style -- but I think you would want to become more sophisticated and artistic and not revert to making flower pots that look like that quilt block with the basket."

Well, with that resounding vote of no confidence from someone whose artistic judgment I greatly respect, I have removed the bottom half of the composition and am letting the two pieces wait to tell me what they want to do.  I hope one of them speaks up pretty soon because I need another hand-stitching project.  We have piled up some TV shows that I want to watch upstairs with Ken, not down in the studio, so I need something to do while watching.

The Fair!

Plague diary April 7

First off, can we all agree that they have found a really insipid name for a horrible disease?  Nobody even knows how to spell it correctly -- some people write Covid-19, others write COVID-19, some eliminate the capital C, others omit the "19."  It was named by a committee, and who could possibly think otherwise?  The only mystery is why it took the World Health Organization so long to come up with the name.  (Imagine weeks upon weeks of meetings in which they debated endlessly between covid-19 and cordis-20 or maybe even virudi-1...)

In the past, diseases had evocative, easy-to-remember names -- Ebola, Zika, Alzheimer's, legionnaires' disease, Spanish flu -- but now such names are politically incorrect because they might bring stigma on a place, person or occupation.  (Read more about this here; it's fascinating.)  And don't forget, if you name your disease covid-19 maybe people will be so bored that they forget it's a plague and think it's just an acronym for Consolidated Occupational and Vocational Instruction Division or shorthand for Columbia Video.

On the bright side, I am glad that Boris Johnson, the British prime minister, is in intensive care.  Not that I want him to be sick, but I am so tired of all the famous people who test positive, put themselves into self-quarantine in their nice houses and announce that they have no symptoms, they feel fine, they are continuing to work as if nothing has changed.  Tom Hanks and Prince Charles, I'm talking about you.  Rand Paul, whom I'm embarrassed to identify as my own senator, I'm talking about you -- and you weren't even responsible enough to stay out of the Senate dining room and gym while you were waiting for your test results to come back.  (And Rand is even a physician, shame on him thrice.)  Every one of these cheery episodes makes us think that this virus is no big deal

I am glad that Chris Cuomo revealed yesterday that he chipped a tooth from gnashing and flailing, because the pain was so bad one night while he was suffering from coronavirus at home.  Not that Chris Cuomo deserves to suffer any more than anyone else, but it has been too easy to not think very hard about the agonies of the people who are indeed sick, those faceless people on ventilators who die in faraway places like New York City and Detroit, aka Sodom and Gomorrah, not at all like my nice safe red-state home town. 

I am glad that at least 30 people who so recklessly attended a revival meeting 160 miles down the road from my home, in defiance of the governor's orders prohibiting large gatherings, have fallen sick so far, and three of them have died. I am glad that at least one of the 20-somethings who went to a coronavirus party in my own city has come down with it.  Not that I want people to get sick, but I want people to realize that their bad behavior has consequences, that this pandemic is worth taking seriously.

And that brings me to my lecture.  PEOPLE, WEAR YOUR DAMN MASKS!!!

In the past I wrote that I wasn't sure masks were all that effective, but now I have seen the light.  Current research shows that masks are extremely effective in slowing the transmission of coronavirus.  If every person in the US were to wear a mask in public, we could lick this pandemic.  So why are the clerks in the grocery store not wearing masks?  Why are the shoppers not wearing masks?  Why are the dog walkers and frisbee players and runners in the crowded park not wearing masks?  Why are the people riding on the bus not wearing masks?  Why are the guys delivering pizza not wearing masks?  Why are the mail carriers not wearing masks?

And of course, why are the people standing behind the president at the daily dog and pony show not wearing masks, even as they're telling us to do so?  And why is the president telling us that he isn't going to wear a mask, because it wouldn't feel right meeting kings and queens and dictators in the Oval Office wearing a mask?  (No, I'm not making that quote up.)

People, wear your masks.  If you don't want to two 45 minutes to make a mask, or don't have a sewing machine, watch the Surgeon General explain how to make a mask from a T-shirt in three minutes. 

Who was that masked man?

My husband was determined to go to the fruit market last week, and I was equally determined that he not do it unprotected.   I made us each a mask with just two layers of tightly woven batik fabric. 

Then came the directive/suggestion that we all wear masks in public (good guidance for all of us plebs to follow, but apparently not good enough for the president or all the minions lined up behind him on the daily dog-and-pony show).  I made several more for friends and family.  My son brought me a fancy air filter that is rated effective against virus particles, and thought I could take it apart and use the innards for masks.  Sounded like a good idea, so I proceeded to dissect.

The working part of the filter, which looks a whole lot like loosely packed nonwoven interfacing, is adhered to a grid of metal, because apparently the metal lends some electrostatic properties that help in air filtration.  But the metal is too stiff to be pleated into a mask, so I peeled the fiber away.  This was a slow and not entirely satisfactory process, with a fair amount of fiber left on the grid, and it felt as though the fibers left behind were precisely those with the glue coating, the smooth outer layer that held the whole batch of stuff together.

Nevertheless, I extracted a rectangle of fiber that I put inside the mask.  I made two masks like that, all the while thinking of how I could improve the process.

I concluded that the air filter fiber is the moral equivalent of plain old interfacing, maybe even morally superior because it's more firmly stuck together, and heaven knows interfacing is a heck of a lot easier to work with than this rigamarole with the air filter.

So my second batch of masks contained one layer of batik on the outside and one layer of medium-weight interfacing next to the face.  Since batik doesn't ravel much, I just turned the raw edge over and stitched it down.  This time I pleated the edges before finishing the side seams, and encased the pleated edge in a fabric binding.  This meant way less time in sewing and fiddling.

I also realized that stitching fabric for the ties was taking a lot of time, even after I found a lot of inch-wide bias tape in my stash, probably dating back to the 1970s.  I thought maybe I could substitute tightly woven selvages or ribbon, eliminating 72 inches of seams per mask, but then I thought to look in my stash again and found some sturdy nylon cord that required only knots at each end.

Plan A: sew a pillowcase, with our without inner layer of fiber, catching the ties at the corners.  Turn it inside out, finger-press seams smooth, pleat and stitch.  Counting the seam allowances in there, you sometimes have to stitch through 12 thicknesses of fabric to secure the pleats.

Plan B: turn batik over interfacing at top and bottom edges, topstitch.  Pleat edges, add binding (yes, just like a quilt).  Position cording inside the binding. 

Fold binding over and stitch, making sure to catch the cord in the stitching so it doesn't escape or slide to and fro.  Add a second row of stitching all around the mask. You still have to stitch through 10 layers of fabric, but four of them -- the binding -- are extremely lightweight instead of heavy-duty batik.

After I made four masks with this model, I saw an online report that gave me an even better idea.  Finish and pleat the mask as described in Plan B, up until you need to finish  the short edges.  Cut a piece of fabric or bias tape 36 inches long, center the mask on the binding, and stitch the whole length over on itself just once.  Finish the mask and make the ties, all in one step!  Why didn't I think of that?  So that will be my new plan C.

I would rather be in the studio making art than making masks, but when I contemplate my non-fiber art pals, not to mention my sons, trying to produce masks without even a sewing machine on premises, I think it's time for me to step up and take one for the team.  Perfecting my technique every time I make a new batch.

I'm still not sure what degree of protection these homemade masks offer.  You would think it's a lot more than zero, because even though viruses are small enough to sneak through porous materials, the glob of snot the viruses are riding on should be stopped even by a simple bank-robber handkerchief mask.

If this keeps up for months and months, I fervently hope that some materials scientists and microbiologists will start testing all the different fabrics and patterns circulating out there and tell us which ones work and which ones don't.  Otherwise I'm afraid that millions of sewists will have spent millions of hours making things that make us feel warm and fuzzy but don't actually protect anybody very much.

"Handbook of Covid-19 Prevention and Treatment"

I want to share this reference information with you. "Handbook of Covid-19 Prevention and Treatment" is a short book (68 pages) written by a group of doctors who were personally participated the fight to Covid-19 virus in the frontline of Wuhan, China. You may download the pdf from: https://www.alibabacloud.com/zh/universal-service/pdf_reader?pdf=Handbook_of_COVID_19_Prevention_en_Mobile.pdf. This ebook contains professional and comprehensive information, especially for hospitals, doctors, nurses, and other medical works. Please pass it on to anyone you know who are fright in the front line.

When I published my previous information sharing post, I have got a few comments concerning the credibility of the Chinese resources. I will say: as a rational human being, I don't blindly believe anyone. I will use my reasoning and logic mind to evaluate the information to see if it makes sense or not. The government may or may not tell the truth, but the information from experienced doctors can be helpful to save lives. At this very moment, Americans are dying in big numbers,  any effort to help should be considered a patriotic action.

"Color scale study"

All the workshops have been canceled. I don't need to travel for two months at least. Well, it might be a good opportunity to turn on my research mode and do some serious study, which I wasn't able to do for many years. I made a few color scales today. I know the "color theory" some sort. But my knowledge about color is quite chaotic. I need a very organized system specifically for myself first, then I can pass it on to my students. I will reference to other peoples' teaching, but eventually develop a practical and easy to use color system. It is not a knowledge issue, but rather a management issue. I am glad I have started today. I will share with all of you when I have my system. Just like learning to play piano. Let's play scale first.

Return to my sew-off squares

As you may know, I am a fan of what I call "sew-off squares" -- little bits of fabric that you use when machine-sewing sewing large projects to avoid having to cut your threads.  If you ever do any machine sewing, you should develop this habit!  Read about it here.  I often make such little squares deliberately for a certain quilt, sewing dozens or hundreds or thousands of them into airy grids, but I also make lots of them with no particular design in mind as a byproduct of sewing and quilting.  Some time ago I gathered several hundred of them and packed them neatly into a box on the shelf, but a week ago I decided I needed to return to them, and dumped everything out on the sewing table.  What you see here is less than half of what I started out with, because I have been using them!

Vickie asked me last week how I make the sew-offs, so I looked through my pile for examples to show you.  They range in size from as small as an inch to as large as two inches, which is why I also call them "postage stamps."

Some are sewed carefully with tiny grids, stitching lines neatly parallel and perpendicular.

Others are sewed more randomly on diagonals.

Some are stitched so densely that you can barely see the underlying fabric.



Since opening Pandora's box, I have done a lot of sorting.  I made some tiny grids as presents for other people:

I chose others that will eventually  be mounted for display.  These two sets will be on boards that I salvaged from a group project years ago, clamped resist for indigo dyeing.  You can still see a few of the circles from the C-clamps.

Mostly I have been using the sew-offs for a big project.  I usually make these "postage stamp" quilts with the grid quite closely packed, like this:

But obviously in these times of social distancing they need to stand farther apart!  So instead of leaving maybe a quarter-inch between the bits as I sew them into a grid, I'm spacing them about seven inches apart.

What you see here are several columns of bits, each one sewed onto a spine of fishing line.  When I get to the next step in the assembly, they will be spaced about seven inches apart horizontally as well.

"How do you make your own face masks"

Please visit following websites to see how you can make your own face masks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-vIyLMgUhg

https://northmemorial.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/north-memorial-health-homemade-healthcare-masks.pdf