"Lost Tugboat" --- Sold

I have an amazing story to tell about this painting. One of those Wayne Plein Air days, I went to a ship yard near Philly. I saw a few beautiful tugboats. The best view of them was from a bridge across the water. I set up my easel right away and started to paint. When I just layed out of my composition, I noticed that boat (I used for my center of focus) started to move. Quickly it turned. I saw a guy on the stern waved to me, seemed to say "Bye-bye". Then it disappeared. I was so disappointed, but I did not give up. I started to observe the second tugboat. It was not attractive as the first one, but It looked ok. So I altered my composition and kept on painting. Well, just when I blocked in my colors and ready for details, the second boat started to move. It turned mischievously, and disappeared. I was so frustrated. Only one tugboat left, but it was rather uninteresting. Well. I had no choice, and kept on painting. I removed my eye glasses and put it to the pocket of the apron I was wearing, and concentrated to develop a design to make the painting work. I painted, and painted I did not know for how long. I wanted to observe the painting from afar, and tried to reach my glasses. Suddenly I discovered my apron has mutated into a piece of string on my neck. The body of the apron had been blown away by wind. You know I was painted on a bridge. I looked into the water, and there is no trace of the apron and my glasses. Without glasses, I am literally blind. I may paint loosely, but I can not drive. That was the end of this lost tugboat painting. rest of the story is about how to get back to Wayne, and how to be able to see again. I will tell you later.

My "Off-the-Grid" Haven

Happy 4th July my friends! It was also on 4th July, Henry David Thoreau moved into his small house by Walden Pond. Although so many people around me considered my effort of building this Off-the-Grid shelter is so idiotically unnecessary, but as an artist, I feel it is my responsibility to demonstrate my American spirit: Fighting for the Freedom and Independence. I believe we can use our own hands and brains to build our beautiful life and librate ourselves from the shackles of the merciless commercialism. The photo shows the status of some of my projects. So far I have 6 100V solar panels (cost $81 each) giving power to a small window AC so I can stay comfortably indoors agains the brutal Texas summer heat. I also put up a deck, and installed the awning above the window. Today I don't show a painting. Maybe I can call this piece my sculpture or my performance art.

Happy Fourth of July!

Our morning walk today was over the Big Four Bridge, a pedestrian route across the Ohio River, which is reached by a circular ramp to take you up to bridge height.  Many others had the same idea, including this group of runners.

More yarn leftovers!

Several years ago, I think, I embarked on an endless project along with my friend Debby.  We resolved to knit (Debby) and crochet (me) strips that would stretch for a mile.  (Read how we got started.)  As time passed, I would be more or less enthusiastic about the project.  Sometimes I would whip out a bunch in a week, other times I might go for months without progress.

I had resolved to use only leftovers rather than buy new yarn, so I was at the mercy of whatever might show up in grab bag or whatever someone might give me.  And frankly I had hit a dry spell recently.  During the cold weather months this winter I was working on baby afghans, from entire skeins of yarn, rather than the mile-o'-handwork.

Last fall a friend who teaches refugee women how to sew told me that her ladies also do knitting, and I asked her if they were going to just throw away the leftover bits anyway, could I have them?  And last month she dropped off a huge bag full -- almost five feet tall.

This should keep me crocheting all summer.

Back to piecing

They say you never forget how to ride a bicycle, but I suspect that if I were to get back on a bike today I would wobble a bit before the balance came back.  Same happens, apparently, with piecing, which I haven't been doing any of in a really long time.

I started work on a quilt last week in the style that I call "Crossroads," but instead of simply making cross cuts and stitching them back together with a fine line to mark the seam, I had to get fancy and stick in little streets that didn't go all the way across.  It was great fun, until I put the whole thing up on the wall and realized that one edge looked really sloppy.  Not that there's anything wrong with sloppy, but this edge didn't go with the others.

And then as I started looking more closely, I saw that top edge heading off northward on a diagonal that clearly didn't go with the pretty-much-right angles of the rest of the quilt. That's what happens when you cut by eye instead of by ruler.  I ordinarily am a firm believer in cutting by eye, but this style of piecing seems to benefit from more control.

The bicycle was wobbling, but maybe that's part of the fun.  I set about to fix things.

Concealed that diagonal swerve by putting in some properly straight streets beyond it.  I opened one of the vertical seams and inserted a street that went partway across the quilt at the right angle, then added two more lines to solidify that edge.

Then solidified the other three edges with a few more lines and some extra ladders of piecing.  Most of the extra ladders came from cutting off some of those very wide edges at left and bottom, and repositioning them on the other sides.  Just a little bit of extra piecing at the end to make things come out even.

I like the way this turned out.  A little bit wonky in the center, but pulled back into place at the edges to fit the square format of the finished quilt.

Now I'm eager to get on with the next quilt!  The bike is riding more smoothly, and I don't think I'll repeat the same silly mistakes I did in this one.  And it's so good to be piecing again.