sunny saturday

I have been in studio preparing for the Haleiwa Art Festival that i do each July. I have juried into for the past 19  plus years so 2017 will be my 20 th show under those white billowing tents. As much as i love blogging, sometimes and for a period of time, i have no words to share,

 other than inner dialogue going on in my head, around and around. 

My hands are talking to my stuff and inner artyself, mostly. 

And just like any painting or quilt or story or piece of work, it simmers and changes and stops/starts and is resolved  in its' own time frame. It is in  this process where i am problem  creating and solving as it flows and if one stimmies me, i shift to another project because perhaps the next step has  just become clear to me by not thinking about it..but in the shift of thought/mind. Interesting. 

Anyone reading this that is a maker might recognize the joy/agony in the making process. Those who are curious about the finished work might gain a bit of  insight knowing that ideas do not come to most of us fully formed but rather in more fits and starts and parts and wrong turns ...
each one informing the next decision/s.

And so it goes; it is a journey for me and the piece is the log, the diary or proof of the documenting processes. It no longer is/it never never was   an idea.... 

the object is more of the sum of many ideas, it is itself, a quilt, a painting ,a story, a cake....a miracle perhaps and at least something that did not exist before.... 

OKAY, here are some of my favorite tools of the trade:

 cloth, paint, brushes, cutters, large work surface, water, small rocks. 

 This is how most of my work beings.

 And with that seed of a inkling of a possible idea kernal...it begins.

i must add each side track is fun like the

 3 brush containers in the front, 

under the wrapped fabric lurks an empty pint jar that once held my paints/inks.

 love quotes that say to me 

Yes! that is just what i was thinking and someone else has already located 

 and arranged those descriptive words, beautifully !!yea!!

If i am dreaming of creating a quilt using some of my fabric painted cotton 

in every color imaginable, 

i reach for scissors, pins, threads and one of two of my favorite sewing machines,

my Featherweight 221 singer

Noodles  the watch cat  

Noodles 

 or my Bernina 830 record, the old square one.

My current cat assistant and studio investigator, Ruby

I like joining  up fabrics on the FW and quilting free motion on Bernie 

 i have both of them set up in opposite ends in my studio so i can get up and move often.

Also, after machining there is always hand stitching involved and ....
i like to take that outside and sit under a shady tree.

So, do you have favorite tools or helpers in your make spot?

Be well, see well, Sonja