Thanksgiving (cupcake) leftovers!

Sorting through my pictures today (while watching Cupcake Wars on tv; love that show) and came across this gem that I had meant to post last Thanksgiving. This lovely cupcake (!) was made for my son Ed by his girlfriend, Mariah. Isn't it incredible? And edible! And delicious! Or at least, so said Ed. I only got to photo-document it. Ah well, I appreciate the feast for the eyes that it continues to be.

Wall treatments

Hi all,

I know, I know--its been a loooong time. My apologies. That's what happens when you get divorced and start working full-time! Gack! But here's a new post dealing with wall treatments.

Like many folks, I have painted walls and even dabbled a bit in some so-called "faux" finishes. It can be lots of fun. Be not afraid! Get a good reference book--I particularly liked Sunset's guide Decorative Paint & Faux Finishes--read up and go to it! Don't be afraid to try new techniques. And don't be afraid to paint right over them if they don't work. (For that reason, I stay away from textured treatments; much harder to cover up a mistake.)

Here's my first wall treatment. We painted our living room a deep gold color and had a lot of gold accents in the room. So I though a metallic gold would be appropriate on the walls too. The crown molding got painted with a flat yellow latex and then was streaked with a metallic gold paint and a simple stencil was applied as a border directly underneath all around the room. I thought it turned out handsomely.

 Here is the wall at a higher magnification. I loved the look of the gold stencil paint so much that I did an all over gold stencil in the dining room next door. You can just make it out through the doorway. It took me quite a while to go around and do the whole room but it was worth it (and covered up the flaws in the drywall, to boot.)

In this dining room wall, I did a fairly complex faux finish and then completed the look with star stencils. I started with a layer of orange paint (pumpkin orange!) and then mixed a deep red paint half and half with some glaze. I then dry-brushed the thin red paint over the orange. It took three layers to get the effect I wanted. Then I applied hundreds of star stencils in gold, dense at the top and falling down and thinning out at the bottom. 

For all of the stenciling I used Delta Stencil creme oil paint Delta Stencil Magic Paint Creme Folk Colors Traditional--it was very easy to work with and gave great results. Love, love, love, the metallic gold especially.

Gyotaku T-shirts

I was cleaning out and poking around in my studio yesterday and came across this project: some Gyotaku t-shirts I did with Fiona's kindergarten class a few years ago. Gyotaku is a Japanese technique for making prints or rubbings from fish. Its a traditional craft and very beautiful. Usually its done by inking a fish or sea creature and then pressing or rubbing paper on top.

I adapted this method for the kindergartners as a class project. They needed shirts depicting red fish since they were doing a production of Swimmy. Swimmy (Knopf Children's Paperbacks) I started by experimenting a little and ended up using acrylic paint brushed onto a fish and then rubbing a shirt on top of the fish.

Turned out very well!  This is a trial run shirt, The shirt the kids did had just a single fish. Aren't the details of the fish great? Using acrylic paint was perfect. Easy to work with and clean up. After the print was completely dried on the shirt (24 hours), I heat set it with a dry iron. After that, the shirt was safe to wash in cold water with no running or fading.

I may have to do this again soon--it was a lot of fun!

Progress

Back in the studio this weekend and got all of the quilting done! Yay!

Have to bury all of those loose ends--a tedious job. But it has to be done.

I finally got to the print stripes. I chose a light rose pink thread for the quilting.

I almost forgot that I needed 2 circles for the end pieces of that cylinder. Here's the "quilt sandwich". No fancy stripes here, just the floral print.

And here they are all quilted. Pretty simple, really.

I decided that the striped piece was just a little blah--it was missing something. The stripes weren't cohesive. So I added some decorative stitching on the boundary of each one of the stripes. A featherstitch in yellow for each one. I like it now!

And then, since I was still going for that homey, cottage look, I decided to wash the two pieces before assembling them. The cotton in the top, batting and backing all shrink up just a little, leaving a puckered, wrinkled effect. Not what I go for in my artquilts but perfect for a pillow cover. So this has been washed.

Maybe you can see the puckers a little better here. 

Next step: assembly!

More stripes

I did manage to steal a little bit of time today and managed to get a few more stripes quilted. I'm more than half way done now.

I'm including this close-up shot so that you can see the stitching details. I did use the red thread for the pink stripe to give it a more salmony color feeling overall. I think that worked, don't you? Notice the green thread that I used on the light and dark green stripes? That's the same thread on both. Interesting how the background affects the perception of the color, isn't it?

Well, that's all for today. Hopefully, I'll be done soon and can begin the pillow cover construction, Stay tuned!

A little bit of quilting

Still soooo busy with my day job, but I did get a little bit of quilting done. What's the bottom line here? Always, always always start quilting in the center and work your way outwards. Accordingly, I began in the center of a yellow strip and quilted up and then down to the outside edges. The same for the next yellow stripe. I admit I cheated on the thin green stripe as it was already pretty tacked down. So now I just need an hour or two finish up the job. Soon, I hope!

Ikea pillow progress..

Not too much happened today with the cover, but I did get my quilt sandwich laid out and pinned. Above you can see my sandwich: pieced top, batting and backing. I laid it all out on my bed, my largest work space currently.




I hold the sandwich together with quilter's safety pins. As you can see, they have a bend in them to facilitate getting the pin in and holding all of those layers together.Quilt Safety Pin-Nickel Sz3



And here is the whole thing all pinned. Pin placement is about every 6 to 8 inches all around.



Placement is a little irregular, but this will do. All ready to quilt now. Needle is changed out on my machine, feed dogs are lowered, and its threaded with yellow embroidery thread. Now I just need a little time!

The cylindrical Ikea pillow

After many moons, I've stepped into my studio again to get a little home decorating sewing done. A couple of weeks ago I made a voyage to our local Ikea (looove that place: http://www.ikea.com/) and picked up several small odds and ends including a cool cylindrical pillow or bolster. A great shape and, of course being Ikea, a great price. Unfortunately, there was only one pillow case available for it which had drawstring treatments on the ends and was plain white.

Yuck to both! I knew I could do better. First I sewed an inner liner that would permanently cover the foam. It was good practice in dealing with the difficult ends. Circles stretch when you sew them so I ended up fusing some interfacing (Pellon Shir-Tailor, my absolute favorite; its easy to work with and adds just the right amount of stabilization without excess goop that accumulates on your needle) to stabilize each circle so that I could sew it to the central tube. Worked like a charm and you can see what I ended up with above.

Days were spent going through all of my fabrics. I wanted to coordinate with my new duvet cover and shams from Pottery Barn (http://www.potterybarn.com/products/laine-organic-duvet-cover-sham/?pkey=cpatterned-duvet-covers-shams) and was having a tough time choosing a single fabric from my stash. Finally I realized I had to piece something together to get the colors and effects I wanted. Here are the fabrics I came up with; each one has a story behind it.



Measurements: the pillow is 31" around. I'll add an inch on both sides and shoot for 33".








And 31.25" wide. I'll add some extra dimension there too.







Before any cutting or even sewing, the first step is always ironing. Like my Tante Elfriede, the seamstress, says: "Gut gebügelt ist halb genäht" which translates as "well ironed is half sewn" or, more loosely: "The iron is the best tailor". Well, she's soooo right.





Next, time to cut some strips. No blocks for this pillow, I decided simple strips would yield a pleasing striped effect.







And here they all are.


A pleasant afternoon was spent sewing the strips together and when they were all attached, I laid the top out on the pillow to get an idea of the final cover.


Hmmm. Not too bad! The pink is a little bright--it should really be a little more in the salmon range. I'll tone that down by using a red thread when I quilt the pink strips. All of the other color strips will be quilted with matching colors. Enough for today! Tomorrow: quilting the top.

Apple Tart

Hello all! don't think I haven't been thinking about posting just because I've been swept up in a bezillion responsibilities. No art updates but I think you might like this example of kitchen creativity. This is my own recipe for an awesome almond-apple tart using the olive oil dough recipe from "Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a day" by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois--one of my favorite cookbooks: Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day.
First a couple of pictures:




And here is the finished tart! Delicious!

Apple Almond Tart
By Elizabeth Harris

2 eggs, one separated
1 grapefruit sized portion of olive oil yeast dough
4 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and sliced
1 tbsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
4 tbsp flour
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tube almond paste (7 oz.)
1 8 oz pkg sliced or slivered almonds
decorative sugar (demarra or other large grained sugar)
1/8 tsp salt
PAM

Remove dough from tub and let rise for 30-40 minutes. Spray cookie sheet with PAM and dust with flour. Pat and push out dough to cover the whole sheet. Be patient, this takes a while. Be gentle so you don't tear holes in the dough as it relaxes and stretches. Peel, core and slice apples. Add lemon juice, 2 tbsp flour, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg to apples and stir until well coated. In a food processor combine cut up almond paste, whole egg and egg white, 2 tbsp flour, and salt. Process until well blended. Spread almond paste mixture on dough leaving an inch margin all around. Sprinkle a layer of almonds onto the paste only. Arrange apple slices in four rows on top of the paste and almonds also leaving the margin bare. Pull up the dough all around the edges over the apples. Add a little water to the remaining egg yolk and paint the surface of the dough margin. Sprinkle with more almonds and finish with decorative sugar--especially on the exposed dough. Bake at 450 degrees F for 25-35 minutes or until golden. Remove from oven, let cool on rack. Use a spatula to remove from pan--dough will have adhered somewhat despite the PAM.

News and updates

Hi all! Sorry for the long desert of no posts--working 3 jobs have a tendency to suck up all available time and energy! But things are under control now so I thought I'd give a quick update on my art related activities.

My recent one woman show, Disparate Threads, was AWESOME! Thanks to the Women's Research Center here at UCF! We had a lovely opening with many attendees. More folks dropped in during the 6 weeks the show was up as well. Lots of sales too--always a cause for celebration. It was so great to see many of my works up at the same time in a well-lit space appropriate for viewing. Thanks, Leslie and Fran for making it such a great experience! http://womens.research.ucf.edu/ Next up at Center is a talented sculptor and water colorist: Linda Brant. http://www.lbrant.net/home Can't wait to see her exhibit.

My hub cap art is under way--but slowly. I'm still gathering supplies and I'm hoping that once I get all of the junk, er, junque together, I will be able to whip the piece out. Meanwhile, check out LandfillArt's website which is now live: http://www.landfillart.org/Do take the time to browse the gallery of the works that have already been completed and submitted.

This past Saturday I attended the organizational meeting for a local group that will be called FOFA: Focus on Fiber Art. It was organized by Hye Shin, a fiber artist working with paper and weaving and found objects http://www.absolutearts.com/portfolios/h/hyeshin/We hope to get a viable fiber arts group going here in the Orlando area for mutual support, learning and exhibition. It was a good meeting and I look forward to the next one. Hye's pieces were very impressive--I have been thinking/cogitating about them and how well they struck me since Saturday. Some of the work she brought reminded me of my nude piece "Soft Curves" (which I have posted above). I think I may have to revisit and explore that idiom some. I really like the transparent aspect of most of the fabric--very ethereal. I think I can repeat the images but in a looser, less formal way. Hye was using a lot of gauze and very open woven linen. I liked that look a lot.
Hmmmmmm.

And last but not least I must announce that I'm almost finished with a piece called "Sowing the Blade Garden". This is another of my "Inner Landscape" or dream based series and is rather stark. I've shown images of it in progress a while back. I'm in the final quilting and finishing stages now. I'll post it when I'm done.

I'm planning some major updates to my Etsy site some time in the near future (I hope). Revamping the site, changing wording, descriptions and adding a bunch of items for sale. Several days' worth of work for sure. Of course, that is assuming that I can wrestle my laptop away from my 15 year old son.

Stay tuned!

Landfill Art!

I've been invited to contribute a piece to the international Landfillart project. A great concept: take stuff from the landfill and create unique art out of it! This is so up my alley! "Landfillart is an international effort encompassing one-thousand-forty-one (1,041) artists to claim a piece of rusted metal garbage and create fine art."
More specifically, everyone gets a hub cap to create with. After accepting the challenge, mine came in the mail last week. I have a few ideas but nothing too concrete yet. I'll post a link to their website next time around (it seems to be down for now) and also some pix of my hubcap and some design possibilities/trials.

Central Florida Future - Biology professor opens art quilt gallery

And they (finally) posted a few pictures of my opening reception. Thanks, Central Florida Future!

Central Florida Future - Biology professor opens art quilt gallery

And the reviews, er, review is in!

Thanks to all who attended the opening reception of my show at the the UCF Women's research center. http://womens.research.ucf.edu/Events/2010/harris_elizabeth.html It was mahvelous, simply mahvelous, dahling! The wonderful folks at the center did a lovely job of stocking goodies and wine and lots of folks stopped by. Thanks Leslie and Fran! The show will be up until Feb. 15 and available for viewing M-F, 9-4. So if you didn't make it, there's still time. The UCF student newspaper sent a reporter and photographer to cover the show and the review appears here:

http://www.centralfloridafuture.com/biology-professor-opens-art-quilt-gallery-1.2135873

Unfortunately, as of this writing, no pictures appear in the story. Maybe that will change.

I was thrilled that I had several sales at the opening and another was called in to me just today. Awesome! Thanks to all of you who purchased some of my pieces. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed creating them!

January show

I had mentioned this a few posts ago and promised to post more details when I had them. Well, here they are: my one woman show entitled "Disparate Threads" will be having an opening reception on January 13 from 3-6. I'm so excited! Its been a very long time since I've been the only one in a show and this will be the first time that will solely feature my textile pieces. Woo-hoo! The pieces I will be displaying demonstrate a wide thematic range. Included are botanical, celestial, solar, abstract, and allegorical quilts. Hence the name of the show.

For all of you folks in the Orlando area, I cordially invite you to attend. The reception will be held in Suite 360 of the Research Pavilion Building at 12424 Research Parkway in Orlando (just south of the UCF campus and east off of Alafaya Drive). Please see the details at the link: http://womens.research.ucf.edu/Events/2010/harris_elizabeth.html

Hope to see you there!

This year's holiday card OR a tale of two adhesives

What with one thing and another, this year's holiday card didn't happen until just last week. Like last year, its a multi media collage but this year not quite so abstract. A simplified Christmas tree is the subject I chose--its so iconic I can minimize the details a lot while still depicting something recognizable. As with all collages, using the appropriate adhesive is the key. I did have some glue stick issues that necessitated a quick run to the craft store, but luckily they had what I needed. Damn that "repositionable" glue stick--don't ever buy that crap! "Repositionable" actually means that its not very sticky. Whats the point of that??? (don't buy that purple stuff either. its supposed to dry clear, but doesn't always). My hands down favorite is Scotch brand craft stick in the 1.41 oz. size. Its the best for general crafting and is perfect for dealing with fabrics. When in doubt, get the big size--the small, chapstick size tubes last for about, oh lets see now, 10 minutes of crafting. Uh-huh, very helpful. NOT.





Anyway, here's Step 1: A little time carefully measuring and cutting trapezoids and triangles and --voila! My simple, yet elegant tree. I chose three fabrics that all had some metallic gold accents. Because Christmas is all about glittery, shiny stuff, isn't it? Glue stick on the fabric did the trick here.






Step 2: More glittery stuff. A couple of swooshes of Angelina fibers add some textural and detail interest. A swipe of glue stick on the tree laid a snail trail for the angelina fibers to stick to.








Step 3: One stylized ornament made out of a coil of colored wire completes the design. I sign in pencil and I'm done. Woo-hoo! Glue stick doesn't work for wire at all so I switched to a more goopy adhesive: Uhu glue.Search Amazon.com for uhu glueSearch Amazon.com for uhu glue This glue does not soak into the fabric and disappear like water-based Elmer's and is, well, nice and goopy. Thus, the pea-sized blob of Uhu sits on top of the fabric and then encompasses the wire coil and bonds the two together as it dries.

I ended up making 80 cards. I have about half of them written and sent out and (sigh) a bunch more to go. But they're HOLIDAY cards, and the holidays last until January 6; the Feast of Three Kings (Epiphany), right???

Well, that's my story, anyway, and I'm sticking (ahem) to it.

Cuban Black Bean Salad

For those of you that are overdosing on sweets right about now (between my 2 sweet treat posts and the general excesses of the season), here's a goodie that I created from scratch. Normally I don't much care for cold bean salads but this one is an exception. This salad is bright and colorful, healthy and a great dish to take along to a potluck or serve at a summer barbecue. With no mayo or egg based ingredients, there are no safety concerns if it sits out a while at that picnic either. Best if made a day ahead of time so that the spices can marinate and the flavors blossom. This recipe is vegan friendly.

Cuban Black Bean Salad

4 15.25 oz. cans unseasoned black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can sweet corn, rinsed and drained
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 yellow bell pepper, diced
1/2-1 purple onion diced
5-10 green onions chopped
1 c. chopped cilantro
1/3 c. veg. oil
1/2 c. red wine vinegar
1/4 c. lime juice
1 tbsp. cumin powder
1 tbsp. turmeric powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper

Rinse and drain canned items and place in large bowl. Dice all fresh ingredients to about the same size and add to corn and beans. Add liquids and spices. Adjust spices to taste. Stir well--doesn't it look pretty?? Chill before serving. Refrigerate overnight for best flavor profile.

Another sweet treat

Here's a recipe I turn to time and again. It never fails and pretty much does whip up in 5 minutes. You can add nuts if you like or leave them out. Delicious either way.

5 minute brownies

3/4 c. cocoa
2 eggs
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/3 c. unsifted flour
2/3 c. veg. oil, split
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 c. boiling water
1/4 tsp. salt
2 cups sugar
1-1 1/2 c. chopped nuts--I prefer pecans for their sweetness

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a 13 x 9 pan or 2 8 x 8 pans. Dust pan (s) with cocoa powder (rather than flour).

Mix cocoa and baking soda in bowl. Blend in 1/3 c. of the oil and hot water and stir until thickened (its magic!). Stir in sugar, eggs, and remaining oil and mix until smooth. Add flour, vanilla and salt. Mix until smooth. Add nuts. Pour batter into pan (s).

Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove and let cool before cutting.

And yet another Christmas card...

Here's yet another one of my cards from the archives.

This card also features spray paint (love that stuff). I used a circular stencil for the ornament and made sure to apply the spray paint unevenly to give the illusion of roundness. The ornament's hanger and the greeting was picked out in silver ink.


I added some glittery star decorations on the surface of the ornament (I own some just like this, go figure). Guess what I used for the stars?


Believe it or not, silver glitter nail polish did the trick nicely. I use it frequently for small accents on projects like this. Not regular nail polish--it has be to the stuff with visible glitter flakes suspended in a clear polish matrix. It comes in all colors these days but I just used the silver stuff here.

Scone pix!

After writing out the recipe in my previous post, I just had to have some,so I whipped up a quick batch. They mix up quickly and bake in a flash. Here they are along with some tips.


Here's my pastry cutter. I think it came from my local grocery store. There are several different designs of these things--make sure you have a good sturdy one.



I've cut the stick of butter into slices and added it to my mixed dry ingredients here.


I've put my pastry cutter/blender to use and am done with the integration of the butter. Remember, don't go for small even bits--larger uneven chunks yield melt in your mouth scones!


The white chocolate...









coursely chopped.






Wet and dry ingredients have come together and everything has been lightly mixed. Overmixing kills the texture so only mix until all the dry ingredients are barely moistened.




The batter has been spooned into my handy-dandy scone pan. Its pretty lump bumpy sticky stuff.



The final sprinkle of demerrara sugar has been added. it will contribute to a crisp upper surface.



I love using large crystal sugar as a baked topping. It sparkles so nicely.



Fifteen minutes later... here they are! Wish I could share with all of you!